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Holy Week Musings in Words and Pictures
I’ve been pondering the events of the final week before Jesus was crucified, what we call Holy Week, mulling over the words from the four gospels and sketching some of the scenes. The book He Was One of Us, by Rien Poortvliet, a Dutch artist whose work I find inspiring, is a beautiful and poignant presentation in Poortvliet’s words and sketches of the humanity of Jesus throughout his life on earth. I find that Poortvliet’s sketches help me realize more deeply the truth that Jesus was fully man as well as fully God, and therefore felt emotional and physical pain as we do. And that leads me to ponder how…
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Broken but Thriving
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Sketching as Prayer
Yesterday we had our Spring Sketching as Prayer retreat at church, and it was a very refreshing day for me. While I enjoyed doing the retreat via Zoom in January, and it was great to see people from all across the United States and even one person in England, it was much more relaxing for me to lead a retreat locally. Not having to keep much technology in mind allowed me to really relax and experience the day as a retreat for myself as well. It’s interesting that, although I very much need and appreciate time alone at home, it sometimes seems that “solitude” with other people can be powerful…
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Off Kilter
I’ve been taking a few days of retreat-at-home time. Stephen has been away, so with time alone at home, I figured I’d have some refreshing time of solitude and silence. It’s been good in many ways, but I haven’t managed to settle my mind as much as I had hoped. It just seems there are so many good ways to occupy my mind or spend my time, and it can be hard to quiet myself, even when I manage to avoid the phone and computer. One day I decided to sit quietly and sketch the pin oak that’s growing in our yard. I’m fascinated by its downward growing lower limbs…
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Visio Divina
Viso Divina is similar to Lectio Divina, but instead of reading and meditating on Scripture, one observes and meditates on something visual, perhaps an image or something in nature. (For those new to the term lectio divina, it is a form of Scripture reading in which we slowly read, meditate or reflect on, pray, and then contemplate a Bible passage or story so that we hear in it what God wants us to hear and then take that forward into our own life, rather than interpreting it with our own agenda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina) Step 1: Gazing and seeing deeply Ask God to open your mind and heart to his presence with…