Ashes, Stones, and Flowers

In Memory of All Victims of War and Terrorism

For vibrant lives suddenly
and shamelessly sacrificed,
we lift up the ashes of our loss,
O Source of Life.

For the lives that continue,
haunted forever by the pain of absence,
we lift up the ashes of our remorse,
O Wellspring of Compassion.

For the conflagration of flames and nightmare
images forever seared into our memories,
we lift up the ashes of our pain,
O Breathing Spirit of the World.

For the charred visions of peace
and the dry taste of fear,
we lift up the ashes of our grief,
O Infinite.

For all the deaths that have been justified by turning
the love of God or country into fanatical arrogance,
we lift up the ashes of our shame,
O God.

As we cast these ashes into the
troubled water of our times,
Transforming One,

hear our plea that by your power they
will make fertile the soil of our future and
by your mercy nourish the seeds of peace.

For the ways humanity pursues violence
rather than understanding,
we lift up the stones of our anger,
O Breathing Spirit of the World.

For the ways we allow national, religious and
ethnic boundaries to circumscribe our compassion,
we lift up the stones of our hardness,
O Wellspring of Compassion.

For our addiction to weapons and the ways of
militarism we lift up the stones of our fear,
O Source of Life.

For the ways we cast blame and create enemies
we lift up the stones of our self-righteousness,
O God.

As we cast these stones into this ancient river,
Transforming One, hear our plea:

Just as water wears away the hardest of stones,
so too may the power of your compassion soften
the hardness of our hearts and draw us into a future
of justice and peace.

For sowing seeds of justice to blossom into harmony,
we cast these flowers into the river,
O Source of Peace.

For seeing clearly the many rainbow
colors of humanity and earth,
we cast these flowers into the river,
O Infinite.

For calling us to life beyond our grieving,
we cast these flowers into the river,
O Breathing Spirit of the World.

As we cast these flowers into this ancient river,
Transforming One, hear our plea:

Just as water births life in a desert and gives
hope to the wounded, so too may the power of
your nurturing renew our commitment to peace.

Words by Rev. Patricia Pearce, Pastor of Tabernacle United Church, Philadelphia, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director of The Shalom Center

Image: photograph by C. Robin Janning

Thread This Needle

If you would thread this needle --
pass through to the other side,
that we might stitch our life together --

You must first interweave
your own strands:
gather up your disparate parts,
bind them together as an act of love;
make of them
a single
solid
rope of oneness.

Any loose ends,
any frayed connections
will surely prohibit entry
through this narrow gate.

Words and Image by Diane Walker

Speaking His Own Name

"Unless He utters Himself in you, and speaks His own name in the center of your soul, you will no more know Him than a stone knows the ground upon which it rests in its inertia."

Words: Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation: 39.

Image: Viola by Ruth Councell

Refuge From This Love

I pulled a thorn from the fence of His garden,
and it has not stopped working its way into my heart.

One morning a little of His wine
turned my heart into a lion hunter.

It’s right that this separation He helped me feel
lurks like a monster within my heart.
Yet heaven’s wild and unbroken colt
was trained by the hand of His love.
Though reason is learned and has its honors,
it pawned its cap and robes for a cup of love.

Many hearts have sought refuge from this love,
but it drags and pulls them to its own refuge.

Words: Mevlâna Jalâluddîn, "The Pull of Love" in The Pocket Rumi, Translated by Kabir Helminski. (Shambhala, 2001) Read more here.

Image: Photography by Diane Walker

Our Story

We encourage and affirm creativity
in ourselves and in all persons.

Our mission of Unity calls us
to contemplate and express through the arts
A deeper awareness of our communion
with God and all creation.

We affirm the power and prophecy of the arts
and believe them to be an important ministry
for hope and healing in this critical moment.
of world transformation.

Words: VISION STATEMENT FOR MINISTRY OF THE ARTS, Sisters of St. Joseph in La Grange Park, IL

Image: Mary Southard, CSJ

Here With Us Again

Imagine this!

You are here with us again,
washing over us,
lapping at our feet:
a wave of pure joy,
bursting with bright flowers
wells up in our hearts,
equal parts
terror and remembrance;
anticipation and confusion.

Stand back,
catch your breath
and take a running leap
into the sea of love.

Words and Image by Diane Walker.

Theology Of Creativity

"I would suggest that the first step in reflecting on a theology of creativity is to understand that one of our fundamental creative acts is to create our conceptions of divinity. The tasks, then, of theology and the mission of the Church invite us to examine the concepts we create and how we carry out the call to be co-creators of goodness, truth, beauty, and holiness. Our ideas and thinking about God form the backdrop of all that we do and all that we create.

In the words of Miles Davis, one of the world’s greatest musicians: “I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”

Our faith in God rests on our belief that God is the Creator — the Uncreated Creator. As people interested in the power of creativity, we know deeply that we were created, are created, in the first place. And we believe we were created in the image of God.

I suspect that to be made in the image of God has to do with our ability to be rational, to be stewards of the earth, to represent God to each other. Called into covenant with God, the covenant could be read this way: I set before you life and death. Choose to create life, choose to create goodness, choose to create the beautiful, and choose to create the truth through the art of your actions."

Read it all here. The article also comes with a soundtrack: Miles Davis, Blue in Green, which you can listen to here.

Words: The Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones

Image: Assumed Into Heaven by C. Robin Janning

It Is Happening

"That's really the surprise of Easter. We don't have to wait until we get to heaven to experience it. It is happening all around us.

But of course, the problem is that because it is not fulfilled at every moment, we don't see it because of what's going on in the world. There's a chance that we could miss it by simply not being attentive and aware to the possibilities of reconciliation and peace… "

Words: from Easter Moments by Robert Hansel and Renée Miller

Image: Icon by Virginia Wieringa (based on an icon by The Rev. Peter Pearson in A Brush with God)

No Strings Attached

"Freedom is about choices: Freedom to choose less rather than more. It's about choosing time for people and ideas and self-growth rather than for maintenance and guarding and possessing and cleaning. Simple living is about moving through life rather lightly, delighting in the plain and the subtle. It is about poetry and dance, song and art, music and grace. It is about optimism and humor, gratitude and appreciation. It is about embracing life with wide-open arms. It's about living and giving with no strings attached."

Words: Sister José Hobday in "Simple Living: The Path to Joy and Freedom"

Image: "The Artist's Garden" by Roger Hutchison

Enlighten Me

Enlighten me.
Help me to understand
that though I am unique
I am still just another leaf;
that though I am one
I am still one of many
and together we are One
even as You are One.

Remind me
that through this stalk from which I stem
runs the lifeblood of energy
that feeds us all;
which, when it cycles into me
then cycles back again
enriching all.

Keep me open,
that this pure divinity which is love
may flow freely.

Words and image: Diane Walker

Miracles

"Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles
that seek no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry
of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder."

Words: John O'Donohue in "To Bless the Space Between Us"

Image: Photograph by The Rev. Scott Fisher

Chains

Who can loosen
these chains that bind us,
ancient misunderstandings
set in stone?

Words & Image: Diane Walker

Redemption

in humble mirrors
nature reflects and shares our
Easter redemption

Image: photograph by The Rev. Scott Fisher

Our Tree Of Life

"As Jesus spoke His last words on the cross, 'it is finished,' it did not seem like a proper ending for his narrative or life's work. Could it be that His words were filled with a sense of longing, visions that went beyond His death on the cross, hope that would restore humanity, a peace beyond human measure? As the story unfolds, beauty is revealed through brokenness, upon a cross-woven easel of man's own design, creating the possibility for a sequence of events beyond the grave. A saving grace remains beyond grief and sorrow, awaiting the resurrection of God's own design.

In consideration of Christ's generosity, I realize that there remains a greater calling in life. It is not enough to seek out audiences requesting that they make further sacrifices. Rather, as artists we should be the lens by which they see the value and beauty of the sacrifices they already make. As a reflection of the Creator upon the created, every artist has the potential to become a curator of the message of truth, which serves to resurrect the underlying hope within the audience of mankind."

Words: Ron Kelsey in An Easter Tribute at Makoto Fujimura's Refractions

Image: Tree of Life by John Collier

A Witness To Life

"When Jesus rises from the tomb, he says to Mary Magdalene in the garden, “Go and tell Peter and the others that I have gone before you into Galilee and I will meet them there.” The words are prophetic ones for us all. Jesus does not promise to meet the disciples in Jerusalem, at the center of power and profit, as an Establishment figure of either state or synagogue, as the vindicated and recognized one. No, the last act of Jesus is to lead the disciples to the Galilee, to the backwaters of Israel, to the hinterlands of the poor and dispossessed, to the forgotten and the oppressed ones. Where he had spent his public life on behalf of the forgotten one, he expects us to spend ours."

Words: Sr. Joan Chittister in Ideas In Passing

Image: Life Is Just Outside The Door by The Rev. Earnest Graham

This Is How

as Jesus is pulled
from his earthly tomb
this is how we arise

this new green growth
crawling from the gnarled wood
of our own crosses

as blades of grass
pushing through
the stony path

on Easter

Image: Diane Walker

Words: C. Robin Janning

Exile And Return

Yesterday we were connected. Shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, we stood together, we knelt, and we wept.

You would think after Good Friday's pain and suffering, there would be some relief. No. We are alone, the altar is bare, and we carry the cross of exile.

Holy Saturday is about exile. We don’t know what will be revealed tomorrow.

The revelation of return and the end of exile.

Image: "Crucifixion" by Barbara Desrosiers

Words: C. Robin Janning

This Jesus

Like many artists and photographers before me, I discovered this crucified Jesus beyond religion, through the lens of art and service.

This Jesus, I found, doesn’t leave. He stays with us and each day we decide if he will remain crucified, or come down from the cross to feed the poor, to shelter the homeless, to love the unloved, to walk in the world again.

(Note: The crucifix shown above sits on a side-wall in the sanctuary at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Plymouth, Michigan.)

Image and words: C. Robin Janning

Lament

Psalm 130*

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.

He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

*New International Version



Image: "Lament" by Connie Butler

This Faith

"When all of our own hopes have died, we still have this faith that seeks nothing for itself-not wisdom, not spiritual power, not rescue from suffering. 'Success' is not in its vocabulary. This faith seeks nothing but God, to whom it is willing to surrender everything-up to and including its own cherished beliefs about who God is and how God should act.

This faith is willing to sell all that it owns and bet the farm on one chance for union with God. This kind of faith, embodied by Jesus, is what makes him the Christ—God's own Being of Light, God's own Anointed One—whose self-annihilating love for us and for all creation is never more vivid than it is on this day.

Today, on the quietest day of the year, we have come to sit in the presence of one who was fully who God created him to be every day of his life—who loved God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind—and who loved his friends so much that he stepped into the oncoming traffic of death in order to push them out of the way. He furthermore did it all with no more than the basic human equipment—a beating heart, two good hands, a holy vision, and some companions who could see it too—thereby showing the rest of us humans that such a life is not beyond our reach. Whatever else happens on Sunday, here is enough reason to call this Friday Good. Amen."

Words: Barbara Brown Taylor

Image: "Christ Dies On The Cross" by Gerard Di Falco

His Concern Is For Them

Tears. Wailing. Daughters. Mothers. Grief. Women beat their breasts and mourn openly, for the Son of Man, but his concern is for them and their children in the days of woe yet to come.

Words: "Stations of the Cross" from King of Peace Episcopal Church.

Image: "Station 8" by John Giuliani

Veronica's Compassion

"Jesus' journey is at times brutal. He has entered into the terrible experiences of rejection and injustice. He has been whipped and beaten. His face shows the signs of his solidarity with all who have ever suffered injustice and vile, abusive treatment. He encounters a compassionate, loving disciple who wipes the vulgar spit and mocking blood from his face. On her veil, she discovers the image of his face - his gift to her. And, for us to contemplate forever." (From the Stations of the Cross at Creighton University, more here.)

Image: "Station #6: Veronica Wipes the Face of Christ" by Gerard Di Falco

Hurt And Betrayed

"God of Peace, help me to forgive those who hurt or betray me and strengthen me to be worthy of others' trust in me. Let your steadfast love and compassion flow through me that I may be your presence in this world."

Words and Image by Kathrin Burleson from her The Way of the Cross.

Sanctuary

We seek the sanctuary of liturgy and commemoration this week. We need these places, sanctuaries, to bring our pain and find our hope.

As artists we go about the work of creating sanctuaries, and in today's Morning Prayer Rite II (as published in The Book of Common Prayer) we read this prayer:

"O God, who by your Holy Spirit give to some the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge, and to others the word of faith: We praise you for the gifts of preaching through visual representation that you gave to your servants Albrecht Duerer and Michaelangelo Buonarroti, and we pray that your Church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns, with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Image: Sanctuary by Barbara Desrosiers

Mother Of Worlds

have mercy on us
as we begin this walk
with your son

Words and image by C. Robin Janning

Take Me

Take me, I cried:
Take me!

She doesn't know
another road into town;
take me!

I'd have gone another way,
no pomp and circumstance for me
I'd have shied at the blaze of trumpets.

And if I thought he'd come this way again,
I'd weave these waving grasses into palm fronds
and set them at his feet in welcome.

But it's too late now:
she never saw
the crucifixion in their eyes.

Words and Image by Diane Walker.

Remember Again

"We are praying with great memories in our liturgy. There are scenes of violence, betrayal, surrender, and regret. We pray with the fidelity and trust with which Jesus walks towards his saving death.

We pray as well with the violence within and around us these days. Humanity is suffering from terrible insults to its being in Christ. We pray with our own sense of helplessness, as did his loving mother and even his friends who denied him and abandoned him. We are praying intensely with our desires to be freed again from the slavery of forgetfulness. We pray to remember again who Jesus is saying we all are by his life of faithful trust. We gather together to do the ancient rituals by which we are saved in our times." By Larry Gillick, S.J., in Daily Reflection, Creighton University. Read it all HERE.

Seen above: Altar Waiting for Palm Sunday by The Rev. Scott Fisher, St. Matthew's, Fairbanks.

Inheritance

"To be born is to be chosen. No one is here by accident. Each one of us was sent here for a special destiny...

This selectivity intimates a sheltering providence that dreamed you, created you, and always minds you."

Words by John O'Donohue in "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom."

Image: "Inheritance" by Roger Hutchison

Right Relationships

Half way through Lent and we find ourselves praying for more cleansing and more purity in our relationship with Jesus. Purity in the time and setting of Jesus meant ordered ness. It meant having right relationships with God and thereby with all others and all of creation. We are freed through our faith in Jesus and his resurrection, but we are not freed from our own self-imposed exiles. Israel was loved always by God, but they did not always use well the freedom which that love provided. We can grow quite accustomed and flippant with our being loved through Jesus, taking it for granted rather than as granted through the Spirit.

These days of Lent we can go, Nicodemus-like, in the secrecy of our private prayer, to celebrate more publicly, the death and resurrection which infinitely consummates God’s love for us. We can pray with the realization of our little exiles, our secret ways of avoiding our living faithfully God’s calls and invitations. Lent is a prayerful time to rake away the coverings of deadly winter so that Jesus’ personal love can rise, spring-like in our spirits and actions. By Larry Gillick, S.J., in Daily Reflection, Creighton University. Read it all HERE.

Seen above: "Face of Christ" by Mary Jane Miller. The artist says that this is a copy of Rublevs Icon, of which legends say it was found as a stair-riser to the choir loft in a small church. It had been turned upside down and used for wood, and because of that the image was preserved.

The Dark Deep Within

We are but shadows
cast by divine love.

Missing that luminous dimension,
we stare into the dark deep within
and long for light.

Words and Image by Diane Walker.

Jesus Falls The First Time

"The weight is unbearable. Jesus falls under it. How could he enter our lives completely without surrendering to the crushing weight of the life of so many on this earth! He lies on the ground and knows the experience of weakness beneath unfair burdens. He feels the powerlessness of wondering if he will ever be able to continue. He is pulled up and made to continue." From The Stations of the Cross at Creighton University (online).

Seen above: Station 3 from the Stations of the Cross series by John Giuliani.

The World Of Relationship

"This world is the world of relationship, of I and Thou, self and other. It is a world dependent on balance, interdependence, and harmony. If you focus only on yourself, you treat the world as an It, a means toward your own ends; and in so doing you isolate yourself from others and exile yourself from the world." From Ethics of the Sages: Pirke Avot, translated by Rabbi Rami Shapiro

Seen above: Bronze Sculpture (Small Fountain) by Connie Butler

"My Whole Life Has Been Dreams"

The Minnie Evans Sculpture Garden and Bottle Chapel
by Dan Hardison


Bright colors, mythical animals, religious symbols, and a natural garden setting – words that could describe the artwork of visionary folk artist Minnie Evans. It can also describe the Minnie Evans Sculpture Garden and Bottle Chapel, a memorial installation at Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Gatekeeper/Artist

Minnie Evans was a self-taught African-American artist known for her works depicting a world based on her dreams and visions. Born in 1892, her family moved to Wilmington from Pender County, North Carolina, during her early childhood. Evans left school after the sixth grade to work, married at the age of sixteen, and would raise three sons.

“My whole life has been dreams. Some times day visions,” Evans said, “They would take advantage of me. No one taught me to paint. It came to me.” It was on Good Friday 1935 that Evans said she heard God’s voice tell her to draw. She began creating drawings with wax crayons and colored pencils – later using oil paints as well. Her work was filled with vivid plants, animals, piercing eyes representing the all-seeing eye of God, angels, and demons. A member of the AME Church, her work was filled with religious symbolism. Of her work she said, “This art that I have put out has come from the nations I suppose might have been destroyed before the flood… No one knows anything about them, but God has given it to me to bring them back into the world.”

For twenty-five years from 1949 to 1974, Evans worked as the gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens in Wilmington. This setting undoubtedly influenced the plants and flowers incorporated in her art. Sitting in her little wooden gatehouse collecting admissions, she would often work on her drawings during slow periods.

Evans never aspired to be an artist nor sell her artwork. It was not until 1960 that an out-of-state art scholar visiting the gardens discovered what Newsweek magazine would later describe as “breathtakingly gifted”. Her first art exhibit was held in 1961. Evans died in 1987 at the age of 95 and is today considered one of America’s most important visionary artists.

A Historic Garden

Airlie Gardens began as a private garden for a wealthy industrialist in 1901. German landscape architect Rudolf Topel was commissioned in 1906 to transform the stretch of land along salt marshes into a formal garden incorporating European and Southern garden styles with an emphasis on azaleas and camellias. The gardens were opened to the public in 1948, but remained in private ownership until its purchase by New Hanover County in 1999. Today Airlie Gardens consists of 67 acres of the original 155-acre estate. Among the time worn trees draped in Spanish moss you will find walking trails, themed gardens, 10 acres of freshwater lakes, and a 450 year-old live oak.

A Memorial

In August 2004, the Minnie Evans Sculpture Garden and Bottle Chapel was dedicated in honor of Minnie Evans. The centerpiece is a bottle house conceived and created by local artist Virginia Wright-Frierson. Primarily a painter and illustrator, Frierson was commissioned in 2000 to paint a large ceiling mural for Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, as a memorial for the tragic shooting that occurred there.

The bottle house was constructed as a 16-foot high roofless outdoor chapel built out of bottles of various sizes, shapes, and color. The bottles were arranged to create images and symbols found in the work of Minnie Evans.

Just inside the entrance to the sculpture garden, a bas-relief sculpture featuring Minnie Evans in the window of her gatehouse was created by Hiroshi Sueyoshi. Two angel sculptures by Dumay Gorham sits to either side of the Bottle Chapel. At the center of the Bottle Chapel is a copper tree by Karen Crouch filled with metal birds created by Michael Van Hout. Brooks Koff, assisted by local schoolchildren, created mosaic tiles used in the walls and walks surrounding the Bottle Chapel. There is also a fountain created by Sueyoshi featuring images from Minnie Evans’ paintings just outside the Bottle Chapel.

Minnie Evans never thought of her work as art, yet her work has been shown internationally including the Whitney Museum of American Art and is today in numerous collections including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Her life and work has also been captured in a book and a documentary film.

The Minnie Evans Sculpture Garden and Bottle Chapel pays tribute to a woman who merely followed the command given her – to draw. “I have dreams of the thing,” she said, “and I feel God gave me this mission to do this.”


View additional photographs of the Bottle Chapel
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20509217@N08/sets/72157603154123668/

View artwork by Minnie Evans at Smithsonian American Art Museum
http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?StartRow=1&ID=1466&showtext=1#827

View artwork by Minnie Evans at North Carolina Museum of Art
http://www.cameronartmuseum.com/details.php?id=5&limit=17

Words and Image by Dan Hardison

Melodies Eternally New

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail
vessel thou emptiest again and again,
and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales,
and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in
joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine.
Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

Words by Rabindranath Tagore
Image by Barbara Desrosiers

ECVA "Gifts" Exhibition

ECVA's latest exhibition is now online. Titled "Gifts," it is ECVA's first open-studio exhibition and features great diversity. Take time to visit HERE.

Seen above: Annunication 1, by Laura Fisher Smith.

That Promise Of Blessing

It keeps us going --
this time of year,
when winter resists the pull to spring
and daffodils shiver in the cold --

Thoughts of the harvest:
that promise of blessing
that follows each pruning;
the vine and the branches
exploding in color:
in leaves, and in tendrils,
and rich, lush fruit.

Blunt cut,
we cling to the vineand await the slow ripening.

Words and Image by Diane Walker

From The Liquid World Of Dreams

does the poet—
the poem—
have an obligation to speak
literal truth?

or can it weave its
words poetic
to grasp the deeper meaning
out of simple, imagined
birdsong?

when you ask
“did this really happen?”
or “who is this dappling
your poem?”
i must answer
with staunch certainty
from the liquid world of dreams,
“it is true! it is all true!”

Words by Sr. Ellen Porter, OSB, author
of Some Small Flower of Honesty

Image: "Symphony" by Roger Hutchison

Transfiguration

Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into
ever-widening thought and action-
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,
let my country awake.

Words by Rabindranath Tagore

Image: Transfiguration by Moses Hoskins

Lent Feels Dark

“In a dark time,” Theodore Roethke wrote, “the eye begins to see.” The dark times in life are not our enemy. Dark times empty the world of the things that would otherwise distract us from seeing the important things. Lent feels dark. Enter the darkness with confidence.

Words by Joan Chittister

Image by Leah Reddy

Stitched Together

Who makes
this comforter of stars?

Who stitched together
the firmament of heaven,
first weaving rainbows into
fabric of the night,
then, torn and spun into patterns,
carefully refabricates,
backing with a cushion of light,
tying it all together with silver threads
to drip the morning dew
and tucks it in around us?

Who tiptoes from the room
leaving the door
open just a crack
in case we should awaken;
Who leaves this thin gold beam of light
to reassure us in the dark?

Words and Image by Diane Walker.

Luna

beneath the surface
dances the light of the moon
God breathing new life

Words and Image by Roger Hutchison

When To Begin

How do I know when to begin?
When a force is kindled in my heart.

When do I stop work?
When there is a quiet sense of completion.

Words and Image by Connie Butler.
Seen above: "Threshold," painted plaster sculpure.

Lament

The Art Blog at Episcopal Cafe

Lament: The Stations and other Images of the Cross:
A Lenten Exhibition of Woodcut Prints
by Margaret Adams Parker.

Read an introduction to this exhibit HERE.

Seen above: "to have seen what I have seen" by Margaret Adams Parker, 2006, woodcut over collagraph with Solarplate etchings, 23 x 17 inches. This print is based on the experiences of the artist’s son during his medical school rotation in the psychiatry ward in a VA hospital. Most of his patients were Vietnam veterans, although a few had served in Iraq; however, their common problem was their inability to block out their memories of war.

The title is taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is a fragment of Ophelia’s lament as she observes Hamlet’s feigned madness: “O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown…O woe is me/ to have seen what I have seen…” Ironically, while Hamlet is sane, Ophelia herself goes mad.

A Garden Retreat

Quiet safety can be found in the garden retreat of my mind. The garden retreat is that mystical place of untroubled silence, my Sanctuary within. It is the Holy Space where I come to enjoy the cool breeze of the morning, listen to the birds sing their song of greeting. It is my Sheltered Place where I can look up at the rolling clouds and speak to my God with peace.

During that time, I can plant flowers in my garden: the sweet P's of patience, pardon, peace, persistence, piety, poetry, poise, praise, practice, prayer, and psalms. I can smell the sweet fragrance of the thornless roses. I can watch the lilies of the field and the grass without fear of tomorrow's burning drought. I can experience the growth of my soul with wondrous awe and know the true fruit of the spirit will be ready in its time.

Words by Connie Backus-Yoder

Image by C. Robin Janning

This Art

"In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest where no one sees you,
But sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art."

Words by Jalal al-Din Rumi

Image by Virginia Wieringa

Lent Felt Different After That

by Robert Epley

I enrolled in a photography class because I didn’t have my own darkroom in our new apartment. With this class there was, of course, a term project. I chose to photograph an abandoned cemetery located in Engle, NM.

Engle had been a thriving community in the early 1900’s when it was a railroad stop for local cattle ranchers. The community is gone and now, only a few buildings remain. The long-abandoned cemetery shows the ravages of time and the natural elements.

When at last I had the pictures that would fulfill the project requirements, I spent some time really seeing what I had been so busy photographing. Several rock mounds didn’t have any markers. Others with metal markers had no discernable information. A few graves had protective fences around them; however, most of these were broken down. Wooden crosses alone marked several graves. Two or three of the headstones had obvious spelling and dyslexic problems. One grave was surrounded by an expensive iron fence that had been shipped in from Ohio.

I spent quite some time at a weed-covered mound of rocks with a wooden crucifix. Several times in the years after doing this project I felt drawn back to this image. I wasn’t sure why until recently, when it suddenly fit together with, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Always before this I had understood that death and decay were natural processes. It had even begun to be clear that eventually this would happen to my body. But what thundered in on me as I kept looking at this weedy mound of rocks and weathered cross was not death and the decay of my body.

I have fond memories and a sense of meaning from my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. I even have a few material objects that are touchstones for these memories. But of these ancestors as it will be for me, it is only the memories and feelings, the human connections, which will endure. Who these people were for me comes from who their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were for them. And so it will be for our children and grandchildren. The affect we have on family, friends and others is all in this life that will endure and have lasting value.

What made the Engle cemetery different than any of the other cemeteries I have visited? A community cemetery is close to the place where people live, work and play. Family and friends of the deceased have their own lives to lead and in due time they carry on. Daily life continues.

The Engle cemetery is different because it doesn’t have a well kept lawn, busy streets, and a bustling community. And while there isn’t a grave mound or marker for it, Engle itself and its way of life is gone. A way of life with people raising families, working together, and helping each other has ceased to be. The community context for lives is gone. While people died and were buried in the Engle cemetery, so also their community and its way of life died.

Sitting there in the Engle cemetery I became very aware that when I die everything I am doing with family and friends here and now will stop. I won’t be doing these things anymore. The Engle cemetery helped me see more clearly that I will leave behind everything that I am doing in this life. It’s hard to keep this in mind amidst the needs and presses of daily life. This is why I turn to this image for Lenten meditations. It helps me work on keeping all that I do in perspective.

While writing about this image and describing the cemetery, several graves with badly weathered wooden crosses came to mind. For each one, the cross that had been a grave marker is now a simple crucifix. No clues are given about the life of the person whose remains were buried there; except to say that they were given a decent burial. The wooden grave marker as it was changed into a simple crucifix has become an eloquent statement about life after death. As a life ends there is also a new beginning.

Image and Words by Robert Epley, all rights reserved.

This Living Water

by Diane Walker

Drink up, my friend —
This living water's given for all who grieve.

Words & Image by Diane Walker, all rights reserved.

An Invitation To Renewal

The Art Blog at Episcopal Cafe

"The season of Lent is a time for renewal of our spiritual lives. Consider making a pilgrimage to Trinity Cathedral and experience the beauty and power of this sacred art form. Twenty-three exquisite icons will be on view in Synod Hall between now and the first week of Easter." Read it all HERE.

Dissolving Otherness

by Diane Walker

We are Other,
you and I,
yet they are We,
to them.
They are separate,
and yet together;
We are separate from them.

What will it take
for all of us to become We?
A puppy chasing its tail before us
'til we all dissolve in laughter
and the borders dissolve with us?

Or some hideous ball of flame in the distance,
driving us to cling together in fear?

What hand will you extend,
and how will you extend it?
If there is no room to climb the stairs,
What steps will you take?

Who will start to build our circle of trust?

Words & Image by Diane Walker, all rights reserved.

Lent

by Connie Backus-Yoder

The altar frontal above represents the entire season of Lent. At the beginning, our minds are not focused on the serious aspects of our lives when it comes to the darkness that is in our hearts. The fabric is a little flowery and very, very light. Then as the days and weeks progress and we look forrward to Good Friday, we see ourselves in a different light. Still loved by God, and precious apples of His/Her eyes, but as we turn inward we see ways that may not be pleasing to our Loving Father.

Three glimpses of Easter are represented by yellow/gold satin on the Quilt and represent the Trinity. The darkest nights of all is the darkest fabric, which is where the last representation of the Trinity occurs to hearken to His resurrection at Dawn.

The thorns are a copy from the floor of one of the chapels in England, and represent not only the sufferings of our Savior in His precious work on our behalf, but also our own suffering as we apply His principles into our weary, worn lives.

Seen above: Altar Frontal "Lent" by Connie Backus-Yoder