"Wedding of Mary and Joseph" (between 1650 and 1700) It takes grace in our time to keep our minds open to wonder, to be ready for the tug from God, the push from the Spirit, and the revelation of deep things from the hearts of ordinary people. It takes grace, but it is a great gift.
God broods over us in the icons. And so we are summoned to look at them every day for they bring life, food, and grace into our bodies. There is a shining forth in our flesh that emerges with undivided attention and devotion. We come to drink in the icon and to be taken and held by it. We stand before the eye of God, or sit, or kneel, and we bow and kiss the icon, touching our fingers to our forehead, lips, shoulders, and heart as we greet and acknowledge that we are there — before All That Is, before God, the Holy One. Always the icon seeks to bring us to prayer and attentive adoration.
I listened to many versions of this carol on YouTube today because I wanted to bring you a good one that I have not posted before on this blog. This one (by the Mediæval Bæbes) is excellent. An even better version (I would assert) can be found on The Anchorhold (another of my blogs).
Artist: Claude MonetI heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.
-- Anne Lamott
We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate. The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact to come awake. Still more to remain awake.
-- C.S. Lewis
Luminosity.
The Ave Maria by Franz Bieble was originally written for men's voice but this arrangement is also simply luscious.
Artist: Francesco Guardi While you have a thing it can be taken from you... but when you give it, you have given it. No robber can take it from you. It is yours then for ever when you have given it. It will be yours always. That is to give.
-- James Joyce
Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being... Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual.
Artist: Carol Popp de SzathmarySilence is like a river of grace inviting us to leap unafraid into its beckoning depths. It is dark and mysterious in the waters of grace. Yet in the silent darkness we are given new eyes. In the heart of the divine we can see more clearly who we are. We are renewed and cleansed in this river of silence. There are those among you who fear the Great Silence. It is a foreign land to you. Sometimes it is good to leap into the unknown. Practice leaping.
Artist: Sperindio CagnolaIn the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.
Artist: Jan van EyckThe things that we love tell us who we are.
Artist: El GrecoLanguage is so weak in explaining the fullness of the mystery. That is why the absolute silence of mediation is so supremely important. We do not try to think of God, talk to God or imagine God. We stay in that awesome silence open to the eternal silence of God. We discover in meditation, through practice and taught daily by experience, that this is the natural ambience for all of us. We are created for this and our being flourishes and expands in that eternal silence.I think the distinction between a pre-linguistic and a post-linguistic stated is an important one, actually.
“Silence” as a word, however, already falsifies the experience and perhaps deters many people, because it suggests some negative experience, the deprivation of sound or language. People fear that the silence of meditation is regressive. But experience and tradition teach us that the silence of prayer is not the pre-linguistic but the post-linguistic state in which language has completed its task of pointing us through and beyond itself and the whole realm of mental consciousness. The eternal silence is not deprived of anything nor does it deprive us of anything. It is the silence of love, of unqualified and unconditional acceptance.
Artist: Antoni KarwowskiI never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.
I've just today come across several passages from this book. (One reviewer said it read like the diary of a born again Woody Allen!)
I think I want to read it.
~~~
Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art....It is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world.
Artist: Briton Rivière Something of God...flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself.
Where, except in the present, can the Eternal be met?
This moment contains all moments.
I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.
Looking for God--or Heaven--by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters...
It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.
As the end of another year draws close, what are the powers that you and your [fellow] church members fear, consciously or unconsciously? What "philosophies" and "false teachings" undermine Christian faith today, especially in your own setting? What is the power that helps you get through your day and the struggles of your life? Does the universe, does creation itself, feel out of control to you?...I found the above questions right here.
The image of a king may seem a bit outdated for people in post-modern democracies. Do you think it is still relevant for the church today? Is there another image that works better for you? How might our understanding of Jesus' being "raised up" expand beyond what happened on one Easter morning to a comprehensive understanding of his place over everything, not just our individual, personal lives, or the community, or the church in every age, but all of creation, in all time?
There are many recordings of this on YouTube. I've listened to quite a few and this is definitely the best so far. The tempo is almost miraculously sublime and the diminuendo at the very end is shimmeringly perfect. Do listen!
Artist: Max SlevogtI have shared with you before how much I respect and value the works of Frederick Buechner. I really appreciate this passage because the misconception is widespread that we must believe certain doctrines about Jesus rather than placing our faith in him, setting our hearts on him.Believing in him is not the same as believing things about him such as that he was born of a virgin and raised Lazarus from the dead. Instead, it is a matter of giving our hearts to him, of come hell or high water putting our money on him, the way a child believes in a mother or a father, the way a mother or a father believes in a child.
Artist: Mikhail NatarevichThe doing of something productive regardless of the outcome is an act of faith. The doing of a small something when a large something is too much for us is perhaps especially an act of faith. Faith means going forward by whatever means we can.
— Julia Cameron (from Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance)
When Christians draw lines between themselves and others, Jesus remains a relentless and scandalous crosser of these lines. He quietly slips to the other side. Whenever an attempt to imprison him is made he disappears from sight and appears elsewhere. Thus is lived out the paradoxical nature of Christian identity. A Christian is simultaneously a member of a community and an outsider. It is as if Jesus still prefers to be with the outcast, however wrong their beliefs or behavior, rather than with those who are self-righteously sure that only they are right. The intolerant Christian isolates himself or herself from the Christ of universal tolerance. Jesus' truth is greater than all the opinions about him put together.
Artist: Van GoghLet go of the private dream for the dream of God. Most of us live in the past, carrying our hurts, guilts and fears. We have to face the pain we carry, lest we spend the rest of our lives running away from it or letting it run us. But the only place you'll ever meet the real is now-here. It's the hardest place for us to live, the place where we're most afraid to live, because it feels so empty and boring. Now-here almost always feels like nowhere, and that's precisely where we must go.Desmond Tutu also talks about the dream of God.
If God said,
"Rumi, pay homage to everything
that has helped you
enter my
arms,"
there would not be one experience of my life,
not one thought, not one feeling,
not any act, I
would not
bow
to.-- Rumi
Artist: Gustave CaillebotteGood for the body is the work of the body,
good for the soul is the work of the soul, and
good for either is the work of the other.
Margret Hofheinz-Döring/Galerie Brigitte Mauch GöppingenJust these two words He spoke
changed my life:
“Enjoy Me.”
What a burden I thought I was to carry--
a crucifix, as did He.
Love once said to me, "I know a song,
Would you like to hear it?
And laughter came from every brick in the street
And from every pore
in the sky.
After a night of prayer, he
changed my life when
He sang,
"Enjoy Me."
Artist: Niko PirosmaniIf you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.
Artist: Wilhelm Krause When the storm is over and night falls and the moon is out in all its glory and all you're left with is the rhythm of the sea, of the waves, you know what God intended for the human race, you know what paradise is.
Artist: Carl Ludwig Becker Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter — you are just there in front of the fire. You don't have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.
-- Desmond Tutu (on communion with God)
"Ascent of the Blessed" by Hieronymus Bosch By Your resurrection from the dead, O Christ, death no longer has dominion over those who die in holiness. So, we beseech You, give rest to Your servants in Your sanctuary and in Abraham's bosom. Grant it to those, who from Adam until now have adored You with purity, to our ancestors, brothers and sisters, to our kinspeople and friends, to all those who have lived by faith and passed on their road to You, by a thousand ways, and in all conditions, and make them worthy of the heavenly kingdom.
-- from the Byzantine Divine Liturgy
All Saints icon-- Anne RiceWe have to become saints. We have to become like Christ. Anything less is simply not enough.
If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there.
...
Pray, and let God worry.
...
Be thou comforted, little dog, Thou too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail.
...
God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
Icon of Holy WisdomInto the daily cycle of our lives
When all seems well
With us and with the world
When our yoke is easy
And the burden light
You break in
And scatter our complacency
Into the daily cycle of our lives
When we are comfortable
And at our ease
When the fire is lit
But eyes are closed
You break in
And challenge our dependency
You break into
Our daily prayers
Humble hearts
Lay souls bare
You break in
You break in
You break in
When defences are down
With an Angel's shout
Or the quietest sound
You break in
You break in
And we change
And all things change
When you break in
I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.
-- Albert Camus
A South African landscape— This world is full of trouble, umfundisi.
— Who knows it better?
— Yet you believe?
Kumalo looked at him under the light of the lamp. I believe, he said, but I have learned that it is a secret. Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering. There is my wife, and you, my friend, and these people who welcomed me, and the child who is so eager to be with us here in Ndotsheni – so in my suffering I can believe.
— I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.
Kumalo looked at his friend with joy. You are a preacher, he said.-- Alan Paton
Artist: Nadezhda P. ShteinmillerSometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.
Margret Hofheinz-Döring/Galerie Brigitte Mauch GöppingenThe dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.
-- Carl Jung
Artist: Paula Modersohn-BeckerDon't tell me you will love me forever. Tell me that you will love me Thursday afternoon at four o'clock.
This is what incarnational faith is all about. It's not abstract (or it's not merely abstract). Following Christ means cultivating the kind of love that manifests itself in the very real lives of very real people.
~~~
Artist: Franz Nölken The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the ...moment.
Artist: Peter Severin Krøyer"Praise the God of all, drink the wine, and let the world be the world."
— French Proverb
Artist: Maurice DenisHere's something I just came across:
-- George EliotPerhaps one way of thinking about spirituality is that it can be the approach by which we learn to hear the true melody rather than the out of tune version. That way we learn that it is not detestable at all but ineffably lovely.Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.
Artist: Arseny Nikoforovich SemionovHuman beings look separate because you see them walking about separately. But then we are so made that we can see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course it would look different. For there was a time when every man was part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well, and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing--rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.
-- C.S. Lewis
--Theodore RoethkeThe Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close behind me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lonely worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air;
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Artist: Domenico GhirlandaioAs for meditation, I would like you to be a disciple of prayer, because without prayer there is no habitual union with God. You need a type of prayer which is suited to your temperament, your situation, your inner inclination, consequently, your heart. Speak simply and candidly to our Lord as with another self, as with your sister. Be a child who is full of love and surrendered to her good maker. Let it be an interior conversation with God more than a work of the mind. Then, a scattered, distracted meditation will come together, because it will express all the thoughts and needs of your heart.
Artist: Anatoli Nenartovich When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"
What will you answer? "We all dwell together
To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"?-- T.S Eliot
"At the tattoo parlor, my friend worked with needle and ink applying a design to the skin on his client's back, as the three of us sat discussing our spiritual desires and ambivalence about religion. In the midst of our conversation, the man under the needle turned and said, 'Jesus is cool, it's just that they have f***ed with Jesus. I mean, Christianity was at its best when it was secret and hidden and you could die for it.' This profound, if crass, statement recognizes that the power of the gospel lay in its ability to be a counter-cultural and revolutionary force - not only a story to believe, but a distinctive way of life. The man's comment prompted me to consider the question: Am I in some measure complicit in the domestication of Jesus?"
Artist: Viktor VasnetsovMake peace with silence, and remind yourself that it is in this space that you'll come to remember your spirit. When you're able to transcend an aversion to silence, you'll also transcend many other miseries. And it is in this silence that the remembrance of God will be activated.
Artist: Archip Iwanowitsch Kuindshi Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows,
Help us to see
That without the dust the rainbow
Would not be.
Artist: Veniamin Ivanovich Borisov I wonder how our lives might be different if all of us who claim to follow Christ managed to remember what Bonhoeffer said here more consistently.God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.
Artist: Nicholas Roerich"Let’s think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world…Try walking around with a child who’s going, ‘Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!’ And the child points, and you look, and you see, and you start going, ‘Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary dark cloud!’ I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world – present and in awe."
-- Anne Lamott
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