Art/Spirituality/Social Change
Advent at Thomas Chapel

As we enter into Advent this year, we find ourselves in a time of chaos and unrest.  It seems that, now more than ever, we are confronted with perennial issues of opportunity and wealth, hospitality and immigration, justice and race, power and powerlessness.  And so, we turn to ancient stories and sacred myths to learn how other people from other times addressed such human brokenness.
 
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.
 
Join us over the next five weeks as we reflect on the lives of these Advent characters, and in turn reflect on our own lives, listening to contemporary voices responding to brokenness and longing, and seeking new ways to respond with justice and love. 

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.

As the work and reimagining at Thomas Chapel progress, we hoped to mark this new beginning with prayer, blessing and a gathered community on All Saints Day.  Alas, gathering must wait until we can do so safely, but the prayer and blessing we have planned was graciously recorded with the help of friends.  So today we "gather" virtually to honor the saints in our lives and to bless our prayer and work together.  Thanks to all who have gotten us this far … and stay tuned for more work and prayer from Thomas Chapel.