“Relax” — perhaps not your first title for this image.
How long has this homely garden gnome kissed the dirt? Someone seems pretty lax in their landscaping.
Re: Lax.
Lax can mean slipshod. Slapdash.
Lax also denotes loosened muscles and limbs. Deepened ease.
Perhaps it’s a continuum?
Test Case.
A dear friend is throwing a party. She wants my help.
Guests will retell their conversion experience, 3 minutes per person.
An artist assigned to each table will take notes on their stories.
- ~20 minutes for listening
- ~25 minutes to create something, in response
- ~5 minutes to present it … publicly
Large room, long guest list.
Her request—seemingly impossible—suggests … extraordinary possibility.
Can it be done?
Keen attention and presence must marry crunch-time spontaneity.
Seat-of-the-pants is not how I roll.
Relax … how?
The party-room vibrates with expectation.
Pacing, I roll my neck and shoulders. Must lighten up, loosen my mind, let the nerves go lax.
I’d drop right now like a jazz dancer, collapse face-down, if I could, like the garden gnome—preferably under a table—let everyone carry on without me.
Relax. Now.
Gnome comes from an ancient Greek word, meaning “to know.” Despite my fear, I know grace has my back.
I choose a table. Memorable stories unspool.
Afterward, we artists retreat with our notes to another room while the guests eat.
Help me help me help me
25 minutes evaporate.
Showtime.
I cradle my efforts: the distillation of 5 stories rich with surprise and hope, rife with my cross-outs, arrows, and asterisks. My version is slapdash, yet deeply felt.
I teach the crowd the refrain, and we speak it aloud between each section:
“You were born from God’s longing. And here you are.”
They hear it. I hear it. Together, we relax into the impossible.
GNOME
What is a face plant but a dance,
staged alongside possible ruin,
another garden-variety hero,
toppled, among the shrubs,
clownish, inept. Unarmed.
Face-down is one nosedive
prayer embodies: the sudden
gravity, slapstick’s kissing cousin.
Practice pratfalls. Lean into the spill,
each bruise an inside turn, toward grace.
+++
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” —Rumi
What helps you relax into the impossible?
Hi Laurie: Seat of the pants is not the way I roll, either. Your post is lovely. Glad no gnomes were harmed. Relax … ah … yes.
Thank you for the reminder to “relax”. Living in such a busy world, it’s hard sometimes just to ‘be still and know.’ I’ve learned God does not need me to do for Him but rather He wants us to be. With that I can be in His presence, be still and that helps me to relax with our Lord.
Becky, I know what you mean. Sometimes it seems most everything around us conspires to pull, even yank, our attention away from what’s central. To “be” and “be still”: your words today remind me, yet again, how vital (and vitalizing!) this is! I like your phrase “relax with our Lord.” It’s the word “with” that’s making me hear this wisdom in a new way. Picture me smiling, taking a deep breath. Thank you!
You are a rich, deep well of inspiration my friend.
Jody, thank you. Your friendship and comments here mean a lot to me. When I think of how long, beautifully, and faithfully you have blogged, I am inspired!
Hello, Laurie. I LOVE this party/gathering idea!
Will take what you have described and bring it before the LORD for His idea in how He wishes to possibly use this in the circle of people He has me placed.
I would love to have seen the art you created after listening so well to those stories… The LORD bless and keep you and continue to shine upon you!
Jan, the party was unforgettable, truly a once-in-a-lifetime event. Everyone went home brimming.
I hope you plan one too!
I can feel the tension of trying to create with such time constraints. And the freedom in that too. What a wonderful idea! And such life lessons here too, Laurie.
Kathleen, you are wonderfully empathic. And it’s so true isn’t it it: Limitations can evoke our most creative responses—especially when we sweep our egos under the carpet (or the table!).
Perhaps the risk involved is another element?
I love how you take disparate elements and weave them together into a cohesive whole. This post is a perfect example. Who else but you, Laurie Klein, could take a yard gnome and a Memory/Art Party (what a creative idea THAT is!) assignment and come away with a vibrant new creation, that poem! WELL DONE!
Nancy, it delights me to find unexpected connections and explore them. Of course some of them are too far-fetched and end up in the compost file. 🙂
I photographed the keeled-over gnome a month ago at a B&B. I had the notion it would come in handy one day. I’m glad it gave you pleasure! Wishing you and your husband rich blessings and many, many reasons to smile.
Big smiles! I absolutely treasure the many ways you spin a yarn. Always something to learn, something to laugh about, something to marvel at, something to take away. Thank you, Laurie! 💓
Pacia, you made my day. What lovely feedback! After being creatively stalled out for 3 weeks, it felt so good to finally write again that I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. 🙂 Hearing that I hit the mark is all the sweeter. I am so grateful for our friendship and for your gifts of creativity (now loosed again in your marvelous studio!) and for your encouragement. xoxo