“We read the Word slowly—in one verse, one creature, one face, one journey, one song—as ‘one’ cosmic story unfolding with grace as our guide.” —Franciscan friar Dan Riley
“Nothing can fall out of God. Each and every created essence – whether plant, mineral, animal, human – participates in the symphony of divine self-disclosure in its own way and knows the fullness of divine mercy according to its own mode of perceptivity.” – Cynthia Bourgeault
“The difference between the distant future and the distant past, of course, is that future records are not frozen. The ink is still in the pen; the pen is in our reach.” – Erica Berry, from her essay, The Fault of Time (a 22-minute listen)
Welcome to Day 13 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder the Second Reading.
Typically the First Reading comes from the Old Testament and the Second Reading from the New Testament, usually the Letters. The idea that the Letters, having been read across time, continue to elicit ever-evolving responses, appeals to me.
This promise remains —
Nothing can fall out of God.
Love, No Matter What
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 audio essay or music 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 