O Nature! Thou hast fed / My lofty speculations; and in thee, / For this uneasy heart of ours,

I find / A never-failing principle of joy, / And purest passion.

To read William Wordsworth’s The Prelude is to discover anew, in our memories and “spots of time,” the joy and reverence we have for the natural world. And yet when we forgo the meaning, the true value of our “purest passion” for nature and its gifts, especially now as we face the enormous challenge of climate change, Wordsworth summons us to recover our passion, to ponder what it reveals about our faith, our God, and our mission to protect the earth and all that dwell therein.

Even the simplest encounter with nature, Wordsworth tells us, has the power to awaken this passion. Last summer, my husband and I hiked the beautiful fells of Grasmere in the Lake District. The lush green landscape, the bubbling Rothay River, the grazing Herdwick sheep, and the sight of chaffinches, English robins, and goldcrests along the trails, inspired our every step.

Our visit to Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s home, served as a commentary on this love of the land and its creatures. In the reception room, we were greeted by a large written quotation from his poem The Tables Turned: “Come forth into the light of things, / Let nature be your teacher.” The verse comes from one of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, in which the speaker in the poem invites his friend to put aside his books, to enter the woods, and to hearken to the songs of the linnet and the throstle.

There, in nature, his friend will find a wisdom beyond the “barren leaves” of books: “One impulse from a vernal wood / May teach you more of man, / Of moral evil and good, / Than all the sages can.” There is an inherent goodness in nature, Wordsworth claims, whose moral lessons reveal hidden depths of our human nature. When the tables are turned, not only are our senses awakened, but our hearts and minds as well. I left Dove Cottage thinking about the “light of things” — the enlightened spirit that allows us to confront the weighty concerns of climate change, forest fires, floods, oil spills, extinction of species, with courage and fortitude.

Wordsworth’s voice is only one of many calling us into “a vernal wood” to explore its deeper wisdom. Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, and Robert Macfarlane have all made this same plea on behalf of nature and our deeper selves. “Brought into right relationship with the wilderness,” John Muir writes, a person “would see that he was not a separate entity endowed with a divine right to subdue his fellow creatures and destroy the common heritage, but rather an integral part of a harmonious whole.”

In like manner, Wendell Berry writes a half-century later: “We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.” Standing in awe of creation, seeing ourselves as part of a harmonious whole, will do more than renew our commitment to preserving it. Nature will help renew our faith.

For Christians, our awakened senses remind us that this rock, this lake, this land, this bird, this mountain, is a part of creation and the work of our God the Creator. Theologian Norman Wirzba asks us to embrace an existential logic “rooted in the assumption that the world is not an accidental or amoral realm that can be manipulated and exploited at will, but is instead divinely created, and therefore to be nurtured, cherished, and celebrated.” And we, the faithful, are commissioned to be caretakers of this sacred realm.

Wirzba’s existential logic is deeply embedded in Christian tradition. Theologians, scholars, and church leaders of all sorts have long wrestled with questions about nature, creation, and morality from a similar perspective. Among the most prominent contemporary exemplars are Rowan Williams, Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew, Archdeacon John Chryssavgis, Ellen Davis, Kathryn Alexander, Thomas Berry, Denis Edwards, Jim Antal, and John Gatta. Chryssavgis speaks for them all when he writes: “Respect for the natural beauty of the world leads us to reverence before the divine beauty of God.” It is a reverence as old as Scripture itself. As St. Ephraim the Syrian observes: “Wherever you turn your eyes, there is God’s symbol. Look and see how nature and scripture are linked together.”

The opening chapter of Genesis points our eyes to this symbolic link. A loving God creates a natural world that is sacre good, harmonious, beautiful. He also creates human beings on the sixth day, the same day as he creates wild animals and the creeping, crawling creatures of the earth (Gen. 1:24-26). In this one creative act, human beings and wild animals are intimately bound together in the web of life.

And although Adam and Eve are given dominion over the fish, the birds, the cattle, and wild animals, they do so — in this often misinterpreted passage — to serve as God’s overseers and caretakers of creation. God thus directs Adam to “till and keep” Eden’s earthly garden and charges him to provide names to the animals — a caring task for establishing a deep and personal bond. And with these first acts, God blesses Adam and Eve and commissions them to care for the beauty and goodness of the earth, for “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” In like manner, the land and its creatures (in their goodness) are entrusted to us today.

It is a call that extends beyond Genesis. Throughout the Pentateuch, God demands that Moses and his people take responsibility for the land (Lev. 25:1-5), care for its wildlife (Deut. 22:6), and tend to the birds in their nests (Deut. 22:30). In so doing, they honor God as sovereign landlord, for the land is ultimately his. As the Psalmist declares: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and all who dwell therein” (24:1). God’s demands are ours today, writes Gregory of Nyssa: Human beings have received the breath of life for the sake of all creation “in order that the earthy might be raised up to the divine [so] that the one grace might pervade the whole of creation.” Wordsworth, good Anglican that he was, would doubtless agree.

Jesus embodies that “one grace” pervading all creation. The incarnate Son of God cherishes the sparrow, admires the lilies of the field, holds up the wonder of the mustard seed, and even calms the sea. And yet there is a more cosmic dimension to this sustaining love, for Jesus was present and coexistent with God the Father from the beginning of time: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:15-16). The same Jesus who walked the dusty roads of Galilee, made his way through fields of grain, and spent time in the wilderness pervades the whole creation. Our reverence for this world becomes all the deeper when we grasp the full measure of Christ’s incarnational presence in all things visible and invisible, for in him lies our “never-failing principle of joy.”

And once our “purest passion” for nature is joined to our faith in God’s sovereignty and the sanctity of his creation, the call to care for God’s handiwork will be inescapable. Discerning how to respond will not be easy. Nature may be our teacher, but we must pray and brood over Scripture if we are to learn its deepest lessons. Our first steps will be simple: worship, retreats, nature walks, holy hikes, new gardens, tree planting, re-wilding, efforts to protect our parks, our wetlands, our conservancies — perhaps establishing a green rule of life.

But underlying all that we do will be a radical change of heart. As Rowan Williams reminds us: “[L]iving in a way that honors rather than threatens the planet is to convert what it means to be made in the image of God.” We begin with fundamentals: Come forth into the light of things: honor nature, honor the planet, become faithful caretakers. And in our delight in the order, harmony, and beauty of nature, we will discover God’s “purest passion” for us and for all that he has made.

The Rev. Elizabeth Orens is a priest associate at St. Paul’s K Street, Washington, D.C.

Next to my desk is a pile of treasured books about silence, solitude, and the desert fathers: Martin Laird’s Into the Silent Land, Sarah Maitland’s A Book of Silence, Rowan Williams’s Where God Happens, and Benedicta Ward’s edition of The Desert Fathers. I’m delighted to add Kim Haines-Eitzen’s Sonorous Desert to these old favorites. In a world overwhelmed by noise and distraction, these books invite us to experience the value of inner stillness and solitude.

Haines-Eitzen is a scholar of early Christianity and early Judaism at Cornell University. Her current research explores the relationship between sound and silence in the life of the desert mothers and fathers of the early Church. She argues that deep listening to desert sounds (thunder, wind, water, birds, the howls of wolves, the hisses of snakes) had the paradoxical effect of deepening their life of prayer and their inner peace.

Haines-Eitzen describes how the practice of hesychia (a Greek word meaning silence, solitude, quiet, stillness) gave the desert monastics an inner freedom from outer disturbances. It is a spiritual practice that begins by attentive listening to nature (the wind, rain, the call of a bird) and progresses to a place of profound stillness.

She quotes Thomas Merton, who said in his lectures on hesychasm (1962): “The sun on the stones and light and shadow, these are things that you don’t pay too much attention to, but they’re healthy and they create a certain atmosphere of silence. They help interior silence.” It is this attunement to nature and the inner life, says Haines-Eitzen, that we need today as we search for a quieter, less stressful life.

Haines-Eitzen’s research requires not only imagination, but also new methods and the innovative use of technology. Scholars in other fields are making the same point, including Karen Bakker in The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants.

And so, Haines-Eitzen turns to acoustical science. Listening to the sounds of the desert with the aid of high-quality microphones and field recordings, she discerns what might have been the sound experiences of the desert monastics.

Haines-Eitzen’s stories about her experiences in the desert complement her scholarly research. She recounts childhood vacations with her family in the Negev and the Sinai Deserts. She describes as well how she and her family spend summers in an off-the-grid house in the desert of southeastern Arizona. It is here — and at other desert sites such as the remarkable cliff monastery, St. George of Choziba — that Haines-Eitzen continues her field recordings to explore the relationship of sound, silence, home, and belonging.

She explains in her prologue the significance of combining her personal story with historical research: “Sonorous Desert is my attempt to listen to the history of early Christian desert monasticism and to reckon with my own relationship to this history, to recognize that my own longings for quiet solitude, the sounds of nature in remote places, and the experience of belonging have been shared by others.”

And she succeeds, weaving together research, spiritual practice, science, and autobiography with remarkable craft and sensitivity.

Haines-Eitzen reveals the profound rewards of deep listening. As she unfolds the wisdom of the desert fathers and the meaning they found in solitude and community, I wish that she had reflected further on the effect sonority had on their common life and their experience of faith, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Some readers may find the author’s balance between historical research and personal experience awkward, but Haines-Eitzen has written an engaging and inspiring book that provides much needed reflection on the significance of nature, sound, and silence in a noisy age.

The experience of solitude can be an unexpected blessing as we enter the third year of the pandemic. As anxiety, sorrow, and grief have laid hold of us, we have come to know all too well the challenge of being alone, at home, in isolation. But embracing solitude during Lent, during a pandemic, can surprise us with solace, creativity, and a refreshment of the spirit.

Solitude is different from loneliness. Solitude is defined as “a state or quality of being alone,” whereas loneliness is experienced as “a painful feeling of bleakness, of desolation.” When we know loneliness, we feel cut off from family, from society. With solitude, we become more mindful of the quality of life, of who we are, and of what we are called to be.

Solitude encourages us to seek inner serenity, to affirm the spirit, to recognize creative possibilities. Solitude is chosen, purposeful. Even amid the round of endless daily responsibilities, solitude can bring moments of meditation, self-revelation, and attentiveness to what God is calling us to do. Thomas Merton celebrates these moments as “life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life.”

The desert mothers and fathers of the third and fourth centuries understood solitude and the sacredness of life. These Christian monks fled from the noise and busyness of the Nile Delta and moved to the desert in order to experience a more authentic faith. From his desert cell, the solitary Poeman remarked: “Whatever hardship comes upon you, it can be overcome by silence.” An elder solitary advised: “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.”

From these quiet habitations, the desert monks examined the self, confronted their weakness and sinful pride, and experienced the riches of humility, repentance, forgiveness, compassion, mercy, and God’s love through prayer and practice. Surprisingly, such self-examination led them closer to their neighbors. For them, silence brought a renewed sensitivity, a newfound compassion for those in need.

“You ‘flee’ to the desert not to escape neighbors,” writes Rowan Williams, “but to grasp more fully what the neighbor is — the way to life for you, to the degree that you put yourself at their disposal in connecting them with God.” As Christians, locked down during the pandemic, we can experience this paradox: the solitude that deepens our faith (through prayer, Scripture, long walks, reading, gardening, art, music) and the solitude that brings us closer to our neighbors (through a deeper awareness and sensitivity to their needs). It’s a paradox worth embracing.

After his baptism, led by the Holy Spirit, Jesus retreated into the wilderness seeking to more fully discern his identity, his calling. And it was there, in his solitude, that Jesus wrestled with temptation, resisted Satan, and claimed his authority, affirmed his identity as God’s chosen Son, and dedicated his life to his compassionate and salvific mission to the world.

When he preached his first sermon, Jesus urged the Nazareth congregation to tend to the blind, the poor, the imprisoned, the oppressed. Unlike the desert fathers, Jesus did not remain in the wilderness. Instead, he offered a public ministry of proclamation, healing, and forgiveness. But the themes of solitude, wilderness, prayer, self-examination, faith, and love so dear to the desert fathers lay at the heart of Jesus’ ministry and his vision of the kingdom of God.

Many saints, bishops, writers, and artists have borne witness to this bond between solitude, prayer, and love of neighbor. Antony of Egypt (251-356), for instance, dwelt alone for 20 years praying, reading, doing manual labor. He faced formidable temptations, but in his solitude he overcame them. Eventually he founded a monastery, preached in the public arena, and converted many to Christianity. He advised his followers: “[L]et us not lose heart. Let us not think that the time is too long or what we do is great, for the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Not losing heart is one of the fruits of solitude.

Catherine of Siena is another saint who experienced the blessing of solitude through prayer and love of neighbor. At an early age, she retreated, as a solitary, to her room at home. Years later, as a member of the Dominican Sisters of Penitence in Siena, she served as a nurse to care for those suffering from leprosy, cancer, and the plague.

In her Dialogue, she describes the bond between solitude and love: “A soul rises up,” she writes, “restless with tremendous desire for God’s honor. … She has for some time exercised self-knowledge in order to know better God’s goodness toward her, since upon knowledge follows love. And loving, she seeks to pursue truth and clothe herself in it.” Solitude, self-knowledge, love, truth: the beauty of contemplation, of revelation, of seeking God’s goodness.

Antony and Catherine are only two of the many saints who revealed the fruits of solitude. Their calling and witness can deepen our desire for a more capacious understanding of God’s love during this trying time. From the riches of his own contemplative life, St. John of the Cross offers exquisite metaphors to describe the way God will disclose himself to us. In his Spiritual Canticle, he writes: “My Beloved [is] / the tranquil night / at the time of the rising dawn, / silent music, / sounding solitude, the supper that refreshes, and deepens love.”

For those seeking a more contemporary guide to the riches of solitude, Sara Maitland and Merton offer a depth of wisdom. In A Book of Silence, Maitland describes how silence nurtured her life during a 40-day solitary retreat on the Isle of Skye. She meditated several hours each day, took long walks, listened to the sounds of nature, sewed, wrote in her journal, listened to music. She hoped that her prayers could “be useful somehow in the noisy world.” She described her walks as a sacred time for “emptying the mind and the body of desires … a kind of blank, a tabula rasa, on which the divine can inscribe itself. It is a discipline of self-emptying, or, to use a theological term, of kenosis, self-outpouring.” Here is a map for our search for stillness, meditation, and creativity.

Merton lived most of his life in silence and wrote extensively about solitude. In keeping with the vision of the desert fathers and the teachings of Jesus, Merton described the true purpose of Christian solitude as bringing love to a world in need. He wrote: “We can go out to [others] without vanity and without complacency, loving them with something of the purity and gentleness and hiddenness of God’s love for us.”

Merton also connected solitude with his experience of nature: “Let me seek … the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.” In more solemn moments, he spoke about the way God offers grace to those experiencing the dark night of the soul. In one of his letters, he wrote: “It is in the darkness of faith that the soul is united to Christ, and in this darkness the Holy Spirit, like an inexhaustible spring of living water, irrigates the dry wastes of the soul.”

In solitude — the quiet cell of the studio — visual artists are, at times, similarly inspired and share the fruits of their solitude in their creative work. By means of composition, color, shading, and light, they disclose moments of meditation and the complexities of the interior life. Johannes Vermeer’s painting Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (1662) shows a woman alone, fully attentive to her morning chores. The painting conveys a specific moment in time when this young woman is about to water plants outside her window. Through the painting’s light, its illumination of the interior, its focus on a woman in the midst of a domestic act, Vermeer reveals the presence of the divine in everyday life.

Benny Andrews’s Portrait of the Black Madonna (1987) depicts a woman, in solitude, most likely contemplating the meaning of her pregnancy. Like Mary, she is a woman of strength, purpose, and determination, pondering God’s favor toward her. The bright flowers on the table nearby are a reminder of the angel’s annunciation, of hope itself, of God’s promises.

Jennifer Duncan’s painting Walking in the Woods (2021) is a colorful depiction of a path that welcomes all who seek the beauty of nature through a solitary walk in the woods. The bright light shining on the painting’s magenta path suggests how walking can be a meditative experience for those who delight in God’s creation. Duncan captures a moment of illumination that awaits the walker who is willing to take this welcoming path in solitude.

Solitude holds so many possibilities. It has the power to heal broken spirits, to provide a deeper understanding of the self, to bring solitaries into God’s presence, to give birth to creative adventures, to awaken the soul to the needs of the poor. “It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life.”

The Rev. Elizabeth Orens is an honorary assistant at St. Paul’s, K Street, in Washington, D.C., and rector emeritus of St. James, Parkton, Maryland.

By Elizabeth Orens

A number of Christian poets, musicians, and visual artists have responded to the COVID pandemic, offering their gifts in churches and cathedrals to express the gospel message.

Their inspired, sometimes mystical, gifts of the imagination bring us more than solace. Through image, song, metaphor, and symbol, their works stop us in our tracks, inspire us to be still, invite us to see anew.

“[T]he arts give people a reason to live,” Deborah Sokolove writes in Sanctifying Art, “the strength to carry on in the presence of terrible pain, or the ability to face death with dignity and peace.”

Sokolove’s insight brings to mind a few examples that antedate the pandemic, yet resonate all the more strongly today: a painting by Mark Rothko that reveals a radiance of light; a haunting chant sung by choristers in Arvo Pärt’s Beatitudes; a verse from John Donne’s Christmas Eve sermon:

He brought light out of darkness,
not out of a lesser light.
He can bring thy summer out of winter
though thou have no spring.

And although some church buildings have been closed throughout the pandemic, others that have been able to open their doors have become venues for works of artistic and spiritual healing.

“Art literally feeds us through beauty in the hardest, darkest hours,” Makoto Fujimura writes in Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. Whether in a painting, a sculpture, a poem, a mural, or a musical offering, the beauty of art beckons us even in our “hardest darkest hours” to “seek his Way amidst our many ways.”

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan offered a creative response to the pandemic during the feast days of All Saints and All Souls. In recognition of those who cared for the sick and dying and in remembrance of those who lost loved ones to the Coronavirus, the cathedral leadership observed the feasts with the theme “Lamentation, Thanksgiving, and Hope.”

Because the pandemic wreaked an especially deadly toll on the Mexican-American and wider Latino communities, cathedral leaders invited guest artist Sebastian Gamez to build Día de Los Muertos altars for two bays. Through social media, the cathedral then invited those who were grieving to send photographs and mementos of loved ones to be placed on the altars. These altars will remain in the cathedral through November.

Another  work is a glass sculpture of angel wings originally displayed in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. This ten-foot high sculpture, Solace, consists of 160 blown glass feathers hung from the metal bones of the wings. Layne Rowe, its creator, offered this “reflective memorial” to honor those who have lost their lives during the pandemic.

In an interview, Rowe explained that his glass wings represented “freedom and fragility, but also peace, strength, and protection.” This sculpture suggests the wings of birds, angels, and the Holy Spirit. Rowe’s Solace has drawn many to the cathedral’s Lady Chapel for reflection and for meditation.

From December 2020 through July 2021, the Washington National Cathedral sponsored another remarkable installation, Les Colombes (The Doves), to symbolize peace and the work of the Holy Spirit. It was created in response to the pandemic, but many may have found it suitable for the times. The exhibit featured a flock of 2,000 white origami paper doves that whirled in a winding column from the very height of the cathedral nave.

The exhibit’s German creator, Michael Pendry, says that he chooses churches for his work because his creations can instill a greater sense of hope and peace in a sacred environment. Les Colombes has previously been installed at such churches as Salisbury Cathedral, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. When the light from surrounding windows (often stained glass) falls on the paper doves, the visual effect delights the eye with its splendor.

St. James Episcopal Church in Hendersonville, North Carolina, responded to the pandemic through visual art tiles. Tim Jones, the deacon in charge, inspired volunteers in his congregation to each create two tiles — one representing despair and the other hope. Upon completion, parishioners organized a full-display mosaic for the church’s courtyard. The mosaic, “Circumference of a Pandemic,” brought adults and children together in a creative project that attended to feelings of loss and isolation, but also to healing. In a television interview about the project, Jones reported that painting the tiles helped parishioners “speak what is in their souls.”

Friends Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) in College Station, Texas, opened its doors during Easter week to a prayer service and art exhibit, “The ‘Holy Pandemic’ Stations of the Cross.” Mary Button, the artist, painted images of hope and resilience that featured frontline healthcare, sanitation, and mortuary workers, along with verses from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers.”

“[The exhibit] was something we as a community needed to do, especially after 12-plus months of being mostly in isolation,” said Dan De Leon, senior pastor. “It shows the resiliency in the face of so much suffering and death much the same way that the Easter resurrection gives us hope in the face of the sufferings and death of Jesus.”

The Rev. Elizabeth Orens assists at All Souls Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.

Six years ago, I arranged for a small group of Christian artists (the Sacred Arts Group) to meet monthly with older adults at St. Mary’s Court, a residence for low-income seniors in Washington, D.C. The program began with a Eucharist in a basement living room. Afterward, everyone gathered for food, conversation, and a poetry circle. Joy Kraus, a gifted local poet, would read from her work and personal stories flowed in response. In the spring, the visiting artists and artists living at St. Mary’s Court shared their talents in an arts program for the residents. Some parishioners from All Souls Episcopal Church participate in this mission as well. As an assisting priest at All Souls, the convener of the Sacred Arts Group, and the celebrant at the monthly masses at St. Mary’s Court, I have been engaged in all three communities.

What can we learn from ministries such as this, and how can the science of aging inform our efforts?

Creativity and Aging

The scientific evidence is clear. Offering opportunities for older adults to engage with the arts and to celebrate their talents enhances their happiness, their physical vitality, and their sense of identity and purpose. Many older adults struggling with isolation, loneliness, prejudice, and physical limitations discover that sustained engagement with the arts brings emotional satisfaction as well as improved health.

In The Mature Mind, Gene Cohen, a pioneer researcher in the field of geriatric psychiatry, describes the pride and confidence older adults enjoy as they gain mastery and control over a given medium. It is not surprising that after the spring arts program at St. Mary’s Court, one of the residents, a painter who was exhibiting her work for the first time, remarked with delight: “Everyone has an artist within. It’s important to open yourself to the gifts given you. Sometimes you need a nudge.”

Cohen conducted a formidable national study (2001) of the effects of community-based art programs on the health of older adults. The two-year study took place in three different cities with 350 elders (age 65 to 103). The results of the study exceeded Cohen’s expectations. In comparison to the control group, those who participated in the arts program experienced an “increase in overall health,” a “decline in doctor visits,” a “decline in medication usage,” a “positive impact on morale,” and an “increase in social activities” (Creativity and Aging Study, 2006).

Cohen’s research complements that of other neuroscientists — Andrew Newberg, Mark Waldman, Michael Merzenich, and others — who emphasize the brain’s neuroplasticity; (its flexibility and malleability). As the psychiatrist Doidge points out, the brain has all the elasticity it needs to change someone’s life for the better, as long as the person is open to exercising it. Such research offers encouragement to our ministry at St. Mary’s Court.

Beauty and Reformation

But the inspiration for our ministry does not rest on neuroscience alone. At its heart was our belief in the transformative power of beauty, friendship, and prayer. This transformative power was confirmed as we watched it bring purpose, inspiration, and joy into the lives of those who participated in our program.

One of the painters at St. Mary’s Court who exhibited her work to an Arts Evening put it this way: “I felt that all the performers were seeking unity and beauty. I was impressed with everyone’s inner search for beauty.” Her response captured the essence of the evening: that artists from all walks of life can bring people together through the gift of words, music, dance, and the visual arts. She had come to realize that the power of art can bring inspiration, healing, and wonder to a world too often bereft of imagination.

Inspired by this same conviction, the Sacred Arts Group meets bimonthly for worship, performance, and discussion. Our mission has been particularly influenced by Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love by Rowan Williams. He argues that the artist provides a unique perception of the world — one that moves beyond determinism to envision a world of complexity, imagination, and mystery. The artist enters into a creative process of reformation —a reshaping — of what is known.

At our Arts Evening, a dancer from St. Mary’s Court offered an interpretive dance of the Prayer of St. Francis that was an embodied reformation of a beloved prayer. As Gay Hanna, a member of the Sacred Arts Group and former executive director of the National Center for Creative Aging, said: “Aging helps creativity to flower. Aging and creativity help to reposition ourselves.” Beauty conveyed redemptive possibilities of hope and healing to an aging community. And so did friendship.

Friendship

The members of the Sacred Arts Group found redemptive possibilities for themselves as they gathered in friendship for meals, worship, and performance in each other’s homes. This bond of friendship was one that members felt called to offer to the people of St. Mary’s Court. One member spoke about the relationship we built this way: “The hospitality we knew as a Sacred Arts Group was now being experienced at St. Mary’s Court. So, home to home; hospitality to hospitality.”

The group found guidance for this aspect of its ministry in Aelred’s Spiritual Friendship (1167). The words Aelred uses to describe friendship — honor, charm, truth, joy, sweetness, good will, affection, and action — served as touchstones for the group’s outreach. In The Gift of Years, Benedictine nun Joan Chittister advises older adults to take courage to widen their social circles in order to gain or regain connection and purpose. Members of the Sacred Arts Group felt called to this same vision. Through “affection and action,” we encouraged the elders to engage with us and their community through worship, fellowship, and the arts.

Worship, the Arts, and Faith

The setting for worship at St. Mary’s Court was a living room space, not a chapel. But when the Eucharist was celebrated the room was adorned with icons, art, and candles. And in this small multiracial and multinational congregation of Americans, Mexicans, Nigerians, Syrians, and Chinese, the beauty of holiness was present in faith, sacrament, and the bond of peace.

The Eucharist was the foundation for all that followed. The proclamation of the Word with its message of renewal, healing, and hope inspired the fellowship, poetry circle, and discussion. In this simple gathering, God’s splendor broke forth from a basement room at St. Mary’s Court. In a number of revelatory ways, faith and art converged to encourage healing and new awakenings. “God is the Creator,” one resident said. “God made us in his image; we do beautiful things as creative people ourselves; we copy his creativity.”

The Sacred Arts Group believes that faith, friendship, and the arts to elders are especially important now during our country’s pandemic. For those who have suffered isolation, illness, and loss, a ministry of hope and healing is imperative. A holistic mission such as ours has the creative potential of bringing health, inspiration, and longevity to older adults. Such a bond of faith and friendship is one of the beatitudes within God’s kingdom.

The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Orens is a priest associate at All Souls,’ Washington, D.C.