Tag: blessing

Roundup: Upcoming conferences, “Rupture as Invitation,” and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:

>> Calvin Symposium on Worship, February 7–9, 2024, Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI: I’ve promoted this event in years past—see, e.g., here and here—and am excited to be attending again this year! I’ll be coleading a breakout session with Joel Littlepage and Ashley Williams about our work at the Daily Prayer Project, curating textual, visual, and musical resources from across time and place to encourage a life of prayer that reflects the church’s beautiful diversity. There are plenty of other sessions being offered as well; a few that stand out to me are “Blues: The Art of Lament” with Ruth Naomi Floyd (she’s also leading a Jazz Vespers service), “Music, Architecture, and the Arts: Early Christian Worship Practices” with Vince Bantu [previously], and “The First Nations Version New Testament and Its Impact on Worship” with Terry Wildman. This is in addition to what is probably my favorite part: the multiple worship services, led by liturgists, preachers, and musicians from different denominations and cultural backgrounds. I love my local church community, but I also love worshipping with folks from outside it—a reminder that the church is far broader than what I’m used to on a weekly basis.

>> “Poetry and Theology: 1800–Present,” February 22–24, 2024, Duke University, Durham, NC: Supported in part by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, next month Duke is hosting a poetry symposium that’s free and open to the public! The speakers are Lisa Russ Spaar, Judith Wolfe, Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Thomas Pfau, Kevin Hart, Anne M. Carpenter, Ian Cooper, Anthony Domestico, Luke Fischer, Dante Micheaux, Łukasz Tischner, and Bernadette Waterman Ward. Papers are on the poetry of Hopkins, Eliot, Rilke, Miłosz, and more.

>> “Return to Narnia: Creativity, Collaboration, and Community” (Square Halo Books), March 8–9, 2024, Lancaster, PA: Organized by book publisher, author, illustrator, printmaker, and gallerist Ned Bustard, this year’s Square Halo conference will feature author Matthew Dickerson as its keynote speaker and Sarah Sparks as its musical guest, along with various breakout session leaders, such as Brian Brown of the Anselm Society and Stephen Roach of the Makers & Mystics podcast. Tickets are $210 if purchased in advance or $220 at the door.

>> The Breath and the Clay, March 22–24, 2024, Awake Church, Winston-Salem, NC: Organized by Stephen Roach and friends, this annual creative arts gathering aims to foster community and connection around the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness, providing opportunities for immersive encounters and kindling for the imagination. There will be main-room sessions, workshops, a juried art exhibition (entry deadline: February 16), a poetry slam and songwriters’ round, a panel discussion on reconciling artists and the church, concerts, a dance performance, a short film screening, and more. Musical artists include Victory Boyd, John Mark McMillan, Young Oceans, and Lowland Hum, and among the keynote speakers are Rachel Marie Kang, Mary McCampbell, Junius Johnson, Vesper Stamper, and Justin McRoberts. I appreciate the bringing together of various artistic disciplines and the emphasis on practice. For tickets, there are both virtual ($99) and in-person ($299) options.

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NEW SONG: “MLK Blessing” by the Porter’s Gate: Written by Paul Zach and IAMSON (Orlando Palmer) and just released for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this song is based on a benediction that MLK prayed, a variant of the ancient Jewish benediction known as the Birkat Kohahim or Aaronic blessing (Num. 6:24–26). It’s sung by Liz Vice and Paul Zach.

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PAST LECTURE: “Rupture as Invitation: Generosity and Contemporary Art” by Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt: I’ve mentioned Elissa several times on the blog—I find her work so illuminating—and was grateful to have her in town last fall to deliver a lecture for the Eliot Society. “Contemporary art can often be unexpected or downright unsettling in its form and subject matter. But what if we reframed our discomfort as an invitation to enter rather than an unbridgeable divide? In this lecture from November 11, 2023, Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt demonstrates how approaching contemporary art with humility, love, and courage can be a powerful means of growing in love for our neighbors.”

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UPCOMING EVENT: “Why Should Christians Care About Abstract Art?” with Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt and Jonathan Anderson, February 22, 2024, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary–Charlotte, NC: Hosted by the Leighton Ford Initiative for Art, Theology, and Gospel Witness, this evening will consist of an opening of the exhibition Alfred Manessier: Composer in Colors (on display through April 30) and dessert reception, lectures by Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt and Jonathan Anderson, and a Q&A. “For some people of faith, abstract art is difficult to engage because the meaning remains unclear, and the form can appear chaotic or uncompelling. For others, abstract art is an invitation to engage the whole person, contemplate spiritual realities, and encounter God in transformative ways. If abstract art can facilitate the latter, then Christians have a unique opportunity to learn and care about abstract art for theological, practical, missional, and relational reasons. This event is a unique opportunity to experience abstract art, learn about abstract art, and have formative interaction with one another on this topic.” The cost is just $10, and there is an online option.

Manessier, Alfred_Mount Calvary
Alfred Manessier (French, 1911–1993), La montée au Calvaire (Mount Calvary), from the Suite de Pâques (Easter Series), 1978. Chromolithograph on Arches paper, 22 × 29 9/10 in. (56 × 76 cm). Edition of 99.

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BOOK REVIEW: “Religion’s Understated Influence on Modern Art” by Daniel Larkin, on Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion by Erika Doss: Challenging the presumed secularity of modern art, the new book Spiritual Moderns centers on four iconic American artists who were both modern and religious: Andy Warhol, Mark Tobey, Agnes Pelton, and Joseph Cornell.

+ ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: Also responding to this publication: the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA) will be presenting a session at the College Art Association Annual Conference in Chicago on February 16 at 2:30 p.m. that will put four prominent scholars—Stephen S. Bush, Matthew J. Milliner, Robert Weinberg, and Gilbert Vicario—in dialogue with Doss to “explore the assumptions, motivations, and insights of [her] analysis, and consider a more open, inclusive, and diverse reading of American Modernism.”

“Blessing for My Left Breast” by Anya Krugovoy Silver (poem)

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

Your skin slit round with a scalpel:
be brave.
Rise to the aluminum tray, the biopsy needle.
Go, nipple; go, milk ducts; go, veins.
Take with you my lymph nodes,
canaries of illness, blood cells’ puff balls.

Blessed be my chest wall for surrendering.

Now you will never shrink and wrinkle with age,
clove-studded orange, bittersweet.

Taken in your beauty, let the last hands
that hold you
be gentle.

This poem is from The Ninety-Third Name for God (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010). Used by permission of the publisher.

Anya Krugovoy Silver (1968–2018) was an American poet who authored five poetry collections: Saint Agnostica (posthumously published, 2021), Second Bloom (2017), From Nothing (2016), I Watched You Disappear (2014), and The Ninety-Third Name of God (2010). Diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in her thirties, she wrote often about life’s precariousness, the trauma of chronic and terminal illness, and holding on to joy and religious faith. She was named Georgia Author of the Year for Poetry in 2015 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018. She taught at Mercer University until her death in 2018.

“A Blessing for Back to School” by Sarah Bessey

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Hsu Tung Han_The Trend of Autumn
Han Hsu-Tung (韓旭東) (Taiwanese, 1962–), The Trend of Autumn (秋天の潮), 2013. Walnut wood, 155 × 98 × 50 cm. [artist’s website]
As we head back into our classrooms, may you go forth fully convinced of our love and your capacity. May you be the head and not the tail, leading others—and yourself—on a path of flourishing. 

May your roots go down deep into God’s soil so you will bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

May you remember your people, where you come from, and find your place of belonging. 

May you become even more fully who you were always meant to be this year. We delight in you, darling.

We pray that you would sow seeds of life and hope wherever you find yourself, cultivating a harvest of shalom.

May you be prepared for every good work that lies ahead of you. 

May your mind be clear and engaged, your memory sharp, your wisdom beyond your years. May you ask for what you need without fear or shame.

May you be safe, beloved child, protected from anything that seeks to steal, kill, or destroy in any measure. When you are afraid, may you feel our love wrapped around you and take heart.

When disappointments or disasters come—and they will—may you find the depths of the resilience we already see in you and rise, rise, rise again. 

May you do what is right and good and kind and just, no matter what everyone else might do. Don’t submerge your true self into the dreams, plans, behaviors, or agendas of others. Bring your full beloved self to these days, knowing you are created in the image of God.

We pray that you would be a blessing to your teachers and the school staff, and we pray that they, in turn, would see and affirm you in the fullness God has created. 

We pray for good friendships that will sharpen and delight you. 

We pray you would have eyes to see the lonely ones. May you have many opportunities to practice being both brave and kind. 

Beloved child of God, we send you out in the power and peace of Love itself, prepared and anointed, knowing you walk upon steady ground.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, one God and Mother of us all.

Amen.

This adaptable parental benediction for a child’s return to school is from the August 8, 2022, edition of Sarah Bessey’s Field Notes and is reproduced here with Bessey’s permission.

“Those Who Carry” by Anna Kamieńska

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments
van Gogh, Vincent_Women Carrying Sacks of Coal in the Snow
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Women Carrying Sacks of Coal in the Snow, 1882. Chalk, brush in ink, and opaque and transparent watercolor on wove paper, 32.1 × 50.1 cm. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands.
Those who carry grand pianos
to the tenth floor   wardrobes and coffins
the old man with a bundle of wood hobbling toward the horizon
the lady with a hump of nettles
the madwoman pushing her baby carriage
full of empty vodka bottles
they all will be raised up
like a seagull’s feather   like a dry leaf
like an eggshell   a scrap of newspaper on the street

Blessed are those who carry
for they will be raised

This poem was originally published in Polish in Anna Kamieńska’s 1984 collection Dwie ciemności (Two Darknesses), © Paweł Śpiewak. It is translated into English by Grażyna Drabik and David Curzon in Astonishments: Selected Poems of Anna Kamieńska (Paraclete Press, 2007). Used by permission of the publisher.

Christmas, Day 7

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LOOK: Babe in a Manger by Janpeter Muilwijk

Muilwijk, Janpeter_Babe in a Manger
Janpeter Muilwijk (Dutch, 1960–), Kind in Bakje (Babe in a Manger), 1999. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 58 × 38 cm. Private collection, Netherlands.

LISTEN: “Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us Peace) / Auld Lang Syne” | Arranged and performed by Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and Chris Botti (trumpet), on Songs of Joy & Peace (2008)

The three-word Latin prayer “Dona nobis pacem,” which translates to “Grant us peace,” is part of the Agnus Dei section of the Catholic mass. The traditional melody associated with it likely originated in the sixteenth century.

“Auld Lang Syne” (Old Long Since) uses a traditional Scots folk melody.

In this final track on Yo-Yo Ma and friends’ 2008 holiday album, Ma plays the “Dona Nobis Pacem” theme alone on cello and then is joined by trumpeter Chris Botti playing “Auld Lang Syne” as a countermelody. The two are cozily layered together in an expression of warm wishes for the new year.

“I Leave You My Peace” (Artful Devotion)

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Osborne, Mary Ann_Paths of Peace
Sister Mary Ann Osborne, SSND, Paths of Peace, 2005. Linden wood, glass, brass wire, gold leaf, and paint, 36 × 27 × 1 in.

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.”

—John 14:23–29

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SONG: “I Leave You My Peace” | Music by Maxime Kovalevsky, French Orthodox Church, Paris, 1940s–50s | Arranged by Josef Gulka, Holy Cross Orthodox Church, Medford, NJ | Performed by the St. Symeon Orthodox Church Choir, Birmingham, AL, on Fire and Light (2010)

You can download free sheet music for this song from the Liturgical Music PDF Library of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.

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The mixed-media artwork above is by Sister Mary Ann Osborne, a Minnesota nun in the order of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. The Good Shepherd figure references a Christian fresco from the third-century catacomb of St. Callixtus in Rome, where the shepherd carries a sheep over his shoulders, securing it with one hand while carrying a milk pail in the other; it’s an image of care and protection derived from scripture. Sister Mary Ann has added two open-palmed hands rising up behind, or perhaps emerging from, the shepherd, a posture of prayer (orans) but also of benediction (see, e.g., Lev. 9:22; Luke 24:50).

Christ is pronouncing a blessing—it could be the words of peace and promise from his farewell discourse, excerpted in Sunday’s lectionary reading. We, his people, receive it. He has forged “paths of peace” for us to follow, as Sister Mary Ann’s work suggests, with road markings at the bottom left inviting us to set off where Christ has trod. And he goes with us in the Spirit.

He has called the world to a new order, signified by the shofar at the right, which announces Jubilee. As one of seven, the trump also carries connotations of the day of the Lord.

See more of Sister Mary Ann’s wood carvings at http://sistermaryannosborne.com/.

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, cycle C, click here.