“An inch of surprise leads us to a mile of gratefulness.” —David Steindl-Rast
Welcome to Day 29 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder Thanksgiving at the Table.
Snail’s mossy banquet
a table of great fullness
Praise, Christ’s spiral path!
Ways to Engage:
- Practice Visio Divina (receive, reflect, respond, rest) with the painting.
- Sometimes small creatures become great teachers. Has a small creature ever been a great teacher for you?
- Download the B&W image. Color it on your own or with a friend. Let it inspire further contemplation/conversation.
- You do you. Trust your intuition and engage in the way your heart desires.
Tree of Life painting update:
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 