The work of artist Rachel Barnard titled Wisdom Pavilion is situated in a dreary office of the City of New York Department of Probation. In this unlikely location, she suspended hundreds of sparkly cobalt blue pinwheels from the ceiling of a meeting room for parole officers and young parolees. Barnard is also the founder of Young New Yorkers (YNY), an arts-based initiative for teens in the adult criminal court system.
In 2018, the University of Arts London conferred an honorary doctorate degree on the Chicago artist Theaster Gates. He concluded his acceptance speech performing his bedtime ritual, singing: “Guide my hands. Guide my hands. Guide my hands, while I am on this tedious journey. Guide my hands.”
Attention is the beginning of devotion,”1 suggests Mary Oliver (1935–2019), that prolific poet of the twentieth century who was known for her lingering walks in the woods. This line appears in her reflective essay “Upstream,” in which Oliver records her observations of nature…
In Protestant traditions, text and proclamation—spoken, sung, or silently read—are paramount to Christian formation. Broadening the phrase to include physical pronouncements involves the senses, thus why artistic processes help enlarge the incarnational dimensions of proclamation. This is one reason why I, a trained artist and theologian, decided to establish and facilitate a series of art-based, leadership-development workshops for pastors.
I once heard Ross Gay, one of my favorite writers, claim, “A poem is a laboratory for our coming together.” Since the fall of 2021, I have held a poetry discussion group at a local continuing care facility. Monthly participation ranges from one to two dozen people. A few of the attendees are members of the congregation I serve as pastor, but the majority would not consider themselves to be Christians. Everyone loves poetry. I call the group Poetry and You…
Let us build a house where love can dwell, and all can safely live.” The opening lines of Marty Haugen’s fantastic hymn “All Are Welcome” lays out the foundation of what we as Christians are called to do when building the church of God. In our music we sing songs of welcome, we sing songs of feeding the poor, and we sing about embracing those who are different from us and those who walk a path that is alien to our own.
This column is appearing in the third of three issues of Call to Worship recognizing the 40th anniversary of the publication of Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (BEM), a document produced by the Faith and Order division of the World Council of Churches in 1982.
Her neighbor’s gait had slowed
And, though his meandering mind
Still flowed…
In 2017, I did a residency at the Segura Art Studio, housed at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Art and Culture on South Bend’s West Side. For ten days I worked in a small gymnasium that was converted into an art studio. The high windows that cascaded light into the room by day and parquet floors were the only remnants left from days past that hinted at what once filled the room.
© 2024 Call to Worship
Lovingly made by Worship
Times, Websites for
Ministries
