Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Movements into Silence

I finally finished these music tracks I am calling, Movements into Silence, Contemplative Music on my 30 dollar Classical guitar, recorded on the voice recorder Will John gave me last year. Below is the description.



Movements into Silence

(download CD free HERE)


Movements into Silence

  1. Movement 1
  2. Movement 2
  3. Movement 3
  4. Movement 4
  5. Twenty Minute Silence


Continuous Prayer and Silent Prayer

Growing up going to all night prayer meetings with my dad while I was in high school nurtured in me a life of prayer. Years later I found myself in an all night prayer service at a Romanian Orthodox monastery on the other side of the ocean. The fellowship hall of my dad's prayer meetings couldn't have been more different from the icon filled and gold leafed ancient chapel, but despite the differences I felt strangely at home.


Known as Hesychism in the Orthodox east and now popularized in liturgical churches in the west as the Centering Prayer movement, the heritage of continuous prayer is the wealth of our Christian faith. Many believers are rediscovering the rich traditions of prayer practices in works like ‘The Way of the Pilgrim’ which describes a Russian peasants journey from destitution into the life of continuous prayer. He learns to pray the Jesus Prayer, 'Lord Jesus Christ have mercy' continuously and we watch it turn from ritual habit into intimacy with God. As we walk, we pray; as we breathe, we pray; as our heart beats, we pray; as we encounter the poor, we pray; as we do justice to the image of God now seen in the poor, we pray; as we sleep, we pray. Centering prayer is a habit of prayer which refocuses our attention, centering us on Christ twice a day so that we can live continuously in Him.


'In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength', Isaiah 30:15


Silent prayer is a purifying fire. This sanctifying movement of the Spirit within us calls us to bring our histories, and everything within our spheres of life into submission to Christ. This recording was born out of desire to be faithful to the spirit of contemplative prayer. It is my prayer that we may return continually to Christ, to meet Him in silence, and allow Him to unmask our false selves and offer us back into the world as a whole persons capable of encouraging wholeness in the Body of Christ, that we may be a fragrant offering for the life of the world.


In centering prayer we are encouraged to make a habit of 20 minutes of complete silence in the morning and 20 minutes before the evening meal. Without distraction, relaxed, and concentrated on a word or phrase such as, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy”. The word or phrase helps to refocus us as we are distracted by a myriad of thoughts. Track 1-4 are10 minute instrumental pieces and Track 5 is 20 minutes of silence begin and end with chimes. Below are two prayers I find helpful for beginning and ending times of prayer.




If you found this helpful, I would recommend, far more than my own music, recordings of the music
written by of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). Also, consider Arvo Part's 'Alina', and a collection of choral and violin pieces by Bach called 'Bach: Morimur' for facilitating times of silence and contemplation. For more reading on continuous prayer see The Pilgrim and the Pilgrim continues on his Way, anonymous, works by Thomas Keating on centering prayer, and one of my favorite books on prayer and contemplation Clowning in Rome, by Henri Nouwen .



The artwork for the CD comes from a series of meditative wash drawings based on slow blind contours.



All this music is free to download, share and you are free to delete it when it is no longer useful to you, any comments are welcome, please e-mail them to jamklepac@gmail.com.


Movements into Silence CD

(download for free HERE)

Trisagion Prayers.

+Glory to Thee, our God, Glory to Thee.

O Heavenly King, Comforter, the Spirit of Truth,

Who art everywhere present and fillest all things,

the Treasury of good things and Giver of life:

Come, and abide in us, and cleanse us from every stain,

and save our souls, O Good One.


+Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal: have mercy on us. (3 times)


+Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.


All-Holy Trinity, have mercy on us.

Lord, cleanse us from our sins.

Master, pardon our iniquities.

Holy God, visit and heal our infirmities for Thy name's sake.

Lord, have mercy. (3 times)


+Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.


Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us;

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory,

of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.


First Prayer of St. Basil the Great


Almighty Lord, God of the Powers and of all flesh,

Who livest in the highest and carest for the humble,

Who searchest our hearts and affections,

and clearly foreknowest the secrets of men;

eternal and everliving Light, in Whom is no change nor shadow of variation;

O Immortal King, receive our prayers which at the present time

we offer to Thee from unclean lips, trusting in the multitude of Thy mercies.

Forgive all sins committed by us in thought, word or deed,

consciously or unconsciously, and cleanse us from all defilement of flesh and spirit.

Grant us to pass the night of the whole present life with wakeful heart and sober thought,

ever expecting the coming of the radiant day of the appearing of Thy only-begotten Son,

our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, when the Judge of all will come with glory

to render to each according to their deeds. May we not be found fallen and idle,

but awake and alert for action, ready to accompany Him into the joy and divine palace of His glory,

where there is the ceaseless sound of those keeping festival and the unspeakable delight

of those who behold the ineffable beauty of Thy Face.

For Thou art the true Light that enlightens and sanctifies all,

and all creation sings to Thee throughout the ages. Amen.


Movements into Silence CD

(download for free HERE)

Joel and Monica Klepac
www.wordmadeflesh.com
www.wmfromania.com
www.joelklepac.blogspot.com
www.artincommunityamongthepoor.blogspot.com


(all music was recorded, written an played by Joel Klepac at Jonah and the Whale Productions, all album art is done by Joel Klepac)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Beauty and Worship: Art for Therapy, part 4



Sarah Lanse charcoal drawing


Paradigm of bringing things from darkness to light

Sarah’s drawing is an image of the contemplative process of illuminated darkness, re written pages, and of excavating roots. All themes that have come up as we have discussed 'The Human Condition' by Thomas Keating

'Gathering' is bringing together the parts missing in darkness. In 'art for play' or 'awe' it is bringing together the materials that are left unnoticed, in 'art for contemplation the truths, the beauty, making connections, and now in art for therapy, it is gathering our lost and forgotten roots, our inner emotional basements, re framing, rewriting them into the rest of who we are so that we are not split and fragmented people. If we perpetuate a false self, a fragmented person, we only add to the fragmentation of or world.


This dis integration can happen easily in otherwise healthy people when exposed to the harsh suffering of the worlds poor wherever in the world. Counselors working with child abuse victims are often required to receive 4 hours a week of counseling do deal with their own secondary trauma caused by listening to the stories of abused children. When working among the poor the stories we are hearing on a regular basis are no less traumatic. The injustices suffered by the children we are serving among will over a short time plunge us into compassion fatigue. No one is immune. In order to survive for the long term one needs to take definitive steps to reflect and process this secondary trauma, that of hearing of the traumas of others.

Self-assessment for compassion fatigue

Answering "yes" or "no" to the following nine statements will help you assess your risk for compassion fatigue:

Personal concerns commonly intrude on my professional role.

Yes

No

My colleagues seem to lack understanding.

Yes

No

I find even small changes enormously draining.

Yes

No

I can't seem to recover quickly after association with trauma.

Yes

No

Association with trauma affects me very deeply.

Yes

No

My patients' stress affects me deeply.

Yes

No

I have lost my sense of hopefulness.

Yes

No

I feel vulnerable all the time.

Yes

No

I feel overwhelmed by unfinished personal business.

Yes

No

Answering "yes" to four or more questions may indicate that you're suffering from compassion

fatigue. [This instrument, developed by the authors, has not been validated, but the results should serve as a quick check of your state of mind.] If you're interested in determining your risk for burnout, try taking the Maslach Burnout Inventory. It may be obtained through the Consulting Psychologists Press at 800-624-1765 or through their Web site at www.cpp-db.com.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

  • Much of our coping and integrating of traumatic situations and stories comes from learning to be attentive and attuned to our inner world. It allows us to get to the point where we ask ourselves, ‘how is ‘x’ situation affecting me?

  • It is getting this nagging abstract feeling out somehow. Naming the feeling steals its power over us.

  • Lung process, heart process, and digestion give us paradigms of gathering in, processing, and letting go/ releasing. We can only process so much at a time. Increased traumatic/ difficult experience necessitates increased time to process, and integrate the experiences into our selves.

Here are some ideas of how Art as therapy can help us move towards habits of processing our experiences in service among the poor.

This is an example of my own sketched memories from an evening on the streets with the boys. This non verbal processing method is direct and immediately externalizes an experience that can eat away at you without you realizing it. Journaling after such street meetings or anything else that is potentially traumatic is an intentional way to precess and externalize the experience of another's suffering. It does not solve the injustice by takes steps towards integrating it into you understanding of God and the world.

still from the movie 'Everything is illuminated'

Holocaust films help reintegrate, finding some meaning in the insanity, and learning to live on with the loss or horror. The image of boxes of the remaining possessions of each victim is a metaphor for our built up unnamed traumas. They have a certain silent power over us if they are unopened and un integrated, and often we are oblivious to them all the way until we burn out and leave our place of service.

Our art teacher at the Valley Center Nina did a project with the boys living on hte streets with collected pieces of wood and interesting branches. The boys spent most of their time cutting cleaning and carving out of the branches they selected from the pile. When they were finished they were asked to give a name to their sculpture. In the process of naming this abstract form many came up with revealing ideas. One sculpture was a cut off small tree with the large roots exposed. It was cleaned and put upside down and gashed were cut about an inch apart up the length of the tree. In the end he named the piece, 'the sad tree'. The tree perfectly mirrored the boys arms which have the gashes form self mutilation. He was able to name the sadness in himself in a non threatening way. Darkness turns to light, unnamed feelings are named and
rendered less powerful.

Often journaling about counseling with kids or about a traumatic story told to us can get us steps closer to understanding how we are being affected.


In comparison to the suffering of the person we care about it is easy to discount this secondary suffering we feel. It is true that we cannot compare the first hand trauma and the second hand trauma, but the affects on our continued functioning are the same over time though less extreme. For this reason we have to be willing to deal with how ministry is affecting us as workers, it is important because our ability to love the least among us depends on it.

Within a few years of coming to Romania a little boy named Mihaita was hit by a car and killed. This painting was part of my own processing the trauma I had of being asked to photograph the funeral proceedings from stat to finish. It was like having my nose pushed into this injustice. The pain I felt seemed so trivial next to the memory of the boys mother screaming. I have not forgotten this boys face but I am no longer debilitated by the unnamed emotional pain. It is re written into my story my history and my faith.

  • In 'Art for Therapy' we are talking about gathering the boxes of our dark closets, ‘basements’, ‘excavating roots’, ‘allowing old pages to be re-written’ so we can be fully present as a whole integrated persons.

See more examples of 'Art for Therapy'

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Beauty and Worship: Art for Contemplation, part 3


In 'Art for Contemplation' I am thinking of active reflection using a medium (words, colors, shapes, film, clay, etc) giving a high level of attention while releasing control of the outcome of the reflection. In the paradigm of Friere's, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this would be a way of reflecting on our action or 'Praxis'.

Rouault landscape.

Some of Rouaults works like his King David painting were said to have been worked on over a period of 50 years. The textures and colors, scrapes and pulls of the paint are the material of his contemplation of life as he experienced it. One just needs to stand in front of His paintings to see layer after layer built up until some portions of the painting will rise above the surface of the canvas an inch or so.


Francis Bacon 'Crucifixion'

Here is a Francis Bacon trip tic I saw in England. It is a horrific painting. One only needs to remember that he was contemplating the state of humanity post World War 2. Maybe it is horrific but accurate as well and therefore helpful.


This is a shot from the Andrei Tarkovsky film 'The Sacrifice'

Andrei Tarkovsky the Russian film maker used slow choreographed takes so that he could cut the film as rarely as possible. In doing this he reflects the time of human experience. There is a sense of space and breath. Watching his films is like crawling into the skin of a monk for a couple hours and seeing the world through the eyes of a contemplative. Tarkovsky teaches us contemplation as he offers us his sense of time and composition in the film.


Hans Hoffman

Hans Hoffman paintings demonstrate an incredible beauty, specifically diversity in unity. In any image abstract or narrative which brings together any diversity into unity is a symbol of the Holy Trinity. It gives you a visual 'proof' of the real possibility of unity in diversity. Anything beautiful in this sense is an icon of the Holy Trinity. More than many other abstract expressionist painters Hoffman has a sense of the spiritual transcendent radiating from his work.



In this pieta the visual curving form of the body becomes a theological aesthetic way to deal with grace. Visual grace participates in the truth of redemptive theological experiential grace. The form of the art is created to contemplate and aid in the contemplation of the spiritual realities depicted.


charcoal drawings by Sarah Lanse


Similarly Sarah has used here the process of charcoal drawing to contemplate her experiences of the suffering of the women she is working with. There is a real black and white, death and life severity to the drawings. Calcutta is far from a black and white place visually but certainly life and death are most present to the senses than in many other more insulated places in the world.

Micheal Nye is a great contemporary photographer who incorporates audio stories of persons being photographed. He has a show on living with mental illness with beautiful insightful photos of people he collaborated with and their accounts of how they experience life. It is startlingly personal and intimate. His process of photographing and audio interviewing is a great way of being attentive to another person, humanizing then, and discovering their unique story. When we spend time contemplating the individual lives of the poor in dignifying ways we find empathy and common humanity with the poor.

Art for contemplation is also a means of gaining insight, understanding and building empathy.

Here are some ideas to consider...

  • Journaling- high attention to what happened (or what is happening) without controlling the outcome of the reflection.
  • Drawing- simply sitting down and drawing from life can be a great way to hear God speaking through the tree, river, or the person drawn.
  • Open ended Drawing, painting, writing. (ex. Creating a set of characters with personalities etc, and then letting their personalities decides the outcome of the story)
  • writing poetry- Josh Fowler some public, some private reflection.
  • Video editing- bringing together themes in audio and video material. Reflecting on the content of the pieces and finding the connections between the parts. The stuggle with video or other digital media seems to be that the process can be so quick there is no space for contemplation. It takes discipline and patience to give the though and attention to create pieces which are going to also draw others into contemplation.
Click here for more examples of 'Art for Contemplation'

Contemplation should start in awe and play so that the good seeds of contemplation may be nurtured and grow in order to offer us their life giving songs. Without this deep saturation in contemplative experience of creation our art has little chance of transcending personal opinion and wishful thinking.
  • In 'Art for Contemplation' we are ‘gathering’ together the theological truths as they express themselves in creation, in all its processes, shapes, and colors. Contemplation is a focused way that faith and experience are integrated.