Synopsis
The author rediscovered a powerful sense of God calling her to a more real spiritual life through her artistic work with clay in the Pendle Hill studio. Photographs and devotions record that experience.
About the Author(s)
Elizabeth (Lisa) Ostrander Sutton, longtime Quaker, was a full-time participant in Pendle Hill’s resident program in 1996-98. Her courses stimulated the experiences that she described in her Pendle Hill pamphlet. The prayer class taught her “centering prayer” – one method for focusing one’s intentional time with God. Other spiritual practices were reading a devotional book, God Calling, walking and writing. These practices enriched the regular attendance at meeting for worship. Out of these practices, she kept a spiritual journal as a daily record of the spiritual awakening she began to experience. She filled this journal with first-time responses to reading the Gospels and letters of Paul. Passages of scripture haunted her and writing helped her to understand those feelings. She also worked in the arts studio, resuming an interest in clay and creativity. Consuming experiences with the clay sent her to the journal as well. Writing and being with the clay gave her practice with the faith process. Writing became a powerful form of prayer as was being with the clay, creating sacred ground. Her pamphlet is the gift of her prayer. Since leaving Pendle Hill, Lisa has worked to sustain the practices that nurture faith in her work as a teacher of students who learn differently. She is convinced that conscious spiritual practices are integral to a life lived sacramentally and faithfully and that a life centered in God is accessible to anyone, anywhere.
Pendle Hill Pamphlet #346
