One day the words ‘En Christo’ really struck me. Of course, I had heard and read the words many times before but had never really contemplated their deeper meaning. I sat down and looked it up. This led me to a rabbit hole of words and definitions and further words and definitions. The sticky notes created from that time of contemplation have lived in my studio ever since and I often am brought back to them by a word I hear or the lived meaning which brings me back to them.
As I contemplated a new design to celebrate 30 years creating liturgical art in one design for all the seasons, I knew it had to tell a story. It had to be simple, powerful, rich and deep, even, and perhaps especially in its simplicity. En Christo has that power.
Allow me to take you down my rabbit hole:
En Christo = In Christ = In Love = In Light = In human form = In divine form = In Spirit
To live In Christ is “to live by choice and embodiment within the force field of the Risen Christ”*. Embodiment means incarnation, expression, materialization, essence, expression of something like an idea, a quality, a feeling in tangible or visible form; Christ in the Christian and the Christian in Christ. The New Testament tells us En Christo is a living bond with Christ, that Christ lives in us and that we can have the mind of Christ.
For me Christ lives at the intersection of God’s limitless love poured out for all (humanity and creation), and all of life and creation’s hunger and desire for the wholeness and peace which passes all understanding. God reaches out, sends God’s Son to be a tangible expression of this love and light. We as God’s creation reach out in longing to the divine, dancing with Spirit even as we stumble and grieve and delight and seek a way where there is no way. “In this humanistic age we suppose we are the initiators and God is the responder. But the Living Christ within us is the initiator, and we are the responders…” writes mystic Thomas Kelly.
This design reaches down, Holy and Great God of Love, pouring down into humanity and creation with mercy and grace, stirring in us a longing for wholeness. This design reaches up, us, all of life and Creation surging up toward life, light, love and resurrection in our God-inspired longing. This place of both - incarnate Love, humanity, struggle, grief, grace, mercy, truth, humility, trust, peace and ease is En Christo; the place in relationship where everything meets. Here the center portion is illustrated in shiny silk. The right holds the lines of intersection apart, Divinity and Humanity separate. The left holds the idea of the messy, overlapping, intertwining, two as inseparable, joined in love.
The En Christo series is meant to be celebratory of all seasons. I have chosen to continue using fine fabrics, as they are a trademark of my work and quality.
*Father Richard Rohr, November 17, 2015
