Taking a Look at a Picture as a Spiritual Practice

I was mildly surprised and considerably more pleased to notice that the Episcopal Church, my personal favorite among the many Christian flavors (if it weren’t for that pesky expectation to believe in divinities as more than metaphors for human realities, I might well have gone another direction…) has dedicated today to celebrate the lives of three painters, Albrecht Durer, Matthias Grunewald & Lucas Cranach the Elder. Not a one an Anglican. Makes me wonder if there’s a feast day for the Buddha in their wildly eccentric calendar…

The Collect for the day, the special prayer inserted into their liturgy for the occasion goes:

We give thanks to you, O Lord, for the vision and skill of Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder, whose artistic depictions helped the peoples of their age understand the full suffering and glory of your incarnate Son; and we pray that their work may strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ and the mystery of the Holy Trinity; for you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I guess that lets us know it is spiritual art that they’re going for.

I may be a bit picky about the wording, but, the general drift works for me.

There is something amazing and divine in how humans like to draw, how drawing reveals the heart of the matter of matter in some astonishing ways…

Or can.

And so maybe we all can take the invitation, and maybe look at some really great art today…

Not a bad spiritual practice…