Me and God's Performance Art
one answer to: what do you want to do together?
Over time, I’ve really come to value two uncomfortable emotions:
When someone really irritates me and pushes my buttons.
When I feel envious of something about someone else’s life.
The first reaction is a gift because it’s an invitation to get curious and discover new things about myself and my shadow side (more on all that another time). And the second one is a gift because envy is an arrow; meaning, when I find myself envious of someone else’s life, it’s an arrow pointing at something I long for in my own life and path.
An arrow doesn’t necessarily mean I want or need the exact thing I’m envying. For example, a local friend may tell me they’re moving to a new city, and I may notice a pang of envy as I imagine them embarking on a new adventure, starting a life from scratch, or escaping the frustrations of life in Los Angeles. That doesn’t necessarily mean I want to move to a new city, but by exploring my envy a little more, I might discover that my life is feeling a little dull and I want to enliven it with some novel experiences. Or that there’s some aspect of my life I want to reinvent or reimagine. Noticing my envy can help me identify a longing, and then I can find a way to move toward that - even in just small ways.
In this desert-wandering in-between season where I currently find myself, I’ve felt called to lean into creative expression, particularly writing. But when I think about the kinds of creatives whose practices I feel envious of, it’s not writers. I’d guess this is because I already take time to write on a regular basis, so this isn’t a place of unmet desire. And the envy here is more like an excitement, a growing sense of: I want to do something like that. The people I think of with this kind of envy are friends who do WEIRD stuff. Like, unclassifiable or performance art based stuff. (For an example of what I’m talking about, check out my friend Billy Mark’s stuff here.)
I think of Ezekiel (the biblical prophet) as a phenomenal performance artist. A lot of the prophets are, honestly. But Ezekiel is next level. Official biblical studies people call his demonstrations “symbolic actions” or “sign acts” - just other names for performance art. A few of the things Ezekiel does:
Eats a book.
Draws a city on a brick and then surrounds it with battering rams and an iron wall.
Lays on his left side for 390 days (!!!) and then his right side for another 40 days, while tied up with ropes and facing the brick with the drawn city on it.
Cuts off his hair and beard with a sword and divides the hair into three parts. One part he burns, one part he strikes with a sword all over town (?), and one part he scatters in the wind. (But he saves a few hairs and throws them into a fire that then spreads throughout the nation. Obviously.)
Publicly limits his own food and water, and uses cow poop for cooking fuel (after telling God he refuses to use human poop. See! They both have some input because they are doing it TOGETHER).
Packs a bag for exile and then digs it out of the wall while everyone watches, and then covers his eyes while carrying his belongings out of the city at dusk.
This takes me to (an) answer to the question I’ve been living with God lately: What do you want to do together? (See this post for more on that.)
In the course of living this question - which means letting it percolate in my mind as I go about my life - I’ve observed a few places where I sense a kind of pull, or where a certain idea feels kind of twinkly. More and more I’m learning to notice and trust these twinklings as places where God’s Spirit is inviting me to something.
First, this performance art thing. I’m into it and want to do more of it, though I have no idea what form it will take. Is it because I’m an overly dramatic person who also finds deep pleasure in meaning making? Because I’m in a new season of exploring embodiment instead of just living in my thoughts and feelings? Because I love stretching my imagination and creating adventurous projects? Because I enjoy causing healthy disruption to the status quo? I mean, I’m not saying no to any of that. But regardless of the reasons behind it, the pull is undeniable. Honestly, I’ve felt it for a long time, but ignored it. Probably because of some combination of reasons like: it’s not “useful” or “helpful” to the world, and because I don’t fit the stereotypical personality of someone who does creative performance art (don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Björk).
My spouse, Michael, reminded me how I used to ask other Christians (especially those who worked in ministry) what they would do with their lives if there was no God. To that question I would always say that if there were no God, I would be a lounge singer. But because there is a God, I felt compelled to do more “helpful” things for humanity - both out of duty, and because of a genuine sense of compassion for people.
I’m not going to run off to Vegas and become a lounge singer anytime soon, but the waters of what is a genuinely “helpful” vocation are becoming muddier and muddier.
Second, for at least a year now, I’ve felt drawn toward the life and writings of the theologian and mystic Howard Thurman. A friend gifted me one of his books a while back, but then I listened this episode of the Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color podcast about Thurman at a really critical juncture in my own life, as I was discerning some major life changes. While there are many things Thurman and I do not have in common, much of his contemplative path and the way his inner and outer life unfolded really resonated with me. Snippets of things from that podcast and from bits of what I’ve already read of Thurman have returned to me often in this season.
Third, for several months I’ve been noticing a sense of being overwhelmed by content, and have felt a pull to slow down and dig deeper into ideas. I listen to podcasts or audiobooks on my morning walk, while I’m driving, and sometimes while I’m doing mindless office tasks. I also read before bed. And I tend to gravitate toward podcasts and books with deep conversations on more serious topics, so they are often chock-full of meaningful insights and beautiful ideas. But how many of these insights and ideas stay with me? Hardly any. I recently posted this, a longing to really take in the good thoughts I come across, and let myself be formed by them:
So as I continued to ask God: what are we going to do together?, an idea emerged that incorporated all three of these things: create a regular practice where I read a short section from a Howard Thurman book, take time to reflect on that short section by taking notes, journaling about it, etc. And then, in collaboration with God, come up with some kind of embodied action that flows out of the reading. It might be performative (in the sense of being done in a public way), but not necessarily. I’m open to the “public” aspect of it just being me writing about it afterwards. My husband thinks I should call this project: The Thurman Practices. And while I do like that name, the jury’s still out (if you have an idea of what to call it - tell me!).
I’ve ordered a handful of Thurman books, so I just need to take some time with God so we can select one to use for this experiment, and away we go!
And if I end up tied up in ropes and laying on my side for a long time, I request regular deliveries of coffee, Chinese dumplings, blueberries, and grapefruit sparkling water.
You probably already know this, but I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!! Cannot wait to bear witness to the beauty of this practice.