The pictures of the words (3)

And just like that, another month draws to a close. 

Here is the third and final instalment of my July artistic challenge, illustrating these texts and following on from this one and this one.

The pictures of the words (2)

This is the second series of pictures illustrating the "thirty words a day" which I wrote during the month of June. I have, as I promised myself, picked up my paintbrushes (almost) every day. So here are the next ten images to follow on from these ones. 

The pictures of the words (1)

As I said, I quite enjoyed June's creative project of writing thirty words every day, so when that ended I wanted to come up with something equivalent for July. For my follow-up challenge I decided that each day this month I would produce a painting to represent the corresponding day's words. I'm being realistic, so they're quite small, who knows, like with the words, maybe some of them will spark something bigger at some point, maybe they won't.   

I think part of this setting of challenges is a bit of a quest to cling on to, or salvage, some creative energy from something of a sense of lethargy I can feel in myself and sense in others. Don't get me wrong: I am still keeping pretty busy, and as lockdown is gradually lifted I am revelling in the possibilities of real human contact it offers. But I am also aware that at times I am struggling to find the energy to do things which either I know need to be done, or know will give me pleasure if I make the effort to. I am sure I am not alone in this. 

Some of this is undoubtedly entirely natural. Behavioural sociologists warned from the start we would only be able to cope with lockdown for 12 weeks. Uncertainty is always tiring and whatever the recent relaxations of the rules, this is still not the normality we are used to. I am a natural extrovert, I draw my energy from being with other people and compared to the heavily peopled existence I am used to, this last few months have been very, very different. And then, this is, in the calendar in which my brain still operates, the end of the year. There is nothing new to me, or anyone else who has ever been involved in education, to a sense of exhaustion creeping in by mid-July. 

But normally, it feels like it makes more sense: though part of my brain is telling me it is fine to acknowledge this spring / summer has been just as tiring as any other, part of me still refuses to admit that sitting at home for four months can possibly be particularly draining. And normally, there's a natural process for overcoming it, a summer break, a shift in routines, ... this year, the exit strategy feels much less clear-cut.

I am not one for being inactive; the need to be busy and to have a sense of purpose is core to my very being ... but even I can sense the creeping risk. Recognising, acknowledging and at least to some extent accepting this has not been easy. I have every sympathy for those who speak of struggling to get up in the morning, for those who have drifted away from online communities even though they know the sort-of-human contact would probably ultimately help, for those who haven't been able to face leaving the house today or even this week. I have less sympathy for the elements of it I see in myself.   

Maintain a routine, getting outside each day even when it is raining, continuing to feel I have a role in offering support to others, keeping in contact with friends ... these are the things that are ensuring I don't spend even more time than I already do scrolling through meaningless social media posts! Forcing myself to pick up my paintbrushes each day this month will be another.

Originally this blog post was only really going to say what it says in the first paragraph. But maybe the rest needed to be said too. Anyway, here are the first ten painted pictures, matching these first ten word pictures: 

Isaac the Beloved

When you can't find the hymn that quite says what you want, clearly the solution is to write one, no? 

This is "Isaac the Beloved", to the well-known tune of Be thou my Vision / Lord of Hopefulness; which mostly wrote itself on a walk around Birmingham's canals. 

Isaac the beloved was Abraham’s dear son

How could God ask him to give up this precious one?

Was there sadness and anger before he said yes?

Did he know God was with him, even in his distress?

They walked to the mountain, they walked side by side

Did he know what was happening as his hands were tied?

But still in that moment, in the depths of the pain

Still daring to listen, so God spoke again

God said to Abraham “do him no harm”

Where bloodshed was threatened, a moment of calm

Where sometimes we falter, unsure what we must give

A promise is whispered your God wants you to live!

But what of that message, had he misunderstood

Or had God changed her mind about what was now good

As we journey to discover what we’re called to do

It’s the daring to listen that allows something new

Sometimes we listen, sometimes struggle to hear

As the voice seems to change with the passing of years

But dare we still listen to what God will say

And dare we still follow when she changes the way?

(Written for the church at Carrs Lane service which I wrote about here)

The book of the blog

Several times in this blog's history, as various milestones in its existence have rolled past, I have considered the possibility of getting a printed version of it. Like with photos, while there are many advantages to digital records, there is something inexplicably different about the tangible 'hold it in your hands' version of things.

The latest milestone was in early May when I published my 300th blog post, and I decided that finally investing some time in editing a printable version of my blog might be a good lockdown project to get my teeth into. Whereas in the past it has never got beyond a vague idea, this time, I committed a bit of time to making it happen.

So I researched blog book websites (realising in the process that I have written A LOT of words in the last 9 years, and some sites are certainly better suited to volumes less substantial than mine was going to be!) These sites do a lot of the work, but I wanted to have some editorial control and chose intorealpages, one that offered that possibility.  

Admittedly, there were some minor formatting frustrations: straight text posts transferred across really easily; poetry, not so much!) but with a little bit of assistance from a very helpful person on the other end of an email address, and quite a number of hours, it was done.

On the whole, it was an amazingly enjoyable process: rereading and reliving adventures from the last nine years has been a really fun way to spend a significant number of hours. I smiled over people and events scarcely thought about for a long time, I recalled much which had long been consigned to the cobwebbed recesses of my memory. In places I could see how my thoughts and reflections have developed over time, in others, the strands of "me" that are still very much the same and run throughout. I watched myself grow.

Individually printed hardback books do not come cheap. And even after all the hours of editing time, when it came to the final moment of pressing the button to order it, I did wonder whether it was really justifiable to spend so much on something which I acknowledge to be be simply an extravagance. But I did it anyway. Yes, it's a luxury, but it is also the product of, over the years, a lot of thought, and time, and effort, and creative energy. It stands as a tangible record of nine years of life hopefully well-lived.

 

From then to now there was an interlude, as I tracked its progress through printing, dispatch and failed delivery. And then, yesterday, it arrived. I don't often await packages with quite so heightened a sense of anticipation ... and I am glad to report it completely lived up to my hopes. The quality is excellent (of the product, others should be left to judge that about the writing I suppose!) and there is something deeply satisfying about seeing this very professional looking version of something that is entirely my own work. Perhaps that's mainly about ego, I don't know, but for now at least, I'm not going to analyse too much, I'm just going to enjoy it.