(This post is perhaps a Part 2, or a sister to my earlier post Exploring Video as a Contemplative Practice)
Spiritual disciplines or practices change over time. Since changing careers and locations a little more than a year ago I’ve been struggling to find the spiritual practices that are right for me now. My work/community life has its structure of morning prayer, communal meals, and space for prayerful silence, but my personal practices felt uncertain. Playing guitar was part of the answer. I had returned to playing a few years ago, and in the last year, especially as I’ve been able to do more improvisation it has increasingly been evident that this was a spiritual practice. I had also started taking more pictures, and later video. This picture taking and eventually creating videos increasingly resonated with me. It nurtured and stretched me and was revealing something to me that I still don’t really understand.
During this time I’ve also experienced a shift away from a wordy life. I used to listen to a lot of podcasts, and do quite a bit of reading. And now, I’ve whittled down my podcast listening to just a few, and am often not in the midst of reading a book. I do, however, listen to a lot more music. I’ve been intrigued to notice how my Spotify playlists are almost all music without lyrics, or with lyrics in languages I don’t understand. Sound and image are feeding me where words used to. And with these sounds and images I’m engaging much more at the level of emotion and things that I just don’t understand – and am not sure I need to understand. I’m working more intuitively, which is not ever how I would have described myself in the past.
And so I’m increasingly exploring video, and guitar, and at times bringing them together to create little soundtracks for my little videos. I was driving home the other day and the realization came to me, “I feel like I’m playing with God.” Playing, as in performing, or simply childlike playing. It feels like God is providing the elements and then I find patterns and variation and manipulate and embellish these elements. The visuals that strike my camera, and the sounds that come out of my guitar all feel like gift. And I can honor this gift by, playing with them, and bringing myself to them to shape and be shaped by them.
I will admit I seldom “understand” the things I create. I don’t always know why I shoot the video I do, or why a particular scene speaks to me. Sometimes I want to dismiss these things I’m creating as the self-indulgent jibber jabber of an amateur. I’m not entirely convinced they are not, but they also help be perceive the world and my place in it. As I told my spiritual director, I’m just trying to receive the truth that is being given to me that particular moment.
I feel kinda sheepish that the tools of my spiritual practices include a digital camera, audio interface, electric guitar(s), and audio and video editing software, but that’s what they are. Some people us pen and journal, or incense and yoga mats, and I use these things. All of these tools provide for me a window into the divine, and provide an invitation to play – to do a little divine improvisation with the Holy Trinity trio.