Icons
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As you can tell, I have an affinity for icons. I grew up charismatic, “word of faith” attending Assemblies of God and Non Denominational Churches so my exposure to “historical christianity” were limited to attending the occasional mass with my maternal Grandmother.
Out of curiosity, I started studying EO almost 2 years ago. I am not convinced enough of the claims of the EOC to convert but I have a deep respect for their traditions and contributions to the Body of Christ. I have no doubt that many are legitimately drawn to the EOC and find deep and meaningful faith and spirituality within her Traditions.
Because of my history of “churcheanity”, I found so many of the EO T(t)raditions very foreign (no surprise there) but felt drawn to the ideas of rhythm of prayer and the multi sensory experiences of prostrating, crossing, incense, fasting and icons. So for the past couple years I have been incorporating many of those things into my own spirituality.
Icons have become very dear to me and a way that I connect in a very different way to God. I also appreciate the visual method of story telling and learning about Biblical accounts that we don’t have in protestantism except with cartoons and flanelgraphs.
There are many good articles and books put out by writers within the Eastern Orthodox Church so I will charge you with your own research but in short, I find icons to be centering and a way to draw my attention to God and his work in the lives of his saints. They are sacred symbols of something so much bigger than they themselves.
And IMO, as art, icons are in a class by themselves. The 2 icons above are Ethiopian Orthodox and are probably my 2 favorites. They came from this site.
[tags]icons, worship, prayer, easter orthodoxy, roman catholicism[/tags]
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thanks Ari - i love the richness of the symbolism, with even the fingers used in crossing representing the 3 in 1 of the trinity etc…
I agree though it is weird to begin with but then so was playing guitars in church when i first attended a charismatic service - i had to go sit out in the parkin lot about 10 mins in i was so freaked, lol.
I went to an anglican church for a couple of yrs and the rhythm of the liturgy was great - sometimes i see really old nearly empty churches and just think man think of the spirituality that has gone on in here for centuries and how the old/new blend could reinvigorate this place.
We meet in a school so its not quite the same - but even there they have really good art work from the kids of the school all over the walls, it can be a lil surreal as its not religious at all but i still find my eyes caught in the expressions of creativity!
creativity is from God and beauty is from God so i think wherever you find God, you find his expressions and can find spiritual significance