Leanne Shawler, Artist

You may have noticed that I took a wee little blogging break. No particular reason, beyond that I always take a blogging break, it seems, around December-January of each year. I've also been participating in an online course over at Abbey of the Arts: "Coming Home to the Body" , which is my first tentative step towards a better incarnational understanding of God in the world, in me. (aka God's presence.) This page of my art journal is an illustration of one wee line from the class: Meanwhile, part of me wondered about the point of continuing this blog. The priest at my mum's church posted a link on his Facebook feed called "Social Media as a Sacrament" which made me think some more, although not in the direction the author meant. (And I confess, I whined a little bit in the comments.) I still have blog post ideas, but is it the best use of my time when I can count my regular commenters on one hand and still have fingers left over? (And that...

This is close as I can get to winter images in SoCal; I took it in January of this year, I think. I woke this morning feeling like I was coming down with something, the dog puked (mostly water) and the other dog danced in it, and I felt like I'm already done with the day and I hadn't even had breakfast yet. Then the Abbey of the Arts email arrived and I watched this meditation . (link goes to Abbey of the Arts site and has suggested preparation for watching it and for afterward. I recommend following the instructions, cleansing breaths are wonderful things in themselves.) The words that came to me through this video were stillness and silence.  And I thought how unlike that it is for me in December with Southern California cold clear days, Christmas music, and TV. For me, still would be under a blanket with a cup of something and a book while it rained outside, like a cocoon. I came back to that word: cocoon. Like God is a cocoon inside of us, wait...

OK, so let me start with the link-up first. The link up is called "I am proud of my size."  The context of the photo is explained a lot further below. I am a size 18 and here I am wearing a thrifted shirt, a skirt from Dress Barn and Chicago flip flops. More pictures below -- as well as the link to the link-up so you can see more folks who are proud of their size. As I go through "The Artist's Rule" by Christine Valters Paintner, she gives a set of exercises at the end of each chapter to go deeper into the content presented. Sometimes it goes beyond my comfort zone. When I first read about the movement exercise she wanted to do, I have to admit, I judged. My experience of liturgical dance is that it's amateurs moving and flailing their arms and ribbons about and failing to get their message across (aka the point of liturgical dance). But don't I bop and groove in the choir loft on Sundays when we sing the Gloria and other up-beat tunes? ...

Recently, I complained about how I'd replaced the busyness of paid work with the busyness of not-working.  That all my schedule-making to make space for intentional listening for God's plan for me had kept me busy in the transitioning out, but not the transitioning in. Have you ever felt that the time is gone before you'd even started what you hoped or planned to do? One morning last week, I took a step back. I have a number of "honey do" tasks still waiting my attention. I have gained proficiency with the caulking gun and sort-of-not-really with spackle paste in an effort to prove that I am still a productive member of society -- or at least this household. I went so far that morning as to retrieve tools from the garage for the next "honey do" task. But something drew me to the back patio door. Ah, I remember what it was. I was a dog short, so I went looking for him. Sure enough, he was under the tree sniffing away. And I felt the soft br...

This is going to sound crazy. Last week, while on retreat, I got stung by a bee-like thing -- it got smooshed, I suppose it's possible it was some other yellow and black striped stinging insect. A day later, I almost had second thoughts about heading over to the beehive that's on the monastery property, but I wanted to illustrate community, so off I went. I was pretty cautious, snapping photos from what felt like a safe distance ... (camera zoomed to the max) but I wanted better photos ... and the bees were so tiny .... and then I stepped into a bee's flight-path. It bounced off my upper back (right between the shoulder blades) and into my hair. I squeaked (well, wouldn't you?) but stayed calm, backing away from the hive in case another one ran into me, giving the caught bee a chance to escape on its own. No such luck: it was clearly tangled in my fine, curly hair. So I took off my hat and fluffed my hair forward, freeing the bee. Which bo...