Online Archives

By Melissa Lauber

This Lent I?ve been given the opportunity to sit in on a study of the Torah, led by Rabbi Joshua Martin Siegal at the Columbia Jewish Congregation in Columbia. It?s supposed to be a Lent discipline, but it is sheer delight.

The rabbi reads the words of the portion, in this case from Exodus, in Hebrew and English - almost as if they are one language. The 10 people around the table fall upon it, anxious to find ancient meanings and wisdom to gbwc_superusere them through the day.

I seldom speak a word, but it?s the finest Bible study I?ve experienced because there is a sense that something holy is being revealed. People aren?t there to learn or explore, discuss or debate. They?re there to be transformed by the word of God.

What?s not to love? Plus, the pages of the Torah are turned from right to left. I don?t know why that tickles me. It?s as if what is normal and expected is slightly rearranged. Off-kilter, I see what I?ve always known in new and unexpected ways.

I felt the same way when I read Catherine Kapikian?s recently published book, 'Art in Service of the Sacred.'

Kapikian, the director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary, is a working artist who is known, according to promotional materials, as 'the visionary pioneer of art and theology.'

The book recognizes how arts and religion, and the disciples of both, are linked together in a myriad of ways, each capable of ushering in the holy.

Kapikian provides a number of practical suggestions for making the visual arts (and the artists who create them) an integral part of a congregation?s life.

But the book?s strength lies in her ability to make people feel like taking a risk and being willing to dare as the best possible option.

At one point Kapikian addresses churches that choose art as mere decoration. She makes it clear that superficial art and half-baked proclamations can harm one?s spirit.

'Our challenge, at a time when our congregations are thinking visually, is to reject the easily accessible, facile images that too often appear as a saccharine and sentimental illustration,' she wrote. 'Visual art that invites people into the presence of God for encounter and engagement is a different matter. It communicates through nuance and suggestion, its power to endure arising from its obliqueness. The imagination is awakened in such an encounter of meaning-making possibilities.'

As an artist, Kapikian anchors her own work of large textile installations in 'the ritual moment.'

A DVD that accompanies the book is a disappointment, but it does provide glimpses into her art.

Viewing some of her large tapestries, which hang as invocations in churches around the

country, make me feel as if I?ve fallen into a large kaleidoscope. Yet the colors in these works have been somehow transformed into words like grace, hope, sacrament and shalom, which take on whole new meanings when seen through this prism.

Quirky? Probably. But while she demands certain standards of excellence, Kapikian encourages her readers, and her viewers, to find God in new (and if necessary, quirky) ways by experiencing art.

Like the people who worked with her at Metropolitan Memorial UMC in Washington, D.C., to create a 250- square-foot needlepoint tapestry, or John Maxwell, who when suffering from end-stage AIDS created a large canvas at Wesley Seminary titled 'Man of Sorrows: Christ with AIDS,' Kapikian knows that art is not just a product. Art can 'be engaged as a process' that connects one?s soul directly with God.

'From a Christian perspective, art-making intertwines with the Spirit at work with our gift,' she wrote. 'We become co-creators, continuing the ongoing act of creation.'

But creativity doesn?t have to be limited to a canvas. In 'Art in Service of the Sacred,' Kapikian shared her reaction to an exhibit called 'Creativity: the Human Resource' at the Kennedy Center.

The exhibit explored the contributions of 15 Americans from a wide variety of endeavors. In addition there was a plaque that read, 'Creative people:

? challenge assumptions,
? take risks,
? take advantage of chance,
? see in new ways,
? recognize patterns,
? make connections,
? construct networks.'

Perfect, I thought. That is what God is calling each of us to also do as we live into this new Discipleship Adventure. We are each called, as Kapikian writes, to 'stop, see and be.'

It?s that simple.

That?s what Rabbi Siegel taught me too.

When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, 'a place for the presence of God was removed from the world. All that remains was the presence of God in time, the holy Sabbath,' he said.

It becomes contingent upon us to make space for the presence of God in the midst of our daily living. We?re called to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. We are called to live in service of the sacred.