This is the wooden Pietà, in the beautiful Durham Cathedral. Extraordinary, isn’t it?
I’d seen it before, and the second time was no less affecting.
Here is what the notice has to say about the viscerally moving piece, by Fenwick Lawson ARCA.
There is a short pew positioned just in front of The Pietà, where you can sit and bear witness, with mother and son.
Saving art
Speaking of the power of art, I’ve now finished This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness (which I first mentioned in this newsletter).
Reflecting on how, through her own experiences, art can save us, Sarah writes:
The longer I walked the road of my illness, the more aware I became of the powerful way that great art could grip my hand and lead me forward. There’s a kindling power in the light of something created out of a broken human heart, a tenacious creativity that splotches the darkness with gaudy stars and fills the shadows with a siren music of hope and kindles a story like a campfire in our hearts, where we may find refuge and warm our hands.
During Lent last year, Charity Singleton-Craig posted this beautiful series of paintings by Tissot based on The Stations Of The Cross, and, a couple of days ago, I ordered a book I keep hearing about from different sources: The Art Of Lent, by Sister Wendy Beckett.
With Sarah’s words, in mind, I’m excited to explore a little the practice of Visio Divina, an alternative to the traditional Lectio Divina, which focus on meditating on an image.
Have you found a saving grace in this way, gazing on specific works of art?
Beauty in the ashes
If you celebrate Ash Wednesday, were you able to make it to a service? Walking slowly up the nave of our church with others, to receive the ashes, felt like a pilgrimage of sorts.
Back home, I agonised over whether or not to post a photo of my black, smudgy cross to Instagram, even though I felt a huge sense of comfort and connection seeing all those as they appeared in my feed. That I overthought it so much is almost certainly a sign that perhaps I should give up social media for Lent.
I was painfully aware, too, of how I’d fallen short of my best intentions for the day.
Instead of fasting, I ended up comfort snacking on crisps and soya chocolate pudding, after what was a pillow-screamingly hard week seeing the parents I love so much, go through so much.
We were late to the service, also, because I’d spent too long in the shower, trying to wash away the stressful and the sad. To loosen hunched shoulders.
But can we, actually, fall short on Ash Wednesday?
The title alone of Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals For A Life Of Imperfection, by Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie, feels like the answer.
On the way
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about pilgrimage lately.
The other week, Will and I sat down to watch the 2010 movie The Way. Starring Martin Sheen and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez, it tells the story of a grieving father’s pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. This year, our church is following a Lent course based on it.
There are personal reasons, too, why The Camino is of interest to me, which I touched on in a newsletter before Christmas, Angels On Regent Street. It ties in with another book I’m looking forward to reading alongside the course: The Field of the Star: A Pilgrim's Journey to Santiago de Compostela, written by my friend Fran’s father, Nicholas Luard. It’s years out of print, but still track-down-able.
Last weekend, something happened which made me think about how we get to walk alongside fellow pilgrims as part of our everyday lives, too.
Travelling to visit our eldest at university and anxious about having left Will to hold the fort at home, I jumped into a black London taxi to get from Waterloo Station to King’s Cross.
As we moved slowly through the Friday morning traffic, heading north through Russell Square, I became aware of the song that the driver was playing.
Out of context (and season), it took me a moment to place it.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.—O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Emmanuel.
God with us.
It was, it turns out, anything but random. The driver explained that he had lost his mother only the month before, and that listing to it gives him comfort.
At King’s Cross, I made a pit stop at the Boots pharmacy on the station concourse. As I joined the checkout queue, the pharmacist called out to a customer whose prescription was ready to collect from the counter:
‘Emmanuel?… Is there an Emmanuel here?’
Why have we not talked about The Camino? We must discuss this when I see you! xx
Jen - beautiful reflections! I love how you have pointed out the beauty that is there alongside the hard bits of life. May we have eyes to see as you have done