Looking Up – Disciplining Our Eyes
Dear Hope Church,
If you’re like me, you may feel like you are constantly bombarded with information and images. It can be hard to find moments of peace and quiet when confronted with constant news reports, social media posts, work emails, group text notifications, and the nagging feeling that if we’re not tuned in we might miss something. Even as I look for chances throughout the week to quiet my mind in prayer or silence, I know that as soon as I emerge from these brief moments the onslaught resumes. It can be exhausting.
My hope for our Sunday services is not only to offer a place of refuge from the cares of the week where we can wholly and earnestly worship God, but also a place to engage our senses in life-giving ways that restore and heal what is so quickly broken and drained by the distractions around us. When we enter into the worship space on Sunday mornings, we worship with our hearts and minds through hearing the word read and illuminated, and by praying responsively and being led in prayer. We worship with our voices and ears by singing with and listening to the music and by praying and reading aloud. We worship by taste and smell as we eat together at the Lord’s Supper where the bread and wine serve as tangible reminders of Christ’s sacrifice for us, and our bond as partakers of his body and blood. But what do we do with our eyes?
You may have noticed that our new bulletin features a different piece of art on the cover each week. The piece will usually highlight a theme of the service, whether directly related to the sermon or derived from a tangential idea. As I search for the piece of art I want included, a phrase that I read on an art blog (artandtheology.org) often comes to mind. The author, Victoria Emily Jones, describes what it means to “discipline our eyes with holy images.” She defines a “holy image” as “any image that draws the viewer closer to Christ. The religious background of the artist is…irrelevant, and what functions as a holy image to one person might not for another.”
The art is there to draw us into worship, to engage our minds and hearts through our eyes. Consider the desperate expression on David’s face in “David priant la nuit (David Praying in the Night)” as we hear his prayer of searching and thirsting in Psalm 63. Imagine the security of the castle nestled among the hills in “A Fortress in a Mountain Landscape at Sunrise” as we hear of the refuge God is for us in Psalm 7. Not all of the works will be “Christian” art, and some might even be challenging or confusing. But let them draw you into worship and closer to Christ, like a prelude or a reflection quote. Rest from the barrage of unholy imagery that competes for your attention and our heart every day and discipline your eyes with holy images.
Blessings,
Wilson Whitten
Pictured: David priant la nuit, James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French, 1836-1902) and followers