Month: December 2013

gird your loins

This a bas relief from Luca Della Robbia's 15th century workshop. Mary and Jesus are seen here under the view of both God as Father and God as the Holy Spirit (dove).  The Trinity is not often seen in art, in part due to the anxiety of the church around...

the Word made flesh

This carving from the MET in New York is of a Madonna and child with a book on Mary's lap alongside Jesus.  Jesus comes to us as the LOGOS or the Word-made-flesh and so the artist has the two "words" side by side in this image.  Jesus has one hand...

creativity

This art exhibition at Edge Gallery on friday night, January 3, will be my first opening in Denver's art scene.  The gallery is on Navajo at 37th and is deep in the heart of a very edgy art district. Making pots is how I relax and its is an expression...

and then…

  Freedom is incremental.     They say that when an elephant is chained to a post, he will walk round and round in a circle, wearing a path in the soil at the length of the chain. Sadly, when the chain is cut and the elephant is set free,...

on the road again

  Today, the dust is settling on a whirlwind of activity.  We celebrated Christmas last night with 5,000 people in the cathedral.  Watching so many people approach me to take a bit of bread, I could see the 200-300 parishioners whose faces were like islands of joy, peace band appreciation....

Mary’s other song.

We are crashing into the darkness, this child and I!  We are breaking darkness into shards of light which will toss and tumble throughout the cosmos and throughout history, forward and backward. They said gold was to much for me to wear today.  "It is Christmas Eve." they said. "You...

waiting for the child

Children are vulnerable creatures.  They are small and soft and defenseless, humans are. That God would place God's-self in such a precarious position Is an event which should cause us to stop what we are doing and ponder the kind of love which would inspire such an act. This is...

yes

  In this medieval statue from a French cathedral, Jesus is not looking out at the viewer nor is he looking at Mary.  He seems to be looking past her face.  And Mary holds grapes - an ancient symbol of the fruit which attention to the spiritual life makes possible,...

lightening up

This tryptic of Mary and Jesus with three attending angels is a small ivory piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  it is about the size of a salad plate and was carved in the middle ages, probably for the cover of a book or as a...

touch

It is probably best that men do not pay much attention to how quickly the church would implode without women's strong, gentle leadership and hard work.  There is nothing that brings out the insecurities of a man faster than the effectiveness of a woman.  I wonder what our Bible would...