Painting as a Spiritual Practice: “Sunday Silence”
Guest Writer: B. Jeannie Fry
“Our God is an awesome God,
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God.”
Song by Michael W. Smith
Collage/Acrylic on Canvas painting, “Awesome,” by B. Jeannie Fry
Prayer. Must it always be “words?” I trip over the words. The words in prayer are often hard to find. I can pray the words I memorized, but they seem trite, not original, not from the heart. But draw or paint? Yes, I can do that.
Prayers can be for intercession, remembrance, comfort and strength, healing, discernment and many other reasons. Sometimes, I paint as I pray for someone. My painting, “Awesome,” is a prayer of remembrance for my brother.
My brother was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. Each morning he and I would text each other. One morning, I sent him the YouTube video of Michael Smith playing one of my favorite songs, with a crowd of followers singing along. And I sent him the words, “God is an awesome God,” to which he sent back the words, “He is an awesome God.” My painting, “Awesome,” is a prayer of remembrance for my brother. As I painted it, the words to Michael Smith’s song played over and over in my head. If you look closely, you will see the lyrics throughout this painting.
My high school friend, Gail, recently contacted me to purchase one of my large paintings. We had not talked live in many years, but my painting, “FireLake,” that I put on Facebook spoke to her, and it helped us to reconnect. Unfortunately, after our conversation, she found that her cancer had returned. She decided not to purchase the art, since that “would be one more thing [her] sister would have to deal with.” On one Sunday afternoon, remarkably, I painted not one but two paintings as I prayed for her and remembered her and asked for God’s comfort for her. One painting I named “Hope” and the other painting I called “Rejoice.” I mailed the painting “Hope” to her as a surprise gift. She says she keeps it near her and looks at it every day.
I think my painting by prayer may be a form of Lectio Divina: reflection, meditation, prayer, contemplation. A person or thought comes to me: I reflect upon it, I visualize the result, and keeping that vision, I strive for the end result, using paint on paper or canvas. As I work to complete the art, I contemplate upon it, and often rework it more or sit back gazing into the visual result.
I believe that prayer is not always the words we say. Sybil MacBeth in her book, Praying in Color, helped me to feel “okay” about my praying by painting. God is always with us. It is the experience of our “relationship” with him, and it comes in many ways. I believe that prayer can be done through the talents we have been given, and just giving back to God what He gave us, by singing, running, dancing, writing, painting, doodling, coloring, throwing clay pottery, and so on. I call my prayer by painting my “Sunday Silence.”
Sybil MacBeth in Praying in Color (Paracelte Press 2016) available on Amazon.
Jeannie Fry