My beloved spiritual director once gifted me a watercolor painting of a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke: “You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born…The future must enter you long before it happens.” I loved it, even though I didn’t understand it.

Years later, I read spiritual author/artist Scott Erickson’s reflection on the magi from his book, Honest Advent: “They were paying attention. To what was around them, yes – the world, the sky, the stars. But they were also paying attention to how those exterior patterns were pointing to the interior patterns inside their hearts and souls. It may not be necessary to figure out the origins of the Magi, because the truth of their journey is what is truly transformational for us – that God places patterns inside us that will be revealed in the patterns of the exterior world” (174). Or, as Rilke might say, “The future must enter you long before it happens.”

This Advent, while I was on a retreat, my director told me my job was to rest, trust, and wait. I napped, journaled, did a puzzle, and one evening, I mindlessly grabbed a pen and began doodling on a scrap of paper. I had no conscious plan for my drawing; I just let myself enjoy the feeling of creating.

Eventually, I had drawn a tree. It had a dual, skinny trunk, like a birch. Then I drew another, tall with thick bark and branches, followed by a third, with gnarly branches. The trees were connected at their roots by a heart. Then, God revealed to me I had drawn my three children, each of their precious personalities reflected in one of the trees. It reflected my deep, holy longing: to feel lovingly connected to my kids and held together in God’s love for our family.

The next day, I walked in the chilly winter air around the grounds. I stopped short in wonder and delight when I saw a birch tree that looked just like what I had drawn! For fun, I looked around, and sure enough I saw two other trees, lined up like my drawing, right there in the woods in front of me. I laughed, in wonder of it all.

Those trees had been growing for decades before I had “given birth to the image” of my children in my sketch (or before I’d given birth to the actual children!) So technically, the future of those trees did not enter me long before my artwork happened, but the future of my family did live in God’s heart, long before the trees grew. Says Erickson, “Is it too fantastical to think that the Giver of your spirit, who is also the Giver of the material world, will use both of those given realities to lead you to a deeper knowing?” (175-6). The mystical twisting of my interior and exterior worlds gave me pause, and it drew me in to follow not the trees, but rather, the God who has been loving my family, even before we were born. Now, my call is to participate in the mystery by living from that place of trust in God.

Our job as followers of Christ isn’t just to follow the star in the sky that points to him; we are first asked to notice and befriend our holy longings, and to trust that those are worth following. If you’re looking for what star to follow to find Christ in your own life, you may want first to start by giving birth to the images and longings you carry in the depths of your heart. Be honest with yourself about what they are. Name them. Embrace the commitment of carrying them until they grow so big that it’s time to birth them. Then, embrace the labor that will move them from your interior life and, perhaps, permit God to paint them in the exterior world, onto the sky – or in the woods – for the next leg of the journey.

What are the deep longings in your heart? Have you spoken those to God? If God sent you a sign to follow, would you be familiar enough with the landscape of your interior self that you would notice it?

Scott Erickson, who has 143k followers on Instagram as @scottthepainter, is an artist that may be of interest to anyone who finds themselves on a journey, looking for the sacred in unexpected places. He self-identifies as “an artist, author, performance speaker, and creative curate who mixes autobiography, mythology, and aesthetics to create art and moments that speak to our deepest experiences” (ScottEricksonArt.com).

In addition to creating moving artwork and reflections for Honest Advent, he also creates public art packages for contemporary visio divinafor spiritual seekers of all backgrounds. His contemporary Stations of the Cross are available as “Stations in the Street,” to be posted in a graffiti-style arts display in both expected and unexpected public places. Similarly, his Advent artwork is available by download for communities to use for their own prayer services, guided art walks, and more.

As a spouse and father, Erickson is unabashed about allowing his family life to shape his artistic stories, which leads to profoundly embodied, feminist takes on things such as the birth of Jesus. His aim of creating “a visual vocabulary for the spiritual journey” speaks to ex-vangelicals, Catholics, “nones,” and everyone in between. His embrace of his vocation as an artist is a concrete example of someone co-creating their identity with God by using their gifts to put beauty in the world.

Image description: The night sky fills the image of a curled up baby, with a black background, stars, and planets. 

Scott Erickson’s artwork “Attention” from Honest Advent captures the Cosmic Christ in a visceral, compelling way. Not only does the star in the sky point to the Christ child for the magi; the Christ is also inclusive of all stars in the sky that ever were and will be. The Christ and the cosmos are perpetually birthing and pointing to one another, for all of time. 

The cosmic Christ child, in all of his squishy, balled-up-fists, newborn goodness, held in the intimacy of his Mother’s body, had his same beginnings as a human as we all did. Moreover, all human babies, born in all of our balled-up-fists and squishy goodness, are made in that same image of the universal, cosmic Christ as the baby in Bethlehem was. 

Jesus Christ was once a squishy newborn.

All of us were once stardust.

The Cosmic Christ continues to hold us, all of creation, together in the great Oneness of mystical love.