Archive for the ‘art’ Category

An Illuminated Advent – 2023

November 20, 2023

ILLUMINATED 2023
December 3 – December 27
New for this Advent!

Beloved friends, I am so happy to share that registration for this year’s online Advent retreat is open! I can hardly begin to tell you all the ways this retreat holds my heart, and how much I am looking forward to it in this particular year. I would love to spend the season in your company.

In a chaotic time, this retreat will offer a space of elegant simplicity. Intertwining writing, art, music, and community, this online journey creates spaces of reflection and rest that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you.

Info & registration:
ILLUMINATED ADVENT RETREAT

This online retreat is not about adding one more thing to your holiday schedule! It is about helping you enter deeply into a season that shimmers with mystery and possibility, solace and hope. It is especially designed to fit easily into whatever your Advent days might hold. We love hearing from people who say this retreat helps them breathe and engage the season.

Individual, group, and congregational rates are available. (And we have a very flexible definition of “congregation”!) We have gift registrations, too. Questions? Be sure to visit our Illuminated FAQ page.

I am grateful for you and sending you so many blessings as Advent draws near.

An Illuminated Advent – 2022

November 9, 2022

Illuminated Advent Retreat

ILLUMINATED 2022
An Online Journey into the Heart of Christmas
November 27 – December 27

Beloved friends, I am thrilled to share that registration for this year’s online Advent retreat is open! I can hardly begin to tell you all the ways this retreat holds my heart, and how much I am looking forward to it in this particular year. I would love to spend the season in your company.

In a chaotic time, this retreat will offer a space of elegant simplicity. Intertwining writing, art, music, and community, this online journey creates spaces of reflection and rest that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you.

Info & registration:
ILLUMINATED ADVENT RETREAT

This online retreat is not about adding one more thing to your holiday schedule! It is about helping you enter deeply into a season that shimmers with mystery and possibility, solace and hope. It is especially designed to fit easily into whatever your Advent days might hold. I love hearing from people who say this retreat helps them breathe and engage the season.

Individual, group, and congregational rates are available. (And we have a very flexible definition of “congregation”!) We have gift registrations, too. Questions? Be sure to visit our FAQ page for the retreat.

I am grateful for you and sending you so many blessings as Advent draws near.

An Illuminated Advent – 2021

November 2, 2021

Illuminated Advent Retreat

ILLUMINATED 2021
An Online Journey into the Heart of Christmas
November 28 – December 27

Beloved friends, I am thrilled to share the news that registration for this year’s online Advent retreat is now open! I can hardly begin to tell you all the ways this retreat holds my heart, and how much I am looking forward to it in this particular year. I would love to spend the season in your company! In a chaotic time, this retreat will offer a space of elegant simplicity. Intertwining writing, art, music, and community, this online journey creates spaces of reflection and rest that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you.

Info & registration:
ILLUMINATED ADVENT RETREAT

This online retreat is not about adding one more thing to your holiday schedule! It is about helping you enter deep into a season that shimmers with mystery and possibility, solace and hope. It is especially designed to fit easily into whatever your Advent days might hold. I love hearing from people who say this retreat helps them breathe and engage the season.

Individual, group, and congregational rates are available. (And we have a very flexible definition of “congregation”!) Questions? Be sure to visit our FAQ page for the retreat.

I am grateful for you and sending you so many blessings as Advent draws near.

An Illuminated Advent – 2020

November 11, 2020

Illuminated 2020-banner

ILLUMINATED 2020
An Online Journey into the Heart of Christmas
November 29 – December 26

Beloved friends, it has been hard to wrap my head around what the season of Advent might look like this year. But I do know this: I will be offering a new online Advent retreat, and I would love to spend the season in your company! Registration is now open for the Illuminated 2020 Advent Retreat. In a chaotic time, this retreat will offer a space of elegant simplicity. Intertwining writing, art, music, and community, this online journey creates spaces of reflection and rest that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you.

I am excited that this year, for the first time, the Illuminated Retreat will be based on my book Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas. Whether you are new to Night Visions or are someone who returns to it each year, I invite you to join us for this unique chance to travel through it together. (Purchasing the book is not necessary.)

Info & registration:
ILLUMINATED ADVENT RETREAT

This online retreat is not about adding one more thing to your holiday schedule! It is about helping you enter deep into this season that shimmers with mystery and possibility, solace and hope. It is especially designed to fit easily into whatever your Advent days might hold. I love hearing from people who say this retreat helps them breathe and engage the season.

Individual, group, and congregational rates are available. (And we have a very flexible definition of “congregation”!) Questions? Be sure to visit our FAQ page for the retreat.

I am grateful for you and sending you so many blessings as Advent draws near.

Holy Week & Easter Sunday: We Begin in the Dark

April 8, 2020

And Love Will Rise Up and Call Us By NameImage: And Love Will Rise Up and Call Us By Name
© Jan Richardson

If we have grown weary in this season. If we have become overwhelmed. If we are living with fear or anxiety or worry about what lies ahead. If the swirl of Holy Week has become intense. If time is moving strangely. If grief has been a traveling companion. If the ground beneath us has given way. If resurrection seems less than certain.

—Jan Richardson, from Holy Saturday: Breathe
The Painted Prayerbook, March 2018

Beloved friends, I hardly know what to say in this Holy Week except that my heart is with you, along with my prayers. This year, more than ever, I am mindful that John’s Gospel tells us Mary Magdalene went to the tomb while it was still dark and found it empty. As we move through the shadows cast by COVID-19, I have gathered up a collection of reflections I’ve written for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. I offer them with so many blessings and with deep gratitude for you and the graces you bear. In the darkness and in the day, may the risen Christ meet you with solace and hope.

Holy/Maundy Thursday

Holy Thursday: At the Table, Speaking of Love
Holy Thursday: Blessing the Bread, the Cup
Holy Thursday: Take a Blessing
Day 38/Holy Thursday: Cup of the New Covenant
Holy Thursday: Feet and Food


Good Friday

Good Friday: Speaking, Still
Good Friday: Still
Good Friday: A Blessing for What Abides
Day 39/Good Friday: They Took the Body of Jesus
Good Friday: In Which We Get Nailed


Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday: Anticipate Resurrection
Holy Saturday: Breathe
Holy Saturday: Vigil
Holy Saturday: In the Breath, Another Breathing
Day 40/Holy Saturday: Therefore I Will Hope
Holy Saturday: The Art of Enduring
Holy Saturday: A Day Between


Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday: Where Resurrection Begins
Easter Sunday: This Is Not the End
Easter Sunday: While It Was Still Dark
Easter Sunday: A Blessing for the Rising
Easter Sunday: Seen
Easter Sunday: Out of the Garden


Using Jan’s artwork

To use the image “And Love Will Rise Up and Call Us By Name,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. (This is also available as an art print. After clicking over to the image’s page on the Jan Richardson Images site, just scroll down to the “Purchase as an Art Print” section.) Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Epiphany Day: If You Could See the Journey Whole

January 4, 2020

TheWiseOnesImage: The Wise Ones © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels for Epiphany Day: Matthew 2.1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
wise men from the East came to Jerusalem.
—Matthew 2.1

Friends, as Epiphany Day draws near, I want to share a blessing with you that first appeared here at The Painted Prayerbook some years ago. In the turning of the sacred year, this day of mystery and light continues to be a favorite of mine. I pray that no matter how hidden your path may become, you will be attended with mercies and wonders in every step. Blessings to you!

For Those Who Have Far to Travel
A Blessing for Epiphany

If you could see
the journey whole,
you might never
undertake it,
might never dare
the first step
that propels you
from the place
you have known
toward the place
you know not.

Call it
one of the mercies
of the road:
that we see it
only by stages
as it opens
before us,
as it comes into
our keeping,
step by
single step.

There is nothing
for it
but to go,
and by our going
take the vows
the pilgrim takes:

to be faithful to
the next step;
to rely on more
than the map;
to heed the signposts
of intuition and dream;
to follow the star
that only you
will recognize;

to keep an open eye
for the wonders that
attend the path;
to press on
beyond distractions,
beyond fatigue,
beyond what would
tempt you
from the way.

There are vows
that only you
will know:
the secret promises
for your particular path
and the new ones
you will need to make
when the road
is revealed
by turns
you could not
have foreseen.

Keep them, break them,
make them again;
each promise becomes
part of the path,
each choice creates
the road
that will take you
to the place
where at last
you will kneel

to offer the gift
most needed—
the gift that only you
can give—
before turning to go
home by
another way.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons


P.S. And Merry Women’s Christmas, too!
My new retreat for Women’s Christmas (which some folks in Ireland and beyond celebrate on Epiphany/January 6) has just been released. It’s a retreat that you can download at no cost and use anytime you wish throughout the year. For a link to the retreat and more about Women’s Christmas, click the Wise Women image or the title below. You are most welcome to share the retreat gift with others.

Wise Women Also Came
Women’s Christmas 2020: What the Light Shines Through


Using Jan’s artwork…

To use the image “The Wise Ones,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Advent special! During this season, subscribe to Jan Richardson Images and receive unlimited digital downloads for use in worship for only $125 per year (regularly $165). Click Subscribe to sign up. (Extended through Epiphany Day/January 6!)

Using Jan’s words…
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

A Door Between Worlds

October 31, 2019

A Gathering of SpiritsImage: A Gathering of Spirits © Jan Richardson

“Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living;
for to him all of them are alive.”
—Luke 20:38

I have long loved this trinity of days we are moving into: Halloween, All Saints, All Souls. They are a thin place in the turning of the year, a space where a door opens between worlds that often seem terribly far apart. In the wake of Gary’s death, this time of year has become especially tender and hopeful for me. More than ever, I am grateful for these days that invite us to remember that, in the body of Christ, death does not release us from being in relationship with one another.

As we enter into these days, I want to share this blessing with you again. It’s one I wrote shortly before Gary’s death, not knowing how much I would need it for myself, and how soon. But that’s how a blessing works: it moves within time and also beyond it, spiraling around to meet us in the ways we most need.

Wherever these days find you, I pray they will hold deep grace, wondrous solace, and a thin place where heaven and earth meet.

God of the Living
A Blessing

When the wall
between the worlds
is too firm,
too close.

When it seems
all solidity
and sharp edges.

When every morning
you wake as if
flattened against it,
its forbidding presence
fairly pressing the breath
from you
all over again.

Then may you be given
a glimpse
of how weak the wall

and how strong what stirs
on the other side,

breathing with you
and blessing you
still,
forever bound to you
but freeing you
into this living,
into this world
so much wider
than you ever knew.

—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

 


 

Illuminated Advent Retreat

Registration now open!
ILLUMINATED 2019
December 1-27

I would love for you to join us for this new online Advent retreat! The Illuminated retreat intertwines writing, art, music, and community, creating spaces of reflection and rest that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you. With an elegant simplicity, the Illuminated retreat fits easily into the rhythm of your days. Individual, group, and congregational rates are available.

Info & registration: Illuminated Advent Retreat

 



Using Jan’s artwork

To use the image “A Gathering of Spirits,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. (This is also available as an art print. After clicking over to the image’s page on the Jan Richardson Images site, just scroll down to the “Purchase as an Art Print” section.) Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

An Illuminated Advent – 2019

October 22, 2019


ILLUMINATED 2019
An Online Journey into the Heart of Christmas
December 1-27

Friends, I am thrilled to say that registration is now open for the new Illuminated 2019 Advent Retreat! I am so looking forward to sharing the season with others who want to engage the hope and grace that call us toward Christmas. This online retreat will intertwine writing, art, music, and community, creating spaces of reflection and rest that you can enter into from anywhere you are, in the way that works best for you.

Info & registration:
ILLUMINATED ADVENT RETREAT

This online retreat is not about adding one more thing to your holiday schedule! It is about helping you enter deep into this season that shimmers with mystery and possibility. Offering a space of elegant simplicity as you journey toward Christmas, the Illuminated retreat fits easily into the rhythm of your days. I love hearing from people who say this retreat helps them breathe and engage during what can be a chaotic season.

Individual, group, and congregational rates are available. Questions? Be sure to visit our FAQ page for the retreat.

I wish you so many blessings as Advent approaches.

Easter Sunday: Where Resurrection Begins

April 21, 2019

Image: While It Was Still Dark © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Easter Sunday:
John 20.1-18 or Luke 24.1-12

John’s Gospel tells us it was still dark when Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb and found it empty. I love that detail—that Easter began in the shadows, well before sunrise. This is the way resurrection works: it gathers itself in the darkness, beginning in such secrecy and hiddenness that when it happens, it can be difficult for us to recognize it at first.

This seems to be how it was for the Magdalene on that first Easter morning. Perhaps it was because of her tears or the early hour that she mistook Jesus for a gardener, but the truth is that despite the promises Jesus had made about his return, nothing could have prepared Mary to see him standing before her, speaking her name.

With the sound of her name came recognition, and with recognition came a choice: would Mary attempt to hold on to Christ and the life she had known, or would she accept his call to leave the empty tomb and proclaim what she had seen?

We are here because of the choice Mary Magdalene made on that Easter morning. As Easter arrives once again, what threshold will we choose to cross, that we may tell what we have seen?

The Magdalene’s Blessing
For Easter Day

You hardly imagined
standing here,
everything you ever loved
suddenly returned to you,
looking you in the eye
and calling your name.

And now
you do not know
how to abide this hole
in the center
of your chest,
where a door
slams shut
and swings open
at the same time,
turning on the hinge
of your aching
and hopeful heart.

I tell you,
this is not a banishment
from the garden.

This is an invitation,
a choice,
a threshold,
a gate.

This is your life
calling to you
from a place
you could never
have dreamed,
but now that you
have glimpsed its edge,
you cannot imagine
choosing any other way.

So let the tears come
as anointing,
as consecration,
and then
let them go.

Let this blessing
gather itself around you.

Let it give you
what you will need
for this journey.

You will not remember
the words—
they do not matter.

All you need to remember
is how it sounded
when you stood
in the place of death
and heard the living
call your name.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Easter bonus: Some years ago, Gary and I created a video that intertwines my series The Hours of Mary Magdalene (inspired by the life and legends of the Magdalene and by illuminated books of hours from the Middle Ages) with his gorgeous and haunting song “Mary Magdalena,” which appears on his CD House of Prayer. I would love to share it with you this Easter. To view/listen, click the icon below, and it will take you to the video on the Vimeo website.



For previous reflections for Easter Sunday, visit Easter Sunday: This Is Not the End.

Using Jan’s artworkTo use the image “While It Was Still Dark,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. (This is also available as an art print. After clicking over to the image’s page on the Jan Richardson Images site, just scroll down to the “Purchase as an Art Print” section.) Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Holy Saturday: Anticipate Resurrection

April 20, 2019

Image: Anticipate Resurrection © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Holy Saturday:
Matthew 27.57-66 or John 19.38-42

On this Holy Saturday—this threshold day, this day betwixt—I am thinking about a visit I had with a friend one Lenten day a few years ago. We had planned to take a walk, but on the day of our walk, it rained. So we sheltered on a friend’s beautiful porch, taking a more stationery pilgrimage as we shared some of the terrain we had each crossed since our last visit. In the time that had passed between that visit and this one, both of our husbands had died, both too young.

As we talked, tea and coffee in hand and the rain drenching the gorgeous spring landscape around us, that porch became for me what Phil Cousineau calls a secret room. In his book The Art of Pilgrimage, Cousineau writes that in every sacred journey, there is a hidden space we must find, a place along the path where we will begin to understand the deep mystery of our pilgrimage. He writes,

Everywhere you go, there is a secret room. To discover it, you must knock on walls, as the detective does in mystery houses, and listen for the echo that portends the secret passage. You must pull books off shelves to see if the library shelf swings open to reveal the hidden room.

I’ll say it again: Everywhere has a secret room. You must find your own, in a small chapel, a tiny café, a quiet park, the home of a new friend, the pew where the morning light strikes the rose window just so.

As a pilgrim you must find it or you will never understand the hidden reasons why you really left home.

As the season of Lent comes to a close, has there been a secret room, a space that prompted a moment of insight or inspiration, of wisdom or connection or delight? Have you had an experience that gave you a window onto your path and helped you see it differently? How did that secret room help you understand why you set out on your journey? What gift did it offer for the road ahead?

Deep peace to you as Easter draws near.

What Abides, What Returns

Anticipate resurrection.
—Terry Tempest Williams

In a season of stunning sun
we have chosen the only day
of rain,
and so we shelter on this porch,
each with a cup in hand
and in our heart a hole
in the precise shape
of our beloved.

I have not come here
to compare notes,
widow-to-widow,
that untimely word
still harsh in my ear

but simply
to sit together
in the stillness
at the edge of that wound,
the sound of our voices
a testament
to what endures,
to the unbearable
somehow borne.

Easter draws near
as we watch the rain.
We know the drama
and the pageantry
that lie ahead,
the commotion that is owed
to such a miracle.

Meanwhile, we go on
quietly raising the dead,
tending them as more
than a memory,
learning to live in
the curious marriage
of absence and presence
that settles into the bones
and the aching
but durable heart.

We know resurrection as something
not merely to be anticipated
but also daily lived
as we reckon with
what abides,
what returns
of the beloved
who cannot be unknown—
who, having passed into us,
will not be so easily shed.

Still, I think of Mary Magdalene
and the secret she carried
when she left
that empty tomb:
how resurrection is
a strange dance
of reunion and release,
how our loving
will always ask of us
a letting go,

yet in the asking
a promise
that what we love
knows how to find us,
even by the path
that will bear us
far away
from here.

—Jan Richardson


For previous reflections for Holy Saturday, visit Holy Saturday: Breathe.

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image “Anticipate Resurrection,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. (This is also available as an art print. After clicking over to the image’s page on the Jan Richardson Images site, just scroll down to the “Purchase as an Art Print” section.) Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.