Art – a pathway to God

Visiting a friend in Colorado Springs we called into St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.  At the entrance we were greeted by a row of four wooden tables each with a glass box on top under which are displayed two large books. St. Michael’s has one of only 299 Heritage Editions of The Saint John’s Bible. Completed in 2011 the Saint John’s Bible is the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible since the invention of the printing press more than 500 years ago.

It was a massive undertaking and cost eight million dollars to complete. As I stood looking at the exquisite art doing what it said on the tin, illuminating the text, I couldn’t help feel moved. The Bible is an ancient text and not as easy to understand as many of us would like to think. Here before me was a new opportunity to engage with a familiar old friend, the Bible.

I have mentioned before in my reflections the value and use of Divine Reading known as Lectio Divina. It is a wonderful practice of scriptural reading. Viewing the St John’s Bible I encountered Visio Divina. Divine seeing is a prayerful interaction with a piece of art so as to experience the divine. Many of my friends will be curling their toes and thinking that Rob has lost it! But I challenge that.

This summer we will feel the sun warm our body, and find our thoughts move towards God’s amazing power. We will hear a bird song and tune into its sound and find a sense of the joy of life, and maybe thank God.  Some of us will read a line in the Bible and find a root to a deeper sense of wholeness and healing. So imagine the small step from these well understood and accepted ways of discovering the heart of God to Visio Divina. The Christian community has for centuries used art and imagery to help us draw closer to the messages and meaning of God’s love. I wonder if you will trust the Spirit of God at work on your own spirit through visual images of scriptural themes!

This picture above is called To the Ends of the Earth and accompanies the verse in Acts chapter one, “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”