Existential Health
Inhabit existence; Create Meaning; Assuming Authorship
The Conversation
Elements From The Conversation
Creative Piece
This week's creative piece, a painting, is actually more about the painter than the painting itself. In this quiet, introspective man, one can see 3 characteristics of existential health.
L.S. Lowry, the British painter who painted "Going to the Mill" in 1925, looked his reality, the industrial city of Manchester, squarely in the eye. While others viewed the industrial cities of the time as ugly and crude, Lowry saw the beauty, the loneliness and the humanity in it. He did not paint an artificial, elevated world; he painted the point of contact with reality.
Returning to last week's subject: To rest meaningfully requires that we, like Lowry, stop waiting for an "ideal" or "perfect" world to come to a standstill in front of us. It requires that we look the reality of our daily lives with its mills, its smoke and its imperfection in the face, and to choose in the midst of it to pause and come to ourselves.
Lowry's mother stubbornly disapproved and belittled his art. She wanted him to be a "respectable" professional man and dismissed his dark, industrial scenes as ugly and inferior. If he had followed her "script," he would have suppressed his talent in order to conform to her ideal of the "good boy." This would have been a case of "Living from Borrowed Meaning." Instead, despite her objections, he created his own meaning at night, when the house was quiet.
When our lives are directed by a strong internal "Critic," or for women who have been raised with the social pressure to always serve and care, that internal voice is much like Lowry's mother. It says, "You can't just sit around and do nothing. That's not right. You have to be useful."
Lowry had to find the courage to become the "author of his own life" (Self-Authorship). He had to choose to embrace his own reality and his own calling, even if it didn't meet the approval of the most important figure in his life.
Music
How on earth does Antonio Vivaldi's “Cum dederit” from Nisi Dominus, RV 608 (fourth movement) fit into this week's theme?
The text of Cum dederit comes directly from Psalm 127:2 (in the Latin Vulgate) and fits almost seamlessly into the theme of rest, our realities, and the struggle against the inner critic.
The full verse from Psalm 127:2 reads in Latin: "Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere: surgere postquam sederitis, qui manducatis panem doloris. Cum dederit dilectis suis somnum..."
Which translates to: "It is in vain that you rise early, that you lie down late, and eat the bread of painful labor - for He gives it to His beloved in their sleep (or while they are resting)."
This text is a direct, centuries-old warning against the human tendency to toil and drive ourselves from early morning until late at night ("panem doloris" - the bread of pain/anxiety). That's the invitation of Cum dederit, a lullaby for the weary spirit, reminding us that life's deepest gifts, such as grace, restoration, and meaning, are not given to those who exhaust themselves, but to those who dare to rest.
With our love and the desire - for each of you more of the truth and rhythm of Cum dederit.
George & Matilda
Comments
Post a Comment