The Door

I have been on a journey into Contemplative Christianity for a few months now.  Part of my practice is to sit in contemplative Silence each morning for 30-45 minutes and sink into the Heart of the Sacred.  It has been a rich, healing, painful, deep experience.  The Darkness of this Silence holds such beauty, Light and movement.

Over the past few weeks the Silence changed.  A door appeared.  A big black door that I can not open or go through.  It just sits there haunting me in this still stale dead silence.  I yearn to go through that door and leave behind this dead silence.

I began today with that door.  It has become more and more pronounced over the past 48 hours.  It was there through my entire morning meditation before I left to come paint.  So I picked up a brush, put black on my pallet and painted a huge door over my entire painting.  

I painted over the hand.  I painted over the obstacles.  The yarn fell off as I worked at making it black.  I painted over the intertwined hearts.  All of it gone.  The painting became the Door.  

And I stood on the yellow doormat waiting to get in....

Light seeped out from the edges of the Door.  The Door glowed...

And I stood waiting....

I want through that Door.  I thought about cutting the Door open and painting on the other side.  That did not feel right.  The Door has not opened.  It is shut.

I am on this side.  I needed to paint on this side.  I needed to allow my Creative Self to express her feelings and hopes to the Door.

I sat down on my mat.  Then I found myself laying down, mat on top of me.  I closed my eyes and went deep into that yellow and green asking what is next....

An image of a heart came to me.  I folded the paper and cut out a heart.  I looked at the yellow and green heart.  I looked at the yellow mat with a heart shaped hole in it.  I looked at the Door.

I picked up the yellow and put it on the painting across the door.  I fit it so the obstacles were in the heart shaped cut out.

Then I grabbed the yellow and green heart and glued it up on the painting.

Then my First Chakra leftovers called to me.  I dug them out of the stack of painting on my teacher’s top shelf.  I cut out another heart... deep blue.  I put it up on the Door.

Then came five red hands coming up from the bottom.

Then I sat.  I stared at the Door.  I started to cry.  I had placed my heart over the Door so it would not be able to open...

I cried....and cried.... and cried.... a cleansing cry.

My teacher came and joined me.  We talked.  I struggled with words and feelings.

When she asked about a color all that was there was green.  She encouraged me to get up and put green up on the painting.  I sat for a bit longer before I could get up.  I grabbed the green and began to put green on the edge of the door, making the green the Light that glowed from the Door.

Then I covered the yellow outline of the heart with green.

Then I grabbed the white tinted green and began to fill in the heart.  It was muddy.  It was grey.  I couldn’t get the color I wanted.  I got frustrated.  I grabbed the paint scrapper and scrapped off all the paint I could.  I emptied that heart out, down as close to the paper as I could get.

Psalm 13 echoed in my heart.  Loudly.

I needed to write it on that heart.  I grabbed a crayon, but it would not work.  My teacher gave me a rubber scrapper and I wrote the entire Psalm from my heart.  I just wrote the words all over that heart, around the obstacles, along the edge.  I wrote until the entire Psalm was up there....

How long, O God? 

Will you forget me forever? 

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? 

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 

Look at me!!! 

Answer me, O Lord my God! 

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death....

I stepped back.  I sat down.  I thought I was done.  I stared and stared at the painting.  My deepest lament in the midst of this darkness was up there.  The cry I have shouted out to this darkness was up there.

But I wanted to cover it up.  Something in me wanted to cover it up because I was up painting purple over it, filling in that heart with purple. 

My teacher asked why? 

I answered “The words are there.  They do not need to show.”

I was wrong.  I sat again.  I was agitated.  The words needed to show.  The important words.  The words I cry out in that Darkness.  They needed to be there.

I got up and put them back up.

How long, O Jesus?  Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?

Now, I was done.  I had faced the Door in the darkness of my heart and I had written my lament on it.

Now, I wait in the darkness for Jesus’ answer....

And wait...

And wait....

And wait....