In remembering the numerous dimensions of the Christmas tales as we have now been doing in our latest DMs, I’ve praised the artist M.C. Richards and different artists.
On Christmas morning, I attended Mass in my native Episcopal church and was blessed to listen to a really strong sermon on the studying of John 1 which was the gospel for the day. The identical gospel that featured in my Christmas morning DM. The priest was Arthur Holden, a former dean on the Episcopal Divinity College at GTU in Berkeley, and he instructed a narrative of being invited when he was 15 years outdated right into a particular dancing class (he didn’t think about himself a great dancer) that was about John 1. The phrases have been learn and a musician put them to music, to which the youngsters danced.
The half that hit me probably the most was that he instructed how the method of dancing to John 1 struck him very deeply, and has stayed with him to at the present time—with particular consideration to how “the Phrase was rejected,” the place he was allowed to improvise on the ground and thrash round in anguish.
I congratulated him on the sermon and stated it was a masterful argument for artwork as meditation. Right here, as a mature retired and re-fired man, he nonetheless remembers, vividly so, that telling of the gospel story of John 1 by the use of music and dance.
Artwork is the natural technique to study and share vital tales. Act them out. Embody them. Paint them. Put them to writing—sure, to talking and sermons too. That is what artwork does, as M. C. Richards says, “all artwork is bodily.” Incarnational. Fleshy. And that makes it simpler to recollect than say, dogmas and doctrines.
One other artist with whom I’ve labored is Salvadoran artist Ullrrich Javier Lemus, now a US citizen. I teamed him up with M.C. Richards and her seven “I Am” plaques that she created years in the past in our e book, Stations of the Cosmic Christ. Seven of those stations are M.C.’s, and 9 are from Javier, of which one is the “Nativity.” We reproduce it on this DM.
That is what Javier says about his sculpture piece (which he “fired” in an oven ,since he didn’t have entry to a kiln as such when he made it): Within the Nativity, I put the mom with the kid, presenting her with a blessed face—she is blissful, and he or she is tender, happy with the fetus that begins forming in her womb. The form of the pinnacle is just like the umbilical wire, which is related after all with the fetus. Within the again are the strains, which characterize explosion of life coming to be within the universe. Blood flows and life is handed on.
On the left facet is a curve to current the curve of life itself. Life by no means goes in a technique; it all the time goes in several instructions. The colours are pastel stone, brownish, and this mom—any mom—is blissful at giving start. The fetus may be seen as infinity, by which case the mom is a Cosmic Mom, a Cosmic Mary, mom of the universe.
There may be an emphasis on the umbilical wire, which is a fabulous metaphor for interdependence. The entire universe is interdependent. Additionally, the face is a really indigenous face, a really historic girl there from an historic tribe. It’s an indigenous profile—she appears to be like like she could possibly be American Indian, or an Indian from South or Central America or Mexico.
Placing the center inside the pinnacle additionally tells an vital story. To me, which means Knowledge versus uncooked information. With Knowledge, coronary heart and head unite. And Knowledge is a part of what the divine Female offers start to. This girl may be very right down to earth.
We’re all moms of God, birthers of the Cosmic Christ in ourselves and hopefully in our work and citizenship. Christmas is our birthday additionally, a “second coming” of the Christ.
Banner Picture: “Love Got here Down At Christmas.” Picture by Gerd Altman on Pixabay.
To learn the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click on HERE.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you have a good time Christmas as your individual rebirth in addition to that of Jesus’ start? Do you acknowledge your grownup vocations as a “second coming” of the Christ?
Associated Readings by Matthew Fox
Stations of the Cosmic Christ, pp. 64-69.
“Sermons 23, 24: ‘We’re Kids of God and Moms of God’; ‘We’re Different Christs’” in Matthew Fox, Ardour For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 325-353.
“Deep Ecumenism, Ecojustice, and Artwork as Meditation,” in Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets, pp. 199-214.
Creativity: The place the Divine and the Human Meet.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Items for the Peoples of the Earth.
The A.W.E. Venture: Reinventing Training, Reinventing the Human.
Matthew Fox: Important Writings on Creation Spirituality.
The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Thriller for Youngsters of All Ages.
The Reinvention of Work: A New Imaginative and prescient of Livelihood for Our Occasions.
