Mary, the young mother “wrapped [her newborn infant] in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.” Luke 2:7 This time of year I enjoy imagining Jesus as the vulnerable, very human child, squirming and restless and dependent on his mother to feed, clean and protect him. The little boy excited to run the hills of Nazareth, perhaps with his cousin John, observing foxes in their holes and birds of the air in their nests and appreciating the beautiful and verdant valleys around him as well as feeling painful thorns and thistles in his bare feet. Witnessing sunrises over Galilee and sudden storms that darkened the sky and roiled the sea. He would feel the heat of the sun on his neck and the sweat of his brow as he learned the art and craft of carpentry in Joseph’s shop. He was destined to live a flawless life and do things no one else could do to save our souls but for a while he was in some ways like us. Have a Merry Christmas, Love, Bishop and Sister Rane
Prince of Peace by Walter Rane Oil on Canvas
Snowflakes by Jenica Sedgwick Digital Photograph I had this moment of awe skiing the other day as I realized again how incredible snowflakes are. They really are the tiniest art and to me a representation of God’s intimate love of all His creations. How does that scripture go? “Consider the snowflakes on your glove”... something like that ...
Madonna and Child by Tyran Schouten Charcoal on Paper
Skyline by Amy Gallup Watercolor on Paper
Here I Am
by Ashley Brocious
I’m always impressed by Mary’s response to the angel’s call to be the mother of Jesus: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” she says, “be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). To me, this is not a response of submission, defeat, or compliance, but a response of straightforward acceptance and action. It demonstrates the very important, but the somewhat indistinct line between rote obedience and active responsibility when it comes to responding to divine will. Here I am, she says, I will play the part. She accepts a place in a divine plan. Hineni is the response often given in the Hebrew Bible by those who hear God’s word and respond. Hineni means Here I am. It’s the response of Abraham when Isaac is waiting upon the altar, knife in hand. An angel calls to him “Abraham, Abraham,” and Abraham responds, “Here am I” (Gen. 22:11). This moment is the climax, it is the turning of the tide, when Abraham learns the sacrifice of his son is no longer necessary. There is a quickness, an agility Abraham demonstrates in responding to God—an ability to hear and to act accordingly, even as those commands move and change. Samuel also gives this response, “Here I am” (1 Sam. 3:4) when the Lord calls out to him one night. But what arises, actually, is a comic scene of misunderstanding, where Samuel mistakes the Lord’s voice for the voice of Eli the priest, until the priest recognizes that it’s the divine voice calling to Samuel. Misperception, interestingly, is a common feature of the human experience of trying to hear, perceive, recognize, interpret the divine voice, and Samuel, like many of us, is young in his experience with God. His story of becoming Israel’s prophet and priest begins with comic inexperience in being unable to recognize the sound of divine voice. I love the diversity of experiences that the scriptures represent in trying to come into relationship with the divine will. Some like Mary and Abraham come with fear and trembling to the task that God has set before them. Some, like Samuel, come with confusion and uncertainty in how to proceed. Interactions with the divine are not always easy moments. When it comes to the nativity story, its beginning scenes are especially interesting in watching the characters respond and develop a sensibility of their relationship to divine will. Mary shows an almost immediate acceptance of her role—the same kind of agility of Abraham in hearing and responding. But Joseph has a different experience. He misperceives the situation at first and later comes to gain a larger vision. Learning of the pregnancy, he first sees his role as simply keeping Mary out of public shame. It’s not until he has a dream where he learns of the identity of the baby that his vision shifts. And the shift is tremendous—he perceives Mary’s role as mother of Jesus and his role as Mary’s husband. He wakes from the new vision and acts: “[Joseph] did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife” (Matt. 1:24). I love Joseph’s part of the story because I find his journey to coming to accept just as moving as Mary’s immediate response. I connect to both responses—times of uncertainty and confusion, as well as moments of straightforward conviction. It seems that perhaps there are many ways to respond to divine will, many ways to be acceptable to the Lord. Even when we come with inexperience and uncertainty to what the task entails, those first moments of response give important learning as we take the opportunity to accept and receive a place in God’s greater plan.
Winter Light by Erin J. Kahn
Autumn riots Then one day Wind soaks color from the scenery Raspberry punch and lemon peel Mauve like a wine-stained carpet Give place to unassuming brown And shades instead of colors A landscape that is all line Beneath a white blue Turner sky The promise of winter waits for us Like baby’s breath on scissor hills Blue green pines a prophecy Of winter’s wondrous light Scene the first: a marble sky And loose leaves wet like wax paper Pale blue barred with lavender A winding sheet of gray Second scene: the pearl-like moon Slivered in a velvet box Plucked by oak black fingers Reaching through the night Scene three in the nether-forest Muffled by silvery mists Where flecks of yellow radiance Buttery leaves still clinging to life Nudge the muted woods Into quiet glory A tombstone bird alights on a branch Humming to himself Lacy glaciers Frost-threaded sky Scene four a sunset dominee Candle daubs of cherub pink Soft-pulled cotton with purple seam And peach wisps like departing spirits Seen through the base of a breath-fogged mirror Ghastly graceful elongated fragments ‘Til both worlds clumps into gray
Winter light illumines A glassy globe world like cold cut crystal Fifth scene is the perfect light That luminizes trees White horizon sun-gleamed snow Earnestly three-dimensional Winter’s close courtship Surprisingly sincere Vivid, disconnected Sparkles in my hair Frost light Gem light Feather-fingered twilight Dress my mind for midnight With a sweet unforgetting Winter light of my own making Final scene interior Against the carbon paper night I write by the glow of an amber lamp It kisses my pillow with gold dust Reddens the window wood The lamp curves like my sister’s hip And gleams like the top of my grandfather’s head My sister scribbles on her desk Held tight in end of term chatter Remembering I once was her I sadly smile My grandfather is in the grave Or in the gleam of winter light When every flame departed Returns as spinning lamp spots Innocuous and unafraid The tender dream-light honeys me Warm like the wonder in winter Bright as a birthing star
Religious Ephemera by Hayden Davis Collected Ephemera
1 John 4:18 by Jane Wright Digital Illustration
HIGHEST by Samuel Chiou H - HE IS NOT HERE I - IN THIS MANGER. G - GO SEEK HIM IN YOUR H - HEART IN WHICH HE DWELLS E - EVERY DAY S - SINCE COMING HERE T - TO SAVE THE SOULS OF THE WORLD.
Winter Scene by Karina Orton Watercolor on Paper
My brother Sam was diagnosed with autism when he was one, a few months after my family adopted him. His physical (and supposedly cognitive) development was delayed and though he learned to walk when he was 3, he remained nonspeaking. For 14 years our family thought that Sam not only could not speak but also did not have the cognitive capacity for language. When he was 15 he began a new therapy called Spelling to Communicate which moves communicating language from a fine motor skill to a gross motor skill by asking and enabling students to point to letters to spell their thoughts. We were shocked and elated to find out that Sam could spell and that he would be able to communicate with us through spelling. He is now 18 and working on training his gross motor to become fluent through Spelling to Communicate. He has made significant progress and on occasion, he’ll write an acrostic poem. This poem is inspired by Luke 2: 8-14 and is included with his permission. -Julia Chiou
Sufficient Unto the Day by Claire Forste Oil Painting
My faith in and understanding of institutions (both political and religious) is evolving. These uncertain times have allowed me to ponder on what is unchanging, reliable, and sustaining in my life. I often “toil and spin,” unlike the lilies that Christ describes in Matthew 6:25-34. I’ve learned that Christ’s love is constant and reliable when everything else around me comes crashing down— an image Laurel Thatcher Ulrich utilizes in her essay, “Lusterware.” Ulrich’s essay draws from Emily Dickinson’s poem on lusterware, a material that was a poor man’s substitute for silver and which breaks easily. Dickinson describes mistaking lusterware for silver and placing it on her shelf with her other silver, only to have it fall and smash on the “bottom of [her] mind.” I have similarly placed value in ideals and beliefs that are not lasting or substantive. In contrast to the smashed lusterware, the lilies will continue to grow. Thus, the lilies in my piece are God’s enduring love and the fragments of lusterware are my discarded beliefs. The circles placed over the piece symbolize the eternal nature of both God’s relationship with His children, as well as my need to learn and relearn this lesson. The title comes from the last verse in Matthew 6, which teaches me that my human efforts are enough for God.
Peace on Earth by Hayden Davis Mixed Media
O
by Kate Bennion
o lord of hosts, and hostesses i suppose, lord of all and lord of me o babe, and battle-cry, and billboard staple o-mega and o-alpha o silence and, occasionally, voice, o shepherd, o brother, where art thou? and the healing and hearing and oath, lap and shoulder, throne and boulder, baking soda mixture on corroded ACDelco, supposeth light, jehovah: thine own porous glorious Hand, oh-so low/holy, high/lowly, one who redeems even god--oh, come o come, o wounded one o dawn, o dayspring o dawn, ohlord-o love o, friend: be our hope hold my hand over all god-with-us over all
Vaguely Religious City Marginalia by Kate Bennion Digital Photography
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem by Dr. Maya Angelou
Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses. Flood waters await us in our avenues. Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche Over unprotected villages. The sky slips low and grey and threatening. We question ourselves. What have we done to so affront nature? We worry God. Are you there? Are you there really? Does the covenant you made with us still hold? Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters, Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air. The world is encouraged to come away from rancor, Come the way of friendship. It is the Glad Season. Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner. Flood waters recede into memory. Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us As we make our way to higher ground. Hope is born again in the faces of children It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets. Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things, Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors. In our joy, we think we hear a whisper. At first it is too soft. Then only half heard. We listen carefully as it gathers strength. We hear a sweetness. The word is Peace. It is loud now. It is louder. Louder than the explosion of bombs.
We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled b It is what we have hungered for. Not just the absence of war. But, true Peac A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesie Security for our beloveds and their belove
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of We beckon this good season to wait a wh We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Peace. Come and fill us and our world with your m We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic a Implore you, to stay a while with us. So we may learn by your shimmering light How to look beyond complexion and see
It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a To translate ourselves to ourselves and to
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth Into the great religions of the world. We jubilate the precious advent of trust. We shout with glorious tongues at the com All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices To celebrate the promise of Peace.
We, Angels and Mortal’s, Believers and No Look heavenward and speak the word alou Peace. We look at our world and speak th Peace. We look at each other, then into ou And we say without shyness or apology or Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul.
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Vaguely Religious City Snapshots by Hayden Davis Digital Photography
Three Crowns by Allison Walker Gaughan Monotype Print, Oil Pastel A study on the different power styles that develop, and the nature of mortal power versus divine power.
He is God of the Whole Earth by Allison Walker Gaughan Pen and Ink Drawing
The earliest representations of the nativity show a baby in a cave, with an ox and an ass standing by. This is symbol, not story, that a god would be both born and buried in a cave- From birth his mission was foreshadowed. The ox and ass represent Jew and Gentile, or believer and nonbeliever. There is no mention of animals at the nativity, our imagery of that comes from the word “manger” and a literal read on the symbol of the ox and ass. This is also the meaning behind scriptures referencing a God recognized “between the two animals”, or, the whole earth. The ox and ass look on at a circle. It is ambiguous whether it is the cave of His birth, the tomb of His death, or the earth.
God is the Universe, We are the Moon by Evangeline Stott Digital Collage
I’ve been feeling God’s magnitude more and more the older I get. His expansiveness, his boundless love and infinite power. The deeper I fall into my search for knowing, the wider he gets. Even with our modern day gospel, I feel certain of and comforted by the fact that no one owns God. Our most beautiful, best intentions and our scrappy congregations are only ever the moon. Made of stardust, but still so small in relationship to Him.
10.25.2020 by Ty Davis Digital Illustration
On Doubt
by Sarah Morris
I have doubts. I have so many doubts and questions and things I’m not sure I believe in. I’ve got so many that listing them is nothing but an excellent exercise in futility. But despite my questions, I still manage to believe. I still show up a decent amount of the time, I still seek for guidance, and I still try. Through lots of therapeutic work, I’ve gotten very good at compartmentalizing, and I come to church with the attitude of taking only what helps me and leaving anything that doesn’t. In a lot of ways, I’m able to say “I believe this and I don’t believe this” and leave it at that. I allow myself to live with that dissonance, but I didn’t think telling anyone to compartmentalize would really be the magic solution to doubt – although therapy might be. I refuse to categorize doubt as something we should be scared or ashamed of. Instead, I believe doubt exists for the creation of belief. Without doubt, there would be no room for choice. There would be no room for us to come to know God, because we would already know them. Doubt tells us that we are learning and growing and there is still room for us to be ourselves. The choice of belief gives our vote equal weight with God’s. We hold the power of God in our hands simply because of our ability to doubt. A Christian author wrote “Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it’s alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt aren’t opposites, they are, it turns out, excellent dance partners.” This is not to say that living with doubt is easy. Doubts can cause us to spiral and domino into wondering if we know anything. Doubt can become debilitating, an immeasurable pain to carry. In order to hold it, perhaps this pain can be compared to the soreness of our muscles of faith as we try to grow. “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” We don’t need to beat ourselves up about our doubts, because they don’t show that our faith is weak. They simply show that our faith has the potential to grow stronger. It gives us the opportunity to learn more. Doubt is losing the path, and belief is creating a new, truer path to move forward on. From Dostoyevsky, “My hosanna is born in the furnace of doubt.” Isn’t that beautiful? The question remains though, how do we teach faith and doubt to dance together into something productive instead of something destructive? Doubt means God would rather have people sitting in the benches of the chapel believing in some things than avoiding church because they feel they must know everything. The real question to ask is what is going to make you better, what is going to improve your spirituality, your mental health, and your capacity to love.
contain, and to tame both God and our ex Christianity is a path that incessantly leads never been before. Like the parables that Jesus’s teaching, if this path doesn’t surpri job.” By giving us the room to doubt, Go what we do believe. It’s impossible to thin everything. You may believe, and you may gift that God has given us, the ability to ch
“Christianity is an invitation into movement, into change. It may contain moments of stunning simplicity, but it is never simplistic. It is designed to challenge simplistic efforts to grasp, to
I choose to believe in the invitation believe that God loves it when we doubt. the greatest gift that God has given us is t
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n of doubt. I choose to I choose to believe that the ability to doubt.
I choose to believe that our divinity exists in the ability to discover for ourselves, that we may choose to believe, that we may dance with doubt and learn how to sing hosannas of faith. The point of life is to learn to believe and therefore, the point of life is to doubt. Excerpts taken from: “What We Talk About When We Talk About God” by Rob Bell, “Wishful Thinking” by Frederick Buechner, “Last Notebook.” by Fydor Dostoyevsky, and “Queer Virtue” by Elizabeth Edman
Chapel by Drew Rane Digital Photograph
Rooftop Dancing: A Photo Series by Kyle Durrant Digital Photography
In late August of this year the electronic pop duo, Sylvan Esso, released their song Rooftop Dancing. The song is an ode to the new New York changed by the events of 2020. It reminds me how resilient New Yorkers are and how NYC continues to reinvent itself. In a press release Sylvan Esso said, “Rooftop Dancing is about the excitement of being part of a collective humming whole - a city that contains multitudes - with your small story shining softly amidst it.” Even though the city is ever evolving, I find the spirit of New York is a constant. Looking back on 2020, I realized some of the most spiritual experiences I’ve had have happened on rooftops. I remember my heart swelling the first time I heard the city erupt in cheers for frontline healthcare workers. I rushed to the roof of my small Brooklyn apartment and took in the roar of the city, tears in my eyes as I prepared for a grueling shift at the hospital that night. Other rooftop events included intimate socially-distanced weddings, memorable chats with close friends, yoga with roommates, and time spent working on myself. This photo series captures some of the people who helped me in one of the most difficult periods of my life. They include artists, healthcare workers, journalists, and philanthropists. I believe they capture the spirit of New York and I’m grateful for the time I spent “rooftop dancing” with them – socially distanced of course.
A Risk on Love by Julia Chiou
On December 2nd I was sitting in another Zoom night class. After completing a semester and a half of my graduate writing program on Zoom, my eyes were still not adjusted to seeing the blue light of faces projecting at me while the sun went down and the world around me went dark. Yet during that class, it wasn’t just my eyes that were at work in the light. An eruption of red hot ideas was spewing all over my brain like violently vomited pieces of volcanic lava. We were discussing by what principles we, as writers, should narrate our stories in order to responsibly contribute to the global conversation. A vocal minority of students accelerated through their opinions, each word gaining volume and speed as they proposed the principle of radical justice. I remained muted, uncomfortable, and somewhat ashamed knowing that my opinion favored nuanced compassion. Finally the professor spoke up and with a voice of cutting humility said, “I tend to believe in narrating the complexity, but maybe I’m wrong and the answer is in the radical.” I thought adherence to telling a complex narrative was a given for moral behavior and truth telling but the way my professor made that statement, as if nothing was certain, as if nothing was known, as if everything was up for grabs...At this point the image of the world that I had built for myself, and at times was built for me, began to deconstruct. Those red hot ideas were singeing through my paper house and falling like coals. It wasn’t necessarily the battle of complexity vs radicalism that was reverberating in the room of my mind. It was that note of humility, that voice of an ever-learner, which sounded from my professor and her statement. Like a primal instinct I wanted that voice to be my voice. I wanted to be an ever-learner. But did that mean that all of the founding principles of my world had to be constantly up for grabs? Could I know or cling to anything anymore? What a thought for a Wednesday night! “So what is your founding principle? What is the one thing that you think is always good and right?” I asked myself. “Love,” I said, “the kind of love Jesus taught.” I heard myself retort back, “But don’t you want to be an ever-learner? Nothing is certain! Be open! What about James Baldwin’s critique of Christianity? That Jesus aided in the persistance of slavery because his words told the enslaved to turn the other cheek?” I shuddered. I didn’t have an answer. Maybe the love that Jesus taught wasn’t always right. But then what else was? Could it be a love without Jesus? Could it be the pursuit of fairness? mercy? money? wisdom? anger? balance? peace? pleasure? I don’t know! Do I have to know? Do I have to not know in order to be an ever-learner like my professor? But I can’t function without some idea about the workings of this place that I inhabit! As the carousel of my mind swirled, I kept coming back to love. Just plain love. How could it be wrong? How could trying to love be wrong? I don’t think it’s ever wrong to try to love, is this radical blindness? Maybe I’m ok with that. My practice and application of love could be mistaken, misplaced, underdeveloped, or unwise of course. But if I always tried to love, and tried to learn to love better, wasn’t that risk of being wrong about love worth taking? I would rather take a risk that loving someone is the right thing to do than anything else. So I decided I could place a bet on love as I remained open to learning more about how the world works and what is good and moral. But could I love without Jesus? Certainly yes! I’d be blind to think that Christians had the monopoly on love. But if I did decide to believe that love was the real deal, that some iteration of love is always the right thing to do, then what Jesus had to say about love, what he did out of love, was certainly intriguing. When I looked at Jesus, I saw someone who loved beyond worldly bounds, who touched those who were untouchable, saw those who went unseen (Mark 5:25-34, John 7:53-8:11, Luke 7:36-50, John 9, Matthew 8:1-4, Matthew 8:5-13, John 4:4-26, Matthew 5:43-47, Matthew 20:2934, John 5:1-14). I saw someone who taught through example that goodness is in serving one another, not in having power over one another (John 13:1-12, Matthew 18:1-5).
Herald Angel by Tyran Schouten Charcoal on Paper
I saw someone who loved his enemies radically, to whatever end (Luke 22:49-51, Luke 23:32-34, Luke 23:39-43). I saw someone who loved, as he taught others to do, by laying down his life for his friends (John 15:13, Matthew 26:30–27:66, Mark 14:26–15:47, Luke 22:39–23:56, John 18:1–19:42). I saw the all-powerful creator of the universe devest himself of all dominance and glory to inhabit the feeble body of a human baby, a body that was new, needed to be fed, needed to be cared for, saw him submit himself to rejection and death in order to create a way for all people to become Children of God (John 1:1-18, Philippians 2:6-11). Loving your enemies, laying down your life, letting go of personal glory. That was extreme love. Those were principles of which my practice and application had at times been mistaken, misplaced, underdeveloped, or unwise. But for more instances than not, it was pursuit of those same principles that has led me to the most godly, indescribably beautiful, unpredictably transcendent experiences of myself. Christ-like love, I decided, is the most extreme, most efficacious, most potent, most challenging, most rewarding love that I could pursue. So I’ll be open and keep learning, and simultaneously I’ll follow what I have learned so far and take a risk on love as the founding, guiding, principle for my world, and I’ll look to Jesus as my exemplar of love.
2020 Harlem YSA Ward New York, NY