Monday 27 August 2012

Thursday 16 August 2012

Thursday 9 August 2012

What Are All These Fragments For (Why Aren't You Writing, Ayodele)?

Working makes me feel good and responsible, but not working makes me feel amazing. This week, and probably next week, business is slow, so I'm enjoying lots of time off. The problem with time off  is that it feels so entirely natural--the way I expect Heaven to feel--fantastically new and sweetly familiar. With time off, my creative side takes over. Usually, I spend a great deal of time whining about how I'm bad at choosing creativity, but at times like this I know that I only forsake creativity because I'm tired. I don't feel that my profession demands very much creative spirit, so why does it still suck me dry?

This week a few of my best loved activities have come back. Well, not writing. I'm not counting blog posts as creative expression in written form. But time off this summer has meant indulging in culinary arts and paper crafts. Want to see? Ahem.

First, Art Project 1 of 2
OK, so the picture quality isn't great, but it's a quotation from M. Robinson, my favorite. I've been trying to read through some of her non-fiction this week, but it's too hot for intellectual activity, apparently. This quotation is from Housekeeping, which is my favorite book of hers, next to Gilead. I painted the frame gold because it was originally supposed to gird my $3.50 print of "St. Joseph and the Infant Christ" (see previous post); it turns out that St. Joe and our Young Redeemer look really kitschy in a painted gold frame. Lucky for me, this is not true of anything penned by Marilynne Robinson (or stamped by me). Do you like my color scheme? I'm going to hang it somewhere.



Art Project: 2 of 2
I should have done this one a while ago. This is from the last 3 lines of The Divine Comedy, translated into English of course. I added some black dots to the top left side because it seemed out of balance. I just don't know what to do with it now. I can't frame it, like the other one, and if hang it I'm afraid it won't stay flat. I had to pile books on top of it to keep the edges from curling through the entire process.  Oh!  I added punctuation marks, too (this is so not the final draft). I really need to buy punctuation stamps.

Iced Lollies: 1 of 2
Green tea with lavender. Aromatic, sweet, but not worth the thousand words.
Gratuitous Lavender Field















Iced Lollies: 2 of 2
Watermelon Rosemary Popsicles

These popsicle sticks have wee blue hearts on them because I have another flavor of popsicles in the freezer (in the same mold).









Rosemary
Imagine me using this to make simple syrup. This is the actual rosemary I used.










Lemons

Watermelon

And these, the actual lemons.














Note the swirly lines in the watermelon.









Everything all mixed up

Avant garde iced lolly molds
Here they are, the finished product. More pinkish now, than reddish.



My name is Ayodele, and I enjoy cutting, stirring, and pasting as an excuse for not writing. Next week, I'll write while looking at my art projects and eating popsicles. I won't have any excuses then--there won't be anything left for me to do.

Sunday 5 August 2012

Keeping the Sabbath: The Infant Christ, Lemon Meringue Pie, and One Honorable Bird

I love Christian art. I love it the way I love monasticism, liturgy, and trees. Christian art helps me sense the reality of the depth of the faith I profess. It connects me to the Church throughout time and space. I love that I can say the words "Christian Art" and conjure up images rendered long before the advent of Thomas Kincaid. I love that people have long been using art to wrestle with and build their faith. I love that art can be prayer, worship, scholarship, and contemplation. I love that beauty and creative expression are long established components of Christian worship.

Today I stayed home from church for a solitary sabbath: I slept in, had pan au chocolat, tea, and strawberries for breakfast. I compared 4 different versions of Psalm 91: in the ESV, the Message,  the Book of Common Prayer, and the Louis Segond French translation. I re-read bits of Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God, read now in the solemn mindfulness of her latest work, Still. I tried to pray Psalm 91 for a few people I've been feeling worried about, and for myself. I asked for an increase of faith.
 "His huge outstretched arms protect you—
      under them you're perfectly safe;
      his arms fend off all harm."


"Il te couvrira de ses plumes, Et tu trouveras un refuge sous ses ailes."

"He shall defend thee under his wings, and thou shalt be safe under his feathers." 

 "He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge."
My faith is not what it ought to be. I often find it hard to pray. I often don't want to pray, and when I do pray, I find it overwhelming; I want to stop, because there are so many things to pray for.
I went to the Norton Simon, because it's only a 30 minute walk away (I took the bus) and because I imagine myself as a person who goes to art museums all the time. It involved strolling through the water lotus gardens, watching grey-green tadpoles flit and gold-orange dragonflies gleam. It involved the kid's meal: grilled cheese and a fruit salad. It involved sunshine and shady trees and lemon meringue pie. It involved trying to pick up snippets of conversation made by French tourists (vous connaissez?). It involved an attempt at deep contemplation of Christian art.
After walking the museum over, I returned to a few paintings that especially spoke to me. I realized today that I have an official favorite painting at the Norton Simon. It is "St. Joseph and the Infant Christ", by Giovanni Battista Gaulli. I think I love this painting because it radiates relationship. The whole painting is about the deep love which exists between the Christ-Child and St. Joseph, it's beautiful because St. Joseph manifests such tender love for his adopted son. It's meaningful because it reminds me of the Book of Ruth, of the Book of Revelation, of spiritual adoption, and of God's complete and substantial love for me, his adopted daughter.
But I love this painting in a sort of ironic contrast to the rest of Christian art. I realized that the most important thing about Christian art, about beholding a Christian painting, is being made to see what is not visible.
I spent a long time looking at Francesco Bissolo's "The Annunciation", a painting which depicts Mary receiving the angel Gabriel' s words into her heart, and the Christ-Child into her womb: the birth of our salvation and the Magnificat. It's a warm and lovely painting. I stared at it for a long time before realizing that the most important visible thing in that painting is an Honorable Bird: the Holy-Spirit-as-dove hovering---radiantly and slightly---at the top of the painting. The presence and power of God is often hard to see, it is even invisible sometimes, as was the unborn Christ dwelling within Mary.


This painting struck me because, as I gazed at it, I realized that the Dove of Primal Importance, the Honorable Bird, resides in me. I am the visible element in the painting, imbued with the often intangible presence of God. Wow.
But there is one more painting which today brought me closer to the contemplation of the invisible. It's "Madonna and Child with Book" by Raffaello Sanzio.

This one, while showing the incarnate body of Christ, actually points to the eternal, invisible reality of God. Mary and the Christ-Child sit reading a prayer book. Here is Christ, the one who created Mary and the entire landscape behind them, sitting in his incarnate form, reading about his future death and resurrection. Here is God, the God who always IS, rendered in the past as a child, contemplating his own future acts. At the time of the painting, all the work of redemption had been accomplished--Christ was seated on the throne in heaven, interceding for us: it is a meditation piece concerned with the constant presence, the constant being, of God. It is eternity past, present, and future all in one. Here is Mary, teaching her son about his own nature, as he sits in her arms, the arms that he himself created as the "Firstborn of all creation". God very God, here with us as creator, redeemer, and word. Here is the description given with the painting:
"The inscription in the book introduces the ninth hour, or Nones of the Canonical Offices, recited daily by all monastic communities. The Nones commemorates Christ's Crucifixion and Death. With eyes turned to heaven, the Christ Child contemplates His own sacrifice as man's Redeemer."
I need to see Christian art. I need to present my eyes with things that invite them to believe and worship: it's so good for my soul. So today church was held in an airy museum, and the Eucharist was a slice of lemon meringue pie, imbibed under the acrylic gazes of penitents St. Francis and St. Jerome.

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Thomas à Kempis Knows about the Kind of Week I'm Having

"WE SHOULD enjoy much peace if we did not concern ourselves with what others say and do, for these are no concern of ours. How can a man who meddles in affairs not his own, who seeks strange distractions, and who is little or seldom inwardly recollected, live long in peace?
Blessed are the simple of heart for they shall enjoy peace in abundance. Why were some of the saints so perfect and so given to contemplation? Because they tried to mortify entirely in themselves all earthly desires, and thus they were able to attach themselves to God with all their heart and freely to concentrate their innermost thoughts. "


The Twelfth Chapter

The Value of Adversity

"IT IS good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men.

"When a man of good will is afflicted, tempted, and tormented by evil thoughts, he realizes clearly that his greatest need is God, without Whom he can do no good. Saddened by his miseries and sufferings, he laments and prays. He wearies of living longer and wishes for death that he might be dissolved and be with Christ. Then he understands fully that perfect security and complete peace cannot be found on earth."

Amen and Amen.