March 10: True Humility
♫ Music:
Day 14 - Tuesday, March 10
Rung #8: ON FREEDOM FROM ANGER
Scriptures: James 1:19-21; Mathew 5:5
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. Blessed [inwardly peaceful, spiritually secure, worthy of respect] are the gentle [the kind-hearted, the sweet-spirited, the self-controlled], for they will inherit the earth.
Poetry:
Growing Apples
by Nancy Miller Gomez
There is big excitement in C block today.
On the window sill,
in a plastic ice cream cup
a little plant is growing.
This is all the men want to talk about:
how an apple seed germinated
in a crack of damp concrete;
how they tore open tea bags
to collect the leaves, leached them
in water, then laid the sprout onto the bed
made of Lipton. How this finger of spring
dug one delicate root down
into the dark fannings and now
two small sleeves of green
are pushing out from the emerging tip.
The men are tipsy with this miracle.
Each morning, one by one,
they go to the window and check
the progress of the struggling plant.
All through the day they return
to stand over the seedling
and whisper.
TRUE HUMILITY
I think of myself as a kind person. I care about people. I have empathy for people. I do not get angry easily, nor do I feel like I hold anger against others. Unless...unless that person is me. Me. I get angry at myself. I tell myself that I should have met this expectation or kept working on that task for a longer period of time, or been better at this, or should have done _____________ differently than what I actually did. That was so stupid. You always make that mistake. You will never be good at this. I am quick to speak when it comes to that voice in my head being critical of myself. But James says that “everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20). This holding myself to such high expectations and then being angry at myself and beating myself up in my thinking when I do not meet these expectations is “not achieving the righteousness of God.”
In the sermon this morning at church, Pastor Rick Warren talked about how God does His deepest work in how we see ourselves. Am I finding my identity and strength in Christ? Or, am I holding tightly to my own strength? Do I believe God loves me unconditionally and delights in me as His daughter? Or do I believe that I need to earn His love?
The second part of today’s scripture reads: “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. Blessed are the gentle, for they will inherit the earth” (James 1:21; Matthew 5:5). In the New Living Translation, this passage reads: “humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls.” What does it mean to humbly accept? When friends or family members speak words of affirmation to me, I have the tendency to shrug it off, or to respond with comments of self-doubt or self-criticalness (which I see is related to my propensity to get angry at myself when I fall short). But how would my experience be different if I received those comments with humility? If I received them with kindness toward myself like soil receives a seed planted? Like the apple seed that germinates and is fortified through the tea leaves in Nancy Miller Gomez’s poem, Growing Apples, so God’s Word becomes more and more at home in our hearts when we humbly accept the message God has planted. And evidence of that growth bears witness to Him. Humbly accepting the identity I have in Christ will achieve the righteousness of God.
The longing for something that will never be reached is at the heart of Michelle Westmark-Wingard’s work, Belgium-Minnesota (for Henry). For this particular work, Westmark travelled to Belgium and took photographs of the field where it is believed that her grandfather crashed in a plane during World War II. The artwork is simultaneously a photographic work and a time-based installation in which a printed horizon selected from her photographs (from the field in Belgium) is installed on a windowpane covering the real life horizon as seen through a window in Minnesota. The result is light emitted from a real horizon, transmitted through an imposed horizon, and reflected into a room creating an ever-shifting horizon. In her artist statement, Westmark-Wingard explains that the more she has researched and learned of the circumstances surrounding the plane crash that her grandfather survived, the more the factual truth of the story has become unattainable. The horizon then becomes this longing for that which is just out of grasp.
Christ is not unattainable. The horizon is where heaven and earth meet, and in Jesus we have Heaven and Earth. Many times I have stood on a hill and gazed out to where the land meets the sky. Is not our longing for the horizon our longing for Christ? Is not our attraction to new birth indication of our longing for our Creator who makes all things new? In letting go of my anger, I can humbly accept my identity in Christ and experience God’s plan that is overflowing with abundance. Then, like in Michelle Westmark-Wingard’s work, I can shift my gaze and see the beauty of the light. Jesus Son of God Shine Your Light on Us (Oh Mercy by Stu Gerard, Matt Maher, and Audrey Assad). Shine Your Light that it might transmit through these physical bodies that we inhabit--under my skin, your Spirit within--and reflect Your Truth.
Prayer:
Oh Mercy, Jesus Son of God.
There’s a wall inside my heart. I can’t get around it.
It keeps the two of us apart. I can’t get over it.
But under my skin is where you begin.
Your kindness leads me now.
O Mercy, Shine your Light on us.
Have mercy on me, a sinner.
(from Oh Mercy by Stu Gerard, Matt Maher, and Audrey Assad and Luke 18:13).
Kari Dunham
Adjunct Professor of Art
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, poetry, and devotional writer selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
To learn more about the themes of this year’s Lent Project, please go to:
https://ccca.biola.edu/lent/2020/#day-feb-25
About the Art:
Belgium-Minnesota (For Henry)
Michelle Westmark-Wingard
2017
Still frame from time-lapse video
See full video here: https://vimeo.com/214764235
This work exists as both an installation and a time-lapse video. The artist extracted horizon lines from her photographs of Belgian landscapes and installed them over the existing horizon line, making 4-hour time-lapse videos as the light changes. In researching the story of her grandfather’s plane crash during WWII, Michelle found that each account of the story was different. Each story was shaped by individual perspective and the passage of time. Belgium-Minnesota began as an investigation of some of the wartime ephemera that were among her grandfather’s possessions. In 2016 she made a trip to the Belgian crash site and met with the town historian. The more she learned about her grandfather’s story, the more subjective it became in an effort to visually explore this idea, this evolving project explores landscapes and objects that bear a history that can no longer be physically seen or concretely known.
She recounts that, “On February 20, 1945, my grandfather’s plane – a B-24 called The Pale Ale - crashed in a farmer’s field near Dergneau, Belgium. Most of the crew was able to escape before the plane crashed with the exception of the pilot, nose gunner, and the navigator who perished in the crash explosion. My grandfather was the last to bail out a few miles from the crash site. As luck would have it on this already ill-fated day, my grandfather’s parachute opened in time to save his life but not in time to save his leg. His leg was so badly broken that he found himself in a farmer’s field unable to move in Nazi occupied Belgium. Thankfully, a farmer - risking his own life - came out with a wheelbarrow and carried my grandfather back to his farmhouse (a location and an identity still unknown). My grandfather was taken to a hospital where he would fully recover, return home and start his family. We know that my grandfather did not land with the plane because he survived. While in Belgium, I photographed fields within a 5-mile radius of the crash site - places he could have landed – and farmhouses where the kind farmer who saved his life might have lived. I’ve been extracting horizon lines from my photographs of Belgian fields, printing them on repositionable vinyl, installing them on windows over the existing horizon line. The horizon as a representation of this story - is a place that can never be reached and an optical illusion of something that is concrete only from a distance.“
About the Artist:
Michelle Westmark-Wingard is a curator, installation-based photographer, and arts educator. She is Professor of Art and the Gallery Director of Bethel University’s two exhibition spaces. In her fourteen years of programming exhibitions, Westmark-Wingard has worked with many nationally and internationally known artists in a diverse range of media. Her photographic and curatorial projects often seek to create experiential and participatory opportunities exploring themes of memory, memorial, perception, and interconnection. Previously, she was Assistant to the Gallery Director in Pratt Institute’s Department of Exhibitions, and she had the opportunity to work with Creative Time and A.I.R. Gallery. Westmark-Wingard holds an MFA in photography from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (2006). She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband and three daughters.
michellewingard.com
About the Music:
“Oh Mercy” from the album Beatitudes
The Lyrics:
There's a wall inside my heart
Can't get around it
Keeps the two of us apart
Can't get over it
But under my skin is where you begin
And your kindness leads me now
Oh mercy, Jesus Son of God
Oh mercy, shine your light on us
When you took your broken heart
And fed the world with it
You gave us all a brand new start
I can't get over it
And under my skin, forgiveness sets in
And your kindness leads me now
Oh mercy, Jesus Son of God
Oh mercy, shine your light on us
And under my skin your spirit within
Is leading me home
Oh mercy, Jesus Son of God
Oh mercy, shine your light on us
About the Composers/Lyricists:
Stu Garrard, Matt Maher and Ian Cron
Ian Morgan Cron is a bestselling author, nationally recognized speaker, Enneagram teacher, psychotherapist, Dove award-winning songwriter, and Episcopal priest. Cron draws on an array of disciplines from psychology to the arts, Christian spirituality and theology to help people enter more deeply into conversation with God and the mystery of their own lives. Cron has presented at conferences, churches, seminaries, retreats, and universities around the world. He has spoken at Willow Creek, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, Denver Seminary, the International Arts Movement Encounter, Belmont University, Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, The Storyline Conference, and alongside Amy Grant at An Evening of Stories at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Cron holds a BA from Bowdoin College, an MA in Counseling from Denver Seminary, an MDiv from New York Theological Seminary, and is currently completing his doctorate in Christian Spirituality at Fordham University in New York.
https://www.theroadbacktoyou.com/ian-morgan-cron
About the Performers:
Stu Garrard, Matt Maher, and Audrey Assad
Stu Garrard is a guitarist, songwriter, producer, and soon-to-be author. Stu is best known as the guitarist for the British band Delirious? who, for nearly two decades, penned many of the best known worship songs in modern Christendom. He was also a member of the distinguished CompassionArt songwriters collective, which also boasted heavy-hitters such as Paul Baloche, Darlene Zschech, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Israel Houghton. Garrard is currently a member of One Sonic Society, with Jason Ingram and Paul Mabury. When not touring with Michael W. Smith, Garrard is writing, recording, speaking, and leading worship. Garrard lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife Karen, and is writing his first book. He relates that, “People are my energy and inspiration. It’s in people that I see why creation was such a good idea.”
http://www.stugworld.com/about
Matthew Maher (b.1974) is a Canadian contemporary Christian music artist, songwriter, and worship leader from Newfoundland, Canada, 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 for an artist, at the 2015 GMA Dove Awards. In early 2011 he toured the United States on the Rock And Worship Roadshow headlined by MercyMe. Maher performed "Lord, I Need You" before a crowd of nearly four million, including Pope Francis, for World Youth Day 2013 in Rio, Brazil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Maher
https://www.mattmahermusic.com/
Audrey Assad (b.1983) is the daughter of a Syrian refugee, an author, speaker, producer, and critically lauded 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 #17 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 stems from a season of renewed creativity. The album celebrates with new songs of rebirth, identity, the rebuilding of trust, and discovery of joy and love.
http://www.audreyassad.com/
About the Poet:
Nancy Miller Gomez is an American poet. She has a Masters in Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University in Oregon. Her work has appeared in River Styx, Rattle, The Bellingham Review, Nimrod and elsewhere. A failed waitress, she has also worked as a stable hand, an attorney, and a television producer. She currently volunteers as the Director of the Santa Cruz Poetry Project, an organization that provides poetry and writing workshops to incarcerated men and women.
https://www.nancymillergomez.com/
About the Devotion Writer:
Kari Dunham
Adjunct Professor of Art
Biola University
Kari Dunham is an adjunct art professor at Biola University, Concordia University in Irvine, and Irvine Valley College. Dunham earned her MFA in Painting from Laguna College of Art + Design. Through her practice of painting ordinary inanimate objects, she gives voice to the quiet corners and objects of the home, describing the “thingness” that is these objects and how they embody human presence and absence. Kari has also written for SEEN, the semiannual publication of CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts).