INTRODUCTION

Gerard David, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1510

The first time I saw this painting (right) I was a teenager. The safety of the child, the beautiful color, the feeling of peace was a startling vision, given the violence in my family home. Even the donkey’s eyes, the soft ferns, so reverently depicted. Nothing unimportant, even if lowly. It was a kind of picture of paradise. Of all that I deeply wanted in my own life. The concrete details embodying an unsurpassable tenderness. I still choke up now, writing about this work.

I returned to it when I was writing This Is Why I Came. Not at first. At first I was thinking about the marriage of Mary and Joseph and how in the end it must have collapsed. I don’t think that now, but then was noticing how Joseph is nowhere mentioned in the Bible after Jesus is 12 years old. He’s not at any of the miracles; he doesn’t witness his son’s execution. He’s never quoted in scripture. With my own experience of divorce I went into this emptiness, writing several chapters.

But then I remembered this small painting. And imagined Mary late in life. After Joseph’s death and the death of her son, writing the book of her life.  I would have her remember a moment like Gerard David’s painting. The small wicker basket, the grapes. That such a moment would stand out in her memory because the family was not on an ordinary family picnic here. They were fleeing total disaster. Herod had ordered the death of all male infants under the age of 2. This is called the “Flight” into Egypt for that reason. This disaster is remembered by Christians every year immediately after Christmas in a feast appropriately called “The Slaughter of the Innocents.” Yet, in the middle of this, Gerard David depicts a moment of rest. A moment of profound tenderness.

WRITING INSPIRED BY THIS PAINTING

 The chapter inspired by this painting can be read here and is accompanied by another image I also like.

http://thisiswhybook.com/mary-mother-jesus-later-life/

Then early during Covid, trying to connect to the disaster in NYC I made a collection of 81 images, each with a meditation/prayer. This image was one. I called the collection Psalter and asked In this pandemic, does beauty have a plea?

My answer was and is yes. As artists we should make every effort to do exactly that.

We should notice small actions and take our notes so we don’t forget. We should put them into our work because against a pandemic or a divorce or child abuse or even infanticide, beauty can make a plea. And it must. We must make a plea against all those circumstances that cause us to think that our human condition is devoid of beauty, justice, tenderness, mercy, joy. It has never been bare of these things. And it never will be.

You can read the meditation inspired by David’s painting here:

https://www.instagram.com/prayers_for_our_time/

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Psalter- 115732700114641/photos/?tab=album&album_id=119911916363386& UC-R 

As I thought more into the power of tenderness, the sculpture below by the contemporary Los Angeles artist Steve DeGroodt inspired me.

The orange is so vivid. Yet it’s all so precarious. Reminding me that we can hope when things are dangerous. We can foist hope up and over the wall of our circumstances. The work is titled “The Supreme Perhaps.”

As writers we can imagine that this is possible and we can create characters who do exactly that. I wrote a meditation to DeGroodt’s sculpture also in the Psalter

He is a good friend. You can see more of his work here:

http://www.stevedegroodt.com/index.htm

DeGroodt, The Supreme Perhaps, 2000

To rest and to hope in the middle of danger is risky but also brave. We should learn to do this. And we should remember small acts of tenderness decades later.

Why?

We are connected to every glacier, every mosquito, every virus, every constellation, every creature. We are connected to all that is. But we alone make art. This is why we should do this. Because we alone can.

In an interview the wonderful writer Cara Benson asked if I thought there is a sacrificial aspect to writing. I said yes. It starts with uncertainty.

“One can work for years with nothing to show. One works in this invisible world, trying to fasten words to it…. You always know that if you worked in the soup kitchen in the Tenderloin every day, you’d for sure be helping another person, maybe many. But you never ever know that about writing. This is true of many fields, this not-knowing…. But if you finally find the kind of work toward which you are most deeply drawn then you can sacrifice without resentment….

“Sacrifice is part of the prayerfulness of doing the work whether one is raising a child or building boats, working toward a mathematical result or working with the mentally ill, designing opera houses or working in a liquor store. It’s all the same.

“It is in the ordinary that the sacred is found. We do our work there. As long as it takes. And when we are finished, we might have made something that is holy.”

 WRITING PROMPTS

1. What is that moment in your life when tenderness broke through? Write that
2. In a troubled relationship between two of your characters, write that slim moment when hope surfaced and things seemed possible

TODAY’S TIP 

Steve DeGroodt allowed my LA workshop to spend a day writing in his studio. It was amazing! As you get to know living artists, see if you can perhaps work side by side one day. Be respectful. Be quiet. Just write.

Steve’s work is currently in group exhibitions in these 2 LA galleries. Enjoy!

https://prjctla.com/july-august-2021/

https://cmaygallery.com

NEWS:

Writers and thinkers working at the intersection of spirituality, culture and religion are guests on “Fireside” hosted by the brilliant Blair Hodges. I’m lucky to be his guest Sept. 14. I’ll have the link next post. Meanwhile, here’s the trailer: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fireside-with-blair- hodges/id1559678265

If you need an editor I’d love to hear from you. I’m scheduling for January 2022. I give a discount to SFWC writers.

See you next time! Good writing!!

A freelance editor living in the Bay Area, Mary Rakow, Ph.D. works with clients who are both local and global. She is both rigorous and encouraging, insightful and kind.

A theologian with graduate degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Boston College, Mary writes with deep feeling and a questioning faith. This Is Why I Came earned outstanding reviews in The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Commonweal, Christian Century, O Magazine, Ploughshares. It appeared on reading lists for courses at both Princeton and Yale.

Graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UC Riverside, inducted into Alpha Sigma Nu for her doctoral work, Rakow is a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellow. She received two Lannan residencies and two residencies at Whale & Star, in the studio of visual artist Enrique Martinez Celaya, where she wrote the first book-length treatment of his work, Martinez Celaya, Working Methods (2014).

Rakow’s debut novel, The Memory Room, received outstanding reviews and was shortlisted for the Stanford University International Saroyan Prize in Literature, a PEN USA/West Finalist in Fiction and was listed among the Best Books of the West by The Los Angeles Times.

Mary is a beloved editor and writing coach. She is constantly on the lookout for new writers, both those who are just starting out and those with publications and writing accolades.

thisiswhybook.com–Art & Novel

maryrakow.com–Art & Editing

https://www.instagram.com/prayers_for_our_time/–Art & Psalter

https://www.facebook.com/Psalter-115732700114641/ Art & Psalter

© Mary Rakow