We often crave answers before we take the first step, but what if the journey itself is the answer? Lately, I’ve been exploring what it means to live as an unfolding mystery—a ‘living bag of pieces,’ as Mark Nepo puts it.
For me, this idea of life as an unfolding process has been showing up everywhere—especially in my creative practice as a painter. Just like the incomplete oil paintings in my studio, my own sense of wholeness often feels elusive, as if the true picture of my life is still emerging. Writing this piece helped me reflect on how we discern meaning and embrace the fragments, trusting that a sense of completeness will come in its own time.
I wrote the following reflection for SDI’s Listen – a quarterly publication on spiritual direction and companionship. I am reposting here.
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On the end-table in my living room sits a collection of daily reflections by Mark Nepo called The Book of Awakening. I will sit with my coffee in the morning, see it sitting there unopened for three months, and after silently scolding myself, pick it up and flip to that day’s reflection. On the morning of October 7th was a reflection titled “Until We Live It”:
“It is so tempting to want the answers before we begin the journey. We like to know the way…but we are more like a breathing puzzle, a living bag of pieces, and each day shows us what a piece or two is for, where it might go, how it might fit…Over time, a picture starts to emerge by which we begin to understand our place in the world.”[1]
I imagine many of you resonate with this sense of being a “breathing puzzle.” Lately for me, being a “living bag of pieces” feels quite resonant! A sense of wholeness and completeness is often elusive.
How do we discern the true picture of ourselves, emerging from all the fragments? When do we arrive at knowing we are a complete being?
I make art in my free time, and currently a number of incomplete oil paintings currently line the wall of my art studio. None of them relates to each other except I am working on them concurrently. I honestly don’t know where any of them are going! For each of them I started with something of a plan—it could be a photograph of a special place I’ve been hiking, or an idea for an abstract composition. I will work on the painting with this ‘plan’ in mind, taking it to the point where the plan is complete, but realizing the painting itself has just begun. The plan offers merely a starting point, but where I’ve arrived reveals an incomplete image, one lacking a sense of mystery and wonder that I often feel when looking at art I love. For the true painting to emerge, the plan is abandoned, and a new activity begun—a dialogue.
This dialogue represents an investigation into what is happening in the image. I can respond with added painting. “This texture over in the corner is interesting. Hmm…what about this color combination that has just appeared? Does something need to be added? Deleted?” Sometimes there’s no painting at all in this dialogue, rather sitting with the canvas and just looking, discerning what may be emerging. The ‘breathing puzzle’ of this dialogue can sometimes take weeks and even months.
But where this dialogue can get short-circuited is when I’m afraid to respond to something happening. Often this is my own good-intentioned ego trying to rescue me: “Why are you wasting time on this? Abandon this process—the art looks bad, anyway —and do what’s already familiar to you!” I’m learning to better recognize that voice without jumping to conclusions. More difficult is discerning the need to drastically rework a section of the canvas, or even start over (maybe I am stuck on fixing something “bad”). I can’t face the possibility of ‘failure’—to do so would render all of it a waste of time. So, I continue trying to “rescue” the painting, putting yet more hours into sustaining something that isn’t likely to work. I can no longer see what I need to let go of. I am too mired in the work, considering it from too many angles. The puzzle is starting to feel hopeless.
Reaching this point, where we can’t puzzle ourselves out, we need a second set of eyes.
In my case, that’s a trusted artist friend who I can invite to the studio. This can’t be just a good-intentioned friend, but a trained artist who is experienced themselves and understands the struggle. They come to look at the art, hear me share aloud about my process, and they in turn share what they see and hear. Hearing myself aloud is often enough to recognize where I am stuck. But my friend listens, and with fresh eyes, can observe and readily discern what’s working, what’s not, and offer suggestions on where I can go. From these exchanges I learn to see clearly again and proceed with the joy of discovering the mysterious essence of the painting. This puzzling out with my trusted friend, done with kindness, patience, and perseverance, helps reveal to me how to make this painting a completed image, now recognizable and attainable.
You likely see where I am going with this. Painting is an analogue to my own inner journey, and perhaps you can relate. If you are anything like me, you may find yourself struggling to sort out your own “breathing puzzle.” The puzzle that is our spiritual journey doesn’t necessarily begin with the finished image on the front of the box. Without the reference, it’s a more complicated task, right?
We can bring our spiritual journeys, the highs and lows and everything in-between, to a trained spiritual companion. These deep listeners can lovingly observe where we’ve been, what’s happening, and where we are going. They can reveal to us where they see the complete image already taking form. They can help us identify the burdensome pieces, shed light on confounding blockages, and release tensions we no longer need to hold onto—those things that prevent us from meeting and befriending our True Self, and connecting with God, the Infinite, or however you name the Ground of All Being.
A second set of eyes—or ears in the case of a spiritual director or companion—who listen to our daily puzzlings, while lovingly holding the big picture of our lives, helps us fit the pieces together and bring it all into focus. Puzzles can be fun and they can be daunting, but most always they are made simpler and more enjoyable when done with a friend.
[1] Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening (October 7), 330.