A few pieces of art that have meant something to me this season are Brian Kershisnik’s “Nativity”, some lines from Hamlet I spent a bit of time considering, and Sara Groves Christmas album. If you click on Kershisnik’s painting, you’ll get a better look at the movement of the piece. The crowd of angels or saints are huddled in mass around Christ, those in front of Him pressing toward the child, but not to stop, but to move through and beyond toward something else. It’s an evocative statement. I think this is Kershisnik’s nod toward God in three persons, the crowd moving on to worship God, as though Christ came to point us toward the Father. In the painting, many of those who have moved past Christ are singing. And I like the expression on the face of Joseph, his hand over the eye closest to the crowd, yet uncovered toward his son. He seems human, and in dilemma for having been given a child, who was God, but who was also his child. I wonder in what way Joseph loved Jesus. The Child was not His own, biologically. And Joseph knew the child was from God. I think the [...]
