I am beginning to hear the gospel at the level of my identity.
Miriam-Rose Ungenmer Baumann
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Discipleship is the only form in which faith in Jesus can exist.
Eduard Schweizer
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We will never know what we do not do.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Truth is that indestructible life that is open to us when we cease to live as self-determining individuals and enter the communion of god’s own personal life-in-relation.
John Zizioulas
We choose life when we begin to live out of our inherent capacity for self-transcendence. We flourish when we give ourselves away.
What stops you from living like this?
Fear, ignorance, apathy?
What might encourage you to live more fully?
“Those who hang on to their life lose it”.
Has it occurred to you that you are a victim of mistaken identity?
That you habitually equate your life with your daily worries, preoccupations, fears and anxieties, and forget that all that is but a small part of who you really are?
Losing your life, dying to self, is the letting go of this smaller life, this little life that we so often mistake to be who we really are.
Discipleship according to Jesus is having the courage to take the next step. “Meditation is the prayer of faith, because we have to leave ourselves behind before the Other appears and with no pre-packaged guarantee that He will appear. (John Main) This poverty or emptiness is the little death- learned daily- of losing our life, our little life, and finding the life which is life indeed.
“The ‘I’ that works in the world, thinks about itself, observes its own reactions and talks about itself is not the true “I”: that has been united to God in Christ. It is at best the vesture, the mask, the disguise of that mysterious and unknown “self” whom most of us never discover until we are dead.
Thomas Merton
What do I want to say in my heart.
At this time I am facing you and I want to tell you
Oh Jesus, I love you More than anything
Oh Jesus, I love you With all my heart
Image details.
The image at the top of this post is of Cristo Redentor, the famed sculpture by the French sculptor Paul Landowski, depicting Christ with arms stretched over the city of Rio de Janeiro.
The Crucified Christ
Lindiwe Mvemve (South African 1958 – )
The cup of suffering Christ accepts in Gethsemane he drinks to the dregs on the cross. In Crucifixion by Lindiwe Mvemve, this cup is enlarged to contain the Crucifixion scene itself, which shows Christ hanging between the two thieves, in the company of Mary, John, and an angel of consolation. God the Father holds this cup tenderly in his hand, looking in with sadness.
Edwina Sandys (English 1938 – )
Detail of “Christa,” by the British sculptor Edwina Sandys, shown in 1984, that depicts Christ as a woman. It was removed from exhibit at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York but accepted when it was offered again in 2016.
The Chinese-born artist James He Qi’s ”Crucifixion” depicts Christ on the cross surrounded by the disciples. He blends Chinese folk customs and modern western art.
Japan’s foremost Christian artist, Sadao Watanabe (1913-1996) converted from Buddhism to Christianity at 17 years old. He soon combined his new faith with an interest in preserving the traditional Japanese folk art of stencil dying, or katazome, by creating colorful representation of biblical scenes that he hoped would speak to his people.
Portraits of Christ
In the mid-1930s, students at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago voted a black and white sketch titled “Son of Man,” by the illustrator Warner Sallman, the most accurate portrayal of Jesus.
Sofia Minson, a painter of Swedish, Irish, English and Maori descent living in New Zealand portrays Jesus as a Maori man with full-face moko (traditional tattoo) and a huia bird, once native to New Zealand but now extinct, as a neck ornament.
Bunky Echo-Hawk is an internationally known American Indian visual artist whose work is featured in gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the U.S. and overseas. His live paintings and select partnerships raise much needed funding for indigenous programing needs. Through his art and strategic partnerships, he has aided in raising millions of dollars for Indian Country.
Professor Alphonso Doss from Chennai, India, is referred to by many of his artist friends as ‘The Reverend Doss’. This is not so much because of his own religious nature (he is Christian in upbringing) but because of his general spirituality and great interest in world religions, their overlapping themes and motifs. He has painted Jesus as The Blessing Christ.
