‘On drawing and being drawn’

Andrew Collis
Mountain Sunday, Season of Creation B
Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 48:1-11; Luke 9:28-36

In January I had the opportunity to visit lutruwita/Tasmania (Launceston and Hobart) for the first time. Highlights included walking and drawing in the Tamar Valley, at Cataract Gorge where stone boulders are considered ancient sentinels, and at kunanyi/Mount Wellington, a dolerite mountain type rising more than 1200 metres above sea level.

Walking with friends is a joyful thing …

My interest in drawing is more and more about the experience of a place – the visual and aural, geological and textural features, scents and sense … encompassing, atmospheric … how to draw that?

First Peoples call it Country – it’s more than landscape.

I like working with paper, wet and dry … using simple materials: charcoal and chalk. As quickly as I can, in response to Country … the feel of greenstone, yellow gum and blue gum, stretching up high … and down among the twigs and leaves. Bright stripes and shadow.

Impressions … expressions of feeling … yes … and whatever comes next, which may include awe, intuition of kinship, vocation … a drawing and being drawn. How to bear witness to that?

On this Mountain Sunday our reading from Isaiah 40 celebrates a homecoming after many years in exile, a return to Country through uneven terrain. Scholars surmise the text is a parody of Babylonian triumphalism – imaging the construction of an imperial highway. It also imagines the musical participation of mountain and valley.

Luke’s account of the Transfiguration sees Moses, Elijah and Jesus talking about “exodus” … Early Christian tradition identifies this meeting place of Torah, Prophecy and Wisdom (the Exodus story expanded – release, formation, lessons in freedom) as Mount Tabor.

We might also imagine Mount Horeb/Sinai – Moses among the Midianites, attuned to ancestral Presence … Spirit of hospitality … Spirit of cool burning (after Garry Worete Deverell) … a God of slaves and exiles who says, “I am who may be” (Exodus 3:1ff.).

Drawing on paper wrapped around a fallen tree trunk is a peculiar thrill. The lines I make in response to rock-faces and ferns can’t help but trace the corrugations beneath the paper. I look up and down, to one side, close my eyes … 

Another thrill involves lifting the paper to see what appears. At best there is both surprise and satisfaction – the drawing is an accurate record of some kind. Surprise/release and satisfaction/recognition – transfiguration?

Isaiah 40 – with echoes in Luke’s gospel and elsewhere – evokes both a terrible flattening of Earth (mountains felled and valleys raised) and reaffirmation of liveliness and loveliness. We should tread carefully. 

We might yet understand: listening to the Beloved means following a Way that honours Country … its contours … its diverse habitats. Indeed, these are all words for Christ or Christa: Beloved, Way, Country (after Garry Worete Deverell).

And still, the terrible flattening of Earth serves as a cautionary tale … with regard to mountaintop-removal mining (common as a means of mining for coal) … with regard to extraction economies and over-development … with regard to destruction of habitat … homogenisation, exploitation and violence. Religious violence included. We can probably think of other examples.

A reaffirmation of liveliness and loveliness, on the other hand, serves to delight and to edify. Biblical scholar Anne Elvey is inspired “to rethink human relationships in a more-than-human framework of interconnectedness, interdependence and material co-agency.

“The imagery suggests that valley and mountain share both the exaltation (or attitude of praise/lifting up) and the humility summoned, when the presence or glory of YHWH is revealed,” Elvey writes.

“Resistance and protest need to be balanced with radical reverence and wonder, attendant on the elegance, astonishing diversity and complexity of life forms, entangled materiality, and stunning beauty of planetary beings and processes.”

Moreover, liveliness and loveliness figures diverse and ambiguous biblical witness, including parody and cautionary tales. Even writing from the underside of history – prophecy, protest poetry – can be misappropriated, read flatly or used to flatten opposing views.

The loveliness and liveliness of mountain and valley calls to mind the trails of tears of First Nations (Midianites and Canaanites), their forced removal from Country and determination to survive … their experience of exile and return, their longing …

Indigenous artists like Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie and Sally Gabori are deeply wise and gracious teachers and guides.

Wherever we are – and however we practise faith – we can appreciate the loveliness and liveliness of Country. 

At SSUC we enjoy gardening – learning to grow lemon myrtle and woolly bush, native raspberry and Gadi-trees … as well as broad-beans, bananas, figs and olives. Our seven hens are a source of much happiness (and occasionally eggs).

Something we’ll need to maintain is the art of listening to Gadigal artists and Elders, the rightful custodians of Country. What to grow. How to care for it. Unlearning the ways of arrogant and foolish “mission” … following a Way that honours Country – Jesus transfigured as Country.

A simple lesson has involved awareness of colonial flattening – so many straight paths, sharp edges, bricks and concrete … 

There’s more to Country than mere landscape. There’s more to stewardship than landscape gardening. There’s more to art than flat surfaces, vistas and visual stimuli. There are mountains and valleys … invitations to connect with Spirit, to step carefully, to walk up and down, to reach and to touch …

Impressions … expressions of feeling … yes … and whatever comes next, which may include awe, intuition of kinship, vocation … a drawing and being drawn. May it be so. Amen.

Mountains Felled and Valleys Raised

Mountains felled and valleys raised
Liveliness and loveliness be praised

Yahweh on the way, the way
The clouds are different every day

Mountains felled and valleys raised
Liveliness and loveliness be praised

Mountains reach and valleys run
Fish float downstream in the sun

Mountains felled and valleys raised
Liveliness and loveliness be praised

The mountain metals, valley wool
Filling in hollows the last evil

Mountains felled and valleys raised
Liveliness and loveliness be praised

The mountain lows, the valley looks up
We all look happy to be us

Mountains felled and valleys raised
Loveliness and liveliness be praised

The mountain a nebula, valley of stars
Country songs played on a harlequin guitar

Mountains felled and valleys raised
Liveliness and loveliness be praised

Go tell it – sing a bright melody
Tell me about it – I won’t tell anybody

Mountains felled and valleys raised
Liveliness and loveliness be praised