“Why do we need art? Why do we need the lyric poetry of the Psalms? Why do we need them? Because the only way we can approach God is if we’re honest through metaphor, through symbol.” -Bono
“So I think the Psalms are important because they, for some people like me at 12 years old, they showed [me] that imagination was a way to get inside the truth.” -Eugene Peterson, author of the Bible translation, The Message
In this 21-minute video, Bono and Eugene Peterson talk about the Psalms.
Welcome to Day 12 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder the Psalm.
Hope dwells within breath,
awaiting truth to be voiced.
The psalms of our lives
Ways to Engage:
- Practice Visio Divina (receive, reflect, respond, rest) with the painting.
- Download the B&W image. Color it on your own or with a friend. Color in silence or while listening to the talk linked above. Let it inspire further contemplation/conversation.
- 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:
- Music = Songbird
- Prayer = Seed and/or Fruit
- Word = Leaf
- Order of Service = Element of Nature
- Season = Insect with a Flower
One final creative invitation for this project remains for me: to paint a Tree of Life holding all forty elements. I plan to share its progress here.
For this series, I am grateful to have used handmade paper from White Dragon Paper and watercolor paints from Natural Earth Paint.
vonda drees art 