Leanne Shawler, Artist

Every year some part of the Jesus birth narrative strikes me differently. For the past few years, it has been that the birth wasn't a pretty, sanitized thing, but was full of dirt and muck and loneliness. The song, "Labor of Love" by Andrew Peterson, has been my song of the season in the past. This year it is Mary's Magnificat that has captured and held my attention. I've read a couple of articles about how Mary was not meek and mild but that she was a revolutionary, a rebel against the occupation. I'm sure you've seen the video footage coming out of Aleppo. I watched one yesterday that started with a shell-shocked child sitting on a gurney, like so many of the shell-shocked Syrian children we've seen lately. Blood is on his forehead. Beside him was a woman from the same building that had been bombed. She is mourning and crying for her lost children. Her face is bloodied also. "Omran, Angels Are Here!" by Judith Behr The camera move...

Emily over at chatting at the sky , is now doing quarterly link-ups for what we've learned each quarter. Previously, it was each month and before I knew it the month was over and I hadn't gotten around to posting. So, here's hoping quarterly does the trick! 1.  I love painting intuitively. I took Flora Bowley 's Bloom True-course this fall and finished a painting that just glows with color. But the more important thing was that the act of painting (by making a series of marks, grooving, just seeing where the color and marks take you) brings me joy, even when I'm angry or upset. Putting paint on a canvas really makes a difference. Am wondering if this should really be my meditation practice... 2. Being open to other worship experiences can bring clarity It helped me to remember what is important about worship. In a short time span, I attended an interfaith labyrinth service, a UCC church and three other Episcopal churches. One of the latter is St. Gr...

This week I have seen a lot of hate on my Facebook feed. Hate toward Trump voters, non-voters, third-party voters, Clinton voters. Nasty comments in people's posts that are filled with disdain and viciousness. I have read about reported acts of hate toward people of color, women, muslims and LGBTQI people. I have a mixed crowd of all kinds of people and politics on my Facebook feed. Over the course of the election, I felt the need only to unfriend one person who was viciously mean and disrespectful. Now my feed is full of meanness and disrespect. Imagine two monkeys so angry at each other they start hurling their excrement. That's what it is like now and we're starting to stink of shit. I've taken refuge in art (I am having an amazing time taking Flora Bowley 's Bloom True e-course), posting photos of my dogs, and I am seriously considered taking a Facebook fast. So why are my friends behaving so badly? Have we, lost in our hurts, forgotten who we are? Beings...

Diana Butler Bass shared this on her Facebook page and it is worth sharing for reflection in these last few days before the election ... and after.

ok, so not one of my recent "strong women" portraits. but this post should give some reasons as to why you don't get to see them. Lately, I’ve been working in the Ever After class which, while on the subject of fairytales, is a big step for me. It’s the step beyond “learn this technique” or “follow an artist’s footsteps” to uncovering my own style, and create paintings of my own. I am loving this — learning what I like and don’t like, struggling to create expressive faces, and coming up with ideas that feel true to me. I have learned that I like to paint strong women. Women who not only survive, but thrive. And weirdly, the eyes have decided to get larger lately. Maybe because I am seeing more. But then the question hit me: Why do I want to develop my own style? What is wrong with following along with lessons? What am I going to do this style of mine? First, I want to tell my own stories. Whether they reflect what is happening to me, or whether they ...

Here are some interesting stories and thoughts found on the internets this past month. Aiming for stories of love and thanksgiving... A Blessing for a Year by Erin Ramsey-Tooher at God in All Things , a beautiful story about blessing (thanking) God for life. Look, I'm not a Mum, and I usually skip "mommy"posts but the one above and this one have deeper stories to tell: Look at the Birdies by Katie Lacz at God in All Things Iowa's Breaking Bread ministry mixes sacred with secular by Luke Blount at The Episcopal News Service It is epically long (almost two hours) but The Liturgists' podcast on Religious Art is well worth listening to ... well, until they get super-philosophical and existential at the end where they lost me, but at least they realized the rabbit hole they went down (which was kind of funny). The Gift of the Green Blob , a must read at Momastery Is God Transgender? discussing the gender fluidity of God by Mark Sameth at The New York Ti...

In April, I finished reading " Grounded: Finding God in the World -- A Spiritual Revolution ", by Diana Butler Bass. There were many things that were great about the book, and it was a good beginning (it inspired me to write a poem ) but by the end it felt like a whole other book could now be written. This is because I had some reader-baggage / preferences that came up as I read the book, and rather that writing to the author and complaining, I wondered what about the book discomfited me. Each chapter starts with a theology of grace, even abundance (in the non-prosperity gospel sense of the word!), rejoicing in these gifts that we have been given on "this earth, our island home" (a quote from a Book of Common Prayer Eucharist service) but halfway through a number of the chapters it switched to a scarcity-based theology: good soil and clean, fresh water is disappearing, air pollution, etc.  It is all true. Good soil is disappearing, air pollution is maki...