Art & Theology

Roundup: Armenian passion art, Messiaen and Richter for Good Friday, the paradox of Holy Saturday, and more

March 24, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Holy Week starts this Sunday. Per usual, I’ll be publishing daily art and music pairings during that period (so, too, during the Easter Octave), but here is some additional art and music, and a theological reflection, for the occasion. You might also consider spending time with the Holy Week Playlist I curated on Spotify.

TENEBRAE SERVICE: Good Friday, April 2, 2021, Good Shepherd New York: Not all churches host a service on Good Friday, but for me, it is one of the most meaningful services of the year and helps make Easter all the more potent and celebratory. It wasn’t until 2011 that I attended my first Good Friday service—of the Tenebrae variety, Latin for “darkness,” meaning we started with multiple lit candles, and they were gradually extinguished throughout the evening, symbolizing the Light of the World dying out. If you’re curious about what such a service might look like, here’s a great example from 2021, from Good Shepherd New York. Filmed during the pandemic, it was a digital-only offering. As is typical, it combines song and scripture readings to tell the story of Christ’s death. Some Tenebrae services include a brief homily, but this one does not. I’ve included a list of time stamps to the songs below.

1:15: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” by Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason
6:26: “I Need Thee Every Hour” by Annie Hawks and Robert Lowry
11:19: “The Reproaches” by Paul Zach [previously]
17:06: “Shepherd Strong” by the Brilliance
20:55: “Your Blood Ran Down” by Paul Baloche
24:28: “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townend
31:08: “Remember Me” by Paul Zach
35:50: “Were You There?,” African American spiritual (with a watercolor by Soyoung L Kim, inscribed with Isaiah 53:11a: “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied”)

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INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FOR GOOD FRIDAY: The one Facebook group I belong to is Liturgy Fellowship; I joined when I was a worship planner and stick around because of the many great resources, especially musical ones and ideas for marking holy days as a congregation, that are shared by Christians across denominations. One post I made note of is from Andrew Kerhoulas, the associate pastor at Grace Mills River in Mills River, North Carolina. As a prelude for their 2023 Good Friday service, he said, Grace Mills River musicians played an excerpt from the fifth movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Here’s the full movement, performed by cellist Bingxia Lu and pianist Jackie Tu:

“The piece is avant-garde and not a little abrasive to those with pop music sensibilities,” Kerhoulas wrote to the group. “But once you know that it was written in 1941 by a French prisoner of war while in a German prison and first performed for fellow prisoners, it takes on depths of meaning. So too the cross: It is grotesque and horrific, but it becomes meaningful and even beautiful when you know the occasion—the deeper story—in which Jesus gave up his life.”

The church concluded its Good Friday service with a string quintet postlude, “On the Nature of Daylight” by Max Richter, played to the dimming of lights. Again, the following performance is not from Grace Mills River, but rather by Louisa Fuller, Natalia Bonner, John Metcalfe, Chris Worsey, and Ian Burdge for the fifteenth anniversary edition of The Blue Notebooks album.

Some people think that music used in Christian worship as a focal piece (i.e., not in the background) needs to have words to be worshipful and productive. I strongly disagree. Instrumental music conveys beauty and sets a mood and, yes, even communicates—often that which is difficult to express verbally. I love Grace’s thoughtful inclusion of these two modern and contemporary pieces from the classical tradition in their community’s observance of Good Friday.

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ART COMPILATION: “Crucifixion: Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts” by Levon Ounanian: This compilation brings together thirty-one Armenian miniatures of Christ’s passion. (Miniatures are painted illustrations in a manuscript, so called not because they’re small, though they usually are, but because artists often sketched them using a red lead pigment called minium.) According to the author, of the 31,000 Armenian manuscripts currently listed around the world, about 6,000 of them contain miniatures, not to mention the many more that contain non-narrative decoration.

Khzanetsi, Mesrop_Christ nailed to the cross — Mesrop of Khizan (Armenian, active in Persia, ca. 1560–ca. 1652), *The Nailing on the Cross*, from an Armenian Gospel book, 1609. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Arm. d.13, fol. 13v. Click to view the fully digitized manuscript.

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SONG: “Saare Paap” (सारे पाप) (All Sins), performed by James Bovas: In this video, James Bovas [previously] performs a Hindi version of a Malayam song about the Crucifixion. The Hindi lyrics and English translation were supplied to me by the Indian gospel media production company Sarah Creation.

सारे पाप और दाग ममटाकर, मुक्क्त देने के मलए
मुक्क्त दाता ने बहाया, खून अपना क्रूस से
खून के प्यासे भेडियों ने, आके घेरा यीशु को
मारे कोिे टोकी कीले, धारे ननकली ज़ख्मों से
मेरे मन तू याद कर ले, क्यों सहे दुुःख यीशु ने
तेरा खानतर जान देकर, दी ररहाई यीशु ने
श्राप सारे लेके मेरे, दे दी मुझको आमशषे
यीशु के पावन लहू से, भाग्य मेरे खुल गए

To remove all the stains and sin, and to give salvation
The Redeemer shed his blood on the cross
Bloodthirsty wolves surrounded Jesus
He was scourged, nailed, and a stream of blood issued forth from his wounds
O my soul, never forget why Jesus suffered!
He gave his life to set you free
He took all my curses and gave me all the blessings
By the holy blood of Jesus, my destiny changed forever

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ESSAY: “The Path from Death to Life” by Kurt Koch, Plough, March 30, 2024: A Catholic cardinal reflects on the dark side and the bright side of Holy Saturday. “As the day Jesus rested in the grave, Holy Saturday is the day of God’s concealment and silence in history,” Koch writes. “And yet, Holy Saturday also has a hopeful and joyful aspect. . . . [On this day] Jesus traveled to [Hades,] the place of greatest loneliness – a place completely bereft of any human relationships – and stirred the souls and limbs trapped by rigor mortis with the warming love of God. He transformed their grave into a place of new life.” This essay is anthologized in the revised and expanded edition of Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Plough, 2026).

“Sparrow Lament” by William Woolfitt (poem)

March 20, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Diedrich, Helmut Stephan_Kreuzfall — Helmut Stephan Diedrich (German, 1937–), *Kreuzfall*, 1964. Lithograph, edition 62/100.

You fall, sparrow-bone, God-eyed leaf,
black hair of ox, kernel of wheat,
gold blown from the stalk. You lift wood,
trudge, and lurch, your back pulped. You would
spit up the cup-dregs for relief—

but no, you want not; you believe
your master’s dream. You toss your dreams
like chaff to the breeze. You lift wood.
You fall,

            thin coin,

                          widow’s all,

                                       copper seed
into the mouth of the box. She
brushed you a hundred times, so good
to hold, but better to drop. Wood
weights you, snapped bone, wind-flung leaf.
You fall.

This poem was originally published in Christianity and Literature 59, no. 2 (Winter 2010) and is anthologized in Imago Dei: Poems from Christianity and Literature, ed. Jill Peláez Baumgaertner (Abilene Christian University Press, 2012). Used by permission of the poet.

Originating in the Middle Ages, the Stations of the Cross is a Christian devotional practice in which participants commemorate the journey Jesus took down the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows) to his death—either on location in the Holy Land, physically following a demarcated route, or, more accessibly, in their imaginations, through the aid of images or meditative texts. Traditionally, there are fourteen stations, the third, seventh, and ninth of which are “Jesus falls.” At these stopping places, Christians reflect on the crushing weight of sin and wood, on Jesus’s intensifying exhaustion, and yet, too, on his perseverance to get up each time and, pushing through the debility, to continue his trek to its fatal, foreordained end.

In his poem “Sparrow Lament,” William Woolfitt alludes to Jesus’s three falls on his way to Golgotha: “You fall,” “You fall,” “You fall.” He uses a string of metaphors from the natural world for the falling Christ: He’s a sparrow bone (spat out by a predator?), a floating leaf, a shed bovine hair, a grain of wheat blown loose from its stalk. These are wistful images of solitariness, passage, decease—and yet the descriptor “God-eyed” indicates that the path Christ is on is governed by divine providence.

The sparrow reference, given further weight by its use in the poem’s title, evokes Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 10:28–31: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

The Father has willed the Son to drink the bitter cup of suffering and death, which, despite Jesus’s distressed plea less than twenty-four hours prior that the cup be removed, he downs in trust, casting off any dreams he had for living into old age. As he carries out his calling, he stumbles, he falls to the ground—but not apart from the will of his Father.

In the middle of the poem, the lineation—the arrangement of words using lines and line breaks—mimics a downward motion. Like the drop of the storied widow’s coin into the offering box (Mark 12:41–44; Luke 21:1–4). Most biblical interpreters assume that Mary, Jesus’s mother, was a widow by the time Jesus started his ministry, since Joseph is never mentioned in any of the Gospel accounts after the episode of Jesus disappearing in the temple at age twelve. Woolfitt refers to Jesus as “widow’s all”—Mary’s everything, her firstborn son, whom she sacrificially gives to the world, knowing God will bless her gift. She doesn’t hoard this dear treasure of hers. She surrenders him to God’s greater plan.

It wasn’t an easy choice to make. Mothers instinctively want to hold on to their children, and tight. Many intrusively fear dropping them as infants and would do anything to spare them pain. Well, Mary drops her son, on purpose. She relinquishes him, “copper seed,” whose death bears fruit, yields dividends.

William Woolfitt is a writer across the genres of poetry, fiction, and essay. His poetry collections are The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go (Belle Point, 2024), Spring Up Everlasting (Mercer, 2020), Charles of the Desert (Paraclete, 2016), and Beauty Strip (Texas Review, 2014). He is an associate professor of creative writing at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife and two children. He founded and edits Speaking of Marvels, a blog that features interviews with authors of chapbooks, novellas, and books of assorted lengths.

Roundup: Christ’s sacred wounds in art, poetry, and song

March 17, 2026March 17, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

There are hundreds of creative works I could feature on the topic of Christ’s wounds. Here are just a few of note.

ARTICLE: “‘Your body is full of wounds’: references, social contexts and uses of the wounds of Christ in Late Medieval Europe” by Johanna Pollick, Emily Poore, Sophie Sexon, and Sara Stradal: In this three-part collaborative essay, I was most intrigued, in part because of its newness to me, by the first section, “The flowering wound: Christ’s heart in Princeton University, MS Taylor 17,” in which Dr. Johanna Pollick explores a small English illuminated devotional book, dating from around 1500, that portrays Christ’s wounds as wells. For help in interpreting these images, she turns to medieval literary traditions as well as to the Carthusian Miscellany.

*Wounded Heart of Christ as the Well of Lyfe*, England, ca. 1500. Princeton University Library, MS Taylor 17, fol. 10v.

Dr. Grace Hamman writes about MS Taylor 17’s extraordinary “well of lyfe” page in Jesus through Medieval Eyes (and for InterVarsity’s The Well), which is what brought me to this essay. The hand-colored image shows flowers—labeled “pyte” (pity), “loue” (love), and “charyte” (charity)—springing forth from the wounded heart of Jesus. The verse prayer at the top reads, “Well of lyfe that ever shall laste / My herte in thee make it stedfast.”

The same theme shows up in another late fifteenth-century English lyric in MS Arundel 286 at the British Library, which appears in modern compilations under the title “The Wounds, as Wells of Life” or “The Wells of Jesus’ Wounds”:

Ihesus woundes so wide
Ben welles of lif to the goode,
Namely the stronde of his syde
That ran ful breme on the rode.
Yif thee list to drinke
To fle fro the fendes of helle,
Bowe thu doun to the brinke
And mekely taste of the welle.

Jesus’s wounds so wide
Are wells of life to the good,
Namely the stream from his side
That ran fiercely on the rood.
If thou list to drink,
To flee from the fiends of hell,
Bow thou down to the brink
And meekly taste of the well.

Trans. Victoria Emily Jones

And in a late fifteenth-century gold ring, also from England, engraved with a Man of Sorrows image and hieroglyphs of Christ’s five wounds, labeled “The well of pitty, the well of merci, the well of confort, the well of gracy, the well of everlastingh lyffe”:

Finger ring with the Image of Pity and the Five Wounds of Christ, England, late 15th century. Gold, engraved, diameter 27.2 mm. British Museum, London, AF.897.

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SONG: “Deep Were His Wounds” by William Johnson, 1953: This midcentury hymn is composed of three simple stanzas: The first half of each meditates on Jesus’s cruel death on the cross, whereas each second half (“But . . .”) celebrates the healing, freedom, and eternal life that death wrought.

>> Music by Leland B. Sateren, 1958: I like this tune, called MARLEE, but it’s difficult to sing congregationally. Here’s a soloist, Sarah Gulseth, singing it for her church’s 2011 Good Friday service, accompanied on organ by Luther Gulseth:

And here’s a Minnesota church choir singing it. Copyright for both the text and tune is held by Augsburg Fortress; you can purchase the sheet music here.

>> Music by Vito Aiuto, 2008: I was first introduced to “Deep Were His Wounds” through the Welcome Wagon’s debut album, Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, “a ramshackle singalong enterprise of a Presbyterian pastor (the Rev. Vito Aiuto) and his wife (Monique) wrestling out the influences of folk music, religion, popular culture, and church tradition.” Mood-wise, Aiuto’s tune wouldn’t work as well for Good Friday—even given the paradox of that day, it’s too bright, in my opinion, for that somber observance. But it’s great for throughout the year, especially for churches that favor a contemporary/folksy style of music.

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CANTATA CYCLE: “Membra Jesu Nostri” (The Limbs of Our Suffering Jesus) by Dieterich Buxtehude: Dieterich Buxtehude (ca. 1637–1707) was a Danish German organist and composer of the mid-Baroque period. For Good Friday 1680, he composed a cycle of seven concerto-aria cantatas. The texts of the aria sections are taken from the medieval Latin hymn “Salve mundi salutare” (Hail, the World’s Salvation) by the Cistercian abbot Arnulf of Leuven (ca. 1200–1250), whereas the concerto section texts are Old Testament quotations. The following video is a 2004 performance from Payerne, Switzerland; see the YouTube video description for further credits. The video includes English subtitles, but you can also read the lyrics (with translation) here.

The cycle begins by paying homage to Christ’s wounded feet (“Ad Pedes” = “To the Feet”), and then progresses upward to his knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and finally, face/head. Traditionally, Christ’s wounds are enumerated as five: a hole in each foot, a hole in each hand, and a hole through his side/heart (from the centurion’s spear). But Arnulf meditates on seven distinct body parts of Christ’s that were injured on Good Friday.

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ARTWORKS:

>> The Five Wounds of Christ by Fernand Léger | Commentary by Albert Hengelaar: This visual meditation is about the architecture and interior decoration of the Sacré-Coeur in Audincourt, France, a product of the Art Sacré movement, a Catholic art renaissance spearheaded by the French Dominican Order from 1919 to the 1950s. The centerpiece of the church, sited above the high altar, is a stained glass window depicting the five wounds of Christ shining like suns—one of seventeen windows the artist Fernand Léger designed to encircle the space in a strip.

Leger, Fernand_Five Wounds — Fernand Léger (French, 1881–1955), *The* *Five Wounds of Christ*, 1950–52. Stained glass window, Église du Sacré-Cœur (Church of the Sacred Heart), Audincourt, France.

>> The Great Wound, aka Go On, Wounded Healer by Jack Baumgartner | Commentary by Sam Kee: In this Substack post, Sam Kee unpacks a drawing by his friend Jack Baumgartner [previously], which shows that “there is life in His [Christ’s] wounds, and He pours His life into our wounds.” The drawing started with the roman numeral V, which stands for the five wounds of Christ. The circumference is one large wound that encompasses five smaller wounds, eye-like, each one weeping blood. Other symbols that Kee analyzes in the drawing are wheat, grapes, fig leaves, seashell, fire, heart, and womb. “Go on” is a refrain that Baumgartner uses often in his work, a mantra for persevering in the faith, for continuing on the path.

Baumgartner, Jack_The Great Wound — Jack Baumgartner (American, 1976–), *The Great Wound*, 2024. Drawing from the series The Diary of a Tree Standing on Its Head.

Kee concludes with an original ekphrastic poem.

You can purchase an archival reproduction of The Great Wound from Baumgartner’s online shop. I encourage you to explore his website as well. I admire how his work is somehow both mystical and earthy, rooted.

The Palmesel (“Palm Donkey”): A Holy Week Tradition from Medieval Germany

March 13, 2026March 22, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

—Zechariah 9:9

In German-speaking lands from the tenth to sixteenth centuries, many Christian communities would celebrate Palm Sunday by processing through the streets with a painted wood sculpture of Christ astride a donkey, called a Palmesel (pronounced PALM-ay-sul), German for “palm donkey.” Mounted on a wheeled cart and often escorted by children, the sculpture would move around town through crowds who had gathered from nearby villages and hamlets for the inauguration of Holy Week, the period of the Christian liturgical year that commemorates Jesus’s last days. The procession included the singing of hymns and the strewing of palm branches and outer garments along the Christ figure’s path, in imitation of the crowds that greeted Jesus when he entered Jerusalem for his (unbeknown to them) final Passover.

Palmesel (Berlin) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel (Christ on the Palm Donkey)*, Franconia, ca. 1520–30. Polychrome linden wood, 148.5 × 166 × 54 cm. Skulpturensammlung, Bode-Museum, Berlin, Inv. 7710. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]

Palmesel illustration by the German chronicler Dominikus Debler, ca. 1800

Generally, the Protestant Reformers, with their emphasis on sola scriptura (scripture alone), didn’t like religious pageantry or images, as they believed they promoted idolatry. So when the Reformation swept through Germany in the 1500s, it destroyed many Palmesels. Another wave of destruction hit in the late eighteenth century when, influenced by the Enlightenment, temporary episcopal and synodal decrees in some localities banned “theatrical representations” of liturgical events, including Palmesel processions. Nevertheless, some 175 late medieval and Renaissance Palmesels, either partial or whole, have survived to the present day. The vast majority are in museum collections, no longer in active use.

A Frankenschau broadcast news segment from 2024 (see video below) reports on the Palmesel tradition, opening and closing with a Palmesel from ca. 1470 Nuremberg that’s on display year-round in the Rieterkirche St. Marien und Christophorus (Rieter Church of St. Mary and St. Christopher) in Kalbensteinberg, Germany—surprisingly, not a Catholic church but an Evangelical Lutheran one! The segment also looks at the Miltenberger Palmesel at the Stiftsmuseum Aschaffenburg and the Palmesel at the Met Cloisters in New York City. Press the CC button on the video player for closed captioning in English.

Palmesel sizes range from half-size (more intimate, and more navigable by children) to life-size. Christ is usually dressed in a simple tunic and mantle, and his feet hang bare. Sometimes he wears a crown. Typically his right hand is raised in blessing, while his left hand holds the reins—though in the first example below, it clutches a book.

Palmesel (Switzerland) — *Steiner Palmesel*, ca. 1055. Polychrome linden wood, 176.5 × 135 cm. Landesmuseum (Swiss National Museum), Zurich, Inv. LM 362. Photo: Linda Safran. [object record]

Palmesel (Peter and Paul Church) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, ca. 1310. Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Petersthal, Germany.

Palmesel (Freiburg) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Upper Rhine, 1350–60. Polychrome poplar wood, 159.5 × 52.5 × 16.1 cm. Augustinermuseum, Freiburg, Germany, Inv. 10079. Photo: Hans-Peter Vieser.

Palmesel (Walters) — *Palmesel*, Franconia, ca. 1350–1400. Wood with paint and gilding, 96 × 34 × 82 cm. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

Palmesel (Walters) (detail) — Photo: Victoria Emily Jones

Palmesel (1370) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Franconia, ca. 1370–80. Polychrome alderwood, willow, 172.5 × 61.5 × 169 cm. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Inv. PI.O.153.

Palmesel (Hechingen) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Poltringen, Germany, ca. 1380. Hohenzollerisches Landesmuseum, Hechingen, Germany.

Palmesel (Stuttgart) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Swabia, late 14th century. Polychrome linden wood. Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germany.

Palmesel (Friedrichshafen) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Ulm, Germany, 15th century (statue), 18th century (wagon). Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen, Germany.

Palmesel (Cloisters) — *Palmesel*, Franconia, 15th century. Polychrome linden wood, 156.2 × 60.3 × 138.4 cm. Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Palmesel (Cloisters) (detail) — Photo: Victoria Emily Jones

Palmesel (Chazen) — *Palmesel*, Austria, ca. 1450. Polychrome wood, 154.9 × 144.1 × 50.2 cm. Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Inv. 1977.2.

Palmesel (V&A) — *Christ on an Ass*, ca. 1480. Linden wood and pine, painted and gilded, 147.4 × 47.8 × 133.5 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Palmesel (Detroit) — Christofel Langeisen, *Palmesel (Christ Entering Jerusalem on the Back of a Donkey)*, 1480–90. Polychrome linden wood, 143.5 × 40.6 × 110.5 cm. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan.

Palmesel (Cluny) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, southern Germany, perhaps Swabia, late 15th century. Polychrome linden wood, 122 × 100 × 44 cm. Musée de Cluny, Paris. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Palmesel (Aachen) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, southern Germany (circle of Erasmus Grasser), ca. 1500. Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen, Germany. Photo: Rex Harris.

Palmesel (Basel) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Lake Constance, ca. 1500. Polychrome linden wood, height 190 cm. Historisches Museum, Basel, Switzerland, Inv. 1898.275.

Palmesel (Nuremburg) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Nuremberg, ca. 1505. Polychrome linden wood, 82 × 31.5 × 88 cm. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany.

Palmesel (Cologne) — *Christus auf dem Palmesel*, Cologne, ca. 1520. Polychrome linden wood, softwood. Museum Schnütgen, Cologne, Germany, Inv. A 124. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

Palmesel (Cologne) (detail) — Photo: Victoria Emily Jones

Palmesels were living art objects engaged by people of all classes. “Unlike many museum objects from the Middle Ages,” writes a Walters Art Museum curator, “the Palmesel was accessible not just to the wealthy elite and the clergy but to all levels of society. It moved among the laypeople so that they could participate in an immersive experience of a significant event from Christ’s life in their own time and place.”

The following edited video shows a 2018 Palmesel procession, led by choirboys, wending its way through an Alpine landscape from Thaur to Rum. It’s the last of its kind in the Austrian state of Tyrol. The sculpture is modern.

Roundup: Faith Ringgold prison mural, “Revaluing Women Hymn Writers,” and more

March 10, 2026March 10, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

In honor of Women’s History Month, here are a few creative works by and/or (in the case of Kinloch’s “Some Women” poems) about women.

ARTICLE: “A New Documentary Traces How a Faith Ringgold Mural at Rikers Island Helped Women Break Free,” Colossal: Directed by Catherine Gund, the documentary Paint Me a Road Out of Here (2025) tells the story of Faith Ringgold’s For the Women’s House (1971), a mural commissioned by the New York State Council on the Arts for the Correctional Institution for Women on Rikers Island. When Ringgold asked the incarcerated women what they wanted her to paint, they said, “I want to see a road leading out of here.”

Ringgold, Faith_For the Women's House — Faith Ringgold (American, 1930–2024), *For the Women’s House*, 1971. Oil on canvas, 96 × 96 in. Commissioned by the New York State Council on the Arts for the Correctional Institution for Women on Rikers Island; on loan to Brooklyn Museum.

Organized into eight triangular sections, the painting portrays women of various races (Black, white, Latina, Asian) in professional roles “that have not traditionally been theirs,” Ringgold says: doctor, bus driver, US president, basketball player, police officer, construction worker, drummer, priest. At the bottom, a white mother reads to her multiracial daughter words by Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, and in another scene, a bride is given away by her mother.

When Rikers Island transitioned to housing men in 1988, the women were moved to the Rose M. Singer Center, and the prison staff painted over Ringgold’s mural. Gund’s documentary chronicles the fight—by Ringgold and other artists, activists, politicians, and correctional officers—to have the mural restored, relocated, and preserved, but more deeply, the film is a “parable for a world without mass incarceration.”

Paint Me a Road Out of Here is not currently available on VOD, but here’s a list of public screenings: https://paintmearoadfilm.com/watch.

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LECTURE: “Re-Valuing Women Hymn Writers” by Dr. Lyn Loewi, St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, DC, June 11, 2023: “Women have always been making sacred music, but they are underrepresented in our hymnals. Their contribution lies in the stories they tell from the margins, away from the narratives of dominant power. In this talk, Lyn Loewi will look at the poetry women have brought to our understanding of the Sacred. From the 9th-century Greek Orthodox nun Kassia to newly written hymns, women have expanded our language for God, remembered the stories of biblical women, and spoken for other discounted voices in society.”

Loewi, who has a doctorate in musical arts, has been an organist and church choir director for over forty years. She is currently the director of music ministries at Christ Church Capitol Hill, as well as the president of the Women’s Sacred Music Project. In this talk she discusses:

The Hymn of Kassiani
“The first one ever, oh, ever to know” by Linda Wilberger Egan
“Healing River of the Spirit” by Ruth Duck (text)
“Down by the Riverside” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (arrangement)
“Balulalow” by Elizabeth Poston (music)
“Beyond the hopes and dreams of all creation” by Fr. Robert Easton (text) and Ghislaine Reece-Trapp (music)

The last few minutes of the recording, starting at 38:33, comprise audience Q&A; don’t miss the last question (41:29), where a woman expresses exasperation with all the “he/him” pronouns used for God in hymns—Loewi’s response is helpful.

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HYMNS:

When I was responsible for choosing songs for my church’s worship services, I made sure that every week I was on, at least one of the five songs we sang was written by a woman. Here are just three female-authored hymns that were part of my rotation—one (likely) from the tenth century, one from the eighteenth century, and one from the twenty-first century.

>> “Bí Thusa Mo Shúile” (Be Thou My Vision), Anon., trans. Mary Elizabeth Byrne, vers. Eleanor Hull: I can’t believe I’ve never featured this hymn on the blog before; it’s one of my all-time favorites. Its precise origins are not known. Most scholars date the original Early Middle Irish text, a lorica (prayer recited for protection), to the late tenth or eleventh century. It was translated into English in 1905 by Mary Elizabeth Byrne and then versified in 1912 by Eleanor Hull—meaning she adapted Byrne’s translation to fit a meter so that the words could be more easily sung. The music is a traditional Irish folk tune.

In this video, the hymn is sung in modern Irish by Madelyn Monaghan, a New York City–based soprano specializing in Irish traditional (Sean-nós) singing. It was for her friend’s wedding Mass. And wow, is her voice gorgeous!

>> “Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul” by Anne Steele (text) and Kevin Twit (music): Anne Steele was a Baptist hymn writer, poet, and essayist from Georgian England who published under the pen name Theodosia. Coming from a well-off family, she was educated and chose to remain single (she rejected several marriage proposals) so that she could focus on her writing, which she considered a calling. Rev. Kevin Twit, a Reformed University Fellowship pastor in Nashville and the founder of Indelible Grace, says Steele was the first significant female Christian hymn writer and the first, of either sex, to write lament hymns; over half her oeuvre, he says, deals with suffering and doubt.

Twit has set several of Steele’s hymns to music, most famously “Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul,” which Steele wrote in 1760. The solo performance above is from the January 24, 2021, worship service at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. The names of the singer and accompanist are not given. You can also listen to the song on Indelible Grace’s 2008 album.

>> “We Will Feast in the House of Zion” by Sandra McCracken and Joshua Moore: Sandra McCracken is one of today’s leading Christian singer-songwriters, and this hymn, which she wrote with Josh Moore, is the most popular of her congregational songs. From her 2015 album Psalms, it paints a vision of the eschaton, of the new heavens and the new earth, marked by restoration, shalom, and celebration. One thing I noticed as a church music leader is how many hymns and other worship songs use first-person singular pronouns (I/me/my) and emphasize one’s personal relationship with God; those are fine and even necessary, as the book of Psalms models, but I always made sure, when making a song list, to balance them with songs that use first-personal plural (us/we/our) and that convey a more communal picture of the Christian life and of the gospel, which is at least but also much more than what Jesus did for me. This is perhaps my favorite hymn about heaven, a place of safety and rest, yes, but also where all of creation is redeemed, made new; where everyone and everything flourishes in harmony under the benevolent reign of Christ.

“We Will Feast” works well during Communion (a ritual that anticipates the marriage supper of the Lamb) or as a closer, as it sends worshippers out with a benediction, a good word—a promise of the restorative beauty to come.

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VIDEO: “Poetry Unbound: A Conversation with David Kinloch and Pádraig Ó Tuama,” Washington National Cathedral, April 26, 2021: The On Being Project in partnership with Washington National Cathedral presents Pádraig Ó Tuama in conversation with the Scottish poet David Kinloch, part of a series of interviews with contemporary poets whose work demonstrates an artistic and literary engagement with biblical narratives and characters. They primarily discuss Kinloch’s extensive “Some Women” sequence of poems from his collection In Search of Dustie-Fute (Carcanet, 2017), voiced by women of the Bible (or, in the case of the first, Jewish folklore): Lilith, Cain’s wife, Adah and Zillah, Sarah, Lot’s wife, Rebekah, Zipporah, Deborah, Rahab, the Levite’s concubine, Ruth, Bathsheba, the daughters of Job, King David’s concubines, Hannah, Martha, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the Jewish women followers of Jesus responding to the apostle Paul’s teachings.

(The conversation starts at 7:55.)

Kinloch reads three poems from “Some Women”: “First Letter of the Hebrew Women to St Paul” (15:36), “Ruth” (23:49), and “Cain’s Wife” (29:58). He also reads two additional poems from the same volume, from the sequence “Joseph’s Dreams”: “St Joseph’s Dream” (40:44) and “Another Dream” (1:08:53).

This conversation impelled to check out In Search of Dustie-Fute from the library. I like the “Some Women” sequence overall—Kinloch’s creative engagement with the stories of these women, some very little known (e.g., I had to look up “Adah” and “Zillah”!) or little thought about (like the unnamed victims of sexual abuse)—though I will warn you that it contains some profanity and crude sexual language. In the Q&A that starts at 49:09, one of the questions is about the role of shock and humor in his poetry. (Kinloch says if his poems offend, they fail.) Other questions are about the biblical literacy that he does or does not presuppose, his editing process, a character from the Bible that he wants to write about but hasn’t yet, and why he, a man, feels justified in writing from the perspective of women.

Kinloch is an agnostic, so his relationship with biblical texts is different from that of one who is devout. But the Bible is not the exclusive domain of believers; Kinloch can just as well help us inhabit these stories and can derive questions or insights from them. I really appreciated hearing from him. Here’s what he had to say on the vernacular of everyday human experience:

It seems to me that there’s such distance—in terms of time, in terms of culture—between us in the twenty-first century and the people of those [ancient Near Eastern] communities. You need to find common ground so that some kind of dialogue can open up, so that you can shrink that distance. And therefore, the emphasis in all of these poems, really, is on the humanity of the people. I’m not writing sermons, I’m not writing homilies; I’m writing little dramatic monologues, mostly, and trying to make these people as believable, as real, as possible in the present moment of reading about them. My hope, I suppose, is that if people have enjoyed the poems, then maybe they might go back to those stories in the Bible. And it’s at that point that there will be an encounter with the divine, with the extraordinary. I don’t really feel that I have access to those moments of extraordinariness. All the extraordinariness is in the Bible, and I can only offer an avenue of approach to that.

“The Samaritan Woman” by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) (poem)

March 6, 2026March 6, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Koder, Sieger_Woman at Jacob's Well — Sieger Köder (German, 1925–2015), *Woman at Jacob’s Well*, 1990. Sieger Köder Museum, Ellwangen, Germany.

It joined us together, the well;
the well led me into you.
No one between us but light
deep in the well, the pupil of the eye
set in an orbit of stones.

Within your eyes, I, 
drawn by the well, 
am enclosed.

Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz, from Collected Poems by Karol Wojtyla (Random House, 1982)

This contemplative poem was originally published in Polish in Kraków’s leading Catholic periodical, Tygodnik Powszechny (Universal Weekly), on May 7, 1950, when Karol Wojtyla was a twenty-nine-year-old parish priest. It’s the sixth in a sequence of eight poems collectively titled “Song of the Brightness of Water” (Pieśń o blasku wody), all reflecting on Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4.

Karol Wojtyla (1920–2005) was a theologian, philosopher, poet, and priest best known for serving as head of the Catholic Church as Pope John Paul II from 1978 until his death. He traveled more than any other pope (visiting 129 countries), helped end Communism in Eastern Europe, fostered interfaith dialogue, and promoted human rights. He was canonized on April 27, 2014. Born, raised, and educated in Poland, in 1938–39 Karol studied Polish philology (literature and language) at Jagiellonian University, but his academic pursuits were interrupted by the Nazi occupation. He avoided conscription in the German military by working as a manual laborer in a quarry—which he did while secretly taking seminary courses in Kraków from 1942 to 1946 (Catholicism was suppressed at the time) and participating in the underground theater scene as both an actor and a playwright. After graduating, he was ordained to the priesthood.
Throughout the first half of his adult life—as a student, young parish priest, bishop, archbishop, and cardinal—Karol wrote and published poetry anonymously and then pseudonymously under the names Andrzej Jawień and Stanisław Andrzej Gruda. After he became pope, many of these poems were compiled into a collection, translated into English with Vatican approval, and released in book form under his given name. Karol continued writing poetry during his pontificate, but at a much slower pace. His most famous writings are in prose and include the landmark encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) on human dignity, the international bestseller Crossing the Threshold of Hope, and a series of 129 addresses titled The Theology of the Body.

Jerzy Peterkiewicz (1916–2007) was a Polish poet, novelist, and translator. In 1940 he fled his home country, arriving in England as a war refugee with no knowledge of the language. He went on to become a literature professor at London University, and in 1960, with coeditor and cotranslator Burns Singer, he published the influential anthology Five Centuries of Polish Poetry, 1450–1950. He was later chosen by a papal commission to translate the poetry of Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla).

“Your free hearts said them never nay”: Christ blesses the merciful in a medieval mystery play

March 4, 2026March 5, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

The following excerpt is from the fourteenth-century biblical drama The Last Judgement from the York cycle of mystery plays [previously], performed annually in York, England, on the feast of Corpus Christi until its suppression by Protestants in 1569. Based on Matthew 25, this final play in the cycle was produced by the city’s guild of mercers (dealers in textile fabrics) and so is sometimes referred to as the Mercers’ Play.

I’ve chosen to feature it at this time because almsgiving—that is, assisting those in need, especially through the giving of money or goods—is one of the three pillars of Lent, and according to Matthew 25:31–46, it’s the measure by which Christ eternally blesses or damns people. It’s what separates the sheep from the goats, those who truly know Christ from those who don’t. The list of six charitable deeds in this Gospel passage—feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned—are called, in church tradition, the corporal works of mercy. A seventh, burying the dead, was added based on the book of Tobit 1:17–19.

Works of Mercy (York stained glass) — *Corporal Acts of Mercy*, 1410. Stained glass window, All Saints Church, North Street, York, England. Photo: Julian P. Guffogg.

I’ve sourced the Middle English text below from the Oxford World Classics volume York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling, edited by Richard Beadle and Pamela M. King. The glosses are Beadle and King’s.

JESUS: My blessed children on my right hand,
Your doom this day ye thar not dread, [thar = need]
For all your comfort is comand—   [command = coming]
Your life in liking shall ye lead.
Come to the kingdom ay-lastand   [ay-lastand = eternal]
That you is dight for your good deed; [you is dight = is prepared for you]
Full blithe may ye be where ye stand,
For mickle in heaven shall be your meed.   [mickle = great; meed = reward]

When I was hungry, ye me fed;
To slake my thirst your heart was free;   [free = willing]
When I was clotheless, ye me clad,
Ye would no sorrow upon me see.
In hard press when I was stead,   [When I was placed in difficult circumstances]
Of my pains ye had pity;
Full sick when I was brought in bed,   [in = to]
Kindly ye came to comfort me.

When I was will and weariest   [will = distraught]
Ye harbored me full heartfully;
Full glad then were ye of your guest,
And plained my poverty piteously. [plained = lamented]
Belive ye brought me of the best   [belive = quickly]
And made my bed full easily,   [easily = comfortably]
Therefore in heaven shall be your rest,
In joy and bliss to be me by.

1 GOOD SOUL: When had we, Lord that all has wrought,
Meat and drink thee with to feed,
Since we in earth had never nought
But through the grace of thy Godhead?

2 GOOD SOUL: When was’t that we thee clothes brought,
Or visited thee in any need,
Or in thy sickness we thee sought?
Lord, when did we thee this deed?

JESUS: My blessed children, I shall you say
What time this deed was to me done:
When any that need had, night or day,
Asked you help and had it soon.
Your free hearts said them never nay,
Early ne late, midday ne noon,
But as oft-sithes as they would pray,   [pray = ask]
Them thurt but bid, and have their boon.   [They only needed to ask, and their request was granted]

For a modern performance of The Last Judgement by Handmade Performance in Toronto, see here. (The above passage is at 16:43ff.) They use a modern translation by Chester N. Scoville and Kimberley M. Yates.

Roundup: Sister Wendy on the art of Holy Week, Fernando Botero’s “Via Crucis,” and more

March 1, 2026March 6, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

BOOK: The Art of Holy Week and Easter: Meditations on the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus by Sister Wendy Beckett (2021): Sister Wendy Beckett, a British Catholic nun and art enthusiast who died in 2018, is the one who first got me interested in art history. We watched clips from her BBC series Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting in my studio art class in high school, and I was so drawn to the way she looked at art and talked about it. Enthusiastic, warm, inquisitive, spiritually sensitive and theologically astute, and interested not just in the technical qualities of a work but also in its content—though I know I lack the same flair, my own voice and approach when it comes to art are indebted to hers.

So I was delighted to see that SPCK (and IVP in North America) has published two church calendar–based art devotionals by Sister Wendy: one for Lent, and one for Holy Week and Easter. I was disappointed with The Art of Lent: It has an admirable diversity of art selections, but Sister Wendy’s reflections are short and basic, and most don’t shine in the way I’ve come to expect from her; there were only two standouts for me. I also found it thematically confusing (for example, a section on “Confidence”?), unfocused, and redundant (especially in the “Silence” and “Contemplation” sections). I will grant that Lent is a more difficult season to structure for a project like this than Advent is, as I found the one year I published a daily Lent series; it can mean many things to many people.

Sister Wendy’s The Art of Holy Week and Easter, on the other hand, I did enjoy and recommend, even though I wish it had the same variety as the Lent book. (There’s only one modern/contemporary painting.) I care for only about half the featured artworks—two favorites are below—but even for the ones I was disinclined toward, her commentary helped me appreciate them.

Peter's Repentance — Cristoforo de Predis (Italian, 1440–1486), “Saint Peter realizing he has thrice betrayed Jesus,” from the *Leggendario Sforza-Savoia*, 1476. Codice Varia 124, Biblioteca Reale (Royal Library), Turin, Italy.

About a medieval manuscript illumination of Peter weeping by Cristoforo de Predis, Sister Wendy writes:

This magical little picture presents an unforgettable image of grief. It is that most painful kind of grief, lamenting of our own folly. Here we see Peter with his shamed face covered, stumbling blindly forward from one closed door to the next. There are ways out behind him, but Peter is too lost in misery to look for them. This claustrophobic despair, this helpless anguish, this incapacitating sense of shame: these are the result of a sudden overturn of our own self-image.

Peter had honestly seen himself as one who loved and followed Jesus, priding himself, moreover, on how true his loyalty was in comparison with that of others. ‘Even if all should betray you, I will never betray you’ – it was a boast, but he had meant it. Now he sees, piercingly, that he is fraudulent. He has been unmasked to himself, he has lost his self-worth.

The crucial question is: What next? Will he hide his face forever, destroyed by self-pity? Will he lose all heart, perhaps even kill himself, as Judas did? But while Judas felt only remorse, Peter feels contrition, a healing sorrow that will lead to repentance and a change of heart. Now that he knows his true weakness, he will cling to Jesus as never before. He will cling in desperate need and not in false strength, and will in the end become truly Peter, the ‘rock’, on which the Church, likewise dependent on Christ, will be built. (26)

El Greco_Christ crucified with Toledo in the Background — El Greco (Greek Spanish, 1541–1614), *Christ Crucified with Toledo in the Background*, 1604–14. Oil on canvas, 111 × 69 cm. Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid.

About El Greco’s Christ Crucified, she mentions how “Jesus . . . dies looking upwards, his determination set upon his Father’s will and its consummation. . . . His body spirals upwards like a white flame, radiating out as he spreads his arms to share the light with the defeated shadows” (38).

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HYMNS:

>> “O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High”: I’ve enjoyed learning a few new-to-me hymns from the YouTube channel of Josh Bales. Attributed to the fifteenth-century German-Dutch Catholic mystic Thomas à Kempis, this hymn text was translated from Latin into English by Benjamin Webb in 1871. It appears in the Episcopal hymnal with the tune EISENACH by Bartholomäus Gesius, as adapted by Johann Hermann Schein in 1628, which is what Bales sings. It’s rare among hymns for emphasizing that our salvation was won not just by Christ’s death but also by his life—his faithful obedience to the Father.

>> “I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous)”: A favorite from my childhood, this 1905 gospel hymn by Charles H. Gabriel is performed here by the Imani Milele Choir, made up of orphaned and/or vulnerable children and youth from Uganda.

>> “Come Let Me Love”: I recently learned of this shape-note hymn from a book I’m reading by J. R. Watson. Written by the late great Isaac Watts, the text was first published in the 1706 edition of Watts’s Horæ lyricæ with the title “Christ’s Amazing Love and My Amazing Coldness.” I especially love verses 4 and 5, reproduced below. The tune in the following video, LAVY, is actually a new one (from 1993) that sounds old, by John Bayer Jr.

Infinite grace! Almighty charms!
Stand in amaze, ye rolling skies!
Jesus, the God with naked arms,
Hangs on a cross of love and dies.

Did pity ever stoop so low,
Dress’d in divinity and blood?
Was ever rebel courted so,
In groans of an expiring God?

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VIDEO: “Christ by Eric Smith”: This is the first video in the (Catholic) Archdiocese of Brisbane’s four-part Art Aficionados series from 2022. In it, Archbishop Emeritus Mark Coleridge, theology professor Maeve Heaney, and Rev. Dr. Tom Elich of Liturgy Brisbane discuss the semiabstract Ecce homo painting Christ by the modern Australian artist Eric Smith—its pathos, calm, and double irony. This Christ is crushed yet composed, Coleridge says. Smith won the prestigious Blake Prize for Religious Art six times, including, in 1956, for a painting similar to this one (see second image in slideshow below). I’d love to see more dioceses releasing videos like this!—close looking at art.

The other videos in the Art Aficionados series are on The Stories That Weren’t Told by Lee Paje, The Good Samaritan by Olga Bakhtina, and The Visitation by Jacob Epstein.

Eric Smith (Australian, 1919–2017), Christ, 1956. Oil on Masonite, 138 × 95 cm. Collection of Holy Spirit Seminary (Queensland Provincial Seminary), Banyo, Brisbane, Australia. Photo courtesy of Tom Elich.
Eric Smith (Australian, 1919–2017), The Scourged Christ, 1956. Oil on Masonite, 116 × 85 cm. Penrith Regional Gallery, Emu Plains, Australia.
Eric Smith (Australian, 1919–2017), Head of Christ, 1954. Oil on wood, 47 × 39.4 cm. Collection of Newman College, University of Melbourne, Australia.
Eric Smith (Australian, 1919–2017), Head of Christ, 1954. Oil on Masonite, 40.5 × 32.6 cm. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

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ART SERIES: Via Crucis: La pasión de Cristo (Way of the Cross: The Passion of Christ) by Fernando Botero: Executed in 2010–11, Via Crucis is a series of twenty-seven oil paintings and thirty-four mixed-media drawings by Colombia’s most famous artist, Fernando Botero (1932–2023) [previously]. Botero said he turned to the subject of Christ’s passion not because he’s religious, but out of admiration for the great works of art on the subject; he approached it with “a spirit of great respect,” aiming to portray God as a tortured man. The artist donated the series to the Museo de Antioquia in Medellín for his eightieth birthday. I can’t find a compilation of the whole series (the museum has digital records of the Boteros in its collection, but not all the images are showing up for me)—but you can view fourteen of the paintings in this article, and here’s a quick little Facebook reel.

Marlborough Gallery in New York offers a catalog of the series for $75, and Artika offers a much more expensive one (a gorgeous product, but $9,500!):

Here’s a news segment, in English, about the series’ exhibition at Lisbon’s Palacio de Ajuda in November 2012 (unfortunately, the video quality is low):

Botero, Fernando_Via Crucis — Fernando Botero (Colombian, 1932–2023), *Crucifixión* (Crucifixion), 2011, and *Jesús y la multitud* (Jesus and the Crowd), 2010. Oil on canvas. Museo de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.

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I have thematic playlists on Spotify for Lent and Holy Week—for the latter, don’t miss “From the Garden to the Tomb” by The Soil and The Seed Project, one of several recent additions.

But, by popular request, I also have a brand-new March 2026 playlist, a somewhat random assortment of songs I’ve been enjoying—some new releases, some not.

“Make Me River” by Abigail Carroll (poem)

February 27, 2026February 27, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Fernandez-Pol, Julia_Glacial Rain — Julia Fernandez-Pol (Argentine, 1984–), *Glacial Rain*, 2008. Oil on canvas. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Colorado Springs. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

Make me river, cold
with mountain, green
with quiver, silver in

the run and churn of
winter leaving, valley
waking, sheet moss

breathing. Make me
flash of mica, drift of
foam. O Lord of flux,

make these dry bones
flow, teach me to spill,
pool, glide, fall, tutor me

to long for depth, seek
downward paths, indwell
the low. Oh teach me

liturgy of keel, swirl,
flume, the breaking into
mist, the pull, the press,

the song. Oh form me
into blood of bedrock,
quest of glacier, dream

of sea, release me, set
me free to course, surge,
pour, sweep, issue, eddy,

shower, plummet, roll.
O Lord of flood, O Lord
of spray, unstill my soul.

From Habitation of Wonder (Cascade / Wipf & Stock, 2018). Used with permission.

Abigail Carroll is a poet whose work, as Walter Brueggemann called it, is “an unflinching witness to the reality and goodness of God.” She has authored the collections Cup My Days Like Water (Cascade, 2023), Habitation of Wonder (Cascade, 2018), and A Gathering of Larks: Letters to Saint Francis from a Modern-Day Pilgrim (Eerdmans, 2017), and her poems have also been published in anthologies and periodicals. She makes her home in Vermont, where she serves as associate pastor at Church at the Well. In addition to writing, she enjoys walking, photographing nature, and playing piano.

“Demon Host” by Timber Timbre: A Song Analysis

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Timber Timbre is the moniker of the Canadian folk blues singer-songwriter Taylor Kirk. The opening track on his 2009 self-titled album, “Demon Host,” establishes the album’s haunted tone. The song is mournful and mystical, and it references God, religion, sin, death, and repentance.

Death, she must have been your will
A bone beneath the reaper’s veil
With your voice my belly sunk
And I began to feel so drunk

Candle, candle on my clock
Oh Lord, I must have heard you knock
Me out of bed as the flames licked my head
And my lungs filled up black in their tiny little shack
It was real and I repent
All those messages you sent
Clear as day, but in the night
Oh, I couldn’t get it right

Here is a church and here is a steeple
Open the doors, there are the people
And all their little hearts at ease
For another week’s disease

And eagle, eagle talons scream
I never once left in between
I was on the fence and I never wanted your two cents
Down my throat, into the pit, with my head upon the spit
Oh Reverend, please, can I chew your ear?
I’ve become what I most fear
And I know there’s no such thing as ghosts
But I have seen the demon host

There are several different ways to interpret this song, but at its core, it seems to me it’s about an agnostic facing death. In the first four lines he hears death calling to him—personified, atypically, as a woman. The “your,” I think, is God, whom the speaker names a few lines later. (Alternatively, “death” could be a noun of direct address and “your” its pronoun, in which case “she” may refer to a female friend who has died, inciting the crisis that follows.) Unprepared for this sudden confrontation, the speaker feels woozy with shock.

Candles and clocks serve as memento mori, reminders of death. As the wax burns down and time ticks on, he’s jolted out of a nightmare about the flames of judgment. Awake now to the reality of God’s holiness, he repents, realizing that God has been pursuing him all along.

He enters a church, but he’s turned off by the apparent easiness with which the people greet “another week’s disease.” I’m not sure what that means—the horrors and suffering of the world? personal sin? If these Christians struggle with either, they mask it. He is not able to feel the same sense of peace and victory they do.

“Eagle, eagle talons scream” is an elusive yet evocative line that may refer to the feeling of being pierced or gutted, perhaps having one’s sin revealed by the Holy Spirit. Or maybe it expresses a more indefinable sense of anxiety and distress.

The speaker admits he had always been perfectly comfortable sitting on the fence, “in between” faith and no-faith, not committing to this or that system of belief and practice. He never wanted God to intervene with his “two cents” on what is real and how to live. He resents the church’s teachings on eternal punishment and hellfire. And yet he’s ambivalent about Christianity. He cherishes his indecision, but he’s also restless. He seeks out the pastor to talk with.

“I’ve become what I most fear,” he confesses. And what is that? Being sold out to Jesus? Engulfing wickedness?

Even the title of the song, taken from the last line, is ambiguous, as the word “host” has multiple meanings. The “demon host” could refer to an army of demons, to a body that’s possessed by a demon, or to a parody of the Eucharist (in Christian liturgies, the consecrated bread, the body of Christ, is called the host). It seems the speaker has either experienced a stark vision of evil, or some evil has taken hold of him. Or maybe it’s death that he’s characterizing as demonic, but if so, it’s manifesting supernaturally, as he calls it ghostly.

In the music video there’s a menacing hooded figure that stands outside the shed in which Kirk performs, looking very much like the Grim Reaper. This entity listens, then gradually approaches, then even holds the microphone for Kirk, but his face is always in shadow. In some shots we see a second figure, dressed in the same garb, holding a guitar.

Lyrically, the song is unresolved, and musically, the last minute is unsettling.

Is this a song about damnation? Or dying to self, crucifying the ego, part of the conversion process? What about addiction? Or surviving a near-death experience and living in light of that? Whatever the particulars, the song is in the voice of someone who is shaken from his equivocation into seriously considering faith; someone who wrestles with God, mortality, and evil.

I’m eager to hear what you make of it or what stands out to you.