Enriching the Lenten Journey with Visio Divina
by Robin Sandbothe, Pinnacle Associate
The visual arts have been enriching disciples’ faith lives for centuries through religious icons, stained glass, and renderings of biblical texts and the lives of the Saints through a variety of visual mediums. Today, we have access to many of these works of art, as well as newly created digital art, through the Internet. The possibilities for enriching our own faith journeys, and those of the faith communities of which we are a part, are endless.
For this Lenten season our church has been using the Wandering Heart resource from A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org). One of the components is a devotional booklet that includes weekly selections of poetry, scripture, art, and hymns, along with thoughtful questions. While everyone in the congregation has access to the booklet, every week a group of us have been meeting via Zoom to engage the material together. The discussions have been rich – about all the different elements. Last night, though, was probably the most meaningful time we’ve had together.
As the facilitator of this group, I have approached the engagement with the material in different ways. Each week I’ve learned something new – about the folks who are interacting on Zoom and about myself as the leader. Last night I tried a new approach. The art for this Lenten series is original and stunning. For this week it was a mandala interpretation of the Matthew 18 passage on forgiveness (A mandala is a geometric configuration of symbols, usually circular, used by various religious tradition as a tool for spiritual practice):
15 “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. 16 But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. 17 If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.
18 “I tell you the truth, whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.
19 “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.
20 For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”
21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven! (NLT - New Living Translation)
The art each week is also accompanied by a statement from the artist, who describes how she has interpreted the scripture in what she has created. The mandala design depicted a lone figure in the center with concentric circles depicting the various scenarios described by Jesus. The outer circle was a series of figures embracing one another and reaching arms toward the center.
As we began our time together, I shared my screen, which filled the viewers’ screens with the mandala. I asked the group gathered to immerse themselves in the image as I first read the scripture passage and then read the artist’s description of her creation. I read slowly to let the words sink in with space for silence after each reading. Then I asked, “What do you see? How does this help you connect with the scripture text? With your own experience?”
What followed was a rich conversation which went way beyond what the artist intended and much more deeply into the text than a simple reading might have done. We not only connected with our own experiences but also with that of our community of faith – even going so far as to think about hanging this mandala somewhere in our sanctuary or in the center of our Communion table to remind us of who we are and what our mission is as a body of faith. It was suggested that we share this image in the church’s weekly newsletter with an encouragement to spend some time with the scripture, the artist’s statement and the image before we worshiped together the following Sunday, so that we would engage with one another and with God on a deeper level when we came to worship. To take the practice one step further, the same image would be added to the worship folder and projected on the screen, and the gathered community in worship on Sunday invited to experience it together – adding layer upon layer of meaning to the shared experience.
This is the power of the practice of visio divina, a holy seeing. Often visio divina is practiced with religious icons, but any image lends itself to holy seeing, especially when paired with a scripture text. Not unlike lectio divina, a practice of holy reading, visio divina is a way of meditating, of immersing oneself in what has been written or drawn (religious icons are even referred to as “written” rather than painted). The experience is meant to help one connect with the material on an intimate level rather than a scholarly one – not a critique but a felt relationship with what one sees. One could say, with this kind of immersion into the art, the image sees us as much as we see the image, and thus we are spiritually formed.