More about Time, Habits and Procrastination.

This is Saturday, my day off. I have no work to do, but I do have lots of housework that needs doing, as well as knitting and iconography. Instead of doing anything useful, I'm on my computer, playing on Facebook. Facebook, all social media, really, has become a time sucking habit for me, another way of procrastinating.

I know that procrastinating is a sign of a deeper issue - psychologically speaking, I procrastinate for several possible, rather passive-aggressive, reasons: I don't want, or fear, to do something, so I do something else instead.  I value my short term pleasure more than my long term goal achievement. I fear failure, so I don't even begin.  When procrastination becomes a habit, a veritable way of life, then there must be a deeper reason why I have to drag myself kicking and screaming to do some very basic chores, or to get ready for work.  As I turn this over in my mind, I wonder if this is the scenario: I procrastinate on doing chores because a well kept house would clear my mind.  Part of the clutter in my house resides in my brain as clutter. If my brain was free, then I'd have to consider why I procrastinate about doing the more soul satisfying things, like painting icons, reading, and praying.

That's it!  That is the underlying issue - iconography.

My teacher, Marek, has a student who made tee shirts which says, "Iconography is Hard Work!" and it's true.  It is actually physically difficult and at the end of a long day of painting, there are knotted neck and shoulder muscles, and physical exhaustion. It is also mentally and emotionally hard work, with the intense focus needed. That focus cannot be maintained when there are many undone tasks nagging at your consciousness.

But it is the spiritual work of iconography that is hardest of all.  When painting, or writing, if you will, an icon, the iconographer meets that saint in a very intimate way.  You are confronted with holiness which inspires and also convicts. A completed icon is often called a window to heaven, a way of piercing that veil between the seen and unseen, between this world and the next.  To this iconographer, though, an icon in progress is more of a mirror, forcing me to confront my own sinfulness and inadequacies.  My interior life, the lies I tell myself, are reflected back to me on the board, and I have no choice but to deal with them.  It is so much more than a method of painting. It forces me to look upon that which is the eternal good, and I'm convicted. In the board and the slow reveal of the saint, I am also revealed.  It is a mirror and I look upon myself, my true self, with every wart that I usually convince myself is not really there.

Iconography is, indeed, hard work, and I've put it off for too long.  Forget the housework.  I'm spending this afternoon letting an icon in progress teach me something about myself, even if it hurts.