Nanette is in Israel on a 10-day trip with Andover Newton Theological School and Boston University. Take a moment to read her blog, where you’ll find rich insights and incredible photographs.
This picture captured my attention like none other. It’s of a cart being wheeled through a souk in Hebron.
By Nanette Savides
Here’s a shout-out to my dear, now long-lost friend Jonathan who gifted me with a book of Rumi’s poetry. It’s taken me years to pick it up, but now that I have I am captivated by the Great Poet. I am also reminded of how precious friendship is.
Here is Rumi’s Spring is Christ
Everyone has eaten and fallen asleep. The house is empty.
We walk out to the garden to let the apple meet the peach,
to carry messages between rose and jasmine.
Spring is Christ,
raising martyred plants from their shrouds.
Their mouths open in gratitude, wanting to be kissed.
The glow of the rose and the tulip means a lamp
is inside. A leaf trembles. I tremble
in the wind-beauty like silk from Turkestan.
The censer fans to flame.
The wind is the Holy Spirit.
The trees are Mary.
Watch how husband and wife play subtle games with their hands.
Cloudy pearls from Aden are thrown across the lovers,
as is the marriage custom.
The scent of Joseph’s shirt comes to Jacob.
A red carnelian of Yemeni laughter is heard
by Muhummad in Mecca.
We talk about this and that. There’s no rest
except on these branching moments.
From The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.
One of my favorite exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is the 12th Century fresco that once served as apse for a Catalonian Chapel. Christ is the central figure holding a scroll reading “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me.” He is surrounded by symbols representing the four evangelists after whom the Gospels are named. One tier below are the 12 apostles and below them fading depictions of Bible stories.
While I’m admittedly saddened that it no longer adorns the area behind the altar of Santa Maria Del Mur in the Spanish Pyrenees, I am captivated by its intimacy. It awes me to a posture of prayer and worship. There’s something deeply personal about it. Perhaps it’s the love of artist or patron or both, or maybe it’s the wide-eyed Jesus. It could just be the contrast it offers to stark white-walled museum.
I sometimes wish I could recreate a space like this in my home. That’s quirky, I know. It doesn’t seem very Congregationalist or particularly practical given that I live in a parsonage. Yet having an intentional space in a home for worship, devotion, and prayer is not uncommon. It’s practiced throughout the traditions to enhance the spiritual journey.
The purpose of such a space would be a literal way to enter one’s closet and pray to God in secret as Jesus suggests in Matthew 6:6. Of course, this needn’t be an elaborate chapel with a semicircular fresco. All it would take is love and a few objects that move me to a greater awareness of God’s presence. Icons, photographs, a painting, mosaics, or symbols like the cross or chalice would do. Rocks, water, and flowers would do, too. Perhaps a window looking out on a bird feeder would suffice.
Rather than a monument or idol, it would be a space in which, through which, I could rest in God’s love and grace. I guess I’ve just stumbled upon a New Year’s resolution. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be able to post a picture of what this space looks like.
I today found this statement of St. Irenaeus and think it beautifully captures the spirit of an embodied theology:
The tender flesh itself
will be found one day
–quite surprisingly–
to be capable of receiving,
and yes, full
capable of embracing
the searing energies of God.
Go figure. Fear not.
For even at its beginning
the humble clay received
God’s art, whereby
one part became the eye,
another the ear, and yet
another the impetuous hand.
Therefore, the flesh
is not to be excluded
from the wisdom and the power
that now and ever animates
all things. His life-giving
agency is made perfect,
we are told, in weakness–
made perfect in the flesh.
– St. Irenaeus (c. 125-c. 210), adapted and translated by Scott Cairns in Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Paraclete Press, 2007. p5-6)
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