Creative and Free

Poetry puts the past in perspective, positions us in the here and now, and propels us toward what is possible. Host Christina Hubbard shares three poems that have the power to sustain through trying times and give hope.

Poems include:

• "Everything Will Be Alright" by Derek Mahon,
• "Thanks" by T.S. Merwin, and
• "For Those Who Have Far to Travel" by Jan Richardson.

To get podcast updates, poetry, helpful links on art and faith, and a FREE MEDITATION, subscribe to Christina's letter at christinahubbard.com.

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We can learn to see God anywhere. Author and spiritual director Charlotte Donlon leads us in a spiritual practice called divine drawing. Using a story from her book The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, Charlotte helps us engage our senses and memories to discover God in familiar places. Allow 20-30 minutes for the practice.

Charlotte is the artist of the month. Check our Part 1 and Part 2 of our interview: The Privilege of Shared Loneliness.

Links:

Charlotte’s book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Find her at charlottedonlon.com and on Twitter and Instagram @charlottedonlon.

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What if your loneliness was space meant for God? Charlotte Donlon and I continue the conversation about sharing the universal burden of loneliness in Part 2. She also reads a chapter from her book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Other things we talk about include:

• Grief, loss, and Advent,
• The joys of having books and family around,
• Practical ways we can share loneliness with God and others,
• Inviting God into our creative spaces,
• How the arts help us to really see.

Links:

Charlotte’s book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Find her at charlottedonlon.com and on Twitter and Instagram.

Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes: : https://apple.co/3gB9leH.

These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

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There should be no only in lonely. Author, spiritual director, and podcast host, Charlotte Donlon believes its a privilege to share our stories of loneliness, including her own. She joins the podcast as artist of the month. We chat about her first book, The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Other things we talk about include:

• Becoming a writer later in life.
• Paying attention to God during spiritual conversation.
• When rejection launched her deeper into her own loneliness.
• Her decision to live authentically with bipolar disorder.
• How gratitude helps us grieve well.

Links:

Charlotte’s book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Find her at charlottedonlon.com and on Twitter and Instagram.

Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes: : https://apple.co/3gB9leH..

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Compassion allows a person to suffer with another. As creative influencers, we have an amazing power to share bits of ourselves through our creations: a joy, a heartbreak, or even an open wound from which we are still trying to heal.

This episode describes three ways the arts help us show compassion as wounded healers.

A guided 5-minute breath prayer is included to help you experience God's compassion personally:

Inhale: Compassionate God

Exhale: You see me.

Inhale: Loving Father,

Exhale: You welcome me.

Inhale: Trusted Counselor,

Exhale: You hold me.

Inhale: Faithful Emmanuel,

Exhale: You stay with me.

Inhale: Gracious Healer,

Exhale: You restore me.

Links from this episode:

Image of Pope Francis with Vinicio Riva

CNN article on Vinicio Riva

Return of the Prodigal bronze sculpture by Charlie Mackesy

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"Courage---you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself. " -- Maya Angelou. This is a different kind of courage: the courage to slow it way down and how to train for it.

It's less about a big, bold leap and more about training one’s heart to make micro movements of faith. Imagine climbing a mountain, like a Colorado fourteener. You don’t typically just go out and hike one without preparation (especially if you’re from the Midwest). You train over time, day after day. You get stronger with small choices of effort and faith that propel you toward this goal to successfully climb a mountain.

The courage to slow down is to dare to move at an unhurried pace and take a breather in the face of a frenetic culture. Here are some ideas to help you press into the resistance.

Get your free audio meditation on Psalm 23: https://bit.ly/3kpSRa0.

Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes.

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The central challenge is how to make space for the creative gladness we require in order to create. In this episode, I share about the core value of creativity and five ways to reignite your energy when it seems gone.

I attempt to answer the questions: what do we do when our lives are constricted as they are right now with stress upon stress, fear, and anxiety? How do we create in unstimulating spaces?

This podcast is all about giving artists confidence and motivation to arrange their lives to do their art and reveal God’s glory to the world. It stands for a well-functioning life cultivated and shaped by creative rhythms that restore and empower through story, celebration, rest, and play. A creative life is about making space to receive sustenance from God, the ultimate creator. Creativity itself is a sacred act, in which we participate in the act of creation like and with our God. Make space to receive and become the poema.

The Collegeville Institute

How to find creativity when yours feels sapped, blog article

Cosmos from Chaos, interview with Luci Shaw, Andrew Peterson, and Carolyn Arends

Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes.

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Hands tell a lifetime of stories. So does art. Using a piece called Rainbow Hands from the book A Cloud of Outrageous Blue by Vesper Stamper, Christina Hubbard leads a 10-minute visio divina exercise.

Visio divina means “divine seeing” in Latin, as we gaze upon a work of art and experience God’s presence through it.

Visio divina engages the eye and the imagination. It can be done with a piece of art, religious or not, or even a leaf or landscape you discover outside. Artist Tim Mooney says of visio divina: "It invites us to be seen, addressed, surprised, and transformed by God who is never limited or tied to any image, but speaks through them.”

Access an image of Rainbow Hands and a transcription of the meditation here.

Find Vesper's work at VesperStamper.com and on Instagram. Purchase a print of Rainbow Hands here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/vesperillustration.

Book giveaway of A Cloud of Outrageous Blue through October 30! https://www.instagram.com/p/CGi_9JZhjJQ/

Check out Parts 1 and 2 of the interview with Vesper.

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“It’s possible that 2020 is the year of the sketch phase.” Author-illustrator Vesper Stamper is the artist of the month. She joins me to talk about embodied art and fighting for joy. She also reads from her new book A Cloud of Outrageous Blue. The premise: a young woman with unique giftings finds herself in the middle of the plague of 1348. Pretty relevant.

We also talk about:

• Humanizing others.
• Why the pandemic didn’t surprise her.
• Choosing faith over fear.
• Joy-bringers (like hummingbirds and chickens).

Vesper’s thoughts on embodied art:

"…We are creating unto something that other people will encounter and experience, right, so as much as God is creating through us—it really is part of the ministry of reconciliation, you know. We are reconciling the world back to God through these bodies, through what our bodies take in and produce. And that’s so important and that’s something to be embraced and there is no shame in that."

Find Vesper at VesperStamper.com and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vesperillustration/. She’s also on locals.com and thinkspot.com.

Links:

• Vesperisms podcast: https://apple.co/315cFbg.
• What the Night Sings: https://amzn.to/2H2QL15.
• A Cloud of Outrageous Blue: https://amzn.to/33SBKIl.
  

These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

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Does shame hinder you from being the artist you are? Artist and writer Vesper Stamper came to faith in a creative environment that was “decidedly unshameful.” She’s the artist of the month. Her book What the Night Sings won multiple awards and her new book A Cloud of Outrageous Blue recently released. Vesper and I discuss restraint as the key to artistic longevity and joining spiritual practice with art.

We also talk about:

• Being grounded to home.
• Solace and lifegiving input from gardening.
• The accident that propelled her into grad school, and unsuspectingly, historical fiction.
• Using her art to battle anti-semitism and dehumanization.
• Being believed.

Find Vesper at VesperStamper.com and on Instagram @VesperIllustration. Find her work on locals.com and thinkspot.com.

Links:

• Vesperisms podcast: Artistic Action-Creating a Final Work episode.
• What the Night Sings: https://amzn.to/2H2QL15.
• A Cloud of Outrageous Blue: https://amzn.to/33SBKIl

These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/creativeandfree/support