This Christmas, Experience the Holy.

 

This Christmas, Experience the Holy.

It happens . . . find out how.

Visit a local Christian church this Sunday - and every Sunday between now and Christmas.

Eleven years ago, I wrote:

"The painting depicted in this card has mean so much to Suzanne and me as illustrative of basic theological understanding, that we wish to share this copy with you this Christmas season.

Upon my first encounter with the painting 'The Annunciation' by Henry Tanner, I was overwhelmed. Located in the Philadelphia Musuem of Art, the six foot by five foot size of this work is in itself compelling. The intense and unusual colors and the fine detail stood out vividly to me at first sight. Of course, I knew that The Annunciation illustrates the visit of angel Gabriel to Mary, mother of Jesus, and has been a popular subject for many painters through the years.

This particularly unique painting depicts Mary as, I suspect she really was - a young peasant girl in ragged clothing in a small square, drab room with a single bed and rumpled bed clothes. Additionaly, this painting is meaningful to us because of the manner in which the artist depicts the angel Gabriel. It is the only one that I have seen to picture Gabriel in this manner - as a shaft of light that appears to shine off the canvass and illuminate the entire section of the gallery.

I remember thinking, 'Yes! This artist has it right! He understands about angels.'

Quite often, painters anthropomorphize angels and give them the appearance of a human being, with a pale and eerily unearthly countenance and with wings. But, this artist reflects Mary's encounter with the angel as a shaft of light - a breach of the fabric that separates the mundane from the holy - a crack in the cosmic egg which we humans construct to keep the holy away from our everyday lives."

My wish for you this year is the same as it was 11 years ago:

"May you meet each of your days with expectation and openness to experience th in-breaking of the holy whenever and wherever it occurs."

Clyde Griffith, Tulsa, Oklahoma, November 30, 2019.