no forcing and no holding back

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

silver

my silver // graphite, oil pastel, ink, watercolor, colored pencil

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“One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot,
went to the chief priests and said,
‘What are you willing to give me
if I hand him over to you?’
They paid him thirty pieces of silver,
and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.”

– from Mt 26:14-25

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I wanted the art work to speak for itself this week, but I think this piece needs a bit of background.  Here I drew 30 circles to represent the 30 pieces of silver and then filled in each with thoughts of what and how I have betrayed Christ in my life.  It may not have been literally handing him over to death.  But I do choose other things and opportunities over him.  Money is not usually the motivator.  It is much more likely to be a choice between Christ’s pilgrim way and security or Christ’s humble way and recognition.

hand

hand it over //collage+photocopy+sharpie*

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Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified,
“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant.
One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,
was reclining at Jesus’ side.
So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.
He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him,
“Master, who is it?”
Jesus answered,
“It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”
So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas,
son of Simon the Iscariot.
After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him.
So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”
Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him.
Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him,
“Buy what we need for the feast,”
or to give something to the poor.
So Judas took the morsel and left at once. And it was night.

– from Jn 13:21-33, 36-38

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*This was a lunch hour creation using only what I could find around the office.
Background image: Woodcut illustration by Rick Beerhorst for Cross-Shattered Christ by Stanley Hauerwas (Ever thankful to J for this treasure).
Hand image: Study for Androcles by Henry Ossawa Tanner (currently on display at PAFA).

fragrance

fragrant love // ink on bristol board

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“Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany,
where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served,
while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil
made from genuine aromatic nard
and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair;
the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.”

– from Jn 12:1-11

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tethered

tethered // miniature assemblage

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“Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately on entering it,
you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it here.”

– from Mark 11

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may it be

Going to see these guys today.  I need them to sing this blessing:

And the road may it rise to meet your feet
And be downhill all the way to your door
May the grass below be green and the sky above be blue
May it be so forever more

pure gospel

I love having people in my life who send me links like this where I then found this.  It is a collection of well crafted “graphic” (meaning design, not gore) representations of key moments in the Easter story, largely built around text from the Gospels.  The artist is a designer for a large church. In case you don’t know it, visual imagery of the digital nature is a huge addition to 21st century emergent faith communities, aka Protestant churches led by adults my age who likely grew up in evangelical traditions and are now seeking to define “church” in a new way.  A graphic designer is probably the second hire.  After the church planter, but before the worship leader.

Light-hearted ribbing aside, I think this is a direct response to the days of yore.  We were the earnest ones who spent Sunday after Sunday in cream colored sanctuaries where a single wooden cross marked the dimensions of our faith.  Very few visual cues or prompts were incorporated into worship.  Maybe the occasional clip art image or nature photo overlaid with scripture would show up on a powerpoint slide, but that wasn’t until 1996.  I give this bit of background because I think several of those reading this Lenten blog are of the Catholic persuasion and might not understand a faith context in which visual stimulus played little or no role in the worship space or experience.  No eight foot bloodied Christ hanging over the altar.  No pale Virgin standing serenely to the side.  No altar swathed in red on feast days.  Heck, no feast days at all.  Anyway, back to the images…

Inspired by those Word Bible Designs, I’m giving myself a challenge.  I selected a word from the Gospel reading for six of the Holy Week days and will create from that word.  I will use the same parameters that I did for the art + music night.  Short bursts of creativity with whatever is on hand at the time.

The six words are:

tethered – Palm Sunday

fragrance – Monday

hand – Tuesday

silver  – Wednesday

clean – Thursday

torches – Friday

I tried to make selections that alternated between nouns and concepts.  I also tried to focus on words that  are important to the overall narrative.  For example, I really wanted “rooster” for Tuesday, but that is probably not an essential piece of John’s description of the intimate meal that becomes the backdrop for the change that takes place in Judas.

right here

near lock 17//2010

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However often I get lost,
however far my thinking strays,
I know you will be here, right here,
time trembling around you.

from I, 62.
Book of Hours
Rilke

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she said yes

la virgen de las granadillas//el salvador

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Today Catholics mark the Solemnity of The Annunciation of the Lord, a day I like to think of as a celebration not of the baby that would be born, but of free will, unexplainable belief, and faithful women.*  Before the manger and the miracles, there was a young woman who faced an unsettling pronouncement. Mary’s brave response to the angel becomes the model for our response to God’s messages.  These may come through nature or another person, through Scripture or song, and very often when we think the whole world has gone silent and forgotten about us.

When I put myself into Mary’s story all I can think of is the confusion and frustration she must have felt.  She would be disgraced.  She would lose her reputation and very likely her only means of financial security, Joseph. She might have this magical, mystical child, but how would she support it?  Mary has to have wondered what her family and friends would think.  The world doesn’t place a premium on the believers and the ones who hear the Spirit calling.

I hear three key things in the momentary encounter with Gabriel: God had noticed Mary, she was going to do something remarkable for God and humankind, and doing this work was going to commence with her acceptance of the task.  I don’t notice much about the logistics or the how.  There doesn’t seem to be a road map provided or a flow chart about how this will unfold.  Mary asks one clarifying question, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” A good question given the circumstances.  Gabriel gives her a reply wrapped up in yet another mystery.  Her older cousin will have a son even though physically that too would be impossible by human standards.  Would I have said yes with that as the sign that the task at hand was worth embracing?  Doubtful. One mystery is enough.

But how often do I miss God because I dismiss the other signs?  How often do I walk past the miraculous because it seems unreasonable?  Even absurd? I can forget that the mystery I say I believe in is actually made and remade each time I show up…and each time I say yes. Contemplative and author Heather King writes, “…the Annunciation reminds me that with faith, which is to say with love, all things are possible. Because this is the paradox of what happened after Mary said yes: everything turned out wrong–and, then again, everything turned out right.”

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He who will overcome you
is working in silence.

– from I, 49.
Book of Hours
Rilke

*Normally it would have been yesterday, but if it falls on a Sunday then it is moved to the Monday…or so the experts tell me.

to and from

road to the abbey//upstate ny

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“It matters to me
Took a long time to get here
If it would have been easy
I would not have cared”

–  from “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)”
My Morning Jacket

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“You know me and also know where I am from.
Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”

– John 7:28, 29

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This might be sacrilegious, but I can see connections between these two excerpts.  In the song lyrics, I hear my own voice acknowledging how the journey has shaped me…something I am very mindful of as we get closer and closer to the Easter Vigil at the end of Lent.  I also hear the voice of a friend who used to tell me that it should be hard, that the things that come easily are not the things we truly cherish.

The lines from the book of John in today’s Gospel reading are in the context of increasing danger for Jesus. He has been preaching and doing miracles, stirring up all kinds of emotions, inciting anger from local religious leaders.  Here, Jesus calls out to those assembled at the temple and tries to explain the paradox they face, that the son of God is going to be an unknown, yet those nearby do know his provenance.  I’m no theologian, but I think he wants the people to understand the essence of his coming, how the incarnation is more about WHO he comes from than it is about WHERE he comes from.

My prayer for today is that I can be more aware of Who I come from, of the One who is true, and to be patient (and gentle) with myself when the road feels longer and more difficult than I would like.