Its been a crazy couple of months since the last time that I wrote in this space and much has happened. Here’s a quick lowdown:

• finished Seeds of Survival recording with James. Here’s the link to hear it www.seedsofsurvival.bandcamp.com
• worked with a few local artists and created a soundscape for their opening
• had Charis my niece come and visit for a couple of weeks
• changed my eating habits and turned the corner on the ‘no energy’ status in my life
• invited to be part of the BC worship development group for the Vineyard
• nailed a big design project with Kids in Balance which I’m pretty excited about!
• went to Vineyard National Gathering in Penticton; met some great people and had some inspiring conversations; saw God at work; changed a few things & led worship with a band of awesome people.
• continued to build relations with artists in the local area.
• started a collaborative project with a band of artists from NLV Eighty-Eight which will see its completion in the fall on All Saints day.

August will see me heading back to the UK for a couple of weeks to see family and attend my eldest niece’s wedding. In the midst of that I’m hoping to find some space to re-evaluate what I’m committing too and where I’m heading in the fall with projects. A few things are already lined up such as the artists retreat and the collaborative project. One thing that seems to be rumbling in the background is growing links between artists in the different Vineyard communities across the lower mainland.

In the midst of August I’m also hoping to start a book called ‘The Artists Way’ by Julia Cameron. One of the first things that goes when life gets busy is personal creative time (actually I’m not sure that that has ever been a consistent rhythm in my life anyway lol!) so I’m attempting in August to use this book as a place where I can start this rhythm and continue it into the fall. I’m a great believer that you can’t call people to something that you don’t already do yourself so this is my attempt to start to create space for being creative! I’ll let you know whether it is working as I go along lol!

Anyway you may see me blog here sporadically over August. Hope those that read this have a great summer!

my observations of _ _ _ _ _ _ Temple:

excessive. gold. symbolic symbolic symbolic. colourful. holy. accessible to the few. exclusive. HUGE. central to the people’s lives. rich. breath takingly beautiful. well thought out. excellent craftsmanship. more gold. more symbols. central to the people’s spirituality. a resting place for god.

my observation of Solomon’s Temple.

Over the last day I’ve been reading about the temple Solomon constructed - there is only one word in my head to describe it - ‘excessive’. Nothing was done without careful thought and by the best of the best materials and artisans. I would love to see a modern day version of this thing - couldn’t even begin to imagine the world’s responses to its construction!!

What continues to fascinate me is why we keep on building temples - this desire in humanity to construct, create, build a sacred space, a space set-aside for a special purpose. This desire is seen throughout history in all the major religions. Its as if its built into our make-up. Even after Jesus had come and added in his two cents about our physical bodies being a temple, a thin place, liminal space we still continue to build and construct physical spaces that are set-aside. Maybe our motivation to do this is to continue to create something costly, beautiful and sacrificial for the god we believe in? Maybe its to show the world that we are serious about our faith? Maybe they are built to reflect the God we believe in and remind us daily, weekly of who he is? Maybe we continue to build them cause everyone else is building one? Maybe its because we need a home? Maybe its because we still want to provide a resting place for God?

I’m not sure if this fascination with why we continue to do this has any relevance and maybe its just more observational. My thoughts are not complete . . . . there will be more

If you’ve got 10min check out this little video on St Brendan. Trust in the face of the fleshly screams.

Brendan’s Voyage from naomilippett on Vimeo.

Nobody has the answers.
Nobody is listening to you.
Nobody is looking out for your interests.
Nobody will lower your taxes.
Nobody will ?x the education system.
Nobody knows what he is doing in Washington.
Nobody will make us energy independent.
Nobody will cut government waste.
Nobody will clean up the environment.
Nobody will protect us against terrorist threats.
Nobody will tell the truth.
Nobody will avoid con?icts of interest.
Nobody will restore ethical behavior to the White House.
Nobody will get us out of Afghanistan.
Nobody understands farm subsidies.
Nobody will spend your tax dollars wisely.
Nobody feels your pain.
Nobody wants to give peace a chance.
Nobody predicted the Iraq War would be a disaster.
Nobody expected the levees to fail.
Nobody warned that the housing bubble would collapse.
Nobody will reform Wall Street.
Nobody will stand up for what’s right.
Nobody will be your voice.
Nobody will tell you what the others won’t.
Nobody has a handle on this.

Nobody, but you, that is.

Never forget, a small group of people can change the
world.

No one else ever has.

by Micah Sifry
excerpt from What Matters Now

No one can know in advance how one will be used, or when, or what one’s life will count for in the long run. The young Pablo Casals, while pouring his life energy into years of practice on the cello, could not guess that when Franco came to power, he would stop playing for three years, and that the silence would be heard throughout Spain as if the streets were full of demonstrators….

When the need for bread is met we discover that we have other hungers, and none so deep as the hunger to be understood. The artist helps us to interpret, understand and communicate feeling. When the artist is successful we are led into communion with ourselves and with the world, and the solitary work becomes a communal work. For want of this we walk on parched land.

Elizabeth O’Connor

And so artists keep on wrestling . . . . .

The insert below is happening at my place. Hopefully a space where we can understand and be understood and out of it change occur in us.

“Naomi and I thought it would be good to gather those with serious questions about art and faith for an– everything allowed – time of discussion.  Bring your questions on a slip of paper and we will put them in a hat and whatever gets drawn we will discuss. No expectations, no ready answers, just a think tank to count the cost of true discipleship as an artist.”

Betty Spackman (installation artist, painter and author of A Profound Weakness: Christians and Kitsch)

Last week weekend went into Vancouver to experience some of the Olympic vibes - was so much fun despite the pouring rain. We managed to catch some of the free music at one of the stages and it was the first time that I had seen Wilco perform live. They were incredible.

I know that I shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that three of the main band members were in their late 40s/early 50s, but I was. I haven’t listened to a lot of Wilco, so the thing that struck me the most about them aside from their great lyrics, excellent musicianship, tight synergy and inspiring creativity, was their ability to create tension in their music.

A piece of music often manages to represent so much of my journey through life. One strong pattern that my ear picks up in music is this pattern of equilibrium, tension and release - that idea of some note or chord becoming unresolved (loosing its equilibrium), creating tension that needs to be released or resolved. A life application of this would be its seven in the morning - you are deep in a dream - the alarm goes off, and your head explodes - after much desperate fumbling, you manage to get your sleepy hand on the right button - a tension is resolved. This pattern is all around us in our lives whether it be waiting for traffic lights to change, to nerves before a job interview to the relief of getting the job etc.

Western music does this a lot. There is a story of one of the great composers (Mozart, Beethoven or Bach) who was up in bed and heard someone play an unresolved dominant chord on a piano, all as a ploy to get the composer up and about. Sure enough, the composer got out of bed, came downstairs, played the tonic chord resolution on the piano and then returned to bed.

Wilco did this so masterfully in their performance of ‘Mis-understood’ last Saturday as they held onto repeating the word ‘Nothing’ for a good 3 min!!! it was insane - the crowd was going crazy! I found myself getting so wound up at times longing for them to resolve the tension they were building - sometimes that resolve happened and at other times they just left you hanging there. Man it messes with your emotions, feelings and just shows how powerful the medium of music is.

equilibrium - tension - release

An observation that I don’t need to unpack - you go figure . . . .

The year kicked off with zero creativity - not many songs and no ability to see forward into the year and the projects that I would like to get my teeth stuck into - usually its pretty obvious for me but not this year.

I’d heard about these seasons that sometimes occur in the lives of artists, so wasn’t stressed about the fact that I was in one. Rather, I just kept myself in relationship with those who weren’t in the same place as me (people who were creating, writing etc) and exposing myself to environments that fed me creatively (e.g.natural environment, reading, leading my community in spiritual songs etc). Today I felt like I just got a glimpse of this season ending as I sat down with my great friend Ruth and conversed about the one thing that I had booked in late last year - an artists retreat in October 2010. As we chatted this is what spilled out from it.

Something has changed, shifted, moved (and its more than my beee-hind!) - is today the beginning of something new?