Walking the Spiritual Path

​Reading artwork with spiritual eyes.

​Recently, the world has been treated to a new way of engaging art, the Immersive Experience of Van Gogh, Monet, Frida Kahlo, and now Egyptian tomb art with King Tut. These involve not just the works themselves but technologies such as VR, holography, and digital projection to enable the viewer to enter the art and engage all the senses at once. I have not been to one of these exhibits, but "Beyond King Tut" may lure me. I have visited the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the pyramids. How will the experiences differ? And how does it compare to viewing a painting in a frame?
 
Below is a watercolor painting I hung up in my office a few weeks ago. No one asked me about it. After all, its historical significance is not apparent like Anubis. The painter is a friend still taking lessons from a few years ago. And, perhaps, a church is not the usual subject matter for art in a legal office. So, I began to share the story of the picture. https://emmitsburg.net/sjlc/index.htm The congregation that worships there was my first after seminary, but its incorporation goes back to the year George Washington was born. The building pictured here is only one of many on this site over the years, but its location makes it so important. One of the nation's first crossroads converged here. It was a stagecoach stop with overnight taverns, stables, and blacksmiths. Early pioneers moving across the lands passed through, prayed, and bolstered their courage before heading out on the next leg of their journey. 

​A photo of me now hangs on the wall at the sanctuary's entrance as one of this congregation's many historic pastors. I am part of an ongoing ministry that will continue in time. The many people who have lived, worked and worshiped here have stories that moved across this country and the world. All of them are “present” here in this painting. If I ponder long enough, I can feel their energy, their spirit, glowing like the light in the windows on that dark snowy evening. In the gathering room, I hear the voices discussing and debating the many decisions made over the centuries. I can see the kids having snowball fights. Over there is the cemetery that is home to revolutionary, WWI, WWII war casualties, etc.
 
We need to take the time to allow the painting or other artwork to speak to us so that we can enter into the lives or events that it depicts. We may even look at Egyptian tomb art as tourists would. But it, too, represents the lives of people who attempted to understand the spiritual aspect of life, the stories that helped them make sense of their world, and what might be beyond. We will try to do this in our spiritual disciplines classes.