The kids at the Word Made Flesh Romania 'Valley Center' worked hard this year painting pictures to create a set of Christmas cards to sell to raise money for all the different activities that happen here. This little painting of a tree was done by one of my favorite kids. He sat down and did a group of paintings mixing color and brushing the paper like it was the most natural thing he could do. If you spent some time with this young man you would never guess the war he faces each evening when he goes home. His smile and handshake are all it takes to remind me that he is a hero of peace in our world and a sign that miracles happen in our broken work.

Click here for details on purchasing our 2008 Christmas Cards.

I have never met Tuna but he is a friend of many Word Made Flesh staff who live in or have visited Calcutta. He loves to draw friends on napkins as they eat together. Here are some of the drawings he had done of Chris Heuertz over the years. As we look at more and more photographs I appreciate the vitality and the magic of drawing. In a few lines with a ball point pen on a napkin a human person appears. It is a record of an intimate dinner conversation. The pen is the sensitive instrument able to carry a pulse and the tender humanity of the person holding it.

Here is the 'prayer rug' we have made while praying for the other Word Made Flesh fields who all sent clothes which have intersected with their communities among the poor in some way. It has taken two years to finish. All the individual pieces of cloth are held together by a single unbroken string made for tying fishing nets. It remains in the middle of the chapel as a reminder to us of the presence of Christ and of His presence in the poor among us around the world. We are only a small part of all that Christ is pulling together.

This was created over a few months of learning about facial features, drawing and painting them together. Finally we put it all together and then made the sound track with the help of Ferenkeh Tarawally who has been visiting from from Sierra Leonne. He gave me a few Djimbe lessons while he was with us. The text was adapted from a piece written by David Chronic on working with children with varying degrees of attachment disorder.

(text read in animation)

The Face

baby puts everything in her mouth

ingesting her external environment

making it a part of herself.

a drawn face is moved

up and down in front of her

she smiles back.

the Face is the primal prototype

of religious experience

at around six months

the child becomes aware

that the face is not

constantly present.

the Face in whose Presence

each person was created

is that which constantly seeks us (Luke 19:10).

In His incarnation,

the Son has shown us

the Face of God.

"And all of us with unveiled faces,

seeing the glory of the Lord

as though reflected in a mirror,

are being transformed into the same image

from one degree of glory

to another; For it is God who said,

‘Let light shine out of darkness,’

who has shone in our hearts

to give the light of the knowledge

of the glory of God in the face of Christ.(2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

the Face that finds us and liberates us

will never leave or abandon us (Hebrews 13:5).

We no longer find identity

in opposition to others,

now identity is in relationship to the Son,

By responding, the Triune God becomes our primary attachment.

constant loneliness is dissolved in His Face

to whom we belong and correspond. (pause)

As community we come together as a sign

that our cosmic loneliness has found the constant presence of the Face.

As community, we invite people into the Spirit of God

to hear the affirmation of the Father,

and we together incarnate a “face” of consistency,

fidelity, love, and limits, finding together the Face of God.

Beauty and Worship: Art for Community, part 5

When art is based in Community, the artist vocalizes the community experience. The artist is able to give expression to more than just her own personal experience.

Thomas Hart Benton went from the Paris art scene, the cutting edge at the time, and from there developed a desire to connect and articulate common themes coming from common people in the southern United States.

As Thomas Hart Benton and others such as Harlan Hubbard described by Wendel Berry did, artists in local rooted communities have the opportunity of articulating directly our common themes, vision, identity, and experience. The gift they offer back to their communities is a sense of vision and purpose, a sense of their place in history and the importance of the ordinary loving work taking place in the community.

Collaboration

The Give and take, the dance of the Holy Trinity is our model and mandate to be collaborating partners in any work we do. We are made to work together. By making art together we make visible our common work together that is orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.

By doing collaborative work we are able to do a series of reflections, learn to give and take, and learn to risk. For people who have been trained in individualistic, competitive culture where each person must prove he is better that all the rest, this kind of collaboration can be healing. For children at risk who feel powerless and voiceless this kind of dignifying collaboration can be revitalizing and hope giving.

Kids animation Project

This project involved most of the kids at the center for at risk youth, The Valley Center. In it their own voices and personalities are heard, their mark is made. The process in itself of photographing, coloring, and drawing, and all the way until we watched the final product together was fun and life giving.

Flower garden Painting

For this collaboration I gave the kids squares with blind contours drawn on them and they were able to paint them how they wished. The funnest moment was seeing their faces light up when they saw the final collection of all the squares. They ran around finding the other staff telling them that they had made this piece together.

In the chapel carpet we have another example of collaboration. The other Word Made Flesh communities sent us articles of used clothing which intersected with their communities and we cut them into strips and have woven them into a rug to be used in the center of the chapel. We have used the process as a way to pray for the other fields, and now after a couple years of weaving in prayers, the rug is almost finished, and will be a reminder of the other communities present with us in our times of prayer.

Wendell Berry’s Short stories are a great example of using writing to find voice for the community experience. They are simple beautiful and dignifying to the loving, patient work of good people. More of this kind of reflective fiction could be cultivated among us. There are many amazing characters who we we meet on a daily basis whose lives deserve to be described and celebrated in reflective writing. Some of our stories which appear in prayer letters are great starts to reflective contemplative writing which gives voice to our common experience as communities.

This is a piece of hand made paper which came together during a talk I gave called "Finding Joy in the Midst of Suffering" to the Beggars Society in Omaha. Again, the beauty of the piece is in the diversity of contributions, prayers, and the lives and suffering represented by each of the people who placed their crosses into the wet paper pulp.

In 'Art for Community' we find our voice, the community participates in collaborative projects which articulate common vision and purpose. We collaborate in a material way, making visible signs of our collaborative and redemptive work among the poor. When we work together, in mutual submission and love we become living icons of the Holy Trinity.

Find more examples of 'Art for Community'

Bach and At Risk Youth



A few days ago we had a little show for the children at risk at the drop in center. From kids trying to survive school on top of life itself to street youth who have recently seen another friend get killed, this time being hit by a car, we had a diverse group. The high light was John Koon playing for us a couple Bach pieces on his cello. The main sound on this clip is him playing Bach's 3rd Suite for Cello in C Major, Movement #6, "Gigue" and of course our group screaming at the end.

I heard an essay titled, Music as Healer, Music as Teacher, written by William Harvey a freshman Julliard violin student who played at a 9-11 Armory shelter in New York city just after the tragedy. He describes how there is something important about music which expresses the inexpressible experiences we all share together.

Though there is horror and even death, beauty gives us the taste of the new heavens and new earth where God overcomes the mess.

Chapel Carpet Project

Scraps have been collected from some of the other Word Made Flesh fields, of old clothing from staff and the poor among whom we work. As we weave this rug in the chapel we are praying for mercy on the worlds poor. When we are done it will lie in the center of the chapel as a reminder of the centrality of Christ, and the poor who He weaves into His life in the center with Him. The many colored strips of fabric are all held together by a single un-cut string.

"The Dive"

oil on canvas

This painting was done in the Word Made Flesh community and hags at the drop in center in one of the class rooms for children in the afterschool programs. This painting was done after a series of large portraits were drawn persons in of the community.

preliminary sketch for "The Dive"

I have found that most people are honored when asked to model for a painting. There is a basic respect and dignity offered in spending the time to draw someones portrait. It says, 'you are important, you exist, you are worth attention'. The process in making art in community among the poor is redemptive in itself.

Beggars Society Cross

collaborative community piece

baggers society at Word Made Flesh in Omaha

may 2006

This cross was made one evening with a group meeting to talk about faith, social justice, and our responses. The little crosses were made on scraps of paper brought by the participants and came to represent areas of poverty we were commited to confront, rather than just fix, ignore, or forget. Audio from the evening is at http://www.wordmadeflesh.com/learn/sermons/2006_05%20Beggars%20Society_JKlepac_Joy_in_Suffering.mp3