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Epiphany 2: What Are You Looking For?

January 15, 2011


Who Gave You Your Eyes? © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 2, Year A: John 1.29-42

Who gave you your eyes? asks J. Ruth Gendler in her book Notes on the Need for Beauty. “Inside this question,” she goes on to write, “are several other questions. Who taught you to see? Who taught you what to see? What not to see? What are you paying attention to? What is beautiful to you?”

I’ve been spending time seeing, lately. After last year’s extraordinary outpouring of energy, I have devoted some space, in the opening days of this new year, to filling my creative well. Resting and restoring. Absorbing. Looking. Giving my attention to what feeds my eyes, grabs my imagination, renews my vision.

This involves books, of course. One of the books I’ve been keeping company with is Leslie Geddes-Brown’s marvelous book about Angie Lewin, an English printmaker whose work first crossed my path in a Seattle bookstore several years ago. I left the shop with a fistful of her cards, just because they made my soul and my eyeballs happy. The pages of Angie Lewin: Plants and Places, just recently published (and a post-Christmas treat to myself), brim with Lewin’s remarkable wood engravings, linocuts, lithographs, and screenprints, along with her working sketches as well as photographs of some of the places that inspire her art. The book, in fact, is thematically divided into sections that take their names from these places: woodland and hedgerow, river and loch, meadow and garden.

In images and in Lewin’s own words, the book reveals some of the sources of her seeing. She tells of landscapes she has sought or stumbled upon, along with artists whose work has helped her develop her distinctive vision. The book closes with a wonderful, offbeat bibliography (with photos) of books that are among Lewin’s favorites; she comments, “Many of the artists who inspire me have also illustrated books and designed textiles and ceramics, so this list is an eclectic mix of 1940s natural history books and obscure titles collected for the artwork regardless of their subject.”

The book, which came into my hands at about the same time as Ruth Gendler’s book, reads something like an extended meditation on the question that Gendler poses: Who gave you your eyes? Together these two books have prompted me to pay closer attention to how I see, what I see, where I look, what inspires me, how my seeing might need to stretch in new directions.

And into the midst of this strolls Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel lection, where we meet two of John the Baptist’s disciples who, after hearing John speak of Jesus as the lamb of God, begin to follow after Jesus. “What are you looking for?” Jesus asks them. They answer his question with a question: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus responds to them, “Come and see.”

Come and see. In all of the gospels, this is one of the most profound and challenging invitations Jesus will extend. Jesus is not beckoning them to a superficial seeing; what he offers them will demand more than a glance or a cursory look. The Greek word translated here as see comes from horao, which can be translated as perceive, understand, recognize, experience. Jesus is calling these disciples to the kind of seeing that opens a door, a seeing that draws us into a journey that will change us in ways we cannot know or imagine at the outset.

During Advent I wrote about getting stuck in my studio (“The Luminous Night”), and how getting stuck always seems to mean that a shift is brewing in my artwork. I’m in the early days yet of that shift, not clear what it means, but am feeling more excited than panicked about it. I know the shift is an invitation to a deeper seeing, a call both to extend my range of vision outward—to look beyond my usual lines of sight—as well as inward, to tunnel into layers of soul and guts and heart and see what—and who—is there. Lewin and Gendler’s books are good companions in these days; they not only feed my eyes and imagination but have also helped propel me into the studio, where I’ve begun to experiment with new colors and follow some different lines. Who knows where it will lead? The mystery and the risk are the price, and the gift, of learning to see—of being given our eyes, again and again and again.

What are you looking for? Jesus asks. Like that duo of disciples, I want to know where he is staying, where he is dwelling; I want to find where Christ makes his home. Come and see, he says. And in my studio, in my home, in my marriage, in my friendships, he keeps showing up; in the communities I’m part of, in the things I wrestle with, in the strangers who cross my path, in the questions and dreams and doorways that open onto places I could never have predicted, Christ lies in wait. Inviting me, beckoning me, challenging me to open my eyes wide, and wider still.

What are you looking for in these days?

Blessing

May God,
who comes to us
in the things of this world,
bless your eyes
and be in your seeing.

May Christ,
who looks upon you
with deepest love,
bless your eyes
and widen your gaze.

May the Spirit,
who perceives what is
and what may yet be,
bless your eyes
and sharpen your vision.

May the Sacred Three
bless your eyes
and cause you to see.

[The blessing is from In the Sanctuary of Women © Jan L. Richardson. For a previous reflection on this lectionary reading, visit Epiphany 2: Come and See.]

[To use the “Who Gave You Your Eyes?” 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, mystery | 6 Comments »

Epiphany: Where the Map Begins

December 30, 2010

Image: An Ancient Light © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany ABC: Matthew 2.1-12

I love this time between Christmas Day and Epiphany. Although the prospect of moving beyond the holidays is always a bit poignant for me, I take comfort in knowing that the festival of Christmas lasts not for one day but for twelve, and there is still cause for celebration before we leave this season. This year in particular I am grateful for the opportunity to rest and reflect, and to do some dreaming as well as playing before I dive into the coming year.

In these blissfully quiet days, I have spent time curled up with a few books. One that I am especially savoring was a Christmas gift from my parents. Mapping the World: Stories of Geography, written by Caroline and Martine Laffon, is a beautifully produced book that traces some of the history of how we humans have sought to chart the universe, and our place within it, over millennia. With images of maps from ancient to contemporary times, the book reveals how maps are never neutral documents: they provide a glimpse of the beliefs, myths, legends, and sometimes prejudices of those who created them.

I have spent much time this year thinking about maps. In retreats, workshops, worship, and conversation, the question has surfaced again and again: In a world that we enter with no map in hand, no blueprint, no book of instructions, how do we find our way? In the Wellspring service, the contemplative worship gathering that Gary and I lead, we recently finished a five-part series titled “Mapping the Mysteries of Faith.” As we explored this theme and the questions that it stirred, the conversations we had at Wellspring were rich and refreshing. We didn’t leave with many answers—that’s not the point of the Wellspring service—but I found myself reminded once again of how crucial it is to have the company of wise travelers as we make our own maps.

With Epiphany on the horizon, I find myself thinking of the magi, those ancient travelers who went in search of the Christ. Wise to the heavens, they still possessed no map, no ready-made chart that laid out their course.  As Matthew tells it, all that the magi had to illuminate their terrain and guide their way was a star. This was where their map began: with a burning light, with a step taken, with the company of others gazing in the same direction.

In that spirit, here’s a new poem. Composed while I was curled up among the books, it’s for Epiphany, and for you.

Where the Map Begins

This is not
any map you know.
Forget longitude.
Forget latitude.
Do not think
of distances
or of plotting
the most direct route.
Astrolabe, sextant, compass:
these will not help you here.

This is the map
that begins with a star.
This is the chart
that starts with fire,
with blazing,
with an ancient light
that has outlasted
generations, empires,
cultures, wars.

Look starward once,
then look away.
Close your eyes
and see how the map
begins to blossom
behind your lids,
how it constellates,
its lines stretching out
from where you stand.

You cannot see it all,
cannot divine the way
it will turn and spiral,
cannot perceive how
the road you walk
will lead you finally inside,
through the labyrinth
of your own heart
and belly
and lungs.

But step out
and you will know
what the wise who traveled
this path before you
knew:
the treasure in this map
is buried not at journey’s end
but at its beginning.

—Jan Richardson

As we travel through these Christmas days toward Epiphany and the coming year, where do you find yourself in your map? What are you giving your attention to? Are you looking in a direction that enables you to see possible paths? Is there a turn you need to take in your map? Where might you begin? Who can help?

As we travel toward Epiphany and beyond, blessings and good company to you.

[2016 update: The blessing “Where the Map Begins” appears in Jan’s new book, Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons.]

For previous Epiphany reflections, visit Feast of the Epiphany: Blessing the House; Feast of the Epiphany: A Calendar of Kings; Inviting Epiphany; and The Feast of the Epiphany: Magi and Mystery.

[To use the image “An Ancient Light,” 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, Gospel of Matthew, holidays, lectionary, mystery, sacred time | 6 Comments »

For All the Saints

October 26, 2009

blog-A-Gathering-of-Spirits
A Gathering of Spirits © Jan L. Richardson

I am coming into the home stretch of my new book, thanks be to God, and am looking forward to finishing up all the final details in time to start blogging on a more regular basis in time for Advent (over at my other blog, The Advent Door). It’s lovely also to be getting ready to celebrate my favorite trinity of days in the whole year—Halloween, the Feast of All Saints, and the Feast of All Souls. For a long while, this trio of days has been a sacred time for me—what the Celtic folk call a “thin place” in the wheel of the year. As we approach the Feast of All Saints in this year that has been particularly intense with laboring on the book, I am especially mindful of and grateful for all the sources of help, encouragement, prayer, and good cheer I have received along the way from sainted folk on both sides of the veil.

As the Feast of All Saints draws near, I invite you to visit the reflection that I wrote last year by clicking here: Feast of All Saints: A Gathering of Spirits.

Also, if you’re working with Mark 12.28-34, the gospel lection for Proper 26B/Ordinary 31B/Pentecost + 22, I invite you to visit the reflection I offered last year for Matthew’s version of this story: Crossing the Country, Thinking of Love.

Many blessings to you in these sacred days.

Posted in art, Celtic, lectionary, mystery, sacred time | 6 Comments »

Easter 2: The Secret Room

April 13, 2009

blog-thesecretroomImage: The Secret Room © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Easter 2: John 20.19-31

In his book The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau writes that in every pilgrimage, there is a secret room, a place along the path that gives us insight into the deep mystery of our journey. In describing this hidden room, Cousineau draws on a story that poet Donald Hall tells of friends who purchased an old farmhouse. Cousineau writes,

It was a ‘warren of small rooms,’ and once they settled in and began to furnish their new home they realized that the lay of the house made little sense. ‘Peeling off some wallpaper, they found a door that they pried open to reveal a tiny room, sealed off and hidden, goodness knows why: They found no corpses nor stolen goods.’ For Hall, the mystery of poetry to evoke powerful feelings finds its analogy here, in its ability to be sealed away from explanation, this is the place where ‘the unsayable gathers.’

And so it is on the pilgrim’s path. 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 cafe, 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.

It is the day after Easter Sunday. I savored sleeping in this morning and am now in my writer’s nook at the top of the stairs, gazing out the window as I ponder the season past. I think of the pilgrimage these forty Lenten days led me on, the twists and turns they offered, the questions and challenges they posed, the graces they beckoned me to see.

Where was the secret room?

I think of a day in the week just past, when I went with my sweetheart to the Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, not far from where I live. The primary draw of the Morse is its collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the artist famed for his stained glass designs. I have always liked Tiffany well enough—a poster of one of his windows accompanied me through a succession of dorm rooms and apartments in college—but in more recent years found I had a somewhat limited affinity for this kind of work. I thought it was pretty, in an ornamental fashion, but didn’t go much beyond that.

I had, however, changed as an artist since the last time I had walked through the museum’s doors, had begun to work in ways that—I came to realize—altered the way that I saw Tiffany’s work. And so I found myself in front of one of his windows last week, leaning in close, pulling back, leaning in again. I was stunned by his line work, the loose style so markedly different from the stained glass designs of previous centuries. His lines captivated the part of me that had begun to work in charcoal since I’d last been to the museum, and had become fascinated with how the lay of a line—how it turns this way, then that—can convey a whole world.

And, between the lines, was the remarkable glass, so distinctive of Tiffany, who radicalized the manufacture of stained glass and turned each fragment into an art form in itself. I spent a long moment at a table that offered pieces of Tiffany glass to touch. Every piece a different texture—smooth, coarse, rippled, ridged. A fragment that so looked like flame that its coolness seemed incongruous. I ran my hand over each piece, each a living link with its maker, each an embodiment of his vision and daring, each a window onto the mysterious crucible that gives rise to art, each a threshold beckoning me deeper into my own creative path and reminding me why I set out on it in the first place.

This week’s gospel lection offers us a secret room, and, with it, an invitation to touch, to cross more deeply into Jesus’ story and our own. John tells of a room in which the disciples gather—a locked room, for fear. For secrets. And there, in their midst, Jesus appears, offering his hands and side, offering peace, offering the Holy Spirit, breathing into them (“and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” John means for us to remember). But Thomas is gone, John tells us, and will not believe unless he sees. So Jesus returns a week later, slides through the shut doors of the secret room, shows himself to Thomas. “Put your finger here and see my hands,” Jesus says, as if touching and seeing are one and the same. “Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

History has labeled this disciple Doubting Thomas, as if his uncertainty were the most memorable thing about this follower of Jesus who, elsewhere, is the first to step up and say he is willing to die with him (John 11.1-16). Yet Jesus, as is his way, gives Thomas what he needs. In Jesus’ hands, in Jesus’ side, Thomas reaches into a secret room, a place that, though “sealed away from explanation,” as Cousineau writes, makes some kind of sense of the long pilgrimage that Thomas has undertaken with Jesus, to whom he is now able to say, “My Lord and my God!”

And you? Did the pilgrimage through Lent offer you a secret room? Somewhere along the way, did you find a place that offered, not an explanation of your path, but a window onto it, a space within it that enabled you to see it anew, and the one who called you there? Where was it, and what did you find there? How does it illuminate the way before you?

In the weeks to come, may we remember that Easter is not just a day but rather a season. May the gift and challenge of resurrection go with you, and may the path ahead be graced with secret rooms.

[To use the image “Secret Room,” 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, Easter, Gospel of John, lectionary, Lent, mystery, poetry | 8 Comments »

Mysteries of the Magdalene

April 5, 2009

blog-hoursofmarymagprint

Here on the threshold of Holy Week, I’ve had Mary Magdalene on my mind. Scripturally speaking, what we know of her story comes almost entirely from the gospel accounts of the final days of Jesus, where the Magdalene emerges as a faithful disciple who journeys with Jesus from the cross to the empty tomb. She is the first to proclaim the news of Christ’s resurrection.

As if the scriptural accounts of her story weren’t intriguing enough, an imaginative web of legends gathered around the Magdalene in the centuries that followed. Short on fact but long on fascination, many of them tell of a woman of power and courage whose life was marked by devotion and mystery.

The legends gave rise to some wondrous medieval art, which in turn inspired my series The Hours of Mary Magdalene a few years ago. I’ve just finished a new print that brings together all eight images in the series, and I’d love to share it with you. It’s available on my website, where you can find it on the main page at janrichardson.com. You can also go straight to the Color Prints page, where prints of the individual pieces are available as well. Purchasing prints—or anything else on my website—goes directly toward supporting my ministry through The Wellspring Studio, LLC, and I am grateful beyond measure for your sustenance in this way!

Peace to you.

Posted in art, Easter, Lent, medieval, mystery | 1 Comment »

Palm Sunday: The Temple by Night

March 29, 2009

Image: The Temple by Night © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Palm Sunday: Mark 11.1-11

After sending for the colt.
After the procession.
After the palms.
After the cloak-strewn road.
After the hosannas.
After blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord.

After all this, Mark—alone of all the gospels—tells us that Jesus goes into the temple and looks around at everything.

He does not teach. He does not preach. He does not heal. He does not confront or challenge. He does not even speak; neither does he cross the path of anyone who requires his attention. Mark conveys the impression that here, in this sacred space that lies at the heart of his people, Jesus is quite alone, and that it is night.

Jesus simply looks around. What is it that he sees in the temple by night?

The gospels vary in their account of Jesus’ relationship with the temple, and how much time he has spent there. Taking together their accounts, we know Mary and Joseph took him there as an infant for the rituals that occurred forty days after a birth. He made the journey to the temple every year with his family for Passover, most memorably at the age of twelve, when his parents, missing him on the way home, went back and discovered him in conversation with the teachers. Matthew tells us that the devil took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, urging him to jump, that angels would catch him. John in particular emphasizes Jesus’ presence at the temple earlier in his ministry, where the temple features in such stories as Jesus’ encounter with a woman caught in adultery. It is at the temple, according to John, that Jesus proclaims himself as the river of life and as the light of the world, beginning to take into his own self, as Richard Hays has pointed out, the purpose of the temple as the focal point of the liturgy and life of the people of Israel.

This is the place that holds the memories of Jesus and the collective memory of his people. And it is to this place that Jesus returns, after the palms, after the procession, after the shouts of proclamation have vanished into the air. He will come back tomorrow, Mark tells us, and he will turn over the tables and drive out the buyers and sellers and castigate the people for turning this house of prayer into a robbers’ den. He will return yet again over the next few days to teach, to provoke, to watch a widow drop two precious coins into the offering box. And soon he will die.

But for now, for tonight, in this holy place at the heart of his people, Jesus merely looks. He peers into this sacred space that is inhabited and haunted by his own story. And perhaps it is this story he sees again this night. Perhaps he sees Mary and Joseph coming out of the shadows, carrying their infant son. Perhaps he sees Simeon gathering his young self into his arms, singing about salvation and a light for revelation, joined by the old prophet Anna, who raises her voice in praise. Perhaps Jesus sees again the twelve-year-old who conversed with the temple teachers, and the tempter who tried to lure him to fling himself from the pinnacle of this place. Perhaps a woman, once trapped and terrified, stands before him again, this time with the light of forgiveness and healing shining through her eyes.

And perhaps in this place, where Jesus is alone-but-not-alone, they gather about him, reminding him why he has come, calling him to remember, offering their blessing for the days ahead. Perhaps in this space, after the palms and before the passion, Jesus is able simply to rest. To remember. To breathe. To be between.

And you? What are you between? Where is the space that invites you to be alone but not alone, to allow the memories to gather and bless you, to offer strength for the days ahead? What is the place that beckons you to breathe, to rest, to look? What is it that you see in that space? What stirs in the shadows?

Blessings to you in the spaces between.

Resources for the Season: Looking toward Lent

[To use the image “The Temple by Night,” 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, Gospel of Mark, lectionary, Lent, mystery, sacred time | 6 Comments »

Lent 5: Into the Seed

March 24, 2009

Image: Into the Seed © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Lent 5, Year B: John 12.20-33

So do you remember that kerfuffle back in the 90s when Mattel brought out a new Barbie doll called Teen Speak Barbie? The Barbies were programmed to say what the company considered typical adolescent girl phrases. Some of the dolls were heard to utter, “Math class is tough!” A protest ensued, and Mattel excised that phrase. The story still circulates, with the troublesome phrase often (mis)quoted as “Math is hard!”

At this point in the Lenten journey, I find myself getting in touch with my Inner Barbie. Call her Ecclesiastical Barbie, perhaps, or Exegetical Barbie. (Ooooh, can’t you see her now, complete with the Barbie Dream Church and Deacon Ken?) These days, when someone pulls the string on my Inner Barbie, she’s likely to say, “Lent is tough!” or “These lections are hard!”

The scripture passages that this season presents to us are intense, dense, and complex. They are laden with metaphor and meaning, swirl with constellations of symbols and images, and shimmer with vivid emotion and crucial teaching. These texts challenge us to look with honesty at our lives, they confront us with our attachments, and—in a phrase I recently encountered—they urge us to sit with our own mirrors.

Lent is not for sissies.

In these past few weeks, we have traveled with Jesus into the wilderness, listened to his challenge to discern between the things of heaven and the things of earth, witnessed his outraged and outrageous cleansing of the temple, and overheard him liken himself to the serpent that Moses raised in the wilderness. Now he comes along, in this week’s gospel reading, speaking of grain and dying, losing one’s life and keeping it, hating and loving. We hear a thundering voice from heaven speaking of glory, and Jesus talking of being raised up from the earth.

The import of these Lenten texts is all the more intense for the surety of Jesus’ violent death that looms ahead. As we walk with Jesus through these weeks, we know what we are walking toward. And so his words carry extra weight, and we bend closer to capture them, as we do with someone we know is not long for this world—but who is already beginning to see things we cannot see, and speaking a language we do not yet understand.

Unlike others loosing the tethers that have held them to this life, however, Jesus retains a passionate interest in this world. Despite any impression he may give to the contrary (“those who hate their life in this world will keep it,” he says this week), Jesus does not perceive this world, this life, merely as a prelude to heaven or as a stockyard for weeding out the blessed from the damned. He seeks, rather, to train our eyes to perceive the kingdom of heaven tucked into the midst of this very world.

Teaching us to see the kingdom requires symbol, myth, metaphor, story. It requires the visual poetry that Jesus repeatedly uses as he turns to the things of earth to describe the things of heaven: yeast, seeds, dirt, water, fish, lilies of the field, birds of the air. Again and again he employs the ephemeral as he seeks to explain what is eternal. His doing so both comforts and unsettles; taking what is familiar to us, he turns it on its head, and us as well. How will we ever come to understand such a language?

We may feel daunted at this point in the season. I do. So suffused with meaning and messages, not to mention impending murder, these passages can overwhelm with their density and intensity and with their challenge to us to hold their paradoxes and untangle their meanings. Their lines somehow intertwine with the stuff of my days, drawing me deeper into the questions they pose about what my life is really about. There is so much to discern, to sort through, to sift.

In the midst of feeling daunted, I find myself thinking of the mystic poet who asked, “What is the cure for love? More love.” The formula holds true elsewhere. The cure for mystery? More mystery. The cure for paradox? More paradox. Last week’s readings from Numbers and the gospel of John reminded us that the cure for snakebite lay in looking upon a serpent. And in such a way this season beckons us to consider that we find our cure not by shrinking from what besets and befuddles and daunts us but by looking deeper into those very places, and finding the treasure that God has placed within them.

Go into the things you shrink from, Jesus tells his hearers—and us—in this passage. Go into the questions, the mysteries, the paradoxes, the seeming contradictions. Go into the Lenten dying that is not dying after all. We work so very hard at letting go, sometimes, trying to train ourselves to release our grip on all that is not God. But what if it is not about giving up but giving in? Falling into dirt, as Jesus says here. Going where grain is supposed to go. Following the spiral within the seed that takes us deeper into the dark but also—finally, fruitfully—out of it.

The lectionary interrupts this passage before its end; Jesus’ conversation with the crowd actually extends to verse 36. After Jesus finishes his discourse, here’s what John tells us Jesus did: he hid from them. And perhaps that’s what Jesus means for us to do at this point on the Lenten path: to hide. To not be set on figuring everything out but rather to let at least some part of ourselves, for some space of time, withdraw. To cease from wrestling with the questions and mysteries and simply rest with them and give in to them. To secret our souls like a seed in the earth. To see what grows.

How is it with your soul at this point on the Lenten path? As you work with these texts, how are these texts working on you? What questions have they stirred for you in these days? How do you respond to the mysteries and paradoxes they hold? Can you rest with those questions and mysteries? What do you need?

May you fall into, rest into, a place that will tend and nourish you in these days. Blessings.

Resources for the Season: Looking toward Lent

P.S. Happy Eve of the Feast of the Annunciation! Falling on March 25, this feast celebrates the radical yes that Mary said to Gabriel when the angel beckoned her to become the mother of Christ. For some of my artwork and reflections on the Annunciation, visit Getting the Message and The Hour of Matins: Annunciation.

[To use the image “Into the Seed,” 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, Gospel of John, lectionary, Lent, mystery | 18 Comments »

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 »

A Habit of the Wildest Bounty: Feast of St. Brigid

January 31, 2009


Saint Brigid © Jan L. Richardson

Tomorrow brings one of my favorite days of celebration: the Feast of Saint Brigid of Kildare, beloved holy woman of Ireland. Born in the middle of the fifth century, Brigid became a pivotal figure in the development of Irish Christianity. We know few concrete details of her life, but the surviving stories offer a compelling depiction of a woman renowned for her hospitality and for the monasteries she established, the most famous being the one at Cill Dara (Kildare), the Church of the Oak.

Many of the tales of Brigid’s life read much like those of other female saints: her saintly qualities were evident from an early age; she forsook marriage in order to follow Christ in a monastic way of life (she even caused her eye to burst in order to avoid being married off; don’t try this at home!); she was a wonder-worker who brought healing and justice; she exercised miraculous influence over the weather, animals, and the landscape. “She stilled the rain and wind,” the final line of the Bethu Brigte, a medieval account of Brigid’s life, tells us.

In her charming book St. Brigid of Ireland, Alice Curtayne describes Brigid as someone who found the poor “irresistible” and ministered to them with “a habit of the wildest bounty.” Her lavish generosity sometimes put her at odds with her family and, later, her monastic community, which occasionally had to do without as she gave their bounty to guests and strangers.

There is a strong domestic quality that pervades Brigid’s wonderworking, a homeliness to the miraculous that runs throughout her tales. Most of her recorded miracles are feats of provisioning by which she secures an abundance of fare for daily sustenance as well as for festive occasions. In Brigid’s presence, butter is replenished; the bacon she slips to a dog miraculously reappears in the pot; a stone turns to salt; water becomes milk, or beer, or, in one instance, an aphrodisiac. Her plenitude consciously echoes Christ’s miracles of provisioning—water into wine, a few loaves and fish into a feast—and embodies the abundant generosity of God. There is a gracefulness that shimmers in the utterly mundane quality of the material of Brigid’s miracles, underscoring the dignity of the daily tasks to which the women of her day—and women across centuries—devoted so much of their lives.

Those who wrote Brigid’s Lives, however, were keen to portray her as much more than a wonderworking dairymaid. Within the workaday landscape of her legends, signs of the mystery and power of God flicker and flash with a brilliance that illuminates the saint and sparks the imagination. Fire is a persistent symbol in her stories, and in one of the earliest prayers to Brigid, known as “Ultán’s Hymn,” the writer addresses her as a “golden radiant flame.”

The symbol of fire illuminates and underscores Brigid’s role as not only a worker of domestic miracles but also a woman of transcendent power. In her stories she appears as a charismatic leader who wields influence in monastic, civic, and natural realms; she is ever at ease among kings and bishops; she brings healing to body and soul; she displays gifts of exhortation; she has prophetic dreams and sees far into the hidden reaches of the heart. Brigid possesses a sense of justice that prompts her to secure the freedom of prisoners and slaves.

The Annals of Ulster variously give the date of Brigid’s death as 524, 526, and 528. According to one of her early biographers, Brigid was buried in the abbey church she established at Kildare, and she continued to work miracles after her death. Tradition tells that she was moved from Kildare and laid to rest in Dunpatrick alongside two other great saints of Ireland, Patrick and Columba. Her physical grave remains a mystery, but the landscape of Ireland continues to testify to her presence, with forms of the name Brigid appearing in the names of towns, holy wells, and churches. Legends, prayers, rituals, and celebrations (some of which echo the festivities of Imbolc, a major springtime celebration in the ancient Celtic year) continue to expand and sometimes complicate her story, adding their threads to the mysterious tapestry of Brigid’s legacy.

Brigid lent her name to a modern-day monastery that has been a significant part of my own journey for nearly a decade. Founded at the turn of this millennium by Mary Stamps, a remarkable woman who possesses a wondrous share of the spirit of the groundbreaking Irish saint, St. Brigid of Kildare Monastery draws from both Methodist and Benedictine traditions. For more information about this unique community, visit Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery.

A blessed Feast of Saint Brigid to you, and may you possess Brigid’s habit of the wildest bounty!

[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, Celtic, monastic stuff, mystery, sacred time | 6 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 »

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