Ok so someone asked me what did you learn from that season of life? So, I’m writing a little series of what I’ve learned from each season of life thus far! Fun meditation! I’m writing longer (yes, even longer!) articles on another site, but thought I’d share little glistenings here as well just for fun.

The person who originally asked me was talking about when I lived in Switzerland years back and studied at L’abri, a creative christian community started in the 60’s by Francis Shaeffer and his wife Edith. I was told it was a place which could help integrate my arts and spiritual backgrounds. To bring the art world and the church world under one larger roof has always been a central passion for me. I think it started that process in me.

Well, so a short version of what i learned or incarnated there: that there was no area of Life where we could not meet God. That Christ was Lord over all of Reality including the arts and imagination, and every other realm, so we are free to pursue our identity callings in whatever field is authentic to us.

It was a permission giving place in that sense, and one of integrating the arts and church world for me. That creativity was part of being human and so part of our authentic relationship with Christ, so should be dynamic, alive and one of a kind, in that sense.

I always felt like they were meant to be in the same room, and this place and the teachers there gave me permission to do so in myself. Permission to just be and pursue excellence in whatever your heart’s interest was–your inner calling-that was a big gift which came from those mighty mountains in Switzerland into me and many others. I came to see back then, that both the church and the art world were contextualized in a larger spiritual context, which I had alway intimated was there!

That I am an artist and a christian are not contradictory, but work in tandem, one contextualizing the other. And that I didn’t have to make “Christian” art, but if I was centered in Christ, could just make art, and that central life giving relationship, would be implied. That was a big release for me. I had mostly seen art used as propaganda for Christ, or as decoration, rather than overflow from authentic relationship and identity in Christ. Art as evangelism quickly turns into propaganda, and not great art as well.

There were many other things which were imparted there, but that was a big one. God is One so no area of Reality is outside of His Heart’s concern and desire to incarnate with and through us. That was a simple but profound integration in my younger life. I had been to art school and studied at seminary, and wanted to see how to two could come together in an authentic way. Turns out they already were in a larger Kingdom context.

I also learned french surrealist poetry there from my mentor, which was also cool, but that central integration probably has lasted longer!