sketch for ninth station assemblage // watercolor and conti crayon
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Yes. I was supposed to post some new Gospel themed art today. And yesterday. The “pure gospel” series made it for four out of the six days I had planned.
The process was delightful and stretching. I feel like I did when I was a catechist with first graders, that I know those Gospel passages more deeply now because I created through them, similar to teaching the words. The unblemished colt tethered just out of view. The aromatic expression of affection Mary shared with Jesus and we are suggested to emulate in love. The intimacy of sharing a meal and the tensions of knowing more than one present will betray. A scattering of silver, silver that we all have in one form or another.
Yet yesterday, and again today, there were moments that called out to be grasped. Not from behind an easel, or on the page or screen, but right there in front of me. Not grabbing on to those moments would have meant more sleep and certainly two more pieces of art…and a greater sense of accomplishment about this “public” project. But I am trying to leave that piece of silver on the table.
Thursday morning I was disgruntled. I had to go into work even though the center was closed for Holy Thursday. It was the only day a friend of mine could lend his truck and muscle to help get lumber for the community garden project next weekend. By the time we got to Home Depot my spirits picked up. This was getting real! Vegetables should be growing on that abandoned lot by month’s end.
When we got back to the office there was a message for me from the mayor’s office. One of the graduates of our teen program was accepted for a prestigious national service position for the summer that includes some time spent on the garden project and some at city hall. I thought I would burst. I am so proud of the work she has done and how her sights are set on the future. If I had not gone in yesterday I would have missed that message for days.
Thursday night I was sitting in a pew waiting for the Mass to begin. I looked around and realized I knew the name of someone in nearly every other pew in the church. This was a long time coming. I struggled for a year to split my time between the parish where I work and a Jesuit parish in a posh neighborhood of the city. Opposite ends of the spectrum. Then in November I made a decision to stick with the latter for weekend Masses, which led to social activities with people my age and opportunities for a different kind of service, such as the art + music night. It also has meant the end of going to Mass alone and hiding there behind my work persona. The men and women on either side of me are fellow pilgrims. They have become my faith community when I needed it most.
The night concluded with the altar stripping, something I haven’t been a part of before. The host was processed around the community of faithful and then exposed on a side altar. The lights dimmed and then eight of us lined up to remove the candles, books, and linens from the altar. I’m never on the other side of the table so looking back out at the assembled while folding up a long cloth gave me a different vantage point. The first four pews were for RCIA and man, did that make me proud to be part of a church that has that many candidates and catechumens.
That brings me to today.
This afternoon I will be participating in an ecumenical stations of the cross project in a public space in Kensington. This is a collaborative endeavor. I am excited and nervous. The sketch above was made last weekend and then chopped into pieces and sewn into strips with other similar paintings from the journey Christ took to Calvary. Despite some anxiety about having to explain the project to those walking through the stations, I am thrilled to be able to express my faith in this way and to do so on one of the most important days in the church calendar.
What a Lent this has been!
I want to do a final wrap up next week, but for now, may the words of the poet hover over these three days of sorrow and celebration:
I believe in all that has never been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing to you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
I, 12.
Book of Hours
Rilke
silences of stone 