Sacred Imagination with Poems
By Emily Norton
Artist Statement
I invited the Holy Spirit to flow through me as we co-created an abstract painting together. I tried to use my time painting as a form of meditation. Then I used the spiritual practice of visio divina or “divine seeing” to gaze at it. This was my first time ever using visio divina to gaze at my own artwork. God offered me so many surprises, including inspiring me to write a poem about my painting. Over the course of several weeks, I decided to turn the painting in four different directions and used visio divina each separate time. Each different orientation of the painting offered me new spiritual insights, and new poems flowed out. These bursts of creative flow transformed my connection with God and brought a deep sense of communion and delight!
As I reflected on the synod process, the themes of “encounter, listen and discern” seemed to capture my experience with visio divina and my creative flow. It became a meditation of the synodality of the Catholic Church and invited me to honor how seeing the Catholic Church from different perspectives, just like I did for my painting, will invite new “divine seeing” and spiritual insights. We are invited to listen to the Holy Spirit speak through our sisters and brothers in Christ and better understand the life experiences and spiritual paths of others as we discern the future of the Church. This is how we walk together as a synodal people and how we co-create a the path forward with the Spirit.
This co-creation process is what I believe God is always asking us as people of faith to do in our daily lives facing personal challenges as well as in our communities as we strive to dismantle unjust systems and imagine new ways of fostering right relationship with each other and creation. We are called to build the Beloved Community, the Kin-dom of Christ here on earth, grounded in each individual’s sacredness, created in the divine image of God. Art is a gift to all that invites the artist and viewer to expand and deepen their view of the Divine as well as their understanding of their own sacredness. With our sacred imaginations, and willingness to go deep within our souls to hear the Spirit’s stirrings, we will be able to co-create the radical changes our Catholic Church and world needs today.
About the Artist
My Catholic faith is grounded in God’s unconditional love, radical inclusion of all, and accompaniment of those on the margins. Through the last 8 years of directing a Franciscan lay mission program, I have fallen in love with the Franciscan spirituality and have witnessed how intercultural ministry based on mutuality, humility and relationship-building can be transformative for individuals and communities. Faith communities focused on justice work and a collective deep listening to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit are nourishing parts of my spiritual life. I also have been drawing closer to God through immersing myself in creation and through contemplative, creative and embodied spiritual practices.
When you look at God’s creation, you quickly discover it is overflowing with color, diversity of expression and incredible beauty. God has gifted each person (self-proclaimed artist or not) that same ability to create beauty and goodness. When I allow myself to invite the Holy Spirit into my creativity, I am able to access the divine inner wisdom into the depths of my soul, co-creating with my Beloved Creator something beyond the limitations of my human mind – it comes from my heart and soul and becomes a sacred expression of the Holy.
Poetry is one of my main forms of creative expression and it has been a beautiful gift that has felt like I finally have been letting the whispers of my soul come to life on paper. It has been a transformative way of expressing my spirituality and the complex emotions that come with it as I deepen my relationship with God. I also love to draw whimsical sketches that invite the viewer to imagine a world of possibility grounded in playfulness, wonder and joy. I used to do black and white film photography and that will always be my first artistic “love” and I hope to return to it as well. Meditative painting is my latest discovery.
Besides tapping into my creative side, I love learning about different cultures, exploring new places, reading different spirituality books, playing with my nephews and niece, and going on adventures with my partner Jeff.