I spent all of last week at Union Theological Seminary at their Gettysburg campus. There were about 25 of us. We spent the whole week going through my book, The Liberation of Sophia that contains 59 of my Sophia drawings, each one accompanied by a reflection.
I was amazed at how deep we went so quickly.
On the second day, one of the men approached me and said he needed to talk to me.
Now, I don’t know about you, but in the past when this has happened, I’ve always been nervous and on my guard because it often wasn’t good. I feared he was going to confront me about the fact that Sophia is naked, or that it sounds like a woman wrote it, or that I was being too touchy-feely or something.
Instead, he was so moved by Sophia as well as my own vulnerability in sharing her story that he wanted to get vulnerable and share a story from his own life that he has never told anyone before except his therapist.
He broke the dam wall, and from then on we operated at a very deep level of vulnerability, honesty, and love.
It was really quite beautiful, emotional, and healing.
This is something I love about art. It can break rational defences, melt cold hearts, and open closed minds. It can make us laugh, cry, think, and feel. It can open our yes to see new things or old things in a new way, and open our mouths to share our deepest secrets, needs, and desires.
I saw it happen right before my eyes.
What is wonderful to me about all this is that I cannot claim possession of Sophia. She was a gift, somehow, that I was privileged to manifest through my drawing and writing.
She shares herself in this way so that I am Sophia, but so are the others who resonate with her. They are Sophia too.
It was in this kind of creative and mystical union of Sophia that we let our guard down and became real with one another.
Many of the participants told me they were taking Sophia back with them and getting the book or prints and putting them in their homes and offices and therapy rooms so that others could resonate with her and open up too.
What has Sophia meant to you?
How are YOU Sophia?
