We were cleaning the kitchen at our church and discovered two drawers of utensils that had not been touched in 30 years. I rescued them from the Good Will box. It has been fun to watch the children from the block meet him for the first time.
I read somewhere that front yards are an American invention designed to give urban dwellers the sense of being in the country while in the city. The ongoing California drought is a challenge to that illusion. Altadena has received almost 9 inches of rain this year which is better than last year but still about 25% of normal. I take the view that less rain will be the new normal so I am trying to adapt our yard to that situation. I have added mulch to the flower beds, installed drip irrigation, and used a barrel to capture rain water this season. My latest effort was to landscape the parkway in front of the house. The city of Pasadena was paying homeowners $2 per square foot to remove their grass turf and replace it with something more drought friendly.
Before
I looked into hiring a professional but that was going to cost an arm and a leg, so I decided to do the job myself. But could I? Some part of my mind was up for the task but my 66 year old body had its doubts. I discovered that my body could handle working for an hour and a half a day. So from 4:00pm to 5:30pm each afternoon for seven weeks I was in the front yard digging, raking, and moving dirt and rock. 16 bags of redwood mulch, 42 bags of pea gravel at 75 pounds per bag, one thousand pounds of cobble stones, and succulents transplanted from the back yard later, the job is done. The best part of the project was meeting my neighbors, many of whom walk their dogs every afternoon before dinner.
After
What’s next in the drought adaptation process? Well, I have been dreaming of trying to convert our sixty year old backyard swimming pool into a rainwater capture reservoir. But that idea is being met with some very stiff resistance by another member of the family, so for now, maybe I will try to just take shorter showers.
View in January 2017
View in January 2018
A young artist recently asked me, “How do I manage this creative spirit within me?” The more I thought the more I wondered if manage is the wrong word. I experience creative energy as if it was a tiger that prowls the neighborhood at three in the morning. When it silently appears out of the shadows at unexpected moments, my job is not to manage it because no one can manage a wild animal.
My first job is to notice it. For example, this past month I have worked on a series of five paintings based upon Luke 4. I have learned that my best insights come at 3am when I get up to go to the bathroom. So I keep a journal close at hand and quickly jot down what I see so that I can remember it in the light of day. Those 3am sightings have lead to breakthroughs in my art. It has also left me a bit bleary-eyed but that is a small price to pay. For others, the creative insight might come while at a stop light, while watching a movie or reading a book. By paying attention to the creative spark, the tiger, for some unexplained reason, tends to show up more often.
Those creative parts of us, like a tiger, are hungry and wander to places where they might find food. My creative self makes itself known more frequently when I make space for an intellectual diet of reading, visiting art galleries, listening to pod-casts or watching U-tube videos of other creative people. There is never a one to one correlation between providing food and calculating the tiger’s appearance. Tigers are too unpredictable for that. But I have noticed that if I don’t make space to feed creativity, the river of new ideas starts to dry up.
When it comes to my two artistic pursuits, painting and writing, rarely do I start with a fully formed outline of what I want to do. If I am painting, I usually begin with a few concept sketches in my notebook. Then I might stretch the canvas, paint a background and try one of the concepts. Often while I am painting, a new insight will emerge and I will either paint over or start a new canvas. Eventually a more complete idea will begin to emerge. The writing process is similar. I might start with one phrase, slowly add words, and then develop a more complete outline as I write, edit, and rewrite. I often feel like I am aimlessly wandering in the jungle in the early stages of a composition. Insight usually comes but not before I have gotten lost a few times and endured the cacophony of fear-inducing voices telling me I am a poor excuse for an artist.
On rare occasions tigers, who are wild, powerful animals, have been known to eat people. Therefore it pays to be cautious in their presence. Creative energy is also powerful. Like all energy, it is imperialistic and given the right circumstances it can take over the life of its host. I have experienced times when the creative ideas started to flow and suddenly I found myself unable to turn them off. My mind would race and I found it difficult to eat or sleep. I am not bipolar but after a couple of these episodes, I have a greater appreciation for the manic experience of that condition. The biographies of artists such as Van Gogh or Michelangelo testify that such experiences are common for creative types. I have found that exercise, music, and prayer all help to sooth the beast when it is agitated. Eventually it will calm down. If the manic creative episode persists, it can wreck the health and marriage of a person. So seek the help of a doctor or counselor who can help determine if there are underlining physiological factors at work.
Tigers are beautiful creatures with the capacity to reveal to us a transcendent world where lion and lamb lie down together. We can’t manage them but we can learn to live in harmony with them.
Boarding Pass
Twice a year I fly from Los Angeles to Chicago to attend a four day meeting. I have been making these trips for at least ten years. I really enjoy the people I meet with but I dread the flight. Getting up before dawn, battling traffic to or from the airport, negotiating crowded air terminals, and then being crammed for four hours in a seat without leg room leaves me spent. But on my last return flight from O’Hare to LAX, I had a different experience.
While in Chicago, four nights in a hard bed had tweaked my back (again!) so I was feeling very stiff. And my assigned seat that afternoon was a window seat in the back row of a very full plane. The more I anticipated the flight home, the more anxious I became, and the more my back hurt. I was near panic.
At the end of our meeting, the group leader asked for prayer requests and I shared my dilemma. We then prayed and one of my friends said, “Lord, give Steve an aisle seat.” Something in my own spirit said “Yes!” But when we got to the airport an hour later, I checked in and discovered that the only vacant aisle seat left on the plane was in the emergency exit row and would cost me an additional $75. Since I was already steamed about the high cost of the plane ticket, I decided to try and trust that Jesus would take care of me regardless of what seat I had to sit in. But I also held on the prayer.
O’Hare Sketch
Twenty minutes before the flight was to board, I found a seat near the window in the boarding area and sketched the plane on the tarmac to distract my mind and ease my anxiety. One minute before we were to board, I hear the following: “Mr. Steven Stuckey, please report to the gate agent at gate H15.” It was at that moment that some part of me began to relax. I gathered my things and walked to the gate. The agent said, “Mr. Stuckey, I have a party of three that I am trying to seat together. If you are traveling alone, would you be willing to move to the aisle seat in the emergency exit row. That would really help me out.” While grinning from ear to ear, I said, I would be delighted to help her out. I took the new boarding pass, thanked her profusely and boarded the plane.
For the next fours, I experienced bliss. My joy was not because of my good fortune of landing in a spacious aisle seat. Rather, I was overcome with gratitude that the hidden presence that we call Father, had seen my anxiety, had heard my friend’s prayer, and had made Himself known in a small but significant way. It was as if for a moment, the curtain between the visible and the invisible had parted and I caught a glimpse of deeper reality. I saw that I am not alone and I sensed that our secret companion is both good and kind.
Saint Clare Cottage
This cottage was build in the early 1900s. It is now named Saint Clare Cottage and it is part of the Presentation Center in Los Altos California. I have stayed here with a friend on a couple of occasions when we were on site for a retreat day
It has been Campus by the Sea’s welcome mat standing as a silent sentry guarding the entrance to the camp for over sixty years. It is a humble rustic structure that has been creatively adapted for many uses— boat maintenance yard, repair shop, snorkel checkout area, tool shed, and storage facility. In the early days the camp caretaker slept there during the summer. Peek inside and you will discover a dusty museum of ancient nautical parts and old tools. The ceilings are low enough that most people have to stoop. It has endured the crashing waves of winter storms and the gnawing of mice and termites. Its gleaming white facade says to all who pass by, “We are glad that you are here!”
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