Whatsoever |
Whatsoever |
I have been reading again at the story of Jesus at the wedding at Cana - the one where things were going well, but then the wine ran out. You can read the story in John 2 At the middle of the story is Mary. She was there with her family and, as women often do, noticing what was going on. She noticed that there was a problem brewing. Something vital was lacking and the realised that something needed to be done to solve it. She knew she couldn’t do it herself : she did not have the means or resources to find some more good wine. However she did notice and know that her son Jesus was there and she did know and notice that if she told him, he would respond, would have a way of meeting the need. This is one of my favourite sayings, attributed to St Bernard of Clairvaux as his principles for caring for the monks under his care,
It is is good advice in many contexts - from family dynamics to churches and workplaces. But I realised that one thing is missing from this. It is ‘Notice Jesus is here’ We are called and expected to be alert, be aware of the dynamics and needs of those around us. We can cherish and care, but we also need to turn round and remember that Jesus is there, in the middle of it all. He is able to act, miraculously, unexpectedly, if only we remember to ask him to. By noticing Jesus and asking him to act, Mary was instrumental in enriching this family celebration, in enabling rejoicing to happen. Jesus noticed the need for a solution to the wine problem , but also noticed the servants and gave them a task (not a particular easy one) so that they became part of the miracle. He noticed their need to be needed
0 Comments
I have been considering the story of the wedding held at Cana, recounted in the gospel of John, chapter 2. There are many striking aspects to this story to ponder. One of them is the jars. They would have been large clay containers which would have to be filled and usually held water. Those jars were empty, were filled with water and then transformed. There was a space in the centre of these jars of clay. So there are challenges in this picture:
There is another story of jars and being filled: 2 Kings 4:1-7. The poor widow who only has one jar of oil. Elisha tells her to collect more jars from friends and neighbours and to keep on pouring oil. And it kept flowing
2 Corinthians 4:7. ‘But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.’ Psalm 80:19
"Restore us, Lord God Almighty. Make your face shine on us that we may be saved" A verse of restoration - looking out of the window and letting the light shine so that, perhaps, we may be allowed to reflect the light of God's grace - sometimes, somehow, somewhere. Psalm 130:5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. We have all learned so much about waiting in the past year or more. The waiting for the end of the pandemic continues.
Yet as we wait for the Lord, there is hope - hope in his promises, in all we know of him through the words of the Bible and all we have experienced of his love and grace in our lives. From a young child this season has taught us all to wait for Christmas. So perhaps waiting can be a good thing. Like the woman in my drawing, can we wait in an alert yet relaxed way, pensive yet noticing, trusting and hopeful? Psalm 25:4-5 Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long. There are several ways and paths to notice and follow - while the rock beneath is true.
We just need to be teachable - to listen, learn, understand, practice and apply. Lord in this season of watching and waiting, lead me along your paths. Here is Zechariah, a father, looking up to God, understanding who God is, and then looking to his son and understanding who he will be. In the first half of the song he celebrates the great history of God’s dealings with his people: salvation, mercy, covenants, rescue from enemies, serving without fear. It begins with an assertion of salvation, and at this moment Zechariah can’t have known the details of what this would have looked like. He had faith that this is what God said he would do and he realised that now was the time. He is speaking in the power of the Holy Spirit, shouting a song of faith and praise, loud and clear after his months of silence. This reads like one of the psalms. Did someone write down what he said? Were the words repeated often so that they became the anthem of that household, that community? Did the priests hear this and use it as part of the temple worship: a new great form of prayer and praise to be lifted up with outstretched hands?
Then there is a pivot : the focus changes, to his child. John was the first ‘person of the Way’ (the early Christians were called People of the Way): he was given the task of preparing the way of the Lord - so that Jesus could come and live in power and so that we could follow on the path of peace. The markers on the way are paced out in these verses: know salvation, forgiven sin, mercy of God shining light to banish darkness, finding the path of peace. This boy’s life was not going to be easy, and would end early and violently. He needed the same silence and seclusion that his Father had experienced to understand his calling. A prayer Lord, thank you for this glorious hymn of praise to the great sweep of your purpose. I can hear this peeling through the years and in small, sometimes quiet ways, can add my voice. Teach me to praise you more extravagantly. As I live my life on the ‘Way’, thank you for the paths that John forged : his singleminded determination to clear a way through the tangled and impenetrable complexities that we have made of this world. In all the confusion and mess, the ruins and rubble there is a way to be found. John knew this and started clearing the path so that Jesus could himself become the Way, the Truth and the Life. LUKE 1: 57-66 New International Verson In all the hill country this event was marvelled at. A baby born healthy to this old couple, the man who couldn't speak who now could, and this unexpected name: what would it mean? For Elizabeth and Zechariah the hard work had just begun - feeding, caring, disciplining, trying to understand this dear son.. In their quieter moments they must have remembered how all this began. Did they keep in touch with Mary and Joseph? Their sons were similar ages. Those two women knew, from the angel, how special they were, yet also watched as the children grew and became even more special. Their sons became the ones that people followed, while their parents waited and watched at home.
Years later, John fully realised too that he was not then important one. He watched his cousin, he understood who he was and said: "He must become greater; I must become less" (John 3:30). That was true for his parents, that was true for him and is true for us all, before the pre-eminent greatness of Jesus. Prayer Lord I have glimpses of glory and significance but much of life is slow and hard and confusing. I try to cope by inflating my own importance. In your way of doing things, great changes come, even miracles happen. Yet, I then need to step aside and marvel at what you are doing. Thank you for the example of these elders - Elizabeth and Zechariah. Help me to be a gracious elder. Imagine touching a window pane: what does it feel like? Cold, hard, smooth, transparent. It divides one side from the other. If it is in your home, the view through the window to the garden or nearby buildings will not change much. The light will alter, and perhaps the wind will blow some leaves but it is predictable and perhaps quite calming. If the pane of glass is the car windscreen or train window, the view changes quickly as the vehicle moves. It passes and is gone. If you are driving you have to notice and react to what you are seeing, but if you are a passenger you can let it pass by and pay attention or not. At the moment many of us spend much time in front of other panes of glass - on a computer or phone. We look through these windows for hours a day and so much flickers past - news, connections with people in emails and Zoom calls, tv, films, church services and concerts, newspapers, books, websites. We can choose where to turn our gaze but it is always through this glass screen. All of which set me thinking about texture. The hard, smooth, cold surface of glass is one texture, but is is very limiting and rather unforgiving. In this time when so much of life is mediated through a screen, and that screen can show so many different things in quick succession, how can depth, meaning be achieved? My take on this ‘pane of glass’ problem has been to think more about texture: how to deal with the ‘screen problem, the ‘pane of glass’ problem and to keep texture in life? Four ways of finding texture:TIME Just because I can do things on a computer or phone quickly and quite proficiently, doesn’t mean I have to. In the old days, not so long ago, if I had wanted to write something I would have to find a pen and paper, keeping abreast of the latest news would mean going out and buying a newspaper or waiting for the radio news bulletin; reading a book would mean buying it from a bookshop or borrowing from the library, taking it down from the shelf and finding a place where the light is good enough to read comfortably. Being in contact with friends would have meant writing letters, finding stamps and addresses, going to the post box and waiting for a reply. And photographs would be taken but then the film would have to be developed and returned and could only be shared with others if you had copies made. All that to say that the almost instantaneous jumping from one to another is very new, unlikely and can be dangerously distracting. It is not a coincidence that there are lots of apps designed to keep you focussed on your work. They essentially involve setting a timer and stopping you look at other things. Far more self discipline is now needed, if working on a digital devise, to stay focussed. Somehow we have to try and vary the pace, slow down a bit and savour what we are doing, seeing, hearing and writing. Occasionally have the luxury of going slower, taking longer over what could be very fast. Relish the minutes and even hours and sometimes just stop 'scrolling'. DEPTH Experiencing the world in three dimensions involves an appreciation of depth : the distance between that chair and the table for example. It is much harder to work out depth if it is mediated by a screen. Going into the depths of anything can be challenging but deeply rewarding. In the Bible, in Luke 5:4 Jesus said to Simon : ‘Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch”. For the fishermen on Lake Galilee fishing the depths forced them to listen and obey the instruction from Jesus, their nets had to be cast and then, importantly, the catch of fish to be hauled in. For us sat in our room with an internet connection it is possible to 'dig and delve' . For example, while reading a novel about Panama I can quickly look at a map of the country, Google the politicians mentioned and easily find out more about the author. However having started to dig it is easy to pop back up and move onto something else. The digging is temporary. But there are ways of going deeper that are more long lasting and ‘textured’. A film is about to be released called ‘The Dig’ which is about the archeological investigation which found the Sutton Hoo treasures. That sort of digging, going into the depths took enormous time and skill and concentration. t can be scary to go deeper. But is worthwhile. It is by daring to go deep that multiple textures appear. FEEL If images and ideas scroll through too fast behind the screen of glass it is very easy to have no feelings at all. The quantity becomes overwhelming and the ‘magazine’ quality (where terrible things appear alongside the trivial’) create a weary numbness. After a while being distracted and detached is second nature. However, it is possible, sometimes, to pause long enough to let the easily-received become something deeply felt and precious. This morning I received, as part of some family WhatsApp chatter, a photo taken of twin daughters, one comforting the other as she lay on a hospital bed eight years ago after a very serious operation. Later this morning I watched on the same computer the live streaming of a church service in Brighton when a paramedic in her NHS uniform led prayers for her colleagues and a young man leaving life of addiction showed his newfound faith in Jesus by being baptised. Each of these, appearing on this screen of glass, were there to be felt, if I allowed, and that feeling brings texture. FRAME Glass can’t stand on its own. If it did the edges would cut and the pane would fall and shatter. It needs a frame. It may be quite plain in a window, sturdy but well engineered on a computer, or quite ornate and wide around a mirrors or painting. I have two mirrors that have wonderful frames, each a work of art just as much as the mirror is useful. One has rather playful cherubs, the other in copper, has an inscription that "now we see in a glass darkly but then face to face' It is possible that the two dimensional flickering distracted world of the screen can also be given texture by making a frame around it. That could mean having buffer zones of time, to frame the ‘screen hours’. It could mean being more reflective, even journaling the activities that are taking place (email, zoom meeting, news feed, drawing….) at the end of the day. Frames can also be created by prayer. What is seen and understood, what arrests or disturbs or just fascinates can be ‘captured’ and prayed about. That prayer may look like wrestling (like Jacob and the angel), or waiting in silence. It may feel like sinking or like launching out. What it will always do is bring things to our Heavenly Father. His Holy Spirit works in extraordinary textured ways to work his purposes. FINDING TEXTURE IN A WORLD FULL OF SCREENS
As I have thought about framing, feeling, finding depth and giving time, I have felt more confident that there is texture still in my life. Although my days are spent alone in lockdown and many hours in front of the computer, the cold, hard, flat glass is not all that there is.. Rather, there is subtlety, wonder, reality and life to be found even here, even now. Hands: How important they are in helping us understand God’s love for us and our response to him. I look at my hands and can see the years imprinted there. I can still feel the slightly swollen joint of the middle finger of my right hand where my pen pressed while answering exam questions. My fingernails are rather lopsided as I used to nibble the side of them when I was a child. My hands are no longer elegant. The fingers seem to be much thicker now and the veins stand out over the thin inelastic skin on the back of each hand. I wear wedding rings: mine and my late husband’s that I can’t bring myself to remove. My hands remind me of the life I have lived. They also challenge me about the potential of the rest of my life. Have you ever tried describing your own hands to yourself? If you dare, try and draw them. It is extremely difficult but if you try, however strange the result, it will make you look at this part of your body very carefully. Hands link with others. Try and bring to mind a particular time when you have held another’s hand. It may be someone very old or very young. It may be a family member or friend. It may be long or fleeting occasion. Capture that image in your mind’s eye and hold the memory for long enough to pray. If you can, find a photo of yourself with another person with your hands linked with theirs. Your could draw or write about this image. You could also try looking carefully at some paintings. Talented artists over the centuries have painted pictures about the Christian faith. The artists, if they were any good, thought carefully about how to depict their subject. It is easier now than ever before to see these images and we can ‘claim’ them for our own as a way of understanding, thinking and praying. You can find paintings in books and very easily on the internet.
Calling hands I get much pleasure from visual art and have discovered several paintings focussing on hands, all made around 500 years ago, that still ‘speak’ so profoundly. They have helped me to visualise truth. A painting that is a special favourite of mine is on the wall of a dark wood panelled building by a remote canal in Venice. It is by Vittore Carpaccio and shows Jesus calling Matthew to be one of his disciples. It is set, as so many paintings were at this time, in the streets of Renaissance Italy rather than first century Palestine: the clothes and buildings are incongruous and potentially distracting. But right in the centre is a marvellous detail. It is of a most tender moment - Christ reaching out his hand to call this worldly-wise tax collector to come and follow him. It shows the love, compassion, understanding and leading of Jesus, calling someone away from everyday demands to follow him. Tiny hands There are many paintings of the nativity. In all of them, there is a very small baby with very small hands. This was what Jesus’s hands were like when God came to be with us. You may have had the privilege of holding a newborn’s hand: it grips tight, you can’t really believe how small the fingernails are and the skin is so smooth, soft, new. Jesus had hands like these. Try searching with the word ‘nativity’ on one of the websites and find an image that helps you to consider the wonder of ‘God with us’ afresh. Suffering hands There are also many depictions of the crucifixion. One of the most harrowing is by Grunewald, part of an extraordinary altarpiece on display in Colmar in France. This shows the terrible agony of Christ’s death with hands pierced by hard sharp nails, through flesh into wood. Here the hands have no power, all control is stripped away and muscles are tortured in agony. These taut, fractured muscles and bones show the meaning of Christ’s words :’ this is my body that is broken for you’. It reminds me of the words ‘hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered’. They are in the middle of a song by Graham Kendrick which honours and expresses praise for Jesus, the servant king. It is an almost unbelievable fact that the hands of God, which created the universe, should have chosen to have the hands of his Son pierced by rusty Roman nails. Open hands Yet that is not the end for ‘Christ is risen, he is risen indeed’. There are fewer resurrection paintings and drawings than one might expect. In many Christ is triumphant. An artist called Bramantino however, painted a most unusual depiction of the risen Christ. It hangs today in a museum in Madrid. Christ stands pale and sombre with his hands outstretched. This moves me greatly: the look on his face, his white body just freed from death, and above all his scarred hands open in a gesture of love. The wounds are still there; there for the world for all time until he returns. The hand of God in the world is a ‘hand that speaks of sacrifice’ God who came and died and is risen still holds the pain of the world. These entirely powerful hands are also so gentle full of care and offering blessing. Ruth Rogers image speaks of this so beautifully, as well as the open hands we need to receive God’s blessing. Praying hands Finally hands can be used to focus our prayers. Praying hands lifted to God was a common way of praying in the early church. On the outskirts of Rome, underground in the Catacombs of Priscilla, there is a painting made in the third century on one of the cave walls. It is of a woman praying with arms extended and palms open and facing upwards. This ancient posture can be a way for us to pray. It may feel strange : a mixture of being exposed and confident. But it may help you focus on God and your precious hands. Psalm 63 expresses this so well. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands I cling to you; your right hand upholds me (Psalm 63:4,8) . This article by Gillian Phillips was originally published in Woman Alive magazine.
This year has also brought so many challenges and so much uncertainty.and yet has brought blessings and new understanding. The postcards on my windowsill in the kitchen seem to sum it all up well • The wonderful painting by Rembrandt helps me to understand more about the waiting and yearning of this year. I have written more about this in a previous blog
• The bright drawing started from the West Pier in Brighton. There have been photos of the family here over the years and it is a good place for remembering and being thankful. The image I have made looks like a stained glass window that could be installed to shine in a church, perhaps with a plaque beneath commemorating a life well-lived. • I identify with the woman Laura Knight's painting - looking out to sea at far horizons, letting the wind blow and planning to launch out to new possibilities. She may not stay standing on the rock for ever! • In Ethiopia, tef is the staple grains and these tef stacks were by the road outside Addis Ababa. I made a trip back to this wonderful country earlier in the year. The Bible verses I chose to go with this image are Psalm 85:10-13 which talk about love, faithfulness and righteousness and preparing the way ahead. • I made this final image years ago - of a view of scaffolding on a new building by the Thames in London. Now it seems to sum up the strange fragility of London in the past months: waiting for the 'building' to start again but meanwhile rather unexpected and uncertain. At either end of these postcards on my windowsill are two others.
|
WhatsoeverThe posts are 'postcards' on my journey through faith and art. The name 'Whatsoever' comes from Philippians 4:8 in the Bible : Categories
All
Archives
May 2024
|