WOW – First Reading – vonda drees art

“All you have to do today is go outside and gaze at one leaf, long and lovingly, until you know, really know, that this leaf is a participation in the eternal being of God.” -Richard Rohr

“When I was young, I found more companionship in nature than I did among people. . . . [T]he oak tree and I had a unique relationship. I could sit, my back against its trunk, and feel the same peace that would come to me in my bed at night. I could reach down in the quiet places of my spirit, take out my bruises and my joys, unfold them, and talk about them. I could talk aloud to the oak tree and know that I was understood.” -Howard Thurman

Welcome to Day 11 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder the First Reading.

Early on as I noodled over the part of nature to represent the Word, leaves came to mind. Leaves, after all, are the pages of a book. Deep down, I knew it meant more than that.

Ways to Engage:

Practice Visio Divina (receive, reflect, respond, rest) with the painting.
Today you may want to take a walk outside and let a particular leaf find you. Get to know it by noticing its particularities. Maybe try sketching it.
Download the B&W image. Color it on your own or with a friend. Read Mary Oliver’s poem, What Can I Say.
You do you. Trust your intuition and engage in the way your heart desires.

To download the black and white image for personal use: on a computer, click and drag the image to your desktop; on a phone, press on the picture until it gives you the option to save it to your photos. The image is formatted to fit on an 8.5″x11″ piece of paper, but feel free to print it whatever size you’d like.

Background: I created a series of forty 5″x7″ watercolor paintings inspired by the elements of worship. It was work commissioned by a project with Nourishing Vocation with Children at St. Olaf College, a program funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative.

As the paintings are shared, you may notice a pattern: