Archive for the ‘Epiphany’ Category

Newer Entries »

Feast of the Presentation/Candlemas

February 1, 2009

blog-candlemas
Blessing of the Candles © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels for Feast of the Presentation: Luke 2.22-40

The beginning of February offers us another lovely feast day on the heels of today’s Feast of St. Brigid. In the rhythm of the Christian liturgical year, tomorrow marks the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus, also called the Feast of the Purification of Mary. This day bids us remember Mary and Joseph’s visit to the Temple to present their child Jesus on the fortieth day following his birth, as Jewish law required, and for Mary to undergo the postpartum rites of cleansing. Luke’s Gospel tells us that a resident prophet named Anna and a man named Simeon immediately recognize and welcome Jesus. Taking the child into his arms, Simeon turns his voice toward God and offers praise for the “light for revelation” that has come into the world.

Taking a cue from Simeon, some churches began, in time, to mark this day with a celebration of light: the Candle Mass, during which priests would bless the candles to be used in the year to come. Coinciding with the turn toward spring and lengthening of light in the Northern Hemisphere, Candlemas offers a liturgical celebration of the renewing of light and life that comes to us in the natural world at this time of year, as well as in the story of Jesus. As we emerge from the deep of winter, the feast reminds us of the perpetual presence of Christ our Light in every season.

With her feast day just next door, and with the abundance of fire in the stories of her life, it’s no surprise that St. Brigid makes an appearance among the Candlemas legends. One of those legends reflects a splendid bit of time warping that happened around Brigid. The stories and prayers of Ireland and its neighbors often refer to Brigid as the midwife to Mary and the foster mother of Christ. Chronologically, this would have been a real stretch (seeing as how Brigid was born in 454 CE), but in a culture in which the bond of fostering was sometimes stronger than the bond of blood, this creative image of Brigid reveals something of the deep esteem that she attracted. In the Carmina Gadelica, a collection of prayers, legends, and songs that Alexander Carmichael gathered in Scotland in the 19th century, he conveys this story of Brigid as an anachronistic acolyte:

It is said in Ireland that Bride [Brigid] walked before Mary with a lighted candle in each hand when she went up to the Temple for purification. The winds were strong on the Temple heights, and the tapers were unprotected, yet they did not flicker nor fail. From this incident Bride is called Bride boillsge (Bride of brightness). This day is occasionally called La Fheill Bride nan Coinnle (the Feast Day of Bride of the Candles), but more generally la Fheill Moire nan Coinnle (the Feast Day of Mary of the Candles)—Candlemas Day.

On this Candlemas Eve, where do we find ourselves in this story? Are we Mary, graced by the light that another sheds on our path? Or are we Brigid, carrying the light for another in need?

A blessed Candlemas to you!

[To use the “Blessing of the Candles” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of the Jan Richardson Images site helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

[For my other reflection & art related to Luke 2.22-40/The Presentation, visit this post.]

Posted in art, Celtic, Epiphany, lectionary, monastic stuff, mystery, sacred time | 7 Comments »

Epiphany 4: In the Realm of the Spirits

January 30, 2009


I Know Who You Are © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 4, Year B: Mark 1.21-28

There once was a time when I didn’t give much thought to what it meant to confront evil and suffering in the realm of the spiritual world. I’m mainline Protestant, after all. Spiritual warfare, as some call it, was something best left to the charismatics and others who dealt in such things.

Then I began to live and work within systems and organizations that have given me cause to think again about the notion that evil can cohere as a force, can organize and inflict itself in discrete ways. In my professional ministry and in my personal ecosystem, the years have afforded plenty of occasions to witness the ways in which chaos that exists in the spiritual world can manifest itself in the physical realm. It’s stunning, how a single individual in spiritual disarray can distribute pain and discord among an entire body of people. And the reverse: how the diffuse chaos that often lurks so easily within a system can erupt in acts of harm against particular individuals.

In this Sunday’s gospel lection, Mark tells a story that provides a vivid example of a person who has become overwhelmed by a force that is contrary to the purposes of God. In describing what harbors within the man whom Jesus encounters, Mark uses the Greek term pneumati akatharto: an unclean spirit. The uncleanness that akatharto (from the word akathartos) denotes has to do not with physical untidiness but rather with how the spirit exists in a state actively antagonistic to God, a state that the spirit has inflicted upon the man. Akathartos is the opposite of katharos (related to our word catharsis): ritually pure, clean.

Intriguing, isn’t it, that this encounter takes place in a synagogue? It underscores what I have seen time and again: that places meant for worship and seeking after God often attract the most chaotic folks. That which is opposed to God is often most drawn to those places devoted to God. Such folks are like this man who, amid the chaos, nonetheless experiences a point of vivid clarity: he—or, rather, the spirit in him—recognizes Jesus. “I know who you are,” he cries out, “the Holy One of God.”

Jesus will say, just a few verses later, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Mark 2.17). It’s one thing, however, to know and seek healing for our sickness, and to minister to others who recognize their own need. More challenging to reckon with are those folks living, often without awareness, in the grip of forces opposed to God who are yet drawn toward the holy. It can take a long time before their deep, underlying hunger for God breaks through and overtakes their desire to inflict chaos in the places of sacredness.

In his healing of the man, Jesus offers a model for how we can reckon with the forces that work against God’s desire for wholeness. Jesus responds to the spirit with the calm authority that receives particular comment in this passage, both by Mark and by those who witness Jesus’ teaching and healing in the synagogue. Jesus addresses the spirit from the core of who he is. He is not exhibiting a display of magic or seeking to dazzle the crowd with a show. Rather, Jesus demonstrates his willingness to confront and call out what is contrary to God. Acting from that fiercely calm and centered place, he releases the man from the force that has tormented him.

The healthy spiritual practices of the Christian tradition give us tools to do the necessary work at the level of spirit. These practices cultivate within us the grounded, centered authority that enabled Christ to confront the unclean spirit, they help keep us clear amid chaos, and they deepen our ability to respond to the ways that disorder becomes manifest in the world. These practices, however, are not enough in themselves. As Jesus points out in the gospels, and as Paul addresses in his letters, it’s possible for us to become puffed up about our own spiritual prowess.

The desert mothers and fathers of the early church recognized this. They had a lively understanding of the ways that spiritual disorder takes form in the physical realm. They sometimes described these forms as demons, who particularly loved to hide out in the very practices that these desert folk sometimes became proud of—extreme fasting, prayer, and the like. This story comes from the desert tradition:

[Amma Theodora] also said that neither asceticism, nor vigils nor any kind of suffering are able to save, only true humility can do that. There was an anchorite who was able to banish the demons; and he asked them, ‘What makes you go away? Is it fasting? ’ They replied, ‘We do not eat or drink.’ ‘Is it vigils? ’ They replied, ‘We do not sleep. ’ ‘Is it separation from the world? ’ ‘We live in the deserts.” ‘What power sends you away then?” They said, ‘Nothing can overcome us, but only humility.’ ‘Do you see how humility is victorious over the demons?’

In my own spiritual practice, I have taken to opening my day by offering the prayer known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate, also called Deer’s Cry (for its association with the legend that St. Patrick prayed it when he and his companions were in peril, and the prayer caused them to take on the appearance of deer and thereby elude their attackers). Though the prayer originated sometime after St. Patrick, it is an old, old prayer of encompassing—what the Celtic folk call a lorica—that in a poetic and profound way calls upon God to protect us from the forces that seek to work against God. I’m particularly fond of the version that Malachi McCormick offers in his book Deer’s Cry. Published by his small press, The Stone Street Press, Deer’s Cry offers Malachi’s translation of the prayer (alongside the Old Irish version), handwritten with his charming calligraphy. I gradually committed the prayer to memory some time ago. I pray it not as some kind of magic charm but rather as a reminder that I go into my day, and into the world, in the encompassing of God, who bids me rely completely on the power of God rather than on my own devices. It’s a prayer that, honestly prayed, cultivates humility, an awareness of how we are entirely dependent upon God. It’s this humility that in turn fosters the type of calm, centered authority by which Jesus acted in confronting the unclean spirit.

This gospel story reminds us not to give more power to the presence of evil than is warranted; obsessing over chaos can breed it. Rather, the story challenges us to confront evil where we find it. The demons—by whatever form or name we know the presence of disorder—fight hardest when we, like Jesus, look them in the face. But this is what depletes evil of its power. It cannot bear being named, challenged, called out.

Where do you personally witness the forces that work against God? What do you think about those forces, and how do you reckon with them? How do you seek God’s protection against them? Are there ways you feel called to confront the presence of chaos? What practices help keep you centered in, and reliant upon, the power of God?

May you go with the encompassing of Christ, who does not abandon us to chaos but instead accompanies in every realm. Blessings.

[Amma Theodora story from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG.]

[To use the “I Know Who You Are” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, books, Epiphany, Gospel of Mark, lectionary, monastic stuff | 4 Comments »

Epiphany 3: Hooked

January 24, 2009


The Willing Catch © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 3, Year B: Mark 1.14-20

Thomas Merton, the famed Trappist monk of the 20th century, once took a picture that he titled “The Only Known Photograph of God.”

The picture was of a meat hook.

I keep thinking of this stark image, and Merton’s title, as I ponder this Sunday’s gospel lection, in which Mark offers his version of Jesus’ call to the kindred fishermen Simon and Andrew. “Follow me,” Jesus says, “and I will make you fish for people.” His invitation stirs the unsettling question: if fish are food, a catch intended for consumption, then what is it that we people are to God, once we fall into the net of the divine?

Long before the arrival of Jesus, the Jewish tradition had taken pains, in the form of the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac, to make clear that Yahweh doesn’t require human sacrifice. The God of Israel presents other conditions for right relationship, as we read, for instance, in Micah 6, where the question arises: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?…Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” “…and what does the Lord require of you,” comes the response, “but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your God?”

I wonder if the people of Israel ever wondered if human sacrifice might be easier, after all, than all this justice and kindness stuff.

It can feel consuming, being in relationship with God: it requires so much more of our very selves than simply offering a sacrifice that’s detached from us. And for all that it asks of us, our participation in God doesn’t offer much in the way of earthly security, as Mark reminds us: this lection begins with a mention of the arrest of John the Baptist, who would soon meet his earthly end in the context of a meal.

It’s challenging at times to reconcile the seeming paradox that giving ourselves to a God of love and mercy does not always protect us from heartache and suffering; in fact, it sometimes does just the opposite. Called to engage the world, we find ourselves drawn more deeply into the pain and despair present there—along with (thank God) the delight. In each place Christ calls us to notice and to embody the presence and love of God: to be the living body of Christ, who spoke of his own self as food, as sustenance.

As Merton recognized, it can leave us feeling like we’re on the meat hook of God, the way that God claims and hungers for our deepest selves and sends us into the world to be Christ’s body, to offer his sustenance. Given what a consuming, demanding, and sometimes perilous prospect it can be to share fully in the life of Christ, one might well wonder: what compels us to follow him?

What lures you to Christ? What is it about him that beckons you, calls to you, compels you not only to follow him but also to reach out in invitation to others? What is it about Jesus that hooks you?

In a culture that too often tries to scare and threaten us into a relationship with Christ, may we see clearly who he is and embody his fierce and sustaining love in a desperately hungry world. Blessings.

[To use the “Willing Catch” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Epiphany, food, Gospel of Mark, lectionary, monastic stuff | 6 Comments »

Of Fig Trees and Angels

January 16, 2009


Between Heaven and Earth © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 2: John 1.43-51

This is a week in which I’ve been trying to figure out how to write a book and work on a blog at the same time. I could tell you how, in the course of this, I have been thinking for days about fig trees and angels. I could remark on how for the Israelites the fig tree symbolized home and security, how in 1 Kings 4.25, we read that “During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beersheba, all of them under their vines and fig trees,” or how Zechariah 3.10 tells of a hopeful day in which “you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree.” I could tell you how struck I am by Nathanel’s question to Jesus in Sunday’s gospel lection: “Where did you get to know me?” And I could comment on how blown away Nathanel is when Jesus tells him, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

I might choose to use exclamations like “Zowie!” to describe Nathanel’s reaction to what is, after all, a miracle quite small by comparison to what Jesus will yet do. And I could explore and expound on how Jesus tells Nathanel what a tiny thing it is, knowing him from seeing him beneath the fig tree, his place of safety, the whole world that Nathanel has known up to now.

On any other day I might tell you how much it captivates my imagination, the way that Jesus tells Nathanel, that fig-tree-sitter-under, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” I could say how cool this is, how Jesus evokes the story of Jacob, who dreamed in the wilderness of a ladder of angels between heaven and earth, and woke to a larger world than he had ever known, and recognized that God had been in that place.

I could say all this, and more. But what I am come to ask you on this evening in Epiphany is this:

What do you imagine the God of heaven and earth, the God who bridges heaven and earth and causes them to meet—what do you imagine this God is capable of? Can you imagine something beyond that? And beyond that? How might this God be inviting you to imagine and participate in something bigger still? What is the fig tree you will need to leave in order to see the more amazing things God has in store?

May we have imaginations that stretch between, dream between, dwell between heaven and earth. Blessings.

[To use the “Between Heaven and Earth” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Epiphany, Gospel of John, lectionary | 5 Comments »

Epiphany 1: Take Me to the River

January 8, 2009

blog-2009-01-07
Baptism of the Beloved © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 1/Baptism of the Lord: Mark 1.4-11

Here’s how I imagined my time between Christmas and Epiphany: lots of quiet, a good dose of solitude, room to breathe during the lovely pause between the Almost End of the Holidays and the (in my calendar, at least) Actual End of the Holidays. I envisioned an expansive space of respite in which to gather the energies I had spent since before Advent and to do some internal preparation for the year to come. I imagined walks, and naps, and copious amounts of reading.

I have indeed had some splendid time away from work in the past two weeks (to the extent that a writer/artist/minister can ever lay her work aside). It’s included great visits with family and with distant friends passing through town, and a few but not enough walks, and some but not enough reading, and lovely time with my sweetheart Gary, who saw rather less of me during Advent than usual.

I have found myself, however, having a hard time resisting the urge to fling myself into the projects, old and new, awaiting me at this turning of the year. I love my work (most days), I am eager to pick up existing projects and get started on new ones, and more and more I feel the press of time. As a result, I haven’t been entirely successful in resisting the pull of those projects during these post-Christmas days. I’m aware that I never really put them down in the first place.

So here on the day after Epiphany, I’m pondering what I need in order to enter the new year feeling refreshed instead of frenzied. I’m realizing that being eager to dive back into the projects is not the same thing as being ready—really ready, internally ready, soulfully ready—to take up the work that lies ahead.

And here comes Jesus in this week’s gospel reading, heading for the Jordan, presenting himself to John the baptizer, submitting himself to the sacramental waters. Jesus, who has been who knows where for something like three decades, discerning and preparing. He is ready to fling himself into the work awaiting him. And yet not ready. He needs something. A river. A ritual. A recognition. You are my Son, the Beloved, he hears as he comes up from the waters, drenched with the Jordan; with you I am well pleased.

In their depictions of the baptism of Jesus, medieval artists often painted the river rising to meet the naked Messiah, surging up to enfold him, arcing around his waist. Often this appears to be for modesty’s sake, though the usual transparency of the river doesn’t entirely accomplish that aim. At times, however, the rising of the river seems to be for nothing but pure joy: the creation reaching out to meet and enfold Christ, the God who has become intimately, incarnately intertwined with the world. In some depictions, such as this one in a medieval Psalter, even the fish rise with the waters, leaping as if in recognition of the one who has waded into their midst. Leaping like John the Baptist did when he and Jesus met for the first time, as Luke tells it, in the waters of their mothers’ wombs.

There are times when our lives rise up to claim us, occasions when that which we were born to be leaps up to envelope us. Something calls our name. Reminds us we are blessed and beloved. Baptizes us. Sends us forth.

When we are graced (and challenged) with moments when the work ahead of us is clear, when we know what it is we are to do, sometimes there is preparation still to be done. Jesus knew this, knew he needed the ritual that John had to offer, knew he needed that baptism and blessing. And so, standing on the hinge of this year, seeing with some measure of clarity the work that lies ahead, the work that I was created to do, I’m giving some thought to what kind of blessing I need to seek so that I can dive into that work already drenched. What ritual, what respite, what river do I need to take myself to?

How about you? What do you need as you launch into this new year? Are you ready enough, or is there yet some preparation, some blessing you need in order to bring your whole self to what lies ahead? How might you seek this? Who can help?

In the days to come, may God drench you, bless you, call your name.

Beloved.

[To use this image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. For all my artwork for the Baptism of the Lord, please see this page. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Epiphany, Gospel of Mark, lectionary, medieval | 8 Comments »

Feast of the Epiphany: A Calendar of Kings

January 6, 2009

Image: Adoration of the Magi © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany: Matthew 2.1-12

A blessed Epiphany to you! During the season that has brought us to this feast day, one of the CDs I’ve been listening to is Wolcum Yule: Celtic and British Songs and Carols by the wondrous vocal group Anonymous 4. My favorite piece on this CD is “A Calendar of Kings,” which began as a poem by George Mackay Brown, the prolific poet of Orkney (in northern Scotland) who died a dozen years ago. The poem’s musical setting was composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, whose composition honors and evokes the haunting enchantment of Mackay Brown’s words. In the liner notes, Maxwell Davies comments, “From the imagery, with ice, snowdrops, and daffodils, it is clear that the journey lasts a season, and that the poet has transplanted the setting from the Middle East to his native land and seascape in Orkney, bringing the nativity home in a very vivid way.”

Here’s the text of the poem.

A Calendar of Kings

They endured a season
Of ice and silver swans.

Delicately the horses
Grazed among the snowdrops.

They traded for fish, wind
Fell upon crested waters.

Along their track
Daffodils lit a thousand tapers.

They slept among dews.
A dawn lark broke their dream.

For them, at solstice
The chalice of the sun spilled over.

The star was lost.
They rode between burnished hills.

A fiddle at a fair
Compelled the feet of harvesters.

A glim on their darkling road.
The star! It was their star.

In a sea village
Children brought apples to the horses.

They lit fires
By the carved stones of the dead.

A midwinter inn.
Here they unload their treasures.

© George Mackay Brown
from Following a Lark

The image above is from my series The Advent Hours. I wrote this to accompany the artwork:

Pondering the patterns of the heavens, the wise ones found one star, one light that called to them, compelled them, set them on the road. And they came, arriving upon the star-drenched landscape where dwelled the hope of the world in the garb of a child. They stretched out their hands to him, the brilliance of the sky now shimmering in their exquisite gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh.

I’m taking a bit of time off this week but am aiming to have a reflection on Epiphany 1/Baptism of Jesus posted within the next couple of days. In the meantime, I welcome you to visit last year’s reflection on Matthew’s version of Jesus’ baptism, Epiphany 1: Ceremony (With a Side of Cake).

I’ll send out the Epiphany edition of my e-newsletter this afternoon, so if you’d like to receive it and haven’t already subscribed, I invite you to join my mailing list here.

Merry Epiphany! For this day, for this year, may you have light for the path and, as George Mackay Brown writes of the kings, a place to unload your treasures.

[To use the image “Adoration of the Magi,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Epiphany, Gospel of Matthew, lectionary, mystery, poetry, sacred time | Leave a Comment »

New Year, New Print

January 5, 2009

blog-paintedprayerbookprint2

The Feast of the Epiphany, which we celebrate tomorrow, will mark a year since I revamped this blog and renamed it The Painted Prayerbook. (I hear they call this a blogiversary, but don’t feel obligated to send a gift…) Looking back, I’m struck by the cumulative power of keeping a practice over time. Having devoted a portion of each week of the past year to creating a collage as part of my reflection on the lectionary, I’m entering this year with more than a card deck’s worth of these 3″ x 4″ pieces of art. They are a good reminder to give some thought to the practices I want to cultivate in the coming year, and what I want to be accumulating as the months go by.

I’ve selected twenty-five of these images and gathered them together in a new print to begin this new year. I’d love to share it with you! The print is available on my website, either by visiting the main page at janrichardson.com or by going straight to the Color Prints page.

Please know that purchasing a print (or anything else on my website) provides direct sustenance for my ministry, for which I raise my entire income. I am especially grateful for your support—in all its forms—as I focus on writing a new book this year. I’m reckoning with the fact that for the next six months, being absorbed with the book will necessarily involve doing fewer of the retreats and workshops that typically help to sustain my ministry. It’s high time, however, to give more attention to the writerly part of my vocation, and to finally produce a new full-length book, my first in years. Prayers (and orders) are welcome as I work to do this and to keep bread on my table at the same time!

And while I’m in an inviting kind of mood, I want to make sure you know that I have an e-newsletter that I started last fall and would be delighted to include you in my mailing list if you haven’t already subscribed. You can sign up here. I send the newsletter about once a month; the next one—the Epiphany edition—will go out tomorrow.

Happy New Year and a Merry Epiphany to you! I look forward to sharing the months to come. May 2009 hold many wonders for you and yours.

Posted in art, Epiphany, lectionary, sacred time | 7 Comments »

Inviting Epiphany

December 30, 2008

wisewomenalsocame
Wise Women Also Came © Jan L. Richardson

I’m working on a reflection for the gospel lection for Epiphany, but in the meantime, I offer you this festive trio to get the celebration under way. Wise Women Also Came was one of the first collages I did when I started to discover, many years ago, that there was an artist lurking in me. I created this as my Epiphany (i.e., belated Christmas) card the year I graduated from seminary. I made it out of plain construction paper; this was before I had discovered the wondrous world of art papers. (A trip to The Japanese Paper Place, now simply called The Paper Place, while visiting my sister in Toronto changed all that; you could say that walking into its stunning space was, well, an epiphany.)

These wise women made their way onto the cover of my first book, which I was writing during the same time that I was getting to know my inner artist. They also made an appearance in Night Visions, my first book to wed my writing and my artwork. This time a poem accompanied the women:

Wise Women Also Came

Wise women also came.
The fire burned
in their wombs
long before they saw
the flaming star
in the sky.
They walked in shadows,
trusting the path
would open
under the light of the moon.

Wise women also came,
seeking no directions,
no permission
from any king.
They came
by their own authority,
their own desire,
their own longing.
They came in quiet,
spreading no rumors,
sparking no fears
to lead
to innocents’ slaughter,
to their sister Rachel’s
inconsolable lamentations.

Wise women also came,
and they brought
useful gifts:
water for labor’s washing,
fire for warm illumination,
a blanket for swaddling.

Wise women also came,
at least three of them,
holding Mary in the labor,
crying out with her
in the birth pangs,
breathing ancient blessings
into her ear.

Wise women also came,
and they went,
as wise women always do,
home a different way.

Next week, in the wake of an intense season of travels and other endeavors, I’ll resume working on a new book. It’s something of a sequel to Sacred Journeys, the book I was writing when these wise women took shape. Though I rarely find writing easy (when folks ask me if I enjoy writing, I usually say, “I enjoy having written”), I’m looking forward to reentering the rhythm of working on a book in a focused fashion. It seems an opportune time to revisit these wise women as I seek a blessing for the path, and the book, ahead. I wonder who will show up this time, and what epiphanies they will have in store.

Who have been the wise women in your life? What epiphanies have they instigated? Here at the ending of the year, what wisdom do you want to gather up from the past twelve months and take with you into the coming year? What blessing, what gifts, do you need to receive for the path ahead? What gifts do you need to offer, that only you can give?

Peace to you in this time of turning.

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

Posted in art, Christmas, Epiphany, holidays, mystery, sacred time, writing | 6 Comments »

Epiphany 1: Ceremony (with a Side of Cake)

January 10, 2008

blog2008-01-10.jpg
Ceremony © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Baptism of the Lord, Year A: Matthew 3.13-17

Today I had lunch with a friend who’s down from Minnesota (he claims he’s here for meetings, but I think he’s really just thawing out). David is a Franciscan friar who used to live and work at the San Pedro Center, a retreat and conference center owned by the Catholic Diocese of Orlando. I met David when I was serving in my first pastoral appointment, in a congregation just up the road from Disney World; he’s the one who later opened the door (God bless him) to my becoming the Artist in Residence at San Pedro.

We had made plans to meet at San Pedro today, and I arrived in time to take a short walk on the beautiful grounds. It had been some time since I’d been to this place that had once been such an intimate part of my life; I had even lived there for a wondrous year at the outset of my stint as Artist in Residence. As I walked its landscape today, I found myself thinking that it’s interesting to have lived long enough to have a sense that the arc of my life contains several lifetimes. The Jan who once lived at San Pedro felt like a very long-ago self. She was just beginning the journey to figure out what a life devoted to the intersection of art and writing and faith might look like. And she had a few other Big Life Things to figure out besides. It was intriguing to walk alongside her for a few moments today, to remember the remarkable door she was walking through a decade ago, and to see her, and that landscape, through the eyes of the present Jan.

There wasn’t much ritual involved when I moved to San Pedro (although there was a pair of sandhill cranes standing welcome in the driveway when we pulled the moving truck into the entrance, which felt like some kind of blessing). Years later, though, when I moved out of my position as the Artist in Residence and took up my new role with The Wellspring Studio, it felt like an occasion that needed some ceremonial action. The transition had been a lengthy and convoluted process, in part because it took a while to do the institutional sorting-through of the form that my new ministry would take (that’s another blog post entirely!). With all that past, and quite sufficiently sorted through, it was time to celebrate, and to remember.

One afternoon I gathered at San Pedro with three friends who have been sustaining companions throughout the sometimes complicated and sometimes wondrous (and sometimes both) turnings of my path within and beyond San Pedro. I shared some reflections with them about what I had found in that place, and who I had become because of it. I talked about how I had imagined having some Big Ritual to mark what a huge transition had taken place for me in leaving San Pedro, and what a deep transformation had occurred within me over the course of my years there. But as the day of celebration had approached, I’d realized that I didn’t need a Big Ritual. Having already put copious amounts of energy into getting to this point in my life, I found that I needed a ritual that would be simple. Gathering together, telling some stories, and being in that place: that would be ceremony enough.

And, of course, we had cake.

I’ve been thinking about beginnings and endings and the marking of them as I’ve reflected on the Gospel text that the lectionary invites us to ponder this week. In Matthew 3.13-17, we encounter the story of John’s baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. It’s the first time we see the adult Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. As he approaches the river, he is beginning to cross the threshold into his public ministry. Though John sees clearly that there seems to be no cause for Jesus to go through the ritual and confessional cleansing of baptism, there is a deeper need that drives Jesus to seek this sacramental act, this initiation. Jesus understands the power that ritual possesses to mark a beginning, the symbolic way that it blesses and prepares us to move into a new terrain. A new lifetime.

How do you mark the beginnings and endings of the lifetimes that unfold within your life? How would you describe the different selves you’ve been across the years? Did you know when you were passing from one phase of your life into another? Have you gone, or are going through, or are anticipating some change that could benefit from some ritual attention? How might it be to set aside some time, alone or with friends, in order to remember, and to mark the passage, and to name who you have been and who you are becoming?

Whether your ceremonial self enters into a ritual space that is simple or involved, I highly recommend the inclusion of cake.

A blessing upon all your beginnings and endings and beginnings again.

[To use the “Ceremony” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. For all my artwork for the Baptism of the Lord, please see this page. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Epiphany, Gospel of Matthew, lectionary, sacred time | 2 Comments »

Newer Entries »