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| The Rose Within |
The
inspiration for this piece arose during a Contemplative Fire retreat on the
Welsh coast in September 2007. This particular morning began with silence and
insights from the Christian mystics, against a backdrop of stunning sea views,
strong wind and glorious sunshine. Following this time of prayer and worship, I
felt compelled to be alone, to have a time of reflecting on the place of
compassion in the life of the contemplative and in our life as community.
I spent time
in silence with the gospel passage for the day, then walked alone to the beach
for fresh air and a leg stretch, returning at a slow attentive pace to my room
and paints.
I am more
than ever deeply struck by how silence enables creative spaciousness within and
between – which I think of as being the seedbed for healing love. My aim was to
try to represent imprisonment, mental and physical, and to explore how silence,
inner silence, far from being an oppressive energy, is an agent of healing. I
set about drawing a tangle of thorns and gorse, such as on the headland, hard
and barbed, reminiscent of barbed wire – a ring of thorns emerged in my drawing
- a crown of thorns – and in the space – the creative spaciousness of silence
(created by the crown), a rose, complete with thorns, blooming.
This painting
is my prayer offering for today – in colour, texture and form; a prayer which
names and touches the places of pain in human lives; it speaks silently of the
Presence revealed to us in Jesus Christ who enters the darkness with
self-giving Love; it sings a hymn of praise to the One through whom all life is
transfigured, silently, in the surrender of Love.
Peace be with
you
Tessa Holland
God created through love and for love. God did not
create anything except love itself, and the means to love. He created love in
all its forms. He created beings capable of love from all possible distances.
Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance,
the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme
tearing apart, this agony beyond all others, this marvel of love, is the
crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which is made accursed.
This tearing apart, over which supreme love places
the bond of supreme union, echoes perpetually across the universe in the midst
of the silence, like two notes, separate yet melting into one, like pure and
heart-rending harmony. This is the Word of God. The whole creation is nothing
but its vibration. When human music in its greatest purity pierces our
soul, this is what we hear through it. When we have learnt to hear the silence,
this is what we grasp more distinctly through it.
Extract from "The Love of God and Affliction"
in Waiting on God by Simone Weil
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