Description
Imagining the Lectionary: Word, life-space and enlightenment
(Advent 3B)
Reflection accompanying images “The true light” , “The word became flesh”
and “Living within the light of Christ as children of God”
To Christian eyes the work of Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, on display at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, provides a wonderful insight into the sheer expectant joy which Advent promises. The shapes of being he crafts deliberately speak into the body and soul of humanity. This intention is apparent as we look at and through the mesh 'portraits' of the two girls Nuria and Irma who live near his home, or in the close-up photographs of one 'person-space' in the dual figure work 'Spiegel', which is formed from the letters of eight different alphabets.
These remarkable artworks display the contours of our being and becoming; they invite us to see the meanings which define us and which shape our day to day experience of being alive. The interior space of our personhood is revealed and becomes accessible. Light, space and meaning show us who we are, and in the act of understanding we connect with our deepest longings and our darkest fears.
And as we do this in Advent, God's word in Christ becomes the open life-space of love which enlightens our being, just as the warmly vibrant colours of sunset seem to bring Plensa's rooftop children into a cherishing focus of pure wonderment...
Continues