A reader expressed confusion about the bracketed, hyperlinked “previouslys” that occasionally appear after some names in my blog posts. That’s my shorthand for “Click here to see the blog posts where I’ve previously featured this person.” My archive goes back ten years, so while I never repeat content, it’s inevitable that I’ll occasionally highlight an artist or scholar whose work I’ve highlighted before. The one-word link enables me to instantly connect you to a place to explore more of that artist on this site, which lacks an advanced search mechanism (there’s only a basic search bar—in the sidebar of any post if you’re using a desktop, or at the bottom if you’re on your mobile—as well as a tagging system).
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SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: November 2026 (Art & Theology)
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The organization Art and Christianity (A+C) is offering a new Christmas card pack featuring an angel detail of the award-winning East Window at St. John’s Tisbury, Wiltshire, by stained glass artist Thomas Denny [previously], installed last year. The theme of the full window, whose central scene is the Transfiguration, is “seeing”—seeing the glory of God, and the epiphanies in ordinary and extraordinary moments in life. View more photos of the window, and read the artist’s statement, here.
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HANDS-ON WORKSHOP: “Embodying Advent: Making Unique Nativities” with Steven Homestead, November 19, 2026, Curate by Space in the Gap, Kaleidoscope center, Mission Viejo, CA: My friend Steven Homestead [previously] is an artist, composer, writer, curator, and arts leader from Orange County, California, who regularly brings people together around art—whether through cofounding the Network of Christians in Visual Arts (NCVA), creating community-based installations, contributing to Biola University’s annual arts devotionals, or organizing arts festivals and other events.
In two weeks, he’s leading an in-person workshop in which participants will create nativities using the art of assemblage. “Creating manger scenes using assemblage is fitting,” he writes, “because through the Incarnation, Jesus stepped directly into the coarse, tangible, and often fragmented reality of our material world. As we gather found pieces and use them to create nativities—whether with broken bits, discarded items, or meaningful mementos—we participate in a physical parable of Advent. We are reminded that God takes the messy, everyday stuff of creation and weaves it into something holy, revealing glory right in the midst of our human experience.”
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INTERVIEW: “Arcabas,” conducted by Misjonarze Saletyni: The last time I featured the artist Arcabas, a reader alerted me to this thirty-minute interview of his that the Missionaries of La Salette recorded in his studio in 2016, two years before his death. It’s in French, but professionally translated closed captioning is available in English.
Arcabas discusses how his understanding of faith has evolved, why he doesn’t consider himself a “sacred” artist, the extraordinary poetry of the Gospels, the importance of “living the symbols,” and the role of humor in art. He also discusses specific artworks, including:
- his Pilgrims of Emmaus polyptych at the Church of the Resurrection in Torre de’ Roveri, Bergamo, Italy (see additional commentary here and here);
- The Prodigal Son in the Chapel of Reconciliation in Costa Serina, Bergamo, Italy;
- his work for the Sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette in Isère, France—namely, the Christ Pantocrator in the apse, the Wedding at Cana polyptych, Mary’s Swoon at the Foot of the Cross, The Virgin of La Salette, and his two stained glass windows in the sanctuary’s Chapel of the Encounter;
- Église Saint-Hugues-de-Chartreuse, France, a forty-year project;
- and the painting that’s behind him during the interview, showing a donkey, mounted by a monkey(!), warming the infant Christ with his breath. (He playfully tells us the donkey greedily wanted a portrait of just him, not the ox.)
- (The other painting behind him, which is not directly addressed in the video, is the last Annunciation he ever made.)
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SONGS:
Three songs about relinquishing anxiety and resting in God’s loving care.
>> “Come Bring Your Burdens to God”: Originally written in Xhosa during the apartheid era in South Africa, “Woza Nomthwalo Wakho” (Come Bring Your Burdens to God) was popularized in the West by Rev. Dr. John L. Bell of the Iona Community in Scotland [previously]. It’s one of many global Christian songs he collected and had recorded by the Wild Goose Collective, which is where I first heard it. In this video, the Heatwole family, American Anabaptists living in Coyhaique, Chile, sing it at their church, Hermanos del Nuevo Pacto en Cristo (Brethren of the New Covenant in Christ).
>> “On God’s Shoulders” by Paul Zach: This is a fragment of a song written by Paul Zach [previously] and friends in preparation for the 2023 Porter’s Gate album Message Songs, inspired by Eugene Peterson’s best-selling colloquial translation of the Bible. But it apparently ended up on the cutting-room floor. It’s based on Psalm 55:22 (MSG): “Pile your troubles on God’s shoulders—he’ll carry your load, he’ll help you out. He’ll never let good people topple into ruin.”
>> “Sparrow” by Candace Coker: Another song that I don’t think has ever been released on an album. Trinidad-born singer-songwriter Candace Coker [previously] wrote it in 2017, inspired by one of Jesus’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount about God’s providence (Matt. 10:29–31; Luke 12:6–7).
