Faith and Art

It’s time for our weekly round of theology and art! This week Rosanna Cartwright is back with a color drawing that’s wonderfully appropriate for the early part of the Pentecost season. It’s called “Spirit Moves Us”.

The beautiful thing about this drawing to me is the motion. The central flames rise, as flames will. Even then, they’re not straight and direct. They curve, often expanding and contracting. This mirrors the course of our lives. Strands of circumstance and choice twine around us. We don’t know in a given moment whether we’ll be going left or right, feeling full or thin and reedy. Sometimes it changes day by day. All we know is our general direction, upward and onward, warming the world while rising to something new and unknown.

The swirls around the outside of the fire are striking. They twist, running in looping circles before rising along with the central flames. They remind us that the fire affects the world around it. It gathers up the air, moving it in the dance.

Remember also that the Biblical words for “Spirit” translate to “air” and “breath”. In a blaze of light and heat, God’s central combustion sweeps up the Spirit, converting it into energy and motion around us. This is holy ground, indeed.

The brilliant, glowing colors form the last element of the picture. They leap out at us, even from a background of white. Normally you’d expect to see nighttime darkness around a fire. This one appears to be lighting everything in the universe, every other place we can see. What a comfort that upward is not the only place we need to look to see the effect of the flame. We don’t even have to look directly at the flame to see its effects. It’s shining all around!

This is an amazing image of Pentecost and the inspiration of the Spirit. Thanks, as always, to Rosanna for sharing it! You can find her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/rosanna.cartwright.3. Be sure to come back next week for more discussion of theology through art!
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​--Pastor Dave