CONFERENCE: Presence and Mystery: A Re:Echo Symposium on Art and Mystery, September 24–26, 2026, Resurrection Philadelphia: “Join philosopher James K. A. Smith, theologian Natalie Carnes, filmmaker Benjamin Stamper, and film historian Joe Kickasola for an inspiring exploration of the surprising relationship between art and mysticism; unknowing as spiritual and creative practice; and how the embrace of mystery restores us to the world—a re-enchantment vital to our formation and flourishing.”
The conference is organized by Re:Echo, “a group of professional artists and friends committed to a creative praxis informed by our daily and spiritual life together, and to the holistic flourishing of all artists, the church, Philadelphia, and the world in and through our creative work.” It is part of their 2026 project The Aesthetics of Shalom, a multidisciplinary, extended meditation on, as the Hebrew word indicates, “comprehensive flourishing, wholeness, and peace of and in God.”
The weekend will include lectures and discussions; the premiere of MOYA SEM’YA (MY FAMILY), a film by Benjamin Stamper; the inaugural Re:Echo Journal Literary Salon (following the release on September 9 of the journal’s first issue, available freely online or for purchase in print); the release concert for Each Mortal Thing, an album of original work by Brother Sister, a new project headed by Christopher and Jeremy McDonald; and guided tours through the rich and unique arts offerings of Philadelphia. The cost of the full conference package is $150, or $75 for a day pass.
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WORKSHOP:“Who Taught You What Jesus Looks Like? Power, Imagination, and the Face of Christ” by Victoria Omotoso, October 10, 2026, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London: “How are images of Jesus shaped by culture, history, and power? And how do these images, in turn, shape theology, identity, and discipleship? Drawing on biblical studies, Black theology, and film, Victoria Omotoso, author of Imag(in)ing Jesus in the Universal or Particular (Bloomsbury, 2025), will invite you, in this workshop, to critically reflect on the figure of Jesus and consider how faith is lived in contexts shaped by inequality and representation.” Tickets start at £7.50.
Portrayals of Jesus in The Lumo Project: The Gospel of Mark (2014) and Son of Man (2006)
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CHANT:9/11 memorial chantby Rabbi Irwin Kula: This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US [previously]. In the days and years following the attacks, several final voicemail messages from victims to their families were publicly released, sent from the World Trade Center towers and the hijacked airplanes. Rabbi Irwin Kula set some of these words to an ancient mournful Jewish chant traditionally used for the book of Lamentations. He chants them as a memorial. [HT: Nadia Bolz-Weber]
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NPR SEGMENT:“Melting guns and bullet casings, this artist turns weapons into bells”by Neda Ulaby: Artist Stephanie Mercedes (she/they) melts down bullet casings and parts of old guns and casts them into bells (associated with sacredness or mourning) or builds them into kinetic sculptures that make music, transforming weapons of hate into works of beauty. Reporter Neda Ulaby talked with Mercedes at her spring 2023 exhibition A Sky of Shattered Glass Reflected by the Shining Sun at Culture House in Washington, DC. [HT: Still Life]
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HYMNS arranged by Sam JC Lee:
Sam JC Lee [previously] is a jazz bassist, composer, and sound engineer, an assistant professor at Berklee College of Music, and the director of worship at Citylife Boston. Citylife was the church that formed me as a young adult: My husband and I attended during his grad school years from 2010 to 2015. And music was a big part of that formation. I fondly remember the occasional jazz worship services that Lee arranged music for and directed. Here are two of his hymn arrangements.
>> “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”: Featuring Esther Lee on vocals, Sam JC Lee on bass, Leo Maxey on trumpet, Christian Hizon on trombone, Myunghan Yoo on tenor sax, Sunny Eunsun Park on keys, and Byung Kang on drums.
DANCE: “Seraphim” (2026), choreographed by Lindsey Hanson: This is one of the most unique dances for film that I’ve seen. It’s absolutely mesmerizing! Filmed in Dimnent Memorial Chapel in Holland, Michigan, with a bird’s eye view camera, “Seraphim” features eight female dancers who utilize the space’s pews and at times appear to be swimming in water or floating in zero gravity. They curl and climb and slide and propel. I love the illusion of them ascending and descending a ladder using the bench ends—a reference to the ladder in Jacob’s vision, linking heaven and earth. (Reminds me of the angels on the limestone facade of Bath Abbey in the UK!) In part because of the work’s title, I imagine the dancers as the invisible spiritual presences that move about the church, quietly ministering.
“Seraphim” is the second of four new works created this year as part of the Sanctuary Project, funded by the Creative Arts Collective for Christian Life and Faith. The third work, “Gethsemane,” will be performed for a live audience, who will watch from the stage, on September 5 at the W83 Ministry Center Sanctuary at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City; free reservations are open! Debuting in 2021, SANCTUARY is a site-specific dance made for Redeemer, to activate the architecture of the church’s worship space, and choreographer and director Lindsey Hanson has expanded the concept into a continuing body of work.
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POEM: “Lord of Light and Dark”by Haley Hodges Schmid, Reformed Journal:Haley Hodges Schmid is a sonically driven poet, and that shows in this gorgeous poem published last month, a prayer with internal rhyme, consonance, a verbified noun, and other language play. It’s about “holy darkening,” says Schmid, whose debut poetry collection, Eros Rex, was released earlier this year by Orison Books. She seeks to recover positive imagery of darkness, and so expand our metaphorical associations. I’m reminded of other poets who have similarly explored the biblical paradox of the light and darkness of God, including John Milton (“Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,” he writes in Paradise Lost) and Meister Eckhart via Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows: “You are the One who is in-yet-beyond / the many, Light burning in darkness // and Darkness shining beyond light” (from Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart). There are a handful of contemporary hymns and worship songs that do the same.
“Lord of Light and Dark” was born out of a week-long residency on poetry and prayer that Schmid participated in in Asheville, North Carolina, led by Marie Howe, who had the group write collects, a short, structured prayer form used in Anglican worship.
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ARTICLES:
>> “A feast day for the whole church,” an interview with Kimberly Belcher, by Steve Thorngate, Christian Century: “This spring, the Consultation on Common Texts published an update to the Revised Common Lectionary: It added the Feast of Creation in Christ on September 1, offering biblical texts and other materials for use starting with the current church year. It’s a milestone in a decades-long ecumenical process.” Steve Thorngate talks with liturgical theologian Kimberly Belcher, who participated in the Assisi meetings in 2024–25, about this feast day that has only recently developed in the West but that has been celebrated in the East for more than five hundred years as the Feast of the Indiction. Belcher describes what’s behind the full name, how a feast day is distinct from a world day of prayer, the challenges and gifts of ecumenism, creation as revelation, and more.
Illustration by Mary Haasdyk Vooys for The Christian Century‘s September 2026 cover story on the Feast of Creation in Christ, a new addition to the official liturgical calendars of many Western churches
I love the illustration Mary Haasdyk Vooys made for this article, which is used on the magazine’s cover. It shows Christ as Creator, holding a drafting compass and surrounded by diverse animals.
>> “Hillary Waters Fayle Creates ‘Portraits of Place’ from Seeds, Foliage, and Petals” by Kate Mothes, Colossal:Portraits of Place is an ongoing series of botanical artworks by Hillary Waters Fayle that pay tribute to the land and our relationship with it. The artist collects botanical material from a designated place, dries and preserves it, arranges it into an intricate, mandala-like pattern, and then uses that to create a cyanotype. Many of these she does on commission for people who want to commemorate a piece of land that is special to them.
Penland Pop by Hillary Waters Fayle
I urge you to explore the artist’s website, which contains many more photos plus other extraordinary projects, including embroidered leaves and lacelike leafcuts: https://www.hillarywfayle.com/.
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WORSHIP RESOURCES: Creation Collection from Reformed Worship: ReformedWorship.org has compiled numerous resources on the theme of creation—worship services, songs, prayers, litanies, a Psalms-based reader’s theater, sermon series, stories, and more.
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SONG:“Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes” (The Heavens Declare the Glory of God) by Heinrich Schütz: This motet from 1648 is a setting of Psalm 19:1–6. It’s performed here by VOCES8 in the Christuskirche in Recklinghausen, Germany.
POEM:“Last Words (Death Row, Texas)”by Eileen Talone: This poem from Image journal’s Winter 2020 issue made me cry. “Formally, it is a villanelle composed of found language from the transcripts of executions in Texas,” writes James K. A. Smith. “It is a poem of last words that the poet has braided together as an elegy, a song of both lament and yearning.”
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PODCAST EPISODE:“Pádraig Ó Tuama: Poetry, and Making Peace, Bearing Witness and Being Human – Poetry Against the Dark,”No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp, November 3, 2025: “‘Legitimate target has sixteen letters—and one long abominable space between two dehumanizing words.’ In this episode, poet and peacebuilder Pádraig Ó Tuama offers a sobering yet luminous reflection on language, theology, and the long road of reconciliation. From exorcisms and conversion therapy to moments of silence, soup, and starlight, his stories remind us that even in a burning world, there is still room for awe, for courage, and for a better kind of human flourishing.”
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EXHIBITION (+ BOOK + VIDEO TOUR): Esther and the Dream of One Loving Human Family, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, February 23, 2019–December 2030: I recently saw this affecting exhibition at AVAM (the same museum that’s currently showing Mary Proctor), spending a whole afternoon taking in the visual and textual testimony of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz (1927–2001) regarding her survival of the Holocaust. Krinitz was twelve when the Nazis occupied the Polish hamlet of Mniszek, where she lived on a farm with her family. She was able to flee three years later, in 1942, with one of her younger sisters, but she never saw her parents, brother, or other sister again. She emigrated to the United States in 1949, working as a seamstress in Brooklyn and then in Frederick, Maryland, where she spent the remainder of her life.
In 1977, at age fifty, Krinitz embroidered an approximately four-by-four-foot panel of her childhood home, her carrying pails of water up the footpath. She wanted to share her memories with her two daughters, Bernice Steinhardt and Helene McQuade. This became the first piece in a series of thirty-six, covering her bucolic childhood—tending geese, swimming in the river, walking through wheat fields on stilts, watching her mom make Passover matzos—and then its sudden disruption by German forces during the war. Her embroidered pictures show such cruelties as a soldier ripping off her father’s prayer shawl and cutting off her grandfather’s beard, and her whole family being pulled out of their beds at dawn and taunted with guns. They show children forced to dig trenches, a family friend’s betrayal, Krinitz hiding out in the woods, death marches, shootings, cabbages growing on human ashes at Maidanek concentration camp, and Nazi corpses hanging from trees after the liberation. Krinitz didn’t finish embroidering her whole life story, but the final image she completed shows her arriving, after living for several years in a refugee camp in Germany, in New York Harbor with her husband and newborn.
To view all the images, visit the Art and Remembrance website, which includes image files as well as a video tour narrated by Steinhardt. I also heartily recommend the beautifully produced bookMemories of Survival, which reproduces the full series and provides an introduction, transcriptions of Krinitz’s hand-stitched descriptions, and commentary by Steinhardt.
Krinitz’s art is the primary component and anchor point of the current exhibition in Baltimore—but the exhibition also includes a dozen or so works by other artists that lament atrocities and advocate for an end to violence. “The show pays tribute to humanity’s unjust persecution of innocents and the dream of a world at peace.”
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TED TALK: “How Art Transforms Brokenness into Beauty” by Lily Yeh, April 19, 2024: Chinese American artist Lily Yeh travels the world, building community through the arts and bringing beauty to public spaces often seen as “broken.” In this TED Talk, she describes three of her collaborative projects: establishing an art park in North Philadelphia, which involved the making of murals, sculptures, and mosaics with neighborhood children and adults (a project that evolved into the nonprofit The Village of Arts and Humanities); working with survivors of the Rwandan genocide to create a memorial in Rugerero atop a mass grave (“Where there’s beauty, we see hope,” one survivor told her); and “turning dilapidation into color and abundance” at a middle school for migrant children in rural China.
Yeh is the subject of the 2014 documentary The Barefoot Artist: Healing Communities Through Art, streaming for free on Kanopy and available for rental through other platforms.
Lily Yeh (Chinese American, 1941–), Village Life in Rwanda Before the 1994 Genocide, 2015. Acrylic on brown paper. Courtesy of the artist.
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SONGS:
>> “The Law of God Is Love” by Kester Limner:Kester Limner wrote this song in June 2020 for a virtual contemplative worship service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Seattle, influenced by the simple, slow, repetitive style of Taizé chant. She shares it under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build on the material in any medium or format, even commercially, as long as attribution is given to the creator.
Love, love, the law of God is love And to break every chain of oppression So we work, and we pray, O God, Your kingdom come May we see the dawn of Your justice
>> “Prayers for Freedom” by MaMuse: “Wholeheartedly fed by the folk and gospel traditions, MaMuse (Sarah Nutting and Karisha Longaker) create uplifting music to inspire the world into thriving.” “This video,” they write, “was inspired by our love and reverence for water, for friendship cherished and laughter forever praised.” I’ve previously featured the duo here and here.
>> Rothko in Florence, multiple sites in Florence, Italy, March 14–August 23, 2026: Presented by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and curated by Christopher Rothko and Elena Geuna, Rothko in Florence explores the influence of the city on Mark Rothko’s art, especially in terms of space and color. Rothko visited Florence in 1950, 1959, and 1966 and was particularly taken by the monastery-turned-museum San Marco, its cells frescoed with devotional scenes by Fra Angelico, and the vestibule of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, designed by Michelangelo. Now those two Renaissance sites are host to a display of Rothko’s works: five of his paintings hang alongside Fra Angelico’s monastic frescoes, and two studies for his Seagram Murals hang in the Laurentian Library.
Installation view: Rothko in Florence, San Marco Museum, Florence, 2026. Photo: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. (Read Georges Didi-Huberman’s reflection on the Fra Angelico painting at left.)
But the primary site of the exhibition is the fifteenth-century Palazzo Strozzi, which shows over seventy of Rothko’s works from private collections and international museums, spanning the different stylistic phases of his career, from figurative to neo-surrealist to color field. And in dialogue with the exhibition, the sacristy of the Chapel of San Nicolò, inside the complex of the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, one of the oldest pharmacies in the world, has been converted into a “listening room”; Rothko Chapel, a composition for chorus, celesta, cello, and percussion written by Morton Feldman in 1971 at Rothko’s commission, plays through speakers, washing over frescoed scenes of Christ’s passion painted by Mariotto di Nardo di Cione between 1385 and 1408.
>> Called as We Are, York Minster, July 12–August 10, 2026 (then to other locations): Presented by the Church of England’s Disability Project in partnership with Art and Christianity, this exhibition consists of twelve photographic portraits by Ruth Samuels of leaders in the Church of England who are Deaf, disabled, and/or neurodivergent. “Called As We Are brings Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people in ordained and lay ministries into focus and explores the enriching and dynamic contribution that difference brings to their personal ministries and the ministry of the church,” says Rev. John Beauchamp, a blind priest who serves as disability ministry enabler in the Diocese of London. Samuels, the photographer, herself has chronic fatigue syndrome.
Rev. Vanessa Thornborough, curate at St. Edmund of Canterbury, Hayes, who has a hand difference, is one of the church leaders featured in the Disability Project exhibition Called as We Are. Photo by Ruth Samuels.
Each photograph is accompanied by insights and observations from the subject, telling us about their disability, their faith journey, and adaptations that have helped them along their way. There are also audio descriptions, as well as BSL (British Sign Language) interpretation. After its time at York Minster, the exhibition will travel to the following locations:
Exeter Cathedral, August 12–19, 2026
Liverpool Cathedral, September 14–October 4, 2026
Chelmsford Cathedral, October 12–November 9, 2026
St Alban’s Cathedral, November 10–26, 2026
St Giles Cripplegate, London, January 18–February 8, 2027
CALL FOR ART: St. Francis Exhibition, Creo Arts Gallery, Wilmore, Kentucky: “This November, Creo Arts invites you to explore the life, legacy, and spiritual vision of St. Francis through the arts. Whether inspired by his care for creation, his radical hospitality, his pursuit of peace, or the beauty of a life fully surrendered to God, we welcome works that engage with the enduring themes of his witness. Through painting, sculpture, poetry, photography, music, and more, this exhibition celebrates a life that continues to inspire artists and believers across generations.” Submission deadline: September 13, 2026. Selection emails will be sent out by September 21. The exhibition opening is November 6, and participating artists are encouraged but not required to attend.
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ARTICLE: “Take me to church: Ecclesiology and Hulu’s The Bear” by Beth Felker Jones: “I want a church like a fine dining restaurant with a pickup window serving Chicago style beef sandwiches.” This is how theologian Beth Felker Jones opens her latest Substack post, drawing the hit television drama The Bear into conversation with ecclesiology, the study of the church. She critiques the either/or mentality that says the church has to either devote itself to beauty, depth, liturgy, theology, and careful formation or be accessible and meet practical needs; be specialized and transporting or down-to-earth, ordinary. Why can’t it be both? She then proceeds to reflect on hospitality, family (born and found), and giftedness.
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SHAKER SONGS:
Saro Lynch-Thomason is a song leader and folklorist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She identifies as pagan, but a number of songs in her repertoire are from the Christian tradition, including these two from Shakerism, a near-extinct sect whose distinctive practices include celibacy, communal living, and gender equality.
>> “In Yonder’s Valley”: This is the most widely remembered of the early Shaker songs. Written at Enfield, Connecticut, by Father James Whittaker (1751–1787), the second leader of the Shaker sect after Mother Ann Lee, it draws on the paradisal imagery in the second chapter of the Song of Songs (a reference shared by two othersongs I’ve recently featured!), bidding the community to enter into unity with God, each other, and the rest of creation—to “take [their] fill” of heaven on earth, living in the cosmic harmony that has been ordained from the beginning. A variation of the song has “yonder” instead of “yonder’s” and “flows” instead of “grows.”
In yonder’s valley there grows sweet union Let us arise and take our fill The winter’s past and the spring appears The turtledove is in our land In yonder’s valley there grows sweet union Let us arise and take our fill
>> “Ode to Contentment”: This Shaker hymn has been passed down with varying attributions of authorship and places of origin, but it was most likely written by Richard Pelham (words) and Issachar Bates (music) at the North Union Shaker village in Ohio in 1835. It apostrophizes the Christian virtue of contentment, asking her to come dwell in our hearts, bringing a stabilizing peace, endurance, and bliss. Lynch-Thomason sings three of the original nine verses.
Come, contentment, lovely guest! Reign unrivaled in my breast; Thou alone wilt do. Thou alone canst fill the soul, Every passion canst control; When the stormy billows roll, Thou canst bear me through.
All the lordlings of the earth, All their boasts, what is it worth? Nothing but a show. All the wealth that kings possess, All their vain and gaudy dress, All is splendid wretchedness; Peace they never know.
Nothing on this earth below, Naught that heaven can bestow, Fills the soul with peace, If contentment dwell not there. All is dreary, dark, and bare; She alone makes heavenly fare, She alone is bliss.
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 bythe 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.
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.
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.
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:
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 (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.
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 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.)
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]
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.
>> “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 bythe 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.
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.
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.
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:Psalmsby 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!
>> “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, 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]
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.
With the feast of Pentecost coming up this Sunday, celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit and the mission of the church, here are a few items of interest from around the web.
VISUAL COMMENTARIES: “The Risen Christ Appearing to the Disciples” by Victoria Emily Jones: This spring my latest exhibition for the Visual Commentary on Scripture was published, on Luke 24:36–49 and John 20:19–23, where Jesus appears to his frightened disciples after his resurrection, giving them peace, assurance, renewed purpose, and power. (In John’s telling of this episode, sometimes referred to as the Johannine Pentecost, Jesus breathes his Spirit onto them!) I selected and wrote about paintings by a medieval German artist, an Italian Renaissance artist, and a contemporary Indian artist that triangulate these parallel passages.
>> “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” arr. Christopher M. Smith, performed by the MNU Heritage Choir: Smith arranged two stanzas of this Wesleyan hymn for the student choir he directs at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas. They perform the song inside the Bell Cultural Events Center, which has lines from the hymn inscribed on the walls.
>> “Citizen” by Philippa Hanna and Israel Houghton, performed with Moses Bliss
>> “For Your Gift of God the Spirit” by Margaret Clarkson (words) and Darwin Jordan (music), performed by musicians at Philpott Church in Hamilton, Ontario
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ARTICLE: “Vivid Spectrums of Color Radiate from Chris Wood’s Intricate Installations of Dichroic Glass” by Grace Ebert, Colossal: When I saw photos of this artwork by the Cambridgeshire-based light artist Chris Wood, with its prismatic colors and outward expansion, I thought of Pentecost—of the radiant gospel of Jesus Christ, from the launchpad of his resurrection and subsequent giving of his Spirit, going out to the world via and to various people groups, setting it ablaze. The artist says she was inspired by the logarithmic spiral of the nautilus shell. “We find in this a representation of how radiance can be embodied within us, as projected to those around us,” she says.
Chris Wood (British, 1954–), 40 × 40, 2022. Dichroic glass, diameter 160 cm. Commissioned by Clé de Peau Beauté.
40 × 40 was commissioned in 2022 by the Japanese luxury skincare and makeup brand Clé de Peau Beauté for its fortieth anniversary. The work comprises forty spirals, each made up of forty pieces of dichronic glass, each forty millimeters long.
“Dichroic is a material that is colorless, but it has an optical filter on it,” Wood explains. “So when light hits it, certain wavelengths, which are manifested as colors, reflect back, and the remaining wavelengths pass through, creating two colors. Those colors change depending on the angle and quality of the light and the viewpoint. It’s just the most eloquent description of the magic of light that I could find.”
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VIDEO: “The Lord’s Prayer: One Church, One Prayer”: ICF (International Christian Fellowship) Rotterdam-Noord, an intercultural church in the Netherlands, recently put together a video compilation of some of its members praying the Lord’s Prayer in their mother tongues; represented are English, Papiamentu, Dutch, Malayalam, Swahili, Arabic, Twi, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, and German.
Rotterdam is a diverse city, home to 170 different nationalities. In the neighborhoods ICF North serves, 70 percent of residents have a migrant background. Every Sunday the church, pastored by Fred Kappinga, offers an Arabic-Dutch service and an English-Dutch service, with translations into other languages when necessary and possible. They sing Christian worship songs from around the world and host guest preachers of various ethnicities.
Occurring forty days after Easter, Ascension Day is this Thursday, May 14, and will be celebrated by many churches on Sunday, honoring Jesus’s ascent to heaven. This historic event “represents both a conclusion and a commencement,” writes Ashley Tumlin Wallace: “Jesus finished his earthly work while setting into motion the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.” Below are a few items for the occasion.
QUOTE: “In the mystery of the Ascension we reflect on the way in which, in one sense, Christ ‘leaves’ us and is taken away into Heaven, but in another sense he is given to us and to the world in a new and more universal way. He is no longer located only in one physical space to the exclusion of all others. He is in the Heaven which is at the heart of all things now and is universally accessible to all who call upon Him. And since His humanity is taken into Heaven, our humanity belongs there too, and is in a sense already there with him. ‘For you have died,’ says St. Paul, ‘and your life is hidden with Christ in God.’ In the Ascension Christ’s glory is at once revealed and concealed, and so is ours.”—Malcolm Guite
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ARTICLE: “Ten Reasons to Celebrate Ascension Day” by John Witvliet, Reformed Worship: John Witvliet, senior scholar and professor of theology, worship, and the arts at Belmont University, answers the question “Why does Ascension Day matter?” He concludes with two book recommendations and some suggestions for corporate worship.
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ALBUM: Ascension Songs by Cardiphonia: This compilation album from 2012 features nineteen traditional hymns about Christ’s ascension, seventeen of which have been retuned by contemporary singer-songwriters and worship leaders. I featured one by Sarah Majorins back in 2019; here are two other favorites, the latter from the Sacred Harp tradition:
>> “Today Our Lord Went Up On High” | Words by Johann Zwick, 1542; trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1858 | Music by Rebekah Osborn, 2012
>> “Jesus, My All, to Heav’n Has Gone”| Words by John Cennick, 1743 | Music (NORTH PORT) by R. R. Osborne, 1850 | Arranged by Bruce Benedict, 2010
ORATORIO: Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen (Praise God in His Realms) by J. S. Bach: Known as the Ascension Oratorio, Bach’s BWV 11 was composed for the Feast of the Ascension almost three centuries ago. It is structured in eleven movements in two parts and runs about a half hour. Its libretto comprises some original texts (likely written by the German poet and Bach’s regular collaborator Picander) as well as quotations from the Bible and hymns by Johann Rist and Gottfried Wilhelm Sacer. It both mourns Christ’s bodily departure and extols his universal reign.
The oratorio’s closing chorale fantasia (starting at 25:48 in the video above) is often cited as one of many examples of Bach’s sophisticated expression of theology through music. The orchestra plays in D major while the chorus sings in B minor—“When shall it happen, / When will the dear time come, / That I shall see him / In his glory?”—conveying the human state of waiting and hoping for Christ’s return and the fulfillment of that hope. Both jaunty and full of longing, and harmonious between the two, movement 11 anticipates the day when we will be reunited with Christ in the flesh. Craig Smith writes,
The final chorale is an amazing tour de force. A verse set to the melody of the grave chorale “Von Gott will ich nicht lassen” is imbedded in the brilliant trumpet- and drum-dominated D Major texture of the orchestra. The B minor of the chorale never loses its identity but is simply swallowed up in the D Major. Bach understands the melancholy of being left behind, and profoundly includes it here in this ostensibly joyous festival.
The above performance from 2013 is by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. An English translation of the German lyrics is given as subtitles, but you can also follow along here.
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REFLECTION: “Let me go, because then the Spirit will come” by Jonathan Evens: Jonathan Evens, a vicar in the Church of England, shares the reflection he gave on Ascension Day at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London in 2020, which concludes with a verse-style meditation that I really like. Here’s the first stanza:
Touch me not. I am not yours to have and hold, in this shape in this form. Let go. Let me go. Let my Spirit come. Divine my Spirit, know me within.
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PAINTING: The Ascension, ca. 1340–50: Last fall while I was in Cologne, I visited the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, which has an excellent collection of medieval German art. Here’s a lovely little Ascension painting I saw:
It’s from a small triptych made in the mid-fourteenth century in a Cologne workshop for a Poor Clares cloister in the city. The object would have been used by the nuns for private contemplation. Its central scene is the Crucifixion, and the wings portray, in addition to the Ascension: the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Descent of the Holy Spirit.
Triptych with Depiction of the Outworking of God’s Plan for Salvation, Cologne, ca. 1340–50. Tempera on oak. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, Inv. 1. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.
As is common in medieval paintings of the Ascension, that panel shows Jesus from the waist down, rising out of frame, leaving behind a set of footprints on the Mount of Olives. To me, that physical impression is a reminder of how Jesus, the God-man, has a body—he walked the earth in it, feeling dirt between his toes, and went to heaven with it, prefiguring the day when those who are in Christ will also, soul and body, join the Father in glory. That little mark on the mound, a negative space where Jesus’s weight once pressed, speaks both presence and absence. Ten days later, he’d send down his Spirit on the same gazing group, and many more besides, and their beautiful feet would carry the good news of his risen life far and wide.
Art & Theology 
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