What should I do now?

I am learning  more from my friend and teacher this week than simply about the practical how-to of painting an icon (though there really is nothing simple about it!).  I am learning how to pray and how simply to be. Iconography, after all, is a way of praying with the hands.  As I am completely new to this art form, I have hung on Randi's every word and direction, even if I have, at times, forgotten to apply the technique she demonstrated only moments ago.

Painting an icon requires much waiting and, therefore, patience. Maybe this is true of all painting - because one coat has to dry before another can be added. And, since I am one of six in the class, we are not always on the same rhythm or timetable.

In one of the moments of down-time where I was waiting for one coat to dry and also for instructions as to what came next, I asked my teacher the simple and obvious question: what should I do now?

And she gave me just as simple and obvious an answer: meditate.

It is obvious because that is the point of it all... To meditate on the goodness and beauty of God through these illumined images of saints and Angels. So why didn't I think of that? I guess it's because even while on sabbatical and while taking a week to slow down and pray, I am programmed to think I must be doing something productive at every moment.

Meditate! What a novel thing to try and do, at rest and at work ... while painting, playing, and perhaps most importantly, at transitional times such as waiting for the next thing to happen but yet not knowing what that next thing might be.

When I wonder what I should be doing - even when this icon class has ended - I hope I remember her answer. And, better yet, that I practice it, not because it makes me more productive, but because it makes me a better - and more present - me.