Art in Spiritual Retreat

Welcome to our latest blog post. This is part 2 of our interview with Cristy Dagenais, a student campus Minister with InterVarsity. In this part, Cristy shares some great insights into her personal retreat and how the arts are an integral part of her spiritual formation.

DV: You went on a spiritual retreat. Yes. Not too long ago this summer. Tell us a little bit more about that, where it was, and why you came to that, that idea that you needed to do something.

CD: Okay, so first off, I would say that for years of my life, I have been in the practice of doing retreats. So, this wasn't a brand new thing. I would usually try to retreat, a couple of times a year, just to come back to me and God, you know, simple, like no other demands, just me and God.  I do have this internal alarm clock that goes off that says, “Mmm, some things are not feeling right.” That was definitely ringing for me as I finished off the spring term. Around April, May is usually when I start hearing that alarm bell go off. So I thought summer is a great time for me to retreat, let's just call up Ellel Ministries in Westport (Ontario, Canada). I have a long-standing history with them and worked there for multiple years, so they're like family to me. There was a lot of spiritual formation that happened in my life when I lived and served there. Sometimes when you go back to spaces that have been important in your life, it's helpful, right? So, that was part of that intentionality to go. It's just beautiful, and it's a real set-apart place. I learned about the importance of retreating and finding God in beautiful places there.

So, fast forward, I called them up, I said, “Can I come and do a day of creativity? You don't have to be with me, I just need the space.” “Sure, come on over.” So, I went over and I felt like there was definitely a lot of those unprocessed emotions that I needed space to be felt and expressed. A thought came the night before I was packing: what do I bring? I was looking through this one photo book, and I saw a picture of this very simple Calla lily. Of all the pictures, that was the one that seemed to speak to me. I was like, “Oh, God, what do you want to say to me through this picture?” And the word was, “Received.” I thought, I can see that, when it rains a Calla lily receives the water, it sort of cupped. I'll hold that and see if God wants to build on that tomorrow. So, I put the book in my bag and a few other books and things that I might do in the creativity. I didn't go with any agenda. I didn't have a project I wanted to do to be creative. Ellel has a set up a creativity room.

So I arrived and got settled in and went down to the dock, seeing the sunset, watching the sun on the water. I went for a swim that night because it was hot. The experience of nature really plays a part in how I feel God present with me. No specific word or “aha” moment needs to come. It's just being with God. I just felt like, I'm here, I'm experiencing your beauty, and what you have created.

The next morning woke up and went into the creativity room with my Calla Lily. I said to God, “What are we going to do with this?” And I just felt like starting with just drawing. Honestly, I hadn't drawn in a long time, so this could go poorly! I remind myself I'm not filtering things, this isn't about productivity, this isn't about like what it looks like at the end. This is about me just being with God and leaning in. He highlighted this picture, and he told me the word “receive,” and I want to receive what he wants to give me. And so, I just sat down, got some pencil crayons and just started to sketch out this Calla lily. And the way that I can explain it, there was no huge download or anything like that. I was just doing it, but it was peaceful. It was wonderful just to be able to visually meditate on something that God has made for like an hour. Right? Like, if I just tried to go outside and look at something for an hour, I'd never last! I'm a little too much of a doer to do that. I can't sit that long, although I do love nature. But, in that moment, it's like God is a creator; I want to create too, so I'm inspired to just try.

Calla Lily

Finishing the drawing, I felt, you know what? It's not horrible; it looks like a Calla lily. What happened after was the real beauty. I had spent about an hour just meditating and being creative, as God is creator, again, it's being with God, right? I then started to realize all these different emotions, mostly of loss, started to come up. And I was like, oh. I've stopped and been with God long enough that I can feel this, and I feel safe enough that I can express it. I can let it out. And then what was beautiful is I was just sitting on one of the Adirondack chairs, you know, again, looking at a beautiful scene. And then the rain starts to fall. And all of a sudden, I'm like, God's weeping with me. Hmm, I'm not alone. So, we are just weeping together sitting on the Adirondack chair, and I was able to get to places of processing loss that I hadn't

been able to before.

I love journaling as well. So, I'm writing out the things I'm realizing, naming things that have been hard. I journal just as if I'm talking to God out loud, no filter, just pen to paper. As I looked back over it, I started to see these keywords, things I really felt God was saying to me, even as I was processing the emotions.

DV: You are talking about being in his place with God, sensing that God is now bringing up something for you. You said, “I’d sat long enough with Him, that I was able to feel these things.” And I think God does that. Right. He pulls the mirror up when we give him time so that, then you're able to express loss. And we also talked, you know, in your work with students about the importance of expressing those emotions as well. The question that came to me is, how important do you think self-expression is in spiritual formation?

CD: I think it's.... I think self-expression is the way we are most honest with God. If God. made each of us with a completely different fingerprint with the uniqueness factors that make us, us. I have to believe that there's like deep and intrinsic value in that uniqueness. And although there's lots of things that bring us together as humans, we're all going to be, touched or moved by certain things. I think to give space to the ways that you uniquely see the world, what you are uniquely drawn to and what you’re motivated by are what makes your heart jump, if you want to put it that way. To me, those are like the most precious parts of you because God sees them and knows them the most. He put them there. Yeah. So, when we start giving those parts of us the time of day, God's like, “Oh, good, you're seeing those really cool things I put in you,” right? And so. So that's why I think when you're creating space for people to experience God through creativity, it has to be open enough that it allows for each person to interact with God through their unique selves. There might be some barriers to people doing that, right? Like, there might be some healing that needs to happen before they even find those places and spaces of themselves. Art can actually help them get through that healing part, too. I think the unique factor is very important in spiritual formation. And I also think that you don't have to start there because otherwise it would be sort of unreachable for people.

DV: Okay, good. So, you don't have to start with problems or anything with spiritual formation (laughs).

CD: No, it should be fun.

DV: So you could just start with art!

CD: Yeah. For some people, it's like, can you get messy, can you allow yourself to try something knowing that you could fail at what you're trying? But that's okay. Like, that could be huge and extremely terrifying.

DV: Right. I think that's what puts a lot of people off doing art is fear failure. And yet that's something that we have to experience. Even in my own practice, that was a reoccurring thing for me that I had to push through. It's like, well, this isn't good enough, I can't show anybody this or, what happens if I start this piece and it doesn't work out, you know? And it was the fear of failure that stopped me even from getting started.

And I found the same thing, actually, when I when I was when I first started learning fencing as a sport is that I found that I had this idea that I what I wanted to do, but then I found that I actually wasn't fit enough, capable enough or skilled enough to do it to the level that my imagination was. So I was faced with wanting to give up because “I'm not good enough.” And “it's too hard.”

You face all of these barriers and then you just keep pushing through and you keep pushing through. And it's the same with our art practices, we keep pushing through it. I think that's a good character building thing and I think that's part of what spiritual formation is. Spiritual formation is part of building our character to become like the character of Christ, because that, ultimately is the goal for spiritual formation. Some people may disagree with me on that, but I think becoming like Jesus is the ultimate goal of spiritual formation. And so, we have to face those limitations that we have, and push through those.

CD: Well, and if I could say something to that, if the ultimate goal is becoming like Christ through our formation, so much of his example is to empty yourself. And essentially, in one sense, success for Jesus isn't what we often have in our heads because of what the world says success is. But rather it's; can you be faithful to give yourself to this process? Or can you be faithful to show up and make space to be with me? I think just redefining success will help people get through fear of failure, Becoming like Christ is being able to be messy and be a mess, because you sort of are, you know, so you might as well be one.

DV: But an accepted mess! So when you when you were looking at going into this season of retreat, did you have a purpose in mind? You already alluded to the fact that you get that kind of angsty feeling that, “hey, something needs to happen here.” So, you kind of have an impetus there, but did you have a purpose in mind that I want to achieve this, or was that something that you discovered in the place of retreat. How do the two work? Are you a goal oriented person in life, and does that apply to your spiritual formation?

CD: Ooh, that's a good question. Yeah. So, I am very much a goal oriented person. On the Enneagram, I am a three. So I am the achiever. But I've had years of creating, allowing myself to not be driven by goals all the time. Or to think “trajectory” rather than a “goal” with results. Often within my spiritual formation, I would hit failure because I had a rigid goal that expected these results. Over time, I realized is I can be more kind to myself. And I can still be participating in what I feel is the purpose or trajectory that Jesus has me on, right?

And so to get back to your question about, did I have purpose going into this retreat? I think, yes, because in general, over the years of retreating, I've always had purpose, the more I am with God, the more I can be like him. That in itself is enough for me to be dedicated to go and find space to be with him, because I know on the other side of doing that and giving myself to that, oftentimes, there is greater clarity or a specific goal or purpose, that he then gives me.

Being at the retreat, I'd spent some good time journalling and felt like there were some real key words coming out for me that I needed to hold on to and a song that was giving words to what I had experienced. I really felt like God was giving me a more honed purpose for being there. That honed purpose was; you don't have to put your creativity on the shelf and come back to it only in the summer. You know, I had done this a couple years now and I had felt like, wow, this is really great. But then I go and live like a crazy person essentially, just doing the demands of life. We all have them, right? Like demands ministry, caring for lots of people, right? And essentially what God was saying is to me through this whole experience at the retreat was, you've done a great job, like finding me through this meditation and art and expression. Don't stop now! Don't feel like you have to put it in a box because you don't have time for it. But rather, I want you to figure out, even if it's just little ways, find some way to connect with me regularly like this.

The lyrics in the song were, you're almost home now. Please don't quit now. You're almost home to me. And I just felt in that moment, it was like this surge of motivation. It's like, I need to be home with God all the time, or at least be getting there, you know, like, I don't want this to go back into a box and to try and be practical and get everything done, almost like detaching myself from my uniqueness, my creative expression. It’s like detaching myself from my very first and best way to connect with God. How do you do ministry if you're not well connected with God? We've all done it. But we end up having a limp, dragging ourselves through.

I think God was giving me a glimpse into; If this works for you, yes, and what if it worked for, all the people you serve? What if you give yourself to connecting with me through artistic expression more, and you get to bring that into how you’re mentoring and discipling and that ends up being like a big key for them as they connect with God? What if we're no longer compartmentalizing our life, but actually integrating all of the things that God's put into us into, into our ministry, into our academics, into the mundane things of life, into whatever it is that we find ourselves doing around the clock? I was like, sign me up for that!

DV: So do you think a takeaway for your retreat, this time round was an invitation to integrate your creativity, that creative side of you, that impetus, that you have to be creative. Because I know that you're a visual artist, you paint and you draw, but you're also a musician as well, you play drums and you've been in a band. So there's that whole aspect of your persona, that has that impulse to create and express through those kind of physical means. Would I be writing in saying that there was an invitation for you to bring that creative impulse into more areas of your life, and to help others to explore that?

CD: Yeah, exactly. If you are a leader, what you experience can trickle down and that goes both ways. The good and the bad, right? For me, it's like, it was an invitation, but it was an invitation that had so much pull. It was like, I want to do this, I need to do this, I need accountability to do this. I left that retreat being like something was lit. And, um, you know, so I gave myself a goal. I'm getting an art studio setup in my house before the end of the summer. It will be functional, I will be able to walk in there, just pick up something and do something, it's all set up for me, and I'm getting somewhere because it's just good time with God. Right? And so, the goal oriented person clicked in! But I think that's in the right order. Yeah. Because I've been with God rather than like, “I must be with God.” Really it was actually in giving myself to not having an agenda that helped me find and connect with God in a way that I felt alive again, right? And then from there, I'm like, I need this. And so, I will get goal oriented in order to keep this.

This is a piece that encapsulates the retreat.

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This was such an inspiring interview with some great insights. If you want to hear more, I will be starting a companion podcast on the Arts in Spiritual Formation. You will be able to listen to the entire interview and subscribe, so you won't miss the next one.

I'd love to hear your comments and insights on the arts and spiritual formation. Let's keep the conversation going.

God Bless.