Art & Theology

Roundup: Free arts festival, “Bloom Before the Lord Forever,” John Hendrix on visual storytelling, and more

July 16, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

EVENT: Art and Wonder Festival, Belmont University, Nashville, September 26, 2026: “The Art & Wonder Festival is a free event at Belmont University showcasing art and music that celebrates the Christian story. Experience live music, film screenings, art exhibitions, hands-on art activities, kids zone, food trucks, and more!”

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SUBSTACK SERIES: “A Vision for Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness” by Wesley Vander Lugt: “As a part of my role directing the Leighton Ford Initiative in Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I am tasked with shepherding a vision for integrating the story of God, the gift of the arts, and their educational and missional impact,” Wesley Vander Lugt writes in this excellent, short four-part series. Using the biblical metanarrative framework of Formation–Deformation–Transformation–Re-formation (or, as some Christians phrase it, Creation–Fall–Redemption–New Creation), he explains how “God’s grace makes it possible to receive the arts as a gift for expressing embodied worship, deepening spiritual formation, reshaping emotions, grasping complex truth, cultivating keystone habits, nurturing community, and effectively contextualizing the gospel.”

Part 1, “The Arts and Formation,” looks at the ways in which God’s work of creation and formation influences our affirmations of art, beauty, materiality, and the human body. Part 2, “The Arts and Deformation,” explores how the deformation of sin and evil impacts human creativity and artistry. Part 3, “The Arts and Transformation,” unpacks the role of the arts in God’s transformative mission to make all things new in Christ by the Spirit. Part 4, “The Arts and Re-formation,” shows how hope and the future of God informs human artistry and creativity.

The arts of all kinds—music, visual art, literature, dance, film, theatre, architecture, and more—are a gift for deepening our engagement with God’s Word, enlivening teaching methods and environments, attuning our imaginations to the ministry of God, forming the whole person toward Christlikeness, preparing students for effective cultural engagement and presence, and strengthening our vision of God’s redemptive work in the past, present, and future.

—Wesley Vander Lugt

Some of the affirmations of the program include:

“We affirm that the materiality and embodied nature of the arts is exceedingly good as an extension of God’s delight in the physical world he made.”
“We affirm the goodness of the human body, established in creation and upheld in Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection, and therefore the place of the naked human figure within artistic tradition and practice when treated with honor and respect.”
“We affirm the ability of the arts to help us grapple with the brokenness of the world and the gravity of sin, and we commit to avoiding the opposite errors of sentimentality and gratuitousness.”
“We affirm the integral role of the arts in the process of education, discipleship, and mission by virtue of the arts’ ability to engage the whole person and the whole church with the whole gospel. As such, we lament that the Church has often viewed the arts as playing a mere decorative or illustrative function.
“We affirm the educational value of the arts while also affirming that the arts should not be reduced to their instructional function. While an artwork can communicate a powerful message, that message often remains allusive and multivalent, and art offers much more than propositional content.”
“We affirm the role of artistic portrayals of God, particularly the Word who became flesh, not as objects of worship as prohibited by the second commandment (Exodus 20:4-6), but as aids for deepening our devotion to the God who is beyond our capacity to imagine.”

I have been a beneficiary of the program, having attended some of its events, and am thrilled to see it growing—they recently announced an online, six-course Graduate Certificate in Theology and the Arts! Vander Lugt’s approach to the arts in seminary education is very well thought-out and executed. For those considering launching an art program at your church or other Christian institution, I encourage you to read these posts that provide justification for such, laying a strong biblical foundation.

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SONGS:

>> “Let It Shine,” performed by Davóne Tines and The Truth: Blending music and testimony, REVIVAL is an interactive concert experience created by the acclaimed bass-baritone Davóne Tines and his ensemble, The Truth, which debuted May 25, 2026, at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. “Centered on themes of memory, community, and spiritual renewal, REVIVAL invited audiences to consider the question, ‘What needs to be revived in us?’ Through music, spoken reflection, and collective participation, the performance drew upon the traditions of the AME Church and the revival service to create a shared experience of contemplation, remembrance, and hope.” “Let It Shine” [previously] was the concluding song—a powerful expression of resilience, faith, and communal witness.

REVIVAL was presented by the Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts in partnership with Spoleto Festival USA.

>> “Bloom Before the Lord Forever” by Conner David McCain, performed by the Choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, dir. Peter Latona: The lyrics of this a cappella choral piece are primarily from the Song of Songs (2:1, 11–13; 4:1). The title line, which appears in the Sanctorale Catholicum (Book of Saints) in reference to Wiborada of St. Gall, echoes the garden imagery of the Song of Songs as well as Psalm 92:12: “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”

I am the flower of the field.
I am the lily of the valley.

For winter is now past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers have appeared in our land,
the time for pruning is come.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one.

Bloom before the Lord forever.

You are beautiful, O my love,
my heart, my lily of the valley.

The composer told me “Bloom Before the Lord Forever” was the first work he completed after the birth of his first child, Lily, in February 2023. The title line, he said, “sums up what I want the piece to be: a prayer that my daughter may bloom before the Lord for all time.” As for the other lines: In the Song of Songs, they are spoken between two lovers, but the church has also long interpreted them as voicing the passionate desire between God and the human soul, or Christ and his church. Knowing that McCain set this poetry to music with his newborn daughter in mind, who shares her name with the flower of lines 2 and 10, I now also hear the piece as an expression of an earthly parent’s love and blessing for their beautiful little girl, wishing her a life of flourishing.

Purchase the score at https://www.connermccain.com/product-page/bloom-before-the-lord-forever.

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LECTURES:

Run by St. Philip the Deacon Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Minnesota, since 2003, “the Faith & Life Lecture Series exists to create welcoming and accessible public forums for members of the Twin Cities community to hear nationally known speakers reflect on how Christian faith is related to different dimensions of everyday life.” The talks—five per year—are always free public events, and most are video-recorded (browse their YouTube page). Here are two from last season that I especially enjoyed and that relate to the work of Art & Theology:

>> “Faith and Imagination: Art for the Soul” by Lanta Davis, October 9, 2025: Lanta Davis [previously] is a professor of humanities and literature at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. Here she discusses ways that historically, Christians have trained their imaginations: (1) merging story and image in designing their spaces (catacombs, house churches, cathedrals, chapels, baptisteries), (2) using art to help us see the stories of scripture as alive and unfolding, and from new perspectives (e.g., Daniel in the lions’ den, Bathsheba at her bath, the near-sacrifice of Isaac, the Annunciation, the Crucifixion), and (3) making abstract theological concepts and virtues, such as hope, visible (e.g., through allegory). The Q&A starts at 52:25.

>> “Faith and Illustration: The Art of Visual Storytelling” by John Hendrix, November 13, 2025: The New York Times best-selling illustrator and author John Hendrix presents an overview of his creative work and the bigger ideas behind it, from the comics and board games he made in high school to his most recent graphic novel, The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. He also shares samples from his children’s books, his client work (for, e.g., National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Christianity Today) and reportage, and his sermon sketchbook—and about being invited by Disney to draw a Star Wars “memory wall” using attendee input at a D23 convention! I enjoyed learning more about what a career in illustration could look like. During the Q&A, which starts at 53:38, Hendrix is asked, among other things, how he knows which ideas are worth investing time in, what he’s currently working on (a project I’m excited about!), and which artists inspire him.

“In the Belly” by Bethany Besteman (poem)

July 11, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Fortt, Annette_Jonah — Annette Fortt (American, 1944–), *Jonah*, 2014. Collagraph print, 16 × 19 in. Edition of 10. [for sale]

Seaweed wrapped and wrangled, nested in fronds
and tangled in stipes, Jonah curled his salt-
soaked spine, fetal in the bloated bonds,
the belly that stretched and stank—assaulting,
contracting, compressing until each rib
en-caged him like fingers, like the hard hand
that grabs the racing child with bruising grip
to pull him back from edges or up and
out of pits, those plunging depths from which we
call. Cradled thus, he waited a wry span
of days and nights during which his only
lullaby was digestion’s gurgle and
his only pillow, a spongy kelp blade.
Ensconced, his vigil swelled as ocean swayed.

This poem, inspired by the collagraph Jonah by Annette Fortt, was originally published in Inkwell, a publication of Christianity Today, on January 20, 2026. Used by permission of the poet.

Rev. Dr. Bethany Besteman is the pastor of worship and discipleship at Silver Spring Christian Reformed Church in Maryland and an editor for ReformedWorship.org. She has a PhD in English language and literature from Catholic University of America. Her poetry has appeared in Ekstasis, Presence, Reformed Journal, and Cable Street.

Contemporary art roundup: Golden Madonna intervention, digitally printed glass, artists discuss sacred commissions, and more

July 6, 2026July 9, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

EXHIBITION: Living by the Rule: Contemporary Meets Medieval, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, May 16–October 4, 2026: Curated by Jessica Barker and Ed Krčma, Living by the Rule puts objects from medieval Benedictine monastic contexts into dialogue with contemporary artworks, creating a reciprocity and generating reflection on the rules we live by today—how we structure our everyday lives. For example, a set of mazers (drinking vessels used by monks) from Canterbury is juxtaposed with Andrea Büttner’s Table woodcut and an apartheid-era drawing of a Seder by the Jewish South African artist Vivienne Koorland. Three tapestries from Susan Morris’s SunDial:NightWatch series, recording the amount of ambient light the artist was exposed to during the years 2010, 2011, and 2012, are displayed alongside the San Zeno Wheel, a rare manuscript volvelle (a timekeeping device with movable, rotating discs) from ca. 1455 Verona, Italy (view photos here).

Danh Vo_Untitled (Crucifix) — An untitled 2020 crucifix by Danh Vo—a bronze cast of a sixteenth-century Spanish corpus of Christ, decorated with pampas grass—hangs at the entrance to the exhibition *Living by the Rule: Contemporary Meets Medieval* at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, England.

The accompanying catalog will be published in the US in September. Here’s the press release.

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ARTWORKS:

>> Golden Madonna, with heads by Walter Moroder: Last fall when I was in Germany, I took a day trip from Hanover to the city of Hildesheim (just a half hour south by train)—I wanted to see the fabulously painted ceiling of St. Michael’s Church, as well as the bronze Bernward Doors at St. Mary’s Cathedral. Well, the cathedral was closed for a funeral when I arrived, so while I waited for it to reopen, I spent time in the adjacent Dommuseum (Cathedral Museum) Hildesheim. There I saw this unusual-looking Virgin and Child sculpture, whose gold-plated limewood core looked medieval to me, but whose heads, also wooden, looked contemporary. The plaque underneath confirmed my suspicions, giving a date of 1010–15, “with heads by Walter Moroder, 2013.”

Showing Mary enthroned with her son Jesus, the Golden Madonna of Hildesheim is one of the most important works of Ottonian art and, at over a thousand years old, is among the oldest three-dimensional sculptures in the medieval Latin West. It was probably commissioned by St. Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim from 993 to 1022. It stood on the high altar of Hildesheim Cathedral from at least the thirteenth century onward and was often carried in procession.

Its heavy liturgical usage led to the original heads, Mary’s left hand, and both the Christ child’s hands breaking off and becoming lost. The twentieth century saw a succession of restored heads, but the sculpture was exhibited more often without them, until recently. To commemorate a major interior redesign, the Dommuseum commissioned the contemporary South Tyrolean artist Walter Moroder to make new heads; he completed them in 2013, and they were attached in 2014. Moroder’s additions are not restoration-style but markedly contemporary, creating a compelling fusion of old and new while still honoring the sacred and historical significance of the object.

To learn more about this and other works in the cathedral museum, see the free e-book Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim.

>> Vitrail des cent visages (Stained Glass Window of 100 Faces) by Véronique Ellena and Pierre-Alain Parot: To commemorate the millennium of the 1015 founding of Strasbourg Cathedral, the French state commissioned a contemporary stained glass window to be installed in two unadorned bays in the cathedral’s Saint Catherine Chapel. The commission was awarded to the artist Véronique Ellena, who works mainly in photography, and the master glassmaker Pierre Alain Parot; the two worked together on a design, which was executed by GLASSOLUTIONS Saint-Gobain, who used their advanced Dip-Tech digital ceramic in-glass printer to reproduce photographs on glass—a groundbreaking technique. Parot then applied a blown glass second skin over the printed imagery.

Installed in September 2015, the window features a half-length image of Christ, based on the early Netherlandish painting Christ Blessing by Hans Memling, but with the face made up of 150-some faces of everyday people who have come to the cathedral, photographed by Ellena. This photomontage approach to imaging Christ—constituting his visage with those of diverse others—is profound, inviting connections to theological anthropology (humans being created in the imago Dei), the incarnation (God assuming our flesh), and ecclesiology (the church as the “body of Christ”).

Strasbourg Cathedral stained glass — Véronique Ellena and Pierre-Alain Parot, *Stained Glass Window of 100 Faces*, 2015. Digitally printed glass, manufactured by GLASSOLUTIONS Saint-Gobain, height 7.8 m. Saint Catherine Chapel, Strasbourg Cathedral, Alsace, France.

Ellena also used photomontage to depict the natural world in the left bay—rivers, fields, forests, mountains, and sky, along with various flora and fauna. She may have drawn inspiration from an address St. Catherine of Alexandria (the chapel’s namesake) gave before Emperor Maxentius in the early fourth century, shortly before being martyred:

You admire this temple wrought by the hands of artisans; you admire its precious adornments which will be as dust before the face of the wind. You ought rather to wonder at the heavens and the earth, the land and the sea, and all the things that are in them; to wonder at the ornaments of the heavens, namely the sun and the moon and the stars, and at their servitude, whereby from the beginning of the world to the end thereof they run to the west and return to the east, night and day, and are never wearied. And when you have taken notice of these things, ask and learn who is more powerful than they! And when, by His own gift, you shall have come to know Him, . . . adore Him and glorify Him, for He is the God of gods and Lord of lords!

Ellena’s goal with the window, she said, was to convey “the beauty and diversity of the world.” View additional photos on her website, and on the blog of Jean-Yves Cordier. For making-of photos, see the website of the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller, who awarded the window a prize in 2016.

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VIDEO SERIES: Contemporary Artists and the Sacred Space: Conversations in London, presented by the Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts and Art + Christianity: I really enjoyed this four-part series of in-depth, on-site video interviews with artists Shirazeh Houshiary (her East Window at St Martin-in-the-Fields is phenomenal!), Christopher Le Brun, Graeme Mortimer Evelyn, and Victoria Rance, each focused on a single work of art commissioned from the artist for a place of worship in London. “The series explores the conception, process, and realization of each artwork, attending to the distinctive challenges and possibilities of creating art for sacred spaces. The interviews offer rare insight into this collaborative endeavor, revealing the artists’ practices alongside their reflections on the spiritual and religious dimensions of their work.” Here’s the trailer:

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PODCAST EPISODE: “The Art of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral,” Exhibiting Faith: Host David Trigg and guest Laura Moffatt, director of Art + Christianity, explore a selection of modern and contemporary artworks displayed in Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral. (Links to the works discussed are at the bottom of the show notes.) Besides its several wonderful permanent installations, since 1999, Liverpool Cathedral has partnered with the Liverpool Biennial—the UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art—to host temporary installations, which last year comprised a monumental crocheted hanging by Maria Loizidou featuring migratory birds native to the Merseyside area, and a series of “glass collages” in the Lady Chapel by Ana Navas.

Frink, Elisabeth_The Welcoming Christ — Elisabeth Frink (British, 1930–1993), *The Welcoming Christ*, 1993. Bronze, height 5 m. Above the west doors of Liverpool Cathedral.

Maria Loizidou (Cypriot, 1958–), Where Am I Now?, 2025. Double-sided handwoven inox mesh, aluminum sheets, 1000 × 400 cm. Installation at the Liverpool Biennial 2025, Liverpool Cathedral.

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Because we’ve entered a new month, that means a new playlist! Here’s my thirty-song compilation for July:

The low door to heaven

June 26, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Mesa-Pelly, Deborah_Rosy — Deborah Mesa-Pelly (Cuban American, 1968–), *Rosy*, 1999. Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum, 30 × 40 in. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. [view artist’s website]

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, 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 18:1–4 (cf. Mark 9:33–37; 10:13–16; Luke 9:46–48)

The Architect of Love has built the door into heaven so low that no one but a small child can pass through it, unless, to get down to a child’s little height, they go in on their knees.

—Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

You must become a child or you will never go
Where all God’s children are: the door is much too low.

—Angelus Silesius, Sacred Epigrams from the Cherubinic Pilgrim, trans. Anthony Mortimer

I saw the above photograph on display several years ago at the National Museum of Women in the Arts and was captivated. The artist, Deborah Mesa-Pelly, regularly features female subjects in her work, often on the verge of marvelous adventure. In Rosy, a girl breaks through a papered wall, entering another world on hands and knees.

The image of this child-size portal leading from a dark, dusty room into a bright and verdant landscape reminds me of Jesus’s teaching that we must receive the kingdom of heaven like little children. What is it about little ones that makes God more accessible to them? What quality or qualities of children ought we to emulate?

Matthew specifically names their humility, by which he may mean their lack of pretension or worldly ambition, their dependance and trust, and/or their openness and teachability (different from naivete). Children tend to be curious, exploratory, full of wonder, energetic, honest, and unselfconscious. These are all traits I want to embody in my life of faith as I press through walls to discover more and more of the “life more abundant” that Jesus offers.

Roundup: Middle English summer song, Chasing Wonder Bingo, babies added to male statues, and more

June 21, 2026June 22, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

ONLINE COURSE: The Christian Imagination with Dr. Mary McCampbell, July 9–August 22, 2026: Mary McCampbell is an independent scholar of the humanities with over twenty years’ teaching experience in higher education. Starting next month, she’s offering an online course on the Christian imagination for $100 (fee paid through Venmo). Classes will take place Thursdays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. ET and will be recorded for those who can’t attend live.

“In this interdisciplinary class, we will read fiction and poetry, listen to music, and look at visual art that encourages us to recognize the mystery of God and the paradoxical nature of the human condition. We will also read essays from artists and scholars to discuss what it means for the artist of faith to create meaningful things for which faith is, as O’Connor notes, ‘the light by which I see.’ Last of all, we will address why every Christian needs to value the imagination and what this might look like in practice.” Graham Greene, Flannery O’Connor, T. S. Eliot, Leif Enger, Sho Baraka, C. S. Lewis, Christian Wiman, and Frederick Douglass are among the artists and thinkers whom participants will engage.

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ARTICLE: “Male Statues Are Transformed into Fathers Carrying Their Babies,” My Modern Met: On November 19, 2024, International Men’s Day, fathers around Sweden went out and adorned male statues with baby slings, carriers, and dolls as part of the #Kvantitetstidspappan (Quantity Time Dad) campaign conceived by the think tank Arena Idé. Its purpose was to challenge societal assumptions that women ought to be the primary caregivers to their children rather than sharing that responsibility equally with their male partner.

Dad statues — Photo compilation courtesy of @kickanwicksell

I believe that when it comes to work and childcare, families should do whatever works best for them but that both parents should be actively involved in their child’s upbringing and that fathers ought not to neglect the importance of bonding with their child beginning in early infancy.

Think of how many sculptures you’ve seen of a woman holding a baby. Now think of how many you’ve seen of a man holding a baby. That disparity shapes our imaginations and expectations.

That’s why the #Kvantitetstidspappan campaign was, in my estimation, a great success. By projecting images of men as active parents—models of fatherly engagement—it makes fatherhood more visible, normalizes paternal involvement in infant care and development, and hopefully encourages dads to spend more time at home with their kids.

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SONGS: Happy first day of summer!

>> “Sumer is icumen in” (Summer Is Come): “Sumer is icumen in,” also known as the Cuckoo Song or the Summer Song, is a medieval vocal composition written, most likely, by a monk in or around Reading, England, in the mid-thirteenth century, its (Middle English) lyrics and musical notation preserved in a manuscript at the British Library. The song celebrates the arrival of summer, with all its fecundity and animal movement. It’s the oldest known composition featuring six-part polyphony and, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest recorded instance of the impolite verb “to fart”: “Bulluc sterteth, / Bucke verteth” (Bull leaps, buck farts)! (The translation of the latter line is, however, debated, with some scholars favoring “cavorts.”)

Here’s a wonderful solo rendition by the Burundian British musician Muco (IG @bookofvoices), with self-accompaniment on the inanga, a traditional zither from Burundi and Rwanda. Muco’s work “combine[s] lyrics and influences from Old, Middle, and Modern English, as well as French, Swahili, and Kirundi, reflecting his deep interest in the interconnection of folk traditions across cultures.” (Thanks, Instagram algorithm, for introducing me to Muco!)

See also Elizabeth Mitchell’s rendition, sung in modern English, from her 2012 album Blue Clouds. But for the full effect, performing the six-part round, here’s the Exeter University Madrigals:

>> “Geh aus mein Herz und suche Freud” (Go Forth, My Heart, This Summer Day): “Go forth, my heart, this summer day / Go forth and seek your joyful way / With thanks for all these pleasures!” So opens this seventeenth-century German hymn by Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676), set to music by August Harder (1775–1813) and translated into English by Gracia Grindal (1943–). (See also an earlier translation by Catherine Winkworth.)

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PRINTABLE: Chasing Wonder: Photo Bingo Challenge: New from SALT: “Chasing Wonder: Photo Bingo Challenge is a simple, engaging way for families or congregations to slow down, notice the world around them, and reflect on God’s beauty, joy, justice, hope, humor, and inspiration all around. Participants take original photos inspired by the bingo prompts”—such as “something broken,” “something blue,” “water,” “something that makes you laugh”—“and mark off squares as they go.”

It’s $15 to print the bingo board for individuals, families, or congregations. I love this idea!

Juneteenth roundup: “Joy” by Raye, flower-festooned carriages, “Requiem for Colour,” and more

June 16, 2026June 16, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Juneteenth (June 19) is a holiday that celebrates the end of race-based chattel slavery in the United States. It rejoices in the expansion of freedom, but it also reckons with the shadow of freedoms still denied. It is thus both backward- and forward-looking. (For more on the holiday, see the article that historian Jemar Tisby published this morning: “Juneteenth Is the Counter-Narrative to America 250.”) Below are a few artistic pieces that speak to the themes of Juneteenth.

ARTWORKS: From my two most recent visits to New York City.

>> The Floating World: Lotus (125th) by Sanford Biggers: Lotus (125th) is part of the 2013 Floating World series by the multidisciplinary artist Sanford Biggers, employing paper collage, stencils, screenprint, and spray paint to construct layered compositions that blend Japanese aesthetics with African American history. “Floating world” translates the Japanese term ukiyo-e, referring to Edo-era woodblock prints, and “125th” likely refers to the main street in Harlem. The work features a mandala-like lotus flower whose petals are eighteenth-century diagrams showing enslaved humans tightly packed into the cargo hold of a ship. What looks pleasing from a distance is, on closer inspection, horrifying.

Biggers, Sanford_The Floating World: Lotus (125th) — Sanford Biggers (American, 1970–), *The Floating World: Lotus (125th)*, 2013. Screenprint and collage, image: 27 15/16 × 26 3/8 in. (71 × 67 cm), sheet (irregular): 27 15/16 × 26 3/8 in. (71 × 67 cm). Edition 1/30. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, New York Public Library. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]

Biggers, Sanford_The Floating World: Lotus (125th) (detail)

Biggers lived in Japan for three years in the 1990s, where he became greatly influenced by Zen Buddhism. In Buddhism, the lotus is associated with awakening, purity, transcendence. The slave-ship-lotus is a motif the artist has used in other works—see, e.g., here and here—and I’m not exactly sure what to make of it. Is it about how the pain, trauma, and destruction wrought by slavery can be transmuted into enlightenment, progress? Or is the disjunction between beautiful flower and ugly abuse meant to be ironic, perhaps a statement about how we tend to palliate the vile parts of American history?

>> Contending with Contingency I by Kenturah Davis: Kenturah Davis is a multidisciplinary artist working between Los Angeles and Accra. Oscillating between facets of portraiture and design, her work explores the fundamental role language has in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world. Contending with Contingency I is the first work in a series engaging the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which abolished slavery, with one exception: Those convicted of a crime can be subjected to forced labor. The amendment was a milestone, but the punishment clause creates a contingency under which slavery can remain legal. (Ava DuVernay’s illuminating documentary 13th, on Netflix, examines how this loophole has and continues to be exploited to disproportionately incarcerate Black people.)

Davis, Kenturah_Contending with Contingency I — Kenturah Davis (American, 1984–), *Contending with Contingency I*, 2021. Carbon pencil, pencil, and blind debossing on nine sheets of paper, 132 × 81 in. (335.3 × 205.7 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]

Davis, Kenturah_Contending with Contingency I (detail)

The eight pieces in Davis’s Contending with Contingency series depict a Black woman dancing over transcripts of the 1864–65 congressional debates regarding the language and provisions of the Thirteenth Amendment, and whether to pass it. Here’s an excerpt, for example, of the opinion given by Senator Lazarus Powell from Kentucky:

I do not believe it was ever designed by the founders of our Government that the Constitution of the United States should be so amended as to destroy property. I do not believe it is the province of the Federal Government to say what is or what is not property. . . . You seem to care for nothing but the negro. . . . You seem to be inspired by no other wish than to elevate the negro to equality and give him liberty. . . . I believe this government was made by white men and for white men; and if it is ever preserved it must be preserved by white men.

“The structures that shape our experience in the world extend from the ways we use language,” Davis says. “The implications of this language are activated through our bodies.” The legislators’ oppositional words, and the legacy they reflect and perpetuate, impede the free movement of the dancing figure—but she appears to be pushing past the obstacles, resisting dissent, claiming her right to liberty. I read the work, especially in light of the whole series, as ultimately emancipatory.

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SONGS:

Here are two songs I’ve added to my Juneteenth Playlist.

>> “Joy” by Raye, Mike Sabath, Tom Richards, Amma, and Absolutely: This song appears on the second studio album of the British pop sensation Raye (the stage name of Rachel Agatha Keen), This Music May Contain Hope, released in March. It’s based on Psalm 30:5: “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Here’s Raye singing it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with her sisters Amma and Absolutely. (A worship song on late-night TV!) See also the recent cover by the Good Shepherd Collective.

>> “Someday We’ll All Be Free” by Donny Hathaway and Edward Howard, performed by the Good Shepherd Collective: In 1973, the American soul singer Donny Hathaway wrote the melody to this classic, and his friend Edward Howard wrote the lyrics. Howard said he intended it as an encouragement to Hathaway, who was struggling with paranoid schizophrenia; but it has since become an anthem of Black American civil rights. It’s sung here by Charles Jones for a Good Shepherd New York digital worship service.

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COMPILATION: “Early Photographs of Juneteenth Celebrations,” Public Domain Review: Many of the photographs that survive from turn-of-the-century Juneteenth celebrations in Texas depict elegantly dressed groups in horse-drawn carriages elaborately decorated with flowers down to the wheels.

Juneteenth carriage — Martha Yates Jones (left) and Pinkie Yates (right), daughters of Rev. Jack Yates, park their decorated carriage in front of Antioch Baptist Church in Houston’s Fourth Ward on June 19, 1908. Photo courtesy of the Houston Public Library Digital Archives.

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POEM: “Gospel” by Rita Dove: This poem is from Rita Dove’s Pulitzer Prize–winning collection Thomas and Beulah (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1986), based on the lives of her maternal grandparents, who moved from Tennessee and Georgia to Akron, Ohio, during the Great Migration. Opening with the instantly recognizable phrase “Swing low” from the African American spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” it describes her grandparents’ Black church congregation as “a humming ship of voices / big with all / the wrongs done / done them,” but that “ride[s] joy.” Hymns, gospel songs, and spirituals have had a formative influence on Dove, a member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church, as they did too for her predecessors, lifting them out of the miseries inflicted on them by Jim Crow America and into heaven, a place of wholeness, affirmation, and triumph, where racism and lynch mobs can’t touch.

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CHORAL-ORCHESTRAL WORK: Requiem for Colour: A Journey through Lament and Joy by Jeffrey L. Ames: Composed by Dr. Jeffery Ames, Requiem for Colour (2022) is a thirteen-movement work for SATB choir, soprano, tenor, orator, rapper, orchestra, and African percussion that adapts the form of the Requiem Mass, traditionally offered for the repose of the souls of the deceased, to tell a story of Black enslavement and liberation. Gentry Publications, who publishes the score, provides this description:

Requiem for Colour by Jeffery L. Ames is a powerful choral and orchestral work that honors the lives and legacies of enslaved Blacks from 1619 to 1865 and contemporary Black martyrs who sacrificed for equality and freedom. This masterwork skillfully blends idiomatic Black musical genres with Western European composition styles, creating a unique and profound musical journey. The requiem traces the Black experience from West Africa, through the Middle Passage, slavery, and sharecropping in the South, to the Civil Rights Movement and today’s ongoing fight against racism and injustice. The libretto incorporates narratives from enslaved people, sharecroppers, and contemporary activists, offering an aesthetic experience that both commemorates and challenges. This deeply moving work is a testament to the resilience and complexity of Black American history.

The finale, “Celebration Omega: Heaven,” is explosive! View the full score.

In this February 5, 2025, performance at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Belmont University in Nashville, Ames conducts the Belmont University Oratorio Chorus and Orchestra, comprising over 450 students. The performance features soprano NaGuanda Nobles, tenor Rodrick Dixon, and orators Jasmine Simmons and Elliott Robinson, plus a lyrical rap by the composer’s daughter, Lydia Ames. The concert and its recording—which aired June 18, 2025, on WNPT, Nashville’s PBS station—were made possible by a grant from the Creative Arts Collective.

Joy, Faith, and Strength in the Mixed-Media Art of Missionary Mary Proctor

June 9, 2026June 10, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

All photos in this article are my own.

The American Visionary Art Museum, located right off Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, is midway through its two-year exhibition The Strength to Be Joyful: Messages from Mary Proctor. Exuberant, colorful, and eclectic, the paintings on display, many of them collaged with buttons, cloth, and found objects, are filled with stories from Proctor’s life, lessons taught to her by her grandmother, and prayers and scripture. Her work celebrates faith, love, friendship, creativity, and self-worth.

Exhibition view, The Strength to Be Joyful

Mary Louise Proctor (née Cooksey) was born June 11, 1960, in Lloyd, Florida, a small town in Jefferson County, about twenty miles east of Tallahassee. Her mother Paulina gave birth to her at a young age, and she was raised by her maternal grandparents, Frank and Hattie Cooksey. She had an especially close bond with her grandmother, who formed her in the Christian faith and whom she describes as tender, wise, and forgiving.

One particular episode she recalls from her childhood is accidentally breaking a stack of her grandmother’s Blue Willow plates while reaching for a teacake. “I thought she would whip me,” Proctor recounted in paint in 1997. “Instead she held my hands and said, ‘I forgive you cause just yesterday God forgave me.’ And she said one must forgive to be forgiven.” The door painting Story of Grandma’s Old Blue Willow Plates portrays Proctor’s grandma reaching out to her as a child to remove her shame and console her, assuring her of her unconditional love. The clothing of the two figures is rendered in shards of the broken chinoiserie dishware, veined with gold paint, kintsugi-like—a metaphor for repair. Centered at the top of the door, round and gleaming like a sun or a halo, is an intact plate. Below it two angels—one Black, one white—resembling the plate’s turtledoves, swoop in and support the title Proctor has given this sacred memory.

Grandma's Old Blue Willow Plates — Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *Story of Grandma’s Old Blue Willow Plates*, 1997. House paint, acrylic, liquid nails, Blue Willow plates, and hot glue on door. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

My Grandma's Old Blue Willow — Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *My Grandma’s Old Blue Willow*, 2004. Acrylic, spray paint, cut paper, cut metal, liquid nails, Blue Willow plates, and hot glue on window. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

Memories of her grandma, and her grandma’s wisdom sayings, feature in much of Proctor’s work. One painting enumerates eleven “things my old grandmoma told me yesterday [that] holds me today,” such as “Tell you bussiness to God” and “Every body that smile in your face ain’t your friend.” One proverb her grandma would regularly recite is “You can take a mule to the water but you can’t make the sucker drink,” teaching her that we can offer help to other people but ultimately can’t control their choices.

Proctor dropped out of school in ninth grade and, after escaping an abusive relationship, married Tyrone Proctor in 1980. She worked as a nurse’s aide until a nerve injury made the job unfeasible, at which point she pivoted to collecting and selling miscellaneous objects for a living.

In January 1994, tragedy struck when Proctor’s grandmother, aunt, and uncle died in a house fire. Proctor was traumatized by seeing the charred bodies removed from the wreckage, and she sunk into a depression. She wrestled with God and even considered suicide.

“The most beautiful personality you ever seen was my grandma. She loved everybody,” Proctor tells. “And I was like, what happened to my grandmother? I mean, why, Lord, why did you allow her to go? That’s my best friend. I was wondering why such a woman had to go like that. Why did it happen?”

While she didn’t receive an answer to that question, she did receive a new direction for her life. In February 1995, while praying and fasting, God spoke to her, telling her to “paint the door.” Not quite sure what he meant, she grabbed three detached doors that she had in her yard and painted the likenesses of her family members on them. This was the beginning of her healing process and her career as a folk artist.

Proctor was already used to salvaging things, from dumpsters and roadsides, that others deemed trash, and making good purchases at flea markets. Now instead of cleaning them up to sell or resell in their current forms, she found uses for them in her art making, and started saving other discarded items as well. Buttons, beads, shells, nails, coins, mirrors, sticks, Spanish moss, coffee cans, toys, shoes, pails, patches of cloth—any of these are worthy art materials for her, along with her go-to house paint. With them, she embellishes doors of all sizes and other types of discarded wood, which she’ll often cut into shapes that suit her.

For her, the reclamation of cast-off things reflects God’s redeeming work in our own lives—how he rescues, restores, mends. This work of mending was also modeled by her grandma, who, rather than throwing out old clothes with missing buttons or tears, would lovingly fix them up. “When I was a child,” Proctor reminisces, “my grandma would keep all her old button[s] in a jar. She would keep em there to mend our cloth. When one fell of[f] she would mend on another. Now we all need to be mended like Gram mend them old button[s]. Mend us all, Lord. Mend us all.” Two doors tell this story, showing Gram handing a young Proctor a mended garment or a jar of buttons, the two figures themselves constituted of buttons. In the wispy blue background, angels shower yellow flower petals over the scene, a rain of mercy.

Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *Mend Us All*, 2003. Acrylic, liquid nails, spray paint, house paint, buttons, and hot glue on door. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

The Story of Grandma Old Buttons — Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *The Story of Grandma’s Old Buttons*, n.d. House paint, acrylic, buttons, liquid nails, mason jar, and hot glue on door. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

The Story of Grandma Old Buttons (detail)

Black women are Proctor’s most frequently depicted subject, whether herself, specific relatives, or more generic women. Her most iconic image type, which exists in many variations, is of a Black woman looking and reaching up, signifying trust in God. For these, she often cuts her substrate into a narrow vertical orientation, emphasizing the seeking of things above, a stretching toward the heavens. Her husband calls her paintings in this format “slims.” Two such slims counsel women to walk by faith, per 2 Corinthians 5:7, and to practice self-love.

Another, much larger slim, approximately life-size, insists on the salubrious impact of art making. “Creation heals the body, mind, and soul,” it reads. “Every day I look up and pray and say, ‘Lord, what can I create today to show a little sunshine, a little hope, a little mercy, a little joy, a little grace.’ In these dark times as these, let this little light shine”—the latter phrase a reference to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (see Matt. 5:14–16). Lit by the Spirit, by whose power she shares the gospel, Proctor prays that her art will benefit not only herself but all those who encounter it.

When she makes art, she says, she feels free, like a butterfly.

It’s a feeling that’s well captured in It’s a Woman’s World, an unironically titled painting that revels in the abundant life Jesus came to give both sexes (John 10:10), all us descendants of Adam and Eve. The painting shows four Black women in beaded jumpers leaping impossibly wide in the air, their arms outstretched, hearts floating.

In the article “From Zora Neale to Missionary Mary: Womanist Aesthetics of Faith and Freedom,”Ada C. M. Thomas identifies the womanist (Black feminist) theology expressed in Proctor’s art, which “celebrates Black women as bold, audacious, and determined to embrace their lived experiences”; her figures “embody a prideful yet humbled aesthetic. They are self-possessed and possessed by an intimate, activist faith. The women’s eyes are frequently cast upwards in hopefulness and anticipation.”

Indeed, Proctor considers it part of her mission “to get a message out to broken womens [sic], a message to help and glorify them,” she says. “I’m going to get a message out so men can search their hearts, learn to respect us and treat us the right way.”

She believes everyone is a child of God, and she wants her art to connect people to the hope, peace, joy, and love that’s accessible through him. She calls herself a missionary, often using that title in signatures of her name. “The Lord spoke, and he said, ‘You are on a mission to get a great message out into the houses and hearts,’” she testifies.

In Look and See the Angel Is You, by using a mirror as the face of the holy figure, Proctor preaches the imago Dei (image of God) in every person, encouraging viewers to recognize their inherent dignity and worth, imbued in them by their Creator.

In Every Child Was Born to Rise Up and Be Creative, she echoes the cultural mandate God gave to humans in the garden of Eden: to develop and rearrange the raw materials of creation for the flourishing of all. While not everyone is called to be an artist, we are all called to create.

We ought also to cultivate our own selves. Proctor often uses the metaphor—popular in the Middle Ages—of the soul as a garden in which we grow “flowers” of virtue. For example, a series of wood cutouts portrays women holding pails, with signs like “Let love live in my garden” and “Let grace live in my garden.” Another declares and beseeches, “I refuse to let hate live in my garden. Love, help me grow.”

Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *I Refuse to Let the Hate Live in My Garden*, 2022. Acrylic on cut wood. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

Besides vows and petitions, Proctor’s art also contains testimonies. In the Black church, testifying is a sacred tradition of sharing personal stories of survival, deliverance, and praise. Encouragement is a key component. One of Proctor’s painted testimonies reads, “It may seem dark at times, yet I hold on, I know the sun will shine.” She knows God will never forsake her, though he may occasionally seem absent.

Other paintings by Proctor mark milestones in her spiritual journey, such as her baptism in Lloyd Creek in 1975 at age fifteen. One such painting references the African American spiritual “Down by the Riverside,” its refrain about relinquishing hatred and violence—“Ain’t gonna study war no more”—taken from Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3. Members of her Missionary Baptist church community gather round, dressed in white and golden robes. At the bottom center, two elders raise up Proctor’s arms as she emerges from the baptismal waters, cleansed and reborn.

Several pieces highlight Proctor’s whimsical sense of humor. It Ain’t Over Till the Fat Lady Sings God Bless America, a patriotic adaptation of a well-worn idiom, made me laugh. So did the adjacent painting, The Story of the Two Maxwell House Friends Mrs. Lilly and Mrs. Dilly, married to Willie and Billy; the women, Proctor narrates, would meet in Philly, get chilly (and so sip their coffee), and giggle about matters silly. Proctor affixed two teacups to the wood, giving the work three-dimensionality.

A sense of delight infuses Proctor’s art. She’s attuned to the beauty of the ordinary, the sacramentality of the everyday. She identifies a spirit of joy and gratitude even in animal life. “Every day I pass the cows,” she writes in one painting. “In the sunshine or rain the cows dance. If the cows can dance in green pastures why can’t we?” Speckled and smiling, her cows bear signs that say “Enjoy life,” “Be content,” “It’s going to be fine.” Cattle are among those named as being part of the cosmic choir of creation in Psalm 148, praising the Lord—Proctor goes even further and imagines them dancing.

If Cows Can Dance in Green Pastures — Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *If the Cows Can Dance in Green Pastures*, 2012. Acrylic, house paint, liquid nails, and buttons on door. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

In the hallway outside the exhibition gallery, it’s a trio of women who dance. The central painting shows Proctor’s signature upward-gazing gal, in a fringed dress, opening her hands to receive divine love, symbolized by the red hearts that angels pass down to earth in one long chain. “It’s the love of God that makes the world go round,” Proctor preaches. “Pass the love from above.”

Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *Love Makes the World Go Round*, 1997. House paint, acrylic, glass, ceramic, beads, and hot glue on wood. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

Flanking this painting are two wire sculptures of worshipping women who wear crosses and heart-shaped bangles inscribed with “Near the Cross” (the title of a popular hymn by Fanny Crosby) and psalmic phrases such as “Shout for joy,” “Rise up,” “Lead me,” “Shine on me,” and “My heart is glad.”

Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *Woman with Crosses*, 1998. Copper wire, copper sheet metal, crosses, rebar, house paint, and cut wood. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

Mary L. Proctor (American, 1960–), *Woman with Hearts*, 1998. Copper wire, copper sheet metal, rebar, house paint, and cut wood. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

Proctor acknowledges that some may look at her art and see only messy pictures or rubbish. But paraphrasing the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 1:26–31), she says God uses foolish things—like scrap wood or twisted wire decorated with cheap paint and baubles—to confound the wise.

Shortly after getting married, Proctor moved to Tallahassee with her husband Tyrone, where they raised three sons and a daughter. They now live back in Lloyd but operate a small gallery in Tallahassee proper, where they sell Proctor’s work. Follow them on Instagram @marysvisions or on Facebook.

The Strength to Be Joyful: Messages from Mary Proctor runs through August 2, 2027, at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Admission to the museum is $20.

Don’t miss two more works by Mary Proctor that are on display in the third-floor café, each titled Music Heals the Body, Mind, and Soul. Made of mixed media on wood, they show a man with a guitar and a singing, dancing woman, and scattered across the backgrounds are sheet music fragments from a Christian hymnal.

If you download the Bloomberg Connects mobile app and search “AVAM,” then select “The Strength to Be Joyful,” you can access seven audio interviews with artist Mary Proctor (transcripts included), which are tied to different displays in the exhibition. The exhibition also runs a video interview on loop.

But also, here’s a 2003 news segment shot with Proctor in the “art yard” outside her house:

And a more recent interview clip, from 2022, of Proctor talking about her grandmother’s importance in her life:

Psalms roundup: “Considering Lament” song suite, Lucille Clifton poem, Pentaglot Psalter from Egypt, and more

June 4, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

My roundups aren’t typically thematic, but in this one I’ve pulled together content around the Psalms—plus a link to my new monthly playlist, from which I call out particular psalms.

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: June 2026 (Art & Theology): Most months of the year, I release a playlist of thirty songs, mostly by Christian artists—an assortment of psalms, hymns, and other spiritually inclined music. The psalm settings I feature this month are Psalm 10:1 for choir by the South Korean composer Jung Jae-il (known for his work on Parasite and Squid Game); “Psalm 55” by Poor Bishop Hooper (they’ve set all 150 songs from the Psalter!); Psalm 97:11 in Hebrew (“Light dawns for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart”) by the Jewish women’s a cappella ensemble Vocolot; Psalm 103:1, a new cover of Andraé Crouch’s “Bless His Holy Name” by Paul Zach, Jessica Fox, and IAMSON; Psalm 117, in English and Spanish and with Latin rhythms, by The Soil and The Seed Project (see below); a song by the indie singer-songwriter Sam Wilson that uses Psalm 119:103 as a refrain; and “Psalm 139” by the New Jersey–based DJ duo (and married couple) KNGDM REVIVAL.

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NEW ALBUM: Psalms by The Soil and The Seed Project: Released last month, this double album contains thirty-four new songs and one re-release. The first disc consists of word-for-word settings of psalms using the NIV or NRSV translations—hence why the album is classified as part of their “Bible Memory Collection”—whereas the second disc comprises songs inspired by the Psalms—loose paraphrases and, more commonly, songs that talk to God in a psalmic vein, encompassing the same broad emotional range as the biblical Psalter. There are songs of praise and gratitude, of weariness and lament, as well as petitionary songs seeking rescue or direction, presence or protection, stillness or fruitfulness.

Here’s the bilingual Psalm 117 setting “Praise the LORD, All You Nations”—the shortest psalm and the shortest chapter in the entire Bible—by Seth Thomas Crissman and Jorge Eliecer Triana, sung by Nicolas Melas and Lauren Yoder. I’ve followed it with “Lord, I Get Grumpy” by Clara Weaver, which she sings with Nichole Barrows while, it sounds like, doing dishes! “Lord, I need your patience” is something I pray a lot; now I can sing it.

Led by my friend Seth Thomas Crissman (MDiv, Eastern Mennonite Seminary), The Soil and The Seed Project is more than just a songwriting collective; they create all kinds of “creative resources that help us together turn towards Jesus in the ordinary moments of life.” Their latest Psalms package includes, in addition to the album, coloring pages and a Little Liturgies booklet with responsive readings, reflection questions, and suggested activities, all written with children in mind. You can download all these resources for FREE from their website!

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VIDEOS:

>> “Shaped by the Psalms: A Psalm Festival,” Calvin Institute of Christian Worship: In February, Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, hosted “Psalms 150: A Conference Experience,” bringing together a variety of guest speakers, musicians, and artists around the Psalms. This video is one of the worship services held at the conference, featuring litanies, prayers, meditations, and seventeen psalm-based songs by artists such as Rawn Harbor, Kiran Young Wimberly and the McGraths, and Bellwether Arts, who were present to lead. The choirs were conducted by either Nate Glasper, Mark Stover, or guest conductor Vinroy D. Brown Jr. There was also a live painting by Joel Schoon-Tanis.

>> “Considering Lament: Psalms of Protest, Pain and Hope,” Presbyterian Church in Ireland: This video presents Considering Lament: Psalms of Protest, Pain and Hope, a suite of eight lament psalms composed in 2026 by David and Karen Campbell based on the experiences of victims and first responders to the Troubles, a violent ethno-nationalist-religious conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the late 1960s to 1998 but whose wounds are still felt. The suite grew out of a project conceived by the Peace and Reconciliation Panel of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s Council for Public Affairs, which involved Rev. Dr. Karen Campbell and her husband David convening Psalm study groups in eight locations across Northern Ireland over the course of two years. The stories, thoughts, and feelings shared in response to the eight given lament psalms—Psalms 5, 7, 39, 59, 64, 82, 109, and 140—and in relation to the sectarian traumas the participants have endured informed the Campbells’ musical adaptations of these psalms. Click on the link above for the song list.

The lament psalms, Campbell says, “provided vessels to channel all kinds of emotions – from disappointment, anger, betrayal and sorrow – without losing hope,” an avenue “to present our hurts before the One who knows what it means to experience pain . . . and grief.” The Considering Lament suite was recorded by local artists in a studio in South Armagh and is available for free streaming, and you can download an accompanying booklet that includes sheet music. It premiered March 26 at an evening of live worship (see video) that interwove the eight songs with painful stories told firsthand, with a liturgy to connect them and to guide worshippers in prayer and reflection around the theme of suffering and loss.

To learn more about the Considering Lament project, read this wonderful interview with Karen Campbell, conducted by Joan Huyser-Honig for the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.

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HISTORICAL PSALTERS: Barberini Oriental 2 and Ethiopien d’Abbadie 105: As you know, I’m very interested in Christian material culture, and if a cultural object has an appealing aesthetic, all the better! Here are two psalters (a volume containing the biblical book of Psalms) I photographed at the Africa and Byzantium exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2023. The first, dated to somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, is a pentaglot (five-language) psalter from Dayr al-Suryan, a multicultural and multilinguistic monastic community in Egypt. From left to right in parallel columns are Ge‘ez, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian, and Syriac again. This format would have facilitated comparative study of the Bible as well as common readings in the liturgy.

Pentaglot Psalter, Egypt, 12th–14th century (restored and rebound 1636). Ink on parchment, 14 1/2 × 11 × 2 3/4 in. (36.8 × 28 × 7 cm). Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Or. 2, fols. 2v–3r. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]

Another psalter, from fifteenth-century Ethiopia, was open to a full-page illustration of King David, the author of many of the psalms, playing an Ethiopian box lyre called a begena, traditionally played by elite and royal men. He is shaded by an attendant with a ceremonial umbrella. In most countries at the time, it was common practice for artists to contextualize the Old and New Testament saints of the ancient Near East to their own culture. (Think, for example, of the contemporaneous Italian and Dutch Renaissance paintings.) This anonymous artist has signified “imperial ruler” by giving David the familiar trappings of an Ethiopian emperor. The manuscript would have been used by a priest or monk in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in both his personal devotions and liturgical services.

David the Musician (Ethiopia) — *David the Musician*, from a psalter from Tigray, Ethiopia, 15th century. Ink and tempera on parchment, 11 7/8 × 8 1/4 in. (30 × 21 cm). Ethiopien d’Abbadie 105, fols. 13v–14r. Collection of the Académie des Sciences, Institut de France, on deposit at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]

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POEM: “OLD HUNDRED” by Lucille Clifton: I originally wrote the following commentary for the Daily Prayer Project’s Ordinary Time 2024 periodical, which was Psalms-themed:

OLD HUNDRED is a famous hymn tune from the Genevan Psalter, so named because it came to be associated with William Kethe’s metrical paraphrase of Psalm 100, “All People That on Earth Do Dwell.” In her early poem “OLD HUNDRED,” written in the latter half of the 1960s, the African American poet Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) also engages with the Hundredth Psalm, interleaving its first line with the opening lyric of the spiritual “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” and blues-like phrases to create a multitextured expression of praise and lament.

Like the Psalter itself, life encompasses both gladness and sorrow. While many of the psalms call us to rejoice and give thanks, others express deep pain and questioning. The vocalist and composer Ruth Naomi Floyd says the greatest blues line ever written is Psalm 22:1, which Jesus “sings” from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Clifton had seen trouble; so had Jesus. (“Nobody knows but Jesus . . .”) And Jesus is a friend who stands with us in hardship, weathering it alongside. When God’s promises seem far off and we can’t muster a hallelujah, looking to Jesus can give us the strength, both to be honest about our trouble and to put it in God’s hands and so lay hold of joy. “OLD HUNDRED” wrestles through that.

Does this poem feel disjunctive or integrated? What do you make of Clifton’s use of all-caps? After reading the poem, read Psalm 100 and the lyrics to “Nobody Knows” and compare them. Consider how they both fit into the church’s repertoire of songs.

“OLD HUNDRED” can be found in Clifton’s Collected Poems, a volume I highly recommend.

“The Visitation” by John O’Donohue (poem)

May 29, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Kollwitz, Kathe_Mary and Elizabeth — Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867–1945), *Mary and Elizabeth*, 1929. Woodcut, sheet 14 × 13 1/2 in. (35.6 × 34.3 cm). Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York.

In the morning it takes the mind a while
To find the world again, lost after dream
Has taken the heart to the underworld
To play with the shades of lives not chosen.

She awakens a stranger in her own life,
Her breath loud in the room full of listening.
Taken without touch, her flesh feels the grief
Of belonging to what cannot be seen.

Soon she can no longer bear to be alone.
At dusk she takes the road into the hills.
An anxious moon doubles her among the stone.
A door opens, the older one’s eyes fill.

Two women locked in a story of birth.
Each mirrors the secret the other heard.

John O’Donohue (1956–2008) was an Irish poet, philosopher, and best-selling author of Anam Cara (1996), Conamara Blues (2001), and To Bless the Space Between Us (2008), among other books. Ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1982, he retired from priestly ministry in 2000 to devote himself to full-time writing and social activism. He was deeply influenced by Hegel, Meister Eckhart, and Celtic spirituality, and much of his work has to do with beauty, friendship, and how the material and the spiritual intertwine in human experience.

Book Review: Lost and Found in the Cathedral of Cinema by Jeffrey Overstreet

May 26, 2026June 4, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Film studies and creative writing professor Jeffrey Overstreet grew up in conservative evangelical communities in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and ’80s. Though he is grateful for some of the gifts of that upbringing, especially the love of Jesus and of story that it cultivated in him, he regrets the posture he was taught to assume of distrust, fear, and rejection of “the world,” of secular culture and its supposedly corrupting influence—including movies.

Part memoir and part film criticism, Lost and Found in the Cathedral of Cinema: A Spiritual Journey (Broadleaf Books, 2026) is built around Overstreet’s discovery that over the years, engaging films from Hollywood and beyond has actually caused his faith not to falter but to grow. From The Muppet Movie to Do the Right Thing, The Secret of Kells to Columbus, the movies, Overstreet claims, are a place where God is at play. (“Christ plays in ten thousand places,” as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins put it.)

The author describes his book as “a testimony about how certain films, like pillars of cloud and fire in the Old Testament stories, have illuminated my journey from a small, supposedly secure, ‘Christian’ world and into the ‘dark’ world I am called to live in and love. . . . I’m here to testify that films have led me from faith to faith, from an insular and fearful practice that stifles questions . . . into a freedom where I am learning from everything, everywhere, all at once” (9, 11).

He uses the metaphor of cinema as a cathedral, “a place of reverent attention, self-examination, awestruck mindfulness of the created and the Creator” that “occasions intimate fellowship, confession, and celebration with others past and present, near and far” (26). Film can be a sanctuary that restores the soul, he says; a site of revelation and/or wonder, where beauty, goodness, and truth shine; a formative and even transformative experience, emotionally, spiritually, morally, or otherwise.

Perhaps these claims about the capacities of film sound too grandiose. Of course, not every movie we watch is going to have a meaningful impact; in fact, most won’t. (We could be better at selecting for that potential, though, instead of restricting ourselves to the light and diverting.) And what resonates strongly with one viewer may not resonate at all for another. But Overstreet demonstrates that, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the movies can hold so much.

Lost and Found is Overstreet’s guide to his own cathedral of cinema, tracing how, through film, his early imagination developed, his convictions about good and evil took shape, his political inclinations were influenced, and his theology has evolved. Covering twenty-one films, the book unfolds in three parts: Early Films (childhood), Transitional Films (adolescence), and Films for the Fearless (adulthood).

Through the Japanese animated fantasy My Neighbor Totoro (1988), written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Overstreet discovered that the Divine might offer us shelter from our storms by inviting us into acts of generous play; that the world is alive with goodness and grace. Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion (1979) caused him to reconsider his definition of success. Martin Rosen’s Watership Down (1978), with its dark surrealistic visions and animal carnage, “challenged [him] not to look away, not to deny the consequences of claws and teeth” (109).

My favorite section of the book is on Paterson, a 2016 drama about a Paterson city bus driver and poet in New Jersey, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. The film, Overstreet writes, invites us to see as poets see. Here’s the trailer:

Overstreet does not replace religious belief and practice with film—he’s still a Christian and a dedicated churchgoer who reads the Bible, prays, and participates in liturgy and finds deep meaning in doing so—but rather, he regards film viewing as part of his life of faith. For him, there’s no sacred-secular divide.

Some Christians approach the movies in a very limited and limiting way. Overstreet cites, for example, an unnamed popular Christian filmmaker’s list of three things he wants from a movie: that it (1) aligns with his worldview, (2) doesn’t offend, and (3) entertains. Perspective-affirming, innocuous, enjoyable without a hint of discomfort . . . so much for films that provoke, that value learning, growth, and diversity!

In chapter 10, Overstreet describes how the windows of his small world were smashed open by international cinema and by films whose main characters he couldn’t relate to in many respects because of their different backgrounds and therefore life experiences, especially in terms of culture, race, or nationality. Once he learned to venture beyond only those movies that reflect his own familiar world and preferences—embracing movies whose characters don’t look or talk like him—he found himself learning from neighbors he otherwise wouldn’t have, understanding them better and even growing in love for them. We can’t love our neighbors as ourselves—the second greatest commandment, according to Jesus, after (but inextricably linked to) love of God—if we wall ourselves off from them, if we don’t listen to their stories.

Overstreet encourages Christians to attend to movies with conscience and discernment but also openness and humility, knowing that God is active, too, outside our narrow subcultures. “I know the arts now as an essential language through which I can hear God speaking,” he writes (257).

Reading Lost and Found made me wonder, How would I plot my life through film? I have a list of movies I hold in high esteem, but which would I say have been the most formative to who I am or how I understand God or life in general? It’s something I’m pondering!

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