L’Anima
It was a Friday afternoon. I’d just finished meeting with some young Biola women at a Starbucks. It had been a crazy week. I was not still internally. A lot was whirling around. We were in the midst of moving---this would be my third move of the year. I approached my car—and noticed a huge dent in the side door. No note. No care. No help. I remember thinking to myself…don’t let this touch you Charity---you’re already holding too much. Really I felt like erupting inside. But, I took a moment, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, bowed my head, and said aloud to God, “Thank you that my car works, God. The dent is just a mark. I can’t handle this right now.”
In that moment, with my eyes closed, I received an image/vision from the Lord. It happened fast. But it was the most beautiful image I’d seen in a long time. It was a whole bunch of vibrant colors---blurry---and a presence of abundant light. I received it in the moment. Knew it meant something. But, it was Friday and I had to get home.
The next week, I was meeting with one of my good friends at our 7am Thursday coffee date. I told her about the vision. I also told her about where I was at in life. The honest truth. Some of my emotions included frustration, confusion, impatience, anger, sadness all combined with a will to persevere. There was also a sense of wanting answers to my questions from God. I was experiencing a real fear of the unknown in my future. I’m not sure if it just came over me all of a sudden or if it had been building. I have a feeling it had been building. And it came out.
She asked me about the vision. “What do you think it’s about, Chare?” Tears started streaming down my face. Big tears. Connected to disappointment, fear, and some very real stuff inside that I hadn’t touched in a while. She asked me about the tears. I said, “That picture is beautiful and scary to me at the same time.” I paused, and proclaimed boldly, “I don’t like that it’s blurry. It reminds me so much of my life. I don’t like that so much is unknown. Shouldn’t my life look different by now? Shouldn’t some of these prayers get answered somewhere along the road? Why did He give me a blurry picture when I wanted answers?"
She looked me right in my wet and blurry eyes and said, “Chare, maybe that vision is God’s invitation to you. Maybe He wants you to go into that image and see what He has for you there.” In that moment, I knew that it had to be my next painting.
That week I was having lunch with a very special young woman that I mentor. She knows me so well. We were talking about this piece of art towards the end of the conversation. She challenged me to do the whole painting without brushes. Hmmm….I am always up for a challenge. And, somehow it made so much sense and fit with what I knew God was calling me to do (or not do)! And, we decided that it would have to be on a gigantic canvas. BIG and BOLD…very intimate…in your face. Couldn’t miss it.
So I went to Michael’s and purchased a humungous canvas, because my friend Lindsay and I had planned an art night at her place that week. As I thought more about the painting, I had a strong sense that it was going to be about the process. How was I going to move the paint if I couldn’t use brushes? I had it! Garbage bags! Yes! Easy enough.
So we gathered at Lindsay’s place in her spare room and we put good music on—a little Moulin Rouge soundtrack and Ray LaMontagne. And we started to create. I had no clue what was about to happen. I was ready though. I poured little puddles of paint all over the blank canvas and laid black garbage bags on top. Once the garbage bags were fully covering the paint, I used my hands to massage the paint around. Not knowing, not seeing, not planning what was happening underneath the opaque black garbage bags. It was my job to massage and move the paint, not seeing or worrying about how it was going to turn out. I was being asked to participate in a process of movement. This seemed familiar to me.
The spiritual life. We’re asked to participate in a relationship like no other with God as the Holy Spirit moves our souls to healing and deeper sanctification. We are not controlling that process or movement. He is. We can’t tell Him what to do. Or how to move a brush. Or what color to use. Or what lines to draw. If He choses to make it look blurry, without lines---that is how He wants it to be. He’s God. My job is to go there and see what He has for me there. In the blurry. In the color. In the light. In a place of unknown.
As humans, we don’t know what to do with the unknown always. We want a plan. We want answers. We want resolve to our desires. We want to be met. We want to be seen, heard, loved, and known. This painting was about trust. It was about me letting go of my unknowns and “unanswered’s.” The painting was about courage and vulnerability. The creative process mirrored how I’m being asked to live. So God gave me the opportunity to actually “feel” and “experience” what it is like to exercise these actions through my movement and participation in the painting.
I did one round at Lindsay’s place and then we let it dry overnight. It blew my mind how beautiful it was. I had no clue it would turn out like this. I couldn’t even see what I was doing. What? The first words Lindsay used to describe it that night were: vibrant, intimate, vulnerable, beauty, popping, freedom, and abyss. I left the painting there that night. When I woke up the next morning, I wondered what it looked like with all of the colors dried. Linds texted me in the morning and told me that it was stunning. I picked it up after work. That was Friday.
Saturday morning I finished the painting. There were some white spaces that were showing through, and I knew this painting needed to be covered in color. There was light in the vision, but it was shining on the colors. There weren’t white gaps---the colors were blurred together. No real lines. I wanted that same effect. Once again, I poured paint puddles. We didn’t have black garbage bags at our house, so this time I had to use white garbage bags. This was interesting. I still moved the paint with my hands, but I could see through a little more. In some ways, I had more insight as to what was going on underneath. I still participated---hoping for something beautiful.
I got down on our living room floor, leaned over the canvas, and did my thing. I was listening to Joss Stone and Ella Fitzgerald. Women with beautiful and gorgeous and sexy voices. It was pouring rain outside. It was a calm morning. And here I was painting this chaotic and visually stimulating piece. I was taken by how the two were so different. When the last open spot of white canvas was covered I knew—it was finished.
I set it in our living room and just stared at it. Took it in. Admired it. And thought about what a profound experience it was. It needed a title—a name. And it needed meaning. I jotted the following words down on a post-it:
movement
song
chaos
light
together
illumine
tempo
depths
home
Through this process, the name came to me—L’anima. An Italian name. Significant of my love of Italy, romance, Europe, and passion. It’s Italian for “the soul.” Yes, the day that I was at the end of my rope and closed my eyes to talk to God---He gave me a vision of His Holy Spirit active and present inside of my soul---filling it with light and so much blurred color and so much life! The word “anima” is associated with the verb, “animar,” which means to bring something to life. In a couple different sources anima is described as:
the vital principle in humans
the spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death
the central or integral part, the core
a person’s emotional or moral nature
music
the vital principle or animating force within living beings: breath, divine spark, life force, psyche, spirit, vital force, vitality
the seat of a person's innermost emotions and feelings
being
essence
a current of air, wind, air, breath
the inner self
I loved what this word represented! Yes! This was it! It was perfect! It signified what God did to me and my soul when He created me---He breathed life into me! And in so many ways, this journey, this life, this process that I’ve been engaging in relationship with Him is the wild beauty portrayed in this painting.
This left me with some questions that I had to sit with. What was the invitation in this God? Where do you need me to go? He said, “You’re already there, Charity. The invitation was that you would return to sit with me in intimacy---in your questions, in your fears of the unknown, in your desires, in your pain, in your joys. Don’t forget that I’m here. I am closer than you know.”
I sat and looked at the painting a little more. And the blurry became so clear. It is actually quite gorgeous. I love color. It represents movement of light to me. I love the color spectrum and what it means---and the gift that color is from God. It has to do with how we see and admire the world. It communicates life, passion, energy, emotion and growth. It is fullness. It relates to our enjoyment of His Creation. In order to see color, light needs to be present. This must mean that this light is in me---if this is the chaos in color that is moving inside of me.
Now it hangs in my home as a daily reminder. The light comes in the window and hits it differently in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. It is ever changing. This painting and the process are a gift to me and a great reminder of the relationship that I have with God, the Creator of the Universe. We are doing life together---as one---not independent of each other. He is showing the beauty in the unknown. He’s helping me to live into my questions. He’s growing me through experiences like this. I have to be open. I have to participate. I have to receive. I have to engage. I’m so blessed and glad that I decided to accept His invitation and walk into my blurry. He showed me a reflection of who I am in Him in that place---because I trusted Him.
