This was my big project for last fall’s counseling class. Sorry for the glare on the picture – this was the best one I took.
My Concept Collage: A Picture of Counseling
After settling upon an idea for my concept map and beginning the process of constructing it, I began to draw the parallel that getting involved in people’s lives is a sticky process. Like my collage, working with people can be fun, creative, and motivating – or it can discourage and frustrate. So much is dependent upon the supplies with which one has to work; and one has to make choices. For my collage, I lost count after cutting out about 200 heads, yet for every head I chose, there were three I didn’t. Why? What made one head better than another? In life, what makes one person more suited to counsel someone than another? My collage process reminded me of the many ways people come into our lives – some simply are already; some drop in by happenstance; some are eagerly sought out. Regardless of how they do, the question is always, what am I to do with them now?
To mimic my collage metaphor, my role in people’s lives becomes a layer of glue – not the finishing glue that holds them all together, but a glue that binds us for a season. If I am to get involved in their lives in an intentional way, there needs to be an element of staying power to our relationship. Likewise, if I simply left them “on the board” (so to speak) with nothing holding them down, it would be easy for them to blow away, or for another to come along and knock them off accidentally…or purposefully. But the glue needs to hold more than our lives together for this time. I also need to be able to communicate concepts to them that are truthful and lasting. There is value that comes from being an outsider, but I need to be more than an outside perspective. I need to ask compelling questions and give trusted advice that comes only from an established relationship with God myself.
And that brings us to the Master Art Maker. Just as my collage would not be complete without a layer of Mod Podge – the final coating that holds everything on securely – my relationship encounters would be futile without an understanding of God as the Creator and Redeemer of our lives. Without the Mod Podge, the layers on my board would be fragile. The corners would curl up and beg to be picked off by curious fingers. Putting the sealant on the project didn’t make it perfect, if anything it exposed even more the imperfections of the work. The wrinkles and bubbles in the paper did not show themselves until after the finishing touch. So it is with God: He shines light on areas that need exposure, and He helps with the finishing (and refinishing).
Cutting: Making Appropriate Choices
“Alone,” “pressure,” “waiting,” “conversation,” “integrity,” “life,” “caution,” “uncertainty,” “torture,” “identity,” “choices,” “consequences”…words ripped casually away from their intended context, but clipped carefully to show that pain can have a purpose. These words combine in any number of combinations to form the lack of congruence that make up lives all around me. People have pain that is not seen by others, but that cries out for careful attention from someone willing to take a risk on behalf of another, to pull out the scissors and the glue – to offer hope, to show grace, to give love.
In real life, I believe my relationship collage will involve mostly “personal ministry” time with women, coming alongside them in a Titus 2 manner, entering into a nurturing relationship with them in order to encourage and equip them to live for God’s glory. In the words of author Paul David Tripp, “Personal ministry is not always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get ‘fixed.’”
Completing: Implementing the Plan
The faces in my project are all different. They may have come from the same kind of magazine, but they are all different, some in significant ways, others not as noticeable. Though people are different, and the approach to help them will not be exactly the same, I believe there are word strips in every picture to be fixed upon to help in my quest to encourage and equip women form their own spiritual collage. Among these are:
Love – Creating art with other women means I need to have a love for them that is honest, and works because it was learned from the Creator. Such a love as this leads to acceptance of them as women, regardless of their torn pages and dried up glue, and to love them as 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says I should. As Larry Crabb says in Understanding People, “To love means to come toward another person without self-protection, to esteem others greater than ourselves… The visible evidence of maturity is love.” In so loving them, I am modeling for them how they are to in turn mend the pictures of their past and begin work on fresh canvases.
Relationships – I believe that any decoupage project I will be doing with another will be relationship-based. It will be important for me to genuinely engage with women relationally, both for the sake of being a safe person for them to confide in, as well as to display for them appropriate ways to engage relationally with other people themselves. Susan Hunt makes mention of the destructive behavior of critical words to relationships in her book Spiritual Mothering. She also says, “Younger women need to be taught how to affirm and encourage, how to love and accept, how to influence but not demand.” As I work at the craft of relationship building with women, it is important that my words be well covered with grace, painted in such a way that honors any I speak to or about.
Conduct – In my Titus 2 model of collage construction, displaying and conveying the importance of self-control, purity, and productivity are key points. Susan Hunt says, “Addictions of any kind are a contradiction to self-control, purity, and discipline. With the proliferation of addictions today, we need women who are exercising discipline and who are imposing upon themselves standards of purity in all areas of their lives. Overindulgence in anything eventually enslaves.” I think this is important to bear in mind as I attempt to restore artwork in other women. I will need to lovingly be able to suggest different color schemes, and at times help peel off cemented mistakes in order to lead women to a more biblical understanding and practice of godly conduct.
Encouraging and Equipping – These are two important words to consider when choosing which word strips are appropriate for a collage. What looks great on one prepared canvas simply may not work on another. Among the various ways to offer this are through verbal affirmation and an approachable spirit. The former is essential to encouraging and equipping because, according to Susan Hunt, women need to hear and believe the approval of other women. She says, “Words that hold out hope that God will use the situation in a positive way are energizing.” The latter idea is important because women will not ask someone to critique their work if they perceive that person as too easily distracted by her own project, mood, or interests. It is important I not get so caught up in my own picture that I fail to see the new things these women are producing.
Acceptance – Few women I have come across feel they have someone with enough artistic background who possesses the tools to pick their work apart, yet chooses to keep the tools locked away to instead admire the work for what they intended it to be. This lack of acceptance, or the perception of it, comes both externally as well as internally. Susan Hunt describes the external pressure well: “Something about our femaleness makes us feel that we must measure up to our often inflated perception of what we think our families, or churches, and society expect from us.” Richard Winter, in Perfecting Ourselves to Death, describes the internal pressure this way, “Defeated perfectionists… carry in their heads, partially subconscious, a picture of who they want to be and who they firmly believe they can and should be: their ideal self. When things are going well, they almost live up to this fantasy, but as soon as something goes wrong, as soon as some flaw or failure is noticeable, … they often perceive themselves as complete disasters: despicable, unreliable, incompetent people.” Opening myself up to women in their pain and their failure (as well as my own) with the hope of pointing them toward complete acceptance from the Master Artist is the goal of the project.
Forgiveness – Times come when people, either intentionally or not, pick off all the pieces the artist has worked so hard to properly place. And when that happens, a choice has to be made about whether or not to forgive the art saboteur. Susan Hunt says, “Probably nothing will stifle spiritual growth and development as much as an unforgiving spirit, and nothing will stimulate growth and development as much as forgiveness.” Forgiveness is a key component in my counseling collage as well. I think this goes both for the artist as well as the apprentice. Helping another mend her torn picture is good; encouraging her to mend it herself and forgive the one who caused the work is better.
Concluding: How the Master Artist Restores the Picture
The supplies an artist has to work with are not always easy to come by. Sometimes, when depending upon my own reserves, I find it easy to go through them too quickly and thus run out. I then try going to the store, only to find it is closed or they are out of what I need, too. Perhaps the most important piece of making lasting art is to learn to ask daily for renewed resources from the One who has an unending supply, where the materials are free, of the best quality, always in stock, and handled with the care of their Creator.
Bibliography
Crabb, Larry. Understanding People. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987.
Hunt, Susan. Spiritual Mothering. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1992.
Tripp, Paul David. Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002.
Winter, Richard. Perfecting Ourselves to Death. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005.
Half-Pint House 