Art

Advent Annunciations: Joseph

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James Tissot, The Anxiety of Saint Joseph

 

I often turn to Annunciation scenes during Advent. This may seem curious since we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, nine months before Christmas Day. Yet, the season of Advent marks the beginning of a new church year, which may signal a time for other new beginnings.

The Annunciation to Mary was of course unique. Yet, it is also symbolic of God’s self-disclosure and God’s loving communication of hopes and wishes to every one of us. God becomes present to us, and in us, so that we might begin a new life, and begin it again. “Always, we begin again” is a saying oft-attributed to St. Benedict. It can become true for every mindful believer.

For obvious reasons, the Annunciation to Mary has received an overwhelming amount of attention in the history of art. Less frequently explored for its artistic potential is God’s self-disclosure through an Angel to Joseph, in a dream, even though it is with this Joseph story that Matthew launches his extended narrative. Mary gave birth to Jesus, whereas Joseph is remembered for having had a less prominent role in the circumstances of our Lord’s arrival. Joseph then largely disappears from the Gospel narrative. Perhaps because God’s revelation came to him in a dream while asleep as compared with Mary’s conscious, apparently daytime reception of the angelic visitation, Joseph’s receipt of an annunciation has been easier to overlook.

Yet, Joseph must have played a more-than-passing role in the coming of the Messiah. He did this by his willing marriage to Mary, and by initially providing a safe deliverance for his family from the wicked Herod, to and from Egypt. Undoubtedly, he gave Jesus significant mentoring, though Scripture leaves any details about that for us to imagine. Communities certainly have a part in the formation and education of children and youth, often in unrecognized and unrewarded ways. But why do we so easily overlook what was surely Joseph’s pivotal role in helping the young Jesus learn so much about Scripture, and in acquainting the youth with the material for so many of his later parables?

If these things may be inferred from the Gospels regarding Joseph’s significant role in the circumstances of the birth and early life of Jesus, we should reflect on what may have accompanied Joseph’s readiness to act upon the angel’s annunciation to him. As he positively responded to the angel’s words, he is likely to have considered what heeding those words might entail.

James Tissot’s painting, titled The Anxiety of Joseph, suggests that Joseph’s acceptance of his calling may have involved thoughtful deliberation. Indeed, Joseph may have sincerely weighed in his mind the degree of hazard that might arise from acting in accord with God’s revealed will, especially when such action might defy religious and social convention. That he, like Mary, in effect said yes to his angelic instructions, and followed through affirmatively, does not necessarily mean he did so without hesitation.

Most of us are called by God to accept unheralded and easy-to-overlook roles in God’s still unfolding plan of redemption for the world. Inspiration regarding our calling might even come to us in a dream, making us more prone to discount its potential significance, or too quickly assess its likely merit and value in a misguided and worldly way. After all, who are we to think that we could have an impact upon the world in relation to God’s sovereign purposes?

It is often said that Mary is the ‘mother’ of the Church. Perhaps Joseph, in a similar way, can be said to be the ‘father’ of all believers, especially those like you and me.

 

Why Beauty?

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For some time I have had a copy of Elaine Scarry’s insightful little book based on two lectures she gave at Yale. I am drawn to the images chosen by the cover designer, which align with my proclivity to find in nature beauty in both pattern and variation of form and color. Also appealing is the compact scope of the work in relation to the immensity of the topic, which is addressed in just over a hundred pages. No overly weighty tome here that might contradict a principle I recently quoted in relation to a Japanese garden – beauty not explained allows the viewer to remain in a state of wonder.

And yet, it is precisely wonder inspired by beauty – by the beauty manifest in beautiful things – that has over the course of my life caught my attention. Thoughtful reflection about such wonder has led me on a journey from absorption with beauty itself, toward grappling with questions like, “why beauty?,” and “what about the time and attention I am giving to it?”

Asking such questions led me to consider what goodness might be all about, especially in relation to beauty, an area of reflection I still cannot let go of. Pursuing these inquiries then suggested a possible third dimension in my consideration of seemingly interrelated ideas, in which I began to ask intentionally about truth. Religious conversion from the agnosticism of my art student days followed not long after. Yet, all this started with sustained reflection on my ongoing encounter with beauty.

My exploration of these primary categorical ideas of beauty, goodness and truth, the so-called transcendentals, has yielded an abiding insight. These ideas have to do with what is there, there in the sense of something that you and I apprehend through our experience, but whose origin is not reducible to our experience.

In other words, beauty, goodness, and truth, aren’t just ‘in here,’ as I might say to myself, pointing to my head. Beauty, goodness, and truth, are not simply a product of our thoughts or imagination, even though they have a notable effect upon our thinking and conscious experience. No, they have this effect upon us because they are there for you and for me to encounter in the world around us. And so, they are not attributable solely to the processes and generative power of our conscious awareness.

At some point we come to perceive that beauty has a reality that is independent of us. Beauty is a real property of some or even of many objects of our experiential perception. Beauty is therefore not dismissible as being only a feature of our subjective apprehension of those objects, nor is it a projection of ourselves upon them. Because beauty is there, in the world, the beauty we encounter summons a response from within us.

This principle underlies Elaine Scarry’s first main point in her reflections on beauty. As she puts it, “beauty brings copies of itself into being… beauty prompts a copy of itself.” This is true not only in the more obvious sense in how a painter or a poet seeks to render sensual experience and perception in pigments or in words. It also happens when we return again and again in our minds to images and sensations prompted by what we have seen, heard, and felt. Repetitively we return to what we have encountered, to the thing or things we want to continue to be present to us and within our ongoing experience.

 

I will reflect on Elaine Scarry’s book again in a future post. The cover design for it, shown above, is by Tracy Baldwin, based on an illustration from J. Gilbert Pearson’s Birds in America, Vol. 2, from a drawing by Henry Turston.

Chihuly Garden & Glass ~ Seattle

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On a recent trip to Seattle I visited the Chihuly Garden & Glass exhibit at Seattle Center. This collection of Dale Chihuly’s glass work, which includes both large and small objects and installations, provides a splendid way to become familiar with what the artist has accomplished so far over the course of his career. The extensive exhibit gives the visitor an excellent introduction to the methods that Chihuly has employed when embarking upon various projects and insight about how he has revolutionized many aspects of contemporary glass making.

An initial large room contains a display of smaller Chihuly creations set within the context of a selection of his baskets and related objects from First Nations peoples, as well as an assemblage of his large framed photographic prints of Native American individuals by Edward Curtis.

A large gallery within the exhibit features Chihuly’s Mille Fiori (a thousand flowers in Italian), inspired by memories of his mother’s garden. An information panel indicates that the pieces in this installation, gathered from several series of his prior work, “rely less on tools and more on the use of fire, gravity and centrifugal force.”

Two youngsters enjoying engagement with Mille Fiori while helping to provide us with an indication of the assemblage’s scale.

A display titled Ikebana and Float Boats is featured in a subsequent room. Having pursued glass making in Seattle and in Venice, both near significant bodies of water, Chihuly experimented with glass objects thrown into a river in Finland, where youth from the area in wooden boats helped retrieve them. Intrigued by the interaction between the objects, the light above, and the water below, the artist continued to develop these interests after traveling to the Japanese island of Niijima. There he became reacquainted with the glass globes traditionally employed by Japanese fishermen as floats for their nets, which he had first seen as a youth beach combing on Puget Sound. At the same time, Chihuly was inspired by the Japanese art of flower arranging, called Ikebana. He combined his interest in the glass globes with the inspiration provided by Ikebana and imaginatively adapted these forms within boat-shaped structures that have been displayed in galleries and upon ponds.

Another gallery space features large bowl-like objects from Chihuly’s Macchia series. As a guide at the Chihuly exhibit makes clear, no one has yet been able to produce a truly black form of glass. Yet, Chihuly has come close with his occasional use of very dark blue and purple. Through his Macchia series, he sought to incorporate every one of the other 300 colors that are available for glass making. Noticing that colors within stained glass windows often appear more alive when illuminated from behind by the diffused light of a bright cloudy sky, Chihuly began to experiment with including a white layer within objects between the inner and outer colored layers of glass. The presence of speckles and striations of additional colors results from when molten glass is rolled on a flat metal surface that has been sprinkled with multiple-colored bits of glass.

Near the end of a tour through the exhibit one finds a courtyard where an informative glassblowing demonstration is offered, which brings alive some of the challenges inherent in working with this medium.

Chihuly Garden & Glass provides a lively sense of the remarkable extent of the artist’s output, and the breadth of his highly imaginative vision for what can be done with glass as an art form. The exhibit is well worth a visit for those able to travel to the Seattle area.

Dale Chihuly and the Art of Glass

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Paprika Persian, by Dale Chihuly

 

Many of us associate glass as a material for art with beautiful stained glass windows, or with fine cut-glass objects. Yet, until the widespread impact of modern art, stained glass has most often been characterized by the two dimensional pictorial representation of biblical or historical figures and events. And decorative glass objects, especially when fashioned from clear leaded glass, have until recent times come largely in the form of functional vessels like vases and decanters.

The career of Dale Chihuly has coincided with a renewed interest in the artistic potential of glass when applied as a medium beyond the parameters associated with everyday objects. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that many college and university art departments offered courses in and provided studios for work with glass beyond the design and making of windows, as well as for other materials such as fibers (e.g., weaving). This may have been due to a historic assumption that glassblowing and textiles, along with pottery, are best understood as being within the category of ‘crafts’ rather than as fine arts.

For these and other reasons, encountering the fruit of Chihuly’s longterm exploration of glass and its aesthetic possibilities can lead to an experience of stunning discovery. As we have seen regarding the evolution of David Shaner’s ceramics, Chihuly has moved far beyond producing beautiful but also utility-oriented objects, toward what may be more properly termed glass sculpture. Throughout the range of Chihuly’s work with glass we find a number of features that deserve to be noted. These include his appreciation for the capacity of color, form, texture, arrangement of parts, and scale to evoke interest and delight.

Capri Blue Seaform

Seagrass Seaform

Chihuly’s use of color immediately captures our attention as we view his work. Unlike the challenge faced by those who draw or paint, where choosing and mixing color is a more direct process, color selection and its manipulation within molten glass is more complicated. In glass making, as it is for ceramicists who work with glazes, the artist must attend, at least at a basic level, to some chemistry, the physical plasticity of the material, and be open to chance regarding both.

Another noteworthy feature of Chihuly’s glassware is his intentional inclusion of areas of opacity, translucence, and transparency. With all three of these variables, his manipulation of surface reflectivity – a property often associated with high quality glass – deepens our appreciation for his work. He achieves beautiful effects when he allows these differing aspects of his materials to appear adjacent to one another in the same finished pieces. I find this to be especially apparent in the two pieces depicted immediately below.

Two sculptural glass works by Dale Chihuly (name and date uncertain)

An additional feature of Chihuly’s mature glass work is the variability of the form and of the shape of the objects he has created. As the artist’s portfolio has expanded with the development of his career, he has moved well beyond the pursuit of symmetry, practical utility, and manageable size, with regard to the items he has fashioned. This is especially true of the large scale installations to be featured in a subsequent post.

Given all this, the name Chihuly has become synonymous with paradigm-shifting glasswork that is vibrant and joyfully attractive.

Dale Chihuly with one of his large glass installations in the background

Transfigured By Beauty

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James Tissot, Jesus Goes Up Alone Onto A Mountain To Pray

 

In a painting whose title refers to one of Jesus’ common practices, James Tissot portrays him as caught up in prayer, an involvement he widely encouraged his followers to pursue. Regarding prayer, the Catechism in The Book of Common Prayer may surprise us. To the question, what is prayer, we find an answer which begins with these words: “Prayer is responding to God…” Jesus modeled a life wholly centered on responding to God, in heart and mind, in soul and body. On one occasion, he appeared transformed while at prayer. Over time, his followers discerned how God was fully present within him.

The story of his Transfiguration on a high mountain, reported in the first three Gospels and commemorated this past Sunday, provides a narrative demonstration of this truth. What Tissot depicts regarding Jesus when alone at prayer was later revealed semi-publicly on that mountain in the company of Peter, James, and John, as well as with the heavenly apparitions of Moses and Elijah. It was then fully revealed in Jesus’ Resurrection appearances.

Exodus 24 provides the background for this, and tells us something astonishing: “Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up {Mt. Sinai}, and they saw the God of Israel.” In Exodus 34, we learn that when Moses came down from the summit, “the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses… they were afraid to come near him.” The text suggests that Moses then started putting a veil over his face for the sake of those who were unused to, or unprepared for, the glory and power of God’s immediate presence.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians, extends and also alters this idea of the veil. Instead of it being a means to protect people from a direct encounter with divine glory, the veil has become in Paul’s letter a kind of impediment. When our hearts and minds are not open to God, nor sensitive to God’s power, we become hardened. We become hardened in such a way that our hearts and minds are veiled, preventing us from perceiving God’s glory.

But Christ has set aside this veil. As a result, “all of us, with unveiled faces, {see} the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror (2 Cor. 3:18).” And we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” Through prayer, we also are transformed.

Fra Angelico, The Transfiguration (San Marco, Florence)

The Transfiguration of Jesus is all about the unveiling of God’s glory. Jesus takes Peter, John and James up with him on a mountain to pray. While he is praying, the appearance of his face changes, as does his clothing. In contrast with the Exodus and Pauline images of light shining on a surface, Luke presents God’s glory as coming from within Jesus. In other words, he radiates God’s glory rather than reflecting it. Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah, who appear with him, appear in his glory. This may mean that Jesus has shared his glory with them in a way that prefigures what he will share with all of his followers after his Resurrection.

This should lead us to ask a good question: If we feel like there is a veil between us and the divine presence, where does this veil lie? Does God ‘hide’ behind a veil, either to protect us, or challenge us? Or is the veil within ourselves, formed by our spiritual blindness and our lack of openness to how the Holy Spirit imparts glory? Paul suggests that our experience may be like that of the earlier Israelites, for whom hard-heartedness caused them to be blind to the bright light of God’s glorious presence, whether in Moses’ face or when reading and hearing the Law. Hard-heartedness can be equally blinding for us, veiling the glory that is all around us.

And where, according to Paul, do we find this glory? We find it in the faces of everyone who has been open to God’s transforming Spirit. In other words, we can find it in each other, as well as in ourselves. For this reason it can be like looking into a mirror, as the glory that we will perceive in others is the same glory that they can perceive within us.

The Beauty of Shaner’s Red

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David Shaner, Tea Pot {Japanese style, 1977), with Shaner’s Red Glaze

 

Shaner’s Red is a polychromatic glaze named after the potter who first applied it to many of his pots. I became familiar with Shaner’s Red on extended visits to family friends who had a pottery studio and a kiln for firing clay at their ranch in Montana. My parents had met them on a ship returning from Japan, where our friends had pursued their interest in traditional ceramics. In addition to throwing pots, they collected a range of examples of ceramic artwork including Asian and Native American, as well as contemporary work by David Shaner and others associated with the Archie Bray Foundation, in Helena, MT. As a youth, I found the color of Shaner’s red and sometimes green and gold glaze alluring, in part because of its variability during firing. In addition to buying assorted mineral and other glaze components, Shaner also gathered found ingredients for his glazes much like weavers often gather natural materials for dying wool.

One brief biographical statement offers this tribute to David Shaner: “His exquisitely formed vessels with their understated glazes are a reflection of the man himself, a man in harmony with his environment and at peace in himself. Shaner was also noted as a teacher, a collector, and a generous contributor to the world of ceramic art and the field of environmental protection; his gardens which he called his ‘spiritual work’ included notable specialized collections.”

Among those who pursue the art of pottery, the color known as Shaner’s Red is a familiar reference point for glazes applied after a first firing of shaped raw clay. Though the red coloring is largely due to iron oxide being in the mix, this glaze by David Shaner is well known for the way it often morphs into other colors during the firing process, with beautiful results. A canister style pot by Shaner (below, 1988) displays this color variability, which is to some extent within a ceramicist’s ability to manipulate while yet retaining an unpredictability that is often a feature of this art form.

Some examples, below, of pots by other artists displaying something of the range of colors yielded by the application of Shaner’s Red.

                     

Here is one ‘recipe’ for Shaner’s Red: 527 Potash Feldspar; 40 Talc; 250 Kaolin; 40 Bone Ash; 213 Whiting; 60 Red Iron Oxide; 2% Bentonite. The significance of the numbers and the nature of these elements are foreign to me. But they are doubtless meaningful to ceramicists who mix their own glazes. The point in sharing these details is to illustrate how, regardless of the precision involved in finding, measuring, and mixing these elements, the exact outcome of their combination and application cannot be foretold in advance.

Shaner was once asked about this at a workshop he had given. A participant later reported that “his reply was something to the effect that to make it look right, you had to be in the right phase of the moon, hold your tongue just right, call on the correct kiln gods, etc. He was obviously kidding but what he was saying is that this is a tough glaze to work with.” Another potter who has applied the same glaze offers this observation: “… the cooling schedule most affects Shaner’s (and other) iron reds. Shaner’s needs a long slow cool, or firing down, for the red color to resurface…”

Having introduced what is perhaps Shaner’s most widely-known contribution to contemporary American ceramics, his eponymous glaze, I plan in a subsequent post to share further about him and provide additional examples of his pottery, especially in light of his later transition from traditional pot making to what is more properly termed ceramic sculpture.

David Shaner in his studio (1989)

The photos behind him appear to include one of the esteemed Japanese potter, Shoji Hamada, at work on a pot (upper right). Another photo (top right) features an example of Shaner’s own work that is clearly influenced by the Japanese folk art tradition (the tea pot illustrated above).

‘Beauty’ and Jackson Pollock

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The Fury, 1943

 

The name “Jackson Pollock” and the word “beauty” may seem to make for an unlikely pairing. For some, Pollock’s famous ‘drip’ paintings are not only an acquired taste but continue to be the butt of bad jokes about what happens when you give a chimp a pot of paint.

These observations may bring to mind the story about when the art critic, John Ruskin, accused the artist, James M. Whistler, of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face,” and the nerve of asking two hundred guineas for the result. Whistler – painting in ways ahead of his time – wanted viewers of the work in question not to consider it as a traditional representational painting but rather as an ‘artistic arrangement.’ When asked how long it had taken him to paint the canvas, Whistler frankly admitted that it was just a few hours. But then, he added, it had taken a lifetime of learning to create the work. Jackson Pollock likely felt the same about his drip paintings, which made him famous.

Some viewers of “modern art,” particularly the genre of art commonly labeled as abstract expressionism, may wonder if the abandonment of representation in painting (and in other art forms) simply provided license for less than skilled artists to create and financially benefit from work that ‘broke all the rules.’ Yet, and paradoxically, many of those whose work we associate with this kind of art received rigorous training in traditional methods of drawing and painting at the Art Students League in New York. In effect, they had learned the rules so that they could break them with integrity. Pollock was among those learners, when he had studied under the tutelage of Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock’s earliest remunerated work was in the form of murals featuring traditional imagery, commissioned by the Depression era WPA (the Works Progress Administration) for public buildings such as libraries and post offices.

I am comfortable employing the word beauty with which to characterize and describe some of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. Unlike the proverbial results of turning monkeys loose with pots of paint, or giving kindergarteners free rein with the same, Pollock’s mature work evidences an aesthetic intuition formed over years of persistent engagement with paint on flat surfaces.  Over time it yielded striking results. I find many of these paintings both intellectually stimulating and emotionally stirring.

What I am calling a formed intuition within the artist’s temperament bore fruit in the form of several perceivable variables among his drip paintings. First, we can appreciate the sophistication of his color choices. Despite an initial sense that these paintings contain a cacophony of clashing streaks of full spectrum color, closer inspection reveals that Pollock often employed a limited color palette in these works, sometimes with an almost Zen-like restraint. Second, he had an undeniable eye for composition. This is discernible within the apparent chaos on the surface of his drip paintings where pattern, unexpected order, and rhythm, can convey a sense of balance. Third, the well-documented energy the artist applied to the creation of these canvases is effectively communicated by the visual results he attained, which in my experience draw the viewer in to a deepened engagement with his vision.

Pollock at work.

Drip Painting (title?), 1951

Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950. This composition, despite its energetic patterning, has a subtle tone due to the very limited and neutral color palette.

Number One, 1950 (Lavender Mist). Another subtle composition, in marked contrast to The Fury, depicted above. Viewers appreciating Lavender Mist, in a photo (below) showing the scale of many of Pollock’s drip paintings.

Number 14 (Gray), 1948. Paradoxically both lyrical and restrained, where movement displaces a perceived need for the addition of color.

This one (title and date uncertain) is also lyrically full of joyous movement but with color.

 

Pollock’s famous Number 11, (TheBlue Poles, 1952) on display.

Pollock in motion, creating an indelible image of vitality that continues to speak to and move people today.

The Beauty of Alex Katz’s Realism

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Alex Katz and his portraits of Ada, January 3, above, and of Vivien, in Black Hat, below.

 

At the age of 95, Alex Katz is still painting! Having created a huge portfolio over decades of work he continues to explore the visual possibilities inherent in capturing a three dimensional world in the two dimensions on large surfaces. He has consistently demonstrated his gifts as a painter by his focus on representational art, and succeeded at this when many of his contemporaries succumbed to the widespread public appeal of abstract art, while others then began to mimic public and commercial print media in what we now commonly refer to as ‘Pop Art.’

Underlying the power of much of Katz’s work is his undeniable ability as a draftsman, the technical term for one who can draw and, in his case, draw well. Yet Katz has said that drawing is not a natural gift, but that it is a skill acquired through practice. “You learn how to draw, you are not born with it, the techniques you have to learn. So it’s a repetitive thing to keep doing it but you finally get good at it, and better.”

These observations are worth bearing in mind when Katz’ work is considered alongside that of his contemporaries, some of whom employed photography and graphic printing techniques with which to reproduce images that may remind viewers of commercial art such as we find in glossy magazines. Katz’ attainment of proficiency in drawing is demonstrated in his many portraits, not only of his wife, Ada, but also of his relatives and friends.

Blue Umbrella 2, with another portrait of Ada

  

Alex Katz, Portraits of the artist Philip Pearlstein (above), and the poet, Ted Berrigan

The visual composition of his paintings and prints, as well as the compelling quality of his representation of people and places within them, is evident. Critics commend Katz’ work for his use of color and the relatively ‘flat’ appearance of the way he tends to depict his subject matter. This may account for the apparent affinity between this artist’s paintings and his work as a print maker.

Yet, Katz’ attention to the play of light and shadow upon what he chooses to represent adds a surprising element of three dimensionality to his images. Further, though at a distance many of his paintings seem to employ strong linear demarkation to define the edges between fields of color, the artist is also adept at suggesting texture and depth in a painterly way by using subtle brush strokes that have a shading effect. The following two images help illustrate these points.

Good Afternoon, depicting a favorite summer place to visit

Blue Umbrella 2, detail

In addition to the many solo portraits of Ada and others, Katz enjoyed portraying groups of others in various situations.

Thursday Night 2

Summer Triptych

Alex Katz’s many works of art, and particularly his paintings, have grown on me. At first I tended to undervalue his representational approach to portraying people and places, not taking sufficient account of his attained gifts for drawing in his compositions as well as his sometimes arresting attention to contrasts between light and dark areas. His astonishing longevity coupled with his abiding creativity lead me to return to his work with growing appreciation. His book, Looking at Art with Alex Katz, featuring reflections on many of his favorite artists, poets and architects, reflects the wide range of his artistic awareness and sensitivity. Yet, I also admire his almost single-minded willingness to pursue his own vision for his art despite the challenging influence and popularity of many of his contemporaries’ artwork, which often headed in very different directions.

Alex Katz at work on what may be another portrait of Ada

The Beauty of Making Replicas

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‘Lego Man’ by Anders

Lego Man comes apart…

… just like the original

 

We have long recognized our son, Anders’, abilities in arts and with woodworking. His gifts have blessed our family in years past. But since becoming a dad, he has offered the same gifts to his children. This year he and our grandson, James, chose the theme, Lego Party, for James’ upcoming birthday. Anders set to work with cardboard, paint, and glue. The result speaks for itself.

There is something about replicas that help us better see the things after which they are modeled. Lego kits provide an excellent example. Somewhat like the work of artists who draw caricatures, Lego models when completed have the capacity to alert us to distinctive visual features of the originals that have inspired them. I find this to be especially true with the Lego kits of several Frank Lloyd Wright buildings that James expertly helped me to assemble. In particular, carefully putting together these kits has helped me to appreciate the interior spacial organization of these buildings in a way that floor plans and elevation drawings can only begin to suggest.

Assembled Lego model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water house

The Guggenheim Museum model

The Imperial Hotel model

Having recently encountered Anders’ Lego Man project, we came away impressed with his ability to scale up accurately a very small original into a centerpiece for a birthday celebration. We are looking forward to the party!

 

And He Sent Out the Twelve

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James Tissot, The Ordaining of the Twelve Disciples

 

As Matthew tells the story, those who are called to follow Jesus are then sent out. Before they go, they are not only commissioned to represent him and his message; he shares with them portion of his remarkable power. According to Matthew, “… Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.” They have witnessed his teaching in what we know of as the Sermon on the Mount, which in the first Gospel runs over several chapters. Yet this moment is relatively early in the Gospel narrative, and it should surprise us that Jesus is so willing to let them go out on his behalf, and apart from him.

It is sometimes observed that with certain vocations one never really ‘retires” even if one ceases to be engaged in remunerated employment. This bears witness to the fact that through the calling that underlies all other callings, our baptismal vocation never has a terminus though it may come to greater fulfillment in life. Yet as we go through successive stages in our lives, we may be more open to being ‘sent out’ when we are younger even if we continue to be open to being ‘called’ – and, indeed, called anew – through our later years. My parents were relatively young when they were sent out as missionaries to Japan, living into a pattern that we can recognize in many spheres of our human communities such as in the Peace Corps and in Teach for America. Having myself been more recently retired, I find that I am now less inclined toward the opportunity of being sent out in and for the mission of the Kingdom though I still experience being called.

For reasons like these I tend to think that the twelve whom Jesus first called to be his disciples were  more likely to have been young rather than middle-aged. In that they may have had a greater openness to discipleship formation; they may have had a greater degree of idealism and more energy for a new kind of work; and they may simply have had the prospect of more years ahead with which to share with others what they would perceive and learn about God’s mission in and to his Creation.

It is a subtle point, but this may be why Tissot – following Matthew – portrays what is titled The Ordaining of the Twelve Disciples separately from a depiction of their initial experiences of being called. For this moment in their lives and in their time with him became the occasion of their formal participation in Jesus’ mission, even when they were not in proximity to him and his work. Jesus, as Matthew tells us,  had already gone “about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.” And having commissioned the twelve, and given them his own authority, Jesus sent them “out with the following instructions: ‘… go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, The Kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons’.”

When doing this, Jesus not only equips them for the mission upon which they are sent. He also forewarns them of the adversity they are likely to face, adversity which might involve betrayal, trials and flogging, being hated, and even being put to death. This is yet another reason why I tend to think of the disciples, at this point in their lives, as generally younger than older, just as we saw with Caravaggio’s likely portray of Matthew’s calling, last week.

As we get older, some but not all of us may be less open to being sent out, and less inclined to seek such an opportunity. But we should never cease to be open to ‘the call,’ and the varying ways it may be ever-renewed in our lives.

 

This posting is offered in relation to the readings appointed for Proper 6, Year A, in the Revised Common Lectionary for Sunday, June 18, 2023.