The Remains Of The Day
Wow, this is spectacular! For those of you who do not understand what is going on, the artist, Jeremy Cowart, is creating a portrait of Christ with both drawings and photographs of people! He is using Adobe Photoshop to blend the features of his basic drawing with other elements he has chosen. The result is quite beautiful!
A Portrait of Christ from Jeremy Cowart on Vimeo.
I awoke this morning to the sound of an email being delivered to my account. Yes, I sleep next to my computer! Any way, the email is a daily meditation that I get. Today’s message really resonated with me. It was written in such a way that I can actually wrap my head around the fuller meaning of what Christ did for humanity, the example that He became to the world. His life is both beautiful and tragic, admired and yet feared. In the words of Richard Rohr, “he became what we are all afraid of and what we all deny: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability and failure.”
Here is the meditation in its entirety.
On this Palm Sunday, picture yourself before the crucified Jesus and recognize that he became what we are all afraid of and what we all deny: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability and failure. He became “sin” (Romans 8:3) to free us from repeating that sin (ignorant killing of anything— thinking it will solve our problem), Jesus became the cosmic Scapegoat who reveals our very worst and our very best to those who will gaze on the Crucified long enough. Jesus became what humanity hates—to tell us to stop hating, to love that which we fear, and how wrong we can be about who is good and who is bad.
Jesus became the pleading image of what humans do to creation—so we could see it in stark outline, with the curtain of denial and illusion withdrawn. God in Jesus became the crucified so we would stop crucifying. He became the crucified, who refused to crucify back, and thus stopped the universal pattern of death. As Sebastian Moore said many years ago, “the crucified Jesus is no stranger,” he is no stranger to anyone who has lived and loved, no stranger to the universal experience of suffering, despair, and loneliness. In that, he saves us.
From Hope Against Darkness, p. 37
American Jesus by fashion photographer David LaChappelle struck a chord in me today as I was reading an essay given to me by a friend entitled Live Welcoming To All. In the essay Sue Monk Kidd, the author, paints a picture of her encounter with a woman on a long train ride home one night. The woman whom she did not know, sat across from her crying. From time to time the woman would look up at Kidd as if she were wanting and needing some act of compassion or tenderness. The author states that she knew this by the look on the woman’s face but was consumed by other thoughts and found it easier to mind her own business.
The thought of this woman and what she was asking for on that train ride home so late at night continued to haunt Kidd. She dreamt that the two were in a boat together. The woman would not stop crying. The boat was quickly filling up with tears. Kidd, in an attempt to save them both, began bailing buckets of tears, but to no avail. Finally, Kidd stops bailing and looks into this woman’s eyes. She notices that as long as she is looking into this woman’s eyes, the tears don’t flow. As soon as she looks away, they begin again. Kidd’s interpretation of this dream was that it wasn’t necessary for her to try and fix the woman’s pain, but simply to be available and present with her heart. What was required was that she look into this womans eyes and truly see her; that she unwaveringly take her in.
I see this concept at work in David LaChappelle’s photograph. Jesus replaces Mary as the figure-head of the Pieta. He holds non other than troubled pop star Michael Jackson in his arms while looking to God as if to say, ” forgive this man, accept his humanness. He was troubled but now he is not. He is yours, love him the way he deserves.” Now, of course that is my interpretation, but unlike the traditional Pieta where we have Mary holding Christ and weeping in agony, Christ simply looks to the heavens as if he is presenting the broken body of Jackson for healing.
Both of these illustrations bring about the idea of respect. So much of our lives are spent in the busyness of day-to-day tasks. Often we forget to be as respectful of others as we know we should. I am guilty of this very thing on a daily basis. However, if I could learn to see all people through the eyes of Christ, I would see their worth and dignity no matter who they are or what they have done. I wonder what the world would look like if we could all live welcoming to all?
Christianity is the most popular religion in the world. However, its popularity is declining and has been for a number of years. Estimates claim that there are roughly 2 billion participants of Christianity making up 33% of the global community (http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html). There are numerous reasons for this decline ranging from interests in newer religious movements like that of New Age and Neopaganism to an overall lack of confidence in religious institutions that represent the ideals of the Christian faith. What is clear is that there is a definite interest in pursuing one’s spirituality. This interest however, is not being translated into church attendance.
My personal thoughts are that the Church is not doing the job necessary to bridge the past and the present. In other words, the Church has been slow to evolve itself. It has been slow in determining how to reach out to a generation that is rebelling against it, and it has been slow to shed the perception of “who/what it is against” rather than promote “what it is for.”
The answer is complicated and yet simple from where I sit. The answer can be found in the identity of Christ. Jesus Christ, a simple carpenter laid the foundation of what has become the largest faith movement in the world. How did He do this? How did this one man and a few lowly followers make their faith worthwhile and everlasting? Simply by doing. By participating in the world! Jesus was out and about roaming the streets and the village towns reaching out to those in need. They, in turn, reached out to Him. It didn’t matter whether Jew or Gentile, woman or man, rich or poor. Jesus demonstrated compassion and Godliness to all He encountered. More significantly, Jesus instructed his band of unlikely disciples to do the same commanding them to eat with the people that they preached to and healed. These people were considered sinners and the dredges of society by most, and yet Christ saw them for who they were, God’s creation. When the Pharisees objected to Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors, Jesus made this comment, “ It is the sick who need a physician, not the healthy.” [Mt 9:9-13]
Compassion for people without moral judgment is one step toward bringing people back into the faith we say we hold dear. Compassion, and I mean real compassion, the type of compassion that Christ practiced – compassion for the poor, the downtrodden, the outcasts, and the persecuted is where Christ focused his attention. So, then, it stands to reason that the Church should do the same. But do we? Do we get involved in the lives of those we find “less” than ourselves? Do we sit at the table and dine with those society has deemed” the dredges of society” If we do, is it with the same steadfastness Christ exemplified? Because you see, that is key.
Christians need to understand that the world is constantly changing, but in the midst of this change Christ’s teachings of compassion and love remain central to the success of mankind. Christ’s teachings point us directly to Peace and Union with ourselves and with the world.
David LaChappel’s photographs bridge our historical understanding of Christ with contemporary society. His photographs confront us with the reality of what is and what always has been. Some of the moral dilemmas our society faces today are different from those experienced by the ancients, and some are no different at all. Jesus practiced true love and compassion 2000 years ago, and he practices it the same today.
This is a video interview that is somewhat related to this posting.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/face-american-evangelicalism-10744135
Picturing Life 