Wounded By Love
July-August Studio Updates
STATIONS OF THE CROSS
I've been quite busy in the studio since I last wrote to you. The writing I've done has been in the form of tiny Substack Notes (which you can follow in the app) note taking and editing drafts for articles. Most of my time has necessarily been given to completing the Stations of the Cross project, which is nearing completion with only a few pieces remaining.
This project has been a great joy. Lots of learning and growing throughout the work. I think it's the most cohesive my work has ever been. It's important for such programs to have a consistency of design to facilitate undistracted prayer and the worship of God. I believe I have been successful with creating such a program, despite the imperfections & my own internal critiques.
In September I will have more Founding Member slots available. This is the bread & butter of the Saintly Folk Substack: getting affordable, hand painted icons into your home. In addition to the icon you will receive for becoming a Founding Member, there is also a discount for other icons you may desire to commission. There will be an icon giveaway coming up soon for paid subscribers (whether Founding Member or Annual). By the way, Founding Members who renew their subscription will be getting an icon of the Theotokos.
AVAILABLE WORK
These smaller works are where I’ve felt most at home—though painting in a larger scale has been a nice change. Although it’s nice having some of my work stick around a bit longer, I do need to move these along. You can purchase by following the links or sending a message.
WOUNDED BY LOVE
I recently began listening to Wounded by Love: The Life & Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios during studio hours. I may try to make it an annual tradition to read or listen to this book. There is so much wisdom available for me to gain from this man of God.
The phrase of the book’s title itself is something I am still internalizing. What does it mean to be wounded by love? How does love wound? My worldly inclination is to think of love as giving pleasure rather than pain. But as it turns out the paradox of that idea--to be wounded by love--is really at the heart of the Christian life.
Love that is only pleasure is one dimensional and is not really love at all. The death of a loved one is only of a loved one if there is grief. An enemy may cause various sorts of expected pain, but only a friend can introduce us to the pain of betrayal.
Love exposes the heart to the potential of being wounded. God so loved us that He sent His only begotten Son. The world He made rejected Him, and yet the joy set before Him was to endure the cross for us to destroy our death by His own.
The Christian life, more often than not, means loving others to the point of enduring myriad kinds of death. But it only remains love when we do not seek vengeance against our enemies on the other side of the crosses we bear. Rather, we seek their salvation by seeking our own. By our own prayers. By our own repentance. By our own faithfulness to Christ.
The question is how to actually acquire this state of being. To acquire the ability from God to endure unjust treatment by a loved one, to discover their love for you lacks faith, and yet continue on loving them. It's one thing to merely say we love someone. But it's another thing to hold onto that love, and to act in accordance with it, while continuing to be wounded by that love.
I’m thinking mainly of severe examples here. But there also the thousand little paper cuts in relationships that can become a festering wound when left untreated by forgiveness and reconciliation. When these little cuts happen, we have the choice to either accept that wound as beneficial to our salvation, or to internalize them and make greater problems for ourselves as well as the other.
There is some practical wisdom from St Porphyrios I'm attempting to put into practice. And it's a wisdom that was taught to me when I was quite young: hiding the word of God in the heart.
St Porphyrios was known to memorize large portions of Scripture. He probably had all of the Gospels memorized, if not the entire New Testament. Scripture memorization is one way to “always have good thoughts”--but even the regular reading aloud of the Holy Scriptures is a powerful spiritual tool.
Of course, there is also prayer--which is often substituted for asking God to give us things we don't need, do something about people we don't like, make our spouses and friends do what we want them to do, and all sorts of other things for which you'd catch Aladin wishing. The hard truth is that we often need to pray for things we don't want.
We don’t always want to be self-giving in our marriages and friendships, and yet we are called to bear one another’s burdens, outdo one another in brotherly love, and love our wives as Christ loves the Church (and husbands as the Church loves Christ). We need God’s help for these callings, and so we must pray for Him to help us. We don't want to love our enemies, but that is the command and so we must ask God to help us obey. We don't want to overlook the offenses of our brothers and own up to our own misdeeds, and yet we are called to humility and must ask God for His help to acquire it. Whenever we ask for such dangerous things, we shouldn't be surprised to find ourselves in painful situations. To be wounded by Our Father’s love.
These prayers seem to be answered in difficult ways. Ways that leave no room for us to rely on our own strength, and to instead rely on Christ. We can even be made so vulnerable that we meet the Jesus who is flogged bloody and see Him face to face. The iconographer in A Hidden Life said that that is the real Jesus--in contrast to the quaint Jesus people wanted Him to paint. Putting aside the idea that gruesome imagery is required for something to be realistic, there is truth here: We don't meet Jesus when everything is going right. When life is going our way. We meet Him when we have to pick up our own crosses--however light or severe they may be.
Our crosses soften us and make us receptive to God’s love. We are too hardened without the humility of the cross and unable to hear God or to receive Him.
Thank you, as always, for reading and all your support.