Belinda É. Samari - The Art of Drawing Closer to God

The
ART
of
drawing
Closer
to
God

BELINDA . SAMARI

Copyright 2017, 2020 Belinda . Samari.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Reproduced from TanakhThe Holy Scriptures by the Jewish Publication Society, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0174-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0175-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0173-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017914189

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/05/2020

CONTENTS

All of you who are in search of a personal God,

all of you who long to hear Him s peak,

all of you who want an experience you will not fo rget,

this book is for you.

Dedicated to

the Holy One of Isr ael

for having first written this on my h eart,

then enabling me to write it on p aper.

This book has been in the making for years . What you hold in your hands is the result of many different people each putting their hands to join mine on the potters wheel to make this what it is. I am indebted to these wonderful people: Clara Cherry and Nin Clark for reading this in the early days. Dina Grohmann , for your enthusiastic reading and support of this in its infancy. Krt Lazi for wholeheartedly plunging into this manuscript, for your insightful understanding of the artistic and for sharing a wavelength with me. Tihomir Lazi for being a friend, an ally and a witness to this entire process, particularly for being instrumental in aiding me articulate my RH in LH language in the early days. Chris McManus for generously offering your psychological expertise and crucial feedback on the bit about the hemispheres, helping me ensure I had them wired properly (any remaining errors are my own). Marco Mesa-Frias , for bringing your LH to the early afts and enabling me to learn from you. Zorica Nenadovi , for your nuanced understanding of spirituality and for making me realise I am a European thinker. Melita Puji Paitka for always being supportive of my creative endeavours and for your feedback when this was still hatching. Zorica Samardzija (Mum) it is to you that I owe my love of stories, storytelling, and a life with God, and Jack Samardzija (Dad), it is because of you that I so enjoy analysis, writing and research. Both of you put together are heart and head at their best. Michael Samardzija , cousin par excellence , your practical advice and guidance in the embryonic stages of this project were invaluable. Herta Von Stiegel , for your vital encouragement and practical perspective on this project. Goran Stojanovi (Gogi), you saw this unfold over the years, and I am grateful for your support. Laurence Turner for graciously carving out time in your busy schedule to share your Hebrew Bible expertise and keen eye for detail. I am so deeply grateful for that and for your affirmation of this project. Finally, while not directly involved with this book, I would like to acknowledge my friends and colleagues Lily Kahn and Willem Smelik who played a memorable role in my love affair with Biblical Hebrew. To you all an immense and profound thank you.

[God], I get all muddled up You seem to get lost (I lose You) in the noise and hubbub of the mundane and repetitive actions we call life and I lose my grip. My stability wavers, my confidence wanes and my solid foundation feels like its dissolving beneath my very two feet. Stunned, I stand, paralysed, helpless and watch it all crumble to the ground. I wonder how I could ever find You again in such a mess. I know Youre there. Youre waiting for me to find You I want to find You . More than anything else. I want to learn and relearn how to find You, and keep close to You, even when the noise levels rise and the world around me begins to spin. Reach out Your hand and Ill reach mine out, and theyll meet

Suddenly it hits you like a ton of bricks. You are told you have been let go and in a strange way your last day at work seems like the last day of your life Your home and that for which you have worked for years is swept away one night in a flood You discover your child is a drug addict and wonder how this happened to your family Your marriage is falling apart and you cannot seem to stop the tower from toppling over Your best friend eventually loses a long and painful battle with cancer Sound familiar?

Whatever the scenario, of which I have named only a few, when we find ourselves in situations like these the experience is similar for us all: shock, fear, unspeakable pain, confusion, loneliness, helplessness, sadness, loss A million questions poking and prodding: how did this happen? Why did it happen? Where did it all go wrong? What do I do now? Where do I go from here?

In an instant your whole world seems different, it is as though a game is being played and suddenly the referee blows the whistle and announces the rules have changed. But I dont know these rules, you might say, I have never played by them before. How do I learn them and what are they anyway? Yet it seems that with another whistle blow the game resumes and everything continues on as usual, leaving you stunned and confused, wondering how you will find your footing in this new game in which you find yourself

That was me, through and through, as seen in that excerpt from my journal you just read. I was so thrown by the whistle blowing, the new rules and the chaos of it all, I did not know up from down. Part of me was running on the field like a madwoman trying to keep up and catch on, and the other part of me just stood there, feet glued to the ground.

Where I start my story finds me deeply confused, my entire world had been smashed to bits and I did not know how to rebuild it. I lacked the tools, the knowledge of where to even begin. Even though it had been some time since that blow of the whistle, I was still struggling to find my footing and I desperately needed God. Sure, I had looked for Him before and had longed for Him to change my life. I prayed, I reflected on Bible passages, I tried to listen for His voice, I did everything I knew in order to connect more deeply with Him. And I cannot say I had never heard Him speak to me up until that point, but it had been faint, sporadic and I longed for something more obvious and concrete. I knew God was close, I knew He had not left me alone but so many times it seemed that He was distant and I was stuck in a haze of thoughts, longings and questions. Nothing seemed to be happening and I was getting discouraged. I wanted to hear Him, loud and clear. I needed Him to break through the confusion and darkness that surrounded me.