Art and the ancient prayer practice of Lectio Divina

After attending the 2019 European Leadership Forum, and hearing a speaker from Dallas Theological Seminary speak how art relates to spiritual practices, we were inspired to adapt the ancient art of Lectio Divina to art.  Our church is reading and meditating on 1John this summer.  So we thought, why can't we take the week's passage from 1John and read through it and ask for a visual beginning to do an art prayer with Jesus?

We read the passage through twice.  Then we were asked to notice a word or phrase that stuck out to us.  Then we read through the passage again and asked for a second word or phrase.  Then we read through the passage a fourth time, and then asked for a visual of those phrases that we noticed.
We shared each time with each other, and also a bit of the visual, and then started to paint.

On this session, we focused on 1John 2:18-27.  The following art represents time of prayer and communion and a visual that the artist saw in the time of meditation.  These were not meant to be finished works of art that hang in galleries, but very personal prayers of listening to what Jesus was showing the artist through the Scripture.

 This piece shows the very personal anointing that the Scripture speaks of coming down from the Father, through the Son and plants that truth in us.  "As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you."

This one speaks of "this is the last hour.  See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.  If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. "  Shown by the arms of the Father holding a person clinging to the saving cross of Jesus, wrapped in the arms and surrounded by His Glory.

This shows the Trinity concept of three bright yellows with smaller dots of yellow representing us remaining in the Trinity.  The bright colors represent those who deny Christ the Messiah and are colorful but distracting trying to lead us astray.  But those who remain in Christ are filled with the Truth. "As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.  If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what he promised us--eternal life."

You can see, that the hardest part is to let go of the perfection of a painting and use the art as a way to express what we are hearing from the Scripture.  This was not a performance but an exercise of using the meditation of the Scriptures to speak to each of us individually and to explain a concept without words but with art.  This is art as prayer.

Our future sessions are Tuesday, July 16, 2019, 6:30-8:30pm
                                      Monday, August 5, 2019, 6:30-8:30pm
                                      Sat.  Aug.24, 2019,10-12am
All sessions are held at the Glen Ellyn Covenant Church, 277 Hawthorn Ave.  Glen Ellyn, IL

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