Creating: Entering into Mystery, Giving voice to my soul

Normally I am one who loves words. I find solace and energy in reading, and writing. Usually, the words I speak or hear in worship and prayer catch my imagination and give voice to my heart. But now and then I come to a time when words are not enough. Worship is dry and prayers are flat. The authors and poets who had previously fed me so deeply feel distant. The world and the God I once knew are no longer comprehensible. I am left restless and disturbed. I am left still hungry for the words that will bring inspiration and understanding, the words that will hold the mystery even for just a moment, the words that will give peace, assurance, and rest. Sometimes words are not enough. 

Thou who created the world

with a word,

hear me:

when I am hungering

for a language I have not found,

when I am thirsting

for phrases yet to be born,

when the words I have heard

turn to ash in my ear

and what I have uttered

becomes dust in my mouth,

quiet me

to hear you

speaking the words

that will create the world again. 

~Jan Richardson, In Wisdom's Path

Betsey Beckman, in Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the arts to spiritual direction, says that "the arts are the language of the soul". "Through the arts we connect with the mystery of Creative Spirit beyond us, moving in us and through us. Through the arts we open ourselves to dialogue with the Divine." When words are not enough, I pull out my markers and sketchbook, or paints and canvas. I become silent. I get messy. I move. I feel. I wrestle. I breathe. I play. I create. And I watch for the face of God that is taking shape within me.

"Held", 2010

why am I reaching again for the brushes?when I paint your portrait, god,nothing happens. 

but I can choose to feel you. 

at my senses' horizonyou appear hesitantly,like scattered islands.
yet standing here, peering out,I'm all the time seen by you. 

the choruses of angels use up all of heaven.there's no more room for youin all that glory. you're living in your very last house. 

all creation holds its breath, listening within me,because, to hear you, I keep silent.~rainer maria rilke

I love words, but it is when I am creating that my soul is opened up to the Mystery that I cannot know through words. It is then, with a brush in my hand, that my imagination comes alive. What has been stirring in my soul is slowly revealed on the white canvas. Each movement, each breath, each dip and stroke becomes my prayer, my worship, the language I cannot speak, only embody. It is then that what has been hidden in my soul is given voice. 

"Pain Body", 2011

When I cannot find the words

and when I will not;

when solitude is my only offering

and silence takes up its lodgings

in my soul;

when anger is my invocation

and breaking my benediction,

O God,

hear my prayer.

~Jan Richardson, In Wisdom's Path

Sometimes words are not enough. Sometimes our souls need another language, an embodiment, a disturbance that can only create a holy opening. 


What is the language of your soul? What is it that brings you into the presence of Mystery?