The Chalice
This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to spend time in the National Gallery of Art. Harry and I had been there briefly some months before but we hadn’t had ample time to fully contemplate the beauty of some of the grand masterpieces housed there. We were both hoping to have a more spiritual experience as we prayerfully sat with some of the more religious pieces that told our Christian story and contemplate their meaning. This would require moving at a slow and deliberate pace, even sitting for some time in one place rather than hurrying through the entire exhibit.
The day didn’t disappoint as we gazed at gigantic landscapes brimming with detail from every vantage point, close up and far away. We were captivated by the blue hues of Picasso’s the tragedy and caught up in the mystery of the painful and eerie scene along the shore of a sea. We noticed the way Jesus changed in each depiction throughout history from a humble man to a strong angelic warrior. We wondered about Mary and what each painting had to say about her over the centuries.
But the most intriguing of all unexpectedly caught the corner of my eye as I hurried through the part of the museum that housed the sculptures. I had not planned on being drawn to those items and so… even though I said I wouldn’t hurry, I tried to hurry by assuming that somehow I knew the experience that God was planning for me and that it wasn’t going to happen in the sculpture section. Read more