Cry not over me, Mother

"In my arms I hold thee as a corpse,
O Loving Lord,
who hast brought the dead to life;
grievously is my heart wounded
and I long to die with thee",
said the All-Pure,
"for I cannot bear to look upon Thee,
lifeless and without breath."

"Where, O my Son and God,
are the good tidings of the Annunciation
that Gabriel brought me?
He called Thee King and God
and Son of the Most High;
and now, O my sweet Light,
I behold Thee naked, wounded and lifeless."

"Release me from my agony and take me with Thee,
O my Son and God.
Let me also descend with Thee, O Master, into hell.
Leave me not to live alone,
for I cannot bear to look upon Thee,
my sweet Light."

--From the Good Friday Compline


Here we are, gazing through tears, at the foot of the cross bearing the extinguished body of Our Lord. Here the ultimate paradox in that the Creator, who descended from heaven and was born as man, allowed himself to be mocked, judged, tormented and killed by those he himself had created: "Today the Master of Creation stands before Pilate; today the maker of all things is given up to the cross. The Deliverer of the world is struck on the face, and the Creator of all is mocked by His own servants."
And the Sun disappeared. And the Earth shook.
"Holy Holy Holy!" cried the grieving cherubim and angels...

"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself"
(Jn 12:32)

(*side note~ Kenosis: He has emptied his body by submitting to death, expressed by the open wounds in the hands and side. The redeeming quality of the water and blood that ran out of the wound in his side, is passed on by the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.)


I wrote this icon of The Man of Sorrows before working with Ksenia, with egg tempera for the corpus and encaustic paint in the background. Here I know nothing. I want so badly to express my love, but it still falls so short, so burdened with flaws... But laying it out, is like exposing one's sin. I will look forward to the day of re-doing it under her tutelage.

As for now we await the Ressurrection...

Washing feet and applying rabbit skin glue

We move steadily towards Good Friday, and it seems fitting that I sit here with drying tightening glue on my fingers after fixing cheesecloth to my birch panels for future icons. Time to dry, time to hold sleeping Emma, time to prepare the heart and spirit for our symbolic Passover seder approaching. And then perhaps later tonight, when the children are asleep, to apply the gesso or levkas to my board--many fluid layers building up to symbolically represent the uncreated Light of God upon which the icons will be written.

Why does this world lay such burdens at our feet? Why do we not press harder towards the goal? One wants to take the perfumed oil and pour it lovingly on the feet of Christ. To gaze upon the Face that knows what is to be suffered and anoints with boundless love. How to make each moment gifted for God, even when enfolded in the mundane, how to love the sinner and cast the sin back where it belongs, how to live a life ripe with fruits of God's grace--to shine with the transfigured light of our Lord? To not fall asleep or fall short of that which we are called... Deepen my interior prayer as I focus and settle upon the breathing in of Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, exhaling have mercy on me and on the whole world.

I want to be a better Christian.

More prayer. More sacrifice. More love.

Love--love the cleansing of dirty feet, love the gift of making visible the invisible in the process of writing icons, love the process of motherhood and gift of life within, love the sacramental marriage to the man I love who is such a gift to me. Love that I have been pulled across the chasm to a new land to help to build a New Jerusalem.

I am off now to put another coat of terra verte green with a touch of ultramarine to the background of my Theotokos. I am hoping to gracefully reinstate the lines of my drawing to make it as beautiful as possible. Last week I almost finished my Theotokos with Ksenia, and I am needing to practice it again. And again, and again and so on. Little by little we start to see and find the way.

Holy Week immersion

Snow is still everywhere, as Emma and I sit locked in this never-changing incubated winter that most hopefully is coming to an end. I don't think I have ever felt so forcefully contained indoors before with temperature and ice preventing a breath of fresh air. Time for the re-greening of spring, for a new page to be turned and this little girl napping in my lap to run in the grass. Resurrection, melting, new life. Soon.

And we have entered Holy Week. It almost seems too early, except for this long-feeling lent spent in arctic tundra instead of arid desert.

Am I being tested?
--God give me patience.

I am happy that my icon of St. Paul is finally complete. I am going to remove those old pictures I have of my embarrassing earlier attempts at icon-writing. Thank God for Ksenia's instruction, without that I would be lost--or most surely working outside tradition. And I want the confines of this living tradition to shape me on my path. So much to learn. To find the beauty in the path back through time, and make it new.

A question was posed to me the other day: What first got me interested in icons--especially as there is little emphasis or connection to real icons in the Catholic Church?

I have always been drawn towards icons since I was quite young--most probably it was the year spent in France when I was 15 that marked my experience. Many of the old churches in the South of France date back quite some time, most were Medieval, and definitely pre-Renaissance. There was a purity in the artwork even if not coming from recognizable space (I didn't realize the iconographic space was their starting point). It seemed that early Christian art had a sincere mark of passion, even if not that beautiful. Why was I stirred this way? Growing up and pursuing art professionally I always struggled with the vast majority who point to the achievements of the Renaissance as the ideal. I always loved artists like Giotto and Fra Angelico and yes, the austere beauty of Andrei Rublev's icons which held me and transported me to a more pure expression. I then prayed before a very simple icon of the angel with the golden hair (very old with very large eyes) and had a profound experience. It was a window to the eternal--a tool that God gave us to accompany us on our journey through this world. It is only now, convicted interiorly of having to pursue icon-writing, I am starting to understand. Going back in history to the thoughts and writings of St. John of Damascus, and exploring the earlier significance of icons, reading of the iconoclasts and the schism between East and West, I can see that the Western Church lost so much. The icon is essential to preserving beauty and truth. A return to this form of Christian expression is needed especially in today's media-driven world that is too quick to label icons as archaic and crude. And within our Church that doesn't even place value on the integrity of images. So I will make whatever small contribution I can with my efforts towards pointing back to the authentic, simple and true.
I count it a blessing to spend such time with the angels, saints, our Lady and Christ himself. I want to hold up windows of beauty and proclaim truth through these images. This is a joy...even if it will be a long road to do it well.

Slowly, I am learning to walk in this iconographic world.