Frank Wesley (Indian, 1923–2002), The Promise of Peace, 1994. Watercolor, 50 × 30 cm.
Frank Wesley (1923–2002) [previously] is one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated Indian Christian artists. His watercolor The Promise of Peace appears on the cover of the March 1996 issue of Image: Christ and Art in Asia, the monthly magazine of the Asian Christian Art Association, which is where I sourced it from. Painted in warm brown earth tones and based on Isaiah 11:1–9, it shows an Indianized Jesus ushering in the peaceable kingdom of God. The ACAA provides the following commentary:
Christ is the shoot rising from the stump, and the Spirit of the Lord’s presence is shown in the white egg/flame/pearl in the upraised right hand and in the white heart shape centred on Jesus’ brow. A faint halo encircles his head, while a second halo sweeps from the right hand down to the left hand, under which the needy of the land shelter. The little child living at peace with many different animals is visible in the bottom right-hand corner, and the child playing unharmed with the viper is seated at the foot of Jesus. On the left-hand side of the painting a wide variety of creatures are playing happily together. The bracelet on Jesus’s left upper arm carries the symbol for Peter while that on the right upper arm signifies Paul. The symbols of the four gospel writers can be seen in the necklet.
LISTEN: “O Lord, May Your Kingdom Come” | Words by Greg Scheer, based on Isaiah 11:6–9, 2014 | Music by Eric Sarwar, based on the Raga Mishra Shivranjani, 2014 | Led by Eric Sarwar at the Calvin Symposium on Worship, 2019
Refrain: اے خدا تیری بادشاہی آئ (Transliteration: Aey Khuda, teri badshahi, aey) O Lord, may your kingdom come
Where the wolf and lamb Shall lie down as kin And a child shall lead them [Refrain]
Where the cow shall graze And its calves will play With the cubs of the lion [Refrain]
Where the babe in arms Shall fear no harm From the snake or the adder [Refrain]
May your kingdom come May your will be done On earth as in heaven [Refrain]
Born and raised in Pakistan, Rev. Dr. Eric Sarwar is a musician, global missiologist, and the pastor of Artesia City Church in Southern California, made up of Indian and Pakistani immigrants. He is also the founding president of the Tehillim School of Church Music and Worship in Karachi, which fosters the academic study of the ethnomusicology, missiology, and tradition of Christian worship in communities across Pakistan and the overseas diaspora. He plays the harmonium and is fluent in English, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu. He is the author of Psalms, Islam, and Shalom: A Common Heritage of Divine Songs for Muslim-Christian Friendship (Fortress Press, 2023) and is a frequent organizer of zabur (psalm) festivals.
In the video above, extracted from a Vespers service, Sarwar leads attendees of the 2019 Calvin Symposium on Worship in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in an anthem he wrote with Greg Scheer, joined on stage by other musicians from the symposium. The refrain is in Urdu and English.
This post is part of a daily Advent series from December 2 to 24, 2023 (with Christmas to follow through January 6, 2024). View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here. “O Lord, May Your Kingdom Come” is not on Spotify.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
—Isaiah 9:5–6 NIV
LOOK: Nativity by Irenaeus Yurchuk
Irenaeus Yurchuk (Іриней Юрчук), Nativity, 2022. Mixed media on canvas. Used with permission.
Irenaeus Yurchuk was born in Ukraine during World War II and raised in central New York, where he still resides. He worked professionally as an urban planner until 2010, when he turned to art full-time.
“Over the years my work has evolved to combine multiple-image photography with drawing and painting, using a variety of digital editing and physical montage techniques,” Yurchuk says. “This includes adjusting inkjet images by applying acrylics, watercolors, pastels, markers, colored pencils together with selected collage materials to achieve a desired effect.”
Yurchuk’s Nativity is a response to Russia’s 2022 military invasion of Ukraine. This is no facile depiction of that historic birth, no cozy winter idyll. It is a war-zone Nativity. It shows the Holy Family, rendered in iconic style, sheltering at night in the rubble of a bombed-out apartment complex. Surrounded by fallen steel beams, concrete, and broken glass, Mother Mary holds the newborn Jesus while a downcast Joseph sits beside them with head in hands. Though their circumstances are dire, through the building’s shell shines one particularly bright star, signifying hope in the horror.
One of the biblical names for Jesus is Emmanuel, Hebrew for “God with us.” By showing the Christ child being born amid the ruins of a contemporary Ukrainian city, Yurchuk reinforces the ongoing relevance of the Incarnation, meditating on God’s descent into our world of woe to dwell with and to deliver. Jesus is “God with us” in our suffering. When everything around us is crumbling, God is there too, hurting alongside and calling all oppressors to account.
Do you recall the famous Christmas text from Isaiah, further immortalized by Handel, that begins “Unto us a child is born . . .”? Well, it is immediately preceded by a prophecy of war’s final demise, of soldiers’ uniforms and accoutrements and all their bloody violence being consigned to one great big burning trash heap. In the new world government established by Christ, the Prince of Peace, tyrants will be overthrown (Luke 1:51–52), and the nations will study war no more (Isa. 2:4).
May this artwork and the song below prompt you to intercede for those suffering under war today, in Ukraine and elsewhere.
LISTEN: “Drive Out the Darkness” by Paul Zach, Isaac Wardell, Dan Marotta, and John Swinton, on Lament Songs by the Porter’s Gate (2020)
Refrain: Come, O come Be our light Drive out the darkness Come, Jesus, come
Every year under the thorn Every wrong that we have known Every valley will be raised Ancient ruins will be remade [Refrain]
Every weapon made for war Every gun and every sword Will be melted in the flame To be used for gardening [Refrain]
In the emptiness of grief Through the night of suffering In the loss and in the tears God of comfort, O be near [Refrain]
Coda: Come, and end all the violence Come, do not be silent Come, we cling to your promise Come, you’ll break all injustice Come, Jesus, come
For my review of the Lament Songs album by the Porter’s Gate, see here.
In addition to these words that the Porter’s Gate has given us to pray, I commend to you this prayer by Rev. Kenneth Tanner, which he posted October 13 in response to recent atrocities in Israel and Gaza (I’ve been returning to it a lot over the past month):
This post is part of a daily Advent series from December 2 to 24, 2023 (with Christmas to follow through January 6, 2024). View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!
—Isaiah 64:1a
LOOK:Winter by Agnes Pelton
Agnes Pelton (American, 1881–1961), Winter, 1933. Oil on canvas, 30 × 28 in. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California.
Agnes Pelton was part of the Transcendental Painting Group, an artists’ collective founded in the American Southwest in 1938 on the principles of creating a pure abstract painting style imbued with spiritual intent. Clayton Schuster, writing for Hyperallergic, describes one of Pelton’s metaphysical landscapes:
Pelton’s Winter (1933) depicts a pigeon and dove on a cliff in the foreground, with a great blooming cloud in the distance. The arched lavender cloud against the dark sky seems to suggest the narrow path toward a new beginning, as a pale glow at the top of the painting symbolizes hidden truths. Within the cloud are delicate lines hinting at two hills. The cloud seems to glow where the hills nearly meet and delineate the valley. It is as if Pelton has excavated a road from the cloud and revealed the path to paradise.
Pelton shows us a new way opening. The sky has been rent, and light breaks in. To either side of the central bulbous form are tooth-edged wheels in motion. At the bottom left, the snow is melting at the emerging warmth, revealing tiny green shoots on the ground. The two doves perhaps signify a coming peace.
Full of mystical yearning, this painting shouts “Advent!” to me. It evokes in my mind not only the Isaianic exclamation cited above—the basis for today’s featured song (below)—but several other Advent scriptures as well, such as Isaiah 40:3–5 (pave a straight path for God through the desert; every hill, every valley . . .), Psalm 98:8–9 (“let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming . . .”), and Revelation 1:7 (“Look! He is coming with the clouds”; cf. Matthew 24:30: “they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory”).
Pelton was not a Christian—she rejected organized religion—but her artworks are so wonderfully expansive in the associations and interpretations they invite.
For more on the artist, see the wonderful book Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist, a catalog of a recent major retrospective of her work organized by the Phoenix Art Museum.
O Savior, rend the heavens wide; Come down, come down with mighty stride; Unlock the gates, the doors break down; Unbar the way to heaven’s crown.
O Morning Star, O radiant Dawn, When will we sing your morning song? Come, Son of God! Without your light We grope in dread and gloom of night.
Sin’s dreadful doom upon us lies; Grim death looms fierce before our eyes. O come, lead us with mighty hand From exile to our promised land.
There shall we all our praises bring And sing to you, our Savior King; There shall we laud you and adore Forever and forevermore.
The German hymn text “O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf” (O Savior, Rend the Heavens Wide) is by Friedrich Spee (1591–1635), a German Jesuit priest, professor, and poet best known for opposing the European witch trials and the use of torture. Written during the Thirty Years’ War, it was first published in Würzburg in 1622 in the collection Das Allerschönste Kind in der Welt (The Most Beautiful Child in the World).
Four-plus decades later, in 1666, a Dorian-mode melody was published anonymously with the text in the Rheinfelsisches Deutsches Katholisches Gesangbuch (German Catholic Hymnal). Then in 1863, Johannes Brahms arranged that melody as a motet for unaccompanied mixed choir (op. 74, no. 2):
The hymn entered English-speaking churches in the twentieth century when Martin L. Seltz (1909–1967) translated it.
The original chorale tune is still in use, but I’ve also heard some churches using the 2003 retune by Nathan Partain. Here’s a live recording of that version from Trinity Church Seattle, sung by Partain, back when he was the church’s music director (it was called Green Lake Presbyterian Church at the time):
The hymn also appears, with updated arrangement, on Partain’s 2019 album The Beauty to Come. The chord charts, lead sheets, and string scores for this album and two others can be downloaded for free from Partain’s website.
This post is part of a daily Advent series from December 2 to 24, 2023 (with Christmas to follow through January 6, 2024). View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.
Frida Hansen (Norwegian, 1844–1931), Melkeveien (Milky Way), 1898. Tapestry, 260 × 345 cm. Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum of Arts and Crafts), Hamburg, Germany.
This art nouveau tapestry by Norwegian artist Frida Hansen received a gold medal at the world’s fair in Paris in 1900. It shows angelic figures unfolding a starry veil over the night sky. They glide forward above a band of Hebrew script that references the creation of the stars in Genesis 1.
The God who brought light in darkness in the beginning is bringing light again as we enter a new liturgical year.
Comprising the first five weeks of that new year, Advent-Christmas-Epiphany is a time of starlight, promise, and revelation. The first of the triad, Advent, is particularly concerned with themes of longing, waiting, lament, and future-oriented hope. We make ready our hearts to receive Christ—he who came to us first as a babe in a manger, in a vulnerable body like ours, to teach and suffer and redeem, and who is coming back one day in unveiled power and majesty to bring the fullness of God’s heavenly kingdom to earth.
Two millennia ago, God hung a special star in the sky for the magi to follow, guiding them on their way to the Christ child. May God similarly illumine our way to Christ as we seek him this season, giving us eyes to see and ears to hear the gospel of God-with-us and cultivating in us an eager readiness for Christ’s return.
I think of Hansen’s crowned young ladies as ushering us into the deep, dark blue of Advent to behold the signs that sparkle in scripture, foretelling a wondrous future.
LISTEN: “Star of Wonder” by Sara Groves, on O Holy Night, 2008; adapted and arranged from the refrain of “We Three Kings” by John Henry Hopkins, 1857
Star of wonder, star of light Star of royal beauty bright Guide us O guide us Won’t you guide us
Want to follow along with the music on Spotify? Most of the songs in this Advent blog series, and many more besides, can be found on the Art & Theology Advent Playlist.
>> Light in the Dark, Sojourn Church Midtown, Louisville, Kentucky, November 17, 2023–January 7, 2024: Organized by Sojourn Arts, this juried exhibition features work by twenty-four artists from throughout the United States. It explores contrasts between light and dark, a powerful artistic as well as biblical theme with strong connections to the Christmas story. A complementary lecture on “Light in the Gospels” by Dr. Jonathan Pennington will take place on January 11, 2024.
Brandon Hochhalter, The Incredible Power of Light, 2023. Reclaimed lath wood from homes in Old Louisville, 18 × 24 × 1 in. [artist’s website]
>> Wilson Abbey Advent Windows, 935 W. Wilson Ave., Chicago, December 1, 2023–January 6, 2024: A business under the umbrella of Jesus People USA, Wilson Abbey in uptown Chicago is a neighborhood gathering place for coffee, art shows, workshops, theater, dance, film screenings, and live music. Every December since 2016, they have installed a three-story-tall Advent calendar in their windows to be enjoyed from the streets, with one new artwork revealed each day from December 1 to 24. Directed by the building manager, Karl Sullivan, the project commissions local artists to contribute a painting, photograph, or other graphic work, and this year there are twenty-three participating artists. It will be a brand-new series of images, all on the theme “The Soul Felt Its Worth”—which, Sullivan told me, will “explore the idea of the Christ child coming to earth as a promise of justice and care for those who are seen by God, showcasing people groups who may not be seen, or whom we may not want to see because their problems are bigger than us.”
Below are two of the paintings from a previous iteration of the project, which together form an Annunciation scene. The drone video that follows was shot in 2020 by Mike Angelo Rivera.
Stop by 935 West Wilson Avenue in Chicago to see the progressively illuminated windows throughout the month of December (the full display will be up from December 24 to January 6), or follow along on Facebook or Instagram @wilsonabbeywindows. What a unique gift to the city! A fun way to engage the community.
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LAND ART: Snow Drawings by Sonja Hinrichsen: German-born, San Francisco–based artist Sonja Hinrichsen creates large-scale, ephemeral “snow drawings” in wintry locations around the world with the help of local volunteers who don snowshoes and track through the snow in patterns. She then photographs the land art from a helicopter or ski lift. These are amazing! Here’s a video by Cedar Beauregard of a drawing in progress at Rabbit Ears Pass, Colorado:
Snow Drawing by Sonja Hinrichsen, Rabbit Ears Pass, Colorado, 2012
Advent is a season of waiting with deep longing and hope for that long-looked-for day when fear and pain will be no more because Christ will reign and set this world free. These songs tap into that.
>> “Redemption Draweth Nigh”by Gordon Jensen (1970), performed by Rumbi Lee (2018): The title and refrain of this contemporary hymn are drawn from Luke 21:28: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (KJV).
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STREET ART SERIES: Medicinal Flowers of Lebanon by Faith XLVII: In September 2021, South African artist Faith XLVII (Liberty Du) traveled to Beirut to paint curative flowers across the rubble of the Lebanese city in the wake of the August 4, 2020, port explosion that caused at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and $15 billion in property damage, as well as leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. Rosehips, horned poppies, chicory, African carline thistle—all these botanicals are used in remedies for common ailments. “Each flower urges us, in a sense, towards healing as they grow out of the concrete,” the artist said.
Faith XLVII (South African, 1979–), Glaucium flavum, from the Medicinal Flowers of Lebanon series, Beirut, Lebanon, 2021. Photo courtesy of the artist.
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NEW ALBUMS:
>> The Soil and The Seed Project, vol. 8: Advent-Christmas-Epiphany: For the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany triad of the church year comes this new album from The Soil and The Seed Project, a ministry of Virginia Mennonite Missions—and recently Lilly-Endowed! All their music is free—for download, and even as physical CDs while supplies last. Below are two of my favorite tracks, both written by new contributors to the project. The first verse of Philip Fisher Rhodes’s “Bethlehem One” is in the voice of the in utero Christ; the second, the shepherds; the third, the wise men. The song is sung by Ben Luna. And “Peace Prayer” by Susan Gascho-Cooke is a plea that God would hold his arms around “this tilting planet,” the world’s wounds, and all people.
Each TSATP album is part of a larger project that also includes “Little Liturgies” booklets perfect for families with small kids (but that can also be used by individuals and small groups). Each booklet includes litanies, prayers, reflection questions, suggested activities, and visual art—and again, they’re free! Request a digital or physical copy here.
>> Kindness Is Solid Stone, Violence Is a Heavy Loan to Pay by David Benjamin Blower: Released November 3 and available on Bandcamp only, this album features nine original songs by writer, poet, theologian, and podcaster David Benjamin Blower of Birmingham, UK. I appreciate the minimalist sound and the stark lyricism. My favorite track is probably “Meet Me Where I Sing and Stamp My Feet”:
Isn’t this such a charming detail?—the infant Christ sticking his chubby little hand into a footed wicker bowl of flowers (potpourri?). I suppose the angel who holds it out to him wishes him to delight in the fragrance, this wee one whose senses are still so new. But what is its symbolic significance? Northern Renaissance painters often imbued ordinary objects with religious meaning. Perhaps it simply gestures to the aroma of Christ himself, his sweet, invigorating nature? At first I thought of myrrh, one of the gifts of the magi, traditionally interpreted as a foreshadowing of Christ’s death, as it was used to anoint his body in burial (John 19:39)—but myrrh is a yellow sap-like resin, and the bowl’s contents are neither that nor extracted oils. I don’t know; what do you think?
Compare this to the painting known as The Holy Family of Francis I(after the name of its original owner) by Raphael of Italy, which shows an angel providing a scented cover of flowers over the young mother and child.
Colijn de Coter (Netherlandish, active ca. 1480–1525), Virgin and Child Crowned by Angels, 1490–95. Oil on panel, 151.9 × 88.6 cm (59 13/16 × 34 7/8 in.). Art Institute of Chicago. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]
The larger context of the Netherlandish painting is Christ sitting on his mother’s lap in a contemporary bourgeois interior as she is being crowned Queen of Heaven, royal by association with the newborn king. (The embroidered inscription on the hem of her mantle reads, “ORA PRO NOBIS / AVE REGINA / CELOR[U]M MATER REGIS ANG[E]LORUM,” which translates to, “Pray for us. Hail, queen of heaven, mother of the king of angels.”) He’s reading the scriptures—so devout!—but seems momentarily distracted by something out of frame. His expression is serene. (Sidebar: Is it just me who’s anxious by how sloppily he’s turning that page? Not the creases! I mean, I know he’s just a baby, but . . .)
I believe the text is pseudo-Hebrew—both here, and in the scroll on the floor. European Christian artists sometimes imitated Hebrew script in their paintings to reference Jesus’s Jewishness; they were not learned in the language and had no direct textual models in front of them, so the best they could do was make marks that evoke that linguistic heritage.
It’s possible that the scroll is meant to represent Mary’s Magnificat, but it’s hard to say. It lies unrolled beside a neck-handled pewter vase filled with three blue lilies and bearing bosses of what look to me like a Virgin and Child and the prophets.
And look at the golden embroidery of the two turtledoves perched in one of the folds of Mary’s garment! (It recurs in a few places.) This is a reference to the animal offering she brought to the temple for her postpartum purification, a ritual prescribed by ancient Jewish ceremonial law (Luke 2:22–24; cf. Lev. 12:1–8).
The textures in this painting are fabulous. The realistic, detailed rendering of surface textures—of fur, feathers, hair, paper, foodstuffs, metals, jewels, wood, wool, velvet—is one of the hallmarks of Northern Renaissance art—that is, art from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Holland and Flanders, regions north of Italy. This greater illusionism was made possible by the use of oil paint, which also enabled richer, denser color than its precursor, egg tempera.
Northern Renaissance art is what made me fall in love with art history as a late teen. I had never encountered this painting before in my studies, so it was such a joy to stumble upon it earlier this year on a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago.
This year I’m continuing my Advent and Christmas tradition of daily art-music pairings on the blog, from December 2 (a prologue before the official start of Advent on December 3) through January 6, Epiphany. If you know of anyone who might be interested to follow along, they can subscribe here.
An ancient catacomb painting, a contemporary light installation, an Urdu anthem, a French West Indian carol, an Ethiopian tapestry, an impearled chasuble, a kinetic sculpture, a jazz rhapsody, a Byzantine-inspired piano quintet, an isicathamiya-style song, a Puerto Rican bulto, a Netherlandish altarpiece, and settings of Herbert, Blake, Wilbur, and Augustine—these are some of the gifts from artists on offer this season, inviting us to deepen our desire for and celebration of Christ Emmanuel, God with us.
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THE DAILY PRAYER PROJECT:Advent 2023: With Advent comes the start of a new liturgical year—which means a new volume of the Daily Prayer Project’s Living Prayer Periodical! Published in six editions a year, this periodical aims to “connect and unify Christians by resourcing them with daily prayers, practices, and music from the global-historical church, and visual art of spiritual and artistic value.” I curate the art. The cover image for Advent 2023—which, providentially, was finalized before the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the ensuing retaliations—is a calligraphic rendering of the Hebrew word shalom by Michel D’anastasio, a French Catholic artist with Jewish ancestry. The lamed is like a candle held hopefully aloft against a dark-blue midnight.
Rev. Joel Littlepage, who is the pastor of worship and formation at Grace Mosaic in Washington, DC, curates the prayers. Here’s Friday evening’s, from the church in New Guinea: “Lord, oil the hinges of our hearts’ doors, that they may swing gently and easily to welcome your coming.” Wednesday morning’s prayer is a responsive confession by Jorge Lockward, a Dominican song leader from New York, which begins, “Por tantas injusticias, perdón, Señor. Por tanta indiferencia, perdón, Señor.” (For so much injustice, forgive us, Lord. For so much indifference, forgive us, Lord.)
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NEW BOOK: A Radiant Birth: Advent Readings for a Bright Season, ed. Leslie Leyland Fields and Paul J. Willis: New this fall from InterVarsity Press, this Advent devotional book is a multiauthor compilation of forty-two readings for Advent through Epiphany, consisting of literary essays, poems, and short stories. Contributors are affiliated with the Chrysostom Society and include Richard Foster, Lauren Winner, Madeleine L’Engle, Philip Yancey, Walter Wangerin Jr., Eugene Peterson, Luci Shaw, and Marilyn McEntyre. About one-third of the content is previously unpublished, including a wonderful little reader’s theater (pages 81–89) by Leslie Leyland Fields that I can imagine working really well as part of a church service (and I received confirmation from Fields that people may use it freely in such settings). I know the market is really thick with Advent books, and I’ve read a lot of them, but this one has to be one of my favorites—the selections are wonderful.
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ART SERIES: Advent by Riki Yarbrough: For Advent 2018, artist Riki Yarbrough set herself a challenge: each day, create a 24 × 24-inch mixed media work corresponding to that day’s family devotions, structured around Jesus’s lineage. She didn’t have nearly enough canvases to last the duration of the season, so on day two “I woke up, took the very same canvas I had painted the day before, and worked right on top.” The final product was an artwork twenty-seven layers deep—the various people, prophecies, and foreshadowings adding weight and texture to the progressing story that culminated, in Yarbrough’s devotional program, with the infant Christ in a manger. “To cover the previous day’s work under the beauty of a new focus and set of Scriptures became both an offering and a sacrifice,” she said. “I wasn’t worried about meeting someone’s expectation or coming back to rework it later. I was simply conversing with the Lord over the truth of His Word in those wonderful moments on that particular day.”
Riki Yarbrough (American, 1975–), Joseph, Husband of Mary, 2018. Mixed media on canvas, 24 × 24 in.
Here’s a thirty-second time lapse of the Cain and Abel composition transforming into Noah:
In Advent 2022 Yarbrough reprised the daily challenge, this time executing her images on separate canvases. You can find this series on her Instagram @rikiyarbrough, starting with the candle image—but you can also purchase it in book form, as this month, Yarbrough released Advent in Art and Verse, combining full-color photos of all twenty-seven works from her 2022 Advent series with scripture passages and original poetic reflections. I received my copy, and my first impression was: what a beautiful design!
I like the allusiveness of her paintings: a set of footprints, stalks of grain, a red cord, tongs gripping a hot coal, tree rings, harp strings, a split fig, a cairn—simple objects like these guide us through the narrative of the Old Testament and the opening pages of the New.
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SONG MEDLEY: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel / Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” by the Petersens: In this video shot in Weddings at the Homestead in their hometown of Branson, Missouri, family bluegrass band The Petersens perform the two best-known Advent hymns—the one mournful, meditative, and minor key, the other bright and exuberant. They recorded both songs (released as two separate tracks) for their 2020 album Christmas with the Petersens.
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SUBSTACK POST: “O Come, Thou Rod of Jesse” by Grace Hamman, Medievalish 1.12, December 12, 2022: In last December’s installment of her monthly Medievalish newsletter, Grace Hamman considers Jesus’s family tree, visualized in the Middle Ages as what’s called, after Isaiah 11:1, the Tree of Jesse [previously here and here]. What does it mean that Jesus came from a real human family, a “complex web of generation, adoption, relationship, and dependence”? “The Son did not only take on flesh,” Hamman writes, “he took on David’s sometimes troublesome courage and cowlicks, Anne’s devotion and double-jointed pinky fingers. He comes from a line of real and complex people: faithless and faithful, abusers and abused, holy and broken. Baby Jesus is born into our funny human particularities and our burdensome histories, into created time and place.”
Tree of Jesse from an English Psalter in Latin, ca. 1190–1210. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, BSB Clm 835, fol. 121r.
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PODCAST EPISODE: “The Season of Waiting (and Waiting . . . and Waiting),”Everything Happens with Kate Bowler, November 29, 2022: In this podcast episode from the beginning of last Advent, bestselling author Kate Bowler introduces the season as one of waiting. She explains the history of the Advent wreath, and takes calls from listeners who share Christmas traditions they observe to honor a loved one they’ve lost. Be sure to download Bowler’s 2023 Advent guide, titled Bless the Advent We Actually Have. Here’s an excerpt from Day 1:
Advent is a time marked by waiting. We wait for God to make all things right. For justice to be meted. For democracy to feel stable. For wrongs to be righted. For our communities to be safe spaces for the vulnerable. For our earth to heal. We wait for our lives to get easier—for us to have the financial security we need, for our relationships to be restored, for our bodies to ache less. We wait for our parents to understand us and our families to feel whole. We wait for our kids and grandkids to be healed or come back home. We wait for the grief to end.
But the waiting of Advent is one marked by hope. We wait with expectancy. With anticipation for the inbreaking of God to make all things new. . . .
Advent hope is gritty. It shirks all false optimism. It is hope as protest. Hope in the face of impossibilities. . . .
The excerpt Bowler reads in the podcast is from her 2022 Advent guide, The Season of Waiting (and Waiting . . . and Waiting . . .) (which you can also download for free, along with 2021’s A Good Enough Advent + Christmastide, at https://katebowler.com/advent/).
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST:November 2023 (Art & Theology): In this month’s playlist I nod, in part, to All Saints’ Day (November 1), Christ the King Sunday (November 26), and world events. It includes “Ad Ana” (How Long), a setting of Psalm 13 in its original Hebrew by Miqedem (a Tel Aviv–based band made up of Shai Sol [previously] and three other musical artists from a mix of Jewish and Christian backgrounds), and “Touba” (Blessed), a sung recitation of the Beatitudes in Arabic by the Sakhnini Brothers [previously], Arab Christians from Nazareth, with oud and keyboard accompaniment.
As American Thanksgiving is November 23, you may also want to check out my Thanksgiving Playlist, comprising songs of gratitude. Originally created in 2021, each year I add to and remix the list as I encounter new recordings. One of the newer additions is “He Has Made Me Glad” by Leona Von Brethorst, based on Psalm 100, as arranged and performed on organ by the amazing Cory Henry.
The Christian life consists of both praise and lament, both tears and laughter—which is why in any given worship service or Art & Theology playlist or blog post, as in the biblical psalter, you can find songs that express joy and others, heaviness. They don’t negate one another but rather give fuller expression to the breadth of religious experience.
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NEW ALBUM: Some Mississippi Sunday Morning by Parchman Prison Prayer: After a bureaucratic process that took over three years, music producer Ian Brennan was finally granted permission in February to record a Sunday worship service at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, aka Parchman Farm, a notorious prison with a rich musical history. The prison chaplains convened a unique service of inmate singers from various Christian denominations ranging in age from twenties to seventies, who were given turns at the mic and even collaborated on a few tracks. Brennan said he wanted to give the men a platform for their voices to be heard. All profits from the album benefit the Mississippi Department of Corrections Chaplain Services.
“You can hear the way Sunday services are particularly restorative for someone incarcerated – not simply because of the promise of redemption, but the solace of not being alone,” writes Sheldon Pearce for the Guardian. “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning feels like these men reaching out for the things such a barbaric system tries to deny them: compassion, intimacy, and mercy. The songs are not just purges of anxieties accrued on the inside or calls for the Lord’s embrace, but also pleas to be acknowledged as a person and not an ID number.”
(Thanks to Art & Theology reader Ted Olsen for alerting me to this! He compared the album to Angola Prison Spirituals, recorded in the 1950s.)
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PODCAST EPISODE: “Sarah Clarkson: The Gift of Beauty,”Life with God: A Renovaré Podcast, October 20, 2023:Sarah Clarkson, author of This Beautiful Truth: How God’s Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness, speaks with Renovaré community life director Nathan Foster about her struggle with OCD and, amid the great suffering wrought by that illness, how God’s goodness has been mediated to her by beauty—in nature, poetry, music, story, tea, ritual, and so on. Responding to the idea that beauty is a luxury for the affluent, she says, “Well, [it is] if beauty is about having a perfect house. But beauty is healing those who have been hurt in a war zone. It’s creating shelters where children can have refuge. It’s rebuilding what has been destroyed. . . . Beauty is a defiance of the forces of evil and disorder and destruction because it is [their] opposite: where evil tears down, beauty creates; where there is absence, beauty fills.”
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PRESS RELEASE: “Toledo Museum of Art Adds Armenian Gospel Manuscript with 46 Paintings to the Collection”: After centuries passing through private collections, in June the Pozzi Gospels, a sixteenth-century illuminated manuscript from Armenia, entered the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, which will make it more accessible to the public. (I’m not sure when the book will go on display. And it doesn’t have an object page on the museum’s website yet.) The artist and scribe of this extraordinary, sumptuous manuscript was Hakob Jughayets’i. His forty-six full-page miniatures and marginal decorations combine Christian iconography with Byzantine, Islamic, and Buddhist design elements.
The Sam Fogg gallery, which exhibited the manuscript last year as part of The Medieval Body, created this short video about it, narrated by art historian Jack Hartnell:
Hakob Jughayets’i (Armenian, ca. 1550–1613), The Pozzi Gospels, 1586. Paper with blind-stamped brown leather binding, 403 folios with 46 full-page illuminations and numerous marginal miniatures, 7 3/4 × 5 3/4 in. (19.8 × 14.5 cm). This spread shows the Creation of Eve and the Temptation of Eve.
VIRTUAL MUSIC COLLECTION: Armenian Spiritual Music Special Vol. 1: NTS Radio in London has curated ninety minutes of traditional Armenian Christian music. (They’ve done the same for Byzantine chant, Welsh hymns, Hildegard von Bingen, and numerous other categories.) I wish the lyrics and translations were provided, but regardless of my understanding of the words, what beauty. [HT: ImageUpdate]
UPCOMING EVENT: The Guild Creative Arts Conference, November 4, 2023, Church on Morgan, Raleigh: Organized by singer-songwriter Jess Ray, spoken word poet Sharlene Provilus, and event curator Cary Brege, The Guild Conference endeavors “to care for the craft and character of creative people while encouraging creative community. We want to inspire your creative work, spiritual journey, and daily rhythms.” The special guests this year are singer-songwriters Dwan Hill, Andy Squyres, and Taylor Leonhardt; JourneyMates director Mary Vandel Young; and Makers & Mystics podcaster Stephen Roach. The day-long conference includes sessions, a panel discussion, an artist showcase, and a concert by The Choir Room. The regular ticket price is $75 (group rates and concert-only tickets also available).
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ARTICLE: “A Cloud of Witnesses: Why We Should Celebrate All Saints Day” by Leonard J. Vander Zee: In this June 2008 article from Reformed Worship, the Rev. Leonard J. Vander Zee writes to his fellows in the Reformed Protestant tradition, explaining what All Saints’ Day is and why it’s important to celebrate it, as Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics do every November 1. (Churches without midweek services typically celebrate the feast corporately on whatever Sunday precedes the first of November: this year, October 29.) Vander Zee also offers a sample order of worship, including specific hymn suggestions.
For all the saints who’ve shown your love In how they live and where they move For mindful women, caring men Accept our gratitude again
For all the saints who loved your name Whose faith increased the Savior’s fame Who sang your songs and shared your word Accept our gratitude, good Lord
For all the saints who named your will And showed the kingdom coming still Through selfless protest, prayer, and praise Accept the gratitude we raise
Bless all whose will or name or love Reflects the grace of heav’n above Though unacclaimed by earthly pow’rs Your life through theirs has hallowed ours
>> “Lux Aeterna (Nimrod)”by Edward Elgar, arr. John Cameron, performed by Voces8: The orchestral work “Nimrod” is movement 9 from the Enigma Variations by British composer Edward Elgar (1857–1934). In 2004 John Cameron wrote an SSAATTBB choral arrangement of the tune using the words of “Lux aeterna” from the Requiem Mass—which is what Voces8 performs in this video.
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua leceat eis.
English translation:
May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord, with thy saints forever, for thou art kind.
Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
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ARTICLE: “Soul on Deck” by Jake Lever: In Image no. 117 (Summer 2023), artist Jake Lever writes about a handful of his artworks having to do with the archetype of the boat as a vessel of passage: Ark, Bardsey Boats, Hailes Boats, Soul Boats, and Do the Little Things. He describes the fragile vessels he creates out of branches or wire, tissue paper, and gold leaf as “both cradle and coffin . . . something akin to a giant belly, cocoon, or womb . . . empty seed pods suggestive of cycles of birth, death, and resurrection.” Editions of some of these were given as gifts to family and friends during COVID, or to members of his collaborator-priest friend’s parish journeying through the final stages of a terminal illness.
Jake Lever (British, 1963–), Hailes Boats, 2013. Wire, tissue paper, and gold leaf, dimensions variable.Jake Lever (British, 1963–), Soul Boats, installed at Birmingham Cathedral, 2015–16. Photo by the artist.
For Soul Boats, installed at Birmingham Cathedral for its tercentenary, Lever invited city residents to fill the two thousand boats that would hang from the ceiling of the nave with personal memories, prayers, and reflections. “Created in hospices, youth clubs, schools, sacred spaces, and scores of community settings across the city, boats were made in memory of loved ones who had died, as cries for help in finding employment, as prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude, for peace and justice.” Heading east toward the high altar in the sanctuary, these boats formed a “constellation of souls.”
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LITANY: “Litany for All Saints Day” by Fran Pratt: I always appreciate the litanies (responsive prayers for congregational use) that Fran Pratt writes. This one is from 2016.
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And for some lighthearted fun: a GIF by James Kerr (artist name: Scorpion Dagger), of Jesus and the twelve apostles riding a tandem bicycle! Kerr makes humorous animated digital collages mostly from Northern and Early Renaissance art.
Art & Theology 