The Illumination (2024) was created over a three-day period during the Reflective Leadership Grant gathering hosted by Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. Inspired by worship, plenary sessions, hallway conversations, and my own reflections on the gathering, this work holds together the various perspectives observed while exploring what it means to step away to regroup, reconsider, reaffirm, and reflect on discernment questions planted into the soul of the ministry leader during “balcony time”. Submitted communal responses to reflective questions, such as, “What am I letting go? What do I need? What light/evidence am I taking out into the world?” are hidden in the tapestry of the visual story and written invisible ultra-violent ink. These utterances are hidden until placed in a dark room and illuminated by ultraviolet or UV “black light”, revealing the limitations of our ministry vision until we extend the invitation the Holy Spirit’s faithful illumination.
Central liturgical themes of the piece are rooted in the scriptures of the gathering, curated by The Reverend Mia McClain (Riverside Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.). Beginning with the mythical float-like appearance of emerging beings, the art piece references the creation narrative found in Genesis 1 (read during the gathering in an abridged New Revised Standard, Wil Gafney-inspired version). Communal utterances in worship, found in the hidden messages awaiting the Spirit’s illumination, embraces the diversity of cultural expressions and experiences found in Acts 2:1-11, 42-47 (read in the First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament). Finally, the central ambiguous vegetation, -which holds the hidden revelation of the activity of God- refers to the seemingly barren fig tree in Luke13:6-9 (read in La Nueva Versión Internacional (Spanish) and New Revised Standard Version).
Participants were asked to submit art work titles and names for what revelations they gathered from the live creation of the art piece and their own illuminations of what God may be up to in their season of reflective pause. Possible title submissions included Fellowship of The Fruit, River of Life Flows, From Manure to Masterpiece, The Fruit Within, More Than You Know, Hidden Life, The Rising Tree, Let The Whole Earth Praise, Fig Party, and The Illumination: Seed & Supply (which was simplified to The Illumination as I felt that this title allows room for all submitted titles and names of this art piece to be true). Ultimately, it is up to the interpretation and the personal illumination of the viewer as to whether the central image in the composition is an abstract object that has fulfilled its seasonal cycle and is ready to be discarded or composted, or if it is a mysterious fig tree pregnant with the hidden signs of budding or in full bloom, or whether this central image is of a tree at all.
To all these perspective, wonderings and illuminations, we repeat the refrain of our gathering and say,
May God’s face shine upon us…
Blessed Be, Asé, and Amen.
A gracious thanks to The Rev. Dr. Mycal Brickhouse for the invitation.