Art House North

In May 1998, I requested a year leave from the school where I was teaching - I actually tried to quit, but Principal Clausen offered me a leave instead, a grace-time that made the transition from high school teacher to troubadour sound more reasonable. Troy left his job a few months later, and we were off. There are no words to describe that time. If Troy and I were Hansel and Gretel, the breadcrumbs were loaves, plentiful and littering the path. I still managed plenty of fear and doubt, but the signs were unmistakable - This Way!

A couple of years ago it dawned on me that my children did not get to witness this season in our lives. To them, we have always been out singing and playing music. I wanted them to understand the journey that brought us here, so I climbed up into the top bunk of their bed and recollected every miracle, and every moment of divine assurance along the way. The boys asked questions, and cried when I cried remembering the generosity of God, and so many friends. So, when the loaves started to show up again this winter, we did not hesitate to bring them in on it - Remember the stories we told you? Pack your bags and get ready!

But before I get to where we're going, I have to revisit one more place we've been. In 2003 we recorded a portion of The Other Side of Something at The Art House - home, studio and much more to producer Charlie Peacock and his wife (and author of one of my all time favorite books, Real Love for Real Life) Andi Ashworth. We were finishing up a much needed maternity break after the birth of our second son. We were in desperate need of a vision, a template for the whole artist life. A bit heart-numb and recovering from new-artist-itis I remember the surge of joy I felt at first seeing the Art House, church and gardens - place cultivated. Our initial conversations there left us feeling challenged and validated at the same time - it was as if something in the air was transforming our weary stories of life on the road into stories of the blessing and stewardship of storytelling. I remember walking to the car after our first visit saying, "I get it, I get it, I get it..." I'm not sure I could have recited the mission of the Art House at that moment, but Troy and I had caught a vision of the revitalization of church/place, the open-door life, and the ongoing dialogue about the way of Jesus, faith, and art.

ART HOUSE NORTH

In 2007 Troy and I came across a church for sale, and in passing I joked, "Art House North?" But it wasn't a joke, and we both started to think about what that might look like for us, and for our family. A year later we ran the idea by Charlie and Andi, who were already starting to develop ideas for an Art House in Dallas - their enthusiasm was encouraging to say the least, and we started to look for properties in earnest. It was another three year process of walking through houses, dilapidated mansions, old schools, and warehouses before finally, in January of this year, we found it - a 100 year old church in St Paul with all the right bones to become Art House North!

While the specifics of our work will be unique to this community, the heart of this Art House will be the same as the others - cultivating creative community for the common good! We have more ideas than we can bring to life, and have such an incredible group of friends and fellow artists here that will be collaborating with us as well. We are excited to add this local endeavor to our work on the road.

Of course all of our friends and neighbors want to know - what is it? What does an Art House North do? I don’t know – what can it do? I’m excited to find out, and we hope you are too.

The Mission

I've always said that my favorite movie of all-time is The Mission, but I have only seen it a few times. I was introduced to the movie when I was a sophomore in college - one of my English professors got so emotional talking about the film, I had to rent it that next weekend. I wish I could peel back the layers of what I know now so that I could remember what it was like to see it for the first time. My response to it was guttural, I remember that. I put the soundtrack on repeat in my room and grieved. (Years later my friend Sharon would say, as an aside to a conversation about human trafficking, that many times people will cry or will respond emotionally to something, and will think that they have done something about the problem. She had moved, not past emotional responses, but into a life of flesh and blood responses. I flashed back to myself face down on my comforter, bawling my eyes out when she said that.) I can't remember what exactly got to me that first time, the story is complex, but I think I saw that my life resembled the Spanish and the Portuguese more than it resembled the Guarani, or the Jesuits, and that made me feel the long distance to heaven, and the complexities of responsibility in societies.

The second time I watched it was two years later. Troy and I were going to get married, and so he thought he should see my favorite film of all-time (his was It's a Wonderful Life) I left his apartment in tears, struck again by how impossibly small love looks next to violence. That time, the silliness of war (men in wigs fighting with singing children - absurd!) was so clearly stupid, and yet at the same time, still so violent and real, with real consequences. I understood the Old Testament God that night in a way I had not yet.

I have thought about the movie many times since then, and even though I have owned it for many years, we just got around to watching it again tonight. I feel it planted in my heart (that is probably why I am blogging after mid-night). There are so many people in the world asserting power. People groups, political groups, religious groups, neighborhood associations. Everyone has their stuff, and their power-play. In my heart/nature I feel two responses - one is to quit, disengage, stop showering, and despair that the only way to take away a tiny bit of that power is to take my bit of power and walk away. But the other response/desire I feel is to take my bit of power, lay it down and follow Jesus. Truly, His way (love, forgiveness, standing with the broken-hearted) is the only way forward in deadlocks of power, misunderstanding, and anger. You really do have to lose your life to live.

Now that is a good movie. The Mission has given me twenty years of rumination and compelling heart-examination - even when I wasn't watching it!

IJM Twin Cities Benefit!

I just read this great blog about the IJM Benefit in Dallas by Abolitionist JB, and it made me excited to gather together with supporters here in the Twin Cities NEXT WEEK on May 17th for our annual IJM Benefit! JB's writes a great summary of Gary's message on the long-suffering nature of justice - "we just don't go away... ever." It is true that our friends at IJM work for endless hours to secure convictions and rescues, but there are also the more swift and miraculous results of that long work, like the recent unexpected rescue of 522 bonded slaves in Chennai, India. Local officials and IJM staff went to rescue one man, but discovered 143 families longing for freedom. This is the largest rescue in IJM's history! In the Twin Cities we will be hearing from Sharon Cohn-Wu, one of the best communicators I have ever met. If you haven't signed up, please join us! More information HERE.

Happy Birthday John Stott!

Today is John Stott's 90th birthday! A small window into his influence was captured in this 2004 New York Times Op-Ed by David Brooks. If you have never read anything from this man, may I highly recommend Basic Christianity, The Radical Disciple, or Christian Mission in the Modern World. If you have been influenced in any way by this thoughtful voice of faith, please share you thoughts or well-wishes HERE, and learn more about his great passion to support the education of pastors around the world HERE.

Today is release day for Christa Wells' new EP How Emptiness Sings. Christa is genuine, compassionate, and a very gifted writer. I got a copy of this record early, and have been taking it in song by song. I don't listen to her music, I absorb it! Here is a link to listen!

A Great Antidote to the Issues Raised in Previous Blog

Thank you for your comments and for permission to have some belly fat three children later. I would say this is one of my favorite books of all time. I read it about once a year because I think it is such an incredible blue print for real life. It is based on the Psalms of Ascents (120 - 134), and seems to speak to the whole of the human experience.

Information Overload

I just read a great article in Newsweek about the toll that a constant stream of information can take on decision making and creativity. The story is here and explains more about "information fatigue" of which I am greatly afflicted. I have been trying to embrace technology because I read a different article that said that a person's 'true age' was measured by how well they embraced technology. I'm already concealing wrinkles and fighting an uphill battle with belly fat, so I thought I could at least take some years off of my true age with some technology embracing. But now I'm finding out that sleeping with one eye open to read Twitter is actually killing the creative part of my brain. I might have to kiss my dreams of a forever-young true age good-bye. (I'm such a non-tech embrace-er that I'm not even sure how to credit this link properly, but as I said the article is in Newsweek, and the article says that the illustrations are by Matt Mahurin)