Living Icons
by Sister Therese Carson
Long before I left Michigan for this monastic community in Duluth, a friend invited me to attend an icon writing workshop. I was familiar with religious icons – formalized, highly symbolic images of God and holy men and women – but there we learned so much more. We spent a week immersed in the Orthodox artistic tradition, where every line, color, and detail convey a religious truth. Shining gold leaf speaks of the light of God, white is purity, blue indicates the things of heaven – and so our Blessed Mother wears a blue mantle over white and has a halo of gold leaf. Red speaks of the blood of earthly life, green of springtime and hope and renewal, black of death. The very brush strokes hold meaning.
Using this rich visual language, the iconographer ‘writes’ an icon in the same way authors of Christian scripture wrote with words, teaching truths with a visual language.
I went on to write four icons in the Russian Orthodox tradition under the tutelage of Tatiana from the Prosopon School of Iconography. We used traditional egg tempera paint, an emulsion of ground mineral pigments in egg yolk, water, and alcohol. Asked how long it takes to master the art, Tatiana said it takes ten years – fifteen if you must first unlearn Western painting techniques.
In Duluth I continued to write icons using acrylic paint but, sadly, never found time to learn to do it well. Then, after a serious shoulder injury at the Monastery, I stepped away from painting to become involved in other ministries. Unfinished icons now sit on the art table in the corner of my room, gathering dust and waiting until I am ready to complete them. But I know that even my best works remained earth-bound, falling short of the transcendence that is the goal of a master iconographer: to surrender one’s will to God and let the marks of human labor fade into an image of holiness. An icon done in this spirit opens a window into Heaven. One who prays before it is drawn into deep contemplative prayer and stands, stripped of pretense, in the presence of God.
Some years ago, I spoke about icons with residents and guests at the Benedictine Living Community next door to the Monastery. One person asked, “What icon is your favorite?” and I couldn’t answer. I could have named one by a master, like the Virgin of Vladimir, or perhaps the last one I completed or intended to write, or the one I would probably never try for fear of failure (also the Virgin). But that isn’t it.
As my relationship with God deepens since becoming a Benedictine Sister, I am coming to understand the word ‘icon’ in a new way. These icons are not painted by human hand but created by the loving hand of God. They are you and me. They are the people we pass on the street, the ones in line at the grocery store, our friends and neighbors. When we surrender to God’s will, we look beyond our own neediness to the suffering around us. We see each other through the lens of our own trauma and grief, and are moved to love. We find God in each other. We join in solidarity with the whole of creation, for all are blessed and beloved children of God.
Do you ask God for an easy life? It will only make you selfish. Instead, God allows life to hurt us, physically and emotionally, so that we recognize each other’s pain and see them through the lens of our own trauma and grief. We then become the healing hands of God. We become part of living, loving communities where each person is valued and supported.
Honor God in each other, for we are filled with shining sparks of God’s love and overflow with joy and laughter. When we live like this, we each become the living icon of God.
“Contemplation is the practice of coming to see the presence of God at the center of the natural world, in the midst of our personal lives, as the light that emblazons our scriptures and so leads us into even greater insight into God.” ~ Joan Chittister, OSB, from The Monastic Heart
