Poetry – Page 33 – Art & Theology

Roundup: Hebrews album; flags in church; God the Plowman; digitized prayer book; lively praise hymns

July 4, 2017May 12, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Psallos: The Hebrews Album (Kickstarter): You have the opportunity to help finance a musical adaptation of the book of Hebrews for folk rock band and chamber orchestra. Cody Curtis, the composer behind Psallos, has already written the music; now he needs your help to pay for the recording and production. Curtis has already proven his skill at capturing the varied tones and trajectory of an epistle with his setting of Romans, released in 2012 (read my review here), and Thomas Griffith and Kelsie Edgren are returning to lend their beautiful vocal interpretations. I have full confidence that Psallos’s second epistle-based album will be nothing short of amazing! Besides a copy of the CD when it’s released, tiered reward options include the chance to sing on the CD as a choir member, the choice of any passage of scripture for Curtis to set to music, and a Psallos concert at your church. Also, the team is looking for a videographer and donated instruments, so get in touch with them if you’re able to help out in either of those areas.

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Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church? I really appreciate John Piper’s response to this question in last week’s Ask Pastor John podcast episodes. (Listen to part 2 here.) “I have been in several churches,” he says, “where on the Fourth of July the focus”—on each of the military branches and patriotic songs and flags and marches and decorations in red, white, and blue—“seemed to me uninformed, unshaped by the radical nature of the gospel, and out of proportion to the relationship between America and the kingdom of Christ.” He advises that American flags not be displayed in the sanctuary, and pledges of allegiance to the USA not be recited in a worship service, because church is where we acknowledge the absolute authority of Christ and no other.

As Christians, Piper says, we have “no unqualified allegiance to any political party, any nationality, any ethnicity, any tribal identity, or any branch of the armed service. It is all qualified. It is all secondary. It is all relative to the will of Christ. We should not say anything or do anything that looks as if that were not true. . . . The recitation of a pledge to a human authority”—and/or the display of a symbol of national identity—“in the setting of the worship of divine authority does not provide for the kind of Christian qualifications and nuances that are so necessary precisely in our day.”

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“Process” by Charles L. O’Donnell: I selected and wrote commentary on a short poem over at Literary Life on the theme of God as plowman of the heart. It begins,

The seed, Lord, falls on stony ground
Which sun and rain can never bless—
Until the soil is broken found—
With harvest fruitfulness.

Spring Ploughing by John Constable — John Constable (British, 1776–1837), *Spring Ploughing*, 1821. Oil on panel, 19 × 36.2 cm.

Run by Rick Wilcox, “Literary Life is a celebration of the Word. Leading with a discussion of modern and classic literature, we seek to tease out eternal truths which may be illumined by fiction, poetry, art and music.” The blog recently finished walking through Karen Swallow Prior’s memoir Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me; before that, it was Malcolm Guite’s The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter. Each post is a treat!

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Mary of Guelders prayer book now online: In the early fifteenth century, while the Limbourg Brothers were hard at work on the Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry, Duchess Mary of Guelders (John of Berry’s niece) commissioned an extraordinary 900-plus-page book that would become the high point of the late medieval book industry in the Northern Low Countries. Due to its condition, it has been stored away for the last few decades at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, inaccessible even to most scholars. But a crowdfunded project led by Johan Oosterman is bringing the hidden treasure to light, allowing for extensive research, restoration, and (next October) public exhibition.

To keep the public informed of progress, a new website has been launched, with blog posts, videos, and tabs on “Mary’s World,” “The Prayers,” “The Decoration,” and more. And best of all, just last month a full digitization of the book was added to the site so that anyone with an Internet connection can browse through its hundreds of prayers and 106 miniatures. The miniature that stood out most to me is the one on verso page 132, illustrating the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. It shows Dives on his golden throne being swallowed by a hell-mouth, while from heaven Abraham denies his request for a drink of water.

Lazarus and the Rich Man (Mary of Guelders) — “Lazarus and the rich man from the mouth of hell,” from the prayer book of Mary of Guelders, ca. 1415. Fol. 132v. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

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New arrangement of “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” and “Come, Thou Almighty King”: The music at last month’s General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, convened in Greensboro, North Carolina, was fantastic. With permission, I’m posting a video excerpt from the evening worship service held on June 14, 2017. The first hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” was written by Henry Van Dyke in 1907 to a tune from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; this version was arranged by Joel Littlepage (the musical director and keyboardist with the bowtie; assistant pastor of worship at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem) and Michael Anderson (the pianist; composer-in-residence at Redeemer) and was orchestrated by Joel Littlepage. The first verse is sung very traditionally—in strict time to a chorded piano accompaniment—but then at 1:05, it gets real lively! The orchestra kicks into full gear, expressing the brightness of the hymn text.

Then just when you think it couldn’t get any more joyful, the praise team launches into a second hymn at 3:36 to ululation (celebratory cheer sounds), this one Caribbean-flavored. Composed by Felice de Giardini in the eighteenth century, “Come, Thou Almighty King” is a Trinitarian invocation: “Come, Thou Almighty King” (verse 1), “Come, Thou Incarnate Word” (verse 2), “Come, Holy Comforter” (verse 3). This particular arrangement is by Joel Littlepage, with orchestration by Michael Anderson. The musicians are as follows.

Vocal section (left to right): Kyle Dickerson; David Gill; Mary Higgins; Melissa Littlepage; Nikki Ellis, choir director
Rhythm section: Joel Littlepage, keyboard; Michael Anderson, piano; Daniel Faust, drums; Larry Carman, hand percussion; Kevin Beck, electric guitar
Horn section: Christian Orr, trumpet; Tim Plemmons, saxophone; Ben Nelson, trombone
String section: Heather Conine, violin; Violet Huang, viola; Adi Muralidharan, cello; Julie Money, harp
Wind section: Suzanne Kline and Lydia Wu, flute

Roundup: Liturgical video installation; Mynheer profile; SYTYCD; natural-world mystic poetry; lament song

June 20, 2017June 5, 2020 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

“Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos on Henry Moore Altar,” exhibition review and artist interview by Jonathan Evens: On April 15–16 St. Stephen Walbrook in London hosted an all-night Easter Eve vigil that featured a fourteen-video installation by artist-priest Mark Dean. Inspired by the Stations of the Cross, these videos were projected, in sequence and interspersed with readings and periods of silence, onto the church’s round stone altar by the famous modern artist Henry Moore (Dean wanted his work to be presented as an offering). The vigil culminated with a dance performance by Lizzi Kew Ross & Co and a dawn Eucharist. Evens writes,

Mark Dean’s videos are not literal depictions of the Stations of the Cross, the journey Jesus walked on the day of his crucifixion. Instead, Dean appropriated a few frames of iconic film footage together with extracts of popular music and then slowed down, reversed, looped or otherwise altered these so that the images he selected were amplified through their repetition. As an example, in the first Stations of the Cross video, a clip of Julie Andrews as the novice Maria from the opening scenes of The Sound of Music was layered over an extract, from the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho, of a car arriving at Bates Motel where Marion Crane would be murdered by Norman Bates. The blue of the sky and the innocence suggested by Maria’s religious vocation was in contrast with the footage from Psycho, which was indicative of the violent death to which Jesus was condemned. [Read more of the review, plus an interview with the artist, here.]

Stations of the Cross by Mark Dean — Mark Dean, “I. The Royal Road,” from Stations of the Cross cycle. Video projected on Henry Moore altar at St. Stephen Walbrook, London, April 15–16, 2017. Photo: Jonathan Evens

Sounds like an exemplary integration of art and liturgy! You can read the catalog essay and watch the videos on Dean’s website, tailbiter.com. See also the interview with curator Lucy Newman Cleeve published in Elephant magazine.

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“Featured Artist: Nicholas Mynheer” by Victoria Emily Jones: This month I wrote a profile on British artist Nicholas Mynheer for Transpositions, the official blog of the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. (There’s a glitch with their publishing tool that is preventing all the artworks from displaying, but all the ones I discuss in the article can be found at www.mynheer-art.co.uk.) A painter, sculptor, and glass designer, Nick works almost exclusively on religious subjects, in a style that blends influences from medieval, primitive, and expressionist art. I met him in 2013 and got to see his studio and his work in situ in various Oxford churches. His love of God and place was obvious from my spending just one afternoon with him. Other articles I’ve written are on Nick’s Wilcote Altarpiece, Islip Screen, and 1991 Crucifixion painting (which I own).

Harvest by Nicholas Mynheer — Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), *Harvest*, 2010. Oil on canvas, 70 × 70 cm.

Michaelmas Term Window by Nicholas Mynheer — Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), *Michaelmas Term Window*, 2012. Fused glass. Abingdon School Chapel, Oxfordshire, England.

Corpus of Christ by Nicholas Mynheer — Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), *Corpus of Christ*, 2010. English limestone, 85 cm tall.

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Season 14 of So You Think You Can Dance premiered last Monday (the only TV show I never miss!). Watching dancers draws me into a deeper awe of God, as I see all the creative potentialities of the human body he designed. Here are my two favorite auditions from episode 1. The first is husband-wife duo Kristina Androsenko and Vasily Anokhin performing ballroom. The second is a modern dance number performed by Russian twins Anastasiia and Viktoriia; they gave no comment on the dance’s motivation or meaning, but it’s clear that it represents trauma of some kind.

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“Why we need Mary Oliver’s poems” by Debra Dean Murphy: “Oliver is a mystic of the natural world, not a theologian of the church. . . . Her theological orientation is not that of orthodox Christianity. Nevertheless, Christians have much to gain from reading Oliver . . .” Her poems are “occasions for transfiguring the imagination and a summons to wonder and delight”; they remind us “of what it means to attend to what is before us in any given moment,” teach us to adopt “a posture of receptivity that Christians sometimes speak of as part of our vocation—the calling to live more fully into our humanity as persons bearing the imago dei, to mirror the divine dance of mutual presence, mutual receptivity, mutual love.” Some of my favorite Oliver poems are “Praying,” “I Wake Close to Morning,” “Messenger,” “The Summer Day,” and “How the Grass and the Flowers Came to Exist, a God-Tale.”

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NEW SONG: “Weep with Me” by Rend Collective: Written last month in response to the Manchester Arena bombing, “Weep with Me” is a contemporary lament psalm in which the speaker asks God to do what the title says: weep with him. To feel his pain and respond. It’s introduced and performed acoustically by band member Chris Llewellyn in the video below.

On the video’s YouTube page, Rend Collective writes,

Can worship and suffering co-exist? Can pain and praise inhabit the same space? Can we sing that God is good when life is not? When there are more questions than answers? The Bible says a resounding yes: these songs are called laments and they make up a massive portion of the Psalms.

We felt it was fitting to let you hear this lament we’ve written today as we prepare to play tonight in Manchester. We can’t make the pain go away. We refuse to provide cheap, shallow answers. But hopefully this song can give us some vocabulary to bring our raw, open wounds before the wounded healer, who weeps with us in our distress. We pray that we can begin to raise a costly, honest and broken hallelujah. That is what it means to worship in Spirit and in Truth.

ESSAY: “A Plan of a Peace-Office for the United States” by Benjamin Rush

June 14, 2017July 12, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones7 Comments

Blogger’s Note: One of the first three departments created in 1789 in the new executive branch of the United States government was the War Department—now called the Department of Defense. Having witnessed the evils of war firsthand while serving as surgeon general of the Middle Department of the Continental Army, founding father Benjamin Rush published an essay in Banneker’s Almanac in 1793 advocating for the formation of a cabinet-level Department of Peace to promote a counterethic. Among other things, his proposed Secretary of Peace would be responsible for abolishing capital punishment; dissolving state militias, including getting rid of military uniforms and titles; and providing every family with a Bible by which to become educated in Christ’s law.

His plan even provides for the interior decoration of the Peace Office—which must include lamb, dove, and olive branch imagery; biblical inscriptions; and a collection of plowshares and pruning hooks forged from the melted-down metals of swords and spears—as well as its sonic environment: the daily singing of peace hymns. The War Office, by contrast, should display images of death and destruction and bear cautionary inscriptions.

Literary satire, maybe. Then again, maybe not. Rush was an uncompromising champion of many causes throughout his lifetime, including, besides nonviolence, public education, prison and mental health reform, the abolition of slavery, mass distribution of Bibles, and temperance. While his proposal for a U.S. Department of Peace may sound airy-fairy and ridiculous, he very much believed in its practicality, and his confidence has been matched by twentieth- and twenty-first-century politicians: since the publication of Rush’s “Plan of a Peace-Office,” almost a hundred bills have been introduced in Congress proposing the creation of such a department, most recently in 2015.

The following essay is rekeyed in its entirety from Benjamin Rush’s Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical (Philadelphia: Thomas & Samuel F. Bradford, 1798).

Swords into Plowshares by Scott Erickson — *Swords into Plowshares* by Scott Erickson

“A Plan of a Peace-Office for the United States”

Benjamin Rush

Among the defects which have been pointed out in the Federal Constitution by its antifederal enemies, it is much to be lamented that no person has taken notice of its total silence upon the subject of an office of the utmost importance to the welfare of the United States, that is, an office for promoting and preserving perpetual peace in our country.

It is to be hoped that no objection will be made to the establishment of such an office, while we are engaged in a war with the Indians, for as the War-Office of the United States was established in time of peace, it is equally reasonable that a Peace-Office should be established in the time of war.

The plan of this office is as follows:

I. Let a Secretary of the Peace be appointed to preside in this office, who shall be perfectly free from all the present absurd and vulgar European prejudices upon the subject of government. Let him be a genuine republican and a sincere Christian, for the principles of republicanism and Christianity are no less friendly to universal and perpetual peace than they are to universal and equal liberty. Continue reading “ESSAY: “A Plan of a Peace-Office for the United States” by Benjamin Rush” →

“Not as a dove…”: Two Pentecost poems by Mark DeBolt

June 1, 2017June 5, 2023 Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

Pentecost by William Congdon — William Congdon (American, 1912–1998), *Pentecost 2*, ca. 1962. Oil on tile, 4 × 4 cm. The Province of Milan Art Collection.

“Pentecostal Hour” by Mark DeBolt

No zephyr soft
but cyclone strong
bore thoughts aloft
in windy song.

No flicker mild
but flames of red
danced hot and wild
upon each head.

And so fierce was
our thundering word
in languages
of all who heard,

all knew it meant
the Spirit’s power.
This was our Pent-
ecostal hour.

“Pentecost Villanellette” by Mark DeBolt

Not as a dove the Holy Spirit came
to the disciples gathered in a room,
but as a violent wind and tongues of flame.

A cyclone roared the ineffable name
as fire on each blushing brow did bloom.
Not as a dove the Holy Spirit came

to give sight to the blind and heal the lame
and raise the dead and dispel error’s gloom,
but as a violent wind and tongues of flame.

The Breath of God is anything but tame.
Who dally with it dally with their doom.
Not as a dove the Holy Spirit came,
but as a violent wind and tongues of flame.

These poems are published in For the Mystic Harmony: Collected Poems 1997–2011 by Mark DeBolt and are used by permission of the author.

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This Sunday Christians will celebrate Pentecost, the historic giving of the Holy Spirit to all believers in Jesus Christ and thus the birthday of the church.

Before it was the name of a Christian holiday, Pentecost (Heb. Shavuot) was celebrated annually by the Jewish people in honor of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Jews still celebrate it today, fifty days after Passover—hence the name Pentecost (“pente” = five). (Appropriately, Christian Pentecost occurs fifty days after Easter.) Because of the importance of the feast, ancient Jews traveled from all over the known world to their religious capital, Jerusalem, for the occasion, and that’s what we see in Acts 2—a multiregional, multilinguistic gathering. Continue reading ““Not as a dove…”: Two Pentecost poems by Mark DeBolt” →

Mother Mary teaches her son Jesus

May 11, 2017May 7, 2023 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures by Henry Ossawa Tanner — Henry Ossawa Tanner (American, 1859–1937), *Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures*, ca. 1909. Oil on canvas, 48.8 × 40 in. Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas.

“The Son of Man” by Charles L. O’Donnell

He lit the lily’s lamp of snow
And fired the rose’s sunset heart,
He timed the light’s long ebb and flow
And drove the coursing winds apart.

He gathered armfuls of the dew
And shook it over earth again,
He spread the heaven’s cloth of blue
And topped the fields with plenteous grain.

He tuned the stars to minstrelsy
As twilight soft, as bird song wild,
Who learned beside His Mother’s knee
His prayers like any other child.

This poem was originally published in The Dead Musician, and Other Poems by Charles L. O’Donnell (New York: Laurence J. Gomme, 1916) and is now in the public domain.

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Mary gave her son everything she had—body, mind, and soul. These three served as the seedbed of his maturation. She surrendered her womb, where Jesus progressed through the various stages of embryonic and fetal development as he took in the nutrients supplied by her blood. Once born, she gave him her body’s milk, and often forwent sleep to attend to his cries, a deprivation all mothers have known. But her provision was more than physical. She also nurtured, with the help of Joseph, his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth, fulfilling as best she could her parental calling.

O’Donnell’s poem juxtaposes the deity of Christ—in particular, his role as Creator and Sustainer of the universe—with his humanity, highlighting how he is one who both shapes and was shaped. He chose the color of each and every flower, he programmed the angular speed of Earth’s rotation and its atmospheric circulation patterns, he wrote the laws of thermodynamics, he makes energy-rich grain to grow under his vast expanse of sky, and he conducts the choir of Nature: makes the stars to sing in soft duet with the twilight, then cues in the wild avian melodies of the morning. Monumental feats—all these. Testaments to his mastery and might.

And yet as the incarnate boychild Jesus of Nazareth, he sat at his mother’s knee, learning from her the sacred stories of his people, and how to address the Father they had in common (albeit in different senses).

We know from her Magnificat that Mary was a woman of deep passion and yearning, gratitude and praise, and from the Annunciation account, we get a sense of her courageous trust. Luke 2:19 points to her contemplative nature, and the Passion narratives attest to her faithfulness. These qualities characterized the way she lived and infused the spiritual instruction she gave her son. Continue reading “Mother Mary teaches her son Jesus” →

More conferences

May 4, 2017May 4, 2017 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

In addition to those I posted in March, here are a few more conferences of note. (Update, 5/4: I’ve added two more entries since the original publication of this post. Thanks, Chloë Reddaway and Talita Peters, for the tips!)

UPCOMING CONFERENCES

Title: “The Place of Sacred Art: Exploring the Interpretation of Sacred Art in Secular and Faith Contexts”
Date: May 9, 2017
Location: AV Room, Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England
Organizer: Canon Dr. Andrew Smith, director of interfaith relations for the bishop of Birmingham
Cost: £20
Speakers: David Cheetham, Catherine Ogle, Orit Azaz, Rebecca Bridgman, Peter Bradley
Description: This symposium will consider the ways in which people reinterpret sacred art when it is displayed in new contexts or alongside art from different faith traditions, and how displaying different types of art in sacred spaces transforms our understanding of the sacred and the artistic. Presentations address how cathedrals have negotiated being open to artists of different religious backgrounds and exhibiting work that challenges and questions, and how contemporary art can offer unexpected encounters with the sacred. Registration also includes a tour through the award-winning Faith in Birmingham Gallery by curator Rebecca Bridgman.

Title: “‘any-angled light’: Poetry and the Mission of Your Church”
Date: May 16–18, 2017
Location: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Organizer: Yale Institute of Sacred Music
Cost: $65 (registration ends May 8, noon ET!)
Keynote speakers: Mary Karr and Christian Wiman
Description: How does poetry equip the church to fulfill its mission of inviting others into God’s future? Drawing on spiritual verse spanning all eras from the biblical to the contemporary, this conference for church leaders and laypeople will (1) inspire the integration of poetry into a church’s congregational life and its public outreach and activism; (2) model the introduction of poetry and poetic sensibilities into worship; and (3) expose participants to diverse poetry and poetic forms. Besides plenary sessions with two of America’s finest poets, the conference includes workshops, musical worship, and a poetry slam.

Title: “Catholicism, Literature and the Arts: 1850–Present”
Date: July 5–7, 2017
Location: Durham University, Durham, England
Organizers: Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University and Ushaw College
Cost: £70 (discount rates for students, low-income, paper presenters)
Speakers: Eamon Duffy, Terry Eagleton, Paul Lakeland, Anna Lawson, Melanie McDonagh, HE Daniel Mulhall, Paul Anthony Murray
Description: The conference “will bring together leading scholars to address key questions in the study of Catholic art and writing, including the question of whether there is a distinctive tradition of ‘Catholic literature’. Among the main topics and themes of the conference are Catholic memoir and autobiography; Catholic fiction and poetry; Catholic readership; journalism; publishers and archives; and the visual arts. The conference will include film, music, and the visual arts, as well as literature,” and will consist of lectures, discussion groups, and workshops.

Title: “Canvas: A Conference on Theology and Creativity—Inscape, God, Art, and the Inner Life”
Date: August 11–12, 2017
Location: Imago Dei Community, Portland, Oregon
Organizers: Humble Beast and Western Seminary
Cost: $100
Speakers: TBA
Description: “The Canvas Conference humbly exists to inform all acts of human creativity and beauty with biblical, gospel-centered theology for the worship of the triune God. . . . We want to help build strong theological foundations for the artist and, likewise, to push Christians to pursue creative orthodoxy in their theological craft. We have found that without theology, creativity wanders from its original significance and purpose; while without creativity, theology often becomes cold, distant, and futile. In response, The Canvas Conference seeks to build bridges between the artist and the theologian by inviting God to take center stage in every human endeavor.”

Title: “Arts + Spirituality” (11th annual Verge Conference)
Date: September 28–29, 2017
Location: Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia
Organizer: School of the Arts, Media, and Culture, TWU
Cost: $199 (discount rates for presenters, students, seniors, and single-day attendees)
Keynote speaker: Cam Anderson, executive director, Christians in the Visual Arts
Description: Throughout human history and across cultures, the arts have been closely associated with spirituality and religious practice. This conference seeks to explore that connection. Paper submissions are welcome on any topic relating to the arts and spirituality, as are proposals for presentations in the form of performances. The deadline for submissions is May 31.

PAST CONFERENCE

There have been so many events organized around the topic of art and religion in the past year that it’s hard to keep up. Below is a “Study Day” that slipped by before I had the chance to promote it; I’m posting the info here so that you can see the kinds of conversations that are going on among religious studies scholars and museum professionals and can look for future opportunities to join in. (If you’re not in either field but are a museumgoer—and if you’re reading this blog, I imagine you are—a great way to get involved would be to give feedback to the museums you visit. Did their presentation of religion through art and artifact, and wall text, help you connect in a deeper way to your own faith tradition, or see others in a new light? Or did you feel it was offensive, unfair, or in some way else deficient, and if so, why?)

Title: “Encountering the Sacred in Museums”
Date: March 15, 2017
Cost: £35
Location: Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, London
Organizer: British Museum
Description: This day of discussions on the role museums play in caring for and presenting religious art and artifacts included the lectures “What Is Sacred?” by religious historian Karen Armstrong and “Beyond Belief: The Role of Museums in Interpreting Religion” by Rickie Burman, development manager of London’s National Gallery. In other sessions, visitor experiences at diverse venues were discussed: the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, the Creation Museum in Kentucky, and the British Museum during its “Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe,” an exhibition shaped by consultation with community groups.

I found out about this event, and the first one above, through the Religion in Museums blog, maintained by Crispin Paine and Steph Berns. Paine is a founder-editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief and coeditor (with Gretchen Buggeln and S. Brent Plate) of the recently published book Religion in Museums: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives (read the introduction here). Berns is a researcher in the fields of museum studies and the sociology of religion.

The “Nothing” that won our salvation

April 10, 2017March 16, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You have said so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

—Matthew 27:11–14

Consider the incredible self-control Jesus exercises in his appearance before Pilate. He has just come from his religious trial, where he was passed from Annas to Caiaphas to the Sanhedrin and found guilty of blasphemy. But the Sanhedrin does not have the authority to issue death sentences, so they turn Jesus over to the civil authorities, claiming he’s a threat to Roman power, guilty of sedition.

Both charges are false, and yet Jesus gives no defense against either one. Why? Why not prove that he truly is the Son of God, and that he’s no insurrectionist? Why not clear his name? In John’s account of the trial before Pilate (18:33–38), Jesus is more verbal; he explains, “My kingdom is not of this world.” But still, he offers no hard evidence, calls no witnesses (they’ve scattered anyway). He essentially sits back and lets the judgment fall.

English poet and clergyman Richard Crashaw (1612–1649) was inspired by Christ’s silence under pressure to pen an epigrammatic verse unpacking its significance. As a teenager attending Charterhouse School in London, he and his fellow students were required to write epigrams based on the epistle and Gospel readings from the day’s chapel services, and it’s a practice Crashaw continued throughout his life. The following was originally published in Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems, with Other Delights of the Muses in 1646.

“Matthew 27” by Richard Crashaw

And he answered them nothing.

O Mighty Nothing! unto thee,
Nothing, we owe all things that be.
God spake once when he all things made,
He sav’d all when he Nothing said.
The world was made of Nothing then;
’Tis made by Nothing now again.

In “Matthew 27,” Crashaw apostrophizes the word Nothing. (Apostrophe is a poetic device in which the speaker addresses an absent person, an abstract idea, or a thing; Paul does it, for example, in 1 Corinthians 15:55: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”) He plays on its opposite: everything. By no thing comes all things. Continue reading “The “Nothing” that won our salvation” →

Upcoming courses, workshops, conferences

March 23, 2017May 4, 2017 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

There are many people and organizations committed to integrating faith and the arts, and they often organize opportunities for public participation. Here are some such opportunities being offered this spring and summer, organized by date. The last one, a weeklong course taught by David Taylor, looks especially appealing to me and my context, and I’m considering registering.

A few early-bird registration/application deadlines are coming up very soon, on March 31, so give these a gander sooner than later. Click on the links for information on schedules/syllabi, speakers, accommodations, and fee breakdowns. Room and board are not included in the cost quotes I’ve listed unless specifically noted.

If you’re reading this post sometime after spring 2017, or the application deadlines are too tight for you, you’ll be pleased to know that some of these events occur yearly, and if not, you’re sure to find similar ones. Check out the websites of the organizing bodies to see what they have going on.

Title: “Art and Theology” (course)
Dates: March 26–29, 2017
Location: Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, England
Organizer: Art and Christianity Enquiry (ACE)
Cost: £225 (~ $280 US) (includes room and board)
Instructors: Christopher Irvine; Alison Milbank; Sophie Hacker; Stephen Stavrou; Laura Moffatt
Description: “This short course is designed to give participants the opportunity to both engage with Christian art and to reflect through class presentations and discussion how art is perceived. Each day will balance theoretical input with visits to see art in churches, galleries, and chapels in Oxford. We will examine the contexts in which Christian art is viewed, suggest ways of how we may reflect theologically on contemporary art, and look at the place of art in churches within its architectural and liturgical context.” (I’m intrigued by the lecture title “Museums and Galleries as a Theological Resource”!)

Title: “Lux Ecclesiae: The Light of the Church” (lecture series)
Dates: April 25–29, 2017
Location: Paraclete Retreat House, Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, USA
Organizer: Community of Jesus
Speakers: Msgr. Timothy Verdon; Filippo Rossi
Cost: $1,000 (includes room and board; single-lecture options available)
Description: “Practically from the beginning of its history, the Church has used architecture and the visual arts to express its life, investing thought, creative energies and resources. The reasons for this choice are theological and pastoral, but also anthropological: human beings want to ‘see’, are frustrated if they cannot see, define ‘seeing’ as understanding (as when, grasping a point, we say, ‘I see’), and desire above all things to see the God who, invisible in himself, became visible in Jesus Christ.” Monsignor Timothy Verdon, academic director of the Mount Tabor Ecumenical Centre for Art and Spirituality in Barga, Italy, will develop these themes in a series of seven lectures, and sacred artist Filippo Rossi will give a talk as well.

Title: Movies and Meaning Festival
Dates: April 27–30, 2017
Location: KiMo Theatre, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Organizer: The Porch
Cost: $189
Speakers: Alice Walker; Mona Haydar; Gareth Higgins; Brian McLaren; Malidoma Somé
Description: The third annual Movies and Meaning Festival, an interfaith initiative, is centered on the theme “Hope in the Dark.” Over one weekend, participants will be inspired and challenged on this theme by artists and activists who work at the intersection of creativity, peace, spirituality, and social change. Films will serve as touchstones throughout the event; screenings include Pete’s Dragon; The Red Balloon; Mary and Max; Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth; Embrace of the Serpent; Reds; I Am Belfast; The Color Purple; and more. Participants will walk away with a renewed spirit for social justice and tools for community healing. Continue reading “Upcoming courses, workshops, conferences” →

Voices in the desert—whose blessing will we heed?

March 16, 2017February 28, 2022 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Temptation by G. K. Hajarathbai — Gulap K. Hajarathbai (Indian), *Temptation*, 20th century. Oil on canvas, 18 × 20 in. Source: Herbert E. Hoefer, *Christian Art in India* (Chennai, India: Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, 1982)

“Tempted” by Eugene H. Peterson

Mark 1:12–13

Still wet behind the ears, he’s Spirit-pushed
up Jordan’s banks into the wilderness.
Angels hover praying ’round his head.
Animals couch against his knees and ankles
intuiting a better master. The Man
in the middle—new Adam in old Eden—
is up against it, matched with the ancient
Adversary. For forty days and nights
he tests the baptismal blessing and proves to his dismay
the Man is made of sterner stuff than Adam:
the Man will choose to be the Son God made him.

This poem was originally published in A Widening Light: Poems of the Incarnation, edited by Luci Shaw (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1984), and is reprinted here by permission of the editor. www.lucishaw.com

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Mark dedicates a spare two verses to this initiatory event in the life of Christ: the forty days of temptation he endured immediately following his baptism: “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him” (Mark 1:12–13, ESV; cf. Matthew 4:1–11, Luke 4:1–13).

I’m intrigued by Mark’s use of the word driven (ekballō) to describe the manner in which the Spirit imparts motion to Christ. Whereas Matthew and Luke use the gentler led (anagō), Mark implies something more forceful: ejected, cast forth, hurled. In his idiomatic translation of the Bible, The Message, Eugene H. Peterson uses push: “At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild” (emphasis mine).

So the same Spirit who had just alighted on Jesus in the waters of the Jordan, presiding over God’s pronouncement that “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11), now pushes Jesus into the Judean desert, away from civilization. Why? So that in the quiet, he could get to better know himself and the Father, to better discern the task to which he had been called. This process necessarily involved doing battle with the prospects of other paths, other identities.

“Turn these stones into bread.” “Jump; let’s see if God saves you.” “Worship me; I’ll give you the kingdom of earth.”

Satan tries to draw Jesus from a messiahship of self-sacrifice to a messiahship of power. Performing miracles for his own benefit, to avoid any discomfort or pain in life; performing miracles for show, like a magician, to impress the masses; becoming an earthly king, with political control and dominion—these are all temptations Jesus would face again. Here he has the opportunity to confront them head-on in preparation for his imminent ministry to the Israelites. Over this period of forty days, Jesus solidifies his mission, rejecting the vision of himself and his life that Satan lays out for him. Instead of gratification, pride, and riches, Jesus chooses purity, humility, and poverty. Continue reading “Voices in the desert—whose blessing will we heed?” →

Flying our faith out over the gorge

January 24, 2017January 24, 2017 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Prior to 1848, anyone wanting to cross the Niagara River had to do so by ferryboat, making it difficult for people and cargo to travel between New York and Upper Canada. Endeavoring to better connect the Atlantic coast with new territories in the West, entrepreneur William Merritt got permission to build a railway suspension bridge over the river, two and a half miles north of Niagara Falls. Charles Ellet Jr. was hired as the chief engineer.

Ellet’s first challenge was how to get a line across the gap. Cannonballs, rockets, and steamers were among the proposals, but Ellet ultimately decided to use a kite. To generate publicity, he held a kite-flying contest in January 1848, offering a cash prize to the first boy to anchor a string from country to country, 800 feet across the chasm and about 240 feet above the Whirlpool Rapids. Sixteen-year-old Homan Walsh won, flying his kite from the Canadian shoreline to the American side, where he had it fastened to a tree. Ellet’s team attached a light cord to Walsh’s kite string, then pulled the joined lines back across. Over the next month or so, they pulled successively heavier and stronger lines back and forth, back and forth, until the final bridge cable was in place.

Niagara kite-flying contest — Donna Marie Campbell, *Kite Flying Contest Held To Get The First Line Across [The Gorge] For The Suspension Bridge* (after a 19th-century sketch by an unknown artist), 1975. Watercolor, 23.7 × 31.4 cm.

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) interprets this story as a parable in his poem “Anchored to the Infinite,” likening faith and love to cords that grow in strength the more they are sent out, and that have their anchor in God.

“Anchored to the Infinite” by Edwin Markham

The builder who first bridged Niagara’s gorge,
Before he swung his cable, shore to shore,
Sent out across the gulf his venturing kite
Bearing a slender cord for unseen hands
To grasp upon the further cliff and draw
A greater cord, and then a greater yet;
Till at the last across the chasm swung
The cable then the mighty bridge in air!

So we may send our little timid thought
Across the void, out to God’s reaching hands—
Send out our love and faith to thread the deep—
Thought after thought until the little cord
Has greatened to a chain no chance can break,
And—we are anchored to the Infinite!

This poem is very close in form to a Petrarchan sonnet—it consists of an octave and a sestet in iambic pentameter, with a caesura (turn) between them, but it doesn’t rhyme.

The first stanza recounts the construction of Ellet’s suspension bridge across the Niagara River, especially his use of a kite to hang the initial cable.

The second stanza identifies in this historic building project an extended metaphor of spiritual significance. We are the children who stand at the edge of a vast unknown, timidly putting our faith and love out there, just hoping it will be received and answered. Sure enough, God stands on the other side, reaching out to grab ahold of our most feeble efforts to know him and to trust him, and anchor us to himself.

The last phrase (and the poem’s title)—“anchored to the Infinite”—is not quite a paradox, but it is difficult to visualize: being fixed to that which has no limits. Infinity cannot be pinned down, and yet it (or should I say “he”) pins us down, stabilizes us. We need only faith as small as a mustard seed, or as thin as a kite string, and God will catch it from across the void, attaching us securely to himself.

Terry Widener produced a beautiful, impressionistic illustration on page 32 of the children’s book The Kite That Bridged Two Nations that shows Homan Walsh flying his kite over Niagara Gorge. Although it is meant to be taken literally—an artistic interpolation of a historic event—it speaks volumes to me about what it means to exercise faith. Unfortunately, my request to reproduce it here was denied by the publisher, but I can describe it: Two rocky, snow-capped precipices rise up on either side of the picture, and a turbulent river courses between them, moving down a slight fall and crashing against four large rocks that protrude from the riverbed. The top fifth of the painting is blue sky, and a cumulus cloud hangs dead center, making visible a tiny red speck of a kite on a wisp of a string. Follow that string to the right side, and you can just barely make out a human figure holding the reel on the edge of the cliff. Because the gorge dominates the painting, the mood at first glance is one of panic and tumult. But in the upper register there’s a sense of peace and calm, as the kite drifts above the waves in search of an anchor. It’s still a scary endeavor—the small traversing the vast—and there’s the risk of losing the kite altogether, but there’s a thrill in it, in putting yourself out there.

One aspect of the metaphor that’s not addressed in Markham’s poem is the wind, which in the Bible is associated with the Holy Spirit. Just as the wind gives the kite lift, so does the Spirit give flight to our faith and love, powering us forward toward God.

As we unreel those two virtues, God works with us to “thread the deep”—to bridge the gap between finite and Infinite. And he strengthens us in them so that one day we will be able to walk out over the rapids, all the way across to the other side.

“Anchored to the Infinite” by Edwin Markham originally appeared in The Shoes of Happiness and Other Poems (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1919) and is now in the public domain.