April 25: Traveling Light
♫ Music:
Thursday, April 25
Our Citizenship is in Heaven
Scriptures: Philippians 3:12-17, 20-21
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
Poetry:
In the Ghost-House Acquainted
by Kevin Goodan
I close the simple flowers
and bid the moon now rise
for Death is not my harbor.
And I walk among derelict combines
that they might know
and come unafraid.
In mulberry small birds sleep.
Hornets enter one by one the districts
of their hidden city.
A fence dissolves. Reappears.
Oaks lean into the darkness,
into the light
bedded in a ditch.
That the chorus preserve us
as frost presses down
with equal weight and tenor.
That shadows breathe of their own
existence. That this heart
not fail. And these hands.
And those hands. That the moon move
and the earth move
as it was in the beginning.
I remember the alfalfa
and stacks of hewn wood—
as I remember that world
pouring into this.
TRAVELING LIGHT
The painting Piotr Jarosz, by William Kurelek, might have also been called Traveling Light. According to Michael D. O’Brien, “On the narrative level [the painting] is a story…of the life of an early Polish settler who regularly walked eighty-five miles to and from Edmonton where he worked as a labourer to finance his homestead.” The painting emphasizes the magnitude of such a journey in different ways. We perceive a solitary traveler as from a significant height and distance while his path leads toward a destination so remote the road vanishes altogether into the horizon already heavy with storms. Yet he seems resigned to the reality of his journey: distance and difficulty have been anticipated with the selection of comfortable clothing and a small knapsack thrown across the shoulder. The short shadow suggests several miles have already passed by this point in mid-afternoon, but he has not quit the road for lunch or a nap. We see him as a bird might—or perhaps from the rearguard of God.
On first inspection the landscape seems bleak. To the right of the road lies a field recently razed of brush and gathered into piles for burning. To the left a field lies bare and furrowed next to an irrigation pond. The field may yet yield further harvest, but such a season and labor hold no interest for the traveler. Yet what initially appears forbidding and barren might also be seen as blessing. What lies in desolation is distraction—those things that might, in different seasons, have induced Jarosz to turn aside. This is not Bunyan’s vision of the treacherous journey to Celestial City where Christian must beware the demonic wiles and carnal delights of Vanity Fair. Kurelek portrays Piotr’s odyssey as one in which nothing competes for his attention. It is the same blessed singularity that Paul enjoins in his vision of his heavenly citizenship. “But one thing I do,” he writes, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” To forget our old burdens—not merely to cast them aside—stands as the final and sweetest testament to liberty; that our hearts as well as our hands should be free.
Kevin Goodan’s poem offers similar perceptual transformations that gesture toward the possibility of resurrection. Amid a landscape evocative of Kurelek’s painting, the poem’s speaker announces matter-of-factly: “Death is not my harbor.” Death’s dismissal anticipates the dissolution of other borders once considered dangerous or absolute. Consider, for example: “Hornets enter one by one the districts / of their hidden city.” The intimacy of this observation bristles with a danger that the reader’s imagination must overcome. We are urged to approach close enough to see order and even beauty where, perhaps, we have come to expect buzzing chaos and stings. We persevere beyond the boundary of peril to discover delight and surprise on the other side. The poem immediately reasserts this possibility: “A fence dissolves. Reappears / Oaks lean into the darkness, / into the light.” The fence’s reduction to something like a mirage renders its border open with the same ease that the oak inhabits both light and shadow. These changes come with the regularity of the day’s cycle. What once seemed forbidden lies open and waiting for our passage.
The movement from Lent into Easter invites me to embrace similar paradigmatic shifts in my relationship with God, my neighbors, and the world. Quickened by the Spirit, I reevaluate old attachments, habits, and attitudes. What was previously permissible or harmless is revealed as ugly, burdensome, or sinful. This is the work of the Spirit that Paul indicates when he writes: “if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” But these revelations occur precisely so that I may repent and cast aside those things that prevent my perfection in Christ. Like the piles of brush in Kurelek’s painting, they are meant to be cast aside and forgotten that I may, with all speed, respond to the upward call of God.
Prayer:
O God our King,
By the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ, you conquered sin, put death to flight, and gave us the hope of everlasting life. Redeem all our days by this victory; forgive our sins, banish our fears, make us bold to praise you and to do your will. Steel us as we wait for the consummation of your kingdom on the last great Day, giving us grace and strength to press on in the hope of our heavenly citizenship; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Dr. Phillip Aijian
Adjunct Professor
Torrey Honors Institute
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:
Piotr Jarosz, 1977
William Kurelek
Mixed media on Masonite
60.7 x 121.5 cm
Art Gallery of Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
About The Artist:
William Kurelek (1927-1977) was a Canadian artist and writer. His work was influenced by his childhood on the prairies, his Ukrainian-Canadian roots, his struggles with mental illness, and his conversion to Roman Catholicism. In 1946 Kurelek began attending the University of Manitoba. In Spring 1952, Kurelek was formally admitted for psychiatric treatment at London’s Maudsley Hospital, an internationally renowned institution that treated many Second World War veterans suffering from what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Professionals at Maudsley encouraged Kurelek to continue painting, which led to his recovery. After his release, he left England for a three-week tour of the major art collections in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Austria, where he viewed works by Northern Renaissance artists Bruegel, Bosch, and Jan van Eyck. Kurelek’s early career was defined by the search for both religious and artistic identity. Throughout the 1950s, he created emotionally charged paintings that drew on art historical references. Many were painted as a form of therapy while Kurelek was seeking psychological treatment in England. In 1957, Kurelek converted to Roman Catholicism which he credits with helping him deal with his mental illness.
About the Music:
“The Big Reel of Ballynacally / The High Hill / Flash Away the Pressing Gang” from the album Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers
About the Composer
Traditional Irish
About the Performers:
Hailed as perhaps the finest Irish traditional band extant, American-based Solas is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan (b. 1969). Born in Pennsylvania, Egan moved to Ireland with his family when he was three years of age and a few years later he began taking lessons on the tin whistle. At age 14, Egan returned to the United States and already displayed talent on the whistle, flute, banjo, mandolin, and guitar. He cut his first album by age 16 and early on toured with Peter, Paul & Mary and Ralph Stanley. Solas began to take shape when Egan joined forces with fiddler Winifred Horan (an All-Ireland champion on her instrument and a prize-winning Irish step dancer) and gifted guitarist John Doyle. Naming themselves Solas - which is Celtic for “light” - the band soon found themselves a major draw at folk clubs after appearances on the popular public radio shows such as A Prairie Home Companion and Mountain Stage. Though some of the members have changed through the years, Egan and Horan remain the pillars and are currently joined by accordionist Mick McAuley, guitarist Éamon McElholm, and vocalist Moira Smiley.
About the Poet:
Kevin Goodan (b. 1969) was born in Montana and raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation where his stepfather and brothers are tribal members. Goodan earned his BA from the University of Montana and worked as a firefighter for ten years with the U.S. Forest Service before receiving his MFA from University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2004. Goodan’s first collection of poetry, In the Ghost-House Acquainted (2004), won The L.L. Winship/ PEN New England Award in 2005. In an interview with Goodan for Astrophil Press, poet Gregory Lawless noted the “breathtaking moments of solitude” of Goodan’s style, which “exhibits both pastoral eloquence and psychological intensity.” Goodan’s poems have been published in various journals, including Ploughshares, the Colorado Review, and The Mid-America Poetry Review. His second collection, Winter Tenor, was published in 2009. Goodan has taught at the University of Connecticut and has served as Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University. He currently teaches at Lewis-Clark State College and resides in Idaho.
About the Devotional Writer:
Dr. Phillip Aijian
Adjunct Professor
Torrey Honors Institute
Biola University
Phillip Aijian holds a PhD in Renaissance drama and theology from UC Irvine. He teaches literature and religious studies and has published in journals like ZYZZYVA, Heron Tree, Poor Yorick, and Zocalo Public Square. He teaches literature and religious studies.