Rev Mary Putera is currently serving as the Pastor of Sunset Covenant Church in Oregon.  Rev. Putera is also working on her doctorate with the European Graduate School in the division of Arts, Health and Social Change.

God is Living Artist ever creating us, living artistry of God. 

           

To “offer oneself”, to bring and give freely of who one is, in a foreign context, amidst the complex circumstances of recent systemic trauma, ongoing societal struggles and the emerging qualities of resilience, is to give in to God’s call to be vulnerable. I am going, and I struggle with going.  I struggle to settle into vulnerability.  Make no mistake, going is a constant wrestling for me, until my feet pass through security, and then surrender is the only option.

In 3 weeks I will return to Nepal as a trainer and teacher of Expressive Art Therapy and Community Art Practice.  As a pastor, part of my call is to bring word of God reaching out to the world.  God reaches out to the world as the Living Artist, reminding us all of the inherent beauty residing in each of us as “imago Dei”. As theologian Garcia-Rivera points out, the Greek word for “beauty” has two forms; hallos (noun) which means to call, and Kalon (adj) which means “the called” (1999) Garcia-Rivera expands this definition writing; “Theological aesthetics attempts to make clear once again the connection between Beauty and the beautiful, between Beauty’s divine origins and its appropriation by the human heart”(1999).

To submit to this truth, is to learn to rest in the vulnerability of being subject to God’s forming hand in me and through me.

As a volunteer serving in a foreign country, I am linguistically incompetent, way-finding challenged, and utterly in need of a cultural mentor to translate for me the mores and folkways abounding in the midst of every interaction.  Whatever expertise I have been invited to share, is in need of major reconstruction, on the fly, in the midst of a new and challenging, culturally different circumstance. I need help! 

I am not alone.

The people in Nepal who have extended invitation also are vulnerable.  Something is happening amidst the people which requests support from others to fully emerge.  Sadhana Thapa and Reeta Bomjan the founders of Expressive Arts Nepal, have identified the emerging presence and gift of Expressive Art and Community Art in their country as pathways and practices that are life giving to Nepali people. I do not go to introduce Expressive Art and Community Art practice as if it is something completely new to the people of Nepal. I go to facilitate and share in culturally meaningful experiences of engaging creatively with the circumstances life people in Nepal are enduring and moving through to find greater peace.  I bring these experiences as opportunities for re-enlivening what is already in the hearts of humanity. 

This is the very essence for me of being “imago DEI” formed in the image, the active ability of being a living witness to who God is.  God is Living Artist ever creating us to be living artistry of God.  Going to Nepal, is like standing on Mount Everest and saying God I am in great need and vulnerable to your hand of grace, mercy and artistry. God help me.  It is also to sit before God in prayer for the Nepali people. How I pray that God would MOVE, enlivening the people in Nepal through art making. As a pastor, this is the vulnerability of Worship as I comprehend it thus far.  I will surrender more deeply into the love of God for me and for all people, in three weeks, with the help of God. The wrestling will stop, I will get on the plane, and the work of God will begin. 

Amen Amen, please pray it is so.

Please considering funding this trip by contributing today:

http://www.gofundme.com/hoperisingamidstne. 

Volunteering: A Giving in to the sharing, in Nepal

Volunteering: A Giving in to the sharing, in Nepal

            When the title hits first, it is like receiving an “intrusive word”,  an obnoxious perhaps, announcement of a beautiful gift becoming.  We shall see how this title that has found me, moves.

In September I will return to Nepal as a volunteer offering training in Expressive Arts Therapy and Community Art practice to Nepali nationals who serve as humanitarian workers, community outreach and development specialists, social activists and care providers.   The training and coaching offered is freely given, with the help of many friends who have and will donate funds to http://www.gofundme.com/hoperisingamidstne. 

To “offer oneself” though, to bring and give freely of who one is, in a foreign context, amidst the complex circumstances of recent systemic trauma, ongoing societal struggles and the emerging qualities of resilience, is to become vulnerable. 

As a volunteer serving in a foreign country, I am a cultural stranger, linguistically incompetent, way-finding challenged, and utterly in need of a cultural mentor to translate for me the mores and folkways abounding in the midst of every interaction.  Simply put, whatever expertise I have been invited to share, is in need of major reconstruction, on the fly, in the midst of a new and challenging culturally different circumstance. I need help! 

I am not alone.

The people in Nepal who have extended invitation also are vulnerable, experiencing a need.  Something is happening amidst the people that requires support from others to fully emerge.  Sadhana Thapa and Reeta Bomjan the founders of Expressive Arts Nepal, have identified the emerging presence and gift of Expressive Art and Community Art in their country as pathways and practices that are life giving to Nepali people.   This has been true in all human society for all times.  I do not go to introduce Expressive Art and Community Art practice as if it is something completely new to the people of Nepal. I go  to bring culturally meaningful experiences of engaging creatively with the circumstances and conditions of life people in Nepal are enduring and moving through.  I bring these experiences as opportunities for re-enlivening what is already in the hearts of humanity.  We are all formed and informed, embodied creatures possessing instinctual, innate ability to creatively meet life.  We can always work to sense and imagine what more Truth, Goodness, Love and Beauty can be brought into this world through us for the healing of all living Creation.  This is the very essence for me of being “imago DEI” formed in the image, the active ability of living as witness to who God is.  This is for me what it means to live into my faith in God and living as faithful witnessing of God’s sacred and Loving existence.

It is indeed the volunteering in Nepal, the giving into the sharing, in vulnerability with Nepali people, that makes way for Beauty to become amongst us and the miraculous to appear.

The anthropologist Victor Turner describes this as entering liminal space, a time out of time, where we leave behind, detach from our “fixed” identities, knowledge, social status, community conditions, public face, power, prestige and hierarchies and bring to the place who we are. We come as people volunteering to be vulnerable, open to experiencing one another anew through embodied presence while sharing what gifts we have in the art of making. We enter liminal space willingly seeking something new and helpful, even hopeful and transformative of us all, individually and a s a group.

As I prepare to return soon to Nepal, I know that my volunteering will provide opportunity for giving in to the shared vulnerability of walking on land that resounds its current rumblings visually. Volunteering is opportunity to give in to sharing in the sense of physical and emotional vulnerability one cannot avoid as one walks through Nepal’s crumbled history that resides now in heaps of stone crying out in memorial of what was. There is no doubt that sharing time and space with Nepali people in art making will include sharing in their expressions of grief, loss, fear, anguish and struggle. And yet as has been demonstrated repeatedly, being together vulnerably in expressive, improvisational art making, gives rise to something so much more than pain! Dr. Brene Brown in a recent interview stated, “We associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid such as fear, shame and uncertainty.  Yet we too often loose sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, belonging and creativity”.  This is indeed what comes forward when we settle into our senses and let art making lead us!

            Expressive Arts and Community Art practice have demonstrated great efficacy as processes that facilitate recovery, resilience, renewal of imagination and hope in the midst of working through trauma.

Expressive Art and Community Art practice engage humanity through low skill high sensitivity processes that are accessible to anyone regardless of prior experience in any artistic modality.  All people who enter the liminal space of artistic play and discovery can participate in contributing to the art piece that is emerging.

In the experience of making art in liminal space, this other worldly environment away from trauma, a bridge to the potential for rekindling of internal resources and resiliency skills that bring people through traumatic events can emerge in art making and be brought back into everyday life.  Yes indeed, volunteering is a giving in to the sharing of Expressive Arts and Community Art practice as opportunity for Nepali people to imagine what beauty may come in Nepal.

Please consider sharing in the work of supporting the emerging beauty in Nepal.

My Ten Days in Nepal are Coming Soon!

10 Days Coming Soon!

Yes my ten days in Nepal are coming soon. And there are many questions upon my heart.  How will it be to be in Nepal now? My experiences, will they be like before and after photos etched upon my heart, of an earthquake that happened in between?  I do not know.  I will share upon my return. 

I find myself full of gratitude to God for the timing of this trip.  My friends in Nepal have been working so hard to support one another and the people in their country severely impacted by earthquakes.  To go and provide five days in Expressive Arts therapy training, will also provide caregivers opportunity to receive care. Expressive Art and Community art practice provide human beings an opportunity to decenter from present life’s dilemmas and struggles and focus on our common human ability for bringing forth artistry.  For a little while in this practice we can set aside the difficult things that confront us in everyday life and engage in art making that captivates our senses, engages our imaginations and revives and enlivens in us an experience of satisfaction, strength, beauty and even hope.  What is gained in the art making is often reminders of personal strengths, new found abilities, increased capacity for resilience, and willingness to trust oneself to navigate what emerges in life with sensitivity, grace, courage and self mastery.   

When people experience trauma, the body stores the experience.  Memories are made in muscles, in minds, in emotions, and bio-chemical processes. Engaging in art making has the potential to transform our understandings, imprints and impacts of traumatic events and unleash the places in ones body that become subject to the powerful presence of traumatic memory.  It is my hope and prayer that in accompanying Nepali care givers, humanitarian workers and community workers, their healing will come where it is needed, capacity for resiliency strengthened, transforming beauty will be experienced and ever greater Hope will emerge. 

Living Artistry is what human community has potential to be! We are capable of meeting our everyday with a sensitivity that allows all that is Holy and Sacred and LIFE GIVING to emerge in and through us.  We are formed THIS beautifully, fearfully, wonderfully! In communion with one another, in communion with God, Beauty emerges, beautifully.

Please, will you join with me in supporting not just recovery in Nepal, but even more so the imagining of the future in the people and land of Nepal.

Please donate today!

www.gofundme.com/hoperisingamidstne

You may also send your tax deductible support to: 
Sunset Covenant Church with NEPAL written in the memo.
And Addressed to:
Sunset Covenant Church
18555 NW Rock Creek Blvd, Portland, OR 97229