Praying with Icons by Kimberlee Conway Ireton

Today’s post in the series Return to Our Senses in Lent is one of several reflections inspired by my new book Return to our Senses by Kimberlee Conway Ireton, author of The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year.  you might also like to check out her other posts in the series: 

The language of Prayer by Kimberlee Conway Ireton

This Place of Grace by Kimberlee Conway Ireton

Praying With Tears by Kimberlee Conway Ireton

Eight Ways of Looking at Water By Kimberlee Conway Ireton

In mid-February, my friend Susan gave me my first ever icon. It’s of Mary, the Theotokos, or God-bearer. The child Jesus leans against her cheek, one arm around her neck, the other resting on her chest, just above her left breast. His eyes look up at her in love; her eyes look out of the icon, at the viewer, at me.

I hung the icon on the east wall of my bedroom, above my writing desk, next to the window. Every afternoon, when I lie down on my bed with my two-year-old twins, to put them (and myself) down for a nap, I can see Mary looking at me with pity and compassion and love.

I need that kind of look these days. I’ve been worn out, worn down, just worn, like an old sheet that’s been washed way too many times. When I get this tired, the nasty voices in my head, which I can usually fight or keep at bay with prayer and Scripture recitation, get really loud and insistent, and in all their clamoring, I start to listen to them.

They say, Jesus never yelled at his disciples, and they bring to mind the way, earlier today, I raised my voice or lectured or even shamed one of my children.

They say things like, Jesus hung out with poor people and prostitutes. When was the last time you hung out with a poor person or a prostitute?

They say, There are people in this world who live on a dump. You, on the other hand, live in a two-bedroom house with running water and indoor plumbing in a nice neighborhood. Why can’t you just be grateful?

They don’t actually say that I’m a disappointment to Jesus or a bad Christian, but they imply it. They speak just enough truth to hook me, and I bite—and believe. And then they leave me floundering and gasping for air. So day after day, I fall exhausted on my bed, with one twin on either side of me and guilt and fear and shame circulating through my body like blood.

When I look up, I see Mary looking at me. Her gaze is one of infinite compassion and pity. She does not look like the kind of person who would say buck up and deal or quit complaining, you spoiled princess or you think your life is hard? Try living in a refugee camp.

No, she looks kind. So kind, in fact, that some afternoons, I find myself talking to her. I ask her if she ever got mad at Jesus, if she ever yelled at him, if she ever, in frustration, slapped him—all things I have done to my children, all things I am ashamed of. I ask her if it’s okay that I’m not feeding hungry people (unless my children count, and maybe they do, Mary?) or hanging out with prostitutes and criminals or even with people who aren’t at-home moms more or less like me.

She doesn’t answer. She just looks at me with pity and love.

When I tell Susan that I’ve started talking to the icon she gave me, she smiles. She says that I’m actually praying. She says, “An icon is a glimpse of heaven. You don’t talk to the icon. You talk through it, to the reality it points to, to Mary herself, who sits in heaven, praying to Jesus on our behalf.”

I was raised evangelical. We thought icons, if we thought about them at all, were just pictures. Susan, who was baptized in the Catholic Church, is far more comfortable with this whole praying-with-icons thing than I am. She continues, “In the Orthodox tradition, icons are a window through which we glimpse heaven, but through which Heaven can see us, too. Mary’s eyes of love in that icon are, in some mystical sense, really Mary’s eyes of love. She is really looking at you. The icon’s a glimpse of Truth, of the Really Real.”

I confess, despite (or perhaps because of) my evangelical upbringing, I love this idea. I love the thought that Mary, the mother of God; Mary, who raised the Son of God; Mary, whose mothering had eternal, cosmic consequences far beyond any that my own mothering might have; Mary who must therefore completely understand the heartache of being a mother, and also the joy and the frustration and the near-constant sense of failure—this is the woman whose loving eyes look into mine as I lie here on my bed

This afternoon, as I look at Mary, I think of my friend Jan. Jan is my mom’s age. She sort of adopted me when I moved to Seattle for college. On Sunday, Jan held me while I cried out much of the fear and frustration I’ve been carrying inside me these past weeks. She held me and rocked me like a child. She spoke words of reassurance and love. As she rocked me and held me and let me cry all over her sweater, Jan embodied the loving gaze of Mary, the loving gaze of Jesus. She became an icon of the love of God.

Now, looking at Mary, I see Jan, too. I see that if Jan, one of my fellow sinners, can look at me with love, without contempt, how much more must Jesus look at me with love? The contemptuous and venomous words that I’ve been listening to these past weeks aren’t the voice of God. God sounds like Jesus, with his arms of love outstretched on the cross. God sounds like Mary, with her eyes of love fixed on me as I lie here between my boys. God sounds like Jan, whispering prayers of grace and gratitude over me as I weep.

God looks at me with their eyes, eyes full of compassion and kindness and love. God speaks to me through their voices.

Jesus said, “The Father himself loves you.” (John 16:27) The Father himself loves me. The Father himself loves you. Amen. Amen.

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Return to Our Senses: Seeing With New Eyes.

Learning to See

 

The following post is the seventh in a series that is excerpted from my upcoming book Return to Our Senses, which will be available in mid November.

Images have been used throughout the history of Christianity to deepen our sense of intimacy with all members of the Trinity. Early Christians often chiseled images of Jesus and scenes from his life on their sarcophagi and painted them on the frescos of the catacombs. Over the centuries icons, paintings, statues, etchings and more recently digital images have all been used to help draw us into that deep prayerful intimacy that images can provide.

Icons – Graven Images or A Powerful Tool 

The icon, used in Eastern Christianity and other Christian traditions, is generally a flat panel painting depicting a holy being or object such as Jesus, Mary, saints, angels, or the cross. Icons may also be cast in metal, carved in stone, embroidered on cloth, painted on wood, done in mosaic or fresco work, printed on paper or metal. These icons are much more than religious pictures. They are a way of telling people about some complicated Christian teaching in a simple form that anyone can see and start to understand — even a young child. Icons, in the earliest days of the church, were a means of depicting Gospel events to Christians who may not have been able to read the Gospel themselves.

In an ordinary picture perspective makes things get narrower as they go into the distance. In icons the picture often seems to get wider as it goes into the distance — the perspective is back to front. There are no shadows, or ways of showing day and night. An icon shows a view of heaven, so it is lighted by the unchanging light of God. Icons are painted this way on purpose. An icon is a window into Heaven. The veneration granted to the Icon is said to pass on to Heaven and the person depicted therein.

Icons are an integral part of Orthodox worship but are rarely used by Protestants, though there has been a resurgence of interest in their use over the last few years. However, a cursory glance through scripture will show that visual images always have been an important part of God’s way of communicating. Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones in Ezekiel 37, and Peter’s dream on the rooftop in Acts 10, are just two instances of how images and prayer are vitally connected.

For many, icons contribute to the beauty of worship and are like windows that connect us to the realities of the Kingdom of God, bringing these into our prayer on earth. Entering church is meant to give us a glimpse into the beauty of the kingdom of God and the icons are reminders of that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before. I still remember the awe of entering St Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai desert twenty years ago and examining the icons of saints that lined the walls. Some dated back to the sixth and seventh century. I did indeed feel that I had entered the kingdom of God with thousands of wonderful witnesses.

Unfortunately there is probably more dispute circulating about the use of icons than of any of the other prayer techniques I have mentioned. When Tom and I were in Lebanon some years ago we were invited to lunch by an orthodox priest. What soon became obvious was that we were supposed to settle a long standing dispute between him and a friend as to whether the use of icons of Christ was acceptable.

The friend thought they were satanic, graven images that were expressly denounced in the Old Testament. Our Orthodox friend explained that early Christians felt that the Old Testament proscriptions against making images was overturned by their belief in the incarnation. They believed that because God took on flesh in the human form of Jesus it was permissible to create depictions of the human form of the Son of God. Although icons are images, they are not simply illustrations or decorations. They are symbols of the incarnation, a presence which offers to the eyes the spiritual message that the Word addresses to the ears.

I love Megan McKenna’s description of icons in the foreword to The Bride by William Hart McNichols and Daniel Berrigan: “The icon is God’s poem and song without words. The icon is God’s touch, a kiss, and then the empty place that calls forever after to us – the icon is the echo of God’s incarnation once and for all time upon the earth. The icon is a rest stop on the way home, a small sanctuary, a protection, a moveable feast that makes us tremble.”

It is not just gazing at icons that is a form of prayer. Iconographers see the very creation of an iconic image as a way to commune with God. The entire process is conducted as if its creator were working in front of Jesus. It starts with silent prayer, pardoning of enemies and the sign of the Cross. The iconographer is encouraged to pray throughout the process to strengthen themselves physically and spiritually. Each color is chosen after a meditative pause to seek counsel from the Lord and when the icon is finished prayers of thanksgiving are offered for God’s mercy and grace in equipping the iconographer to paint the image. Andrey Rublev’s famous Trinity icon is a wonderful example of this.

Why we worry so much about iconic images of Christ and not at all about images of Christ in other forms of art I am not sure, but then of course I am no expert. I do believe however that they can provide a refreshing focus for both personal and group meditation.

This post is excepted from my new book Return to Our Senses which is now available through Mustard Seed Associates at a pre-publication discounted price of $15.

 

Using Icons – a Powerful Tool or Graven Images

The oldest icon of Christ Pantocrator, encaustic on panel, c. 6th century (Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

Icons are an integral part of orthodox worship and serve a variety of functions:

(1) They enhance the beauty of a church. (2) They instruct us in matters pertaining to the Christian faith. (3) They remind us of this faith. (4) They lift us up to the prototypes which they symbolize, to a higher level of thought and feeling. (5) They arouse us to imitate the virtues of the holy personages depicted on them. (6) They help to transform us, to sanctify us. (7) They serve as a means of worship and veneration. I shall discuss briefly each one of these functions  Read more on the function of icons at the Orthodox information centre

In recent years icons have been rediscovered by growing numbers of followers of Jesus from other traditions too.  For many, icons contribute to the beauty of worship and are like windows that connect us to the realities of the Kingdom of God, bringing these into our prayer on earth.  I love the idea that entering into church is meant to give us a glimpse into the kingdom of God and the icons are reminders of that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before.  They can be a refreshing focus for both personal and group meditation.

Icon used in worship Community of the Transfiguration affiliated with the Baptist church in Geelong Australia

Unfortunately there is probably more dispute circulating about the use of icons than of any of the other tools I have mentioned.  When Tom and I were in Lebanon some years ago we were invited to lunch by an orthodox priest.  What we did not realize until we arrived was that we were supposed to settle a long standing dispute between he and a friend as to whether or not the use of icons of Christ was acceptable.

The friend thought they were satanic, graven images that were expressly denounced in the Old Testament.  Our orthodox friend explained that early Christians felt that the Old Testament proscriptions against making images was overturned by their belief in the incarnation. They believed that because God took on flesh in the human form of Jesus it was permissible to create depictions of the human form of the Son of God.   Although icons are images, they are not simply illustrations or decorations. They are symbols of the incarnation, a presence which offers to the eyes the spiritual message that the Word addresses to the ears.

Why we worry so much about iconic images of Christ and not at all about images of Christ in other forms of art I am not sure, but then of course I am no expert.  So I at least want to present this as one of the options that you might like to explore.  For those that want to learn more obviously a google search will provide lots of resources.  However one book you may like to start with is Windows to Heaven: Icons for Protestants and Catholics by Lela Gilbert and Elizabeth Zelensky

 

And to round off your education, I some of you may appreciate this video using icons in association with the litany of the saints song by Matt Maher

 

 

Pentecost

A number of people have asked me about the pentecost icon I used in a previous post. It is a contemporary Coptic icon. The best collection of pentecost art I have found is at Biblical-Art.com Here are some of my favourites.

Pentecost – soichi

Pentecost – Giotti

Mexican icon

Mildorfer – pentecost