Pictured: Artist with hydrangea-inspired painting, “Revolutionary Love” (c) Bronwen Mayer Henry
I had the opportunity to create this commissioned piece, with a specific prayer request around the division in our country (US).
I want to share about the creative process. As I got started, I was moved by the intersection of this longing and prayer and the intricacy and beauty of hydrangeas. These flowers are filled with color variation. Filled with light and shadow. I was reminded of the diversity we have in our country, the many gradients (much more 'grey'/ middle places than black or white differences). The beauty of how it is all held together.
The following prayer tumbled out of my heart as I painted I wrote notes for the following,
Dear loving God, who governs the stars, the cycle of the moon, the movement of the tides, and the opening of flowers.
My heart is stirring with worry for the humanity of my country for the outcomes of elections for the safety and well being of people. I am cycling through worst case scenarios. There is so much fear and hatred of the other. I notice how I want to be a responsible citizen. I also want to be a centered, grounded, calm presence.
Loving God of atoms and moons of raindrops and waterfalls of seeds and mighty oaks,
May I feel your presence here in my ordinary life.
May I feel your calming force keeping the beat of my heart and breath.
May I take a moment to remember that which governs the migration of a bird, the changing colors of the leaves, the fall of snow, and the awakening of Spring.
Though storms rage, floods rise, forests burn and humans step into escalated conflicts, distress, selfishness, greed and ego....
May I remember after the storm, the way your governing persists. The storms always end. The floods subside. The wildfires surrender to the rain, human conflict finds resolution that was once thought impossible. The seasons move, the pendulums of governments swing, the anxiety of elections rise and fall like the tide.
May I have the wisdom and courage to do my part, to speak up, to take action. And may my movements be inspired by the greater wisdom of your presence, the presence of LOVE which requires no vote and no campaign funds.
May we learn to hold the AND the urgency of taking action with one hand and the life saving energy of peace and confidence of love's movement with the other hand.
No matter the outcome may we center our practice on the constant motion of nature and humanity. May we neither rejoice nor despair too greatly on one outcome. May we rest our attention on the profound miracle that we are here at all. This chance at life. This accumulation of carbon. This life force put into motion.
Every person is here because they were tenderly cared for by another. May this human to human care sustain us into the future.
Help me to stay close with my neighbor, to feel a connection with them--to not make them bad or wrong or the enemy.
Cultivate in me a curiosity about the ways people see the world differently than me.
May I gently whisper to those I vehemently disagree with--you are a part of me I do not yet know.
Instead of contracting in disgust, may I soften and wonder, what life experiences led you to this view? These values? What is important to you? What keeps you up at night? Where do you feel safe and at ease?
What if my heart were big enough to hold it all? The expansion of full light and full dark, winter here --summer there, rain and droughts. The natural world holds all variety of apparent contradictions. Why would our human hearts not do the same?
May I drop my clinging to my one experience or view and wake up to the movement of life force and love in invisible ways. May I stop imagining I control any of it and trust in a force of love that calls up plants out of cracks, causes cacti to flower, brings water to dry river beds and sparkles light in the midnight sky.
May there be a softening, an emergence of new life and light in these places in my heart (my community) that feel desolate, dead, dark, beyond reach.
***
I call this piece, Revolutionary Love, inspired by the author Valarie Kaur and her call to courage and kindness in these times.
“When we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of those we see as part of us. We prepare ourselves to love beyond what evolution requires.” Valarie Kaur