“When you feel overwhelmed with the enormity of your assignment, give yourself boundaries. Limitations are wonderfully clarifying. So when I started thinking about illustrating the four Gospels, I gave myself a boundary and started with the shortest verse: Jesus wept.”

 “Tears of Christ” Makoto Fijimura

This was how Makoto Fijimura began his speech,  and the painting that started the evening. His intent in the painting was to start with a dark background (the backdrop of the voids and traumas of our world) and illumine it with prismatic colors.

The painting fit his speech, “Silence and Beauty,” as Mr. Fijimura unpacked the story of John 11 and 12. I wanted to study the painting for a long time. There is depth, darkness, movement, passion, and light in it. I watched the world-renowned artist shuffle gently back and forth on the stage, talking softly–so softly that I couldn’t catch every word, smiling, peaceful, confident, gentle. He showed us a picture of his simple painting called “Silence,” which he is giving to movie director Scorsese who directed the recent movie with the same name, based on a novel by the same name. “This is painted on mulberry paper, using ink that’s a hundred years old. It’s easy to transport, compared to my other works that are harder to take from place to place. And with their colors, when you take pictures of them, they just disappear. So you just have come see them.” Gentle tone. Shrug. Beaming eyes. Smile.

Fijimura is uncommonly equipped to critique the movie and the novel Silence because of his extensive knowledge of Japanese thought, culture, and art. His speech last night was uncommonly ambitious, moving from a nod to his art, to “Jesus wept,” to Silence and our own unanswered questions, and back to Jesus.

An aside: I was glad of how candidly Fujimura spoke when he showed a picture of the carnage in Nagasaki. He said more Christians died that day than had ever died as martyrs in that country. He didn’t dwell on it, but he put it out there. It is right for Americans to hear and see images of that unconscionable trauma that often gets glazed over.

I haven’t read Silence yet. I’m trying to decide when I’ll have the fortitude to read what I understand to be a harrowing, deep story. But Fijimura was doing more than providing well-informed commentary on Endo, the novelist, and talking to more than those who have read the book.  “Do you know what it’s like to talk to God and to hear nothing in return?”

In John 11, Mary and Martha say the same words to Jesus at different times. They don’t understand His silence, His inaction. Their faith is not an issue. They know He could have kept their brother from dying.

To Martha, the busy CEO of the house, activist, organizer, the one who makes the party happen, Jesus responds with left-brain answers. To her He gives the shining proposition: I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. He speaks her language, meets her where she is.

Mary is the artist, impractical, intuitive, inefficient. She says the same words Martha did, words of questions and bewilderment. For Mary, Jesus has no declarations of truth. He is silent. Instead of declarations and explanations, He weeps. He speaks her language, meets her where she is.

The Gospel is not about fixing things that are broken in a shattered world. The Gospel is about the tears of Jesus and His presence. 

Because He is the answer. His silence is not distance. He is present, and His presence heals what is shattered.

Then in chapter 12, Lazarus is the only one is the story who does nothing. He’s not fighting a culture war to prove that he’s on the right side. He just stays with Jesus, confident,  knowing the reality of the Resurrection. They can’t do anything to him because he’s already died and knows death won’t have the last word. What is there to fear or be defensive about? There is nothing to defend and get worked up about. The resources he draws from have no limit. I think Lazarus’ confidence was akin to Makoto’s gentle invitation for us to come look at his paintings. A shrug, a little grin, nothing to prove or defend.

Mary, the artist, pours on Jesus’ feet the perfume that would have pleased her husband on their wedding night. Artists rebel against the bottom line because they know that their resources are infinite. Mary, extravagant, intuitive, lavish, gave the best she had. Like a true artist, she gave out of abundance, not scarcity, reckless with the bottom line.

How to respond to trauma and betrayal? What if Jesus’ artists would spread His aroma, the Gospel, extravagantly, wastefully, because we know the resources will never end? What if left brains and right brains would meet in the amygdala, the brain’s center, and be Lazarus, and not fight culture, but stay with Jesus?

Mr. Fujimura’s speech moved me deeply. I wept again this morning, remembering Jesus’ response to the women, and I know the message will stay with me always. The speech itself was profound, with ambitious themes covered masterfully in a most understated way. His words were like giant brush strokes that at first appear disconnected but eventually paint a stunning design of emerging light, space, and color.

 “Consider the Lilies” Makoto Fujimura

Several years ago, I was home for a weekend, and mom showed me some art. Its official brand name is called Zentangle*, and it was created by Rick and Maria, who give classes to train and inspire people with this kind of art. Some people feel uncomfortable with that name, so they call it ‘pentangle’ or ‘creative doodling.’ Either way, it’s a kind of art she thought I might like.

I DID like it, and I still do. So last night I made this for a friend’s birthday:

Basically, it’s an elaborate form of doodling. This is from my first practice notebook:

Technically, every pattern has its own name but I don’t know any names. I just find a pattern I like, and do it. You start with a square or circle or any shape, and with a pencil, draw random lines and swirls, and then use a pen to fill in those shapes with designs of your choice. Afterward, erase the pencil lines.

It appeals to me because of its simplicity and I can be an artist without being an artist. All I need is a pen and paper. At home, this is my tool box:

but when I leave the house, all I take is one pen (usually black gel) and one small hardcover unlined notebook where I practice and can slide in a card or two to work on. I’ve stopped doing much work in the notebook except for practicing patterns a little, because I’d rather put that time into something useful.

So I make cards. I LOVE buying cards, but I’ve hardly bought any the past couple years. One thing better than buying (or getting!) cards is making them. One of my favorite things to do in the evening is to sit down with my pens and a blank card, listen to something, and doodle. Pop a little jewel sticker on somewhere, and that’s it.

They’re not witty or gilt-edged or elaborate, but they’re original and full of heart, which is what a card is about, isn’t it? The middle one was a wedding card. The round ones are die-cut cards I bought really cheaply at Michael’s when I was in the US a couple years ago, and now I just cut my own from card stock. I experiment with colors of paper and ink, but always go back to the classic black on white.

I like the rich darkness of a gel Pilot pen,(but it smears if I’m careless) but micron pigma pens are also nice because the different size nibs give you texture and variety. I’d like to learn more about shading, but so far, I’m scared that using a pencil to shade will get too smudgy.

The post-modern mantra that some of the artists use in this is “There are no rules.” But I disagree. My rules have to do with texture and balance. I want the eye to move around the page, so that not everything is immediately apparent. I like starting a piece and not knowing what it’s going to look like in the end.  I like the tactile limitations of pen and paper, and the mindfulness it demands. Disclaimer: This is NOT something to do when listening to a boring lecture or message. I always dislike when my students doodle while I’m talking, so I try to give speakers the attention they deserve, and you should too!

The possibilities with creative doodling are endless. You can use a sharpie to put any design on any piece of ceramic, bake it to set the ink, then paint over all of it with clear nail polish. You can use it in woodburning, quilting, on a chalkboard (isn’t that all the rage right now?), an envelope, or the frost of a window. I used it to decorate a price list at school:

You know as well as I do that our world is increasingly narrowing into digital medium. Have you never spread out your fingers on a book page to make it bigger? That’s a dead give-away that means you need to do something creative with your hands. Zentangling is one of my methods of finding alternatives to a digital world. I believe very strongly that we are more whole people if we use our hands to make something that didn’t exist before. You can do this in a myriad ways: plant seeds, make kefir, cut an onion for soup, wash a window. Not only is hand-work practical, but it involves the whole person, and releases tensions that get knotted up if you’re just being sedentary all day.

I found this art in a time when I was in deep depression, and it met a need I didn’t even know I had. Since then, my eyes have been opened to details of light and lines and design. I’ve discovered a new world I never knew before, and it even led me to dabbling in acrylic paint and chalk pastels, something I thought only artists or school children do.

I don’t see myself as an artist, but more as a student discovering beauty. My therapy of choice is creative doodling. I go for a week or so and then my fingers get itchy to do something, and after I make a card, I feel relaxed again. (I think my house-mates are glad when I’m not so twitchy. Do I tangle for their sakes? Not really.) I find most patterns on Pinterest, (you can follow my ‘dangles to tangle’ board) but sometimes I see a pattern in ironwork or a fence or an ad’s graphics and make it my own. My favorite artist is Helen Williams because of her use of lines, light, and shadow. Rick and Maria are real masters, and find inspiration in anything. Their slogan is “Everything is possible one stroke at a time.”

After a few years of experimenting and learning, I’m sort of starting to believe them.

*Disclaimer: please don’t jump on me for the name. It’s just a word. I find no spiritual process in it, no zoning out, no meditation, no aligning my center. It’s just something I do with my hands that makes me happy on many levels. Is that fair enough?