Rublev’s Holy Trinity

art, epilepsy, Faith, generosity, Holy Spirit, Holy Trinity, Icons, inspiration, Painting, Rublev, salvation, vision

Rublev: The Holy Trinity, 1411 or 1425-27, Russia

One of my favorite icons is Andrei Rublev’s Holy Trinity because it not only has the theological theme of the Trinity, but also the message of hospitality to strangers. As Hebrews 13:2 reminds us,

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

This subject of this icon is the three angels for whom Abraham spread a feast in the wilderness where he and his barren wife Sarah lived while they tended their flocks. The angels appear with their walking staffs and sit at Abraham’s table set with a dish of food. In the background is a mountain, representing the wilderness and a tree, locating the scene at the oaks of Mamre.

Koulouris Iconography House: Saint George Greek Orthodox Church, West Bank Territory, Holy Land

Rublev’s palette is full of light with a predominance of gold, shining ochre, delicate shades of green, pink, and violet, and his inimitable sky-blue, too, in combination with the fine rhythm of lines and perfect composition. Altogether this produces an image of unearthly beauty and a heavenly harmony. This isn’t just a banquet in the desert wilderness, but a meal in the inbreaking moment in which we experience the timeless realm of heaven.

On earth, we count the minutes, days, and years, but in the company of God, we enter into the eternal and timeless experience in which God lives. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are the same for the God who is known as I AM, for I AM lives always in the present and I AM is always becoming. There never was a time when the I AM was not. God always IS, even if we think God is not.

We may forget God, and our love may fail, but the steadfast love of the great I AM never fails because God’s love is, as the prophet Isaiah describes it (43:25):

“I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

Copy of Rublev’s Holy Trinity, iconostasis at the monastery, 16th CE, St. Sergio’s Lavra, Russia.

Andrei Rublev painted the original icon in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery in either 1411 or 1425-1427. An artist made a copy of the Holy Trinity icon in the 16^th CE. The Orthodox Church certified the Rublev Trinity as miraculous in 1626 and gave it a place of honor in the church, as well as metallic and jeweled embellishments. Over the next 500 years, artists restored the original Rublev icon several times. The early 1900’s saw two professional restorations: each one removed more layers of paint and lacquer until they revealed the original. The restorers decided hiding with a frame what was an “exclusive, in its worldwide importance, work of art” from the palette of Andrei Rublev was unacceptable.

Dating this important icon is more difficult than deciding its painter. Some think the icon was originally meant for the wooden Trinity Cathedral erected in 1411 and believe after the stone church was built, the congregation moved the icon there. Other art historians believe Rublev painted the “Holy Trinity” at the same time as his workshop painted the iconostasis in the new cathedral in 1425-27.

Rublev received a commission to paint this icon for the image of the Holy Trinity from St. Nikon of Radonezh: “an image for the Holy Trinity to be painted in his time, to venerate His Holy Father, St. Sergius the Wonderworker,” the monk who founded the monastery at Radonezh.

Since a cathedral dedicated to the Holy Trinity should have an icon of the Holy Trinity in it as its primary icon, the obvious choice was to select the best image that would convey the spiritual essence of the cathedral. This icon would embody the name of the Holy Trinity in color.

Icons have a purpose in worship, beyond mere mere beauty or illustration or teaching of doctrine. St. John of Damascus spoke in his “Apologies against Those who Decry Holy Images”, with which he addressed the Seventh Ecumenical Council calling on renowned painters for brave deeds, to set forth in their art the images of the Old and New Testaments, so that those who were not learned and could not read the Holy Scripture, would be able—by examining those stories—to enjoy the lives of holy men and their good deeds, for

“What the book does for those who understand letters, the image does for the illiterate; the word appeals to hearing, the image appeals to sight; it conveys understanding.” (Treatise 1.17)”’

Betsy Porter: Holy Trinity icon with Holy Communion

In other arguments against those iconoclastic believers, those who advocated instead for the use of images in worship reminded people the icon represents the truth of a spiritual reality. Some have compared the icon to a “window into heaven.” No one then or now worships the icon itself, but they do venerate the holiness of the person represented in the image. They hope to recognize the presence of God with them when they come to the quiet and stillness before the icon at their home altar and when they share in the presence of God in public worship in the sanctuary among the holy icons.

Abraham and the Three Angels, Mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome (432-40 CE)

Theologically, the Western church has treated all three members of the Holy Trinity as coequal members, as seen in the mosaics of the 5^th CE basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. By placing all the heads on one level, or the use of isocephaly, the artist tells us the figures are equal in stature. Abraham is therefore lower than the heavenly visitors. Isocephaly is the art term which originates from the Greek words “isos” meaning “equal” and “kephalos” meaning “head”. We already know this word from our common knowledge: isosceles triangles have two equal sides and encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain, which is within our heads. (Sorry, old schoolteachers never die, but keep on explaining our 50 cent words; it must be that “back to school” time of year!)

Commercial Paper icon appliqué on wood panel “after Rublev,” but lacks the background architecture and has a substantial table without a cloth covering.

The Rublev icon has the heads of the three angels arranged in a triangle. They represent the Triune God. The center figure is slightly higher than the other two figures’ heads. This is because the Eastern Orthodox Church holds a slightly different view of the Holy Trinity. The incomprehensible God has indeed revealed God’s self in a manner that is incomprehensible.

All errors in trying to explain the Trinity come down to the following issue: we try to explain the living God, using a method of human thought—rational, natural, or philosophical—instead of witnessing to the reality and the truth of an encounter with the living God. To ask what God is, is the wrong question. Rather, who God is, is the primary question.

The answer is—God is Triune. We know God by God’s activity in the world, or energies, which we can see and can understand. In fact, all our understanding of God or what we say about God, comes from what God has done in the world, from God’s energies. The essence of God is still beyond our understanding, inaccessible to our understanding. If we could understand it, it would not be God, for God is beyond our understanding, as Isaiah 55:8-9 reminds us:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Both the Western and the Orthodox Churches are in agreement as regards the unity of the Trinity as to the persons and their shared being. They also agree the Trinity isn’t three separate gods or three different revelations of one singular god. The Eastern Church and the Western Church did split over whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son alone (East) or from the Father AND the Son (West).

The earliest creeds from the 4^th CE didn’t even mention the Holy Spirit, mostly because the early church was combatting heresies about the nature of the Son (such as he was actually human, only appeared to be human, only parts were human, and other variations other than he was a full member of the Trinity and in Christ being fully human and fully divine).

By 381 CE in Constantinople, the creed included the words:

“And in the Spirit, the holy, the lordly and life-giving one, proceeding forth from the Father, co-worshipped and co-glorified with Father and Son, the one who spoke through the prophets; in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.”

The first Latin council to add the phrase “and the Son” (filioque) to its creed was the 447 CE Synod of Toledo, Spain. The filioque formula was also used in a letter from the Catholic Pope Leo I to the members of that synod regarding opposition to a form of the fifth century manifestations of the Arian heresy which was prevalent among the Germanic tribes of Europe.

Stage 4, the draperies are taking the shape of the bodies

As football season heats up in the USA, we fight our culture wars on social media, not in the streets. The latest heresy for some is professional football teams now have male cheerleaders on the sidelines. The conservative rabble rousers destroyed their coffeemakers and burned their team jerseys in the past. Wearing paper sacks to maintain anonymity at the games is too yesterday. The recent announcement of the heroic and rugged Minnesota Vikings football team’s addition of two talented and athletic young male dancers is more than they can take. The keys of their favorite social media platform have been clicking and clacking. Radio waves are sizzling and heating up our already too sweaty summer.

Trinity, stage 5: two steps forward and one step back

The bishops at Toledo affirmed the Holy Spirit’s procession from both the Father and the Son to exclude the Arian notion of the Son being something less than a co-eternal and equal partner with the Father from the very beginning of existence. Street protests were common during this time over theological beliefs: the Catholics chanted, “There never was a time the Father was not a Father, the Son not a Son, and the Spirit didn’t proceed from both!” Against them, the Arians marched, “The Son was born, not begotten!” Exciting times, the late 5^th CE.

Several of our past GOP presidents were college cheerleaders, including Ronald Regan and George Bush. On a personal note, six decades ago, my big city high school in the Deep South had a tradition of boy and girl cheerleaders on a team of equal numbers to do exciting and complicated stunts. We were not aware of being “woke.” We were, however, always seeking to bring out the best of each person to reflect well upon our school and our city, which we represented.

Unfortunately, accusing the present NFL teams of being “woke” ignores American history, since the USA FEDERATION FOR SPORT CHEERING recognizes the first cheer in America as occurring on November 2, 1898 at the University of Minnesota, when student Johnny Campbell got up from the seats and took the field to lead the student body in a chant. If 127 years is too far back for people’s minds, we can turn to more recent history.

DeLee: Holy Trinity after Rublev, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”

Cheerleading is a metaphor for hospitality, which is one of the great attributes of the Holy Trinity. Hospitality is only possible where love resides and where community is experienced and practiced. Los Angeles led the way in 2018 by including two male dancers on their NFL Ram’s team. They were part of the Super Bowl LIII in 2019. Tryouts have always been “open,” but only women had shown up before. Like the strangers who showed up at Abraham’s tent, the cheer squad welcomed the men into the family and brought them under the protection of their group. When we practice hospitality, the “other” is no longer a “them.” The “stranger” becomes one of “us” because we reflect God’s loving nature to the vulnerable and we offer the bounty of our table to nourish their body and spirit.

I began working on this icon during social and personal distress. The social distress is obvious to anyone who reads a newspaper or watches a television newscast. Never have I seen so many professing Christians refuse to “love their neighbor as themselves,” or “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” I don’t know how they sleep at night, for my own heart hurts for the pain inflicted upon the strangers who walk among us, who very well may be the Holy Trinity in earthly disguise. If we treat them like their next stop on their journey, only a few of us will walk away unscathed.

My personal distress comes from the blessing of living long enough, thanks to excellent medical care and the ability to live a structured, carefree life. As we age, medication affects us differently. My neurologist dropped the amount of my seizure medication, and my cardiologist upped my blood pressure medication. I was taking too much magnesium, so that was making me lethargic as well as lowering my blood pressure. Now that I’ve gotten stabilized, I feel a lot peppier.

Unfortunately, I began painting and drawing this icon while all this unwellness was going on. I can see “room for improvement,” as I always remind folks to say when critiquing their own art works. I have learned much from this time and have seen the icon in a new and closer light. I will come back to it again when I feel I’m more competent to give it my best.

A masterpiece always deserves the best we can offer, yet I rest secure knowing God has grace for those of us who are wounded, weak, or broken in any way. Whatever we bring in this time and place right now is the best we can offer upon God’s altar. God refuses no honest gift. If we spread peanut butter sandwiches on the table for the visitors as the offered feast because this is what we have, God will bless this gift.

The Holy Trinity of God lives in a loving community of self-giving hospitality and generosity within its unity of being. All three persons love, support, and care for one another in equal measure. As we humans would understand this: no one in the Trinity carries a heavier burden than another. In like manner, each person shares all the energies and work of the others.

The work of salvation may be through our faith in Christ’s work on the cross, yet it was the Father who sent the Son to redeem all creation and the Holy Spirit who brings us to the understanding of this saving grace. The whole work of God in Three Persons saves us if we have Trinitarian faith. And it is by the power of all the Holy Three we can stand against the hatreds and evils of this age.

Indeed, if we can offer any service well-pleasing to God, following the admonitions of Hebrews 13:1-2 would help all:

“Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Abraham’s angelic visitors blessed him and his wife Sarah with the promise of a longed-for son. We might learn to love our neighbors more if we shared our hospitality and opened our hearts to the people we meet. May you meet angels in your daily life and share whatever feast is in your pantry.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Andrei Rublev: Image of the “Holy Trinity,” The Tretyakov Gallery Magazine. Andrei Rublev painted the Holy Trinity icon, which is the central image in the cathedral’s iconostasis. One of the most famous Russian icons, he created it “in praise of St. Sergius.” The original is in the hall of Old Russian painting of the Tretyakov Gallery, in a special glass case with controlled humidity and temperature. In Trinity Cathedral you can see a copy of the icon to the right of the royal doors in the first (lowest) tier of the iconostasis.

https://www.tretyakovgallerymagazine.com/node/7196

Excerpts from Three Treatises on the Divine Images by St John of Damascus, translation and introduction by Fr. Andrew Louth, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003.

https://www.svots.edu/blog/st-john-damascus-divine-images

A Miracle of Knowledge: St. Sergius of Radonezh / OrthoChristian.Com

https://orthochristian.com/41950.html

Venerable Nikon, Abbot of Radonezh, disciple of Venerable Sergius – Orthodox Church in America

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2016/11/17/103316-venerable-nikon-abbot-of-radonezh-disciple-of-venerable-sergius

Daily readings from the lives of the Orthodox Saints:

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives

Home – Icons: Windows Into Heaven – LibGuides at Duquesne University: This is a reputable source for orthodox icon information via the Duquesne Library. Links to outside sources are broken. Reference books are available elsewhere.

https://guides.library.duq.edu/icons

Mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome (432-40): if you’ve never been to Italy, you can see the entire beautiful interior of this 5^th CE basilica here.

https://www.wga.hu/html_m/zearly/1/4mosaics/1rome/3maggior/index.html

Introduction to Orthodoxy 4: The Holy Trinity – Orthodox Catechism Project

https://www.orthodoxcatechismproject.org/introduction-to-orthodoxy/-/asset_publisher/IXn2ObwXr9vq/content/introduction-to-orthodoxy-4-the-holy-trinity

First Council of Constantinople 381 – Papal Encyclicals

First Council of Constantinople – 381

First Known Cheerleader was a Male Student

The First Cheerleader

Vikings Respond to Male Cheerleader Backlash – Newsweek—12 NFL teams are reportedly set to have male cheerleaders on their squads this season. The teams as the Vikings, Ravens, Rams, Saints, Eagles, 49ers, Patriots, Titans, Colts, Chiefs, Buccaneers and Panthers.

https://www.newsweek.com/minnesota-vikings-respond-backlash-male-cheerleaders-2113864

Never surrender!

Altars, art, Carl Jung, Creativity, crucifixion, Easter, Easter, Faith, Garden of Gethsemane, Good Friday, Healing, Holy Spirit, Holy Thursday, incarnation, inspiration, Ministry, Painting, suffering

“Never give up! Never surrender!”

This is my favorite quote from the 1999 sci-fi parody film Galaxy Quest. As a fan of Star Trek, I love the heroics of the storylines and the movie’s devoted fans. What sets this spoof story apart is how an alien culture has modeled its entire identity on the “historical documents,” or the weekly tv series videos. The aliens arrive on earth and spirit away the crew to fight against their enemies. The actors protest, but discover their true selves through this challenging situation. They not only play heroes, but they become heroes. They have to surrender to their former false selves to become the best and the truest of who others have known them to be.

We are not a people who believe in surrender. If our back is against the wall, our inclination is to fight all the more. Most of us believe in climbing upwards, not in moving downward. Taking a lateral move is just as bad as a demotion for most people’s egos. If you talk to any clergy person during appointment season, many are hoping for a church with a bigger steeple. While if you talk to their congregations, they’re hoping for preachers who wants to stay for a while. Obviously between moving and staying, someone is going to be disappointed. Someone will need to surrender to a greater plan.

I remember in my early days I got my nose bent out of shape because my church asked for a new pastor. My bishop at the time was frank with me: “I don’t have anyone to send here. You need to suck up your feelings and make sure this church is ready for next year!” Elders vow to be ready to pray, preach, move, or die at a moment’s notice in the United Methodist Church. We also vow to stay if necessary. I didn’t want to surrender to my bishop’s authority, but I decided to make sure when appointment season rolled around again, she could send any average pastor in my place.

I also knew other experienced clergy had thought I’d been “over appointed” straight out of seminary. They had told my superintendent they “deserved that appointment” where I was. My answer was often on some days, “I’ll trade you straight across, no question.” Those were the suffering days, but then would come the days of joy and grace, and I’d forget my rash willingness to hand over my charge to another sight unseen. I was truly glad for the nearby presence of an older, more experienced clergy person who would buy me a coffee and doughnut. He helped me keep the perspective of the long view, rather than the immediate moment.

In this Holy Week—the time between joys of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday—we find the events of Holy Thursday’s foot washing, Good Friday’s Crucifixion, Holy Saturday’s Vigil, and Easter Sunday’s Resurrection. In between Thursday and Friday, we find the stories of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter’s denials, and other tales of suffering.

Modern folks don’t usually like suffering. We want to treat a slight cold virus with an antibiotic, even though antibiotics only work against bacterial infections. All we end up doing is causing more suffering by creating antibiotic resistance. In worship services, “to save time,” we omit the third verse of the old hymns, which most often contain the sacrifice and blood of Jesus on the cross. People who visit churches on the Sundays during Holy Week go from the Palms proclamation of Jesus as messiah to the risen Christ on Easter. They avoid all the turmoil, suffering and drama of the week in between.

In real life, because we avoid dealing with our dark sides and personal brokenness, we often project those same bad qualities onto others, which we then “other and marginalize.” All the “isms” of the world have scapegoats that represent their own dark side. The work of “identifying and accepting one’s shadow” is the process of assimilating “the thing a person has no wish to be” [Collected Works of Carl Jung: CW16, para 470].

Jung saw quite clearly that failure to recognize, acknowledge and deal with shadow elements is often the root of problems between individuals and within groups and organizations. It is also what fuels prejudice between minority groups or countries and can spark off anything between an interpersonal row and a major war. This certainly speaks to the time in which we now live.

I recently had anterior cervical fusion surgery on my neck due to a herniated disc that was causing numbness in my arm and fingers. It also was causing pain, but I wasn’t aware of how much pain I was experiencing. The story of boiling a frog by gradually turning up the water it’s in is true. If your pain gradually increases by fractions, you think it’s just a 3 on the 10-point scale. However, I was having difficulty doing my ordinary work, exercising, and making decisions. Writing, which was once easy, became a chore. A concrete brain full of pain signals effectively blocked my ability to think creatively. I was trying to think through a sludge of cold molasses.

My scar is healing nicely 25 days post surgery.

The good news is after surgery I have my former brain back, such as it was. I also have a set of plates and screws in my neck, so I hope I don’t set off the TSA scanners in the airport the next time I fly somewhere. I also have a scar on my neck, so I guess I’ll trade in my Wonder Woman costume for a pirate costume for Halloween. At least I’ll have an authentic scar for the day.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us Jesus is the suffering servant,

“He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (53:3-5)

The Jewish people hoped for a messiah king, who would be a warrior hero in the style of King David. They hoped to restore the independence of Israel as a nation faithful to God and free from outside rule. Jesus was an unlikely messiah, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 21:22-24–

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Even today this apparent weakness in the face of power is a message popular society doesn’t grasp. Even the people closest to Jesus, the early disciples first sought power and status in the coming kingdom, until Jesus disabused them of that notion and said,

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3-4)

The best example of suffering in Holy Week is Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. There under the twisted trunks of olive trees, Jesus wrestled with his will and his mission. Being fully human, he would not choose to die on the cross. Being fully divine, he could only fulfill his Father’s purpose. Perhaps in this struggle he thought back to his wilderness experience before he set off to preach good news to the poor and release to the captives:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” (Matthew 4:8-11)

Our temptations come in many forms, but mostly we can sort them into three general categories: money, sex, and power. I personally think power is the overriding category and the others are mere subsets. Anything that knocks us off kilter or disrupts our sense of security is a threat to our feeling of power and control. This is likely why Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are popular attendance days, while Good Friday doesn’t seem very “good” to the average person’s mind.

Matthias Grünewald, *Isenheim Altarpiece* (closed), c. 1512–16, oil and tempera on limewood panels, 376 x 668 cm (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France; formerly in a monastery hospital treating skin diseases).

As the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians (2:5-11):

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Grunewald: Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1515, Resurrection of Christ—part of the same altar.

May your Easter season be blessed and you find ways to meet Christ in the poor among us,

Cornelia

Can Antibiotics Treat My Cold

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/antibiotics-colds

The Jungian Shadow – Society of Analytical Psychology

The Jungian Shadow

Weaving a Life Story

Academy for Spiritual Formation, adult learning, art, Creativity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Icons, inspiration, Ministry, Nativity, renewal, righteousness, Silence, suffering, vision

Weaving is a metaphor for our life’s story and journey. We envision the weaver in charge of the colors, designs, and textures of the finished fabric. The weaver’s goal is to produce a beautiful product. We often think we are in charge of our own destiny, as “The Weaving Song” by Carolyn Hester, in which an old 1960’s era folk singer would sing:

Choose the right color And push the right tread

Throw through the shuttle And peg down the thread

Work is all laid Before your start

To make your own pallet Of bright hue or dark

The loom of life is moving The weaving is all your own

Choose the right color And push the right tread

Throw through the shuttle And peg down the thread

Rainbow of colors Is at your command

Choose all the right shades Offered in the stand

The loom of life is moving The weaving is all your own

Life’s but a grey And heavy with care

May blooms scarlet With couragе rare

The loom of life is moving Thе weaving is all your own.

DeLee: God’s Eye and Cross, woven canvas, branch, string, paint brushes, fabric scraps, wire, packing materials, 16” x 20”, 2025.

Yet life doesn’t always work out the way we thought it would. The Bible says Job was the most righteous person of his era, and Job complains after losing everything and everyone:

“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and come to their end without hope.” (7:6)

This wisdom text reminds us sometimes the righteous suffer, even while the wicked prosper, but God is still God, and we will understand this mystery of God when we see God face to face. We call this “theodicy,” (from Greek theos, “god”; dikē, “justice”), or our explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God still permits evil to exist.

God gives human beings free will. We make our own choices in life, just as everyone else does. Since we don’t live in a universe of one, other people’s choices impact our choices. Imagine a pingpong ball tossed into a room filled with mousetraps all loaded with other pingpong balls. If one ball hits a loaded trap, it sets that ball off into motion and those balls set more balls into motion until chaos ensues! If more than one person is involved, some sort of disagreement is sure to follow. Some of us are even at odds with our own selves!

As the old joke goes, a solitary man was rescued from a desert island. On this island were several structures. When asked, he said, “That one was my house and that one was my church.” And the other building? “That was the church I used to go to!”

Louise Bourgeois: Spider, metal, National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, Ontario. Her mother mended tapestries, like a spider spins a web.

When life is chaotic, creative people find solace in the quiet of their chosen deserts: the studio, the workshop, or their favorite writing chair. While we artists have the illusion we can control the images we produce or the songs which bubble up from our hearts, in truth, what we create is a shared product with our heart, mind, and the creating spirit. If we begin to lose our humility about this shared process, we lose the creative energy underwriting our works.

Louise Bourgeois: Metal Spider wrapped in yarn, Japan

We know this emotion as “pride,” and the ancient cultures warned against it. Throughout history, legendary and mythological figures have been used as examples of either virtue or a moral failing. The story of Arachne and Minerva is no different.

Attributed to Amasis Painter, 6^th BCE, Greece, clay, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A 6^th BCE Attic Black Figure Lekythos storage vessel attributed to the Amasis Painter shows the type of standing loom and the various shuttles of different threads a weaver would use for a fabric. Today we think of weavers sitting at their looms, but the ancients stood at their work.

Arachne was a mortal who excelled in the weaving arts: spinning her own yarn and selecting the correct colors to produce the beautiful images for the finished fabric. Minerva, the goddess of handicrafts and the Roman correlate to the Greek goddess Athena, had heard of Arachne’s prowess and her pride. Disguised as an old woman, Minerva visited Arachne to warn her not to disparage the gift of the gods. Arachne rebuffed her, and held her ground, even when Minerva revealed her true identity.

Minerva (Athena) and Arachne by René-Antoine Houasse (1706), Versailles

When the weaving contest began, both were even in technique and design. Minerva’s image was of the pantheon of the gods, but Arachne told the stories of the god’s mishaps with humanity. This angered Minerva, who struck Arachne with a weaver’s shuttle. Embarrassed, Arachne took a rope to hang herself, but Minerva had pity on her and changed her into a spider instead. We call spiders, ever weaving their gossamer webs, “arachnids” in her memory.

In Christian art, the theme of listening beside a well or spring is connected both to the angel’s annunciation to the Virgin Mary and to her weaving curtains for the Temple. The third-century Dura-Europos church baptistery has a fresco of a woman drawing water from a well, which Yale theologian Michael Peppard believes represents the Annunciation to Mary at a well, from a scene from the gnostic writing, Protevangelium-18.

Woman drawing water at the well. Possibly the Virgin hearing the Angel’s voice. Dura Europa.

Others think it represents the Samaritan woman at the well or Rebecca from the Old Testament. Because the fresco doesn’t include Jesus, the empty space instead represents “the bodiless voice” that Mary hears in the Protevangelium. Also, a five-pointed star appears on the woman’s torso, which could symbolize the new child in her womb. The star in later iconography was repositioned to the shoulder of her mantle, and the water vessel survives all the way into the Renaissance art as a vase with flowers.

From The Protoevangelium of James, section 11: And she took the pitcher, and went out to fill it with water. And, behold, a voice saying:

“Hail, you who hast received grace; the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:28) And she looked round, on the right hand and on the left, to see whence this voice came. And she went away, trembling, to her house, and put down the pitcher; and taking the purple, she sat down on her seat, and drew it out. And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood before her, saying: “Fear not, Mary; for you have found grace before the Lord of all, and you shall conceive, according to His word.” And she hearing, reasoned with herself, saying: “Shall I conceive by the Lord, the living God? And shall I bring forth as every woman brings forth?” And the angel of the Lord said: “Not so, Mary; for the power of the Lord shall overshadow you: wherefore also that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of the Most High. And you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” And Mary said: “Behold, the servant of the Lord before His face: let it be unto me according to your word.”

This apocryphal Greek text, which was first written in the 2^nd CE, with Syrian revisions into the 5^th CE, is important because it increases our insights into women’s history, the childhood history of Jesus, Jewish-Christian relations, and the impact of Christian apocrypha on Islamic origins. This text, which contains the infancy narratives of the Virgin Mary, John (the Baptist), and Jesus is the source many of the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox religious feast days. Moreover, it’s also the origin for the icons representing the birth of Jesus in a cave.

Duccio: The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, tempera and gold on panel, 1308-1311, National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C. Part of a series of the Life of Christ, the rest of which are in Sienna, Italy.

A similar Marian birth narrative, The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, gives more details on the life of the Virgin, the miracles surrounding her marriage and the birth of Christ. It also tells the story of the Annunciation in two visits rather than one. The angel’s first greeting is beside a fountain and the second is inside while Mary is weaving the curtains for the Temple.

When I was on a recent Five-Day Academy for Spiritual Formation retreat, one of our hands on projects was a small weaving. Our package had a small loom, some yarn to weave with, and beads to attach. Of course I had to use a second packet to finish out my weaving because I tightened the horizontal rows more tightly than the organizers thought the regular attendees would do with their yarns and ribbons.

I also had my eye on a nice lichen covered branch to use as a hanging support. When I picked it up, it had red ants on it. I had to do some mad shaking to get them off! Anything for art! During one of our quiet reflection sessions, I sat beside a small lake under a pavilion to let my hands work. I’ve always needed a quiet space to process the flood of ideas and the rush of emotions when meeting new people and hearing new ideas. I operate as an extrovert, but when I get full to overflowing, I need quiet to recreate and recharge. I find new power in the admonition of Psalm 46:1-6—

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
Selah
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Diedrick Brackens, “prodigal” (2023), cotton and acrylic yarn

When my hands touch the different textures of the threads, and I let my spirit work with the creating Spirit of the word and world, I can shed all the strain and stress of being on a different schedule from traveling, having nerve pain in my neck from a bulging disk, and more interaction than I’m used to since I no longer work.

I always fought to carve out quiet times when I was in active ministry, for listening to God is the first calling of any leader worth their salt. I knew I wouldn’t hear God’s voice in the pell mell rush and cacophony of our world. The disembodied voice is more likely to come to us when we’re alone or in a receptive moment. It’s important to note Mary was one of the virgins of the House of David chosen to weave the curtains for the Temple in Jerusalem, according to The Protoevangelium of James, section 10. She was busy, but working for her God. It was when she took a break to draw water from a life giving well that she heard the messenger from God.

Bruce Conner, Arachne, 1959, mixed media: nylon stockings, collage, cardboard, 65 3⁄4 x 48 3⁄4 x 4 1⁄4 in. (167.0 x 123.8 x 10.7 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Edith S. and Arthur J. Levin, 2005.5.12

When I was appointed to a church, I always had a list of tasks to do, but I often never completed them because God would send “interruptions” to my well laid plans for the day. After several years, I began to understand these interruptions were my real tasks of ministry for the day. We have plans, but God has a better plan.

The prayer in my weaving supplies was appropriate for me on this retreat:

Teach us to listen, O Lord.

Quiet the noise of our lives

so we can hear your voice. Amen.

After several weeks, I’ve come back to finish this blog. In the meantime I’ve had anterior cervical discectomy and fusion for my neck pain and numb fingers. It’s for the bulging neck disk that causes pressure on the spinal cord. If this happens in the lower back, a person gets sciatica and numbness in the legs. In the neck,the same condition affects the arm and hands. I feel better than I did before, so I’m thankful for all healing mercies. I have to be careful not to overdo my activities. The instructions “Don’t do housework!” were gladly received.

I hope you seek out your quiet spaces and quiet moments to hear the sheer, still sounds of silence, the inaudible voice of our God.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

NOTES:

Carolyn Hester: The Weaving Song, Track 10 on At Town Hall, One, Produced by Norman Petty, 1965.

Troubadour: Weaving Song: similar words to Hester coffee house ballad above. https://music.apple.com/us/album/weaving-song/400303687?i=400303767

Myth of Arachne https://www.worldhistory.org/Arachne/

Ally Kateusz: Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership,1st ed., 2019, Kindle Edition

Annunciation or Samaritan Woman, Dura-Europos Baptistery
https://www.christianiconography.info/Wikimedia%20Commons/annunciationDura.html

Charles Bertram Lewis:”The Origin of the Weaving Songs and the Theme of the Girl at the Fountain,” PMLA, Jun., 1922, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Jun., 1922), pp. 141-18, Modern Language Association. http://www.jstor.com/stable/457

Susan B. Matthews: Dura Europos—The Ancient City and The Yale Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, 1982, Yale University Printing Service. https://artgallery.yale.edu/sites/default/files/publication/pdfs/ag-doc-2378-0002-doc.pdf

Camille Leon Angelo and Joshua Silver: “Debating the domus ecclesiae at Dura-Europos: the Christian Building in context,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 37 (2024), 264–303, doi:10.1017/S1047759424000126. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E76ED3AD86D09A74893368840DEDFA6A/S1047759424000126a.pdf/debating-the-domus-ecclesiae-at-dura-europos-the-christian-building-in-context.pdf

The Protoevangelium of James, section 11. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0847.htm

The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, section 9. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0848.htm

Horn, C. (2018). The Protoevangelium of James and Its Reception in the Caucasus: Status Quaestionis. Scrinium, 14(1), 223-238. https://doi.org/10.1163/18177565-00141P15

The Iconography of the Nativity

Alexander the Great, Apocalypse, art, Bethlehem, Faith, Icons, Imagination, incarnation, inspiration, Nativity, Painting, Ravenna Italy, Savonarola, vision

What Makes a Nativity Scene?

The gospels remind us the story of Christ’s birth isn’t necessary for our salvation. Only our faith in Christ’s saving work for us on the cross is necessary “to transform our humble body that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” (Philippians 3:21, alternate translation). Mark has no infancy narrative at all, while John’s gospel speaks of the Greek Logos (Word), who is present with God at creation and as co-creator.

Luke and Matthew both have birth stories. Matthew gives us the ancestry of Jesus, the Wise Men or Magi from the East, and the massacre of the innocents. John the Baptist also figures large in Matthew’s text. Luke brings in the shepherds, the host of angels, and the angel’s annunciation to Mary of her impending birth of a savior.

Luke 2:6-7 notes this point about the birth of the Christ child: “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

Gail W. painted a simple nativity in one class session.

This bit of text sets the scene for all the artists of every era to exercise their imagination. What does a first century CE manger look like? What animals would be there? Would the visitors come by day or night? Who would visit a woman who got pregnant while she was still “betrothed?” In every age, gossip travels fast, even without the internet. Traveling traders and business people carried news from town to town.

After all, word had spread how Joseph, “being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” (Matthew 1:19). No wonder there was no room for them at the inn. No respectable place would have them. Or we could be generous to the local folk and say Mary and Joseph travelled slowly because her imminent due date was the cause of frequent stops. A donkey ride might not be the most comfortable ride in one’s late trimester. Either way, if they were late arriving, the rooms may have been booked full already.

The Church of the Nativity, which dates to the 4th CE, was built over the cave in Bethlehem where early Christians believed Christ was born. From Apocryphal sources we learn the traditions of the cave and the stable. The Infancy Gospel of James (chapter 18) also places the Nativity in a cave, but the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew combines the two locations, explaining that on the third day after the birth “Mary went out of the cave and, entering a stable, placed the child in the manger” (chapter 14).

Roman Sarcophagus of Stilicho. It’s found today beneath the pulpit of Sant’Ambrogio basilica in Milan, Italy.

The earliest images of the nativity which currently exist are from 3^rd CE sarcophagus panels. The earliest Nativity scene in art was carved into a sarcophagus lid once thought to be for a Roman general, Stilicho, who died in 408 CE. The ox and the ass and two birds are the only figures that appear in addition to Jesus, swaddled in his manger. Our typical cast of characters, including Mary and Joseph, do not appear may be because this sculpture illustrates a prophecy from the Old Testament. Isaiah 1:3 reads, “The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger…” This Nativity also has relevance to the Eucharist because believers are nourished by the “fodder” of Christ’s flesh, just as the animals receive their sustenance from the manger’s hay. The animals aren’t mentioned in the New Testament, but from the Apocryphal sources mentioned above.

Tim’s Nativity: simplicity rules here—only the lights of the great star, the light of the Christ child, and the minor lights of the heavens.

Nativity with Flight to Egypt in the upper part—from the 4th and 5th centuries, Athens, from before the Middle Ages, and technically “Roman” art. (often referred to as “Early Christian”).

Next added were the shepherds, during the 4th and 5th CE, such as this example from the Palazzo Massimo. We find it on the sarcophagus Marcus Claudianus, on the upper tier, on the left. This dates from around 350 CE, found today in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus (Rome, Italy), Palazzo Massimo: Early Christian art is interesting because it can be hard to spot the stories as you know them. Except it seems, the Nativity, in the upper left corner, 330-335CE.

The sculptor carved the sarcophagus in the style called “continuous frieze” because all the figures line up and their heads are of equal height. The appearance of grape harvest imagery on the lid is ambiguous; it appears on both pagan/secular and Christian sarcophagi with identical elements. From left to right on the lid: nativity scene of Jesus, sacrifice of Isaac, an inscription naming the deceased, an image of the deceased as scholar, and a grape harvest scene.

Carvings on the front of the Marcus Claudianus sarcophagus include: Arrest of Peter, miracle of water and wine (with a possible baptism reference), an orant or praying figure, miracle of loaves, healing a man born blind, prediction of Peter’s denial, resurrection of Lazarus and supplication of Lazarus’ sister.

This stone relief carving depicts the detail of the Nativity from the 4th and 5th centuries from the Palazzo Massimo, on the Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus (Rome, Italy).

A Carolingian Era (751-887) Nativity scene from the British Museum

Eastern Orthodox icons retain the cave imagery while the Western art traditions use a stable or ruins of a classical structure in the nativity scenes. The first is according to tradition and the western imagery reminds the viewer the ancient past with its many gods is no longer ascendant.

The one change we see in the 6th century is the inclusion of Mary lying on a mattress type bed. It may have appeared earlier in art, but we have no surviving example to date an earlier occurrence. Later, we see more actors in the drama appearing, but often they don’t arrive all at once. The wise men visit, or the shepherds visit, but not in the same artwork.

Wise Men Visiting the Birth of Christ, 6th CE

A 10th century ivory panel from Trier, still very much following the now 700+ year old Roman models;
things changed much more slowly in the Middle Ages than they do now.

By the time of the 11^th CE, the nativity scene was becoming more elaborate , but was not yet in full flower. By the 13^th CE, the magnificent portal of the St. Lawrence cathedral, in Trogir, Croatia, by the Master Radovan and his associates has a strong narrative of the many parts of the nativity story. The city of Trogir, a World Heritage Site since 1997, is known as one of the best-preserved Romanesque-Gothic cities, the core of which consists of forts, religious and secular buildings, with the Rector’s Palace and the City Loggia standing out. Its Romanesque churches are supplemented with Renaissance and Baroque edifices.

Romanesque style portal of the St. Lawrence cathedral, in Trogir, Croatia, by the Master Radovan and his associates

The detail of the portal is worth a closer look. In the center, in between the curtained “bunkbeds,” the Virgin and Child rest on the upper tier. The animals also look on in this section. Below the manger scene is a ritual bath. In my Christian world view, I called this the “baptism of Jesus.” In his Hebrew life, he would have undergone a ritual cleansing immersion bath before going to the temple for his circumcision. This ritual would mark him as a covenant member of the nation and people of God. The two elderly people on the left of this scene are most likely Simeon and Anna, prophets who speak to the child’s fulfillment of scripture.

Details of Romanesque style Portal of St Lawrence cathedral in Trogir, Croatia.

Above all this at the center top are the star, with the angels on the left and on the right. Filling the space on the left side of the portal are the shepherds and their herds, while the Magi and their steeds occupy the right side. The Magi ride horses, unlike our modern nativities which have camels.

Sixth-century CE mosaic at the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy

In England, the Venerable Bede (d. 735) wrote the Magi were symbols of the three parts of the world—Asia, Africa, and Europe. They signified the three sons of Noah, who fathered the races of these three continents (Genesis, chapter 10). By the late Middle Ages, this idea found expression in art, and artists began to depict one of the kings as a black African. The kings sometimes have their retinues, which include animals from their presumed places of origin: camels, horses, and elephants are the most common. As with the shepherds, the artists often represented the three kings in the various stages of life: young, middle aged, and old age.

Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi, 1423

Artists added more exotic animals to the nativity scenes in the 15^th CE when trade and travel were expanding beyond the continent. Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi (painted in 1423) presents a remarkable range of animals. Alongside the traditional ox, donkey, sheep (and a couple of dogs thrown in for good measure), the chaotic scene includes a camel, cheetah (or leopard), hawks and monkeys.

“Cabinet of Curiosities”
Engraving from Ferrante Imperato, Dell’Historia Naturale (Naples 1599)

The inclusion of animals which were not native to Europe helped Gentile da Fabriano to emphasize the three wise men’s journey from the Far East, but also to impress viewers with its exoticism and visual richness. This would have reflected very well on the painting’s patron, the rich Florentine banker Palla Strozzi, as it reinforced his connections to foreign lands. In this era, many rich citizens had a collection of exotic animals and imported wares, just as wealthy people today have collections of art, yachts, or sports cars to showcase their riches.

Sandro Botticelli, “Mystic Nativity” (1500), oil on canvas, 42.7 × 29.5 inches (108.5 × 74.9 cm) (image via Wikimedia Commons), now in National Gallery of London.

An even more elaborate nativity comes from the hand of Botticelli, who worked in the wealthy merchant city of Florence, Italy, in 1500. Savonarola was a fanatical preacher who aimed to morally reform the city of Florence, which had a global reputation for artistic output and lavish lifestyles. Savonarola condemned secular art and literature, decried the city as a corrupt and vice-ridden place bloated with material wealth, and, after warning of a great scourge approaching, saved the Florentines by convincing the French king and military to deoccupy and recede during the Italian War of 1494–98.

The people thought of him as a prophet and came from miles around just to hear him preach his apocalyptic message. He preached a sermon telling the people of Florence they could become the new Jerusalem “if only its civilians would part with and burn their luxuries, opulent fineries, and give up their pagan or secular iconographies.”

Botticelli fell under Savonarola’s influence during this time, for his art changed from decorative to religious. The 12 angels at the base of the composition each hold a ribbon that the artist inscribed with the 12 privileges or virtues of the Virgin Mary, which came from a sermon Savonarola delivered about a vision he once experienced. Another unusual aspect is that the three kings welcome Jesus empty-handed, rather than with gold, frankincense, and myrrh — influenced by Savonarola’s sermon, though it could be their ultimate gifts are their prayers and devotion.

Mike brought his good humor to class with a Grinch portrait

Sometimes it’s impossible to know whether the artist was inspired by a non-biblical element or by an apocryphal text in a Nativity scene or if the artistic depiction came first. In their book, Art and the Christian Apocrypha, David R. Cartlidge and J. Keith Elliott contend in the making of early Christian art, written and visual sources are interdependent. “The developing consensus is that oral traditions, texts (rhetorical arts) and the pictorial arts all interact so that all the arts demonstrate the church’s ‘thinking out loud’ in both rhetorical and pictorial images” (2001, xv).

Gail W.’s open perspective nativity inspired by the renaissance artists

When we artists imagine the nativity today, we add to the basic scripture text all of the Hollywood movies we’ve seen, the stories we’ve heard around the fireplaces and altars of our instruction, and every Christmas card and artwork we’ve ever seen. Our memories of Christmas are often more important than Christmas itself. This is because we have an idea of how Christmas is supposed to BE, but the birth of Christ wasn’t what either Mary or Joseph thought it was going to be. Just as most of us, they hoped to be at home and near family, not “away in a manger, no crib for a bed.”

Cornelia worked in the geometry of the scene. I might rework the sky.

God brought the Savior of all into our world into a humble setting, not to a royal palace. God brought to the birthplace of Christ strangers from distant lands and marginalized people from their homeland to have the first opportunity to worship the newborn king. God excluded the political rulers because they were out to destroy this unusual king.

We are part of the Christian community now, so we sometimes miss the disruptive nature of Christ’s birth. As part of the in/dominant group today, we might have a tough time reading the Bible’s challenges to self-satisfaction and complacency.

Birth of Alexander the Great, mosaic, Roman villa near Baalbek, Lebanon, 4th CE

We often forget while these depictions of the Nativity were evolving, the segment of the Roman Empire that was still pagan were also representing famous births, that predate the standard depictions of the Nativity of Christ. For example, in a Roman villa near Baalbek, Lebanon a fourth century mosaic of the Birth of Alexander the Great at first sight almost exactly resembles what later became a standard depiction of the Nativity of Christ. This mosaic, today in the National Museum of Beirut, shows the newborn Alexander the Great being bathed in a circular fluted basin by a female figure labelled ‘Nymphe’, while his mother Olympias reclines on a bed watched by an attendant.

Compare this with the icon of the Wise Men Visiting the Birth of Christ, from the 6th CE pictured above. In the lower right corner of this nativity scene, we see a small depiction of the Christ child being bathed, with water being poured over his head. (Obviously a United Methodist, but a precursor since John Wesley wasn’t born yet!) Our Christian iconography is derived from pagan sources. By this I mean we reimagined the pagan iconography and repurposed it for our own spiritual practices and purposes.

One of our other challenges is the calendar. We in the West use the Gregorian calendar, from the 16^th CE, while the Orthodox Church still follows the Julian calendar, which was in use during the time of Christ. This is why the Orthodox community still celebrates Christmas and Easter on different dates than the Western churches. In the Orthodox Church, they celebrate Epiphany as the baptism of Jesus rather than the arrival of the Magi (Three wise men), which the Western Church celebrates on 6 January. On the Gregorian calendar, this Orthodox Epiphany celebration is January 19^th. They celebrate this date as the Baptism of Jesus, rather than the arrival of the wise men. Their Epiphany is located in the baptism rather than the nativity. That’s a whole other theological discussion beyond the iconography of the nativity!

DeLee: The No Room Inn, mixed media, private collection

I mention this fact of the two calendars because I’m always “calendar challenged.” It’s not a senior citizen thing, because this was my problem even when I was in my twenties also. Sometimes I put too many commitments on my calendar, and other times I underestimate the time to complete my tasks. Then again, there’s always the unexpected interruptions. Always the interruptions. I came to understand in my ministry my list of tasks to do were not my actual work, but instead these interruptions were the opportunities which God would bring to me to do God’s chosen ministry.

So, I’m a few days late on the Western calendar for the visit of the Three Kings, having missed January 6^th, and I’m a few days early for the Orthodox calendar. As Goldilocks said, “Not too hot, not too cold, but just right!”

The last art pieces our class made in 2024 before the holidays and the snowstorms were our nativity paintings. I asked each person to use their imagination and to bring the essence of the nativity to their creative process. Some of us quickly realized our images and used our second meeting to do a personal project or another version of the nativity scene. Others of us took both sessions to perfect our one image. I blame the Christmas cookies and our lack of hand and mouth coordination. Sometimes it’s hard to chew and paint at the same time!

Our first class of 2025 was an instance of “calendar challenge”—I thought we were having it, but the group didn’t. The next week, a major snow storm canceled class every where for everyone. Friday, January 17, should be a good day to begin a new project! We’re going to do some mixed media, along with weaving projects in the days and weeks to come. You don’t need skills, but a willingness to try.

Joy, peace, and a hope for better weather!

Cornelia

The Magi and the Manger: Imaging Christmas in Ancient Art and Ritual

The Magi and the Manger: Imaging Christmas in Ancient Art and Ritual – The Yale ISM Review

The Nativity Tympanum on the Sarcophagus of Stilicho

https://www.christianiconography.info/Wikimedia%20Commons/nativitySarcophagusStilicho.html

UNESCO monuments in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Glyptotheque

https://gliptoteka.hazu.hr/unesco/en/trogir.html

The Apocryphal Gospels—PseudoMatthew—has Latin text and translation
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Apocryphal_Gospels/Cmbtm4ZZXF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=M.+Berthold+has+argued+that+Pseudo-Matthew&pg=PA75&printsec=frontcover

The Infancy Gospel of James (2nd century) |http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vii.iv.html

The Arabic Infancy Gospel (5th-6th century) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vii.xi.html

The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (8th or 9^th century) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vii.v.i.html

Web Gallery of Art, searchable fine arts image database

https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/support/zearly/1/1sculptu/sarcopha/1/9claudi2.html

Nativity – Visual Elements in the Nativity — Glencairn Museum

https://www.glencairnmuseum.org/nativity-visualelements

Johann International: Search results for Nativity http://johanninternational.blogspot.com/search?q=Nativity

Revisiting Botticelli’s Evocative “Mystic Nativity” https://hyperallergic.com/978201/revisiting-botticelli-evocative-mystic-nativity/

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY THEN AND NOW: Origins of the Icon of the Nativity of Christ
https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2018/12/origins-of-icon-of-nativity-of-christ.html

Picasso’s African Masks and Inner Mysteries

adult learning, art, Creativity, cubism, elections, Imagination, inspiration, Painting, picasso, renewal, The Lord of The Rings, Thomas Merton, vision

What is the key to open the door to the hidden mysteries? For Frodo and his fellow travelers in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, they needed to know the elvish answer to the riddle, “Speak friend and enter.” Gandalf knows this language, so they enter with ease. For years, the Egyptian hieroglyphics were unintelligible because we had no living person who knew the ancient language. After the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in Egypt with its three languages depicting the same text, the race was on to translate the pictographic writing.

In art school my fellow students and I worked in our shared studio classes daily, but sometimes we never made any progress. Then the day would come when the light bulb clicked on in one of our brains. When we took a break, instead of giving everyone’s work a cursory glance before going out for a snack, we would linger and take in the special magic of a unique vision. Where does this special insight come from? Is it a visitation from above? Or a piercing of the soul by divine artistic insight? Sometimes I think the rare and the strange shock us out of our ease and complacency.

Picasso: Self Portrait, oil on canvas, 1907.

Art historians divide Picasso’s early periods into his Blue Period (1901-1904), the Rose Period (1905-1907), the African-influenced Period (1908-1909), and Cubism (1909-1919). Some art historians call Picasso’s African Period his “Proto-Cubist” or primitive period. It lasted from 1907 to 1909. Picasso was 24 years old when he saw an exhibit of African art at the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro. He experienced a “revelation” and began to explore African art further. African masks and sculptures strongly influenced Picasso’s art for several years, when he began to paint in sculptural forms, earth tones, and in flattened sharpened shapes.

*Pablo Picasso in his Montmartre Studio,*1908, via The Guardian

Picasso had first seen an African mask at Gertrude Stein’s home. Recalling his visit to the Trocadéro Museum of Ethnology (now the Musée de l’Homme), Picasso said of the museum:

“A smell of mould and neglect caught me by the throat. I was so depressed that I would have chosen to leave immediately. But I forced myself to stay, to examine these masks, all these objects that people had created with a sacred, magical purpose, to serve as intermediaries between them and the unknown, hostile forces surrounding them, trying in that way to overcome their fears by giving them color and form. And then I understood what painting really meant. It’s not an aesthetic process; it’s a form of magic that interposes itself between us and the hostile universe, a means of seizing power by imposing a form on our terrors as well as on our desires. The day I understood this, I had found my path.”

That path led Picasso to what he called his “periode nègre” (black period) or African period. It lasted only a few years, to 1909, but it turned Picasso into an avid collector of African art, masks, and sculptures that inspired him for the rest of his career.

Picasso: Woman with joined hands, 1907, Paris.

In our art class we chatted about how these masks inspired Picasso. Picasso used a palette of earthy tones, overlapping browns, and yellows with dark reds. By using Cubism, he explored a simplified geometry and the redefinition of perspectives. He tried to reveal objects from a different vantage point—from the mind, not only how the eyes perceive them. His Les Demoiselles d’Avignon signified a radical break from the naturalism that had defined Western art since the Renaissance, derailing former notions of what art was supposed to look like.

Picasso: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), oil on canvas.

People criticized Picasso’s two-dimensional women as unfeminine, for their confrontational demeanor was a complete departure from the traditional depiction of female beauty. Artists and critics alike received the work negatively and saw its menacing sex workers as promiscuous and unfit for Paris salons. Picasso rolled up the canvas, considered scandalous even amongst his innermost circle, and stored it in his studio for years to come. Yet this groundbreaking painting influenced his future works.

As Thomas Merton wrote in No Man Is an Island:

“In an aesthetic experience, in the creation or the contemplation of a work of art, the psychological conscience is able to attain some of its highest and most perfect fulfillments. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

Picasso broke through the accepted boundaries of Western culture and discovered his true spirit in through the voices of the ancestors speaking from the African past. He met the other and found himself. By bringing the African masks into his studio, Picasso lived out the message of Hebrews 13:2—

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

As artists today, who seek to find their own true self and unique voice, we must both find ourselves and lose ourselves. We must lose our preconceived notions of who we should be and discover our true selves. Some artists use this as license to be caricatures of an artist, but actual artists have work ethics because they have obligations to galleries and clients. Looking like an artist and being an artist are two different things. Finding our true selves is not only a task for creatives, but also a lifetime journey for all people engaged in spiritual growth. We all can recover the image of God, which is our true self, by both God’s grace and our cooperation in doing good to all.

We artists are not here to make pretty pictures, but to break down the boundaries between our walls that keep us estranged from God and neighbor. We are not as bold as Picasso! Most of us are not risk takers. Willingness to leap out in faith is what marks a famous artist. That same riskiness is what marks the prophets of the Bible. Prophets never praise the status quo, but remind the people of the nature of their God:

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18)

Isaiah 1:17 reminded the people of his day, “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.” Jesus will pick up this same voice in Matthew 25:40, “And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

So how will we find our unique voice and creative expression today? The more we steep our heart and mind in the great spiritual writings of the ages, particularly those of whom have come through great suffering or difficulties, the closer we will come to understanding our own challenges in life. These hardships are not hurdles or barriers to our progress, but refiners of any weakness that needed to be strengthened.

As my teachers always said, “We test you, not to see how ignorant you are, but to see what we failed to teach well.”

I always liked their attitude better! I did not feel so dumb when I missed the right answer on their tests. I always liked art better, for more than one answer could be correct. If we work within the parameters of the assignment, we can interpret the art with our own vision and style.

Our recent class with the African masks was a big diversion from our usual method of working. First, the masks are from a different culture. They are as much of a culture shock to us as they were to Picasso. He had the privilege of buying them in the Parisian curio shops, so they sat around in his environment. We only had images. The mystery of these objects might not connect to us as they did to him.

Mike brought several masks from his home collection. He decided to paint one that spoke to him. Like Picasso, he had an emotional connection to this mask. He made a successful rendering of the object before him. Unfinished, he would bring it back to the next class.

Tim worked on a mask representing his wife. He first painted his background with a dark wash, then began drawing a lighter design on top of it. The contrast of the dark and light without the middle tone was difficult for me to look at, but he seemed to be enjoying getting the big shapes down. I often let people work without jumping into change their activity. I figure they will learn more from going down a dead-end road by themselves than if I stop them before they go there. They will ask about this, and we will talk about it. They will not do it again. A little suffering leads to learning if we do no harm to the body.

Gail S. understood the concept of simplifying the faces into a mask. She chose a photo of herself and her granddaughter. With two mask shapes, she had multiple decisions to make. As with the others, her work was unfinished at the end of class.

This was a difficult and challenging lesson for everyone. Asking students to make an emotional connection and render the object also was aspirational. It also gave me an opportunity to see where they were on this learning journey. I will not issue this sort of challenge again for a while. I was afraid I had been boring them, but maybe not. I may need to bring brownies next Friday to make up to them. For some, they may be “grief snacks,” while for others, they will be “encouragement food.” If my bunged-up shoulder permits, I will indulge in grief baking. Otherwise, I will just eat the chocolate ice cream in my freezer, and ask for understanding.

I painted a Trump mask to get my emotions out and not have them bottled up inside. If we dislike an attribute in another person, it is because we have that attribute in our own life. I can get incredibly angry, but I bottle it up and it hurts me. I do not often let anyone else see it, so it can make me sick from holding it in. Whenever someone calls you a name, I remember the old song my parents taught me when I was a child:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

Anger is a difficult emotion for many people, especially for women. It is a “culturally unacceptable behavior,” for we have always expected strong emotions from men, but this expectation is changing over the generations. Proverbs 14:29 reminds all of us,

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but one who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”

The Old Testament often speaks of God’s anger, but this is because God’s people keep finding other gods to worship instead of the one true God. Psalms 145:8-9 reminds us of God’s true nature:

“The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”

The hidden mystery is in plain sight. It is the word of hope we hear: We are not sinners in the hand of an angry God. We are all beloved and God’s everlasting grace is redeeming us always. When things fall apart, God works to reframe and renew, even if we have difficulty recognizing God’s new creation or wanting to take part in God’s plans for the new heaven and the new earth.

Joy, peace, and recovery,

Cornelia

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement – ARTDEX

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement

Pablo Picasso – Artists – Mnuchin Gallery

https://www.mnuchingallery.com/artists/pablo-picasso#:~:text=Picasso’s%20early%20work%20can%20be,Cubism%20(1909%2D1919)

Stealing beauty | Art | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/mar/15/art

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement – ARTDEX

Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones – Meaning & Origin of The Phrase

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones.html

Pumpkins and Gourds

adult learning, art, Creativity, Faith, generosity, inspiration, Ministry, nature, Painting, picasso, pumpkins, shadows, Spirituality, suffering, Winston Churchill

Sometimes I can work for hours and end up with nothing to show for it. In grammar school, I could use the excuse, “The dog ate my diorama.” Today my primary reason is “The latest iOS upgrade sent my file into the far realms of the cloud and smashed it to smithereens while it was traveling to some unknown destination.” I can be thankful at least my mind only goes on occasional jaunts to Pluto, but it returns after those excursions after a time. And no worse for wear, not that anyone would ever notice.

Today will be different. I am determined. I am convinced. I am also wearing my Bat Girl costume, so I will not let the powers and principalities of evil defeat me. I will fight against the darkness of the night and bring the light to the hidden places. When we start a new venture, the only way we can gain experience is by failing. In fact, failure is how we learn. The best teachers set up the learning process in structured practices which build upon each prior experience. We also observe our students to note if we need to reteach a lesson from a different point of view to cement their understanding before we move onto the next phase.

Mr. Rogers was still breaking world records in running for his age group at age 100. He died on November 14, 2019, while in hospice care at the age of **101**.

No one learns to lift a huge weight in their first exercise class. They begin to lift progressively heavier weights until they can lift the heaviest weights possible. No one becomes a world class artist in kindergarten, but sensitive teachers guide them from an early age to focus and hone their skills. Later, once they absorb what their masters can teach them, artists begin to find their own personal expressions and style. Art also provides an emotional outlet for people who have no aspirations to become a professional artist. Some people only want to explore their creativity, enjoy playing with the colors, get out of the house, and interact with others. Socialization and challenging our minds are important activities for a healthy life.

Sir Winston Churchill
*Still Life, Fruit*, ca. 1930’s
Heather James Fine Art

“Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace, and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.”

Winston Churchill wrote this in Hobbies in 1925. reflecting on the solace painting had provided him since the death of his daughter Marigold.

Hans Hoffman, The Pumpkin, oil on canvas, 1950, 36” x 48”.

One of the great teaching artists, Hans Hoffman, was known for his quote:

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

When we see a landscape, a still life, or a face, most of us get overwhelmed with the myriad details. We want to focus first on the details, instead of the bigger shapes. This gets us in trouble every time. What do the time management gurus tell us over and over? Write down your list. Number your biggest priority. Do it first. Always do the biggest, hardest, and nearest in time deadline things first.

This is how we make our basic sketches on our canvas. Get the big shapes on the canvas first. They do not have to be a great outline, but a general gesture that takes up the space of the object, proportionately to the other objects. Often, we treat our marks as if we are chiseling in stone. With paint, we can let it dry and go over it and no one will know the difference.

As we paint big to small, we can paint the darks, the lights, and the middle tones. This allows us to blend the colors together if that is our desire. Sometimes the blank white canvas fills us with trepidation. We may think our first sketch might be somehow “wrong.” There are no wrong marks in art class, but we may make many marks on the way to fulfilling our mind’s ideas in life. Winston Churchill has a remarkable story of his personal experience learning to meet the open maw of the great white canvas. It once terrified him as much as “Jaws” does the modern movie goer.

Picasso Cubist Still Life with Watermelon

This week we approached our seasonal gourd and pumpkins from several different directions. We looked at zen tangle designs, realism, and pumpkin patch photos. We also looked at paintings that focused on the stems and vines. We also looked at Picasso’s still lifes. He was a master of the Cubist patterns and simplification of forms. He did not try to make the objects look real, but made shapes, which were pleasing to the eye.

Michael painted an exuberant pumpkin with a giant green stem and his usual textured background. He enjoys his time in art class and his work shows it.

Gail S. painted a multicolored group of pumpkins attached to a sinuous vine. She brings her knowledge and background in nature as a park ranger to her artwork. She always has an interesting design element to her work.

Gail W. Started with a realist rendering, but ended up with thin layers of paint overlapping at the edges of the pumpkin creases. When she asked what was going on in her painting technique to cause this, I noticed she was using water to thin her paints. “When you thin your paint so it is transparent, then when it overlaps, you get a solid line. Use your paint straight out of the tube next time.” She took her painting home, added another layer of paint straight from the tubes, and decorated the whole with zen tangle designs, using a fine point marker.

I put my gourds in an interior setting, as if they were on a tabletop near a window, which looked out onto a blue sky. I added a tree branch bereft of autumn leaves, as if a cold and rainy day had preceded the day of this painting. The barren landscape outside contrasts with the luscious treatment given the gourds inside. Each gourd has its own personality and spirit. They are more than mere natural objects.

They brim with the reproductive power of nature, as a testimony to the promise of tomorrow’s abundance, even in the face of today’s barrenness. One gourd casts a shadow, while the other does not. A viewer might feel some psychic dissonance because a realistic rendering would have both objects cast a similar shadow. The space is not “real,” but “spiritual” instead.

This is the promise of a faithful God for those who believe in God’s steadfast love and providence. As we hear in Habakkuk 3:17-18, we can have trust and joy during trouble:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit is on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails,

and the fields yield no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold,

and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will exult in the God of my salvation.”

In a world in which the good often suffer and evil seems to prosper, we always remember God is still at work to fulfill our daily needs, if not all our infinite desires. We will not want. Those who have the heart of God will always share with those who have less. Those who are greedy and don’t share God’s generous nature will stay stingy. This is how we know who is doing the work of God—the people who are loving God and neighbor both. .

Joy, peace, and providence,

Cornelia

SCHEDULE FOR 2024:

November 8—Painting

November 15—No Class—Vacation

November 22—No Class —Vacation

November 29—No Class—Thanksgiving

December 6—Painting

December 13— Painting

December 20— Painting

December 27—TBD —holiday season and school vacation calendar

Painting as a Pastime – International Churchill Society

Painting as a Pastime

When He Wasn’t Making History, Winston Churchill Made Paintings | Artsy
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-making-history-winston-churchill-made-paintings

Hans Hofmann: Quotes

https://www.hanshofmann.net/quotes.html

The Eisenhower Matrix: How to Prioritize Your To-Do List [2024] • Asana
https://asana.com/resources/eisenhower-matrix

Creating a Picasso Still Life

art, brain plasticity, Cezanne, change, Creativity, Habits, Healing, Imagination, inspiration, Painting, perspective, picasso, purpose, renewal, Spirituality, vision, war

Einstein never said, “If we do the same thing every time, but expect a different result, this is the definition of insanity.” So why do artists return over and over to the still life? For that matter, why do preachers repeatedly use the same scripture texts for their sermons? Some of my former congregation members might have said I was overly fond of certain verses. The scalawags among them might have thought I did not get my point across the first five times I preached a version of the sermon text. As Jesus was wont to say in Luke 14:34-35 about Salt:

Picasso: Self Portrait, 1907, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Prague

“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste,

how can its saltiness be restored?

It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile;

they throw it away.

Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

I always kept my sermon notes just in case I had a difficult week and might need a backup sermon, but I never used these notes. I wrote each of those sermons for a time and a place, but they were never useful for the current time or the present location. Likewise, an artist brings their emotions and experiences of the present time to each working session in the studio. Sometimes an artist is chock full of energy and power, full of joy and life. Their paintings or works exude these same emotions. At other times, the cares and chaos of the world intrude into the otherwise peaceful precincts of the artist’s workplace. These emotions and troubles will also be visible in their work, for artists are in tune with their times.

Picasso: Still Life with Dead Pigeon, oil on canvas, 1941, Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum

This year in the adult art class I’m teaching at Oaklawn UMC, the students are getting lessons not only on how to paint, but on awakening their individual creative voice. These lessons are part art history and part “thinking like an artist” by painting in another artist’s style. The week before, we worked on a typical still life painting. For this session, we worked on what we saw in front of us, but tried to make an emotional connection with the objects. When most of our energy is going to getting proportions in proper order, shadows cast in the right direction, following the shape of the objects, and the colors correct, putting our emotions into the work comes in a distant fifth or last.

Morandi still life: he painted the same vessels so often, they became as friends who shared their innermost secret thoughts with him.

To be sure, our class is still analyzing the containers as physical objects more than feeling or experiencing the vessels as objects with personality. We have not yet become friends with the objects, or really gotten to know them on a deep and intimate level. This is also a problem in our society today. We are not willing to know others too deeply, and we aren’t likely to let many others know us too deeply either.

This isn’t a problem confined to older people. For my own demographic, meeting new people seems a mite risky these days in the online world because we never know who is behind that chatbot or Facebook account who seems so charming. For younger people, who sometimes never seem to come up for air from the online world, this online reality can seem more real than the three-dimensional world in which we live. (I was today old years when I learned the latest online AI fad is personalizing your own chatbot companion. I wonder if these chatbots have Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics ingrained in their program guardrails.)

Having empathy with inanimate objects is difficult. Artists bring into their own studio the objects which interest them. A teacher brings in objects her students can approach, given their skill level. I will blow that concept out of the water this Friday with some crazy Halloween pumpkins but, if the subject matter is consistently too difficult, many students will give up if the challenge is too far out of reach.

Picasso Still Life, oil on canvas, 1937, private collection.

In the second session when our class saw these same liturgical vessels, we chatted about Picasso and cubism. Cubism had several different forms of expression, but we focused on synthetic cubism, a later phase of the cubist style dating from about 1912 to 1914. It had simpler shapes and brighter colors. Synthetic cubist works also often include collaged real elements such as newspapers and cardboard. These works have interesting designs, such as multiple points of view (perspective), overlapping shapes which make their own patterns, and linear outlines. This style is an outgrowth of the work of Cézanne, who said: “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”

Gail S. took a cubist vision to our same three pots

If you’ve ever tried to put on your socks in the morning beginning with a different foot than normal, you can begin to appreciate how difficult it is to imagine how to create an artwork in a fresh style. If we were to ever have a stroke or a traumatic brain injury, relearning how to do simple tasks is much the same.

Tim’s first effort. He was one week out from surgery. His body was devoted to recovery, not to thinking about cubism.

Our brains can handle the rebuilding project, but we will feel strange doing it! This is because we are building new neural circuits and pathways in our brains. Going to work or the grocery store by taking a different route also feels strange, as does a golfer trying to reconstruct their swing pattern.

Tim took a second week to elaborate on his still life. It’s a better solution! Amazing what happens when our bodies have extra energy to give to creative projects.

As a comparison, we can look at the great hurricane which came through North Carolina recently and took out the big interstate highway that runs through the mountains and valleys. The sooner the highway construction engineers can come inspect the ground, the better. They must decide if the land is safe for rebuilding and then check the infrastructure also. They may need to redesign the road to current standards and also the underlying roadbed. When the great 1900 hurricane hit Galveston, rebuilding the city took twelve years. People were still living there, and life was going on, but the city began a process of raising the land levels and building a sea wall that took that extensive time.

Cornelia’s overlapping shapes and shifting perspectives

Change doesn’t happen overnight. Every sales or leadership training session I’ve been in has emphasized the idea “Three weeks are necessary to build a habit.” The origin of this myth has nothing to do with habit formation. Instead it comes from a 1960 self-help book Psycho-Cybernetics, in which plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz wrote how his patients took about 21 days to become used to their new appearance after surgery.

He did no double blind, peer reviewed study to verify this, but his book applied this 21-day timeline to many other wide-ranging aspects of self-transformation in life. He also believed three weeks was the time people needed to adapt to a new house or change their mind about their beliefs. (He also didn’t live with a preteen girl child who enjoyed rearranging the living room every night just to see how her mom negotiated a new obstacle pattern in the dark when she came home from a sales call.)

If artists want to make paintings which are technically proficient and resemble the objects they see, they are only halfway to creating a good painting. They must also bring who they are and allow the voice of God to speak through their hand to make a masterpiece. In this way we separate artists into the good and the great, the ordinary and the masters. Not all of us will be prophets who listen to God’s word, but all of us can and should silence our hearts and minds of the world’s chatter and claims so the word of God can pierce our hearts.

Picasso: Guernica, 1937, 11’ x 25.5’,
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, Spain

Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev describes how the ancient prophets listened for God’s liberating word:

“At its heart, the prophetic witness was a way of listening, listening beyond the social norms of the day, listening to the word of the liberating God. The prophets urged the people to listen to God’s word because the discourse of the king, princes, and wealthy landowners was too narrow and was limited to the interests of these elites. This conversation did not include the voices of suffering people. The prophets, in God’s name, offered a much broader discourse, a conversation that listened to and addressed the needs of the poor and the disadvantaged….

The prophetic listening tradition is alive today to inspire people to listen beyond the established conversation. The prophetic tradition challenges us to listen especially to the cries of those who suffer and to listen to the voice of alternative possibility, to the voice of God.”

Picasso: Still Life—fruits and pitcher, oil and enamel on canvas, 10 3/4 x 16 1/8 inches, Guggenheim Art Museum, NYC.

Making a painting is quite different from making a work of art. This is why house painters aren’t called artists. They may cover a surface with color and not make a mess, but their heart and soul isn’t in their work. Learning to risk our vulnerability and emotional expression is also part of art class, just as much as learning what colors to mix to make orange or green. Picasso, quoted in Alfred H. Barr Jr.’s Picasso: Fifty Years of his Art (1946), understood this:

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”

We have these same experiences also, but we don’t realize these are part of the artist’s toolbox. These ordinary moments of life are also the extraordinary means of God speaking to us, if only we have ears to hear and a heart and hands ready to be used by God for God’s good purposes.

Joy, peace, and prophecy,

Cornelia

Quote Origin: Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results—Quote Investigator®. The origin of the quote is misattributed to Albert Einstein, but it originated in the 12-Step Anonymous groups in the 1980’s.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/

Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

https://webhome.auburn.edu/~vestmon/robotics.html#:~:text=A%20robot%20may%20not

How Long Does It Really Take to Form a Habit? | Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-does-it-really-take-to-form-a-habit/

Nahum Ward-Lev, The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets: Then and Now (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019), 133, 134, 135–136.

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/living-presence-liberating-journey/

Meet My AI Friends, by Kevin Roose, NYTimes gift article

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/technology/meet-my-ai-friends.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Uk4.9sLW.VYS9bW4dc3ib&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Pablo Picasso – Oxford Reference
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-

art, Attitudes, Creativity, Faith, Fear, generosity, hope, Icons, Imagination, inspiration, Israel, Light of the World, Ministry, Painting, poverty, renewal, Spirituality, suffering, Sun, United Methodist Church, vision

The first bright light of creation must have been an awesome sight. Of course, only God was there to see it or hear it. The earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. Genesis 1:3 tells us, “Then God said, “Let there be light;” and there was light.”

John Martin: The Creation of Light, Mezzotint, 1825, Royal Collection of the Arts, London.

I have often wondered if God’s creation of light was accomplished with sound. If at one time only darkness existed, then suddenly light appeared, would this sudden change happen like an atomic bomb flash? Not with the bomb’s destructive evil and force, but with the creative and life-giving energy of God’s power and love. While scripture tells us we hear God’s voice in the sheer silence (1 Kings 19:11-12), this is after God has created everything which we humans might worship instead of God. When God first created light, what was the power behind God’s words?

George Richmond: The Creation of Light, Tempera, gold, and silver on mahogany, 1826, support: 480 × 417 mm, frame: 602 × 539 × 66 mm, Tate Gallery, London.

Maybe no one cares, for if no one is in a forest to hear a mighty oak fall, can we say it ever made a sound? Just because human beings weren’t created yet does not mean the light did not come into existence or make a noise. We might as well say bombs are not leveling towns in Ukraine and Gaza merely because we are not running from the falling bricks and dust. Yet, we can see the pictures on television and know these facts as true.

We are in a trickier situation when we try to find information to prove the existence of the creation of the first light and the facts of its origin. We are certain light was created, for light now exists. Tracking light’s history to its birth story is the challenge!

*The Creation of Day and Night*, by Francisco de Holanda, *De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines, 1543.*

When the Old Testament says God created light, the ancient readers understood this word to mean a special light, not the light of the sun, moon, or the stars. God created these lesser lights on a later day, so they possess a different form of light from the first light. The early Hebrew philosophers distinguished between chomer, matter, and tzurah, the form or function of an object. A raw material has chomer, matter, but once it’s made into an object, it acquires the form or tzurah.

Michelangelo’s The Separation of Light from Darkness, (c. 1512), the first of nine central panels that run along the centre of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

At the beginning of creation, nothing had form. It was all matter. Then God created the Ohr Ha-Ganuz, or the Hidden Light. This special light played a critical role in Creation. Just as regular light allows us to see and relate to our surroundings, the Hidden Light enabled the different elements of creation to interact with one another. It dispelled the initial state of darkness when all objects were isolated and disconnected from one another. Through this special light, the universe’s myriad objects acquired purpose and function and were able to work together towards a common goal.

About 13.8 billion years ago, our universe ballooned outward at an incredible speed. Everything we see today, which was once packed tightly together, expanded in a roiling mass of light and particles. It took 380,000 years for this hot, dense soup to thin and cool enough to allow light to travel through it. This first light, dating back to the formation of early atoms, we call the cosmic microwave background and we can still detect it today.

The Advanced Simons Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile is on the forefront of research for detecting cosmic microwave background radiation to give us a better picture of the early universe, its evolution, and the many phenomena within it. Beyond the cosmic microwave background, they will hunt for and study the birthplaces of distant stars, the contents of interstellar dust, exo-Oort clouds—spherical shells of ice and dust at the edges of solar systems—and several other phenomena. But, given the unique capabilities of this observatory, they are also open to finding some unexpected and unexplained puzzle pieces in the universe that we did not know we were missing.

Before there were any stars or galaxies, 13.8 billion years ago, our universe was just a ball of hot plasma—a mixture of electrons, protons, and light. Sound waves shook this infant universe, triggered by minute, or “quantum,” fluctuations happening just moments after the big bang that created our universe. The question we first asked, “Did the creation of light make an audible sound?” is related to the “cosmic wave background radiation” that the observatory in the Chilean desert is seeking.

Although scientists call this moment the Big Bang, it was not a loud explosion. Instead, it was more like an imperceptible humming because this first moment happened when the universe was denser than the air on Earth and sound waves could travel through it. This covered the first 100,000 to 700,000 years. As the universe cooled and expanded, the sound waves grew longer and and the sounds lower. As the universe continued to expand, the wavelengths became so long the sounds became inaudible to the human ear.

NASA Sound File Magnified of Big Bang Microwave Radiation

For this sound file, the patterns in the sky the Planck Observatory observed were translated to audible frequencies. This sound mapping represents a 50-octave compression, going from the actual wavelengths of the primordial sound waves (around 450,000 light-years, or around 47 octaves below the lowest note on the piano), to wavelengths we can hear.

Creation: Bright Beam, stage 3 in the studio

Maybe as you read this, you wonder, why do artists have an interest in science? This is an attribute of artists from Leonardo in the Renaissance down through the Impressionists who studied the play of light and atmospheres on surfaces in the 19^th century. Today we know the speed of light means we are always seeing a “late arriving sunbeam.” The speed of light gives us an amazing tool for studying the universe. Because light only travels a mere 300,000 kilometers per second, when we see distant objects, we’re always looking back in time. If we the universe clock backwards, right to the beginning, and you get to a place that was hotter and denser than it is today. So dense that the entire universe shortly after the Big Bang was just a soup of protons, neutrons, and electrons, with nothing holding them together.

Lentil and ancient grains pasta soup, held together by melted cheese—metaphor for the early universe

The moment of first light in the universe, between 240,000 and 300,000 years after the Big Bang, is known as the Era of Recombination. The first time that photons could rest for a second, attached as electrons to atoms. It was at this point that the universe went from being opaque, to transparent. The earliest possible light astronomers can see is the cosmic microwave background radiation. Because the universe has been expanding over the 13.8 billion years from then until now, those earliest photons were stretched out, or red-shifted, from ultraviolet and visible light into the microwave end of the spectrum.

Today we have tools unavailable to the 15^th or 19^th centuries, but what we have in common is the human mind. Because we are created in the image of God, we have the same desire to create and shape our world and to understand our place in it. For some people, they find placing their trust in God’s absolute power over all creation and events as a way of understanding the problem of good and evil in the world. This justifies suffering and allows them to ignore the plight of the poor. Prosperity religion, which preaches the good prosper and the bad suffer, is a classic example of this theological belief. We United Methodists believe in doing good to all people, as often as possible, with all the means we can. As the gospel says in Matthew 25:37-40—

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

We know Jesus as the Light of the World (John 8:12)—

Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

Perhaps this ancient light of creation has not yet reached everyone who reads these words. I can only guess they ignore even the voice of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (58:10):

“If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”

The sun will always shine when we help others. The light of Christ will burn bright in us to burn away our gloom and despair when we give a hand to others who are in need. Their lives will be brighter in turn. We often turn away from people in hard circumstances because we do not want to face the prospect that we one day might need a hand up. This strikes at our self image of invincibility and self sufficiency. We keep remembering “God loves a cheerful giver.” If we think only of this part of the verse outside of its context, we might think God only loves the giver. God also must love the one in need to provide the blessing for the giver. As we read in 2 Corinthians 9:7-8—

Cornelia DeLee: Creation: Bright Beam, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”, 2024.

“Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”

As an old mentor of mine taught me, “Don’t do all the work for your people. You’ll rob them of the blessing of serving the Lord.” None of us can replace the eternal light of Christ, which has been traveling to us since the dawn of time, although the Light has been with God since before time began. This Light is even now permeating the universe, in a prevenient journey to the furthest distances of creation. There is no place the Light will not go before us. Even as we attempt a return to the moon and hope to go to Mars in the future, the light of Christ has already gone before us.

If this does not give you hope in what many think is a dark and despairing world, refocusing on the Light with us instead of the darkness that always seems so near might help to change your attitude.

Joy, peace, and light,

Cornelia

What Did the Big Bang Sound Like? | HowStuffWorks

https://science.howstuffworks.com/what-did-big-bang-sound-like.htm

Breishit: The Hidden Light of Creation

https://www.ravkooktorah.org/BREISHIT_67.htm

The science illuminated by the first light in the universe | Stanford Report

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2023/07/science-illuminated-first-light-universe

When was the first light in the universe?

https://phys.org/news/2016-11-universe.html

The Creation of Light: William Blake and Francisco de Holanda/thehumandivinedotorg

https://thehumandivine.org/2022/02/27/the-creation-of-light-william-blake-and- francisco-de-holanda/

Intuitive Color Wheels

adult learning, art, at risk kids, cognitive decline, color Wheel, Creativity, Imagination, inspiration, Lost Cause, Ministry, Painting, renewal, vision

The great and wonderful part of art is exercising imagination and discovering new ways to solve problems. One of my favorite memories in art school was the day our professor came to class with a single red clay brick. Our first thought was this is going to be the most boring drawing class ever, but then he asked us, “How many uses can you find for a brick?”

After we quickly named multiple uses for a single brick—doorstop, paperweight, weapon, counterweight, and bookend—we were at a loss to name much more. As we scratched our heads, our teacher prompted us, “Did I restrict you to a single brick?” And we were off to the races! Wall, fireplace, house, road, sidewalk, planter, sculpture, picnic table, bookshelf, and more. I can’t remember if this was an early morning class or we were just dense, but I’ve come to believe we can teach creativity. At the very least, we need to give people permission to accept “multiple art answers can be true” and give them the opportunity to consider “other possibilities.”

When I taught art years ago, children who were troublemakers in regular classrooms were usually well behaved in art class. I attribute this outcome to their ability to express their own individuality in solving the weekly art assignments. Math always has a right answer; there is no “alternative fact” to 2 + 2 = 4. History is the same: the Confederacy seceded from the Union to keep their economic system of enslavement. There was no “states rights movement,” no matter what the Lost Cause proponents pushed in our state approved textbooks. All we had to do was look at the original source documents from the 1860’s.

Adults usually conform to socially acceptable norms. Helping adults with creative thinking is important because the creative process is more important than the tangible result. Most adults give up the idea they will ever paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, while children are humble enough to realize they need many more years of practice before they get that kind of opportunity. Also, what we know about creativity can’t be applied in the same way to all creative endeavors because they involve different subjective decisions and processes.

Gino Severini: Expansion of Light. (Centrifugal and Centripetal), ca. 1913 – 1914, Oil on Canvas. 65 x 43.3 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Creative insight depends in part on new combinations of existing ideas, concepts, and perceptions that the brain has stored over time. This is why we begin each class looking at famous art works. We need good art influences and inspiration to “prime our creative pumps” so we can draw up from the pure wellsprings of our own creativity. Just as we need spiritual food for our soul, we need beauty for our creative ideas.

Last year we worked on copying the color wheel and matching it. That is an intellectual skill. To make this into a creative, intuitive activity, we took strings and wrapped our canvases. This made multiple shapes for our colors. Using the primary colors—red, yellow, and blue, plus white—we mixed various combinations and surprised ourselves with the results.

Our first class was lightly attended, due to doctor appointments and vacations, so we still have room for anyone else who wants to come. All skill levels are welcome, for I’ve taught from K-5 to adults. Everyone progresses from their own level, so the longer you sit and think you wish you were good enough for lessons is merely time wasted when you could be working with a practiced teacher! Anyway, the lessons are free; you bring your materials and discover your unknown abilities and gifts. We journey with fellow travelers. Plus it keeps your brain young.

We will continue to work on this project next Friday at 10 am.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

National Endowment for the Arts: Creativity and the Brain

https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/how-creativity-works-in-the-brain-report.pdf

Cosmic Rainbow

Apocalypse, art, beauty, cosmology, Creativity, Faith, hope, inspiration, John Ruskin, Leonardo da Vinci, nature, Painting, purpose, sleep, Spirituality, Van Gogh, vision, William Blake

In times of cultural change and uncertainty, some faith-based communities turn to apocalyptic literature to find meaning, if not solace, for their suffering. Other communities of faith look forward to a future of hope and joy, even though they live in the same circumstances.

Apocalyptic literature is a genre of writing that appeared during times of crisis or persecution. It often presents a vision of the end times and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Apocalyptic literature has several major characteristics:

“The supreme manifestation of Satan in this world is war.” By William Blake, 1805, apocalyptic painting with
tempera, gum, glue, and chalks, Tate Galleries, London.

Dualism: Apocalyptic literature often portrays a cosmic battle between good and evil forces, highlighting the struggle between light and darkness.
Symbolism: Deeper meanings and abstract concepts are represented by symbolic language and imagery.
Eschatology: Apocalyptic literature focuses on the end times (Greek eschatos last, farthest) and the ultimate judgment of humanity, exploring themes of divine justice and the afterlife.
Pseudonymity: Many apocalyptic texts attribute their authorship to famous figures from the past, using pseudonyms or false names.
Visions and Dreams: Apocalyptic literature often includes visionary experiences and dreams as a means of conveying divine messages and revelations.
The future is fixed and decided in apocalyptic literature, whereas with prophecy, people can change their future by repentance and restoring their relationship with God.

Since John was already in exile, “The Revelation to John” doesn’t bother to hide his authorship for his safety. He does claim it’s a vision of Christ mediated by an angel. It also checks the boxes of good vs evil, symbolism, the end times, and a fixed future. The actual date of this future isn’t revealed, however.

An interpretive mistake many make is to take this letter written to encourage the persecuted churches of the first century and project its message into our modern-day society. The symbols which were meaningful to John’s audience are for that historical context alone. Reinterpretations of these signs to make them relevant to our current geopolitical situation is bad scriptural interpretation.

Plate 12, First book of Urizen, by William Blake

What we can do is ask, “What can persecuted communities or suffering societies of the past teach us about resilience, hope, and faith?” Some will focus on God’s destructive forces to eradicate evil and harm. Belief in God’s power to overcome evil is a source of deep comfort for people without power. These are often the ones who feel excluded from the halls of power, but also those who believe their privilege and place is slipping away.

God’s fridge would be covered with photos!

Both these groups forget they are beloved of God, just as God loves all God’s children. Sometimes we forget God’s refrigerator is large enough to have the photographs of all the people of the world on its door, along with all our latest art works also. If that’s a humongous refrigerator, then that gives us an idea of the expansive reach of God’s love, mercy, and grace for all creation.

The First Day of Creation, by Francisco de Holanda (1545), with caption, “Let there be light.”

A negative outcome of this dualist, apocalyptic belief is extremist beliefs about the end times. Unfortunately, some extremist pastors have convinced their followers to end their lives to meet their predicted apocalyptic end of the world. The leader creates the fiction of an evil out-group to bind the members more closely to their cult and proclaims apocalyptic themes to brainwash their members. Numerous mass suicides worldwide have occurred as a result, including 914 people of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in San Diego, California, committed mass suicide by poisoning to coincide with the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet, considering this a signal for their exit from Earth. Others have given away their entire nest eggs to apocalyptic cults because “no one will need money in the new creation.”

Paul Klee: Clarification, 1932, Oil on canvas, 27 3/4” × 37 7/8” (70.5 × 96.2 cm), The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1984 Accession Number: 1984.315.54

Some of us prefer to focus on The New Heaven and the New Earth instead, as found in Revelation 21:1-4—

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

What a day that will be! The last time God destroyed the earth with a great flood, God placed a rainbow in the sky as a promise the earth would never be destroyed again by water.

Leonardo da Vinci said, “Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.” For some people, the only “good art” is representational art, or art which faithfully describes a landscape, portrait, or still life. With abstract art, colors carry emotions and shapes to form pleasing patterns for the viewer. What will the new heaven and the new earth look like? Revelation 21:11 says “It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal.”

Stage 2—addition of gold and silver washes

While many today think of heaven as an earthly paradise, this concept is a Persian idea of an enclosed garden, much like the original garden of Eden. We tend to imagine a heaven as being a better place than the world we know, but imagining an altogether different world is next to impossible! Luke 20:27-38 is Jesus’ answer to the law-abiding Sadducees about how relationships work in heaven, and a reminder to us heaven isn’t just a perfect earth.

When I think of the providence of God, which is grounded in creation and is always recreating the face of the earth, I remember God’s promise to Noah in Genesis 9:11-13—

“I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth….This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

Stage 3—Added circles and more gold and silver washes

It is this cosmic rainbow of colors, the spiritual energies which most of us cannot see for the overwhelming ordinariness of daily life. We race from chore to chore, dash from task to task, and drop exhausted at the end of our days. We long for a better life, but we’re stuck on a galloping treadmill trying to keep our feet under us. I long to walk rather than run through my days. When I was younger, older people told me to slow down. As I hit middle age, I heard I would soon start slowing down. Now that I’m inching closer to 80, slowing down is finally becoming a reality!

Vincent Van Gogh said, “Paintings have a life of their own that originate in the soul of the artist.” We cannot see the new heaven and new earth unless we stop our busywork and allow God to attend to the business of our spiritual life. When we see the first glimmers of the new heaven and the new earth, we’ll realize how imperfect our world is and begin to help change it for the better, one small act of kindness at a time. This is soul work.

Sometimes that kindness first means being kind to ourselves, when we admit we can’t say YES to everything and everyone. When we admit we actually need eight hours of sleep for our health and a daily quiet time, and we can stop to study the flowers in the cultivated gardens of our neighborhoods and in our parks.

Cosmic Rainbow—acrylic on canvas, 24” x 30”, 2024.

Then we can be a beautiful rainbow, God’s light in this world for good, and bring the hope and joy of the end times to these times. We then will bring the radiance of the new heaven and the new earth to this present age and to these yearning people.

Joy, peace, and rainbows,

Cornelia

what are the five major characteristics of apocalyptic literature – brainly.com

https://brainly.com/question/35289093

World’s most chilling cults

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230424-world-s-most-chilling-cults

Paradise Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paradise

Middle English paradis, paradise “the Garden of Eden, heaven,” borrowed from Anglo-French paradis, borrowed from Late Latin paradīsus, borrowed from Greek parádeisos “enclosed park or pleasure ground” (Xenophon), “the Garden of Eden” (Septuagint), “the abode of the blessed, heaven” (New Testament), borrowed from an Iranian word (perhaps Median *paridaiza-) cognate with Avestan pairidaēza- “enclosure,” nominal derivative of pairidaēz- “build a barrier around,” from pairi- “before, around” (going back to Indo-European *per-i, whence also Sanskrit pári “around, about,” Greek péri “around, in excess”) + -daēza- “heap up, build” (occurring only with prefixes), going back to Indo-European *dhoi̯ǵh-éi̯e-, iterative derivative of *dhei̯ǵh- “knead, shape” — more at PERI-, FEIGN

NOTE: As an independent derivative of the verb, Avestan daēza- “heap, pile (of earth, stones)” has been compared with Greek teîchos (neuter s-stem) “wall, fortification,” toîchos (masculine) “wall of a house or enclosure,” Sanskrit dehaḥ “body,” dehī́ “wall, embankment,” Oscan feíhúss (accusative plural) “walls.” For a Germanic derivative from the same verbal base with a different sense, see DOUGH.

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