Advent 1: Practicing the Apocalypse

November 23, 2009 by Jan Richardson

Image: Apocalypse, Again © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Advent 1, Year C: Luke 21.25-36

As I write this, I’m en route from Orlando to New Brunswick, Canada, where I’ll be leading a women’s retreat as we prepare to enter into Advent. It seems fitting that my journey into Advent, a season characterized by waiting, is beginning with flight delays. The delay in Orlando turned out great not only because the extra hour and a half that I spent there provided one of the calmest interludes that I’ve had amidst the extra-full pace of the past few weeks, but also because it reduced the amount of time I’m currently having to spend laid over at an airport that shall remain nameless.

The airport is absolutely crammed with people, and my inner introvert is reeling. I’m usually really good at being able to find a semi-quiet spot in any airport, but this evening I’m doing well just to have found a few square feet of space here on the floor outside a door marked “Bus Hold Room” as I eat my second turkey sandwich of the day. (Not because I have a hankering for turkey; let’s just say that the airport could do with a few more food options at this terminal.) Amid the masses, it feels like I’m in some cosmic way station. I find myself marveling at the endless variety by which humans can take shape, and also overwhelmed by their sheer numbers, close proximity, and noise.

All in all, I’m finding this a good place to think about the apocalypse.

Each year, the lectionary for the first Sunday of Advent gives us a version of Jesus’ words about the end of days. This year Luke does the honors. In Luke 21.25-36, we read of celestial signs, cataclysms of nature, and distress upon the earth. Jesus speaks of fear and foreboding that will come upon the people. He tells of how, in the days to come, the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Along with its parallels in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, this passage forms part of what is sometimes called the “little apocalypse.” It seems a sobering and grim way to welcome us into a season that in the Christian tradition is a time of expectation and celebration and that the wider culture typically depicts as cheery. Yet in greeting us as we cross the threshold into Advent, this apocalypse-in-miniature reminds us that this season bids us not only to remember and celebrate the Christ who has already come to us, but also to anticipate and look toward the fullness of time when he will bring about the redemption of the world.

That’s what Jesus is really getting at in this passage, after all: he is not offering these apocalyptic images in order to scare the pants off people but rather to assure his listeners that the healing of the world is at hand, and that they need to stay awake, stay alert, and learn to read the signs of what is ahead. He is calling them not to crumble or quail when intimations of the end come but instead to “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Jesus urges his hearers—and us—toward practices that help them stay grounded and centered in their daily lives so that they won’t be caught unawares in the days to come.

This is the message that the lectionary gives us each year as we enter into Advent. Again and again, we are called to circle back around the apocalypse, to revisit its landscape, to take in its terrain. With its annual return, and its repetitive challenge to us, this passage puts me in mind of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Preparing to save the world yet again, a weary Buffy has this exchange with Giles, her Watcher:

Buffy: How many apocalypses is this now?
Giles: About six, I think.
Buffy: Feels like a hundred.

The season of Advent gives us the apocalypse each year not only so that we might recognize it, should it come, but also—and perhaps especially—that we might enter more mindfully into our present landscape and perceive the signs of how God is working out God’s longing in the world here and now. The root meaning of the word apocalypse, after all, is revelation. And God is, in every time and season, about the work of revealing God’s presence. The one who came to us two millennia ago as Emmanuel, God-with-us, and who spoke of a time when he would come again in fullness, reveals himself even now in our midst, calling us to see all the guises in which he goes about in this world.

Advent reminds us, year in and year out, that although we are to keep a weather eye out for cosmic signs, we must, like the fig tree that Jesus evokes in this passage, be rooted in the life of the earth. And in the rhythm of our daily lives here on earth, Christ bids us to practice the apocalypse. He calls us in each day and moment to do the things that will stir up our courage and keep us grounded in God, not only that we may perceive Christ when he comes, but also that we may recognize him even now. There is a sense, after all, in which we as Christians live the apocalypse on a daily basis. Amid the destruction and devastation that are ever taking place in the world, Christ beckons us to perceive and to participate in the ways that he is already seeking to bring redemption and healing for the whole of creation.

As we enter the season of Advent, and spiral yet again around the landscape that this first Sunday gives to us, how might Christ be inviting you to practice the apocalypse? What are the habits that keep you centered in God, that sharpen your vision, and that help you recognize the presence of Christ in this world? How do you participate in the redemption that God is ever working to bring about within creation? What is it that you long for in these Advent days?

Blessings and peace to you in this coming season.

[For last year’s reflection on Mark’s version of this passage, visit Through the Door.]

[To use the image “Apocalypse, Again,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Posted in Advent, art, Gospel of Luke, lectionary, religion, sacred time | 9 Comments »

Approaching Advent

November 9, 2009 by Jan Richardson

WiseWomenAlsoCame
Wise Women Also Came © Jan L. Richardson

In her book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris tells a story that’s said to come from a Russian Orthodox monastery. A seasoned monk, long accustomed to the tradition of monastic hospitality that welcomes all guests as Christ, says to a young monk, “I have finally learned to accept people as they are. Whatever they are in the world, a prostitute, a prime minister, it is all the same to me. But sometimes,” the monk continues, “I see a stranger coming up the road and I say, “Oh, Jesus Christ, is it you again?”

Advent is just around the corner (this year the first Sunday of Advent is on November 29), and I have found myself thinking about this story as I begin to turn my attention toward this season of anticipation. In the rhythm of the Christian year, Advent is a time that beckons us to consider how—and whether—we are looking for the Christ who comes to us anew in this season. How do we keep our eyes open to the holy one who is so fond of hiding out in the most surprising disguises, again and again and again?  On those occasions when we do recognize the presence of Christ, how do we welcome him into our midst? Are we leaving enough space in our days to linger with the Christ who comes to us in this and every season?

These are a few of the questions I’m pondering as I prepare to enter into the coming Advent days. How about you? What’s on your mind and tugging at your soul as this sacred season draws close? What do you hope to welcome into your life as we begin to journey toward the celebration of Christmas?

After an intense year of working on an almost-finished new book, and taking a bit of a break from blogging at The Painted Prayerbook as a result, one of the things I’m looking forward to in the coming weeks is creating new art and reflections here at The Advent Door. I look forward to sharing the coming days with you and would love to hear what’s stirring for you as the season unfolds.

Along with the art and reflections I’ll be posting here, I have a few other resources for Advent and Christmas that I’d be delighted to share with you:

IMAGES ONLINE: Jan Richardson Images enables churches and other communities to download high-resolution files of my artwork for use in worship, education, and other settings. The images are available for $15 each, or you can sign up for an annual subscription, which gives you unlimited downloads for a year (within the Guidelines for Use). To celebrate the approach of Advent, I’m offering a festive discount on annual subscriptions: for just $100, you can sign up for an artful year (regular $165). The site offers lots of images for Advent, Christmas, and beyond. Visit Subscribe to Jan Richardson Images to sign up.

BOOKS: Published through my small press, The Luminous Word: Entering the Mysteries of Advent & Christmas offers artwork and reflections on the sacred texts and themes of the coming season. Visit Wanton Gospeller Press to find out more about these handmade books. Also, thanks for the inquiries I’ve received about Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas. We’re working to have it back in print next year and look forward to having it available for you again.

CARDS: I have artful greeting cards available for the season; visit Christmas Cards.

ART PRINTS: A great gift for someone else or for your own self. Visit Art Prints, where the available prints include one that gathers together 25 of the images from this blog.

ORIGINAL ART: For an extra special gift, I have a few of the original pieces from the series The Hours of Mary Magdalene available. For details, visit The Hours of Mary Magdalene and click on the individual images.

COOL MUSIC FOR THE SEASON: Check out the post Music and Mystery for some of my favorite tunes that draw me deeper into the season.

ETC: I send out an occasional e-newsletter that includes a seasonal reflection, artwork, information about current offerings and upcoming events, and whatever else strikes my creative fancy. I would be delighted to include you in my mailing list if you haven’t already subscribed. You can sign up here.

Blessings to you as Advent approaches! In the coming days, may we have many occasions to welcome Christ, and may others find his presence in us.

Posted in Advent, art, Christmas, sacred time | 4 Comments »

Tangled Up in You

December 25, 2008 by Jan Richardson

advent-door-blog-2008-cmasb
Tangled Up in You © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Christmas Day: John 1.1-14

Of all the artful treasures passed down in the Christian tradition, some of the most amazing are the early medieval Gospel books from Ireland and its neighbors. The Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Gospels of St. Chad: fashioned by monks living in such places as Iona and Lindisfarne between the seventh and tenth centuries, these and other Gospel books offer a remarkable testament to the power of the Word to inspire devotion and beauty. Monks undertook the creation of these books as an act of prayer, lavishing their artful attention on the pages over the course of months and years. They drenched the pages with colors derived from the things of the earth: flowers and seeds and leaves, precious stones and minerals, even inks made from insects.

A distinctive feature of the Celtic Gospel books is the intricate knotwork that adorns the pages. Serving not merely as decoration, the knotwork connects the words and images so intricately that the boundary between them breaks down: words become images become words. All manner of forms and symbols twist through and among the knots, telling their own stories: animals and angels, crosses, chalices brimming with vines, and human figures including Christ, Mary, and the four evangelists. Some of the knotwork marries the silly with the sublime. Mice play tug-of-war with a Communion wafer, cats bound from page to page, intertwined men tug at one another’s beards. And everywhere there are books, reminding the viewer not only of the power of the Gospel but also of the enduring presence of the Word who took flesh and became incarnate in this world, a living Word for all to read.

The most ornate pages of these Gospel books are labyrinths that beckon readers to enter the mysteries of this Word, to lose themselves and find themselves again within the twisting pathways of the Gospel story. These volumes not only stand as a stunning sacrifice of skill and devotion; they also offer a way of approaching the Gospel story. With their intricate and intimate interplay of words and images, the Gospel books proclaim the story of the God who came to become entangled with us. Page by page, knot by knot, they tell the good news of the God who desires to be thoroughly intertwined with us.

The intricacy of these books testifies to the complexities of the Gospel story. With roots that twist deep into the Hebrew scriptures, the Gospel texts have layers of meaning that we can hardly begin to understand if we have not studied the texts that came before them. Symbols, stories, patterns of God’s relationship with God’s people, the ancient hopes and struggles and journeys that the people of God have undertaken: all of the tales and literary traditions that the Gospel writers inherited helped to inspire and inform the stories that they told. The Celtic Gospel books acknowledge this, intertwining pre-Christian imagery and allusions with symbolism drawn from the New Testament. The very design of these books serves to confound our assumptions that we entirely understand what their Gospel texts contain. With their complicated pathways, intricate knots, and dizzying spirals, these books remind us that the Christian life is an ongoing journey of initiation, and one that only grows more mysterious and complex the deeper we go.

For all its complexities, however, at times the Gospel story stuns us with its simplicity. It startles us with the clarity by which it reflects and speaks to our ancient human yearnings and fears and hopes. So it is with the story we hear on this day. In a dark time, John tells us in his gospel, God came to us. God put on flesh and was born among us. And this God is life. And this God is light. For all people.

And the light shines in the darkness.

And the darkness did not overcome it.

God came to get tangled up with us, to become entwined with us, to be knitted and knotted into our lives. The knots are not always tidy. I can admire the wondrous and beautiful patterns that the Celtic artists accomplished, but the patterns and entanglements of my own life, and my own art, tend to be far less orderly. Yet amid the complexities and complications and conundrums that life offers us, God twists and turns, walking the labyrinth with us and helping us find our way through.

On this Christmas Day, where do you find yourself on the twisting path? How do you experience the God who desires to be intertwined among all the elements of your life? Are there any tangles that could do with some attention? How might it be to invite God into those? If you were to paint or draw or collage the pattern of your life right now, what would it look like? What story, what good news, does that pattern contain and proclaim?

On this and all days, may you know the presence of the God who came to us and who goes with us still, entangling us and entwining us. I am grateful to you for sharing this Advent path, and I invite you to continue to journey with me as I return to The Painted Prayerbook, exploring the intertwining of words and images in the year to come. Blessings and deep blessings to you. Merry Christmas!

[For last year’s reflection on this passage, visit Door 25: The Book of Beginnings.]

[To use the “Tangled Up in You” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Visit ◊The Advent Door◊ home.

Posted in Advent, art, Christmas, Gospel of John, lectionary, medieval, religion | 8 Comments »

Christmas Eve: Longing for Light

December 24, 2008 by Jan Richardson

advent-door-blog-2008-cmas
Who Walked in Darkness © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, Christmas Eve: Isaiah 9.2-7

Some years ago, I wrote a prayer for one of my books in which I asked that in those times when we are so focused on providing hospitality to others that we neglect ourselves, God would help us to tend the pilgrim in our own souls “who longs for a welcoming fire and for shelter in the dark.” While the book was in production, I received a note from one of the folks who was working on it, asking me to change that line, as the publishing house avoided the use of language suggesting that darkness was bad.

I understood the concern, being familiar with the ways our culture has long equated lightness and whiteness with goodness, and darkness and blackness with evil. That’s part of what the book was addressing in the first place. With the title Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas, the book was something of a hymn to the deity who dwells in darkness as well as in daylight, the God who challenges us to search and know with all our senses and not just with our eyes, the Holy One who says, “I will give you the treasures of darkness, and riches hidden in secret places” (Isaiah 45.3).

I told the person at the publishing house that, committed though I am to finding the presence of God in the dark, I think it’s fair to want a little light sometimes, and to desire a place of shelter when shadows have fallen across the path.

I think it’s fair to want a LOT of light from time to time. I mean, it’s crazy, what’s asked of us: to live in a world, a cosmos, in which we know so little; to have faith that there is meaning and purpose and a sacred pattern in the chaos; to move forward without being able to see what’s ahead; to follow a God who lives in layers of mystery. It’s nuts for God to ask us to reach beyond our natural instinct toward self-absorption and attend to those around us, to extend hospitality to those who are strangers, to organize ourselves into functioning communities when history has shown us how difficult this is to sustain. How audacious, how wild of God to think we can even begin to do any of this.

And I think God knows this, too, knows how impossible it sometimes seems to live in this world that is strange and difficult as well as wondrous. And so God works to shine some light our way. In this season we celebrate God’s bright impulse in a big way, and with song and story and prayer and ritual we rejoice at the ways that God has illuminated our world. The passage from Isaiah that we read on Christmas Eve gives perhaps the most gorgeous words for what we celebrate on this day:

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them has light shined….
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named Wonderful Counselor…
Prince of Peace.

The light that Isaiah speaks about: the light that breaks the yoke, the bar, and the rod of the oppressor; the light that consumes the trappings of war; the light that comes in the form of a child of peace: yes, God, more of this light, please.

It’s important to note that the texts that originated with our Jewish forebears, the texts that Christians usually call the Old Testament, can stand on their own. They do not take on meaning for the people of Christ solely by our reading and interpreting them with our Christian eyes. What Isaiah offers here are powerful words for those in darkness in any time, in any place.

At the same time it’s right that we in the Christian tradition find particular hope, solace, and meaning in these words on this day. The vivid, brilliant imagery of Isaiah undergirds and resonates with and gives poetic expression to the images and stories that we receive from the other texts that we hear this week. He prepares us to hear the astonishing story of what has come in the person of Christ. Isaiah reminds us that the longing for light is an ancient human longing. He assures us that in the presence of the darkness of this world—be it friendly darkness or foul—God is present, working to help us know God more clearly and to live together with deeper compassion, justice, and peace.

May the light that we celebrate this Christmas help us to see, to widen our vision to all the ways that God shows up in darkness and in the day. When you have need of it, may you find a welcoming fire and shelter in the shadows, and may we offer these in turn. Blessings to you on this Christmas Eve and all the days—and nights—to come.

[To use this image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Posted in Advent, art, Book of Isaiah, Christmas, lectionary, religion | 1 Comment »

Where the Foreign Meets the Familiar

December 23, 2008 by Jan Richardson


Glory © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Christmas Eve: Luke 2.1-20

Last weekend I finally put up my nativity set. I usually do this much earlier in the season, but this year found me laggardly. Perhaps it was the intense pace, or maybe it had to do with getting sick, or possibly it owed to the fact that it’s been really warm here in Florida, which, even for someone who absorbs herself in the Advent season, poses something of a challenge to getting in a holiday mood. Whatever the reason for my tardiness, the nativity players have finally taken their places.

It’s a sweet set, very petite, with figures about 3” high. Perfectly scaled to my studio apartment. I have a much larger set, a gorgeous one that was hand-built by a potter who used to have a studio near where I grew up, but when I toppled a couple of the pieces several Christmases ago as I was rounding my one-and-only table to get to my one-and-only closet, I decided to put it away until I had a proportionately larger place to house it. My parents, who had given me the larger set as a Christmas present, gave me the petite one as well, after I picked it out at a shop where they live that specializes in fair trade items. Made by artisans in Peru, the set depicts a Peruvian nativity. The shepherds wear knitted Peruvian hats (the kind that fit close to the head, with flaps that cover the ears; I have one that my friend Eric gave me when he lived in Peru; sadly, it won’t get much use as long as I live in the tropics). I’m not entirely sure what two of the wise men are carrying, but the third is definitely bringing a chicken to the Holy Family. Mary kneels before Jesus (who wears a little hat just like the shepherds’) as a somewhat worried Joseph hovers nearby, leaning on a staff. And of course a Peruvian ox and donkey look on, exuding a sense of calm.

I love seeing the Christmas story—and the broader biblical narrative—depicted in various cultures, with the characters appearing in a way that challenges my vision and unsettles my stereotypes. That’s part of what draws me to the work of artists such as He Qi, for instance, and to Manuel Garcia Moia, a Nicaraguan artist whose painting Gift of the Magi depicts a Nicaraguan scene in which the wise men offer an armadillo, a rabbit, and—I think it’s an iguana-? Particularly for those of us acculturated to envision the Christmas story in which the characters have blond hair and blue eyes, viewing the nativity narrative in a different context helps us to reimagine the story and to consider how the incarnation continues to occur amid the daily life of every culture in every place.

At the same time, the very familiarity of the Christmas story conjures memories that go deep. Each year, as I spiral back around the narrative that I have heard for more than four decades, remembrances of other Christmases come to the surface. This year some of the landscape of memory will take concrete form once again as I enact the rituals and habits that have shaped earlier holidays: the Christmas Eve service at the white painted church in the pines of my hometown, where the children will dress up for their own manger scene, after which Santa Claus will arrive (don’t ask; that’s how they’ve always done it); Christmas morning brunch (featuring homemade biscuits and sticky buns) with family friends; Christmas dinner at the home of my brother and sister-in-law, who live in the house that he and my sister and I grew up in. When I arrive at my parents’ in a few hours, they will have the nativity from my childhood set up, with a few extra pieces that my whimsical mother has added in more recent years: a giraffe and a moose are now among the creatures who attend the newborn Jesus.

I’m enacting some of my less pleasant holiday habits as well; I haven’t quite finished my shopping (I’m almost done, really), and I’m late as usual getting out of town. But even in an overfull day in an overfull season, there have been small wonders of the sort that spring up in the places where the familiar meets the unexpected.

Christmas offers a microcosm of what we’re called to in the Christian life. These days invite us to attend to the stories that help us know where we came from and what we’re about. As we listen, we are challenged to enter the deep familiarity of these stories that have been given to us. At the same time, these oh-so-familiar tales urge us to see how the Christmas narrative continues to unfold in our world, and to recognize when holy ones enter into our midst. They may come bearing good news of great joy, or in desperate need of hospitality, or offering a gift that only they could bring.

In this season, in any season, will we recognize them? Will we have the eyes to see how the story of the incarnation, the tale of Emmanuel, God-with-us, continues to play out in places both foreign and familiar?

As we draw near to Christmas Day, may we find something to comfort us and something to challenge us as we enter the story once again. May we, with the angels, have cause to sing of glory and peace. Blessings!

[For last year’s reflection on this passage, visit Door 24: The Secret Room.]

[To use the “Glory” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Visit ◊The Advent Door◊ home.

Posted in Advent, art, Christmas, lectionary, religion | 4 Comments »

Festival of Lights

December 21, 2008 by Jan Richardson


Winter Solstice © Jan L. Richardson

Happy Winter Solstice to you! (And a joyous Summer Solstice to my neighbors in the Southern Hemisphere!) Around the world, nearly every culture has a celebration during the darkest time of the year. Typically it’s some form of a Festival of Lights, an occasion to find illumination and cheer in a time of shadows and to anticipate the return of the sun. Today I’m particularly mindful of my Jewish sisters and brothers who will begin their celebration of Hanukkah at sundown this evening.

On this solstice day, here’s one memory of a winter’s celebration:

Festival of Lights

We are dancing in the streets of the city of my college years. The downtown is lit up for the holidays, and the music blares as our feet repeatedly hit the hard surface of the street. Tomorrow we will long for hot baths to soak the soreness from our legs, but tonight we are dancing at the Festival of Lights.

In the years to come I will learn how necessary it is to keep dancing, how celebration is not a luxury but a staple of life, how in the grimmest moments I will need to take myself down to the closest festival at hand. I will go not to drown my sorrow or to mask my despair or to ignore the real suffering of the world or of my own self. I will go to beat out the message with my feet that in the darkness we are dancing, and while we are weeping we are dancing, and our legs are aching but we are dancing. And under the night sky we are dancing; lighting a match to the shadows, we are dancing; starting to sing when they have stopped the music, we are dancing; sending shock waves with our feet to the other side of the world, we are dancing still.

As we tilt toward the bright half of the year (or toward the dark in the south), may you find much to give you cause for celebration. Blessings!

[Reflection from Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas © Jan L. Richardson.]

[To use the “Winter Solstice” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Posted in Advent, art, religion, sacred time | Leave a Comment »

Home for the Holidays

December 19, 2008 by Jan Richardson

Image: A Home for God © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Advent 4: Luke 1.26-38

Thanks so much for the blessings and good wishes and virtual treats I’ve received while being out of commission this week. They continue to be good medicine for body and soul. Cootie Girl is on the mend and slowly easing back into the swing of things. I have to say that while I would like to have been the determiner of my down time (and I really had been planning to have some anyway this week, honest), getting sick in the thick of Advent is not without its benefits.

Advent shares common ground with Lent in that, as a season of preparation, it invites us to a time of reflection and to let go of what insulates us from God. Caught up as many of us tend to be in the intensities of the pre-Christmas pace, doing that reflective work sometimes gets lost along the way. When feeling my worst this week I didn’t feel much like reflecting (I didn’t feel much like doing anything at all), and I don’t want to put too much of a philosophical or theological shine on feeling crummy, but it was instructive to be confronted with such an interruption of my plans, and to look through some doors that opened in a way I hadn’t orchestrated.

At my ickiest I didn’t even feel like reading, which for me is really saying something, but later in the week I did spend some time with a few of my art books. I figured that even if I was taking a break from producing I could at least feed my eyes and fill my creative well a bit. One of the books I pulled off the shelf was a delicious tome of a book titled Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), published to accompany a major exhibition of the same name that was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004. As with the exhibition, the book gathers a massive and stunning collection of artful artifacts from the Byzantine Empire, whose capital was Constantinople, and presents them by categories including sculpture, liturgical implements, icons, illuminated manuscripts, and liturgical textiles.

Yum.

As I paged through the lavish illustrations, it occurred to me that each medium to which these medieval artists gave themselves was their way of making a home for God. The book, the bowl, the icon; the triptych opening to reveal holy faces worn by centuries of lips pressed in reverence; chalice and paten, reliquary and sanctuary: each form offered an invitation to the sacred, beckoning it to draw close and be perceived, touched, kissed, met. These artists knew that we cannot capture or contain God within any medium. Their creations reveal instead their desire to offer, amid the strangeness of being in this world, a habitation for the God who calls us here.

It’s this kind of desire that we encounter in this week’s reading from Luke 1.26-38. The story of the annunciation to Mary tells us of how, with her own body, Mary makes a home for God. The medium of her own flesh becomes a habitation for the holy. It’s not simply her willingness to become pregnant and give birth to Jesus, however, that makes Mary someone who provides a dwelling for God. When Gabriel greets her, he says to her, “The Lord is with you.” Already God has found a home with her.

In response to Mary’s perplexed query about how it can be that she will bear a child, Gabriel tells her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” His words provide a dramatic resonance with last week’s reading from Isaiah, in which the prophet proclaims, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners…” By her assent, her not merely willing but audacious yes, Mary sets in motion these very actions and others that Isaiah lists. Liberty, release, healing, an end to oppression: these are the wonders that Mary goes on to sing about in the Magnificat that we hear this week: the actions of a God who brings restoration and redemption to a world that has become deeply disordered.

Mary’s yes to Gabriel, her assent to God, her willingness to make a home for the divine within her own self: these all give the lie to a history that has too often depicted her as meek and mild. Her response to God, and the work that she takes up, are the actions of a prophet, in the ancient Hebrew sense of it: one who recognizes the presence of God in the world, who points it out to others, who does not give up hope that the people will come to know God. Meekness and mildness are not enough to sustain Mary in the prophetic work God has called her to do.

Her actions are not only prophetic, but priestly as well. I remember what a jolt I received one day in seminary as I sat among the stacks in the theology library, reading an article I had just found titled “Mary and the Eucharist: an oriental perspective.” The author, Orthodox theologian Sebastian Brock, limns the links between the Mother of God and the sacrament of Eucharist. He notes, for instance, that in the Liturgy of St. James (one of the Eucharistic liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox tradition), the priest prays to God to “send your Spirit so that he may overshadow and make this bread into the life-giving Body, the saving Body, the heavenly Body, the Body which brings salvation to our souls and bodies, the body of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ….”

Overshadow. The word that tells what the Spirit does within Mary, now used to describe what the Spirit does in the sacrament of the table, not only within the bread but also within us. Overshadow, inhabit, dwell: this is how the Spirit works, seeking to make a home among us. One that is not an exclusive residence or a walled shelter, either; we hear, after all, Paul’s words to the Romans this week, in which he writes of “the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed” (from Romans 16.25-27). It is a spacious home that, like Mary, we are challenged to offer: a dwelling that reveals the presence of God rather than hiding it away.

So how is God seeking to make a home in you in this season? What audacious yes might God be inviting you to offer? How does making a home for the sacred help you find a place for yourself in this world? What sustains you in this prophetic, priestly work?

In this and every season, may we, like Mary, be a home for the God who desires to dwell with us. Blessings.

[For another reflection on the Annunciation, visit Getting the Message.]

[To use the image “A Home for God,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Posted in Advent, art, Book of Isaiah, Christmas, Gospel of Luke, lectionary, medieval, religion | 1 Comment »

Merry Cootiemas

December 16, 2008 by Jan Richardson

In an unwelcome Advent surprise, I am truly sick for the first time in years. So much so that I actually went to the doctor this afternoon, which I hardly ever do in between annual visits. The nurse called me Cootie Girl. (I like her, I didn’t mind, except I could do without having cooties in the first place.)

Going against my natural tendency to plow ahead (which may have contributed to how I got here in the first place), I’m giving myself a break. Getting plenty of rest and drinking lots of fluids, like Mom says.

I’m aiming to return before long with some new art and reflections, so please don’t go away. Cootie Girl is not contagious in cyberspace. In the meantime, I’m reprising a couple of posts from last year that offer art and words for the two lectionary readings from Luke that turn up this week as well. Scroll on down to check them out.

And if you can figure out how to email me some homemade chicken soup…

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Mary, Magnifier

December 16, 2008 by Jan Richardson

Image: Magnificat © Jan Richardson

Canticle, Advent 4: Luke 1.47-55

Instead of giving us the expected psalm among this week’s readings, the lectionary offers us a song from the Gospels: the Magnificat. Taking its name from the Latin version of its first line, Magnificat anima mea Dominum (“My soul magnifies the Lord,” NRSV), this is an ancient song of praise that we hear on the lips of Mary, the woman who will give birth to Christ.

Mary’s Magnificat joins an intriguing treasure trove of scriptural songs that are commonly known as canticles. Spanning both testaments, the canticles are present in almost every form of biblical literature, including the preaching of the prophets (in joy as well as in lamentation), the wisdom sayings, historical narratives, epistles, and apocalyptic visions. These songs both interrupt and adorn the text; the imagery and rhythms of their poetry heighten and illuminate the drama of the passages in which they are embedded. Though ranging across the entire Bible, the canticles form a textual body of their own. Along with the Psalms, they offer a vibrant core of poetry from which the church for centuries has drawn to give voice to our joy, sorrow, praise, and hope.

In her essay in The Canticles (a collection published by Liturgy Training Publications more than a decade ago—and later suppressed, but that’s another story), Irene Nowell, OSB, writes of how the canticles “function like a bridge between telling our story and turning to God in prayer. In form and style,” she observes,

they resemble psalms, but they differ from the psalms in their setting…. These prayers are set in the mouths of specific people in specific situations. They both interrupt the flow of the story and add to its meaning. They are bridges over the gap between life and prayer.

I keep this collection of the canticles on a small table by my door. Usually I leave it open to one of the wonderfully haunting monotype prints that artist Linda Ekstrom created to adorn its pages. But for the past couple of days it’s been open to the Magnificat, the Canticle of Mary, the song in praise of the God who turns the world upside down.

Mary offers this song in response to a blessing. Luke tells us that when Mary finds herself alone in the wake of the archangel Gabriel’s visit, she goes “with haste” to see her kinswoman Elizabeth, who is experiencing a strange pregnancy herself. As soon as she hears Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth intuits what has taken place, and she lays a mighty blessing on Mary for how she is participating in the work of God. “Blessed are you among women,” Elizabeth cries, “and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth continues in a powerful benedictory vein for some verses.

In response, Mary sings.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor
on the lowliness of his servant…
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the
thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful
from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly. (Luke 1, excerpts)

I find this scene among the most potent in all of scripture. The image of Elizabeth offering her words of blessing, and Mary responding with song: this moment epitomizes the power of the act of blessing. With her gesture of grace, Elizabeth the Blesser challenges us toward similar action: to recognize where God is working in the world, and to participate in bringing this work to completion.

The blessed Mary sings about the God who is doing a new thing, but her song is not entirely original. Within its cadences we hear the ghostly echo of a more ancient song. In one of the first canticles to appear in the scriptures, a woman named Hannah offers praise to God for responding to her plea for a child. After she leaves her long-awaited son Samuel at the Temple to begin his training as a nazirite, Hannah sings, in part:

My heart exults in the Lord;
my strength is exalted in my God.
My mouth derides my enemies,
because I rejoice in my victory…

The Lord makes poor and and makes rich;
he brings low, he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts up the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honor. (1 Sam. 2.1, 7-8b)

With a voice of longing and exultation that links them across the generations, both women are singing not only about pregnancy and physical birth. For Hannah and for Mary, the massive change within them is linked to a radical transformation beyond them. There is a congruence between what God has stirred within them—in their wombs, in their souls—and what God is stirring in the world.

I find myself wondering about that kind of congruence, and how God is calling it forth in my own life. Regardless of whether we’re called to give birth to physical children, God challenges us to cultivate an interior spirit that is intimately linked with the world beyond us. In this Advent season, what’s stirring inside me that connects me with the world around me? What is God seeking to bring forth in my life that enables me to participate in the transformation that God is working in all creation? And how is God challenging me to be both Elizabeth, Blesser, and Mary, Blessed?

I think I’ll leave my copy of The Canticles open to the Magnificat for a while yet, on its table by my door. In these Advent days, perhaps the words of Mary’s ancient song will be a visible blessing—invocation, benediction—as I pass back and forth across the threshold, from exterior to interior and back again.

May you have cause to sing today. Blessings.

[For a further reflection on the Magnificat, visit Door 14: Remembering Forward.]

[To use the image “Magnificat,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Posted in Advent, art, Christmas, Gospel of Luke, lectionary, poetry, religion | Leave a Comment »

Getting the Message

December 16, 2008 by Jan Richardson

Image: Getting the Message © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Advent 4: Luke 1.26-38

One of the things that intrigues me about medieval artwork is the way that it has its own stories to tell. In depicting biblical scenes (which provided the material for so much artwork in the Middle Ages), medieval artists sometimes incorporated visual stories that we don’t find in the Bible. Though without an actual scriptural basis, the symbolic text the medieval artists gave us can engage the imagination, raise questions, and illuminate a given story beyond what the written text provides. It works something like an artful midrash that invites us to imagine the worlds between the words.

Here’s my favorite example. In many medieval (and Renaissance) depictions of the Annunciation—that moment when the archangel Gabriel comes to Mary to ask her to become the mother of Jesus—Mary is depicted reading. (The chronic reader in me loves this.) Usually she’s depicted with a book that indicates that she’s at her prayers when Gabriel shows up. Sometimes, in a wonderful bit of anachronism, it’s a Book of Hours that Mary is reading. (The Book of Hours was a popular prayerbook in the Middle Ages. Often lavishly illustrated, Books of Hours always included a section of prayers in honor of Mary, with artwork that illustrates scenes from her life…including the Annunciation, in which the artists depict her reading…a Book of Hours…) Other times, her book is open to Isaiah, specifically to the passage in which the prophet says this to King Ahaz:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7.14)

The Christian tradition came to interpret this passage as a foretelling of the birth of Jesus, God-with-us, to Mary. In depicting her reading this very text, the medieval artists did some intriguing time-twisting, opening an imaginative portal between the sign given to King Ahaz and the miracle given to Mary.

Though the image of Mary reading at the moment of the Annunciation doesn’t appear in the biblical text, I love this artful notion of the reading, praying Mary. It reveals something of the medieval view of Mary, and it offers evidence of a kind of visual lectio divina the artists did as they pondered Mary’s story. In depicting her with a prayerbook or with the sacred text of her tradition, the artists conveyed the compelling idea that Mary was already immersed in the word before the Word became immersed in her.

This image of Mary challenges me to ponder what texts—written or otherwise—I’m steeping myself in. What words, what images do I give my attention to: on the page, in conversation, in the course of my daily life? In a culture that inundates and sometimes assaults our eyes and ears with messages in all manner of forms, how do we read in a way that keeps us attuned to the sacred?

Am I, like the medieval Mary, immersing myself in the word in a way that helps me notice when a divine messenger shows up with an outrageous invitation? That’s what the word angel means in the original Greek: one who comes with a message. How do I cultivate an openness to that message, to the Word that longs to find a home in me, in us?

Blessings to you.

[To use the image “Getting the Message,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Advent Door possible. Thank you!]

Posted in Advent, art, Book of Isaiah, Christmas, Gospel of Luke, lectionary, medieval, religion | 1 Comment »

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