Creating Faithfully from “ONEING: Art and Spirituality” 

This article is from the newest issue of the Center for Action and Contemplation’s biannual journal, ONEING. Both the limited-print edition and the downloadable PDF version of “ONEING: Art and Spirituality” are available now in our online bookstore.   

I step into the room. I light the candle and raise the shades. Sunny, the black and orange cat that I found hiding in the sunflower garden last year, rounds the corner and greets me with her five consecutive meows. She sounds particularly dehydrated but very happy to see me. I pause to scratch the top of her head and let her out the door. I look over at my backpack sitting on the printing press. It is overstuffed and heavy. Beside it are a coffee mug, canteen of water, brochure on a neighboring property for sale, my car keys, and two packages from the back porch. I carried all this through the door, at once, and I think to myself, “Scott, you are doing too much.”  

I am an artist. This building, where Sunny lives, is my studio. I came here today to create, but I don’t know how or why. I have interest and ability in many disciplines, therefore there are several rooms in my studio where different forms of creating happen. I especially love painting, though. I love it like I love breathing air. It gives me life. My relationship with it is complex. When I am painting, I can experience moments of ease where I completely forget myself and become lost in the rhythm of the work. Other times, I can find myself deep in process, crippled with doubt and wondering, “What in the world are you doing?” or “What is the use in this? No one is going to get it.” Even darker at times, I can tell myself: “This is stupid, you are a hack, and you should quit.”  

Painting is like living, though. An idea is born, an invitation accepted, and a devotion sustained in a mysterious gift of joy and suffering, from its inception to its end. It is in the deepest and darkest moments of this mystery that I may feel the heaviest of doubts, but I long to create faithfully. To create faithfully, I am asked to follow an idea into darkness, not knowing where it will go or what may come of me. To enter into this mysterious exchange is faith itself. But today I doubt my purpose, and a feeling of despair rushes over me.  

A memory of a young boy comes to mind. He steps out of the safety of his lighted room and into the dark unknown of the hallway. It is late at night, and he has heard a noise. He recalls a scary story that he heard his father telling his mother. His world feels unsafe, and there is no telling what will happen to him. He hadn’t thought about this before now, but at the age of seven, he has begun to know something different. Up until now, there was no end to the love that he understood. There were no questions about what he was to do or who he was to be. Every moment was eternity, and every distance was infinite. Something is teetering now, and the black abyss between him and the safe arms of his parents shows no mercy. In a way, it shows nothing at all. Now, there are endings to everything he understands, except this dreadful darkness before him. This is awful, and there seems to be no way around it.  

Here in the studio, the directions I can go are endless. The ocean of images and sounds is bottomless. The list of tools to make a single mark is infinite. All of this to say one thing, “I am.” I have created many forgettable works under different proclamations: “I will,” “I want,” “I can,” “I should,” and “I need to” are a few that come to mind. These are the echoes of a world obsessed with “doing it right.” I jump in and try my hand at this rightness, but I cease to exist in these moments. I disappear into aspiration and become a stranger to myself and God. In a word, I leave. When I return, however, I arrive in the present. I catch a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. I am actually invited to do this at every moment, but I slip away again and again. I hide from God, behind my proclamations, until I consent once again, and all these claims fade into the eternal “I am.” It is the “I am a child of God” “I am.” Everything I do hinges on this very truth.  

Another memory of the boy comes to mind. He is in the forest searching for critters: a frog, a crawdad, or even the coveted king snake. As he searches, he finds himself upside down, over the creek, with his arm as far under a rock as he can reach. His entire left arm disappears into the mud. He feels around in the creek sludge for something moving. I have chills thinking about doing this myself. What will bite him? Will his arm get stuck? There is no telling, but he has forgotten about the dangers in the presence of purpose. This eternal thread of purpose is his very lifeline. Nothing matters, not even catching the snake, even though catching the snake is the very activity he is engaged in. He has become, once again, what he has always been: a child of God. The boy dissolves into the leaf-covered mossy creek bed and becomes one with the forest. Somehow, he is more real the more he disappears.  

Here in the studio, the directions I can go are endless. The ocean of images and sounds is bottomless. The list of tools to make a single mark is infinite. All of this to say one thing, ‘I am.’

Scott Avett

The woods that he becomes part of are the same woods that I ran in as a child. My father bought this acreage with money that he earned as a welder back in the 1980s. I own the deed to this land now. How I make a living pays for the taxes on this property. Am I working today for that reason — to make a living? Do I need to be productive in this moment to secure the well-being of my family and our possessions? Sounds like critical work. A choice that matters. I want to be lost in my work, like the boy, but it’s impossible to forget myself when making a living feels urgent. I decide to protest by sitting in my chair and praying.  

I am instantly distracted with the urge to get busy. Thoughts bounce back and forth, and I feel a sense of shame and inadequacy. I am here to work, but I am completely distracted by my habitual neurotic tendencies. I start obsessing about some wrong that has been done. I feel a particular disdain for the systems in which I operate: the schools, corporations, churches, neighborhoods, and families. These systems all contain hypocrisy, like me, but I look to identify them as challengers. I think of them as the culprits in my stagnation. The presence of this idea intensifies the questions. Why are you doing this? How are you to do this? Where does this fit in? In the balance of creating faithfully and making a living, perhaps the question was never, “Why am I doing this?” but, instead, “For whom am I doing this?” 

I think of Jesus Christ: how he spoke, what he said, and how he lived in this broken world with a body that would be broken and destroyed too. I contemplate Jesus’ identity. I consider how he knew exactly who he was. I think that this truth, alone, separates him from us. I can see how this knowing of who one is can be the most loving truth one can offer. I consider what this means to me. Jesus’ life shows me who to be when I have lost direction, a way to do an impossible thing. This unconditional love provides me with eternal companionship. The realization that one is never alone is the seed from which true freedom grows.  

I often try to avoid solitude. I work, I play, I prepare, I clean, I talk, I dine, I shop, I exercise, and so on. It is true that all these things are necessary, but when the dust has settled from all my hyperactivity, I am faced once again with solitude. This time alone is the fertile ground where I cultivate my purpose. My contribution is my engagement in it. This studio is my cloister. To pray is to be drawn nearer to my existence. The only control I have is to show up and respond. I build from this simple idea.  

Creating faithfully is not knowing how to do it. It is believing that it is worth doing.

Scott Avett

I am alone today, but what good is solitude without purpose? I long for more direction, but the indicators from outside myself are weighed down with expectations. These expectations have no place here. My purpose is to create, but I can’t force it into place. I aim for truth, but my own awareness of it destroys its purity. I long to create faithfully, rather than successfully, productively, intelligently, or even truthfully. Creating faithfully is not knowing how to do it. It is believing that it is worth doing. This leaves me looking to forget myself and to unlearn all the rules and realities that swirl around in my mind. I long to dissolve into my work like the boy in the forest. The only remedy in this moment is to act, but on what?  

And so I fall in aspiration, and I rise back up in humility. The truth is mysterious, but always there. God ushers me closer to it. With this, I accept everything. This includes unchangeable suffering as well as the responsibility to address unjust and healable suffering. In the end, I simply hope to be obedient to who I am, a child of God, and not what I do, a “contender of men.” With this, I replace the anxiety-ridden aspirations of arrival with peace in a true being. This is who I am in Christ and who Christ is in me. I will contend among people, but I will do it knowing that it is temporal. What a precious revelation. Simply put, to create faithfully is to be me.  

Ideas gather and call out to me. I greet each one, being as childlike as possible. I accept this liberating sonship. I empty my heart and my mind, and I gaze. I can see all the terrible beauty that surrounds me. The smell of the forest, where life and death make way for each other constantly. The Sun that traces bright shapes on the paint-splattered wood floor, warmth for the cat to bask in. The same shapes that were painted pale blue by the silent moon at the wretched hour of the wolves. I see the mysterious fog and crystal beads of dew at morning’s return. The gnarly eastern cedar with the funny baritone voice. The sincerity in the sheep’s eyes. The oily black rooster named Pikachu, limping across the farmyard. Marek’s Disease will take his life within a week. He, with his single purpose: to eat and drink.  

Ideas gather and call out to me. I greet each one, being as childlike as possible. I accept this liberating sonship. I empty my heart and my mind, and I gaze.

Scott Avett

I see and hear all these creations, ever-changing, ever proclaiming the glory of God. This is love, not happiness. This is joy, not health. This is truth, not history. I ask myself, “What do I do?” and I answer with the only thing I know. “Act like God. Trust that you are being you. Trust that truth and love are inseparable. Trust that this single moment is that very truth.”  

My words fail to describe it, and I am riddled with brokenness. “How do I love you?” I ask. All I can do is listen. I long to accept the next invitation. The glow of a white panel faces me. Now I know where these hours are to be spent. This was all that I was asking. Every other question was answered when I was asked, “Are you willing to accept that who you are is, and always has been, enough?” And I answered … “I am.”  

Established in 2013, ONEING is the biannual journal of the Center for Action and Contemplation. Renowned for its diverse and deep exploration of mysticism and culture, ONEING is grounded in Richard Rohr’s teachings and wisdom lineage. Each issue features a themed collection of thoughtfully curated essays and critical perspectives from spiritual teachers, activists, modern mystics, and prophets of all religions. 

Scott Avett is a founding member of The Avett Brothers, and an accomplished visual artist. He attended East Carolina University, where he studied journalistic broadcasting and painting. Scott resides in North Carolina with his wife and three children. To learn more about Scott Avett, visit www.scottavett.com.