March 23: At Home with the Lord
♫ Music:
Saturday, March 23
At Home with the Lord
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:6-8
So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, [but] we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Poetry:
The Snow Storm
by Marie Howe
I walked down towards the river, and the deer had left tracks
deep as half my arm, that ended in a perfect hoof
and the shump shump sound my boots made walking made the silence loud.
And when I turned back towards the great house
I walked beside the deer tracks again.
And when I came near the feeder, little tracks of the birds on the surface
of the snow I’d broken through.
Put your finger here, and see my hands, then bring your hand and put it in my side.
I put my hand down into the deer track
and touched the bottom of an invisible hoof.
Then my finger in the little mark of the jay.
AT HOME WITH THE LORD
In Anthony Gormley’s interactive exhibit Walking Blind Light, guests enter and explore a room-sized clear box of mist. There is so much mist that no one can see very well; the bodies of roaming attendees become indistinguishable shapes. In a video recording of the exhibition a voice of an out of view visitor begins to talk, his voice unsteady and full of humor: “Not knowing where you’re going,” he says, chuckling. “Not knowing what the rules are.” His thoughts are fragmented, forming in real time through direct observation. “You lose yourself on purpose innit?” the voice says finally, before going silent and disappearing, with everything else into the cloudy, otherworldly sphere.
Many of the participants in Gormley’s exhibition begin laughing and dancing as they walk through the murky light, perhaps enchanted by the freedom of no longer being led by sight—no longer identifiable by their physical bodies. Adjacently, in faith we long to lose ourselves and our own understanding to find our true identity in the Lord—a journey full of joy, and heartache.
For in walking by faith we learn to be dependent upon God, who does not always lead us by the more obvious paths of the world. Instead the journey of being led by the Holy Spirit includes going to dark places, both within ourselves and the world, to bring light. Requiring the good courage mentioned in Corinthians in order to continue, to remember that the most meaningful home we have now is the one He is creating through us; His holiness overflowing within the broken vessels of ourselves and bringing them to life.
This continual reformation involves longing and pause. As Masayoshi Fujita’s song “Cloud of Light” is full of silence, delicately withdrawing from sound for long moments of time to allow appreciation for the coming melody with greater fullness. In many ways mirroring the journey of the traveller following Christ: tasting our home in heaven whilst dwelling here on earth.
For as we see parts of God and his kingdom from this vantage point “we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,” Paul writes (2 Corinthians 5:2). We see the indications of heaven, and yet do not have heaven in the fullness of itself. In Marie Howe’s poem we look at animal tracks in the snow without being able to see the deer and other animals in their flesh. The only indication the narrator of the poem has of their existence are these tracks they’ve left, which she chooses to touch as a way of reaching them. Putting her arm into the deep indentations of the deer, “the bottom of an invisible hoof,” her finger grazing “in the little mark of the jay.”
Our home with the Lord on earth is found in these places, tantalizingly close and brief revelations compared to the breadth of His beauty and glory—still too wonderful and unfathomable for us to comprehend.
Prayer:
Father, bring us into greater communion with the Holy Spirit, lead us with your love into the places where you want to bring your light through us. We adore you Father—continue to redeem us, continue to reveal to us the fullness of who you are, the fullness of the goodness of Christ. Give us good courage to walk toward what you have for us here whilst we long for more of you.
Amen
Miriam Weaver
Writer
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:
Walking Blind Installation, 2007
Sir Antony Mark David Gormley
Installed at the Hayward Gallery
London, England
Blind Light is a work that is about “not seeing.“ It consists of a large semi-transparent glass chamber lit by fluorescent light and filled with thick clouds of steam. The visitor enters the chamber and is instantly enveloped in soft, grey fog so thick that visibility is limited to less than two feet. When viewed from the outside, the observer can see hands and sometimes parts of bodies pressed against the glass walls. Artist Antony Gormley says, “Architecture is supposed to be the location of security and certainty about where you are. It is supposed to protect you from the weather, from darkness, from uncertainty. Blind Light undermines all of that. You enter this interior space that is the equivalent of being on top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea. It is very important for me that inside it you find the outside. Also, you become the immersed figure in an endless ground, literally the subject of the work.” About 208,000 people experienced the installation, making it the most visited exhibition of a living artist in the history of the Hayward Gallery.
About The Artist:
Sir Antony Mark David Gormley (b. 1950) is a British sculptor and installation artist who has become one of the most significant artists of this time. His work is included in major public collections worldwide including The Tate Gallery, London; The Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; The Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Gormley describes his work as "an attempt to materialize the place at the other side of appearance where we all live." Many of his works are based on casts taken from his own body, which he says is "the closest experience of matter that I will ever have and the only part of the material world that I live inside." His work attempts to treat the body not as an object but as a place and, in making works that enclose the space of a particular body, to identify a condition common to all human beings. Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994 with the installation of Field for the British Isles. Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003 and was a Trustee of the British Museum from 2007 to 2015. Gormley was knighted in the 2014 New Year Honors for services to the arts.
About the Music:
"Cloud of Light” from the album Erased Tapes Collection IX
About the Composer and Performer:
Masayoshi Fujita is a Berlin-based Japanese vibraphone player who in 2012 came to the attention of Erased Tapes, a London-based independent record label focusing on avant-garde and experimental electronic music. After mastering the drums, Fujita started incorporating the vibraphone to craft distinctive jazz and electronic-infused compositions. In search of unique musical possibilities, Masayoshi started to alter his instrument with pieces of metal, strips of foil, and other objects. The resulting new sounds have helped to expand the vibraphone spectrum without eroding the instrument’s intrinsic character. Apologues, his Erased Tapes debut in 2015, saw Masayoshi introduce an array of instruments besides his lead instrument including the violin, cello, flute, clarinet, French horn, accordion, piano, and snare drum, all played by friends. Masayoshi continues to bring his unique multi-layered vibraphone style with his new album, Book of Life, released in 2018.
About the Poet:
Marie Howe (b. 1950) is an American poet who was named the 2012 State Poet for New York. Howe did not devote serious attention to writing poetry until she turned 30 when she was accepted at Columbia University, where she received her MFA. She is presently on the writing faculty at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and New York University. After Howe's brother died of an AIDS-related illness, she co-edited a collection of essays, letters, and stories entitled In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic that sought to foster open dialogue about the plight of AIDS in the United States. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, Agni, Ploughshares, and The Harvard Review. Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
About the Devotional Writer:
Miriam Weaver
Writer
Miriam Weaver studied English literature at Simmons College in Boston, MA. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband.