This morning I am leading worship in my church and the service will focus on the story of Jesus visiting two sisters Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42. I will be showing three visual images during the service and yesterday in my blog post I shared the first one.
The second is a wall hanging I purchased in Hong Kong in a shop selling the work of Chinese artists which stood just adjacent to the Lutheran Church Tao Fong Shan which we attended during the six years we lived in the city.
This wall hanging was done by women from the Chinese Tujia minority. They use simple wooden looms to weave cotton, silk, and wool into beautiful tapestries with precise bold images. Thousands of years ago these tapestries were offered as tributes to the Chinese emperor.
In the 1990s Dr He Qi the first Chinese to hold a doctoral degree in Christian art designed images that illustrated stories in the Bible in a unique style and enlisted the help of Tujia women to create them.
I like the way Mary is depicted listening intently to Jesus tell a story with her hands over her heart. Jesus is pointing heavenward perhaps implying that his story is divinely inspired. But Martha who is a person that concerns herself with the pragmatic aspects of life is not going to be ignored. She plops her tea kettle right down in the middle of the two conversationalists to remind them of more practical matters like eating and drinking and the work that preparing food and drink entails. She is going to attend to the physical needs of both her sister and her friend.
It is a good reminder that as we make our way through our daily lives it is important to attend to both matters of the body as well as those that concern the mind and heart. They are connected and contribute equally to our sense of well-being.
Other posts............
A Gentle Religious Bridge
A Woman I Wish I Knew More About
The Family of Jesus Portrayed in a Controversial Way
No comments:
Post a Comment