When God Walks Away: A Dark Night Companion
Each day of Holy Week, I will post spiritual practices from my book, When God Walks Away. The book (pictured) likens the dark-night journey to the events of Holy Week. Since engaging with art can be a spiritual practice, you will notice references to music, films, and visual artworks in addition to more traditional forms of spiritual discipline.
I hope these practices provide nourishing soul food as you make your way toward Easter.
Book:
The Singer by Calvin Miller: The strongest in a trilogy of poems (fear not, they’re readable poems), Miller sings anew an old, old story, and we feel its violence and pathos afresh.
Film:
The Passion of the Christ directed by Mel Gibson: It begins in agony and does not let up until literally the film’s last seconds. Excruciating—almost impossible—to watch, The Passion is also beautiful and epic-sized. Flowing through its murderous madness run two clear streams of sanity: Jesus’ commitment to His call and Mary’s love for her suffering son.
Endurance Exercises:
Psalm & Response: Rewrite Psalm 22 in your own words. How does your experience connect with the pain expressed by the psalmist?
Questioning Prayer: Over the course of a few weeks, jot down the hard questions you have of God. Seek a time and place for solitude, and offer your questions aloud as a prayer. Sit in openness to whatever God might bring you.
Music:
“When I Survey” by Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason: I’m nuts about hymns—poetry, living theology, compelling music; let’s not lose such majesty. “When I Survey” weeps with the madness of divine love.
“Question” by the Moody Blues: Why can we never get answers to our hardest questions? The Blues ask theirs right out loud.
“Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla: God questions asked in the language of the child: endearing, perplexing, resonating.
Visual Arts:
Guernica by Pablo Picasso*: Depicting the bombing slaughter of a small Basque village in northern Spain, Picasso’s riveting work screams against the insanity of all violence.
The Magdalen in Penitence by Donatello*: Donatello, near the end of his life, depicts Mary near the close of hers. She bears the scars of hard living, but she wears the face of faith.
* Find these artworks in your neighborhood or Internet library.
