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Rose Chapel

rosechapelcompL1.jpg

At four o’clock on a rainy afternoon, the interior of the Rose Chapel was nearly dark. A few candles, and of course the sanctuary lamp, burned though and gave me all the light I needed to know that I was home. The moment was epiphanic, and I was filled with memory and love and confidence in a Ground of Being.

The emotion and spirit of the moment caused me to raise my camera with some hope that I might bring a few images away with me. That would have been enough. To look at an image and remember the moment. But now I find that the image holds more than the memory of a moment.

It’s been two years since that trip to Rose Chapel. But in the way I choose one paint over another, one medium or tool over others, I chose this photograph tonight. With it, I chose another. Nothing complicated. Rather mundane really, the photograph of a rose; thus ensuing a fairly elementary play on words—Rose Chapel/rugosa rose.

As a photographer and as an artist, I worked with these two images to bring one more into life. Color and line and form were my guides—most visible guides. I had no theological agenda. Determined by some amount of time "looking," it was finished.

Then, I listened. I listened to the conversation between the work of my hands and the work of my heart. There I found a theological pause. A moment, when I saw my fragile understanding of the Ground of Being grow not because of searching, but because of working.

Working in the ordinary way of art.

Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 at 09:48PM by Registered CommenterC. Robin Janning, ECVA Dep. Dir. Comm. | Comments1 Comment

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