Seeking beauty: Visio divina

Perhaps you've heard of lectio divina, a spiritual practice in which one studies a sacred text in a very intentional way, open to what God might say specifically to them through that text. We can take a similar approach to art through visio divina. We can study art in conjunction with scripture and see what God might say to us through that artwork.

I did some of this during my retreat at the ARC Retreat Center. This is not a regular practice for me but, as I've said before, I've been yearning for art and beauty lately. I don't often feel a strong sense of God leading me to a specific practice like this, but this was one of the rare cases where I did feel God's guidance. So I trekked from my hermitage to the main lodge (braving the mosquitoes) in search of art.

First I found art supplies, consisting mainly of crayons and coloring books, so I had a little fun coloring in a couple of Pooh and Piglet pictures (it was the only option!) before searching the library for art books. What I found was this book by Sister Wendy, and this is the image that jumped out at me, "Countess Golovine" by Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun:





I'm normally more drawn to landscapes or nature scenes or buildings than to portraits, so this was unusual. But something in the look on her face really caught my eye. She looked like a woman who was comfortable with her identity, who understood her own authority, who wasn't afraid to access her own power, and who still didn't take herself too seriously.

She looked to me like a woman who could live into the baptismal gift of the Holy Spirit: "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in [God's] presence" (from the ELW order for holy baptism, among other sources; and originally from Isaiah 11). She got me thinking about my own identity and authority in light of these baptismal promises, and it was really beneficial for me to reflect on this image.

You just never know what medium God might use to reach us...I was grateful that this image provided a perfect chance for me to hear God speak.