My good friends Tony and Susan Cartledge bought the farm. In the best sense of that phrase.
While they enjoy playing in dirt and growing various edibles, it is not the typical farm. It will also be a nurturing and welcoming place where creativity, reflection and friendships grow.
“With my background in ministry and Susan’s proficiency as a painter, we want to build relationships through which artists, ministers and other creative folk can find inspiration in a retreat setting at the fertile intersection of art and faith,” said Tony.
After many years working as a registered nurse, Susan gives fuller attention to her art which can be seen at https://www.paintberrystudio.com/home-bio
Tony is Bible scholar whose career includes pastoral ministry, an editorship, divinity school professor and writer of Nurturing Faith Bible Studies. His related 12-volume Nurturing Faith Commentary (https://goodfaithmedia.org/nurturing-faith-commentary/) is nearing completion.
Their move from a suburban home in Apex, N.C., to the 5.4-acre rural property outside Pittsboro, N.C., signals a shift in pace and focus.
Inkberry Hill provides a place to put down new roots that align with their exceptional and varied gifts, warm hospitality, and some rich soil for creativity in so many forms.
The wooded property features a 120-year-old farmhouse, a barn, permaculture gardening and nearby recreational opportunities.
A small cabin and an artistically re-imagined 28-foot Airstream trailer will offer retreat opportunities. There is also a tent camping platform with access to a kitchen in the barn.
Creativity and faith are not strangers.
The biblical revelation — that Tony has taught so well since receiving his Ph.D. from Duke University long ago — begins with a story of divine creativity.
That creative process is passed along to those made in the image of God.
Too often the creative and reflective aspects of the spiritual life get lost in daily busyness and efforts to reduce faith to merely a series of selective beliefs to be affirmed.
Inspiration tends to precede answers, however.
Contemplation and creativity allow for the kind of reimagining that can move faith from naïve acceptance of what someone deems “biblical” or “Christian” to heeding Jesus’ call to risky, love-drenched faithfulness.
Even more so in recent years I am drawn to persons — especially writers of various genres — for whom creative expression is at the heart of their faith.
Such persons give space for mystery to broaden their minds and hearts — rather than settling for easy answers that codify faith into a rigid and often self-serving ideology.
Recently, I enjoyed a conversation with Belmont University leaders who are guiding the Creative Arts Collective for Christian Life and Faith. (https://www.belmont.edu/stories/articles/2024/creative-arts-collective-launch.html)
It is a major, grant-funded initiative to explore and nurture the integral relationship between Christianity and the arts — seeking to inspire many and diverse people to discover beauty anew and encounter God through the arts.
It’s amazing to consider all the possibilities that can come from a life-giving focus that brings beauty and hopefulness together.
And it pleases me a great deal that on a small farm in rural North Carolina, a Bible teacher and a painter are creating their own relaxing yet stimulating environment for creativity and faith to grow in similar ways.
John D. Pierce is director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative (jesusworldview.org), part of Belmont University’s Rev. Charlie Curb Center for Faith Leadership. See an earlier post, “Awe & Wonder: Part 1.” (https://jesusworldview.org/awe-wonder-part-1/