A Budding Manifesto on Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
 
The 19th and 20th centuries are filled with art manifestos that speak powerfully to the aesthetic developments and the social, religious, and political upheavals of a particular time and place.  None of these art movements were revolutionary, but rather emerged from decades of political or social strife, fermentation in academia, the hit and miss of studio practice, and lots of conversations with friends around too much wine.  In time, these manifestos faded away but provided the counterpoint for the next movement.  Art is evolutionary not revolutionary. 
 
This is a budding manifesto on spirituality and the creative imagination in a time when our country faces profound pressures … political demigods, Christian nationalism, global pandemic, and a positive “wokeness” to systemic racism, gender identity, economic inequalities, and impending climate disaster.  After nearly six years of focused collaboration a myriad of creative and spiritual folk to respond to our current divisions, it is time for Portiuncula Guild to begin to articulate a methodology for our work in the community … how it is being lived out in the gallery shows at Goose Creek Studio, in our partnerships with the God in the Gallery and Bread for the Journey conversations, our website blog posts and social media presence, and especially in the work and prayer at Thomas Chapel. 
 
The search for ways to respond to our current situation seems overwhelming.  However, it is precisely in these moments throughout history that the brightest of religious thought, spiritual practice, and works of the creative imagination have emerged.  Art museums, as well as the sacred stories, prayers, and songs collected in the holy books of the world’s great religions, are repositories for such hope for humanity in times not unlike our own.  Art and spirituality blossoms at these liminal moments in human history.  This moment provides us with not only a unique opportunity to explore the connection between spirituality and the creative imagination, but also the connection between the world’s great religions and humanity’s continuing search for hope and healing in times of great change. 
 
We have good partners in this experiment.  We have been blessed with the opportunity to collaborate with a myriad of local creative and spiritual folks whose work embodies the deeper truths of faith and our life together in community.  We are blessed to live among a myriad of artists, artisans, poets, musicians, cooks, writers, actors, yogis, mystics, and farmers whose life and work is not only grounded in faith, but whose vision may hold the key to new ways to understand church, community, truth, and the worship of God. 
 
To understand how “artworks” differently at Thomas Chapel, we need to first remember the ways the arts have traditionally been utilized in religious worship/rituals/spiritual practice …

1. Art that is Consumed:  These are the ephemeral or performance works of art like poetry, storytelling, dance, baking, wine making, drumming, chant, and singing.  These are products of the creative imagination that are shared, consumed, and leave little or no physical presence after the gathering.

 

1. Art that is in Service:  These are the products of the woodworker, blacksmith, seamstress, icon painter, composer, book binder, or potter.  These are the fine crafts called into service of for various parts of the ritual or community at prayer.  These are also the product of the creative imagination shaped first by practicality and needfulness but made meaningful by the vision of the artist.

 

1. Art that is Ideological:  These are the permanent forms of the arts like sculpture, painting, and architecture that stick-around long after the service is over and are often intended to be public expressions that embody and communicate the theologies and ideologies of a particular religious assembly.  The permanence of these works in the public sphere makes these projects attractive for both artists and architects.

 
The dilemma with this last category is that ideological and permanent forms of religious expression can leave little room for additional creative expression as the community grows, changes, or evolves.  Ideological works tend to celebrate a binary that communicates differences rather than foster inclusion.  Permanent works can also reinforce old ideologies long after the community has moved on.  And finally, permanent works can foster a creative “laziness” in which a community is reassured by the past success or prestige instead of being challenged to cultivate creative expressions or spiritual practices that reflects the complexity of the present moment.
 
Thomas Chapel avoids the permanent and ideological by operating like a “kunsthalle” … an organization that does not collect art or display a permanent collection, but rather is a place set aside for new, experimental, site-specific, and temporary works.  The distinctiveness of Thomas Chapel is that the all the art is set in the context of religious assembly or spiritual practice.  Art in this context is not intended to be viewed in isolation as in a gallery or museum, but rather juxtaposed to sacred stories and rituals, the cycles of the seasons, and the rhythm of human life.  Some works at Thomas Chapel are site or event specific, some stay for a season, and some are used to adorn the space between gatherings.  All work and prayer at Thomas Chapel are at the same time real and experimental.
 
So … what do we mean by experimental? 
 
How humanity looks at art and how humanity participates in religious worship has been radically reconsidered in the past few decades.  Since the dawn of the modern world, ways viewing art and ways of gathering for religious worship have evolved into a “spectator sport.”  The participant is reduced to a passive observer … left to quietly, and individually, contemplate their inner life through the vision and lens of another.  Humanity has given its voice to the skill or craftsmanship or the expert … whether pastor or poet. 
 
Art museums and religious institutions … as well as scholarship in the fields of spirituality and ritual studies … are challenging this hierarchy as a problematic pattern for both creative expression and spirituality growth.  There is growing experimentation with more active, collaborative, and inclusive ways for participants to experience and engage both art and spirituality.  Portiuncula Guild wants to join that growing chorus of voices that breaks down the division between art maker and viewer, or between religious expert and spiritual seeker.  
 
But debunking the old patterns for art and worship are hard and will require a dramatic shift in consciousness.  This shift in thinking requires both the artists to rethink their roles and responsibilities, their egos in the creative process, the allure of the marketplace and prestige, and their role in the life of the community.  This is the core of what it means to be experimental ... relearning how to make and display art.
 
Many will argue that this is not a new concept at all, but rather a return to a more ancient way of understanding both art and religion.  For most of humanity’s history, the artist and the shaman utilized their skills and vision to be in service to the community.  Their work was never in isolation, but always in connection with rituals and sacred stories.  Through this collaboration, both the artist and the shaman sought to bring healing and hope to the present struggles.  Likewise, the creative and spiritual imagination that individuals bring to the gatherings at Thomas Chapel are woven into … and around … and in service to the broader reason for the gathering. 
 
This concept continues to both value and need the individual insights, vision, or skills of creative imagination.  In fact, all religious assembly requires the artist skill and the shaman’s pastoral insights to weave meaning into of current struggles.  Whether it is the bison hunt depicted on a prehistoric cave wall, the muezzin’s voice calling the faithful to prayer, the totem pole outside an Inuit longhouse, or the music and movement of a Diwali festival, the arts and spirituality are intertwined in the rituals of human history.
 
There will be successes and failures in our experimenting.  There will be folks who are happy with the more privatized form of creative and spiritual expression.  We invite any creative or spiritual seeker along for the ride.  
 
END OF MANIFESTO
 
The following is just for fun … a little tongue-in-cheek. 
 
We could not imagine a better patron for our art and spirituality manifesto than Peter of Verona, a Dominican friar and a celebrated preacher/inquisitor/persecutor of the Cathars heretics in the thirteenth-century.  In 1252, the two Cathar assassins followed Peter to a lonely spot, and stabbed Peter in the head with a knife.  Before he died, Peter rose to his knees, and dipped his fingers in his blood and wrote on the ground Credo (I Believe), the first word of the Apostle’s Creed.  He was canonized a saint eleven months after his death, making this the fastest canonization in history.  At the time, the pope celebrated Peter’s severity of life and doctrine, talent for preaching, and zeal for the truth. 
MORAL OF THE STORY: Severity, preaching, zeal and persecuting others can be a perilous thing!  So … we tread lightly!  😊
(Artwork by Daniel Kennedy/collage with acrylic/xerox on white and green copy paper/1992)

One of my guilty pleasures is subscribing to interior design journals.  I can spend hours pouring over pictures of beautifully designed spaces.  I am especially drawn to restoration projects that take something that was neglected or abandoned and bring it back to renewed life.  I call this a guilty pleasure because in a world that knows profound hunger, untold numbers or refugees, and extremes in economics injustices, the creation of beautiful spaces or the restoration of historic places depicted in these journals is largely for the edification, entertainment, or financial gain of an elite few.  Many of these spaces and these projects are closer to embodiments of the seven deadly sins ... than ideals beauty or restoration within religious or spiritual sensibility.  And still I subscribe.

We spent the summer gathering materials for our application for an historic easement on Thomas Chapel through Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources.  While the chapel and property are already on the Virginia Landmarks Registry and the National Register of Historic Places, the easement will guarantee the chapel’s preservation whoever the future owner is.  If the application is accepted, Thomas Chapel will be preserved in perpetuity … at least as much as human resourcefulness and our legal system can guarantee this.  Acts of God are a whole other matter.
The easement application process has required us to take a fresh look at the religious and spiritual foundations of our work to restore Thomas Chapel.  We were challenged to ponder how this commitment of time and resources to preserve a building in perpetuity can also participate in addressing the world’s great needs?  Can these two forms of restoration be held in tension, or work in unison, as we move forward?

In a recent journal article, I read about the restoration of a 15th century French chateau, the owner said; “When we redo them, we wound them a bit.  You must find a way to keep the charm while making sure you can live in it and carry it on forever.”

I would argue that the restoration process must seek to heal old wounds that were born in the building’s making.  When architecture attains classic status, it becomes isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into being and from the human consequences that engendered its creation.  And when architecture is separated both from the conditions of origin and operation in experience, a wall is built around it and truncates its historical significance opaque and their current use uncertain.  The task of restoration is to restore continuity between architecture and the everyday events, doings, and suffering that brought it into being.  In other words, our task is not to just restore a building, we must also restore the virtue, while acknowledging the transgressions, of the historical community that sought to build a house of prayer in Thaxton, Virginia. 

Thomas Chapel has been, and it is our intention for it to continue to be, a shrine and pilgrimage site for a living faith.  But this chapel sat fallow for a half century. Certainly, the chapel’s demise was connected its rural location, its lack of amenities, its uncomfortable pews and inflexible interior arrangement.  But is it also possible to imagine Thomas Chapel as living creature waiting patiently for reconciliation from past wounds before it would permit prayer within its walls again?  Portiuncula Guild must prayerfully work to earn its access into this 200-year living history. 
 
Patrick Ellis, October 2022
(with a lot of help from John Dewey/Art as Experience/1934)

All spiritual seekers need guides along the journey.  So, it is not surprising that the iconography of many the world’s great religions is filled with a rich and varied assortment of saints and deities to inspire and motivate the spiritual seeker. 

For this exhibition, Desireé O’Toole utilizes the stories from a rather obscure 1901 hagiography of Christian holy men and women.  While this text captures the devotional piety of a very particular time and faith tradition, the practice of collecting and preserving such stories is universal in the span human spirituality.  And … we believe … this text, and Desireé’s new series of iconographic paintings, can say something powerful about the need for companionship in any journey of faith. 

Spirituality is most fully realized in community, but the journey is always personal … and marked by very individual needs and experiences. If you look deeper … and explore the accompanying narratives … this is no quaint collection of images.  Desireé’s paintings illuminate the lives of the men and women who suffered when they spoke truth to power. The symbolic images she draws on also speak powerfully to the economic and spiritual liberation of the feminine.  These images, which document the transformation of human consciousness, and the work to liberation of the oppressed, are associated with men and women who had hope in times of great social chaos and change.  These were the superheroes of another age.

Let us look to the example of these who came before us for guidance and strength - each choosing the appropriate yidam that will accompany us our spiritual journeys.

MEB/VPE

We love that Eckhart Tolle uses the term “good news” to preface his exploration of all the illusions humanity clings to.  Christians will quickly recognize the phrase … good news (or good messenger) that comes from the Greek work evangelion/εὐαγγέλιον which has come to commonly refer to the four gospel accounts that record Jesus’ life and teachings.  These are stories of the one sent to break through the darkness of humanity’s illusion and reorient the world to the fullness of God’s intention for creation.
 
Breaking through illusions and seeking a new earth is a consistent theme in the evolution of all human spirituality and philosophy.  While, the Buddha, the Hebrew Prophets, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad might have defined this good news quite differently, the message was always the same … human selfishness, greed, and a desire for power creates profound injustices in our life together.  To rediscover the fullness of our humanity begins with the recognition of these false reality that surrounds us … but we mistake as reality.
 
These enlightened men and women, along with their followers, have always relied on the arts and the creative imagination as a key tool to name and to break through the illusion.  Music, storytelling, drama, poetry, and the visual arts provided the tools, storyline, score, and stage sets for this new or awakened consciousness. 
 
As this community witnessed Pat’s energetic embrace of this ancient spiritual tradition through contemporary teachers like Eckhart Tolle, this community witnessed profound shifts in her artistic production.  Pat’s artistic practice and her spiritual practice are becoming reflections of one another.  Gone are the fun and light-hearted paintings and multi-edition prints that where much loved … and financially lucrative.  In their place are profound meditations on the human spirit and visualizations of our interconnectedness with each other and our world. 
 
The works in this exhibition were selected from the last four years of Pat’s artistic and spiritual practice.  Utilizing her often repeated mantra … “it’s either love or fear” … the works reflect her spirituality about choosing love.  Like any good disciple, Pat invites us to look through the illusion … past the ego … and toward a diverse and loving world filled with hope. 
 
As many spiritual traditions recognize, the transformation of an individual’s consciousness is solely the interior work of the individual.  The gift of the creative imagination … for both the seeker and the viewer … is to provide alternative visions of reality to contemplate, and thus aid the journey of awakening and a new vision of reality.
 
The visual centerpiece of the exhibition is an intentional installation of a donkey, an elephant, and the old church pew.  The exhibition invites to viewer to rethink the reality/illusion around us.  There is no greater feeling in our culture than the seemingly insurmountable divides we have created for ourselves and our life together.  This assemblage invites us to sit and ponder what is the reality …. and what is the illusion … and how do we reorient our current cultural crisis.  As Eckhart Tolle reminds us … the survival of illusion depends on us mistaking it for reality.
 
Mitchell Bond and Patrick Ellis

"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

As we enter this season of watching and waiting, we remember that God's coming promise will bring justice and right relationship to our broken and hurting world. Our task is to be on guard, to be alert to signs of hope.

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

The great turning begins with one lone voice crying out in the wilderness – change your life, you are forgiven, be aware, justice is for all. May we each become a voice for change, forgiveness, presence, and justice in our broken world. “My voice feels tiny and I’m sure so does yours.  Put us all together.  We’ll make a mighty roar.”  - from “Resilient” by Rising Appalachia

“John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’ And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’ As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

Metanoia, the Greek word translated as repentance, connotes active conversion, reformation, a transformative change of heart rather than passive feelings of regret or remorse.  The radical transforming John preaches manifests in non-attachment to material things and in how we treat one another – use only what you need, don’t take what’s not yours, be satisfied with what we have. Also for John, the consequences of refusing to change are suffering and loss. 

"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

Mary’s song of rejoicing resounds throughout the ages.  This is what she knew – that the incarnate promise comes into even the most ordinary of lives bringing mercy, justice, and blessing.  Let us rejoice!

So, what do we mean when we say that Donald Trump becomes a symbols/metaphor?  In this show, Trump has become each of us, an image of our own brokenness and our isolated lives … lives lived in an age of global social and electronic connectedness.  The man alone at the table represents the worst in all of us … a shorthand for human immorality and pride … and an image for the political and religious division we choose to fester and exploit, and not to heal.  Donald Trump is us.

The human brain is complex and mysterious.  Even after centuries of scientific and medical discovery, there is so little we know about what the brain does and how it influences our thoughts, emotions, and actions.  However, one thing we do know is that the brain is divided into two asymmetrical hemispheres and that each hemisphere interacts with and shapes our world in distinct ways. 
 
The left brain is where language originates, and it craves details, labels, and categories.  The left brain wants closed endings and certainty.   We use this left mode to analyze the past and plan for the future. 
 
The right brain instead is comfortable with open endings and takes in the big picture – the forest not the trees.  The right brain deals with ambiguity, paradox, and mystery and helps us to make sense of metaphors and allegories.   We use this right mode to be aware of all that is happening the present moment.
 
Another thing we know about the brain is that, in most humans, the left brain is dominant.  Often impatient with the wondering musings of the right brain, the language-making left brain will take over and try to reach a logical conclusion even when it is not suited for the task at hand.*
 
Which brings us to Thomas.  The Thomas we encounter in the Gospel of John – the proverbial “Doubting Thomas” – is in full-on left mode.  He could not understand how the other apostles had seen Jesus.  After all, Jesus had died.  He saw it with his own eyes.  A resurrection made no logical sense.  Before he would believe, Thomas wanted proof.  He wanted answers.  He wanted certainty.
 
We can certainly relate to Thomas’ predicament.  How often are we so attached to the need for certainty, that we are stuck in place?  Unable to move?  How often are we clinging to the past or anxious about the future that we miss finding the presence of the divine mystery in ourselves, each other, and the world around us?  It is how we are a wired. The dominant left brain needing to see in order to believe. However, the big picture right brain is still there ready to believe without seeing but it may take some work to access it.
 
Throughout time, spiritual seekers have identified tools to quiet the verbal left mode – what Buddhist refer to as “the monkey mind” – and access the present moment in order to encounter the divine mystery.  Through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, fasting, mindfulness, movements, and postures we can disrupt our entrenched patterns and tap into the right mode skill of belief without seeing.
 
Lynne Goodwin painted Thomas for Thomas Chapel employing such a discipline.  The orans posture is an ancient posture of prayer.  It is a posture of openness and vulnerability.  The following is an opportunity to meditate on Psalm 63 and explore the orans posture to the extent that you feel led.

Read this translation** of Psalm 63 to yourself or aloud:
 
I will meditate on thee in the night watches;
Far from life, lone and still.
In the shadow of thy wings will I live and move.
Thy right hand upholdeth me; my soul has found its peace.
So, I will bless thee while I live, lift my hands to thee;
My soul followeth close behind thee, how my heart does sing!
I will seek thee all my life, meditate through time.
Thy loving-kindness, better than life, it has been my help.
Just to be there in that holy place, feel the breath of God!
I will meditate, meditate – I can touch my heart to thee.
 
Now from a seated near the front edge of the chair or a standing position on the floor, place your feet about hip with apart or a little wider.  Bring your awareness to your feet.  Perhaps you look at your feet or bring your gaze to the floor in front of you.  Notice the grounding of your feet into the floor, the weight of your feet, the pull of gravity.  How does that feel in your feet, your legs, the rest of your body? Bring your arms by your sides and turn your palms out slightly. 
 
Now bring your awareness to your breathing.  Follow the sensations of your inhale in through your nose as your lungs fill up, and your belly expands.  Follow the sensations of your exhale as your belly collapses, your lungs release, and air escapes through your nose.  Take at least 3 steady and even breaths.
 
Now add some movement to your breath.  As you inhale, lift your arms to shoulder height or a little higher and lift your gaze upward.  As you exhale, lower your arms and gaze.  Moving with your breath, inhale up and exhale down. 
 
As you do this, don’t be surprised if the left brain comes up with things like – “I’m not doing this right” or “when is this going to be over” or some other distraction.  Try to let those thoughts come and go without reacting to them.  Continue to focus on your breath and movement.
 
After several rounds of this movement.  Hold the orans pose with arms and gaze lifted and breath naturally.  Perhaps you may want to turn the corners of your mouth into a smile like Thomas in the painting.  Take one last deep inhale and as you exhale lower your arms back by your sides.  Take note of the sensations in your body.  Be present and aware. 
 
Finally, find a quiet, grounded posture. It could be orans, hands in prayer, hands over heart, hands by your sides, or hands in lap.  Perhaps you close your eyes, lower your gaze, or focus on one spot in the room.  Scan your body from head to foot and be aware of what you are feeling.  Hold this posture for several moments then slowly bring your awareness back to your surroundings with sense of contentment and gratitude.
 
Peace.

MEB

Notes:
* This is a gross oversimplification of the complex workings of the brain’s hemispheres. If you want to dig deeper, listen to this Hidden Brain podcast with Iain McGilchrist and/or read his book “The Master and His Emissary; The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.”
 
** Lyrics from “Meditation I” by Joe Utterback

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk.”

- Anne Lamott, Plan B:  Further Thoughts on Faith

"When he started out his ministry, Jesus proclaimed eight beatitudes, blessed are the patient, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, and so on.  And now, at the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus proclaims a last beatitude, blessed are those who haven’t seen, and believe all the same.  Because of Thomas’ doubt Jesus appeared a second time in the upper room. Thomas should have capitulated to the account of his companions.  He had been a firsthand witness to Jesus’ life, teachings and miracles of healing.   Yet … some pride, some willful obstinacy, some chagrin, perhaps, at having been left out of an experience granted to the rest, Thomas withheld his assent until he could verify for himself.
 
Jesus doesn’t complain or find fault … he looks toward the future and the centuries of people who would have no opportunity to see for themselves, but still believed.  Jesus was fond of paradox.  Jesus knew that seekers must find their own way … through all their own idiosyncrasies."

- Ronald Knox, Benedictine Office of Readings

“Invariably the failure of organized religions, by which they cut themselves off from mystery and therefore from sanctity, lies in the absolute division between faith and doubt, to make belief perform as knowledge; when they forbid their prophets to go into the wilderness, they lose the possibility of renewal.  And the most dangerous tendency in modern society, now rapidly emerging as a scientific-industrial ambition, is the tendency toward encapsulation of human order – the severance, once and for all, of the umbilical cord fastening us to the wilderness or the Creation.  The threat is not only in the totalitarian desire for absolute control.  It lies in the willingness to ignore an essential paradox:  the natural forces that so threaten us are the same forces that preserve and renew us.”

- Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace

“These two cognitive twins (right-brain and left-brain) are not equal.  Language is extremely powerful, and the left hemisphere does not easily share its dominance with its silent partner.  The left hemisphere deals with an explicit world, where things are named and counted, where time is kept, and step-by-step plans remove uncertainty from the future.  The right hemisphere exists in the moment, in a timeless, implicit world, where things are buried in context, and complicated outlooks are constantly changing.  Impatient with the right hemisphere’s view of the complex whole, the competitive left hemisphere tends to jump quickly into a task, bringing language to bear, even though it may be unsuited to that particular task.”

-Betty Edward, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Too often any mission to spread the good news of Christ in foreign lands is seen as a violent clash of cultures and cosmologies.  But maybe, just maybe, there were also moments of spiritual synthesis and mutual understanding in Thomas’ life with the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains of the east.  In India, Thomas certainly encountered an exotic new world of food, music, art, gods, goddesses, and ritual practice thousands of years in the making.  He must have marveled at the myriad of religions and beliefs that lived in relative peace and harmony.  But Thomas also encountered something he would understand well … wandering ascetics, holy men and women seeking the answers to fundamental questions of human suffering and a desire for a spiritual union with the divine.  While the ultimate destination of these men and women were the same, Thomas quickly learned that they followed very different paths … some followed the path of the Arhat while others the path of the Bodhisattva.

The difference in the two types is illustrated in a wonderful story by Huston Smith in his classic text The World Religions of four seekers who, journeying across an immense desert, come upon a compound surrounded with high walls.  One of the four determines to find out what is inside.  The seeker scales the wall, and on reaching the top gives a whoop of delight and jumps over.  The second and third do likewise.  When the fourth seeker gets to the top of the wall, he sees below him an enchanted garden with sparkling streams, pleasant groves, and luscious fruit.  Though longing to jump over, the seeker resists the temptation.  Remembering the other wayfarers who are trudging the burning deserts, this seeker climbs back down, and he devotes himself to directing them to the oasis. 
 
The first three seekers are Arhats, one who, like a focused hermit, seeks enlightenment and union with the divine with prodigious concentration toward that goal.  The last was a Bodhisattva, one who voluntarily renounces this goal and returns to the world to make enlightenment available to others.  In particular, bodhisattvas promise to practice the six perfections of giving, moral discipline, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom in order to fulfill their vow of aim of attaining enlightenment of all beings.
 
In these wandering ascetics, Thomas found teachers and companions in this new journey.   And the nine small communities of that Thomas would go on to establish found their own place in this harmony of seekers.
 
Excursus #1

The Bodhisattva Vow
Just as all the Buddhas of the past
Have brought forth the awakened mind,
And in the precepts of the Bodhisattvas
Step-by-step adobe and trained,
Likewise, for the benefit of beings,
I will bring to birth the awakened mind,
And in those precepts, step-by-step,
I will abide and train myself.

In the Bodhicaryāvatāra by the monk/teacher Shantideva, the actual taking of the vow is preceded by various other preparatory practices and prayers often done through the recitation of a prayer.  

• Making physical, verbal and mental offerings to the Buddhas
• Confessing one's negative deeds, "one admits to doing the negative deed, one feels true remorse and then one resolves not to do it again."
• Rejoicing in the goodness and virtues of others
• Requesting the Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma (to teach the way)
• Dedicating the merit of all good deeds for the benefit of all beings

 
Excursus #2
 
A story … from a thirteenth century Italian chronicler Jacobus de Varagine in The Golden Legend.
 
“When Thomas’ ship arrived in India the local leader was celebrating the wedding of his daughter.  The king had commanded that the entire city assist in the feast, and Thomas was obliged to attend.  One of the musicians who was entertaining the guests noticed Thomas from across the room.  She approached him and began to sing to him a psalm in Hebrew, ‘There is a God in heaven, who created all things.’”
 
It seems that the world was more connected than Thomas could ever have imagined, Jews had settled in India centuries before he had ever arrived.

“Thin Blue Line” is the first in this series of exhibitions that focus on images, symbols, and slogans at the center of our nation’s divisions. The thin blue line slogan and accompanying usages amid a time of intense polarization is both a mirror and amplifier of these divisions and therefore rich subject matter for artists and storytellers. 
 
The origins for this image and slogan can be traced back to the catchphrase “thin red line” used during the Crimean War to describe a British battle formation/victory in 1856 against the Russians.  The term was propagated in art, poetry, and song to promote a sense of national pride and power.  The idea expanded to other professions and situations over the next century to describe a small but dedicated group of supporters who form a line or barricade of defense from either an internal or external risk.  The slogan was also adapted critically to describe any group of religious or political followers who form a barrier to accessing truth and accountability.  

The modern use of the term “thin blue line” can be traced to the middle of the last century and has come to embody all these historical usages.  For some, the thin blue line refers to the concept of the police as the line defense which keeps society from descending into violent chaos, and the blue signifying fraternal unity among law enforcement officers.  For others, the term fosters an “us versus them” mindset that is rooted in a long history of police reinforced racism, as well as a perceived lack of accountability and responsibility to the communities they serve.  While many police officers and supporters of law enforcement have embraced the thin blue line as a source of pride and fraternal kinship, others see the image and slogan as a banner of defiance in a time when many are calling for police reform.  The image and the slogan’s use have become convoluted and often divisive.  While its use has generated conversation and introspection within police departments across the country as it has become more and more politicized, sadly for some, the thin blue line has become a code or shibboleth for those working to divide people by race, religion, or political affiliation.

Like all good storytellers, the artists in this exhibition place the thin blue line image and the slogan within a larger context of history, faith, and contemporary political divides.   Taken as a whole, the works underscores that this image and slogan are emblematic of larger societal challenges and therefore worthy of conversation, analysis, and critique.

A series of exhibitions sponsored and curated by the Portiuncula Guild and hosted by Goose Creek Studio
 
We live in a time of polarization intensified by a complex clash of conflicting cultural values, extreme religious convictions, uncompromising political ideologies, unresolved racial inequities, and unparalleled economic disparity.  Over the next several years, Goose Creek Studio will host a series of curated exhibitions sponsored by the work and mission of the Portiuncula Guild that focuses on images and symbols at the center of this polarization. 
 
Both Goose Creek Studio and Portiuncula Guild share a conviction that one of the most profound and noble purpose of the arts is in exercising over society a positive power to create dialogue that seeks both truth and reconciliation.  The arts have a unique ability to bridge our current polarization and inspire a desire to bring the world back to a better harmony.  Goose Creek Studio and Portiuncula Guild are convinced that this bridge-building is best done through storytelling.  Stories allow us to connect our lives to others and place our current struggles within the larger context of human history.  When we explore a sacred story, a cosmic myth, or even a profound personal experience, we create a natural place to address issues of worthiness, judgement, mercy, and forgiveness.  When we highlight human heroism, or the wounded and seemingly unworthy parts of our lives and other’s lives, we create the opportunity to advocate for the dignity and worth of all humanity and the summon our better angels.  Stories can give us a sense of belonging, meaning, and invite us to help build community and work to foster social change and reconciliation. 
 
The series title come from a famous phrase in Dr. Martin Luther King’s last Sunday sermon; “we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  For Dr. King, any human struggle must be understood in the broader context of how God has structured the world, the universe, and all of creation.  Overcoming current injustices and restoring all humanity to the fullness that God intended can only be understood in the long history of God’s work in the world.  The work of love and justice is not simply waiting for God to do something, this is work that is always a divine/human collaboration.  This work is also founded on a belief that God has embedded in all humanity an image of his own love and justice that can be reawakened through witness amid conflict. Dr. King recognized that all human hearts could grow and change, so therefore the work of love and justice must always be hope-filled and non-violent.  
 
Established in 2013, Portiuncula Guild is a faith-based 501c3 working at the intersection of faith, craftsmanship, and creative expression. The work of the guild is to build mutually supportive creative relationships, foster conversations around the connection between art and faith, sponsor exhibitions and live performances, provide opportunities for prayer, yoga, and meditation, as well as seek out artistic collaborations at local festivals in which art can help build community and work to foster social change and reconciliation. 

The stories within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.  Today, we conclude with postscript of sorts in the story of Stephen, the Ready Martyr.

Saint Stephen
(from the Ora Pro Nobis series)
oil on canvas
Daniel Kennedy
2000

Sorry to kill the holiday cheer!  But it is not just me; the liturgical year does not even give us a chance to catch our breath from the festivities before we get the gruesome story of the stoning of Stephen.   This back-to-back sequence of birth and homicide is not chronology, but rather intentional theology.  In retrospect we should not be surprised.  The whole of the Advent season has pointed repeatedly to the high cost of discipleship. 

Daniel Kennedy’s Saint Stephen comes from a series of images of holy people that lined the walls of a theological school library.  In this rendering, Stephen is only glimpsed in a silver outline as if he is merely memory.  In one hand he holds a stone and in the other a laurel branch … his death and his victory.  He is clothed in a dalmatic, the symbol of his ministry of service, and a halo surrounds his head.  But the outline of the martyr recedes in this rendering.  The dominant element of Kennedy’s composition is not the person, but rather the blood-red wounds and the liturgical refrain “ora pro nobis”.  The artist captures the theological reason for the startling sequence of these days in these two elements.

“Ora pro nobis” (pray for us) is the congregational response within the ritual calling of the saints on significant holy days throughout the year.  This liturgical prayer is a form of memory/anamnesis or making present the gifts and graces of a past events.  The congregation’s response to the invocation of each named saint has a two-fold purpose; to both ask for intercession and to celebrate their willing participation in the divine plan for all God’s creation.  The cadence of this call and response is a communal chant that literally folds time and space to bring saints of the past together with the saints of the present.  In this ritual action all God’s people find their strength and their purpose in a time-defying and multi-era communal event.

Stephen, like a whole group of early witnesses to the gospel, when confronted with the alternative of renouncing their faith or suffering death, many voluntarily embraced the death prepared for them.  While this action might seem to some to run perilously close to recklessness (or even suicide), the passions that motivate these actions are at the very core of the commemorations we celebrate in the shadow of the nativity. Stephen was not simply protecting some private claim to win his salvation, he was convinced that the good news of the gospel could radically change the way the world could see itself.  He knew the transformative possibilities of love and therefore renouncing his faith in that promise was unimaginable.  Out of his great love, God had intervened in human history and Stephen was an inheritor of that vision … and that vision was worth dying for.  The self-sacrifice and the blood-red wounds were not personal triumph, Stephen saw himself as a warrior in this great reawakening.  Stephen’s self-sacrifice in the cause of love, justice and social transformation is not death … it is life eternal.  Now that is a nativity!

"She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it."

In Toni Morrison's Beloved, Baby Suggs begins her sermon in the clearing with an invocation.  She calls the people to gather with laughter, dancing, and crying in an urgent celebration of bodiliness, a manifestation of incarnate grace.

"We may not reach the ending but we can start slowly but truly mending, brick by brick, heart by heart. Now, maybe now, we start learning how." -  "Beautiful City" from Godspell

Jesus told his disciples that God's reign is among them, in the midst of them, within them.  The learning, building, and mending begins here and now.

What can you learn from the life and death of Stephen?  How do you embody grace?  What are you learning, mending, building?  How will you respond?
 
Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the daily readings for the Feast of St. Stephen.
• Explore the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Perhaps begin with Letter from a Birmingham Jail or Strength to Love.
• Work your way through My Grandmother’s Hands.  In this book, Resmaa Menakim explores how racialized trauma manifests in our physical bodies and offers practices and exercises to begin healing and recovery.
• Spend time with the poems of Mary Oliver.  Much of her work reflects on embodiment, grace, and awareness of the present moment.  Perhaps begin with Mornings at Blackwater, Mindful or The Journey.
  

The stories proclaimed within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.  This week, The Unlikely Liberator.

Sacrifice
oil on canvas
Sr. Mary Grace Thul, OP
2008
 
We treasure the memories and events that shape our lives and our ethical outlook. They come to form the core of our tribe’s identity.  We seek to preserve them for ourselves as well as pass them on to later generations.  They become the honored stories retold at family gatherings, and mementos find places of honor in our homes. 

Regrettably, the love and reverence we have for these stories can become misshapen in our enthusiasm to preserve them.  We see this in the frame shop all the time.  Folks bring in memories of people or events or places that have shaped their lives and formed their identities.  At the heart of the client’s desire for preservation is to have a tangible and visible expression to keep the memory an ever-present reality in the complexities of a life well lived in this generation and hopefully in the next.   

But too often the well-intentioned embellishments of this conservancy can misshapen the memory.  The memento, the photograph, the article of clothing, or the letter is placed behind glass and surrounded by a decorative frame.  This new presentation often shifts the memory from a living event to an object of veneration.  We physically remove the memory from its engagement with its tribe.  We look at it, but we do not touch.  We admire it, but we do not participate.  A wall of separation is built between us and the memories that shape us. 

The same wall is built with the ornamentation, embellishment, and gloss bound to the stories of the season of Advent.  Like us, the ancients embellished their memories in their enthusiasm to preserve them.  Tales of royal courts of great kings and queens, generations of hereditary leadership, a people set apart for favor, and mighty and ever-lasting kingdoms become a decorative frame that can literally remove us from the foundations of our tribe’s story and identity.  At their core, the Advent stories are so much more unpretentious, and filled with a very real, and a very ragtag cast of characters.  When we side-step theses embellishments, we get the true heart of the memory that past people of faith desired to pass on.  These characters are us, and like them, we are called to be more than onlookers in the divine plan for humanity.

It might seem strange to spotlight Sr. Mary Grace’s image Sacrifice when so many churches are placing the baby Jesus in the manger on this Sunday in Advent.  I appreciate this image because it is about memory and memento without any embellishment or gloss.  Like the unwed teenage mother from last week, or the outsider mystic from the previous week, or the angry rants of an ignored and misunderstood prophet that underpins the entire season, Mary Grace’s Jesus is stripped bare to the raw essentials of the story of salvation.  This unlikely liberator is the reason for the season.  He is not separated from his tribe.  Emmanuel is touch-able. This is a real memory/moment in time, and we can have first-hand experience of God’s intervention in the beloved creation.   A new kind of ruler has come to live (and die) among us and remind us of our required participation in the work of salvation.

In speaking about Exodus, midrash scholar Avivah Zornberg says, “I think one of the important issues is…the need for those who have to be liberated to achieve in themselves some sense of the possibility of change…the story of the Exodus is one in which… one of the most important themes for liberation is the need for a process of growth within the persecuted if they are to have a history.” In this powerful anthem from The Greatest Showman, the “sideshow freaks” from P.T. Barnum’s circus imagine the possibility of change when they find their voices, take a stand for their humanity, and proclaim their self-worth. 

In the Liturgy of the Hours, evening prayer on the final days leading up to Christmas features a series of antiphons preceding the Magnificat.  These short verses bid the coming of God’s liberating action with a rich use of imagery addressing each character with the vocative expression “O” – O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Radiant Dawn, and so on.  Thus they are known as the “O” Antiphons.  These texts are most familiar in the Advent song, O Come Emmanuel.  Here is a setting by Sufjan Stevens.  Find a comfortable seat and settle as you listen and reflect on the lyrics and music.

How do you experience God as liberator?  What is your role in the work of salvation?  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary readings for this week.
• Explore the myth of the Exodus by listening to this interview with Avivah Zornberg.  Her work reframes the roles of the characters in the story – Moses, Pharoah, and the Israelites. 
  
• Honor the Winter Solstice with restorative meditation or movement.  As we mark the shortest day/longest night, it is helpful to explore ways to intentionally tune into winter.
• Pray the O Antiphons in the final days of Advent.

The stories proclaimed within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.  This week, Mother & Child.

Wild Eyes
mixed media
Matt Sesow
2010

On a hot summer evening at an airfield near his home in Nebraska, eight-year old Matt Sesow was struck by the propeller of a landing airplane.  The accident resulted in his left arm being severed and the loss of his left hand.  With the help of family and friends, Sesow learned to excel in both athletics and academics.  It was not until he was working as an adult in the tech industry that Sesow discovered painting.   In the evenings and on weekends he played with painting and ultimately developed his hobby into a path of healing and a mission in life. 
 
"My paintings are the emotional response to a traumatic past, the road to healing, and the confidence of finding a new language to express feelings felt but never shared.  While some people see my paintings as angry or aggressive, many of my collectors and fans (including myself), see my work as hopeful, joyous, and eager to take on the world!"
 
Matt Sesow’s Wild Eyes expresses what any new mother might feel. This wild-eyed mother holds her child close as she looks toward a future she knows will be filled with both struggle and hope.  The child in her lap with a severed hand is more than an autobiography.  Sesow’s image is a universal message of family, protectiveness, and faithfulness.  It is about a journey from brokenness to wholeness. 
 
In what will become her great song of praise, the mother that dominates the Advent stories accepts both the pain and hope of a journey she is destined to take with her child.  Her strength for this task comes from her knowledge of the long prophetic traditions of her faith.  Even at her young age, she knew the stories and songs of a God who empowers those of humble estate (from every generation) to scatter the proud in their conceit and bring the mighty from their thrones.  While this mother knew she was unprepared to be in the middle of this great cosmic drama, she also knew that she would grow into the role as all new mothers or prophets do.  God and family and friends would provide.
 
But maybe more heroically, she understood from these same stories and songs the ultimate cost of this discipleship and this journey.  There would be much sorrow before vindication.  The real courage of faith is simply saying yes to the call to be a player in the divine spectacle of deliverance.  Faithfulness is the place where faith is worked out in actions and where even the most banal of actions and gestures achieves profound meaning and significance. In the actions and gestures of this woman/mother are the aesthetic expressions of an ethical worldview lived out.

“In you the journey is.”  Tony Kushner begins his epic work Angels in America with the funeral of the grandmother of one of the main characters.  In this scene, the rabbi (yes, portrayed here by Meryl Streep) describes this Jewish refugee as “not a person but a whole kind of a person.”  Such a person’s actions motivated by a drive for survival and sustained by faith and perseverance, cultivated the ground from which her descendants grow their own futures.

Mary exclaims that all generations will call her blessed and in doing so she affirms the upside-down character of God’s reign – valleys raised up, mountains made low, a little child leading.  Her blessing does not come from seizing worldly power but rather from relinquishing a safe and normal life to play a pivotal role in Gods divine plan.  This does not mean that she gave up agency or self-worth. On the contrary, she stakes her claim by actively consenting to help overturn the status quo and bring about justice.  As Rory Cooney’s setting of Mary’s song, Canticle of the Turning (sung here by Katherine Moore) proclaims, “My heart shall sing of the day you bring.  Let the fires of your justice burn.  Wipe away all tears.  For the dawn draws near and the world is about to turn.”

What do you learn from Mary's story?  How do you experience the call to participate in God's reign?  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary texts for this week.
• Listen to Steve Thorngate's After the Longest Night:  Songs for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.
• Practice walking meditation to bring mindful awareness to your movements and actions.  Like mindful breathing practice, walking meditation brings focus and awareness to a common action that is often taken for granted.   Such awareness helps in gaining a greater sense of understanding of thoughts, feelings, and actions and leads to more constructive ways to respond. 
• Watch this TED conversation with Marian Wright Edelman reflecting on her lifetime mission to fight childhood poverty. She says, "The reinforced lesson from (my parents) is that 'God runs a full employment economy' and that if you follow the need, you will never lack for a purpose in life."
• Give of your time and resources to support local organizations that serve women and children. Find out more about The Bedford Christmas Station, Bedford Domestic Violence Coalition, Bedford Community Health Foundation, and Bedford Area Family YMCA.

The stories proclaimed within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.

Spiritual traditions throughout time have addressed humankind's relationship with money and possessions.  Greed and attachments are impediments to right relationships with others and with God.  However, the drive to consume more than we need and to want more than we have is integral to the human condition.  With a contemporary prophetic warning, Tracy Chapman's Mountains O' Things gives a first person view of this struggle.

What does repentance look like?  Padraig O Tuama, in his poem Twisted, offers that it requires us to "twist our spines to the truth and see behind us."  And in doing so, we take in the consequences of our actions on ours and others lives. Watch O Tuama read his poem below.

Wait, Repent, Renounce, Twist, Hear.  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary texts for this week.
• Listen to Krista Tippett's interview with Bryan Stevenson.  Stevenson's work explores mercy and redemption in American culture.
• Spend some time with Sister Joan Chittister's book, The Time is Now:  A Call to Uncommon Courage, in which she offers a series of brief reflections about the characteristics of prophets and urges readers to abandon complacency and work for justice and peace.
  
• Experience the physical sensations of twisting.  Try a basic seated twist or practice a more advanced reclined yin twist posture.
  
• Learn more about Padraig O Tuama and about the work of the Corrymeela Community to bring peace and reconciliation in Ireland.

War and Tweets
Shelley Koopmann
oil on board/2020
 
The scene is the Musée d’Orsay.  The painting is entitled War by the primitive post-impressionist painter Henri Rousseau.  The artist created the monumental piece twenty years after the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870, his personal horrors with that experience still very much with him.  In the center of the painting is a grimacing female character holding a sword and a torch. This goddess of war rides a horse surveying an earlier slaughter.  A single raised fist in this field of corpses suggests one last stand of resistance.  Rousseau leaves out any anecdotal or narrative elements that would identify any specific time or place.  This is a work about all human inspired carnage.  The dark ground is covered with a pile of bodies, with crows feeding on human flesh. The trees look charred. The clouds are red. The choice of colors contributes to the ambiguous story line: the green of hope is completely absent; black and grey and red, the colors of mourning and blood, dominate. 

In front of the painting a solitary man sits in comfort and tweets seemingly unaware of the chaos that is in front of him.  Whatever his reason for coming to the museum is outweighed by a more immediate need to respond to something outside.  Lost in his own concerns, he misses the lesson the artist longs to teach and the museum works to preserve.  Maybe, just maybe, Shelley Koopmann’s painting, like Henri Rousseau’s before her, is not about a specific time or place.  Is this solitary man only a stand-in for each of our own responses to what we have faced (or avoided) in the chaos and carnage of the previous year?  It is important to remember that the Hebrew prophet Isaiah’s rants that underpin the Advent stories are never directed at the tyrant, but rather toward the faithful who enabled the despot by their own unfaithfulness or inaction.

The following is a scene from the BBC limited series Years and Years.  Set in an alternative near future where political power in both the US and Britain is held by far right entertainers turned politicians.  The drama follows one family over a period of many years as their lives are impacted by political decisions that they seemingly have no control over.  Here the matriarch of the family sets the record straight about their own complicity in and responsibility for their situation.

The text for Each Winter as the Year Grows Older was written by UCC pastor William Gay in 1969 at the height of the war in Vietnam.  Much like the psalmist, Gay laments the brokenness and suffering of the human condition.  Also like the psalmist, he offers visions of hope that God will intervene to renew creation and bring justice.  William Gay's wife, Annabeth, composed the tune "Carol of Hope."

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down to listen to this arrangement by Marty Haugen.  Close your eyes or focus your gaze.  Breathe with steady and even inhales and exhales, letting the music guide your senses.

How will you be watchful and aware during this Advent season?  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary texts for this week.
• Work your way through the Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong.  In this book, Armstrong explores how some variation of the Golden Rule is prevalent in nearly all religious and spiritual traditions.  She argues that compassion is intrinsic in everyone and offers concrete ways to strengthen our capacity for compassion.  Also see Armstrong's TED prize project, The Charter for Compassion.
• Practice metta meditation, also known as loving-kindness meditation, a process of directing good will to self and others.  Find instruction and guided meditations here and here.
• Learn about Bridges Out of Poverty, a nationally implemented strategy for understanding poverty and building resources for a more sustainable future.  In addition the book, there are also opportunities for online and local training.

As we noted in our previous blog post, there are legends that tell of the Apostle Thomas traveling to India after the resurrection to spread the Gospel.  To this day, there are still Christians in the Indian state of Kerala who trace their origins to Thomas.  They are known as Saint Thomas Christians, Syrian Christians or Nasrani.  This community blends elements of Hinduism and Indian cultural symbols into their Christian liturgy and iconography.   It is one such blending of these elements that we have adapted for the Thomas Chapel logo which is based on the Saint Thomas Christians Cross, featuring a square cross resting atop a lotus flower.  The lotus flower is a symbol of the sacred.  It represents purity, enlightenment, self-regeneration and rebirth.  Through incorporating the lotus into our logo, we create a connection to one of the earliest Christian communities and draw insight from the symbolic meaning of the lotus.

Bedford artist Lori Leist graciously accepted our invitation to create her vision of this symbolic flower for the space at Thomas Chapel.  Lori is well known for her large floral paintings which feature bold colors and movement.  When explaining her frequent choice of subject, Lori explains, “Flowers are very alive and familiar to me. The colors and fragrances can transport me to another place and time, connecting me to memories of family and friends.”  She also connects the flowers she paints and the process of painting to a broader spiritual and cultural context, saying, “…one of my hashtags on Instagram is #flowersfeedmysoul. I do believe that my need to create or paint is a gift from God. I am so thankful to be able to express myself through my art, and his gifts. Also, when I am painting either florals, or my new landscapes, I feel like I am part of something bigger, more connected to the earth, and humanity as a whole.”
 
The lotus flower and the environment in which it grows illustrates deeper insight into understanding the human condition.  With the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha explained that, while inevitable human suffering comes from attachment and craving, happiness can be attained by following a path of renouncing our cravings and attachments.  This does not mean ignoring suffering and only focusing on happiness.  On the contrary, it requires a concerted acknowledgment that the suffering and happiness are intertwine and, in fact, we cannot fully understand one without the other.  Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh illustrates how the lotus symbolizes this juxtaposition when he writes “Everyone knows we need to have mud for lotuses to grow.  The mud doesn’t smell so good, but the lotus flower smells very good.  If you don’t have mud, the lotus won’t manifest.  You can’t grow lotus flowers on marble.  Without mud, there would be no lotus.”  He goes on to explain how confronting suffering head on is critical to this understanding, writing, “The Buddha was saying that if we can recognize suffering, and if we embrace it and look deeply into its roots, then we’ll be able to let go of the habits that feed it and, at the same time, find a way to happiness.”
 
The juxtaposition of mud and lotus is not unlike the juxtaposition of death and resurrection in the Christian tradition.  The empty tomb of Easter can only be understood through the experience of suffering and death on the cross. To fully understand the promise of new life, we must confront the death of our old ways of living and being.  Through the liturgy – baptism, proclamation of the word, and the shared meal – the assembly has gathered to meditate upon and respond to this juxtaposition for millennia.
 
Through the work and prayer at Thomas Chapel, and through the greater project of the Portiuncula Guild, we hope to offer opportunities to explore juxtapositions such as these – mud and lotus, suffering and happiness, death and resurrection –  and how they can inform our lives in community with one another.  In doing so, we invite artists and seekers, the faithful and doubting alike, to delve deep into the mud of human experience and revel in the beauty of life’s lotus flowers.  We are blessed that Lori Leist has shared her spiritual reflections and her gift of art with us to guide us in this journey.

MEB
____________________

No Mud, No Lotus:  The Art of Transforming Suffering, Thich Nhat Hahn, 2014.

In truth, we inherited the story of the apostle Thomas when Portiuncula Guild took over guardianship of Thomas Chapel.  But we quickly recognized that this apostle’s story could be beautifully woven into the work and prayer we were envisioning for the space.  So, we like to think that this narrative found us. 

As the Portiuncula Guild launches this new venture, we wanted an image of the apostle Thomas for the chapel’s new altarpiece.   We laid out four criteria for the image: 1) it should invite visitors to prayer, 2) it should model how art would be utilized at the chapel and meditation garden, 3) it should honor the 175-year history of the place, and 4) it should reflect the open and inclusive values of the Guild. 

Bedford native Lynne Goodwin stepped forward to offer both her skill and her theological insights and enthusiastically embraced all our goals for the new image.  Lynne articulated these values brilliantly; “I see the apostle Thomas as a symbol of the promise that reconciliation is possible. We are like him, we have heard the words of others as they talk of an encounter with the divine - and we doubt, we long for our own experience.  Like Thomas we need proof.”

To compliment Lynne’s vision of the apostle, Mitchell and I created the altarpiece’s framework from architectural elements that were handcrafted for the chapel’s interior by local artisans nearly two centuries ago.   We loved the idea that we were not only honoring the past, but that we were adding our skills to theirs … a continuation of the work and prayer of an earlier time.
 
The image Lynne chose for the chapel altarpiece was not the “doubting apostle” that is so often remembered in the Christian imagination.  Rather, she chose to focus on an ancient legend that claims that Thomas shared the gospel in India for decades after the resurrection.  For Lynne, the most important message in the image is Thomas’ gesture of prayer.  “I wanted to draw the viewer into Thomas’ courageous spirituality, his confession, and maybe most importantly, his profound example of prayer and praise.” This is an image of a spiritual seeker who no longer doubts.  A new kind of guru in the lands of Hinduism and Buddhism.
 
Lynne describes her process for new painting of the apostle; “I started with the question of what a first-century Palestinian man who journeyed to India might have looked like.  This painting needed to depict the body of a man who worked all his life with his hands but was also a deeply spiritual seeker.  The image needed to be a man who would literally walk joyfully to the ends of the earth to share the good news he had received.”
 
Lynne said that it was important for her to depict the apostle honestly; but she incorporated symbolic elements into his clothing.  “I wanted to imagine what a first century traveler would have worn, so I chose garments that were both traditional and basic to a poor Indian mystic.”  Saffron is a sacred color for Hindus.  The color represents fire, and as impurities are burnt-out by fire, the color came to symbolizes purity as well.  Wearing the color as a spiritual seeker in India symbolizes the quest for enlightenment.  Lynne suggests that “the blue green of the simple wrapped skirt of a servant is symbolic of the water that enfolds us in baptism, or the living water that quenches our thirst for belonging.”

We often see any mission to spread the gospel of Christ in foreign lands as a violent clash of cultures and cosmologies.  But maybe, just maybe, there were also moments of spiritual synthesis and mutual understanding in Thomas’ life with the Hindus and Buddhists of the east.  For us, Lynne’s image suggests that the apostle recognized the depth of spirituality in the people he came to live among.  We like to think that Thomas’ spiritual growth did not end with his encounter with the ministry of the historical Jesus, but that Thomas’ foundational faith continued to grow and be enriched by the truths and wisdom of other peoples and other religious traditions.  Lynne’s image fits beautifully with the renewed mission of Thomas Chapel that seeks to include peoples of all denominations and faiths … or any spiritual seeker for that matter. 
 
The original chapel was most probably constructed in part by the forced labor of the enslaved people owned by some of the chapel’s original trustees.  These enslaved craftsmen worked alongside the free craftsmen of the area to construct a holy place of prayer.  Certainly, this experience was also a clash of cultures and cosmologies, since both black and white builders had differing understandings of god, prayer, the universe, and even what a house of god looked like.  But maybe, just maybe, even amid the injustices and horrors of slavery from which the building of Thomas Chapel emerged, both black and white craftsmen recognized a beauty and dignity in the work they were doing together.   And, of course, we like to think that the enslaved builders of Thomas Chapel wove some of their own native spirituality into its bricks and mortar as a kind of blessing and protective shield for this place.  Lynne’s image of the apostle Thomas honors this possibility.

-VPE

 Portiuncula Guild is a faith-based association of creative folks and spiritual seekers working at the intersection of faith, craftsmanship, and creative expression.  The intent of the guild is to build mutually supportive creative relationships, foster conversations around the connection between art and faith, as well as seek out artistic collaborations in which art can engage the entire community in the spirituality of the art making process.
 
Giving the medieval idea of an artist guild a modern twist, members of the Portiuncula Guild seeks to not only support one another in life, faith, work, and mission, guild members also promote each other’s vision to a wider world for the use, and benefit of, and in service to the entire community. Core activities of the guild are providing opportunities for retreat, meditation, and prayer, and occasional festival gatherings for creative seekers of all denominations and all faiths, offering hospitality and providing occasions for dialogue and conversation for all seeking a deeper spiritual, religious, imaginative experience within community.  In addition, guild members are committed to exploring and experimenting with the creation and celebration of innovative and inclusive opportunities for gathering, contemplation, prayer, life cycle rituals, meaningful learning, community building and social change. 
 
The Portiuncula Guild at Thomas Chapel will be a new way to explore being a faith community.  The chapel will be a place for creative folks and spiritual seekers to explore new ways that the sacred and the imagination came together.

The Holiness of Beauty
The architect Christopher Stroik suggests that the real power of sacred architecture is not in its beauty, but rather in its ability to mirror and serve the spiritual life of the pilgrims who journey to it.  Stroik believes that the real test of the greatness of any sacred architecture in not in the number of tourists who visit, but rather the number of pilgrims who are drawn to it for prayer, or intercession or devotion.  Sacred architecture is not ultimately evaluated by its “good lines and proportions”, but rather how it calls and shapes an individual at prayer or a community at worship.  Stroik suggests that even those who venture to a sacred site for just the aesthetic experience, have their spiritual and emotional batteries charged in some way.

Likewise, Rabbi Hoffman makes the distinction between tourists and pilgrims.  Hoffmann suggests that these are places in which we cross a portal and leave behind our titles, our debts to one another, our day to day affairs, and enter as equals.  Sacred sites serve our spiritual journeys and transform us from people with distinctions into a pilgrim people on journey together.  Hoffmann believes that these can also be places that help us focus our attention, our prayers, and our concerns at the feet of an intercessor who will help us shoulder the burden or empower us for the journey.

Beth El
Rabbi Laurence Hoffman outlines three ways in which we recognize a place as a scared site.  The first is seen in the beauty of some physical geography.  Rabbi Hoffman calls this a place of inherent sacredness.  This is a place in which people instinctively recognize the hand of God.  Humans are drawn to lakes, rivers, deserts, prairies, and mountains.  All these places are also markers of all primal religious traditions and the foundation stones of more modern spiritual practices.  We need only climb to the summit of a mountain to observe the wonderment of hikers now perched silently on the rocks of the summit.  This kind of sacred site transforms our collective souls and slows us down to see and to ponder.  This is a place in which there is universal consensus that we are witnessing God’s hand in our world … this is indeed holy ground. 

The second kind of sacred site we recognize is a place in which God was once made present in human history.  Hoffman calls this a place of historical sacredness.  Sacred texts are filled with descriptions of such places, and humans often mark these sites with shrines for pilgrims and seekers to visit.  But this type of sacred place might also mark the location of some courageous human action empowered by the spirit of God.  Such a site might be a battlefield in which liberty or freedom was won, or a courthouse where justice was secured, or a place where a community came together to serve the needs of the least among themselves.  Anywhere God’s presence was experienced, any place that brings us together or where God’s justice prevails is indeed holy ground.

Hoffman suggests that there is also a third way that a place becomes a sacred site.  These are places that are works of the imagination and human craftsmanship, and when completed, God is invited to move in.  Hoffman call these places of human construction creative sacredness.  Certainly, the myriad of churches and cemeteries that dot our local landscape are examples of this kind of sacredness.  Built by the local faithful who had the audacity and the confidence that God would not only move in but would sustain the works of their hands.  Whether these constructions be grand or small, these creative works of the community become recognized, in time, as holy ground.      

Ora et Labora at Thomas Chapel
Thomas Chapel shifted from being an active site of creative sacredness when the congregation transferred its energy elsewhere in 1972.  But human intuition suggests that a place’s sacredness is irreversible.  For nearly 50 years Thomas Chapel has retained its creative sacredness “in potential”.  This place has had the good fortune to be well built, looked after by a few local historians and visionaries, and guarded over by nearly a century and a half of saints and sinners, enslaved and free spirits who worshiped their God in this place.  So, the question becomes, “Can Thomas Chapel make a return as a place of creative sacredness?” 
 
Certainly, going back to its prior use as a worshiping congregation is probably not an option.  The congregation’s energy refocused elsewhere for a variety of reasons.  The chapel’s rural isolation, a lack of amenities and programming, a struggle to sustain pastoral leadership, the cost of maintenance, and changes to ways Methodists came to understand church and worship all worked in tandem to foster a decline in both participation and creativity.  While those reasons were certainly grounds for evolution and change, the loss of this place does not have to be inevitable or irreversible.   
 
Portiuncula Guild’s desire to restore Thomas Chapel as a place for assembly, retreat, meditation, prayer, and yoga is rooted in the growing awareness that love, mindfulness, and the search for truth are ultimately deeply anchored in a ministry of imagination and pilgrimage.  The work of renewing this local landmark is also rooted in the growing hope that creative folks and spiritual seekers of all denominations and all faiths can find common values and in turn create the possibility of conducting a dialogue with one another to build mutual respect and charity.  Because the creative life and the intentional spiritual journey changes you, grows community, fosters social change, and shapes our world for the better.
 
The path forward is not entirely clear.  Art and faith are never simply an expression of the believer’s imagination because the practice and discipline of both art and spirituality shapes the imagination.  The creative process and the spiritual quest are both forms of meditation and prayer and thus, critical avenues of insight.  Art and faith are shaped in the doing … ora et labora.  Like St. Francis and his early followers, we will seek to find our way in the doing of prayer and work.  The transformation of the chapel and grounds would necessitate a broad range of artists and craftspeople … carpenters to landscapers, painters to blacksmith, brick layers to designers, etc.
 
Portiuncula Guild is a faith-based association of creative folks and spiritual seekers working at the intersection of faith, craftsmanship, and creative expression.  The intent of the guild is to build mutually supportive creative relationships, foster conversations around the connection between art and faith, as well as seek out artistic collaborations in which art can engage the entire community in the spirituality of the art making process.  Portiuncula Guild’s work at Thomas Chapel is not to create a church in a traditional sense.  Rather, the guild seeks to provide a place for creative folk who want to expand their spiritual life, as well as any spiritual seeker who wants to explore new ways that the sacred and the imagination come together.

When Francesco Bernardone stripped and stood naked in the center of Assisi’s piazza in the summer 1206, his family and neighbors thought he was mad.  Witnessed by his father, the bishop of Assisi, childhood friends, and a host of curious onlookers, Francesco (or Francis) gave himself wholly and completely to the service of God by renouncing his father’s wealth, the privilege afforded by economic systems of his time, and the religious and political institutions that could had given him sanctuary.  He set out on a life unsupported by all the social systems that had once provided for his livelihood.  At last, Francis was untethered, displaced, and exposed.
 
The spiritual journey which brought Francis to this moment in the city piazza began years earlier when he was wounded during a military confrontation with a neighboring province.  During his convalescence, Francis reflected on his life and the brokenness of the world in which he lived, and he searched for a deeper and more authentic way of living.
 
Praying before the crucifix in the church of San Damiano, Francis heard the voice of God commanding him to “rebuild my church”.  Francis took this call literally and set out on a church rebuilding program to revitalize three abandoned churches around Assisi.   Francis grew to love a cherish these churches because they symbolized both the simplicity of lifestyle he wanted to model for his followers, as well as the healing power of shared work and community. 
 
When others joined him, Francis recognized he was not alone, and that the call to rebuild might have broader meaning.  Francis drew a myriad of seekers also looking for something new.  In the work of rebuilding these little churches, and caring for the needs of those around them, Francis and these early seekers began to discern a direction for a new way of seeing life and faith. 
 
One day this scraggly band of seekers attended mass at the rebuilt church of St. Mary’s of the Angels (nicknamed the portiuncula, or “little portion” by the local villagers) and they heard the gospel of the mass proclaimed:
 
“As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff for laborers deserve their food.”
 
In this gospel passage, these spiritual seekers recognized a way to navigate the complex, and often destructive social systems that surrounded them, and to live a life more authentic to what the creator intended.  Francis and his early followers discerned a life of work, service, inclusiveness, and prayer founded on the apostolic mandate of radical simplicity and poverty.  They believed that intentional community that was untethered, displaced, and exposed could be a powerful witness to a world too often fueled by greed, selfishness, social status, and political factionalism.

PORTIUNCULA GUILD is a faith-based association of creative folks and spiritual seekers working at the intersection of faith, craftsmanship, and creative expression.  The intent of the guild is to build mutually supportive creative relationships, foster conversations around the connection between art and faith, as well as seek out artistic collaborations in which art can engage the entire community in the spirituality of the art making process. 
 
Giving the medieval idea of an artist guild a modern twist, members of the Portiuncula Guild seeks to not only support one another in life, faith, work, and mission, guild members also promote each other’s vision to a wider world for the use, and benefit of, and in service to the entire community. Core activities of the guild are providing opportunities for retreat, meditation, and prayer, and occasional festival gatherings for creative seekers of all denominations and all faiths, offering hospitality and providing occasions for dialogue and conversation for all seeking a deeper spiritual, religious, imaginative experience within community.  In addition, guild members are committed to exploring and experimenting with the creation and celebration of innovative and inclusive opportunities for gathering, contemplation, prayer, life cycle rituals, meaningful learning, community building and social change. 
 
The Portiuncula Guild is not a church in any traditional sense.  It is simply a place for creative and spiritual folks who want to expand their spiritual life, as well as those who a explore new ways that the sacred and the imagination came together.
 

• The Guild is coordinated and overseen by a Board of Trustees, with consensus decision making among guild members.
• Every year, at our dedication service, we re-commit ourselves to our mission and work of the Guild for the coming year. 
• Every month we gather for worship or some spiritual practice. 
• Every day we offer ourselves the chance to engage in creativity, prayer, and reflection.
• Every creative encounter presents an opportunity to grow community, foster social change, and experience the divine.