God can be found by making art, nun believes

When you're talking about prayer, says Sister Barbara Schwarz, OP, "art gets you where nothing else does. God is the creator. God is an artist. The arts can touch where words fall silent."

She will bring that message to a weekend retreat she will lead at the Dominican Retreat House in Niskayuna, April 27-29.

The retreat, "That God May Be Revealed: Art as Meditation for the Non-Artist," will explore ways for ordinary people to pray and expand their faith through artistic means.

Everyday art

Catholics every day express themselves through their clothing, home decor and other real-world artistic choices, Sister Barbara noted.

Participants in the workshop, she continued, can take that language "beyond what you wear, beyond the room, into [answering,] 'How can I talk with the ineffable God whom I cannot see, who is mystery?'"

Sister Barbara has experienced what she will speak about. In 1982, recovering from a life-threatening bout of viral encephalitis, she found that painting and working with clay helped her heal.

Letting go

For meditation with art, the nun explained, "the process is basically to quiet oneself and allow ourselves to go with whatever" moves us at the time, like drawing a line, folding clay into a shape or dancing -- with the whole body or sometimes just with the hands or a paintbrush.

"I like to think of it as allowing God to draw and paint," she said, with "the pencil and paint as the light of the Spirit's presence coming through ourselves to some kind of solid and visual piece."

Even "non-artists" can use art to meditate and pray, she added; all the skills they need are the "the ones you learned growing up as a kid: tapping back into the wonder and awe that God gives us, and that we often put aside as not being grown up enough."

Prayer

When it comes to prayer, Sister Barbara believes that Catholics can spend too much time attempting to encounter God from the "head up," and not enough time using the rest of the body, which is also made in His image.

When a person is more open, she noted, aspects of faith that are "beyond words" become apparent.

"God works through our whole selves," she said. Art "allows us a new vocabulary -- of color, of movement -- that enables us to pray differently."

God as friend

Sister Barbara sees the use of art as meditation as a way of deepening a person's friendship with God.

Just as human friends don't always stick to serious discussions or do one activity all the time, she explained, "prayer is about the full range of relationships and friendship with God. We do all sorts of things with friends. We don't just talk; we listen. We move, talk and play."

Her weekend retreat isn't about making art to be exhibited on a gallery wall or refrigerator door, she said, but about "using all our senses and creativity to come to know God in a deeper way. I find it freeing."

(Sister Barbara, who has an MA in Scripture, has served as a religious education director, Catholic school teacher and retreat director in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The April 27-29 weekend costs $180; for age 65 and over, $165. To make a reservation, call 393-4169.)

(4/12/07) [[In-content Ad]]