A Life of Mystery and Hope

adult learning, arkansas, art, brain plasticity, Creativity, Faith, hope, Icons, Israel, mystery, Painting, Spirituality, suffering, vision

Our weather is changeable. Last week I had the heat turned on, but this weekend I have gone back to ceiling fans and my air conditioner. I was so ready for cooler temperatures, but I am not in charge of the thermostat outside, only the one inside. Of course, while the calendar may say it is autumn and the northern states may get their first snows, we southern folks should know better than to put away all our lightweight clothing just because we have had a first frost. That first frost freeze is just a tease, since an eighty-degree day or two will soon follow.

I talk about the mysteries of our weather because when we try a new art medium for the first time, we sometimes think, “Oh, this has some similarities to a prior experience.” Then we get into it and come to the “unknown land”—the place where we realize we are lost and have no idea which way to turn. We cannot go back, we do not know how to go forward, and we think if we stay in this place, we might starve to death.

We are like Abraham, who heard God’s call to “go to a land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1), but we have no idea how long that journey will take or where we will end up. We go from our safe place as an act of faith, travel in faith, and meet every obstacle and detour with the faith God will bring us through. Every artist is an Abraham in their heart, for they are always on a spiritual journey. Even when we reach the promised land, we always are moving spiritually “from Dan to Beersheba” as we hone our craft, just as Abraham and his family followed their flocks to the seasonal pastures. Like the ancient Jews, we too can confess:

“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” (Deuteronomy 26:5).

If we wander, we need a guide. Beginning artists have always sought more experienced artists as their guides and teachers. For the basics, we more experienced persons act as teachers by giving instruction and directions. Some teachers give their students works to copy so each person produces an approximation of the teacher’s image. Since this method does not encourage creativity or intense attention, I have always taught people to use their own eyes to see the image, rather than have me prescribe and define it for them. That would take the greater part of the “seeing and imagining” work away from the students. This would build my neurons but not do all that much for theirs. The more difficult task challenges us and keeps our brains from becoming numb from disuse. Art is one of the best exercises for stimulating the brain.

Marie Woods: Seeking Serendipity II, Mixed media on birch panel, 12″ x 12″, 13″ x 13″ overall, Framed in a tray frame

To start the class, I showed some multi-media art works using words and found objects. Because everyone has a different learning style, I find showing images for visual learners helps those who learn through sight, while talking about these examples helps those who are auditory or hearing learners. I sometimes need to take the tools in hand to show the haptic or hands on learners. No style is “better” or more “advanced” than another, but our unique style of learning has to do with the design of our brains. We can train our brains to work in a different fashion, but our preference will always be easier.

I had begun working on a piece the week before when Mike and Gail were in class. Mike had to go away to handle a work emergency and Gail wanted to finish a pumpkin painting. Since they had known what we would work on, and we had a week off, they were ready with a fleshed-out idea. These two also have experimented with other media in the past also. Gail’s granddaughter brought a variety of materials to work with and already had an idea. Marilyn had a promising idea, but needed technical help to bring it to life.

This is where we become those who say, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). We might look at our canvas, the paint we have put on it, the gauze we tied to it, and say to ourselves: “Well, this is a fine mess I’ve gotten myself into!” This is when a call for help, the lack of activity, or the smoking of a brain working overtime makes me look up from my own work and ask, “You need some help?”

I do not read minds, but my old schoolteacher skills never really die. If the room gets too quiet, someone is either in trouble or fixing to cause trouble. In our Friday art class, we do not have the latter. When I went to help Marilyn, she was at a decision point over what to do with her image without the netting. To begin with, she had tied it on tightly and did not have scissors on hand. In our class, we are willing to share, so no one has any need. As the writer of Hebrews 13:16 reminds us,

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

My scissors broke when one of our group tried to cut a cork, so I borrowed Gail’s X-acto knife. Plan A was not available so we moved to Plan B. First the blade fell out, but I put it back in. Marilyn may have been wondering if we ever were going to find a working tool to cut away her netting. She had tied it very securely on the canvas board. Once we got it off, we could look at the paint texture on her board. There was always plan C—arm wrestle the netting off the canvas by sheer force of will, but Plan D would have been better: use the shears in the kitchen. Nothing stops us when we are going to make art. We will find a way.

“Talk to me about your goals here,” I said.

“I was trying to get some green here, like a green ground.”

“You have plenty of green colors on your palette. Do you want solid greens or washes, like transparent greens?”

“More like transparent greens.”

“So, use your big brush and water.”

“I did not bring my big brushes. Just my small ones.”

“You can borrow mine.”

This is how the art studio life goes. We chat things out for a bit until we get over a hump, and then we let a person explore on their own some more. Some things they will discover for themselves. The more water you put into a color, the thinner it is on the canvas. The more paint put on your brush, the more opaque it is. If you want transparency, you thin your paint with a medium or water, but if you want to cover an area, you paint straight out of the tube. Keeping your brushes clean by changing the water often is also important. Otherwise, you are dragging colored water into your other colors. None of your other colors will be true colors, but will take on the color of your water.

Jimmie Durham: “Still Life with Spirit and Xitle”, car being crushed by a volcanic boulder with a comical smiley face painted on it.

When we journey, we sometimes need to take a detour along our well-planned route because a boulder has rolled down into the middle of the road or a recent flood has washed out the bridge. My map reading skills before GPS were so suspect, my daughter was frightened whenever I announced, “I’ve found a shortcut to save us some time.”

“Oh, no! Not the long cut!” She would wail. Unfortunately, she was usually correct. The shortcut might have been true, but my map reading skills always turned these short trips into long journeys. I do get to see the “unknown lands” off the beaten path of the scenic tours of whatever place I visit. “Oh, the places I have been!”

Learning how to paint, create art, make pottery, play a musical instrument, or any other creative activity does require attention, practice, critiquing, and patience. We must be pilgrims on a journey, knowing the long walk is part of the spiritual process of becoming the person we want to be. Our works will reflect our inner journey as we get closer to our destination. An artist never quits learning, so the artist’s journey never ends until they can no longer create physical works here on earth. As Anselm Kiefer, a modern German multimedia artist says,

“Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.”

Anselm Kiefer: Feld (Field), 2019-20, Emulsion, oil, and acrylic on canvas, 110¼x149% inches (280 x 380 cm)

Gail tried laying her paint on with a painter’s spackling knife. Normally she thins her paint out with water and treats it like a watercolor painting. She will build up layers to add depth and color. She also has a good clean edge to these works. She brought none of that vision to this painting, but laid on the three primary colors so thickly, they glistened. She tried printing the words with a rubbery shelf paper, but they did not stand out enough. I asked, “Do you think those words would read better in a different color?”

Her reply, “Peace is elusive these days. It is hard to find.”

“Form follows function” is a design principle, so Gail must be on to the metaphor of her theme word.

Harper came to visit and made an ocean with sea foam bubble wrap and a heart floating on the water. She also brought her latest fancy bead bracelets.

Mike was making up for missing art. He sat down with all his materials and worked his background in paint. After listening to my intro, he returned to cut up his purple cloth, arrange it on the canvas, and set the two pieces of scrap wood into a cross shape. Then he used spray fixative to hold the lot together. I saw him trying to get the wood to stick, so I suggested putting spray on both surfaces. This way the two would bond together. That piece of information was a technical revelation.

“I just need it to stick together long enough to get it home,” he said, “and then I can glue it for real.”

I noted his background colors reflected the unusual auroras which graced our evening skies this past week.

I had started my small canvas the week before when I was half sick. My hand, heart, and mind never feel quite connected when I feel bad, but I still work anyway. The beauty of acrylics is I can paint over them later. In fact, this is a repurposed canvas. If a work does not “speak to me” after a few months, I either cut it up to reweave it or paint it over entirely. I always think I will find hope for it in another form, but it may need to take its own journey to find its best self.

Jeremiah once said to the Jewish exiles in Babylon,

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (29:11)

When we have forgotten what our home looks like, God still remembers where we once lived. When we have lost our memories of the ancient Temple practices, God still knows the rituals. God will remind God’s faithful of our service. If we have lost our knowledge of how to walk with God, God will send us teachers once more. God always provides us with what we need.

Christ the Redeemer, 16th CE, Gallery of Art, Skopje.

Hope is part of our GrecoRoman heritage also. “Dum spiro spero” is Latin for “While I breathe, I hope.” Some form of this saying has been around since the 3^rd century BCE. My grandmother sewed her antique crochet trim onto pillowcases for wedding gifts. This is a scrap I found in her sewing kit. I stenciled the letters HOPE and glued down the wooden letters H, P, and E. I used an old metal circle for the O. Torn corrugated paper added a touch of texture, as did a few string prints. Sometimes hope appears to slide away or seems raw and unvarnished. The colors are blue and violet because Advent is the great season of Hope. Matthew quotes the Servant Song from Isaiah in 12:18-21—

“Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,

my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.

I will put my Spirit upon him,

and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

He will not wrangle or cry aloud,

nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

He will not break a bruised reed

or quench a smoldering wick

until he brings justice to victory.

And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

This is the Messiah of Hope of Israel and the Anointed Christ in whom we hope today. We can best share the hope of this Christ to our suffering world by serving the suffering, the grieving, the hungry, and the overlooked.

Joy, peace, and hope,

Cornelia

Pillars of Creation

art, cosmology, Creativity, Holy Spirit, Israel, Israel, Painting, Silence, Spirituality

The Bible has many creation narratives. We’re familiar with Genesis 1 and 2, but our scriptures also include creation stories in Job 38-41, Psalm 104, Proverbs 8:22-31, Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 and 12:1-7, and excerpts from Isaiah 40-55. Some believe God created the world and all of creation in seven 24-hour periods. Others believe God had nothing to do with creation, but nature alone birthed itself in a great explosion. Some believe God created the world and left it to its own purposes. For these deists, God isn’t involved in human affairs in this current world.

We don’t have to pick a side in this argument, or throw in our lot with “God alone” or “no god at all.” We can read the scriptures with modern science in our minds and faith in our hearts. In this, I’d say “we’re better off together” than we are separated into different groups. The love of God shed abroad into our hearts can bind us in this unity. Our human, fallen condition is the anvil on which we break apart into our separate sections and groups.

God is the creator of original unity and the recreator of the coming unity of the new heaven and the new earth, which will restore the unity of our fallen and broken world. In Psalms 104:5-9, the writer speaks of God’s process of creation:

“You set the earth on its foundations,

so that it shall never be shaken.

You cover it with the deep as with a garment;

the waters stood above the mountains.

At your rebuke they flee;

at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.

They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys

to the place that you appointed for them.

You set a boundary that they may not pass,

so that they might not again cover the earth.”

Later, the same author notes God is always at work in the world: “When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.” (Psalms 104:30)

This renewing Spirit, which proceeds from the heart of God, allows us to live in hope, even when we see brutal wars decimating innocent civilians. When nations deprive their marginalized populations of equal rights, we trust that God’s spirit will move to bring a renewing justice for those who are denied their legal rights. When famine and destruction strike, the ones who suffer have hope that those who hear God’s voice will have compassion for them and will come to relieve them.

Of course, if we believe “the voice of God is rarely heard in our land anymore,” or “God helps those who helps themselves,” we are admitting our disbelief in a living and involved deity who is willing to interfere in the affairs of human life.

**HERCULES AND THE WAGGONER.** A Waggoner was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy way. At last he came to a part of the road where the wheels sank half-way into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels. So the Waggoner threw down his whip, and knelt down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. “O Hercules, help me in this my hour of distress,” quoth he. But Hercules appeared to him, and said: “Tut, man, don’t sprawl there. Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel.”
*The gods help them that help themselves*

The God we see revealed in the Old and New Testament helps those who can’t help themselves. This God has done this very thing throughout all of human history! Otherwise, God would have chosen the strongest instead of the least to carry out God’s mighty purposes. Instead, God always chooses the least, the last, the lost, the lonely, and the “losers” of our world to lift up. This is why you will not find anything like “God helps those who help themselves” in the Bible. It is found in Aesop’s fable, “Hercules and the Waggoner,” where the moral of the story is “the gods help them that help themselves.” The modern variant, “God helps those who help themselves,” was purportedly coined by the English political theorist Algernon Sidney (17^th CE) and later popularized by Benjamin Franklin (18^th CE) in Poor Richard’s Almanac.

Pillars of Creation, strings and under painting

In the studio, the artist is always listening for the creative spirit to speak. If I’m sitting before a blank canvas and have no idea whatsoever what to do, I make a mark. I make another mark in relation to the first, for now the two need to speak and relate to one another. As I pick up some more paint to make the third mark, this one must relate to the other two, and so on I go, adding marks and colors.

Once I get some shapes defined, I begin blocking in some colors. Here too, these must speak to one another. One mark can’t shout or be overbearing, while the others fade into the background. I think of warm and cool, opaque and transparent, as well as flat and shaded. Once I get a base layer on the canvas, I remove the strings which I tied to make the shapes. I give it a rest and let my mind rest also. I can come back with fresh eyes tomorrow.

The “Pillars of Creation,” an area of intense star formation, was photographed by the Near-Infrared Camera of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Inspiration, or listening for the spirit of creation, is especially important to move a work past “coloring in the lines” into a work of art. The “Pillars of Creation,” an area of intense star formation, was photographed by the Near-Infrared Camera of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. In the Old Testament, the pillars of creation held up the earth itself, while the dome of the firmament (the sky) was above. The ancient, unscientific age was a limited world, with an unlimited divine being. Today we live in an unlimited universe, but too many people have a god too small to do mighty things beyond our poor capabilities.

When I add the silver and gold paints, the number of layers and the directions of my brush strokes determine how much of the under painting will show through. I don’t do this haphazardly, but once again I listen to that still, sheer sound of silence that once called Elijah from his cave. Elijah knew God wasn’t in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in the sound of sheer silence (1 Kings 19). I may have music playing in the background, but I don’t hear it at all. I’m in another realm entirely. I only hear the silence.

I’m enjoying this current theme and exploration. It combines my love of space and nature. I’m a firm believer in the providence of God: if God cared enough to create all there is, God will not forsake God’s creation. God will provide, and as God’s faithful people, we’ve been entrusted with the care for God’s world. Therefore, we must join God to keep the foundations of creation stable and the resources of our world available for future generations.

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

William P. Brown: The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder, 1^st Edition, Oxford University Press, 2010.

Does the Bible say, “God helps those who help themselves?”
https://aaronarmstrong.co/everyday-theology-god-helps-those-who-help-themselves/

The “Pillars of Creation,” an area of intense star formation, has been captured by the Near-Infrared Camera of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

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

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

Light Overcomes the Darkness

art, Bethlehem, Christmas, Faith, Hanukkah, hope, Israel, Light of the World, mystery, Nativity, suffering, Ten Commandments

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” —John 1:5.

Work in progress: Light Shines in the Darkness

Some of us can hear these words with hope, two thousand years after John’s gospel was first written. These words come as a ray of hope, like a flashlight’s beam bursting into a collapsed mine to let imprisoned workers know help and life-giving oxygen is on the way. For the people in the first century who lived under the Pax Romana—the peace of Rome—not everyone had the same rights and privileges as the citizens of Rome. The conquered lands, including the nation of Israel, were under military occupation and suffered brutal taxation and unfair application of the laws.

More importantly, obedience to the emperor and the empire was required, which for the Jewish people meant making a sacrifice in honor of the emperor. Because this act would acknowledge a human being as a god, the Jews were between a rock and a hard place. If they denied the emperor, they were unpatriotic. If they sacrificed to him, they committed blasphemy against their God. After all, we find one of the great commandments in Exodus 20:2-3:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

We take religious freedom and expression as a given here in the United States, since the first European settlers to these shores came here with the express purpose of worshipping God in their own way. Unfortunately, they also persecuted the next groups who arrived and who worshipped differently. After gaining independence from England, America has been one of the few nations of the world in that one of its core values is to honor every faith tradition and allow each person to worship freely (or not) God as they want.

Insisting on the priority or preference for one religion isn’t historical or grounded in our constitution. We find this in both Article VI of our Constitution, which prohibited religious tests for federal office holders, and in Article I of the Bill of Rights:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In this present time, when certain groups of Christians (Christian Nationalists) want to claim an alternative history of our national origin and our national destiny, they also are trying to rewrite our history to make it fit their purposes. This elevates their religious group above others and gives them preference over other Christian denominations as well as other faiths and nonbelievers. When these other groups become persecuted or marginalized, the whole suffers, while a few prosper.

The situation was much the same back in the first century CE, when tax farming was a corrupt practice in the Roman provinces. A family bought the rights to a tax area, collected whatever they wanted, and gave the due to Rome. The rest they kept as profit. No wonder folks hated the local tax collectors: they were not only greedy, but they colluded with the occupation. The priests in the temple made sure they never rocked the boat, so they could keep up their rituals and practices of the law, both scriptural and secular.

Therefore the people yearned for a savior, a messiah. In every age, in the stillness of the night, in the darkness of despair, when hope was flickering to an ember, a voice of a prophet would arise. These prophetic voices weren’t often heard, but occasionally one voice would pierce the gloom like a bright light in a dark cave. When a prophet speaks a true word from God, people recognize it as true because it speaks the truth of God, reminds people they belong to God, calls the people back to God, and tells them the consequences of their resulting behavior. Prophecy isn’t just about fortune telling.

Poets are often the prophets of their age. The first stanza of William Butter Yeats’ Ode speaks both toward that first century past and to the second coming:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

Final State: The Light Shines in the Darkness

If we lose hope, if we give up on the hope of redeeming our world and ourselves, we will fall into despair and nihilism. These emotions are not good. We won’t listen for the still small voice of God in the dark and quiet spaces anymore. We won’t hear the voice of God in the weed growing in the crack in the pavement of the sidewalk as we go about our daily tasks. We will fail to hear the promises of new hope and new strength when the crocuses pop through the snow next spring.

Art and poetry keep us connected to the magic and mystery of the Spirit of God. A steady diet of news and television is a soul killer. If you find your attitude going south, I recommend you limit your news consumption to two hours or less per day. Replace those other hours with sunlight, exercise, cooking, a new hobby, fiction reading, journaling, or whatever. If you keep getting drawn back into the distressing activity, remember to let go, and return to a better activity. Optimism and a sense of hope will carry us further than negativity will. As Isaiah 6:13 says,

“Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump.”

Or as my daddy always said, “Don’t let the bad guys grind you down.” Of course, this sentiment had some bad medical school Latin he and his friends translated when the going got tough and the sleep got short in his younger days. “While I breathe, I hope,” is “Dum spiro spero,” in Latin. It’s been one of my favorite sayings. Night doesn’t last forever, and morning will come. Dawn will break! There will be a new day and a fresh opportunity to do at least one thing better. To make a difference in one person’s life, to make a difference for the good for someone, somewhere. I may be just baking cookies to bring to overworked volunteers somewhere, who are doing good for others, but I can bring a bright light to someone’s day today. I don’t have to save the entire world.

If I can be a ray of light for someone today, I might give them hope. Hope is a gift. We should share it freely. Then hope would grow and “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2).

Joy, peace, and light,

Cornelia

Faith of Our Forefathers (May 1998) – Library of Congress Information Bulletin

https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9805/religion.html

The Second Coming | The Poetry Foundation

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming

Anne Frank’s Last Birthday Cake

Anne Frank, art, Auschwitz, beauty, Children, Creativity, Faith, Family, Holocaust, hope, inspiration, Ministry, Painting, perspective, shadows, suffering, vision

We never know when the tides of time will change. Most of us aren’t creatures of change, but prefer instead the well-worn and familiar paths. As a United Methodist pastor, I moved every two or three years during my ministry, so one thing I kept was my telephone company. I know some people like to switch providers almost as often as they switch their underwear, but that’s not me. Having to switch utility companies, banks, and hairdressers was more than enough agony for me. I signed up for this life, however, so I kept my moving boxes and made a spreadsheet for notifying all my address changes.

I talk about this because I only lived in three homes as a child. I never had to leave in the middle of the night to escape bad debts, the law, or a hateful Nazi regime. I have no way to imagine Anne Frank’s life, except when I was also 13 years old, I read her wonderful diary. Anne kept her diary, beginning at the same age, during the two years she spent in hiding while the Germans occupied her homeland during World War II. She had received a red, cream, and beige checkered cloth notebook diary for her 13^th birthday on June 12, 1942. The underground Dutch radio station had encouraged people to keep diaries so future generations would know what the conditions were under the German occupation.

Because of the Nazi purity rules, Jews weren’t allowed to mix with non-Jewish persons. According to the Nazis, Jews were not Aryans or the Master Race. They thought Jews belonged to a separate race that was inferior to all other races. The Nazis believed that the presence of Jews in Germany threatened the German people. They believed they had to separate Jews from other Germans to protect and strengthen Germany. Their Nuremberg Laws were an important step towards achieving this goal.

We hear this same sentiment today from the neo-Nazi movement groups who say, “Jews shall not replace us,” and “Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation.” As a result, only Anne’s Jewish friends could come to her birthday party. Her father set up a movie projector to show “Rin Tin Tin,” the famous Hollywood dog film star. The chairs were set up in rows like a movie theater. The family went all out for their Anne. Her mom had baked cookies for her classroom to share, since they couldn’t come to the party, but she baked a strawberry cream cake for this party attended by her Jewish friends. This was early June and the strawberries would be juicy, fresh, and in season.

Anne and Hanna playing before the Frank family fled into hiding.

Two weeks after her 13^th birthday, Anne and the Frank family had disappeared from the neighborhood. They left no forwarding address. Her best friend of eight years, Hannah Pick-Goslar, didn’t see her again until they were both in the same concentration camp. Hannah survived. Anne did not, but the enduring story of her life in hiding continues through her diary.

When I was painting this, I used a large doily as the “cake.” I’d been saving it for a halo for a saint painting, but it works great for a cake top too. My viewpoint is from above, and I omitted the 95 candles. No need to burn the house down! The cream color was a bit pink, but if I were a young teen girl, I’d want it more pink than just white. I painted the background as a blue sky, because young people almost always have hope and optimism. The left side of the canvas has the storm clouds approaching, as well as the grey soot soiling the sky from the overworked crematoriums at the concentration camps where so many Jewish people lost their lives in the Holocaust.

If we can learn anything from one small girl who ate strawberries on an early summer day, I hope it will be to appreciate the beauty of this brief moment and to love one another deeply. Also, life is too short to hate anyone just because they are in someway different from you. Celebrate their differences as part of God’s creative generosity to this world. Also as Mary Oliver reminds us about the importance of keeping a journal:

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Remembering Anne Frank’s Last Birthday Party | TIME
https://time.com/6284557/anne-frank-birthday-party-hannah-pick-goslar/

What Hannah Pick-Goslar’s Memoir Reveals About Anne Frank | TIME

https://time.com/6282024/anne-frank-friend-hannah-pick-goslar-memoir-

The Nuremberg Race Laws | Holocaust Encyclopedia
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nuremberg-race-laws

Entertaining Angels Unawares

art, Creativity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Homosexuality, Icons, inspiration, Israel, Painting, righteousness, Rublev, Spirituality, United Methodist Church

One of my favorite icons is the Rublev Trinity of 1411, which represents the three angelic visitors who came to Abraham and Sarah’s tent in the wilderness. They stopped there on the way to Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities known for their lack of hospitality to strangers, so the largess Abraham showed by preparing a feast for them in the wilderness was notable in contrast. Of course, while Abraham couldn’t see these strangers’ wings and halos, nevertheless we should “not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

Rublev’s Trinity: Original egg tempera on wood panel, Tretyakov Museum, Moscow, 1411-1425 CE

Rublev’s Trinity is a classic icon. It’s the prototype for all the Holy Trinity icons. Three figures are seated at table, under an oak tree and in the vicinity of a large house, the home of Abraham and Sarah, at Mamre in the wilderness. These figures represent the Three Persons in One God, or The Holy Trinity. The icon underlines the sameness of the three figures by using a single identical image, repeated three times but robed differently to suggest three different qualities of the three Angels—the Three Aspects of God.

The central figure represents the Son, who blesses the cup on the table. The right figure in blue is the Holy Spirit, while the rose-colored robed figure represents the Father. The Oak of Mamre stands for the cross of Christ. Even the symbolic wilderness mountain dips its peak in reverence to the holy visitors. Rublev imagined the patriarchs living in a house, but they were tent dwellers who followed herds and pastures.

Jerusalem Temple Mount, from an antique map, acrylic on canvas, 2023

I actually repainted this icon over a map of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Wars have been much in the news lately, not just in the last few months, but the last few years. Russia’s invasion into Ukraine has devastated their land and people, not to mention making a negative impact on hunger worldwide and even the price of food here at home. The Sacred Mount in Jerusalem has always been contested, so much so that the three monotheistic religions fight over that territory. Even the holiest Christian sites are often guarded by Islamic families to keep them open for everyone.

Once I chose this base, the mountain, tree, and the house wrote themselves. I found the table easily in the underlying shapes and the three visitors also. This isn’t a faithful copy of the Holy Trinity Icon, but a spiritual copy of the icon. I kept the colors and the ideas, but I wrote something new. As I painted, I had these thoughts about our faith and our life.

Not In My Backyard, Not In My Neighborhood, Not in My Church—how often do we hear these words? Sometimes we even hear them spoken in our own estranged families of origins. This isn’t a recent phenomenon. Our scripture is full of broken families: Cain and Able were the first; plus, Abraham’s children, Isaac and Ishmael and their descendants, have had sibling rivalry and struggles from the beginning. The house of David certainly had its problems even if David was a “man after God’s own heart.” In the New Testament, the Jews wanted the gentile believers to convert to their religion first, and then to keep the law, the food rules, and celebrate the festivals in order to be a “good Christian.” The leaders had to compromise on their beliefs before everyone could fully share Christian hospitality at the table together.

Paul has a dire warning for the congregations about The Works of the Flesh in Galatians 5:16-21—

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Our modern world has a problem with idolatry. We often put our work, our family, our possessions, or our politics above God. We often choose our church because of our political beliefs, when we should let the overwhelming love and grace of God for all God’s creation imbue our political choices. We forget as Christians we are grafted into the nation of Israel, as the writer of Ephesians 2:12 reminds us:

“Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Christ came to those who were near and to those who were far, broke down the dividing wall between the two and brought them together to eat at one table. Before they were enemies, but with Christ, they became one people. Divisions should not exist in the body of Christ, just as no one should be excluded from fellowship. The near in those days were the Israelites and the far were the Greeks, Romans and other pagan communities. In Christ, however, they were one.

DeLee: Holy Trinity after Rublev, acrylic on canvas,

Abraham knew the reputation of Sodom and Gomorrah, since Lot was his kinsman. When Abraham negotiated with God to spare those twin cities of iniquity, he managed to bargain God down to the hope of finding at least ten honest people, righteous in their ways with God. That was as low as God would go. Lot, with his two daughters, his wife, and the two would be husbands made six, but the men didn’t want to flee. That left only four and so the two cities were doomed for their lack of hospitality to strangers.

People today often think that sexual behavior doomed these cities, but lack of care for the stranger was a higher priority in a dangerous and unforgiving landscape. Offering food, water, and shelter meant life to travelers. Four thousand years ago, our spiritual ancestors remembered the stories of Abraham. In Deuteronomy 26:5, when the people brought their offerings to God, they were instructed to make this response before the LORD your God:

“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.”

No longer are we a wandering people. Instead, we are mostly a nation of settlers, people who have been in one place for awhile. We no longer are a nation of immigrants who are wresting a new nation out of the raw materials of the land and becoming a melting pot of different cultures which have settled it. We look with suspicion upon someone who moves into our neighborhood, especially if they don’t look or act like us. If they don’t speak our language or eat our food, we tend to shun them. We don’t show hospitality. We don’t add their flavor into our soup, and try to keep them from melting into our pot.

No one likes change. I think of the old joke about “how many United Methodists does it take to change a lightbulb?” The answer is “none—that lightbulb was given as a memorial to my Aunt Harriet’s dead husband, and it cannot be changed!”

Hospitality requires us to change the lightbulb, however, for bringing light to a dark stairway will make it safer for people of all ages to traverse. Hospitality asks us to open our pews to people who don’t think like us, so we can wrestle with the theology of God and the calling of our faith for this present age, not just our yesterdays. Hospitality calls us to serve as a respite and refuge for the aliens, the immigrants, the homeless, and the newcomers who arrive in our communities.

Unfortunately, too many of us have bought into tribal thinking, which is a form of all or nothing thinking. Gang behavior is tribal thinking, for if you don’t kowtow to the group think, you will likely be dead. Excommunication from the church is a form of punishment for wrong thinking or wrong acts, and secession or rebellion is action against authority you no longer respect or recognize. Our church has just gone through a sad time of people cutting ties because they no longer share the understanding of Abraham, who offered sustenance and protection to strangers in the midst of the barren wilderness. In ancient times, those who received this gift were bound to mutual respect and protection. Food and water in the wilderness saves a life. Our hospitality to strangers in an uncertain world can save their lives and souls. Maybe we once again need to see afresh with ancient eyes our sacred texts, instead of with our current political and cultural blinders on our eyes. Then we could truly entertain angels unawares. And we would be blessed for this.

As the writer of the letter to the Ephesians closed out his third chapter (Ephesians 3:20-21):

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Joy, peace, and hospitality,

Cornelia

Music of the Spheres

adult learning, Aristotle, art, color Wheel, Creativity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Horeb, Icarus, Imagination, nature, Painting, Prayer, Pythagorean Cosmology, Silence, Spirituality, vision

One of my favorite hymns growing up in the church was “This Is My Father’s World,” by Maltbie D. Babcock, a Presbyterian minister. Written in 1901, to the tune Terra Beata, or Blessed Earth, the song was originally a traditional English folk tune, but composer Franklin L. Sheppard arranged a variation specifically for this text. This hymn and “The Church in the Valley in the Wildwood” were my mother’s and my grandmother’s two favorites to sing. I loved them both also because of their location in nature.

This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas–
His hand the wonders wrought.

As Paul wrote in Romans 1:20—

“Ever since the creation of the world (God’s) eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things (God) has made.”

Tracing history backwards from the 1st CE, the Pythagoreans (active from the late 6th to the mid 5th century BCE) thought the music of the spheres was an ethereal harmony produced by the vibration of the celestial spheres.

Aristotle said the Pythagoreans believed things are numbers or they are made out of numbers by noticing more similarities between things and numbers than between things and the elements, such as fire and water, as adopted by earlier thinkers. The Pythagoreans thus concluded things were numbers or were made of numbers. Therefore, the principles of numbers, the odd and the even, are the principles of all things. The odd was limited and the even was unlimited.

Aristotle criticized the Pythagoreans for being so enamored of numerical order that they imposed it on the world even where it wasn’t suggested by the phenomena. Thus, appearances suggested there were nine heavenly bodies orbiting in the heavens but, since they regarded ten as the perfect number, they supposed there must be a tenth heavenly body, the counter-earth, which we cannot see.

Pythagoreans presented the principles of reality as consisting of ten pairs of opposites:

1. limited—unlimited

2. odd—even

3. unity—plurality

4. right—left

5. male—female

6. rest—motion

7. straight—crooked

8. light—darkness

9. good—bad

10. square—oblong

In art we have similar categories which we use to create dynamic images. If our painting is all of one value—all white, all black, or all middle value—it lacks visual interest. We are drawn to images which have contrasting values covering multiple values. As with everything, too much of a good thing can become a bad thing! In medicine, a small dose of Botox can make wrinkles disappear, but a large dose could poison a person. As I tell folks, some things require experts, not DIY practitioners.

The Middle Path is safest and best—
Unknown Artist: The fall of Icarus., Fresco of the Third style from Pompeii, 50—75 CE. (H. 35.5, W. 34.5 cm.),
London, British Museum.

I’ve probably mentioned before my encounter with the Hostess chocolate cupcakes. When I realized I could buy a whole box for slightly more money than a package of two tiny cakes, of course my starving art school student budget sprung for the box. That’s when I ate chocolate cupcakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. By the end of that box, I was cured of my chocolate cupcake desire for a very long time. This is a classic case of “too much of a good thing,” or “knowing when to stop.” The Greeks recognized the need to curb human behavior of our “all or nothing” thinking by prescribing the idea of the Golden Mean, or “nothing to excess.” I definitely went to excess on my cupcake journey.

Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat Armchair was designed for the Tugendhat House in Brno, the Czech Republic in 1929 and is one of several different furniture pieces designed for the home of Greta Weiss and Fritz Tugendhat. In the design of the home, Mies designed nearly every detail down to the furniture used. He also prescribed the placement of each furniture piece in the home to maintain spatial composition.

Mies van der Rohe, whose architecture and furniture design exemplified his style, “less is more,” never reduced his work to nothing. His work was faithful to the new industrial materials of steel and glass being used in skyscrapers. Our excess in art is never to nothingness, but we don’t over elaborate or over decorate, just for the sake of filling the space.

So, what do we do and how we proceed? When faced with the challenge of all we see before us, what do we select to make our images? I believe this is where the creating Spirit comes into play, for we can walk past a tree all day long, but on a certain day, the tree comes alive for us. When Moses was herding his father-in-law’s sheep out in the wilderness, his mind was on the sheep, his current family, and his past life and deeds. Scripture doesn’t tell us how long the bush burned on that mountain before Moses noticed it and said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” (Exodus 3:3)

Likewise, we walk past inspiring images daily when we’re preoccupied with our day-to-day concerns. We also have difficulty finding time to create because others want our attention first. One of my seminary professors lectured us in class about taking time to keep our spiritual lives front and center as we moved through school and our church appointments. She said our spouses and children would want to be first, plus our congregations also would want to be first. We’d most likely want to put our careers first to get a bigger steeple or to please our supervisors. However, if we put anything or anyone before God, our spiritual lives would suffer, and like dominos, everything else would fall also. “Many are called, but few are chosen,” as Jesus says in Matthew 22:14.

In art as in life, we need to be deeply rooted in the life of the Spirit. I can tell when I’m going through the motions, but I keep on painting, for I figure I’ll at least learn something from my adequate work, so I’ll be found ready when the creative Spirit strikes. Sometimes I’m more present to the cares and concerns of this world and my work suffers for it. Other times, I’m under the creating power of a Greater Power and my work is altogether more inspired because of that energy. We’d all be more vigorous and creative in our everyday lives if we spent more time in prayer, contemplation, and searching the scriptures to hear God’s voice speak in the silent corners of our hearts and minds.

Last week, only Mike and I showed up for art class. Everyone else was either tied up with doctor appointments or at home with rehab or otherwise occupied. Mike and I explored making different colors with the 8 Color Prang Watercolor Set. We can make interesting colors by combining the complementary colors or the tertiary colors. Mike’s first landscape painting got the energies of his competing needs out of the way.

As in journaling, we often need to make a habit of writing our thoughts so our deepest feelings can get expressed. He began a second painting with more focus on the goal of mixing new colors.

I started my painting with the circles by using yellow watercolor to outline intersecting circles of the same size on my paper. Then I mixed some primary colors together, some secondary colors together and some tertiary colors together. I painted different sections of the overlapping circles. Some of the paint I thinned to a wash, and others I laid on fully. When I got home, I painted in the background, allowing some areas to be a wash and other parts to be thicker.

Music of the Spheres: Creation Energy, acrylic

I finished at home an acrylic painting, which explores some of the same themes as the watercolors we’ve worked on in class. In this I used various material with different textures for my spheres. One of the circles is more three dimensional because it’s from a handmade cloth mask left over from the pandemic. I painted parts of it, also. The background has lines of “energy” all about.

While the Pythagoreans attempted to see unity and harmony in the creation in numbers, our Judeo-Christian faith recognizes God as creator of nature and nature revealing the Creator. One of the best texts to understand this distinction is 1 Kings 19: 11-13, in which Elijah meets the LORD on the mountain at Horeb:

(God) said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

No one has ever heard the music of the spheres, and the voice of God arrives in the sound of sheer silence. Perhaps that “polar opposite” of the Pythagorean’s world view was on to something after all. If we’re very quiet and still, we may hear both the music of the spheres and the voice of God in the great silence.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

This Is My Father’s World | Hymnary.org

https://hymnary.org/text/this_is_my_fathers_world_and_to_my

Counterfeit Version of Botox Found in Multiple States | FDA

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/counterfeit-version-botox-found-multiple-states

Pythagoreanism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoreanism/

What’s the Point of Suffering?

art, city, Creativity, inspiration, Israel, Megiddo, Painting, righteousness, Solomon’s Temple, suffering

I’ve visited the Holy Land twice, and I’m always surprised how small this country is. So much history and events of our faith happened here, yet the land isn’t much bigger than Vermont. This land is a place of great suffering, marked by the historic sites of Masada, Megiddo, and Golgotha. It’s also the place of great joy, as evidenced in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem.

When we speak of the Holy Land, we include the ancient kingdoms of Judea and Israel, as well as modern day Palestine. The modern state of Israel was formed in 1948, as a homeland for diaspora Jews, who are the ones whom conquering foreign nations had exiled from their homeland over the centuries.

The history of the Hebrew people has been marked by suffering. As Deuteronomy relates, they are a “people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples” (7:6-7).

They endured slavery in Egypt, wandering in the wilderness until they entered the promised land, and then were at the mercy of stronger nations who wanted to control the trade routes, which intersected inside the borders of Israel.

The earliest diaspora was the Babylonian exile in 586 BCE, plus a later exile to Alexandria, Egypt, in the 1st century BCE. That first exile was marked by the trauma of the Jews’ loss of Solomon’s Temple and their residency in the holy city. They’d always depended on these two as permanent and a source of God’s special protection. However, their failure to honor God completely negated this protection. In the exile, the people learned how to live as God’s chosen people by studying God’s word, keeping the law, and separating themselves from the Gentiles.

About five million Jews lived outside of Palestine during the Roman era, but most of them lived within the confines of the Roman Empire. Even before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, diaspora Jews outnumbered those who lived within the bounds of the territory of the Holy Land.

Western Wall of Temple, Men’s prayer area nearby and Women’s area in distance, 2019

After World War II, with the Nazi massacre of over 6,000,000 Jewish individuals of all ages and sexes, this Holocaust ignited the desire within those others who shared with Jews the same values they represented in the world. Social justice and compassionate assistance to the weak stood in the way of Hitler’s regime, for he believed Jews opposed the Nazi natural order, which was the powerful exercise unrestrained power on behalf of the superior white race. In Hitler’s view, any restraint on the exercise of white power would inevitably lead to the weakening, even the defeat, of this master race. (We hear echoes of this heretical view in the current replacement conspiracy, which claims migrants are poisoning the blood of our nation.)

Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis: Comparative Size of Israel and Occupied Territories to State of Vermont (11,200 square miles to 9,200 square miles)

An entire book in the Old Testament is dedicated to the question of suffering, especially the question of do the righteous suffer. Under the retribution theory of justice, a good person should not suffer, and a sinful person deserves suffering. However, all of us know infants born with dread physical conditions, who obviously haven’t had a chance to sin. In the Old Testament view, his parents’ sin would have caused his suffering, but Jesus reminds us in John 9:3–

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

Ossip Zadkine’s The Destroyed City (1951) is a man without a heart and is dedicated to the city of Rotterdam, destroyed by the Nazi Luftwaffe.

The book of Job reminds us suffering happens to all of us, and how we react to it is evidence of our transformation into the image of God. Do we seek mere retribution, or will we let suffering transform us? This is a moral question for us today, especially in our suffering adverse society. Yet, we’ll let those on the margins suffer, while we avoid suffering ourselves. The 31st chapter of Job lists the acts of a righteous man who cares for the widows, orphans, and strangers in his land, yet he suffers. But Job is no quitter, even if he is a complainer. He asks God, “Why do the righteous suffer?”

The Gaza Strip, where all the fighting between the Israeli army and the Hamas militants is currently ongoing, is slightly more than twice the size of Washington, DC., our nation’s Capitol. The Capitol is 68.35 square miles, while the Gaza Strip is just shy of 139 square miles. As a comparison, Little Rock, Arkansas, is 123 square miles in area. Little Rock has a 2024 population of 200,546. Compare this with the two million people live in the Gaza Strip. After living in rural Arkansas most of my ministry, I find Little Rock crowded. The Gaza Strip is 10 times more crowded than our state capital.

Why do I mention this? When a tornado rips through a town or a city in Arkansas, it causes damage on a large scale to those people in that area. Because we don’t have densely populated areas, our suffering is limited to a few. This doesn’t discount their particular suffering, but it does mean suffering is limited, for which we can be thankful. When 2,000 pound bombs drop on high rise dwellings, numerous people are made homeless, and the possibility of injuries is high. Perhaps we don’t see this suffering because it’s in a distant land, or because some of the injured call god by another name. If we can’t recognize human suffering as the suffering of another child of God, we’re losing our ability to see the world as God sees God’s world.

The famous Banksy’s Armored Dove of Peace, the painting of a peace dove wearing a flak jacket. The dove is painted on a wall near the separation wall between Bethlehem (Palestinian Territories) and Israel. Nov. 18, 2023

Rebuilding Gaza will be a massive undertaking because Israel’s bombardment has caused mass destruction. Current estimates are at least a half million Palestinians in the enclave won’t have a home to return to when the war ends, according to the UN aid office. By the end of 2023, about 1.9 million people had been displaced, or nearly the entire population, some more than once, as people moved in search of safety. Because of bombing, by the end of 2023, about 65,000 housing units across Gaza Strip have been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. In addition, over 290,000 housing units had been damaged, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza. Officials estimate many more will be unable to return immediately due to the level of damage to surrounding infrastructure, as well as the risk posed by of Explosive Remnants of War.

The Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza, believed to be the third oldest church in the world, was hit by missiles as hundreds of Palestinians sought shelter there during a Israeli missile strike in its war against Hamas.

Currently residents in Gaza are facing famine, for the existing World Food Program ready-to-eat food options are falling short of meeting people’s crucial caloric needs. Bread, made from fortified flour, holds the potential to address some of the unmet requirements for essential vitamins and minerals, which the current ready-to-eat baskets fail to provide. Moreover, providing bread as a no-cook food option is crucial when households lack the means to cook meals. Thus, incorporating bread into aid provisions is not only as a practical solution, but also is a key strategy to fulfill immediate nutritional needs.

Children try to get food relief in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on December 31, 2023.

I first visited the Holy Land in 2000, just before the intifada of 2001. At the time, the Gaza Strip was under Israeli control. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt administered the newly formed Gaza Strip; Israel captured it in the Six-Day War in 1967. Under a series of agreements known as the Oslo Accords signed between 1993 and 1999, Israel transferred to the newly created Palestinian Authority (PA) security and civilian responsibility for many Palestinian-populated areas of the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank.

After June 2007, when HAMAS took over the Gaza Strip, Israel and Egypt have enforced tight restrictions on movement and access of goods and individuals into and out of Gaza. Fatah, another political movement, and HAMAS have since reached a series of agreements aimed at restoring political unity between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank but have struggled to enact them. Therefore, Egypt and Israel have maintained border control over the Gaza Strip, determining who and what enters or leaves.

Since Hamas’ surprise attack on the music festival and the settlement nearby, not only have the Jewish people suffered harm due to 1,200 immediate deaths but also the continued terror of those held captive by the Hamas terrorists. Some say Christ suffers only for those who go on to have faith in his saving work on the cross. I was asked once on an Emmaus walk, “Are we saved when we profess our faith in Christ, or when Christ died on the cross for us?”

Byzantine Mosaic apsidal, San Clemente, Rome

They were surprised when I answered, “Yes.” It’s not an either-or question. After all, Christ died once, for all, as an act of saving grace. God raised him from the dead to make him the first of many to cast off the chains of sin and death. When we, centuries later, profess our faith in Christ, we accept his suffering on our behalf and his resurrection as our promise of a life to come. As Christians, we often base our world view on our claim to the promises of God, but we forget Christ’s death and resurrection is a promise to all people, even to those who haven’t professed faith in Christ. As the writer of Hebrews (1:8-9) once said:

“Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

As I worked on my painting, it went through several iterations. First it stayed close to the map of the ruins of Megiddo, which I painted in yellows. Megiddo is the site of the battle to end all battles, and the place where the forces of good meet the forces of evil. Because Israel is on the crossroads of many trade routes, nations have always met there to contest for dominance. I left many scar scribbles on the canvas to represent the destroyed walls of the ancient city. As is my usual practice, I hung up my canvas to live with it awhile, but the longer my painting hung on my wall, the more unsatisfied I was. I can always tell when my inner vision isn’t meshing with finished work. When I took the work down, I flipped it 180 degrees and repainted it in red, for the bloodshed of this most recent war. As I painted out most of the scribbles, I saw the cross appear out of the image. By destroying the remnants of destruction, I had simplified the image down to its essence.

In all things, the cross is crucial. We moderns don’t understand suffering or pain. We deny it, reject it or medicate it with something that keeps us from feeling it. My personal medicinal choices are ice cream and chocolate. If I can combine them in one substance, so much the better! A recent bout with the shingles this past December had me consuming both foods for medicinal relief. Other people use wine, TikTok, or another medication of choice to escape from emotional or physical pain.

The winter of my discontent, brought by Mayhem

Revenge is is a dish best served cold because if we take revenge in the heat of the moment, we’ll over do our response and won’t know when to stop. If we wait, cooler heads will prevail, and a more limited response will likely be our action. Less damage, and less mayhem, but we humans don’t seem to be built this way. Those who have suffered will often return suffering in kind as a “hair of the dog cure.” This is why abuse and family violence is generational. The ancient Hebrews practiced the BAN, or a primitive religious practice of dedicating for destruction an entire group of people and their possessions to the LORD. This was done to cleanse the land and keep the Hebrew people pure from idolatry. Paul had Deuteronomy in mind when he wrote in Romans 12:19—

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

While the western world has the crusade mentality, which is similar to the extreme ban, we also have the just war theory. Modern wars are fought by democracies mostly with this mindset, for the international community is in agreement the ends should justify the means. Unfortunately, terrorists don’t agree and fight according to their own extremist beliefs. We have to ask ourselves what happens to us when we adopt their policies and inflict extreme suffering on civilians to the point of causing starvation and homelessness by destroying their homeland. If we act the same as those whom as we despise, have we become them instead? We lose the moral high ground when this happens. It’s time to draw back and reconsider our motives and our methods: how can we be just, compassionate, and holy, as God is holy? Otherwise, we’re suffering for nothing or causing others to suffer meaninglessly.

When we read scripture, God’s Holy Spirit should work in our hearts and minds to make a change in us to confront and conform us into God’s holy nature. If no change happens, we need to ask God to open our hearts and minds to be conformed to God’s Holy Spirit. If it’s painful to read scripture, remember Christ suffered for us. Many of us can’t read the scriptures to be transformed, for change is difficult and painful. However, staying the same is also difficult and painful. (Maybe this is why only 10% of Americans read their Bible daily.) I find God has compassion on those who suffer, especially those who do so while “working out their own salvation in fear and trembling.”

Remember God has compassion and is near to the broken hearted,

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Gaza Strip – The World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/

Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #85 | United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – occupied Palestinian territory
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-85

Holocaust | Definition, Concentration Camps, History, & Facts | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust

Little Rock, Arkansas Population 2024
https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/little-rock-ar-population

Ban – Encyclopedia of The Bible – Bible Gateway
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Ban

Report: 26 Million Americans Stopped Reading the Bible Reg…… | News & Reporting | Christianity Today https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/april/state-of-bible-reading-decline-report-26-million.html

Nativities Then and Now

Altars, Apocalypse, beauty, Bethlehem, Christmas, Creativity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Icons, Imagination, incarnation, inspiration, Israel, mystery, Nativity, righteousness, Savonarola, vision

Every Christmas, my family would put up a beautiful tree and decorate it to the nines. My dad would always tie this living sculpture to the nearest window frame so the tree wouldn’t topple over. He was well aware at least one of his three curious and rambunctious children would no doubt be crawling under the lowest branches to reach the brightly wrapped presents hidden far back in the corner under the tree.

We kids most desired and sought after these hidden gifts, while those near the front always got a cursory glance and shake. If it were hidden, it had to be desired! Package shaking in the hidden, tight quarters could cause a tree to collapse and that would be more drama than our frazzled mother wanted at this time of year. My dad was wise enough, or trained by experience, to know messing with “Mother Nature” wasn’t a great idea.

Mother’s Nativity with other additions from family and friends

Under this tinsel draped tree, with its 1950’s glowing bubble lights, we always had a nativity scene. In our early childhood, it was solid and childproof, but as we aged, and got too large to crawl under the tree, a better quality nativity came to live under the tree. By my college years, my brothers were also grown enough for mom to exercise her creative genius. She hand-painted her own ceramic nativity group. This masterpiece also got its own special display site. Up until this time, we children had no idea our mother had any artistic talent, for she’d spent her days transporting us to our multiple after school activities. Between my brothers’ sports teams and my hobbies, it’s a wonder she found time to do anything else in the afternoon hours.

Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, 3rd century. Fresco, Rome: catacombs of Priscilla, 3rd Century CE

The 3rd century fresco shows the scene of Adoration of the Magi on the the arch dividing the room in the Greek Chapel in the Catacombs of Priscilla, Rome. In depictions of ancient Greek and Roman gift-giving practices, the act and choice of gift were important. They furnish information about both giver and recipient. The wise men adopt the same postures used in Roman imperial ceremony for the worship of an Emperor or other ruler. Roman art has always provided a pictorial model for the representation of the Magi. By identifying with or recognizing such an outward act of homage, the viewer could enter into the Nativity story through the wise visitors, worshipping the God manifest on earth in the Child.

This is why the earliest Christian art is found in the catacombs of Rome, in the hidden places, since worshipping Jesus wasn’t an approved religious practice in the Empire. Only the Divine Emperor alone was worthy of reverence and worship, not some dying and rising god of a far-off province. Today in America we sometimes forget we’re a nation founded on the principle of freedom to practice our religion as we see fit, or not to practice a religion at all, as the case may be. No government can compel the privilege of one religion above another or set one as the official religion.

Tympanum of the right side of the cast of so-called Sarcophagus of Stilicho, sculpted around 385 AD (the original piece of art is in Sant’Ambrogio basilica in Milan, Italy), Detail Nativity scene, Museo della civiltà romana a Roma (Eur), Room 15 (Christianity).

Another early depiction of the nativity isn’t in a Christmas context, but is found on a late 4th C Roman sarcophagus for a high ranking military official and his wife. The unknown artisan rendered the Christ child, wrapped in binding clothes, and lying in a manger, between the ox and the ass, to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 1:3—

“The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib;
but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”

As accustomed as we are today to manger scenes with all kinds of animals present, the scriptures don’t name them. These are left up to our imaginations. Even the elements derived directly from the gospel narratives of Matthew and Luke were slow to appear in visual renderings. Between those early scriptural accounts and the formation of even a basic manger scene lie some centuries during which Christian devotion and depiction developed. Likewise, the celebration of Christmas was slow to develop, but by the 4th century it was well along.

Nativity Fresco in Santa Maria Foris Portas, Castelseprio, Italy, 9th CE

In the ninth century, after the iconoclastic period, when the images of holy persons were forbidden and destroyed, a fresh wave of religious activity began in the arts. In Italy. In the church dedicated to Mary Outside the Gates in Castelprio, Italy, an entire series of paintings covered the interior walls. The church was located on an important trade route and the site was once a Roman fort. The theme honored Mary as the Bride of Christ, thus making her the spiritual equivalent of the Church, which is the Bride of Christ in scripture. In every tableau, Mary is the largest or most significant figure. Over the centuries, the area lost its importance, these paintings were whitewashed over, but after many years and much restoration, they’re now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today Protestant believers have a Christo-centric faith, often ignoring the other persons of the Holy Trinity. When we focus on the nativity, we forget God’s plan was to use humanity to save the fallen creation. This includes Mary and Joseph both, as well as God’s own Son, as Paul so well reminds us in Philippians 2:5-8—

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.

Giotto di Bodone, Nativity of Jesus, 1303-1305. Fresco, 200 x 185 cm. Padua: Scrovegni Chapel

Giotto’s frescos in the Padua Chapel are some of the most important works of art because he brought the Holy Family into ordinary human life. The blue skies replace the gold of the traditional icons, which stood for the infinite and eternal spiritual world. In Giotto’s painting, people hunger and thirst, while in the world of the icons, all suffering is transformed and any passion is disciplined.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Nativity between the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, 1308-1311. Tempera on panel, 43.8 × 111 cm. Washington: National Gallery of Art

Duccio painted in his studio all the individual sections of the great altarpiece of the church in Sienna, Italy. On completion in 1311, the townspeople held a grand parade as they carried the paintings to the cathedral. They were installed in a magnificent framework with some of the works facing the congregation and the rest facing the church officials. The altarpiece remained intact until until 1506 when it was partially dismantled, relegated to side chapels and replaced by a 15th-century bronze tabernacle.

In 1771, the church fathers hired a carpenter to saw up the old wooden altarpiece into seven vertical pieces, and then saw each of those pieces in half laterally to separate the front scenes from the back. He then reassembled the different pieces to form new scenes. Most of the individual paintings stayed together, but others were sold to private collectors or museums. This Nativity between the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel was purchased by the Museum Kaiser Wilhelm Friedrich in Berlin and remained on display there until 1938. At that time, a Nazi-appointed Museum director purged most non-Teutonic art from the collection. Through a trade, this Nativity came to our National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C.

Duccio: Maesta Reconstructed Altarpiece. Front (L) and Back (R)

When we think about hidden meanings in art works, sometimes the journey a work takes to its exhibition home is part of its meaning. The Nazi purge of non-Teutonic art from the collection was based on their idea of a pure race for their homeland, with which they shared a special mystical bond. It meant they would purge or purify all who didn’t meet this white supremacist ideal. I personally am glad America is an open society, which welcomes all kinds of art and artists. When we think of the journey of the Holy Family, they made an arduous trip to Bethlehem while Mary was about to give birth and then had to head out on the lam because king Herod was out to kill all the boy babies. When we look at beautiful nativity scenes, we forget Jesus was born into a troubled world. Indeed, these beautiful works make us forget our own troubles.

Sandro Botticelli, Mystical Nativity, 1501. Tempera on canvas, 108.5 × 75 cm. London: National Gallery.

One of the most unusual nativity paintings is the Mystical Nativity by Botticelli. Painted with egg tempera on canvas, the artist writes in the upper section how he painted this “at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy…in the half after the time, during the fulfillment of the eleventh chapter of St. John in the second woe of the apocalypse…”

The monk Savonarola was actively preaching at this time, and scholars believe he influenced Botticelli. During the time of the Medici rule, Florence prospered with trade and the city’s alliance with France made for a time of peace. Lorenzo d’Medici died in 1492, relations with France broke off, and the French army ran amuck in the Italian countryside. Florence lost her former glory, trade dried up, and a political vacuum allowed for new voices to rise. Savonarola preached repentance and austerity, even going so far to burn luxurious items and artworks. He burned all kinds of vanities: cosmetics, mirrors, veils, and books.

People followed him because he was charismatic, and his words seemed to match their circumstances. Florence under his rule was an example of theocracy, the government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. Under this system, the people prosper if they care for one another and live godly lives, but they fail to thrive if they cheat the poor so the rich can live in luxury.

Prosperity religion teaches the good thrive and the sinners suffer. It’s not a new idea: retribution and reward appeal to people, but sometimes the good suffer and the evil prosper. The book of Job is a counter argument to this worldview. The life of Christ also shows the best of us will be sacrificed on a cross by those who don’t know what they’re doing. From birth to death, Jesus and his family were under duress from the powers of state and religion. He was a new voice of love and acceptance, of grace and forgiveness, of a righteousness by faith, not works. This new voice would upend the world as people knew it then.

Douce Apocalypse – Bodleian Ms180 – p.042 Woman Clothed in the Sun, Oxford University, London, c. 1265-70

The Mystic Nativity is a combination of the Nativity and the Last Judgment. On top, the angels hold hands in a circle, the center is the birth of Christ on earth, and the lower third is the vanquishing devils due to the Christian’s reunification with God. The number twelve represents the twelve gates of the new Jerusalem, the City of God. Twelve are also the number of stars in the crown of the woman in the apocalypse linked to the Virgin Mary. Other symbols also occur, but the overall meaning is Botticelli painted to deal with his fears about the end of the world.

Sometimes we make a cursory glance or reading of a painting, only to see its surface meaning. If we were to take this path with Botticelli’s Mystical Nativity, we might only see pretty angels and lovely ribbons. It looks like a homecoming at a sorority weekend with all the hugging and kissing. But Botticelli was painting during a time when the theological ideas of the monk Savonarola were in ascendance. He believed, “The more creatures approach and participate in the beauty of God, the more are they themselves beautiful, just as the beauty of the body is in proportion to the beauty of the soul.”

Virtuvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, 1490, pen, brown ink, and watercolor on paper, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, Italy.

As an interesting aside, about contemporary with Botticelli’s work in Florence, while Leonardo da Vinci was in Milan in 1490, he drew his Virtuvian Man, considered one of the greatest scientific and humanist works of the early Renaissance. Da Vinci used Vitruvius’ classical treatise on architecture as the source for his drawing. Notes from his translation are written in his famed mirror script below the image. This artwork is now so fragile, it never travels and only copies are shown.

While his outer world may be falling apart, and prosperity has left his vicinity, Botticelli still had hope for a better world. His faith was grounded in the birth of the savior, the son of God, who came in flesh to make all flesh divine. We forget this crucial message of the nativity, which is to make holy all flesh. More often we focus on the magi’s gifts brought to the child: riches fit for a king, or the gifts of presence, from the poor shepherds. The true gift is the one in the manger, for Christ is God’s gift to us. He came to make us all At-One with God, the very best atonement possible. At the Last Judgment, all who are at one with God’s purposes will be separated from the rest.

Banksy, “The Scar of Bethlehem” (2019) (courtesy Bisher Qassis), located in The Walled in Hotel in Bethlehem, closed since 12/12/23, due to fighting against Hamas

How can we practice seeing past the surface of everyday life? Sometimes we have to be shocked. Modern nativities bring us again and again to confront the same world of challenges and discord into which the young Christ child was born. If we wrap ourselves in warm swaddling clothes so we too won’t cry over the lack of a Christmas in Bethlehem this year, we lose sight of the common humanity of all God’s people. The extremists will take retribution on everyone, but those who take the middle path punish only those who did wrongs. Is there hope for those who take the “my way or the highway?” Or do we need to join the Holy Family and become refugees to avoid King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents?

This 2020 nativity was created as a public art project by ceramics students in Castelli, Abruzzo, Italy, a region known for its ceramics. It had nineteen figures including an astronaut and a Darth Vader figure, whose creation predated the Star-Wars series and represented a generic “sinner” figure. In modern nativity scenes, artists often integrate characters not mentioned in the gospel accounts, in order to bring the interests of contemporary audiences into the biblical story. As you can imagine, it created quite a buzz. Some said it lacked “beauty,” while others thought it was a joke. Some thought it disrespectful to the honor of the Holy See, the Church, and to the good Lord himself. It’s a truism “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Also, “we’ve never done it that way” still has a strong hold on people’s hearts and minds.

Sinner and Astronaut: Large Ceramic Nativity at the Vatican, 2020

Seeing deeper meanings in art or scripture is no more complicated than seeing a deeper understanding of a literary experience, such as a book or poem. In art, we do have the hurdle of acquiring some visual background and “visual language.” Just as we can’t understand a foreign language without learning some phrases, we need to know some art history and styles. We can only understand in part at first, but later we’ll understand as if we were old friends. No one is a savant right away. If we pause as we read a scripture, let the words sink into our deeper minds, and let the Holy Spirit open up new insights into God’s word, we can do the same with art works.

After all, bread is just bread: ordinary flour, yeast, oil, and water. Once we bless the bread and invite the Holy Spirit to transform it, we understand these same ordinary materials to be signs of the extraordinary presence of the Body of Christ, as recorded in Luke 22:19 at the Last Supper—

Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

We’re always surrounded by the mysteries of hidden meanings, if only we have eyes to see and ears to hear. May you know God more deeply in the days and years to come.

The Christ Child in the Rubble, Nativity in Bethlehem, Palestine, West Bank, 2023

Joy and peace,

Cornelia.

Featured image—Nativity, 3rd century. Stucco, Rome: catacombs of Priscilla.

Category: Sarcophagus of Stilicho in Sant’Ambrogio (Milan) – Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sarcophagus_of_Stilicho_in_Sant%27Ambrogio_(Milan)

Duccio, The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, 1308-1311
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/duccio-the-nativity-with-the-prophets-isaiah-and-ezekiel.html

Botticelli’s’ Mystic Nativity: Symbolism, Savonarola and a Reflection of an Era | Renee Farina – Academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/1262474/Botticellis_Mystic_Nativity_Symbolism_Savonarola_and_a_Reflection_of_an_Era

Leveto, Paula D. “The Marian Theme of the Frescoes in S. Maria at Castelseprio.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 72, no. 3, 1990, pp. 393–413. JSTOR. Free account to access. https://doi.org/10.2307/3045748. Accessed 24 Dec. 2023.

Katarína Šimová: The Fresco Cycle of Santa Maria foris portas, MASARYK UNIVERSITY! FACULTY OF ARTS, DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY, 2021. Open source
https://is.muni.cz/th/ufv2u/castelseprio_frescoes.pdf

Significance of Leonardo da Vinci’s Famous ‘Vitruvian Man’ Drawing
https://mymodernmet.com/leonardo-da-vinci-vitruvian-man/

Baby Jesus Bread Buns · How To Bake A Roll Or Bun · Baking on Cut Out + Keep
https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/baby-jesus-bread-buns

The Adoration of the Magi: Mosaic in S. Maria Maggiore https://www.christianiconography.info/staMariaMaggiore/epiphanyArch.html

The Magi and the Manger: Imaging Christmas in Ancient Art and Ritual – The Yale ISM Review https://www.ismreview.yale.edu/volume-3-1-fall-2016/the-magi-and-the-manger-imaging-christmas-in-ancient-art-and-ritual

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What’s the Point of Suffering?

Nativities Then and Now

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