Journal of Sacred Work

Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which be explored only by those willing to take risks.  -Adolph Gotlieb 1903-74

   I often reflect on how irrelevant both arts and the notion of risk must seem to the everyday lives of caregivers. Tending to those in need, often both at work and at home, most caregivers come to private moments in states of exhaustion. The shower or bath needs to be completed rapidly because, beyond the door, their is a clock calling. When bed is finally encountered, there may be no thought of graceful entry into the welcome privacy of a blanket over the shoulders and a pillow below the head.
   Instead, cranked through the machinery of life like Charlie Chaplin’s character in Modern Times, we may miss the precious nature of those private times.
   What feelings cross your heart in those few moments between entering bed and entering sleep? Does your heart ever find room for the transcendence of the kind of art called poetry?
   Spanning the nine verses of his poem ARS Poetica, Nobel Prize winning poet Czslaw Milosz writes straight forwardly:
   In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
   a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,
   so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
   and stood in the light, lashing his tail.

   Where else but in poetry might we find such evocative images? Where else do we read of the universal longing we all share?
   And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
   and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.
   People therefore preserve silent integrity,
   thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors

   Isn’t it stunning how hard we work to preserve this sense of “silent integrity” among our peers. Whatever size audience we choose to play to, we want to be accepted and approved some place. In the course of this striving for approval, do we lean away from our truest heart?

   The purpose of poetry is to remind us
   how difficult it is to remain just one person,
   for our house is open, there are no keys to the doors,
   and invisible guests come in and out at will.

   Any art form we engage tugs us toward the center of our being. That is some of what I felt yesterday while staring at a rectanglar painting of Gottliebs that first appears solid red and then, upon further study, reveals the presence of subtle red squares within the red rectangle. What do we hear from such an abstract-seeming image. As my friend Don said to me, “One thing we know is that he is not trying to teach us how to paint a square.” The unspoken question: Was this art? Milowz offers a similar meditation in the last stanza of his poem:
   What I’m saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
   as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
   under unbearable dures and only with the hope
   that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.

   In your private places and in your most personal moments, I hope for you to be the kind of instrument through which Love flows. Amid your busy life, are you finding private places to refresh your life and to hear the sound of your own, most sacred voice?