Masha Trebukova: Dead Soldiers of Ukraine

Honoring the Fallen

In old cities there are always hidden places full of history. One such place is the abandoned coach house behind the Art Gallery/Shop Droom & Daad [Dream & Deed] in Deventer, the Netherlands. The story is told that it used to belong to the parents of the most important Dutch composer of the Golden Age, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Most probably he himself was born in ‘Huis De Reiger’ in 1562, where the art gallery is established.

You walk through the shop and the garden, you enter the fading building and you find yourself in a different world. The old coach house was boarded shut for decades. Last year Peter-Frans de Graaf, artist and owner of the shop, opened it up to make it accessible for the project of the Art Stations of the Cross. It was completely filled with dried-up roots of plants that had long since died (see the right corner in the photo above).

Together with the installation Dead Soldiers of Ukraine by Masha Trebukova, this space forms Station 7 (Jesus falls a second time) of the current Art Stations of the Cross 2020 in Deventer. By means of the 14 Stations of the Cross of Jesus this art route provides a way to focus on the present suffering of our fellow human beings by challenging the viewer artistically, spiritually and socially. At the moment the project is closed because of the corona restrictions. This is why the curators have put together a digital pilgrimage and teaching program for schools, universities, and other interested parties (see further information below).

The (digital) pilgrimage brings you to this decaying space, where all sorts of invisible and hidden stories are whirling about and where the installation of Masha Trebukova blends in naturally yet is conspicuously present. Imagine that you find yourself in this room. What would you be thinking?

In the coach house little papier-maché bowls made of newspaper are placed in white display cases. Each bowl shows the face and dates of birth and death of a recently fallen Ukrainian soldier. These objects may remind the viewer of candleholders. The artist also placed a small wire cage with candlelight in the room. It is as if you are in a memorial space, a kind of mausoleum, but without the physical remains of the deceased. The tenderly and precisely drawn faces are delicately present in this room where time so mercilessly wreaked havoc.

Since the beginning of 2018 the artist has been busy gathering the personal stories of the soldiers and to portray their sacrifice respectfully. These are only a few forgotten faces out of the thousands of mostly young people who fell in a conflict that is dragging on and on in the East of Europe. To render faces and their expressions is an intimate process.

Since April 2014 I have been following the war in the Ukraine closely, also on social media. Over the years and with no end in view it has become a burning issue for me. Some time ago I decided to make this intimate memorial to the fallen Ukrainian soldiers – a personal mourning ritual. Sadly the number of casualties is too great and beyond my capacity to portray, so I could only commemorate a small fraction of the more than 4,000 military victims. This cruel war is practically ignored by the general public, with the exception of an occasional peace talk or an extraordinary event like the impeachment of a president. Masha Trebukova

Visiting the stations can become a kind of a ritual. Respect for sacrifices for a greater cause connects the stations to the struggle against injustice in all ages. In this space, where transience is omnipresent, we try to honor the faded lives of these soldiers. It is a forgotten place, but these human beings are not forgotten. This station is intended to give the viewer an opportunity to stop and ponder the many conflicts of war. Most of them continue, even during the present pandemic.

Suffering has many faces.

***

Masha Trebukova: Dead Soldiers of Ukraine, papier-maché/mixed media, placed in 2018 in the dilapidated former coach house behind the Art Gallery/Shop Droom & Daad in ‘Het Huis De Reiger,’ Stromarkt 9, Deventer, the Netherlands. Photos Geert de Jong.

***

Masha Trebukova was born in Moscow and studied there at the Surikov Art School and Academy (1974-1986), where she followed a classical education. She has been living in Amsterdam since 1991. Her exhibitions are primarily with Kunsthandel M.L. de Boer and Galerie BORZO in Amsterdam. After graduating she specialized in non-figurative art. In her recent projects she makes use of a figurative language once again. More info: www.trebukova.net/

Anikó Ouweneel is a cultural historian and art curator, who organized more than thirty art exhibitions. An expert in the area of (religious) cultural heritage, she specializes in placing modern art in ancient buildings. In 2019 she curated the Art Stations of the Cross in Amsterdam together with Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker. The 2020 version in Deventer she put together with Arent Weevers. More information: www.visiodivina.eu

The curators have designed a digital pilgrimage and teaching program for schools, universities, and other interested parties. Together with an accompanying brochure in pdf-format the package can be obtained for a voluntary contribution. If interested, please contact aniko@websophia.com.

***

Peter Bogers: Roadmovie

An impression of this audiovisual installation (presented on the festival of Clermont in 2016) is to view here.

There are several aspects to driving in a car: the evident noise and upbeat fuss, progress and the need for attention, and at the same time the relaxation and the idea of being on the road and on an adventure. Media artist Peter Bogers drove around in the Auvergne region of France for weeks and made video recordings from his car. The installation consists of three different series of these recordings on three large screens. At the moment they are projected in the vault of the Geert Grootehuis in Deventer (see above), as part of the contemplative art route Art Stations of the Cross, to be visited during Lent until Easter.

This location together with this work of art forms Station Five – Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross – of a modern Stations of the Cross. The Geert Groote House is a museum devoted to Geert Groote, a fourteenth-century thinker who founded the Modern Devotion. This movement promoted personal faith and a simple and devout lifestyle, while opposing the abuse and religious practices of the fourteenth century. Repentance and commitment to the poor belonged together in this movement of renewal, which also emphasized that we should help others to carry their cross. The cellar in the Geert Groote House is arranged as a place of reflection.

Roadmovie pictures two opposing human needs that are both necessary in life: activity and progress on one side and standing still and reflection on the other. The car buzzes through the rolling landscape, up and down the road through villages and seasons. We are used to the routine of sitting in a machine looking at fast-changing scenery. It is pleasant but also restless and somewhat disorienting. This is moreover intensified when you watch the three moving scenes with the accompanying electronic noises. Then they all come to a halt for a whole minute.

The car switches off, electronic noises make place for the silence of nature: the sound of the wind in the trees, of humming insects and singing birds. We halt in front of religious statues: crucifixes, crosses, sculptures of Mary, made of wood, stone or metal. They stand at important beginning- and endpoints of roads and at crossroads.

This results in an immediate reversal in the state of mind of the viewer. The calm noises and the static focus on the statues are peaceful. By bringing us to these images the artist also brings us to the passion with which they were made and the prayers they motivated. This works like a historical sensation. You taste something of the centuries these sculptures have seen. Perhaps you also resonate with the hearts and emotions of the people who passed by. You may feel something of the devotion that helped them in their journeys. You may understand something of the existential power these images represent.

Standing still before these weather-beaten symbols of the Christian faith, they provide a moment of reflection amidst the noise of our existence, a moment of connection to the Invisible. Roadmovie finds a personal way to express the spirituality that originates in the ancient tradition of Christianity. The symbols are still meaningful in 2020, in which we are chased by large quantities of blatant images and news every minute of the day. What do these images mean to our secular society? What do they mean to us?

Then the car starts again and the journey continues. We are back in our comfort zone: the whizzing life of the twenty-first century. But when you keep watching the installation, there are many more resting places to come. Silent witnesses.

***

Peter Bogers: Roadmovie, 2016, audiovisual installation on three screens. On view in Geert Groote Huis, Lamme van Dieseplein 4, Deventer, the Netherlands (until Easter 2020, but please check the up-to-date opening hours in connection with the corona virus).

Peter Bogers (1956) studied at the sculpture department of St. Joost Academy, Breda, the Netherlands. Starting his career as a performance artist, he later devoted himself to video art, video installation and sculpture. He has had solo exhibitions both in the Netherlands (at the Dutch Media Art Institute and the Central Museum Utrecht, among other places) and internationally (including solo shows in Bremen, Marseille, Osnabrück, Pittsburgh and Stuttgart). In Bogers’ work sound and image are equivalent elements which always determine form and content in a dynamic interplay. www.peterbogers.com

Anikó Ouweneel is a cultural historian and art curator. As a cultural heritage expert she focuses on placing modern art in ancient buildings. In 2019 she curated Art Stations of the Cross Amsterdam together with Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker, this year she works on a similar project together with artist Arent Weevers in Deventer. www.visiodivina.eu

***

About Etty Hillesum and the monument ‘An Interrupted Life’

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. Viktor E. Frankl

Every step you take in the picturesque Dutch city of Deventer and every work of art you observe reminds you how vulnerable you are. Injustice, desolation and war are of all times. Suffering is inevitable. Yet there are always people who make an effort to work towards peace, justice and compassion.This Lent the art pilgrimage Art Stations of the Cross takes the visitor to cultural, historical, social and religious organizations and locations that formed and form the city of Deventer. A traditional station of the cross is represented in a new way at every stop by the interaction of the work of art with the locations where passion, enthusiasm and commitment to each other are visible in the local community. The route relates to the immaterial religious heritage of walking the stations during Lent. The artworks relate to universal themes that characterize the stations and refer to the past and present of the city. In 2020 the Netherlands celebrate the 75th anniversary of its liberation from Nazi occupation. This dark period in the city’s history is commemorated at the monument pictured above, but also at station 8 (the East-Indies monument) and 12 (Etty Hillesum Center).

The first station of this contemplative route is a new video installation, which was discussed earlier here. For the second station – Jesus takes up his cross – the pilgrim stops at the sculpture shown in the image above. Dutch visual artist and poet Arno Kramer created the monument An Interrupted Life in 1985. It commemorates the victims of World War II, while at the same time warning against contemporary forms of discrimination and violence. It is a large upward slanting stone broken in the middle. The way it is cut in two, the interruption, suggests the idea of a lightning strike. Despite the fact that a substantial part of the stone is broken off, symbolizing futures not lived, the original piece ends in a peak aiming upwards. There is a quote from the diary of Etty Hillesum (titled An Interrupted Life) chiseled in the stone: “One would like to be a band-aid on many wounds.” The text refers to her selfless efforts to serve the people in concentration camps.

Etty Hillesum, born in a secular Jewish family, spent most of her childhood in Deventer. As a student she lived in Amsterdam. In 1942 (at the age of 27) she began to write a diary. Her charismatic therapist whom she fell in love with, Julius Spier, encouraged her to do so. The intensification of the persecution of Jews and her devotion to the therapist made her open to spirituality. Julius read the Bible and prayed daily. Inspired by him, Etty developed her own faith, free from either Jewish or Christian dogmas. She matured in her own lifestyle which she captured in her diary: an authentic dialogue with the Creator God. She wanted to become a home for the vulnerable God and to be at home with the powerful loving God, in whom she met the indestructible force of love. This enabled her to transcend difficult circumstances and give her life to the service of others, the Other. At the age of 28, a year before she died, she wrote in her diary: “Suffering is not beneath human dignity.” Repeatedly, she had the chance to go into hiding and escape the death camps, but she decided not to do so.

She found that the meaning of her life was to serve at whatever cost, to ease suffering wherever possible, to love, to do good, and not to answer hatred with hatred. This is a similar attitude to life as that of psychiatrist and Nazi death camp survivor Viktor Frankl, who concludes in his book Man’s Search for Meaning: “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Etty had a so-called ‘proof of exception’ that allowed her to travel. Yet she decided to go back to camp Westerbork to be with her family and fellow sufferers. Later she was deported to Auschwitz. She threw a hastily written message from the window of the railway carriage. A farmer found the card and posted it. This is what she wrote:

Opening the Bible at random I find this: ‘The Lord is my high tower.’ I sit in the middle of a full carriage on my rucksack. Father, mother and Mischa are a few carriages away. The departure was still quite unexpected. A sudden order for us especially from The Hague. We left the camp singing.

She was murdered in Auschwitz on 30 November 1943. She was 29 years old.

***

Arno Kramer: An Interrupted Life – in Memory of Etty Hillesum, 1985, monument in Deventer, the Netherlands.

Arno Kramer (b. 1945) is a Dutch painter, sculptor, graphic artist, curator and poet. He is especially known for his drawings. He is recognized as an advocate of draughtsmanship in the Netherlands.

Anikó Ouweneel is a cultural historian and art curator. As a cultural heritage expert she focuses on placing modern art in ancient buildings. In 2019 she curated Art Stations of the Cross Amsterdam together with Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker, this year she works on the same project together with artist Arent Weevers in Deventer.

***

Arent Weevers: Triptych

(a preview of the video loop is to be seen here, the whole installation is now in Barcelona)

Alive

by Anikó Ouweneel

Weightlessly floating in space surrounded by hollow darkness. The conscious knowledge that your soul is innocent and vulnerable, longing for contact but alone and forgotten, is an evocative universal fear. These are my associations while watching the first seconds of Arent Weevers’ video installation Triptych. He elaborates further on this chilling image and creates an enigmatic story in his own tranquil manner.

The installation is set up as an altar piece, recognizable in the Christian visual tradition around the globe. We face three screens, each of them showing a different naked baby boy. Moving in slow motion at least one of them seems to try to relate, to reach out to the others.

The cosmic scene is carried by a soothing breath, a life-giving song of an invisible mother, who is omnipresent through her voice. As if we can hear the soundless harmony of the spheres. It resonates with a timeless human yearning, strangely ancient and modern at the same time. It contains an enchanting, occasionally rather alienating echo as well as the sound of instruments. The melody is sometimes painful and distant, sometimes playful and embracing, yet always comforting as it signifies that they are not alone. It could be the sound of an angel or the Creator himself, humming lovingly, touching the soul, watching, caring and nourishing as close as can be. From heart to heart.

The music with its repetitions and slight shifts has a wondrous connection to the movements of the infants. As if the mother sings the babies alive, sustains them with a new lively intensity every time the cyclical repetition with slight differences commences. They seem to respond to her and she responds to their movements and informs their story.

The triptych reference to the retable alludes to the life of Jesus Christ. An altar is always a place of sacrifice. That little baby had the potential of defeating death by the power of living for others, the Other. This mystical link is amplified when the video is watched in this context:

A gesture of sadness and abandonment suddenly becomes a gesture of blessing. Reaching out for comfort becomes a gesture of surrender. Its childlike expression shows wondrous gradations of seeing, not seeing and seeing inwardly. (art historian Joost de Wal)

The little boy in the middle seems to be the one struggling to establish connection, crying out for the others. There is an apparent choreography in the synchronicity of their movements, in the rhythm of how they change from black and white to colour, and in the way the music weaves it all together. That is, if you have the chance to watch the whole video carefully.

The sequence of the infants turning into colour, the way they gesture, appear and disappear, seems to suggest that the one in the middle struggles painfully in order that they all become colourful, ‘alive’, connected living souls. Only when that is accomplished, he is at ease and remains in colour. A journey from lifelessness to life.

In the middle of the more than 12-minutes-long video there is a full stop when all goes black, just after the infant in the middle stretches his arms in a crucifixion-like position (shown in the still above). Then the loop begins again and close to the end all three appear in colour.

A state of despair transforms into consciousness, into existence. Light and colour make the desolate place warmer. Hope for connection makes it less lonely.

By means of relating ancient symbols and music to personal experiences of the viewer, this symbolic and allusive piece of art can heighten one’s awareness and make the spectator perhaps a little more alive.

*******

Arent Weevers: Triptych video installation, loop, 2019. Music: David Dramm.

Arent Weevers is specialized in spirituality and video art. He works as a student pastor in Deventer. He studied theology at the Free University in Amsterdam and in Leiden. In 2010 he received the prize for ‘Best International Video Art Short’ during the New York International Film Festival for Mary! (2008). In 2014 Embrace Me was chosen during Unpainted, Media Art Fair in Munich, Germany as 'highlight of new media art'. The artist has derived the images for Triptych from his earlier works, such as Embrace Me (2012) and Ecce Homo (2015). The premiere of Triptych is at LOOP Barcelona. More info: www.arentweevers.com

Anikó Ouweneel is a cultural historian and art curator. She co-curated more than thirty art exhibitions. As a (religious) cultural heritage expert she focuses on placing modern art in ancient buildings. In 2019 she curated Art Stations of the Cross Amsterdam together with Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker. Arent Weevers’ Triptych video installation will be placed on the altar of the Lebuïnuskerk as the first station of the cross in the 2020 edition of Art Stations of the Cross in Deventer, curated by Anikó Ouweneel and Arent Weevers. For more see www.visiodivina.eu.

***

Ans Hey: Montagna Fontana

Posted on 18th May 2020 visiodivina Posted in Uncategorized

The one who softens stone

This group of statues called Montagna Fontana (Mountain Fountain) by Dutch sculptor Ans Hey (1932-2010) was first exhibited in Arnhem, The Netherlands, in 1990 (see photo taken from the book Ans Hey above). Six white marble pillars guarded the large alabaster sculpture in the middle. They looked like fountains of pure strength held captive in stone. They stood around an alabaster ‘egg’, cracked open revealing a promising center, a fertilized seed of some kind.

 This solo project took three years of carving and sanding. The story of the central piece is special. The artist first had to find the stone to actualize her idea. She came across an enormous alabaster rock at the border between Umbria and Tuscany.

It was lying in a deserted field close to an old stone factory, as if it was resting there since the time of the Etruscans. The rock weighed over four tons and was the last of its size left in Italy. I wanted to find its heart, the musical soul of the stone, which I hoped was alive and hidden   within it. Before moving the rock, I carved into its surface abstract images of elements of the surrounding landscape with its shifting lines and rough ploughed earth, so that wherever it travels it takes with it the landscape of its origins. (Ans Hey)

The rock became an artwork consisting of two pieces: a somewhat larger sculpture with an intensely polished ‘heart’ and another piece that looks like the removed shell that was there to cover the previous one.

Every stone has its own sound when a sculptor hits it, and it also has veins of minerals in it that will make some forms possible and others impossible to carve. To cut such a large piece in the right way, you have to understand it first. When this stone was hit, unexpectedly it broke in two. The artist saw the potential in the way it was ruptured and used that ‘accident’ to the full. She adapted her ideas and created the central piece of Montagna Fontana, the Large Alabaster. A soft nurturing ‘egg’ with a visible and promising center was born.

Three decades later, this sculpture was interpreted as the 14th and 15th stations – Jesus is Laid in the Tomb and The Resurrection – of Art Stations of the Cross 2020 in Deventer. It was placed on the ancient burial grounds of the 12th-century cross basilica, the Bergkerk of Deventer. It looks like a white meteorite that hit the highest ground of the city and burst open on the spot.

There are many invisible so-called graves of the poor there. One tends to ponder one’s own transience in a place like this. But does death have the final word? This question is answered by the story of Jesus’ resurrection. The alabaster sculpture signifying a new beginning forms an answer to that question too. We are inspired to contemplate on the mystery of new life, eternity set in the human heart.

The inspiration of the artist preserved in this monumental work has an eternal permanence. This time without the six marble pillars, it stands on its own as a powerful symbol of a long anticipated yet surprising transformation. We expect the impossible to happen, the dead to resurrect, the heart of a stone to become soft and alive by divine interference.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (from the book of the prophet Isaiah 43:18-19; 800 BC)

***

Ans Hey: Large Alabaster from the project Montagna Fontana, alabaster sculpture, 1979, 100 x 150 x 150 cm.

The title of the text (the one who softens stone) is a sentence borrowed from a poem by Gerrit Kouwenaar; used by José Boyens in the book Ans Hey, 2004.

Ans Hey (1932-2010) studied drawing and painting in Amsterdam, London and Avignon. She became acquainted with the art of sculpting stone at the Saint Martin’s School of Art in London. Besides in several Dutch museums, she exhibited in Paris, London, Indonesia, Italy, Belgium, USA, Sweden and Finland. She organized several multidisciplinary projects. As an inspiring teacher of sculpting she taught for more than 20 years at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, a well-known autonomous breeding ground of art.

Anikó Ouweneel is a cultural historian and art curator, who organized more than thirty art exhibitions. An expert in the area of (religious) cultural heritage, she specializes in placing modern art in ancient buildings. In 2019 she curated the Art Stations of the Cross in Amsterdam together with Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker. The 2020 version in Deventer she put together with Arent Weevers. She works on two extended European art projects the coming years.

***

1. Jesus is condemned

Cloak of Love

This iconic, modern Madonna is standing in her full dignity; she has no fear. Her thermal emergency blanket alludes to many other mothers along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. In that way she is contemporary. At the same time, she is the timeless mother who carries the promise of the future in her arms. She has become a question: Will you receive us in your heart?

You look at this mother and child and you understand how little you know. In our ignorance we struggle to react to what happens in the world and face its manifest challenges. She rises from the turbulent waters of the Mediterranean, but she does not look insignificant, sick, dirty, exhausted or malnourished. Not at all destitute.

Mother and child are coated with dignity. The mantle of love covers them in the form of a rescue blanket, the first sign of care and attention. The foil clothes them and keeps them warm, but there is more to it. The colours indicate a godly presence, perhaps even a divine origin. As if the Father himself is present in the image.

The Madonna and her child do not know fear because they are loved. Being covered with the cloak of love is the core of their dignity. And it is not dependent on a rescue blanket or on our reaction to their presence. It grants them self-respect, serenity, an inner royal demeanour. This kind of love expels all fear. She is collected and calm. It is an honour to receive her.

The oil painting Madonna del Mare Nostrum is part of the contemporary art pilgrimage Art Stations of the Cross. It is the first station of this present-day stations of the cross and is placed in the Basilica of Saint Nicholas in Amsterdam. Just like the final location of the route, the Oude Kerk (Old Church), the basilica is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children, sailors and the harbor city of Amsterdam. 

Madonna del Mare Nostrum has been placed in front of an altar dedicated to Mary, below a late 19th-century wall painting of the first station of the cross (every Catholic church has its own Stations of the Cross), where Jesus is condemned to death. 

6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

Encounter

Until Easter you can experience a specially for the project Art Stations of the Cross designed site-responsive installation in the canal room of the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady) in Amsterdam. This new work of art by artist Güler Ates is called Water no longer dances with light. The title refers to the sea, nowadays often the background of traumatic stories of immigrants who take exceptional risks to reach a safer place.
  
For months the artist collected the experiences of numerous displaced persons. She gave them time and attention and listened to their moving accounts. The stories of ‘in-between’ are written in many languages and printed in a letter type that reminds us of the great stories of Western cultural history preserved in ancient codices. In a wavy movement they fill the canal room of the Church of Our Lady.
 
The chamber is entirely covered with a torrent of words. Some visitors are literally unbalanced. Many sit down to be able to process the overwhelming impressions. Amidst the tidal wave of poems and chronicles (some translated and brought together in a booklet) there are images of a veiled woman photographed in this house of prayer that is used by a Roman-Catholic as well as a Syriac Orthodox congregation. The latter call it the Mother of God Church. The enigmatic ‘middle’ in the oeuvre of the artist appears here too, the place where East and West meet.
 
A veil prevents classification because it covers up, while at the same time it reveals a lot. It is used in many cultures, think about the sari, the burqa or the bridal veil in the Western culture. In cultural history a veil often meant a higher rank in society. Here it can also refer to the depiction of Mary in the art history of the West. 
 
In this contemporary art pilgrimage this work stands for Station 6, ‘Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus’. In the Stations of the Cross, Veronica is the woman who helps Jesus persevere. She confronts us with the classic question: In whom do we invest, convinced that the person can make a difference in this world? Who can lean on us?
 
Güler Ates became friends with a group of displaced people. She invested in their stories and created a work of art based on their narratives. The meetings were encouraging for all (as a curator I was sometimes present) and the contacts will go on. Relationships matter.
 
This mysterious figure can stand for Veronica or for the woman this church is dedicated to or for an encounter between Eastern and Western cultures. Several different interpretations are possible. But she does open a window to another reality where the deluge of words drains away, serenity and sanctity prevail, and all cultures approach the altar welcomed by a safe and familiar embrace of light.

7. Jesus falls for the second time

Ecce Homo

Contemporary art does not only consist of installations, but also figurative art is still abundantly present. Paul van Dongen’s work, with its craftsmanship and classical leanings with a touch of baroque drama, falls within a rare subgroup of figurative representation. Two of his drawings are now part ofArt Stations of the Cross (6 March – 22 April) in Amsterdam. After the six preceding stations they shift the attention from the suffering of the world to our own suffering and our own part in the problems of the world. They form a station or stop to literally stand still for a moment and reflect on our own life.
 
After a long search the two pen drawings found their temporary home on the façade of Paradiso, well-known to all Dutch people as a church that was converted into the rock concert hall of Amsterdam in the sixties and onward. One of the drawings is hanging in the Small Museum, which is housed in the former announcements’ cabinet of the Free Congregation. The second drawing is hanging in a similar cabinet that is used for Paradiso’s own posters and advertisements. One could call this pop temple a daring location for these explicit works, while at the bottom of left one the title Judgement is attached and underneath the other one Rising. No wonder that these works are observed to conjure up a lot of discussion among staff and ‘pilgrims’ alike.
 
Together these two works form Station #7, at which traditionally Jesus falls for the second time. ‘Falling’ is also the theme of the left drawing. We see a tangle of falling naked men, not fallen women for once. Actually the gender does not really matter here. The work is about human beings, male and female and everything in between. Jesus fell under the weight of his cross, these men fall under the conflated weight of their own egos. We see men who push, grab, shove aside. We see a hand which reaches into a vacuum. At the right we see figures who try to fight their way up but are pushed down by the man at the top. It is the lonely hell of every man for himself and nobody for me. Paul van Dongen remarks, “This drawing is part of a series which has the fall of man as its main theme. I did not want to portray the fall literally as in Genesis but rather, as a choreographer, to make a composition with naked male figures who together express the fall, an existence without solid ground, being lost beyond redemption. In an ornate whirling, the men turn, fall and tumble over one another.”
 
We see men in all their nakedness, without a concealing façade. Naked is not nude here. It is not about offensive or erotic nudity. Naked is used symbolically for the naked truth about the human condition. The judgement element is present not so much in a tyrannical judge who allegedly directs the fallen ones to hell, but rather in human beings who create their own hell by what they do and leave undone. Hence the drawing is not initially about the wicked world of the godless, but about you and me.
 
But thanks be to God there is also a way up, just like Jesus got up after his second fall. This we see in the right drawing. At the bottom left we see a man on his knees, one piteous pile of gloom. With the figures above and right of him an upward movement sets in, with in the middle of the drawing a man who holds his arms up in a help seeking gesture (or is it also a gesture of worship?). At the top a man floats in a crucified position, in complete surrender, in total vulnerability, a Jesus-like figure or Jesus himself. The artist: “This drawing is about human figures who, after falling down into the depth, are being pulled up by a single person who initiates the upward movement. It is about getting up again and being pulled up.” In this drawing the men also grab each other, but this time they seek connection, beyond loneliness. Here it is no longer about our own gain, but – like the figure at the top – about our willingness to take up our cross for the benefit of others.
 
To take up our cross, that does not sound very contemporary. For some it may sound like something from ages past. Yet it is the way up out of human misery. It means that we are prepared to give priority to loving others. Just like Jesus. Thanks to his willingness to carry his cross, God forgives all our misdeeds and opens new vistas. This too is Lent: not only a time of remorse and repentance, but also a time of celebration of the joy of God’s grace.

The Naked Truth

The Doopsgezinde Singelkerk (Mennonite Singel Church) is one of the special locations of the contemporary art pilgrimage Art Stations of the Cross, to be experienced in the heart of Amsterdam this Lent. This hidden church (a church that is not recognizable as such from the street) dates from 1639. In the 16th-century the Anabaptists had an extraordinary history. In Amsterdam they were called the ‘naked runners’, who proclaimed the ‘naked truth’ to the city’s people. They considered all possessions, clothing included, as the dross of the earth. Now, in this open-minded Mennonite congregation, two artworks in which nudity plays an important role take shelter. Nudity means something else here than being naked or without clothes. It represents a transparency. We are all born naked and naked we leave this world. Nakedness also refers to the state of our souls.

The entrance on the Singel leads to the church through the so called ‘cloister’, two ancient alleyways covered with marble. Recently the old water well of the building was excavated and is to be seen right next to the room where the 3D (stereoscopic) video-installation Josephine’s Well is placed: another surprising cross-reference between this artwork and the location.  
 
This interactive installation stands for Station # 8 ‘Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem’. In our turbulent times with growing insecurities you can react in two ways: try to save yourself in a Pavlovian response or, with spirit and compassion, ask yourself who is most affected by the storm. Jesus always had the impression that other people were worse off than himself. Why? Because he acted from a position of serene calm, from a profound relationship with the Creator. He saw how orphaned others were. While being tormented, he himself comforted the weeping women.

Everybody experiences this installation in a different way. Stepping up a few steps and through a curtain one enters a dark space filled with soft music. Here a video is projected on a large invisible screen in the ground. You use a pair of 3D glasses which make the figures of young girls and a female nude float towards you. In cosmic solitude powerful yet vulnerable creatures levitate closer as from the depth of a well. They look at you silently and you can almost reach their stretched-out hand (an effect of 3D, not to be experienced through a photo). They make an appeal. This results in, as inevitably in the case of art, a very personal experience depending on the history of the viewer. But somehow for each of us it is about being orphaned in the center of our beings, in our naked souls, and about the (im)possibility to touch each other. Perhaps it is also an exercise in compassion, in relating to the o/Other.The experience left me speechless.

The diptych Der Tod und das Mädchen found a place in the ‘cloister’ at the top of stairs. This oil painting stands for Station # 9 in this project: ‘Jesus falls a third time under the weight of his cross’. And yet he gets up again. Tortured, bleeding and exhausted, he still gets up. He wants to accomplish his task. The ultimate counterpoint to this third fall is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion.
 
Artist Janpeter Muilwijk painted this work after the suicide of his daughter Mattia. The artist says: “In this traumatic period of my life, painting turned out to be a source of comfort, raising the big questions in a different way after the suicide of Mattia. There were no unequivocal answers, no definitive conclusions, but images that drilled down to a deeper layer, beyond thoughts and words. This series of paintings offered me a look into my own soul. In spite of the big shock of this great loss, they incorporate a calm presence of loveliness and comfort. Death is only a passage. My deceased daughter brings me into an endless space beyond my perception of finite life: the immortality of our souls.”

Jesus’ Via Dolorosa is a profound answer to the question: Does the world really matter to me? This compassion paved the way to the possibility of true encounter, true relationship. According to Christian tradition the death and resurrection of Jesus form the pivotal breakthrough in human history. Now Creator and creation can touch each other again and the journey of getting to know each other can commence. And this eases the solitude for all. Vulnerability, tenderness, love and compassion form the naked truth, where the human soul can come to rest.

11. Jesus is nailed to the cross

Troubled Waters

During the walk along the stations of the cross it is tradition to read texts that bring the stations to life for the believers by relating them to recognizable suffering in their own lives and in the world around them. The exhibition Art Stations of the Cross, that is taking place in Amsterdam from 6 March – 22 April, does the same with the help of artworks. As curators we chose ‘Troubled Waters’ as the theme of the Amsterdam edition of Art Stations of the Cross, as Amsterdam came into existence and grew as a city of seamen, trade and fishing. Water also plays an important part in today’s global problems – think of seas as barriers for refugees, exploitive trade and fishing, the plastic soup in the oceans, tsunamis and the loss of coral reefs.

Linked to Station 11, Jesus is Nailed to the Cross, is the installation Salt Water Skin Boats by Canadian artist Erica Grimm in collaboration with Tracie Stewart (artist and arborist) and Sheinagh Anderson (sound artist). This work raises the issue of the earth-threatening ocean change. The installation consists of five so-called lifeboats made of branches of willow, dogwood, fig and cedar, cheesecloth, animal skin, gut and layers of wax. Poems, bathymetric ocean maps and scientific formulae about the melting of the ice sheet, the rising sea level and the acidification of the water have been applied to the hulls.

The vulnerable skin boats show the interconnectedness of the life and decline of the oceans and our own salt water filled bodies: they are boats but also human bodies whose life is dependent on the condition of the worldwide water. The ambient soundscape embodies the sounds of water, wind, the breathing and the heartbeat of the oceanic world, intermittently interrupted by the voices of technology and science– sonar, submarine, ship and plane. The light that falls through the windows of the Waalse Kerk and the lamps that illuminate the boats from within reveal the beauty of the coracles. The oceans are so incredibly beautiful, so full of life, but in the last two hundred years human actions have changed the chemistry of the ocean – which deeply affects our own existence as well. We crucified God’s son. Is it now creation’s turn?

For Erica this is not just a nice theme to dedicate one of her works to. When you speak with her, it even seems like the subject itself is of greater concern to her than the artistic side of the installation. She kept on asking me questions about the attention for environmental problems in the Netherlands and how we deal with them: only on an individual level or also structurally by government and the will of industries. Someone described her short talk during the vernissage of the exhibition as an ecological fire-and-brimstone sermon. “In my view, there is no greater issue right now than water. I can well imagine that there have been, and will continue to be, projects intended to raise awareness as urgent action is so necessary. Ocean change is one of the primary catalysts for climate change and therefore all the cascading social and infrastructure implications including the refugee crisis. Despite the scientific evidence demonstrating the magnitude of climate change problems, many simply deny the implications of the Anthropocene.”

Have we heard it all before? “Why is it that we do not undertake more action, also the people who do not bury their heads in the sand?”, Erica asked me. Not an easy question. Is the overflow of information to blame or the overfullness of our lives: today this problem, tomorrow another? Or does it become too difficult when it is really going to cost us? I replied that it is hard to be really touched by problems at such a global magnitude, to feel them deeply within, deeper than our heads alone. That we need to quieten down for that to happen. I said that art asks for meditative quietness and therefore can help us let the suffering of creation land in the depth of our hearts.  

At the opening philosopher Désanne van Brederode said something similar in her speech: “Everything we have just done needs to be discussed nowadays: from yoga class to a visit to the museum. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Not really, rather guard it in your inner room, in your Garden of Olives. ‘You could not keep watch with me for one hour?’”

In a Different Light

Cutting a path through the sauntering crowd of tourists, the intense impressions and cannabis smell of the red light district, the pilgrim arrives at the last stop of the contemporary pilgrimage Art Stations of the Cross.
 
When I enter the masterly built Oude Kerk, the oldest building in the city of Amsterdam, I enjoy the church’s phenomenal harmony. It is an impressive gothic space with surprising incidence of light. The experience outside the walls is the very opposite and this has probably been the case during all the centuries the church stands.

The Holy Sepulchre Chapel in this still functioning house of prayer and museum in one, accommodates Stations #14 and #15, the burial and resurrection stations of this pilgrimage.
 
Jacqueline Grandjean, the director of the Oude Kerk describes the work of art in the chapel: “Since 2018 you can find a red window in the Holy Sepulchre Chapel. It is a work of art by Giorgio Andreotta Calò. This site-specific installation considers, among other things, the    transformation of a Roman Catholic church (1306-1587) into a Protestant church (1587-present). The Holy Sepulchre Chapel was built in 1515 after the example of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem. A canopy is visible in the space, under which you would expect to see something. In the sixteenth century a group of sculptures stood there that depicted the deposition and the mourning of Christ. This sculpture group was destroyed during an episode of the iconoclastic fury in 1566. Now there is emptiness and the canopy conveys the absence of the image. In the work Αναστάσης the artist deals with the visibility of the absent sculptures.
The former statues in the chapel have not been replaced. Through the insertion of red in the stained-glass window the artist does not alter anything in the space except for the light, yet in this way he alters everything. It takes time for eyes to adjust to the red and some people are disorientated. After the width of space and warmth of natural light in the church, the experience in the small red chapel conjures up feelings of estrangement while paradoxically embracing associations with love and blood, something like a womb. For those familiar with the liturgical tradition red stands for the suffering of Jesus Christ and also refers to the Holy Spirit.”
 
In all cases there is a startling suggestion of another dimension.
 
Emptiness takes on the appearance of a new kind of presence. Not all problems are solved after Jesus’ death and his resurrection, but millions of people now have a changed view of life. The message of Easter brings us new courage. Everything is placed in a different light.

A devotional guide for groups and individuals

Dr. Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, Author

Download this guide as a PDF-Downloadable Devotional Guide

Accompany me, O Spirit of Justice and Love,
on this artists’ journey into the heart of the refugee experience.
Direct my eyes to see family where others see strangers.
Direct my feet to take the steps necessary to grow in understanding.
Direct my heart to consider how I can do more.
Direct my experience to inform the shape of my response,
so that I may walk justly with those who struggle to find Home.
Amen.

An ancient Christian religious devotion, still practiced today, The Stations of the Cross represent scenes of the passion of Jesus. The practice of journeying from station to station grew out of and continues to inspire a deepening relationship with God for many. In walking alongside the suffering Jesus, pilgrims come close to the heart of God and God’s dream for a just society.

Could this devotional practice be so spacious that people of any faith or no faith can participate in its vision?

The expansive artistic imagery of the Stations of the Cross exhibition in Manhattan, rendered in religious and secular spaces by artists of different faiths and spiritual sensibilities, suggests that it is. As an artistic motif, the Stations provide a vehicle to move between the deep connotations of the traditional narrative and contemporary reinterpretations that traverse boundaries, inviting all to participate.

 Can contemporary stations reveal the spiritual dimensions of the refugee crisis and immigration reform?  

Whoever you are, if you are disturbed by the suffering of migrant peoples, if you have a heart for social action and a vision of a just world (or seek to develop one), you are invited to journey with the Stations. This short reflection guide, intended for individuals and groups, invites you to walk the Stations seeking Wisdom, with these questions in mind:

-How might reflection on the Stations affect my self-understanding? 
-How might reflection on the Stations call me to action? 
-What does loving my immigrant and refugee neighbor actually look like? 
-What does justice require of me to change or to give up?

 Station 1: Jesus is Condemned

The journey begins with an ancient image of anguish: the acute suffering of parents and children experiencing extreme violence and injustice in the time of Jesus. Jesus’ own family escaped the slaughter ordered by Herod and was able to find refuge. As a man, however, Jesus was unable to escape the violence and injustice of the Roman governor. His efforts to change hearts and gather the people around a revolutionary vision led to capture, interrogation, and false accusation. Even so, he moved toward his condemnation with great clarity: He was willing to accept the risks that come with God’s dream of a just world for all, in order to bring it into being. Jesus’ condemnation was the start of a painful journey. As such, Jesus stands as a witness to the stolen dignity of immigrant and refugee families denied justice.

For Reflection:

What values motivate me to be responsive? Do I understand my attention to immigration reform and the refugee crisis to be a matter of conscience? Do I have the courage to stand against conditions that prevent justice and the right to flourish? What can I do to prepare myself to act on behalf of a refugee child condemned to die because of debilitating poverty, poor education, and inadequate health services?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 2: Jesus Takes up his Cross

Jesus might have refused the cross. Yet, the one who entered into solidarity with the outcast does not speak out on his own behalf. Perhaps he is traumatized. Many believe that he chose to be humiliated and degraded, in order to witness to the product of unjust social relationships. The crosses borne by refugees and immigrants are many, including loss of systems of support, trying to provide for their children, lack of work opportunity, and often the burden of daily survival. The artist’s unlikely image of concrete flotation devices recalls both those who have died at sea and those who escaped death, fleeing their countries by boat. The image of heaviness is entwined with hope, however, challenging us to participate in the promise of life-saving assistance.

For Reflection:

Have I taken time to reflect on my part to play in responding to the refugee crisis? How do I relate to the spiritual idea of self-giving in this age of acquisition? Am I ready to yield some of my power, status, control, in order to bear some of the burden of those subjected to cruel indignities? From where do I find the inner strength to enter in to the struggle for justice?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 3: Jesus Falls the First Time

 Take a moment to visualize Jesus struggling under the weight and pain of the cross until he can no longer bear it. The marginalized in our society struggle and fall day after day; they need us to pay attention to their plight. Our country is plagued by an epidemic of gun violence and those with the least power or resources are often the victims. The icon, “Our Lady Mother of Ferguson and Those Killed by Gun Violence,” reminds us of the record numbers of people living with violence every day. We are enmeshed in systems that promote fear and suspicion. Yet gun violence is an affront to God’s love for the world and we are called to put an end to it.

For Reflection:

What story do I tell myself about the prevalence of gun violence in this country? How does fear affect the prevalence of gun violence? What does my faith say about fear? How do my values allow me to live with the reality of escalating gun violence? Do I know what my communities are doing to stem gun violence? How can I be an advocate for sensible gun laws?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 4: Jesus Meets His Mother

 The mother of Jesus offers presence and comfort, in spite of the noisy, harassing crowd. Her eyes meet his in the silent solidarity of a mother’s unwavering love. Perhaps it is her accompaniment that gives Jesus the strength to carry on. Mary is an active witness to love. The artist’s incorporation of family members observing Muslim mourning rites may offer an opportunity to consider the suffering of refugee families and the particular burdens borne by women grieving their lost sons, and the lost opportunities for their flourishing.

For Reflection:

Am I willing to cultivate compassion for my refugee neighbor, like that of a mother for a suffering son? Do I look upon a suffering other with eyes of love or eyes of fear? What concrete steps can I take to offer presence, comfort, or support to a single refugee or immigrant family in need of accompaniment?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 5: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross

Whether or not he was compelled to do so, it is said that Simon was converted to Jesus’ way after helping him carry the cross. He offered strength where Jesus had little. And in this act Simon’s heart was opened to a new way of being. Each man gave and each received a gift from the other. Simon’s gesture reminds us that when we offer help, we open ourselves to transformation. In her work, “Exodus: I See Myself in You,” the artist, Siona Benjamin, challenges us to respond with empathy to those we do not know. We, too, in giving and receiving, through real relationship with the immigrant or refugee, can be transformed.

 For Reflection:

To see myself in you, I must first meet you. Am I ready to reach out and to meet the ones I claim to care about - to see how a displaced stranger lives and enter into her story? How is seeking justice for immigrants and refugees like taking another’s cross onto my shoulders? What is preventing my authentic encounter with my neighbor in urgent need?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 6: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus  

There is an ancient prayer that says, teach me to pay attention to your face, because in doing so, I encounter your heart and mine. Veronica breaks through the guards, the madness of the crowds, and the fears of those who loved Jesus, to offer an act of tremendous compassion. She wiped the face of Jesus, looked into his eyes and his heart and, there, encountered her inmost self. In Michael Takeo Magruder’s, “Lamentation for the Forsaken,” we recall traditions that describe the Shroud of Turin as the imprint of Jesus’ face on Veronica’s cloth. The faces and lives of the people in Magruder’s piece remind us that our most urgent task as human beings is to recognize the faces of those who suffer. We are called to receive the indelible impression of mercy upon our own hearts and to encounter God there.

For Reflection:

The name, Veronica, means true icon. Icons, in the traditional sense, are said to look out at us as we gaze. How is my desire to offer myself in service visible to others? Can I break out of my comfort long enough to wipe a single face in compassion -- to allow the suffering of my neighbor to be imprinted on my heart and change me?

All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 7: Jesus Falls for the Second Time

 The second fall of Jesus reminds us that suffering and oppression are ongoing for many millions of people. Every day we read of peoples crushed by violence and war, suffering abandonment, fear, hunger, and humiliation. And yet they are further marginalized because of their condition as migrants, rather than welcomed. The artist’s image seems to suggest our ambivalence as onlookers. Or, perhaps, it suggests that onlooker and victim are as one.

For Reflection:

What is this image? Where am I in it? Are the hands active or passive? Might they be reaching out in vulnerability or in self-offering? Take a moment to assume the posture in the image, as you see it. With arms outstretched, imagine that you can hold in your body both the vulnerability of your neighbor and a spacious welcome for her. Let the commingling of vulnerability and welcome be your prayer. Offer it in the service of healing.

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 8: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

The women are weeping, expressing their compassion for Jesus as he lifts his weary body. We know that shared sorrow can alleviate loneliness and isolation. The women know this, as they are the ones who bear the brunt of sorrow, like refugee women today. They are the ones most vulnerable both physically and emotionally to violence, helplessness, and despair. Louise Nevelson, a Jewish refugee artist, knew what despair meant in a field dominated by men. She gathered wood scraps from the city streets and transformed them into structures of beauty and hope in this Chapel of new life. Who weeps for struggling and isolated women? Who witnesses to their hope for new life born from pain?

For Reflection:

How am I complicit in the pain of unseen refugee women? If I cannot weep for the pain I cause others through my indifference, what does it say about who I am? About who I am becoming? What does this Chapel reveal to you about transformative hope? What does my compassion look like in action?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 9: Jesus Falls the Third Time

Jesus is nearly defeated on this last fall on his journey to Calvary. Yet, somehow, he continues to shoulder, by his example, the fall of the outcast, helpless under the weight of their crosses. When power is used to oppress the weak, it takes someone firmly planted in her faith and conscience to redirect that power. Jesus models this in his self-offering. The artist’s monument recalls a single diplomat’s heroic actions on behalf of hundreds of thousands of deported Hungarian Jews in the 1940s. His clarity of purpose in rescuing innocent people from concentration camps cost him his life, too.

For Reflection:

Does my faith or my spiritual path direct me to address the plight of the poor? Am I honest in my self-examination? Knowing that conscience is developed through practice, how can I prepare myself, step by step, to grow in mercy, courage, and the capacity to risk? Can I admit that I have fallen down and need to reach out for support to renew my efforts in speaking truth to power? What will my very next step be on my road to becoming fully engaged?

All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 10: Jesus is Stripped of his Garments

 Disempowered, defenseless, naked, Jesus has been turned from a subject to an object of derision. He has been depersonalized, dehumanized, degraded. But human dignity cannot be lost; it is intrinsic, an endowment. Similarly, in spite of the artist’s image of native peoples at the mercy of a heartless empire, the viewer’s eye is drawn to the Sacred Heart offered freely. Migrants, like native peoples the world over, have undergone loss of land and possessions, loss of rights and social supports. Many migrant people suffer indignities out of love for their families. Many detainees endure the humiliation of strip searches.

For Reflection:

Take a moment to imagine the humiliation of being stripped of your clothes, of the things that give you basic dignity. What does it mean to be part of a system that strips undocumented people of their dignity? Can I resist the urge to turn away from my refugee neighbor’s pain? What resources can I bring to bear on her behalf? Can I turn to face him and walk with him from despair into renewed hope?

All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 11: Crucifixion

Is this the end of the story? Jesus is nailed to the cross and many of his followers hung their hopes with him there. Did all that he taught about bearing one another’s burdens and loving both stranger and enemy amount to nothing? Were his daily actions on behalf of the unloved and unwanted lost in a historical moment of state-sanctioned cruelty? The artist’s blend of past and present images, witnessing to the AIDS crisis, reminds us that history is one: Jesus is crucified today, still, in the millions of people nailed to the cross of marginalization, poverty, inadequate healthcare, and limited access to education.

For Reflection:

What prevents me from acting upon the urgings of my compassionate heart? If the answer is a practical one, how can I ally myself with others who can guide my developing activism? If the answer is a spiritual one, can I commit to a brief daily practice of contemplation, of blessing my neighbor and creating an open space inside to nurture a response in love and solidarity?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 12: Jesus Dies on the Cross

The revolutionary, accused of inciting the people, hangs between heaven and earth. Where is the power of a living love now? It is written that at least one of the onlookers seemed to recognize Jesus’ divinity at the moment of his death, and was converted by it. It takes eyes of love and courage to see into another’s spirit, especially another so broken and bloodied. It takes eyes of faithfulness to see a moment of grace, where others see only threat. The African Burial National Monument memorializes the crosses borne by African people who were kidnapped, transported, and enslaved in the Americas, displaced and marginalized, even in their burials. Where there is death, there is longing for renewal. May we die to our self-absorption and cynicism, our sense of entitlement and our callousness, in order to prepare for something new.

For Reflection:

Do I bother to look for the divine in my neighbor? Do my eyes seek the goodness in all people -- in the migrant worker serving my table or the asylum-seeker longing to protect his family or the unaccompanied child traveler in present danger? Can I see myself in my immigrant and refugee neighbor? Can I offer the refuge of my full presence and acceptance? Can I open the eyes of my heart to those who are fleeing for their lives and respond with care and advocacy?

All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 13: Jesus is Taken Down From the Cross

The lifeless body of Jesus taken down from the cross brings to mind contemporary photographic images of anguished parents cradling drowned children, lost fleeing their countries by water. It brings to mind the vulnerable poor, assaulted and killed in government-sponsored genocide, conflict, and war. Love calls us to welcome those who escape oppression, persecution, and violence. Love calls us to move beyond our fears and suspicions, to remove the barriers to living as a human family. In “Stations,” the artist, G. Roland Biermann, juxtaposes a wall of blood-red oil barrels with a fallen cross; it suggests the human cost of economic and political systems, which privilege some, while leaving others to fend for themselves and endangering all on our planet home.

For Reflection:

What is it that I want to see happen, now? What can I say to counter the anti-immigrant rhetoric and attack on migrants that permeates our national conversation? Am I committed to God’s dream of a just world for all? Am I ready to accept the risks and the sacrifices that come with that commitment?

All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

 Station 14: Entombment

This story, you may know, does not end in darkness inside a hewn-out rock. The man born a refugee, has been laid to rest but the story of life-giving love does not end here. When families of those lost on 9/11 speak about the outpouring of love they received to meet their sorrow, we are reminded that restoration is possible, even in the darkest hour. The memorial pools call us to stand with them and all who seek healing and restoration. Meanwhile, the world over, there are people far from their homes, wounded and cold and unfed and unwelcome, seeking the same. May our hearts be softened to their situations. May we continue to seek justice and mercy, magnifying their voices. May we find new hope and new life, together.

For Reflection:

Do I live my life as a blessing, giving witness to love for all people? What must I do to enact a spiritual vision that includes everyone and demonizes no one? In a political and economic culture that devalues compassion in favor of efficiency, how can I be a voice for basic goodness and kinship, encouraging others to view with compassion the experience of the exile seeking home?

 All: Holy Wisdom, guide our steps toward love and justice.

Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, PhD is associate director for Faith Formation and Education at Trinity Church Wall Street.  An ordained interfaith minister and spiritual director with graduate degrees in Christian social ethics, Kathy enjoys teaching contemplative practices to support social activism.