Catedral
weary of waiting
we asked for king
our weary senses growing
dulled to recognizing
his sucessors
weary of waiting
we made a god
just to bow before it
pay it visits from abroad
as pilgrims
four letters form the line
between idol and icon
i trust the good intentions
of those who lay the gold leaf on
iconographers
one body many parts
of my history that i loathe
i cross myself on my knees
make confessions both
to God and
to priests
posted by Matt @ 5:54 AM
1 Comments:
At 7/05/2006 7:15 AM,
Matt said…
pilgrims trek from all around the world to visit the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela. it is an amazing oldschool (mideval?) building. it is special because it is built on what is considered to be the grave of St. James!
i have a hard time with icons (paintings/statues of diety or important religious figures).
on one hand...i feel like bowing before images makes Christianity no better than other religions that do the same. we serve the living God. i´m not sure Moses or Jeremiah would be too pleased to see us doing this.
i feel like our spiritual ancestors got tired of waiting to encounter God so they made images. (this probably isn´t how it happened...who knows?)
on the other hand...i know that many iconographers (people who make art for worship) spend tons of time in prayer and preparation to create icons. they are not meant to be an exact representation of the figures but rather of a quality or characteristic of the person represented. this could be handy for meditation in the lives of the artists and other worshippers.
In the end, i need to cut myself and all the other Christians past and present a whole lot of slack. how many ancient dedicated believers who walked miles to worship at the Cathedral de Santiago would have a REALLY hard time worshipping in our churches today?
Carrie´s priest once pointed out that in many modern churches the drum kit and speakers have taken the place of the alter and icons of old.
Brian reminded me that...faith gets hard for all of us. maybe all of our forms of worship come out of that deep longing to touch our Saviour.
maybe all our sermons and songs are just as desperate an attempt to connect with the divine as a huge statue Jesus or one of His disciples. ???
what do you think?
****the pictures were all taken inside the cathedral. these were parts of the architecture and icon collection i found disturbing.
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