CHRIST'S FEET

Andy preached a sermon during Lent about Mary anointing Jesus' feet. That's always been one of my favorite Bible stories, but for some reason that morning, the story stayed with me and I knew I wanted to paint the story.

A couple of weeks later, Andy preached again, this time about Jesus washing the disciples' feet. He reminded us that those two incidents were only days apart, and that there's a huge possiblity that Mary inspired Jesus--that his washing their feet was a direct result of her washing his feet. I had never thought of that, but I knew there was a painting in there somewhere.

I felt a painting forming in my gut. I had been so moved by both sermons, and I felt the painting forming on my insides, so I simply asked, stated my intention, then waited.

Also during Lent, we had a priest from the Episcopal Diocese of Texas in Houston come and talk to us about Social Justice and EDOT's ministry to the homeless.

And the photo--this photo of aching, injured feet that inspired this painting--I must confess, it came from a National Geographic Magazine. I pulled it a couple of years ago, and kept it. It's haunted me and it's been "in my face" since our Social Justice evening.

I started the painting Easter Sunday afternoon, and today I've been thinking of it this poem that St. Theresa of Avila wrote; I first heard it at the Cenacle in 2003:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

I've loved that poem since the first day I heard it, but over the last few days, I've seen these feet as Christ's feet...are they the feet of the homeless? or the feet of someone in a third-world country? an illegal immigrant who's found his way across our borders? I don't know who's feet they are, but I believe they are Christ's Feet, and he waits to see if we'll wash them, if we'll anoint them.

It scares me, this tug I feel on my heart. I kind of like watching someone else from the sidelines care for the poor. But something's moving; albeit slowly.

When I joined the Catholic Church, I had just lost my job, and the position of the Director of St. Thomas Center in Angleton was open. It is a ministry to the poor. "Shoot," I thought..."I can do that!" But first I had to take a Parish Social Ministries class in order to qualify. So I did--3 months of classes a couple of days a week, driving to Houston. For the most part, it undid me. I discovered all my prejudices toward the poor--all my thoughts and concepts that had been formed over my lifetime. I never even knew I had them. But I learned how mis-informed I was and how UNready I was to work with the poor. At the end of the class, the teacher asked how we planned to use what we had learned. I confessed that first I had to digest it. It was part of the "Great Reveal" for me. I knew nothing.

The last few years have simply been a growing awareness of God's love for the poor, and God's heart for justice, a simple growing awareness of how unfair life is. I am lucky to have been born this side of the border. I'm lucky to have been born white. I'm lucky to have been born middle class. I'm lucky to be married to an engineer who's had a job for at the same place for these 30 years. Flat lucky. I deserve nothing more than they have, and they don't deserve what they have.

So, I still don't know anything, but awareness is growing. And my heart of stone is being softened and "Love one another as Christ has loved you" is being written on it. Don't have a clue what the next move is. For the last couple of days, it's simply been to paint and think and ponder and listen to wonderful music and to say once again, "Here I am Lord..."

This started out as just a "paint over", but I decided to sit with "She's Been Here" for a while and let her talk to me. What an experience! I painted the "self portrait" almost a year ago, to the date--didn't realize that until I sat to write. It was during a very hard personal time for time--a time of disappointment and "death" (death of a family, a dream, an idea). It was good therapy painting it, and today was good therapy letting it go--painting "rich black soil" over the seeds and now waiting for something new to come. I feel clean, freshly scrubbed, and very rich. Something new is coming forth. For all of us involved in the 'before' picture. I feel it. I know it. I can hear Spirit saying, "Behold, I make all things new!"

One last word on Hildegard...

On Saturday, March 6, 13 women gathered in St. Timothy’s Parish Hall, to learn a little about the life of Hildegard of Bingen. One of the projects of the day was a community “paint-by-number” rendition of Hildegard’s vision of Ecclesia, Mother Church. We decided to paint her more like Hildegard’s vision, with her multi-colored skirt and purple cumberband. In our rendition of the vision, she holds the women who came together that day. Here we are, being held in the heart of Mother Church.


ECCLESIA, MOTHER CHURCH, as Hildegard saw her,was presented to Hildegard as “the bride, a queen clothed in many colors, each hue representing a different order within the Church. Ecclesia’s head gleams with a snowy, crystalline whiteness, (the priesthood); her bosom glows like the dawn (virginity), her waist is girded with royal purple (monasticism); and…she shines like a brilliant cloud (marriage). To illustrate the vision, the Rupertsberg artist departed more than usual from the text, but still represented Hildegard’s vision clearly…From her virginal breasts flames of love surge up to the heavens…she…stands with outstretched arms to welcome all who come to her.” (from Sister of Wisdom, by Barbara Newman)

I had so much fun preparing this day of prayer. I'm currently reading Matthew Fox's Creativity, Where the Divine and the Human Meet. He's a prolific writer and he comments in this book, "Peolple ask me: 'Why do you write so much? Are you addicted to seeing your name in print?' Hardly. I write because I am driven to know, and writing for me is a wonderful way to learn. I also write because the discipline it takes is good for my mind; it keeps it in shape and youthful and alive. I believe in exercising the virtue of curiosity. I write because of the joy involved in giving birth. Writing and the reading and study that accompany it are joyful experiences for me. The Spirit comes to me when I write and learn."

That's how I felt preparing for this day of prayer, as well as preparing for the Mandala Saturday Art Special. I loved the preparation time as much as the actual teaching time. I learned so much, and I felt Spirit's nearness as I listened and read and painted and learned myself. I love learning, and teaching someone else is a wonderful way to make sure the learning process continues!

COMMUNITY

They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet...a sabbath's journey away. Acts 1:9...

They returned, together...they moved as a single unit from Olivet, the place of pressing the olives to get the oil. Olivet wss only mentioned twice in the Hebrew Scriptures, and both times it was mentioned in the context of defeat and destruction. In the Gospels, it's mentioned in the context of Jesus's own pressing as well as his words to his small community about their own future pressing.

The picture I have this morning is of those early believers moving as a single unit from the place of pressing, defeat, and seeming destruction to Jerusalem. In my studies this morning, I discovered that "salem" means "to lay a foundation". Wikipedia defines Jerusalem as "disambuiguation". That's interesting...ambigous means vague, unclear, cloudy, obsurec, indefinite...so I suppose DISambuation means to make clear, definite, from an unsteady, unsure place, to a place of secure and steady foundation, a place of peace.

This small band of fearful, shaken, pressed human beings moved as a single unit to a place of peace, with a sure foundation. That takes time. It takes a history together, intimacy. It implies suffering together and becoming whole together.

And if one doesn't get there, no one does.

I've been made so aware of community over the past few months. For a long time, most of my life it seems, it was about Jesus and me, but for a while now, I've become more and more aware of my personal communities. This morning I drew my concentric circles again: Jim, Mother and me at the center, my Lilies community, my TAEHS ladies, my 3rd Act community, and my larger community of St. Timothy's.

Yesterday I read a friend's blog on community, and was impressed by her thoughts of community being about connection and intimacy. Both of those take time and sharing of each others life and space, of each others aches and pains, of those "pressing" times, the times spent in the blacksmith's fire being shaped and molded. Connection anbd intimacy don't happen overnight, except by grace.

Mostly this is a jumble of thoughts...but my mind keeps rolling these thoughts around and around, including a video called Trading Schools.

Somehow, we walk together even in our larger human commnity--either we all get there, or none of us get there. Either we all reach Jerusalem, or none of us do. That's how "single" we really are. We may look like individuals, but we were created for community. A single cell doesn't make a body that functions well. We are part of a greater whole. Our concern isn't just for ourselves, but for the whole.

So, what's my part? I don't know, except to pray even as Jesus prayed, that we might all become AWARE of our "oneness". We ARE one...we just don't know it yet. If we did, we would care for the Earth, our home. The disparity in health care, education, daily living provisions--that would really matter to us if we only could relize our "oneness". It would matter to us that "those people over there" have the same privileges I have over here. We would finally get it that we are part of a single unit, and I won't make it without you. You won't make it without me. Our children won't make it without us, nor we without them. The world has gotten so much smaller. The circles keep expanding to include...

This first day of Lent found me in John 7, reading about Jesus at the Festival of Booths, when he said, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink." One of the Scriptures that was referenced was Isaiah 58:11 The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

I thought about that all morning, then heard it again at the Ash Wednesday service at the church, at noon.

Our Guide will make us Eden revisited...waters that never fail. And He will satisfy our needs in parched places.

Selah! Think on that for a while. What a beautiful way to start the Lenten season.

The Eye of God

I created this mandala Thursday morning, then received a wonderful "new" book in the mail Thursday afternoon...SYNCHRONICITY!

I did a mandal "demo" for the Brazosport Art League a couple of weeks back. After the demo, a fellow artist recommended that I buy a copy of A Beginners Guide to Constructing the Universe, which, of course, I promptly ordered.

I got the book Thursday afternoon, and began reading Thursday evening, AFTER I created "The Eye of God" Thursday morning. And it's only in reviewing my notes this morning for my mandala workshop, that I realize the synchronicity..."God-talk".

I have hated using a compass since my geometry days in high school, but I've fallen "in love" with the compass after only a few pages of this book. The compass was called "the eye of God" by the ancients, and it was symbolic of the creation of the universe (the circle). The two legs of the compass symbolized the opening of God's eye to allow the light to flow out into the darkness. The still "point" of the compass symbolized the "still point/center" of the universe, or the Self. The compass itself standing straight up on it's legs, represented the axis of the world, the high mountain of God, the Holy Center...

When I looked at this drawing this morning, I saw all that there. What I love about "truth" is that it is experienced in the cells of our bodies. You can teach me rote facts, but truth must be revealed. All that to say: I can't wait for our day at the Center (I think that, too, must be prophetic!).

I love circles! :)

SCIENTIA DEI, the Knowledge of God

I’ve been preparing for a Lenten Day of Prayer using Hildegard of Bingen as a woman for today. In Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine, by Barbara Newman, I first read of Scientia Dei, and I knew I wanted to paint my own version of this magnificent feminine face:

“A figure of Wisdom first appears in Scivias III, where Hildegard saw the Word of God symbolized by a three-sided pillar crowned with a radiant dove. The three sides, she was told, signify the Word of God as manifested in the ancient law (patriarchs and prophets), the new life of grace (apostles, martyrs, and virgins), and the wisdom of the doctors...At this point, there appears the figure of Scientia Dei, the Knowledge of God, standing in a building that represents the heavenly City or the Church…Scientia Dei appears as a veiled woman with one hand raised in a gesture of forbearance. She is colored entirely with gold leaf and set off by the backdrop of a starry sky…

(From Hildegard’s own words:)

‘The image denotes the Knowledge of God, for she watches over all people and all things in heaven and on earth, being of such radiance and brightness that, for the measureless splendor that shines in her, you cannot gaze on her face or on the garments she wears. For she is awesome in terror as the Thunderer’s lightning, and gentle in goodness as the sunshine. Hence, in her terror and her gentleness, she is incomprehensible to mortals, because of the dread radiance of divinity in her face and the brightness that dwells in her as the robe of her beauty. She is like the sun, which none can contemplate in its blazing face or in the glorious garment of its rays. For she is with all and in all, and of beauty so great in her mystery that no one could know how sweetly she bears with people, and what unfathomable mercy she spares them.’

“Scientia Dei embodies a paradoxical union of tenderness, radiance, and terror…Terrible yet tempered, gentle yet dreadful, she conveys both the awesome beauty of divine things and the saving restraint…that makes epiphanies bearable.

(From the book of the Wisdom of Solomon:)

“For she is the splendor of the eternal light,
And immaculate mirror of God’s majesty,
And image of his goodness…
For she is more beautiful than the sun,
and above all the order of the stars;
compared with the light,
she is found before it…

Therefore she reaches from end to end mightily
and orders all things sweetly. (Wisdom7:26-8:1)”

In Hildegard’s vision, she saw Scientia Dei (the Knowledge of God) as a veiled woman. For today, 2010, I see her as having her veil removed. She is a daring woman, a brave woman, a woman who knows who she is, and what her task is. For me, like the Black Madonna, she dares to look me in the face; she dares me to love the “little ones”, and she dares me to dare to be who I was created to be. She’s formidable, yet gentle and merciful.

Instead of gold, I clothed her in purple, for me, a symbol of majesty and wisdom. Her clothing has golden universal symbols of wisdom embroidered on them. And for me, since we, you and I, are the temple of the Holy One, the golden building represents you and me, God’s holy temple.