Eremitic

I had cleaned out my workspace and was kneeling in front of my fireplace ready to toss in scraps of failed projects. As I looked at my basket of rejects, I was intrigued by a few of them. Their shapes and the beautiful grain of the cedar began to speak to a deep place in me. I took my basket over to my kitchen table and began to play around with them. What emerged was this piece, which startlingly portrayed an image of what I am striving for in my life at this time. From this cheap wood and rejected scraps an image of my life emerged. Eremitic refers to being a hermit or a solitary. This is the lifestyle I have chosen.

In constructing this piece, I intended to make the background a cross, with the axes signifying the vertical relationship with God and the horizontal relationship with people and the world. It just didn’t feel right, so I hesitated. I ended up retaining the vertical because that is my everyday life. The hollowed-out area represents silence, the cloud of unknowing, my apophatic relationship with God. Flowing out of this silence is the outflowing of love that is nurtured in silence.

It is significant that there are Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist motifs integrated with the core Christian motif. Contemplatives, such as Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths and Wayne Teasdale, have noted that the contemplative life opens one up to being able to draw on the wisdom of other religions to deepen one’s Christian faith.

The wood is cedar, sometimes known as “the tree of life” because it sustained the Native people on the Northwest Coast, and because in life and death provides ecological nurturance for so many plants and organisms. From its quiet strength flows an abundance of grace.