Healing in disability or chronic illness
“Longing for the Disabled Jesus”

This morning I’d like to share some thoughts about God, the creative
process, the church, and disability.

The roots of my theology and my understanding of who God is go back to
the creation story. “In the beginning God created …” Being an artist,
perhaps, it is natural that I see God as a creator.

What most people see: the painting, the sculpture, the print, is the end
result of the creative process. It may look effortless. In fact, if the
artist has done his or her work well, the viewer will get caught up in
the piece and not be distracted by thoughts of what it took to get the
piece there. But there is a creative process and I think the Genesis
account describes it fairly well.

Yes, it was good. These were heady times. God was on a roll. And then
God created man (male and female, he created them). Why? Was it part of
some great plan from the beginning or did it just happen as one thing
lead to another? Did he want someone to recognize, to share with, and to
interact with in this superb world he had just created? Did he have some
further goal in mind? Did he want a partner?

We never will know, because something went terribly wrong. What, why,
how, whose fault? We're not even out of Genesis Chapter 3 before Adam
and Eve are banned from the garden. By Chapter 4, the first murder has
taken place and by Chapter 6 things are so bad, God is sorry he started
the whole thing and almost wipes it all out with a huge flood.

God moves too quickly, in my opinion, from “It is good,” to regret and
anger, for the explanation to be that this was preordained or planned by
God. He seems, in some way, to be genuinely dismayed. So, what happened?
In some ways, it doesn’t matter. Even “why,” though interesting, and
perhaps important at some point to contemplate, does not, practically,
address the situation. It happened. Perhaps the important question is
“What now?”

This seems to describe the creative process pretty well: Inspiration,
followed by a burst of energy, doing the work, Then unforeseen
complications or problems arise, which precipitate disappointment,
doubt, frustration to the point of anger and despair. Out of this,
eventually, comes resolve and determination to make changes and to
persevere. Finally, comes a way forward, a resolution, a singing.

When things go awry and seem out of control, this is the most difficult,
frustrating, and frightening time in the creative process. Maybe it is
the result of an overt mistake, or just an oversight, a misplaced
assumption or simply the attempt to match the idea in one’s head with
the action of one’s hands.
In any case, the result is similar: a cloud descends, one is left
groping in the grayness. The way is not at all clear. After the bite is
taken, after the mark is made that cannot be erased, the light goes out.
And even though one may retain the ultimate vision of “where” one is
going, “how” to get there seems hopelessly shrouded.

Perseverance and faith in the process – that a way will become clear -
is what gets one through and beyond this time. After the flood, God
decided to persevere. The rest of the old testament could be seen as the
story of God finding a way through.

And finally, the way through culminates in God taking on the limitations
of human flesh and inserting himself into human history in the person of
Jesus Christ. This much, God loves the world and wants to save it. He
has weighed and debated it for thousands of years. Tried to find another
way, sent other messengers but the people won’t hear, they don’t
understand, and neither does he understand them – these people he
created with his own hand. So he comes.
As a baby, so the shock won’t be so great? So he will have a little time
to learn, to adjust to the limitations of blood and bone and skin? So we
will learn to love him? He comes, and loves and is loved.

But then he is seized and bound and tortured and killed by human power.
He is caught up in its juggernaut of violence and turned under its ever
turning wheels. His body is broken open, his blood poured out. His human
existence ends.

The church is Christ’s body now. His spirit was poured into us with
tongues of flame. We are the hands, the feet, the arms, the mouth, the
ears, the eyes, the heart of Christ. He is now dependent on the church,
on us, to carry on his creative work in the world.

What does this mean? How are we to be Christ’s body? How do we know what
he wants? The first step is our “yes.” Joining the ongoing creative
process of God. We bring the gift of our lives, our ability to move and
to be in the world.

As one who lives with limited and diminishing physical abilities and as
an artist, I offer these thoughts and a description of some of the
adaptations and changes I have made in the way I work. I offer this as a
window through which you might see how the church might work with the
disabled God to carry out his creative vision for the world.

I have MS, multiple sclerosis. MS can take a variety of courses. For
some it is subtle, almost invisible. For me it has been gradually,
physically, debilitating. Many of you have seen me go from being fully
active to now depending on this chair for mobility and on others,
especially Stan, for assistance in doing even simple tasks.

When the “me now” is juxtaposed with the me of the past, I am, at times,
shocked, angered, depressed, envious, grieved. And I imagine I may
return to those emotions at various times throughout my life. But I find
that I cannot remain there. I cannot live for long, in those emotions.
There is too much I want to do, to live, to know, to learn, to discover,
to share. Maybe it is that a part of me is a “problem solver.” If I
can’t “fix” it, then I want to find a way to make life work. Adapt.
Change. And maybe it is because I have now been involved in the creative
process, officially, as an “artist” for some 18 years or so. Problems
and obstacles are inherent to the creative process, a step along the
way. It makes perfect sense to me that my life, the way I find to live
it, is part of that creative process.

As I have said, many of you have seen my mobility limited, to the point
of my now being dependent on this chair to get from here to there. What
is less visible is the effect MS has had on my arms and hands, in
particular, my right arm and hand. I am right-handed but now I do most
things with my left hand. Eating, picking up a glass. My left hand
reaches for a pen, a paint brush, puts it in my right hand and steadies
my right hand in writing words on a page, drawing in my sketchbook, or
in painting images on a tile. Both arms have difficulty reaching up,
especially for sustained periods of time.
Sometimes I feel like my arms are tied against the side of my body with
a strong elastic band. Fine motor control (what is used in writing,
drawing, painting) requires intense concentration and attention.

My art work has always moved back and forth between two and three
dimensions. The two directions have fed each other. I am still able to
work two dimensionally on tiles. Building and carving sculptures has
become impossible. At times I think, it is enough to do the tiles. That
this is the direction my work is going in now. But then I get an idea
for a sculpture, and then another.

Over the last few years, as building was becoming increasingly
difficult, I realized I could, should, needed, and eventually wanted to
find someone to work with, someone who could translate my ideas from
paper to form. Who? This was not an easy place to come to. I loved
building. I loved the process of bringing a sculpture into being, even
though it was long and involved.

At one point, I calculated that there were six different stages when I
came in contact, multiple times, with every square inch of the surface
of a piece.

There were some these stages where it has been easy to have someone else
do the work. Painting on the color glazes, for example, is a fairly
straight forward task that I could easily delegate. But building! How
could I involve someone else? So much happened, evolved, connected
during this stage.

Eventually the choice became either to stop making sculpture or to find
someone to work with.

I found someone to work with. That someone is Janet Still. I went to
school with Janet at the University of Washington in the early 1980s. We
became friends through our mutual study and interest in art and
specifically, clay. We remained in touch, more or less, throughout the
years and kept track of each other’s work.

Janet has now been helping me bring my ideas from paper to form for
three years. What makes it work? What are the joys? What are the
frustrations? For me, for her?

First, it has been surprisingly easy and joyful. That is not to say that
it has not been difficult. It has. For both of us, in various ways. In
the end, it is the work, bringing it into existence, that matters.

I’ve made a list of other thoughts on working with Janet. As I share
these, I invite you to hold them in your mind and heart and to ponder
how these might lend or enlarge an understanding of the ways God and the
church might work together to continue God’s creative process in the world.

1) Janet knows me, knows my work, my style, my history. She uses that
knowledge to inform the building process. At times, to anticipate my
intention and direction. Anticipating without assuming.
2) Janet knows and is skilled in working with clay. This is not
something I have to teach her.
3) Janet understands the creative process. She has experienced it. She
is a gifted artist in her own right. She understands and respects my not
knowing, my floundering, my trial and error, my changing my mind.
4) She is patience. This flows out of Janet’s understanding of the
process. She is willing to wait.
5) And to be quiet. There is not a lot of chatter between us. We work in
silence much of the time we are together.
6) There is a willingness, on Janet’s part, to suspend her ego, to not
take over a piece and do it her way. I know this is difficult for her at
times. It is difficult because of the next point on the list.
7) Which is a willingness of Janet to bond with the piece. This to me is
essential to the vitality of the work. It imparts “life” to the work. It
comes through the act of touching. Laying her hands on the piece,
feeling its resistance and cooperation. And imparting her caring into
the work, in a way, falling in love with the piece. Now you can see why
#5, the suspension of ego, is so hard. I may ask her to do something to
the piece that grows out of my vision, something that runs counter to
what she would do if it were her piece.
8) We are friends. Janet cares about me. It is why she agreed to do this
in the first place. And I care about her. I am conscious that what I am
asking of her is not easy. If she does not “get it,” it is I who need to
better explain what it is I want.
9) I have had to find ways to verbally describe what I did unconsciously
or instinctually before, which takes time and stretches the process out.
Something that took a few seconds for me to do – smoothing here, a
slight pressing there, becomes something I must study and recognize as
something that needs to be done. Then I must find words to describe what
I want Janet to do. Sometimes I feel like I’m being hyper-critical or
paying too close attention to a detail I wouldn’t bother with if I was
doing the work myself. The truth is that I would have “fixed it” barely
conscious of what I was doing.
The more Janet and I work together, the more she “sees” with my eye.
Again, anticipating without assuming.

10) There has been a growing awareness and acceptance by me, and perhaps
by both of us, of the influence of the other. I think it is impossible,
nor would it be honest, to deny that, in some way, the mark of Janet is
on my work. Furthermore, I think that mark, that influence, is healthy.
It is the story of art throughout history. Nothing is original.
Everything borrows from or builds on something else. Influence is,
perhaps, a polite way to say copying. Picasso once said “copying others
is essential …” What he dreaded and feared was copying himself. In
talking with Janet about her own work, there are influences from my work
that she questions upon seeing them come through in her own. The lines
have become a little blurred. What is her own voice? What might be
coming as a result of working with me, of doing my work, of learning and
incorporating a different vocabulary? That is her story, to make sense
and peace with in the evolution of her own work. I am grateful that she
is willing to risk those blurred lines in order to give voice, give
form, to my work.
11) Finally, both of us feel the excitement of a piece coming together,
of it taking on a life of its own. It is these moments that make it
worthwhile. Both of us have experienced this in the past, as we have
worked alone, each on our own work. Now together we share that coming to
know that “it is good.”

It is somewhat comforting to me to see God and the church working
together to carry out his creative vision for the world. Terrifying,
yes, at moments (is he crazy?!), and amazing, that God would trust us to
take part in this endeavor. After working with the creative process for
years, even though I loose sight of it every now and then, there is a
faith in the process that comes. God works from that place of faith and
in the end, it is good.

S.Z.Richardson 5/03