December 3: The Garden: A Place of Intimate Communion
♫ Music:
Day 3 - Tuesday, December 03
Title: The Garden: A Place of Intimate Communion
Scripture #1: Song of Songs 6:2–3, 11–12 (NKJV)
My beloved has gone to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies…I went down to the garden of nuts to see the verdure of the valley, to see whether the vine had budded and the pomegranates had bloomed. Before I was even aware, my soul had made me as the chariots of my noble people.
Scripture #2: Song of Songs 8:13–14 (NKJV)
You who dwell in the gardens, the companions listen for your voice—let me hear it! Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices.
Scripture #3: John 20:15–17 (NKJV)
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him, “Rabboni!” (which is to say, Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ”
Poetry:
“Their Lonely Betters”
by W.H. Auden
As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.
Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.
Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.
THE GARDEN: A PLACE OF INTIMATE COMMUNION
The woman from Song of Songs could not present a starker contrast to the Eve of the Fall. Whereas Eve turns her ear to the voice of the serpent, her eye desirous of the fruit, the woman from the Song listens for her lover, desiring only him. Whereas Eve hides in shame, the woman from the Song is confident and assured. Exile, shame, and hiding are absurdly out of place in the Song of Songs. She freely explores the trees and their fruits. Like the singer in today’s music selection, “Garden,” she seems to ask, “What was this thing they call the Fall?” ––as though it is some long-forgotten memory. The garden imagery in the Song of Songs simply drips with pulsating life. Consider today’s artwork, the deep red of a ripened pomegranate, life dripping off and scattering like seeds.
We are transported to another garden in the passage from John, though here the tomb serves as the center. John draws us back to the darkness of creation as Mary heads towards the tomb, “on the first day….it was still dark” (John 20:1). Playfully, John teases that Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener. Or was she really mistaken? Perhaps she is seeing him more clearly now, the one walking in his garden in the cool of the day. In her recognition she calls him, “Rabboni! (which means teacher).” Gardener, teacher. We can add to it the declarations of identity by the woman of the Song for whom there is no fear as she calls him King and no condescension as she calls him shepherd. These things are simply true of him, and she has opened herself to being formed by these truths. He calls her beautiful, and she acknowledges her beauty. He calls her one who dwells in the gardens (Song of Songs 8:13), and so she makes her home with him, the maker of gardens.
Whereas Eve desires the fruit, the knowledge of good and evil, the woman of the Song desires the person, and so her understanding of what is good becomes defined by him. This is the kind of teaching we were meant to have, one where the desires of our hearts are shaped and formed, pruned, and planted by the Gardener, the Teacher. For Mary though, like us, the joy of seeing Jesus is as intense as the moment is brief. The story jolts us forward as evening sets in once again (John 20:19). The cycle of days continues, and Jesus will be going to the Father soon. She is unable to touch him now, but her eyes have been directed to the one who teaches her heart about home and love.
We, too, this Advent may feel the jolt of time moving forward––“and then it was evening, and then it was morning” ––feel the distance as we seek the One we love. The depth and complexity of the wilderness around us is made tangible by loss, pain, guilt, and shame. Like Mary, may we turn our eyes to Christ, who names us, who calls us by name––that he may define for us what life and home really are. It may be that in doing so, we become more aware of how barren this wilderness is, allowing ourselves to grieve all the deeper. May it also be that in cleaving to the Gardener that life, redemption, forgiveness, and fellowship begin to sprout in and around us, becoming the evidence of a much greater source. Let us remember that we are the ones who dwell in the gardens.
Prayer:
Meet us, Lord, where we are. In your presence, may our understanding of life and love expand so greatly that guilt and shame fall away, that we might become what you made us to be.
Amen.
Stacie Poston
Adjunct Instructor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Garden of Desire (overall and detail view)
Gilded illuminated manuscript on vellum
Scribe and Artist: Donald Jackson
Hebrew Script: Izzy Pludwinski
© 2006
The Saint John’s Bible
Saint John’s University
Collegeville, Minnesota, USA
Used with permission
All rights reserved
www.saintjohnsbible.org
The Song of Solomon is a love poem in which the allegory of the love between God and Israel plays out in rich and evocative imagery. Christian tradition has long held that no matter who is speaking, the poem reflects both the love Christ has for humankind as well as humankind’s loving search for Christ. The central metaphor is a narrative between a bride (humankind) and a bridegroom (Christ). In this illumination of a walled garden, we find order and disorder, pattern and incompletion. The red circle with walls around it is taken from a design of a Middle Eastern garden that artist Donald Jackson has deliberately left asymmetrical and unfinished. The scattered individual pieces are never complete until they are united with the whole design and are emblematic of the yearning of the individual for unity with God and God’s yearning for the soul of humankind. The margin makes use of stamps containing male and female figures inspired by Rhajastani textiles. Finally, another color motif in this book is found in the verse numbers. Three colors are used to signify the alternation between the lovers: the man, the woman, and the chorus of the daughters of Jerusalem.
https://sites.up.edu/saintjohnsbible/sjb_garden-of-desire/
About The Saint John's Bible:
The Saint John's Bible is the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned since the invention of the printing press. After a Saint John’s University–sponsored calligraphy presentation in 1995, master calligrapher Donald Jackson proposed a handwritten Bible to Fr. Eric Hollas, OSB, the former executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John's University in Minnesota. Between 1996 and 1997, Jackson created the first sample illuminations for the proposed Bible while theologians at Saint John’s University developed an illumination schema for the project. The Saint John’s Bible, officially commissioned in 1998, was completed in 2011. During production, artistic director Donald Jackson oversaw a group of artists working in a scriptorium located in Monmouth, Wales. Using a mixture of the ancient techniques of calligraphy and illumination, the artists created illuminated manuscripts that were handwritten with quills on calfskin vellum decorated with gold and platinum leaf and hand-ground pigments. Gold leaf was used liberally to represent the divine, silver/platinum to reflect the principle of wisdom, and rainbows to show God’s faithful promises. A wide range of artistic styles, including iconography, abstraction, chrysography, and illustration, were incorporated to create a contemporary visual vocabulary for the sacred. A new script for the sacred text was devised by Donald Jackson to be readable, modern, and appropriately dignified. Meanwhile at Saint John’s Abbey and University in Minnesota, a team of biblical scholars, art historians, and theologians gathered weekly to develop the theological content behind the illuminations. This included not only developing the schema for the illuminations, but also identifying underlying themes and elements for the artists to incorporate. The Saint John’s Bible is divided into seven volumes and is two feet tall by three feet wide when open. It is made of vellum, with 160 illuminations across 1,165 pages. The Saint John’s Bible contains the text and notes of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
https://saintjohnsbible.org/
About the Artist/Scribe:
Donald Jackson (b. 1938) is one of the world's leading calligraphers and the artistic director and illuminator of The Saint John's Bible, a handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by the Benedictine Monastery of Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. At the age of twenty, Jackson was appointed to be a visiting lecturer at the Camberwell College of Art, London. Within six years, he became the youngest artist calligrapher chosen to take part in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s first International Calligraphy Show after the war and appointed a scribe to the Crown Office at the House of Lords. As a scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, he was responsible for the creation of official state documents. In 1985, he received the Medal of The Royal Victorian Order (MVO). Jackson is an elected fellow and past chairman of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators and, in 1997, was named master of the six-hundred-year-old Guild of Scriveners of the city of London. He is the author of The Story of Writing and The Calligrapher's Art. Jackson and his wife, Mabel, live and work in the Hendre, a converted town hall and outbuildings in Monmouth, Wales.
https://saintjohnsbible.org/
Hebrew Calligrapher:
Born in Brooklyn and now living in Israel, Izzy Pludwinski has worked as a professional calligrapher for over forty years, teaching the subject in both England and Israel and Jerusalem and holding one-man shows of his work in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, London, and Tokyo. He has worked on a number of prestigious calligraphic projects including work for the US and Israeli governments and is the designer of a number of Hebrew fonts.
http://www.impwriter.com
About the Music #1:
“In The Garden” from the album Softly and Tenderly
About the Composer #1:
“In the Garden" (sometimes referred to by its first line, "I Come to the Garden Alone") is a gospel song written by American songwriter C. Austin Miles (1868–1946), a former pharmacist who served as editor and manager at Hall-Mack publishers for thirty-seven years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Garden_(1912_song)#:~:text=According%20to%20Miles'%20great%2Dgranddaughter,of%20the%20early%20twentieth%20century
Lyrics #1:
I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
He speaks, and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing;
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
About the Performer #1:
Cynthia Clawson (b. 1948), referred to as the “singer’s singer” and called "the most awesome voice in gospel music" by Billboard Magazine, has received a Grammy and five Dove awards for her work as a songwriter, vocal artist, and musician. Her career has spanned over four decades, with twenty-two albums released since 1974. Clawson has performed in many prestigious venues and with preeminent groups, and her work has been featured in a number of films, including A Trip To Bountiful. Cynthia currently resides in Houston, Texas, and is married to lyricist, poet, and playwright Ragan Courtney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Clawson
https://www.cynthiaclawson.com/
About the Music #2:
“The Garden” from the album Alive Again
Lyrics #2:
In the cool of the day,
You come and meet me.
All the blue fades away
The stars are winking.
Your love's so strong,
I can't recall.
What was this thing
They called the fall?
And You walk with me.
You never leave
You're making my heart a garden.
Oh, why would I hide,
Away from Your face.
When the light of Your love
Illuminates?
Your hand in mine,
A steady line.
Drawn on my heart
And deep in my mind.
And You walk with me.
You never leave.
You're making my heart a garden.
All the broken are mending.
The mournful rejoicing.
Seeing through tears,
Of peace overflowing.
And You walk with me.
You never leave.
You're making my heart a garden.
Yeah, You walk with me.
You never leave.
You're making our world a garden.
About the Composers #2: Audrey Assad and Matt Maher
Audrey Assad (b. 1983) is the daughter of a Syrian refugee, an author, speaker, producer, and critically lauded singer-songwriter and musician. She creates music she calls “soundtracks of prayer” on the label Fortunate Fall Records, which she co-owns with her husband. Assad is also one half of the pop band LEVV, whose debut EP peaked at number seventeen on the iTunes alternative chart. In 2014, Assad released an EP, Death, Be Not Proud, which reflected on her recent encounters with loss and suffering—including her husband’s journey through cancer and chemotherapy. In 2018, after several years of personal pain and trials, Assad recorded the album Evergreen, which stemmed from a season of renewed creativity. The album celebrates, with new songs of rebirth and identity, the rebuilding of trust, and discovery of joy and love.
http://www.audreyassad.com/
About the Composer/Performer #2:
Matt Maher (b. 1974) is a Canadian contemporary Christian music artist, songwriter, and worship leader who currently lives in the United States. He has written and produced nine solo albums to date. Three of his albums have reached the Top 25 Christian Albums Billboard chart and four of his singles have reached the Top 25 Christian Songs chart. Maher has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards in his career and was awarded the Songwriter of the Year at the 2015 GMA Dove Awards. Maher’s parents recognized his musical talent, and he grew up immersing himself in a broad variety of music, including playing in concert and jazz ensembles, singing in a choir, and playing in a garage rock band. Maher started his postsecondary studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland and continued his studies in the jazz department at Arizona State University. Maher currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
www.mattmahermusic.com
About the Poetry & Poet:
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) was an English poet, playwright, critic, and librettist who exerted a major influence on the poetry of the twentieth century. Well-known for his extraordinary intellect and wit, his first book, Poems, was published in 1930 with the help of writer T. S. Eliot. Just before WWII, Auden emigrated to the United States. Auden won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for The Age of Anxiety. Much of his poetry is concerned with moral issues and evidences a strong political, social, and psychological context. Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks. Today, he is considered one of the most skilled and creative mid-twentieth-century poets who regularly wrote in traditional rhyme and meter.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden
About the Devotion Author:
Stacie Poston
Adjunct Instructor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Stacie Poston completed her graduate studies in biology, focusing on cell and molecular biology and immunology, before taking time to raise her family of four kids with her husband. She enjoys stepping onto Biola's campus to discuss great books and loves to see how God's hand is evident in all the big and small parts of life.