At the outer reaches of human experience we encounter mysteries we’ve come to describe as “paradoxes.”

Poles converge. Seeming opposites elide:

Less is more.

The only constant in life is change.

In the midst of life we are in death.

Our own emotive life can bear the marks of paradox:

So happy you grow wistful, then sad.

So crushed you grow placid, and thus hopeful.

The Church Year shapes human time to the life of Jesus, whose human life holds all human experience. And Lent is a time for paradoxes.

Lent is a season of mourning, of grief over our sin. Like the penitents of old, we scrape ash over skin and remember our mortality. We lament how short we've fallen. We brace for righteous judgment.

But Lent is also a season strainging eagerly forward. We fast and prepare for the sure and festal hope of resurrection, of Christ's unshakeable kingdom and unbreakable life.

Can it truly be both? Grief and hope? Repentance and redemption?

Some Christians have spoken of Lent as the season characterized by “bright sadness.”

Consider Burnand’s painting above, its “bright sadness.” The painting itself is luminous, but consider the details.

The new dawn which colors the clouds is slowly solidifying the countryside into something no longer murky and dim.

Young John wringing his hands and considering whether it wouldn’t be better to just break into a full sprint. Thinking nervously of his new mother, Mary, who could really use a resurrection about now.

Peter seems deranged by hope, eyes wide and brimming as incredulity roils his denying mind. Barely keeping his shawl on, he’s thrown it on so fast.

Both shaken from the stupor of grief by the inconceivable announcement which quaked them awake, now treading the path to the tomb which will confirm or deny their deepest longing, their deepest fear.

Lent remains precisely this kind of journey for us—the pilgrimage from our sin-stupefied and vice-darkened and death-shadowed daze towards the divine promise we only dimly perceive and half-believe. So we mortify our desires and confess our utter insufficiency and mourn our inborn enmity and wring our hands and throw on our cloak and ramble or trudge or scurry towards the tomb we’ve been told is terrifyingly empty.

And you’ll find it’s empty. Looking for death, you find it gone, rolled up and rolled away. Now there is only life—Jesus’ imperishable life—loose in the world and animating even you.

God has gifted artists

To adorn the darkness
to illuminate the sadness
To lead us to the house of mourning
to welcome the dawning

If you have been given and have nurtured creative gifts—gifts in the visual arts (from sculpture to painting to glass-blowing to design), gifts in the narrative arts (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction), or musical gifts (performance, composition, etc.)—we invite you to devote those gifts unto the Lord’s service. We again invite you to make an offering of beauty.

We would love to display your visual art in our Lenten Art Gallery, or feature your narrative or musical art in the gallery opening event (and the accompanying arts journal).

If you have been given and have nurtured creative gifts—gifts in the visual arts (from sculpture to painting to quilting to glass-blowing to design), gifts in the narrative arts (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction), or musical gifts (performance, composition, etc.)—we invite you to devote those gifts unto the Lord’s service. We again invite you to make an offering of beauty, a sacrifice of praise.

As you anticipate the coming ordinary season of ordinary work, meditate upon the works which God has put to your hands, and the hands of those you know and love.

Where have you seen a sadness that is bright? What shade is the Light of Repentance?

What are the paradoxes of human life under sin? What are the Paradoxes rendered by resurrection?

Help the Church to observe a Holy Lent, and to journey with our Lord to the cross, the grave, and beyond.

If you’re interested

Contact the Arts Ministry Council at ctkartsministry@gmail.com.

We’ll talk details on your project, and any questions you have will be answered!

Deadlines

Sunday, January 4th Deadline to indicate initial interest (don’t wait!)
Sunday, January 18th Deadline for written submissions (editable draft)
Sunday, January 25th Deadline for written submissions (final draft)
Sunday, February 1st Deadline for music submissions
Sunday, February 8th Deadline for visual art submissions