Our 2016 Lent installation is currently on display at Space12. This project was designed and executed by Shay Grabowski, Paul Taylor, the Vox Creatives, and many helpers from our community. The words projected onto the wall each Sunday are collected from our Lent reflection responses, shared anonymously each week by our community. Shay writes below about the inspiration and creation of this piece.

Rise again. The intangible tangible. Overwhelming light.
Trust. Sadness. Vulnerability. Surrender. Love. Fear. Hope. Curiosity. Disappointment. Restless. Rooted. Enough. Worthy. Light. Free.

These are words written by us as a community. Our words are projected in light onto yarn, and the individual strands of yarn represent each of us. We stand individually though are collectively part of a greater story of light. The thorny branches nod to the crown of thorns on Jesus’ head as he was crucified, and to the cross he was crucified on. The yarn is yellow and white, no longer stained, and it holds the words we have written as a community.

The materials – yarn, branches, wine, and projected light – are tactile, tangible, and meant to be gently felt. The spiritual world, God’s presence in our lives, Jesus coming back to life from the empty tomb… It feels intangible. The spiritual feels removed in our modern, busy lives, though Jesus’ presence is continually, quietly accessible to us.

Jesus promises that we will suffer. As we walk in his overwhelming light, may we feel his presence in a new way and rise again.

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Luke 23:44

And surely I am with you, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:20

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us.
1 John 7

[Photo Credit: Harmon Li]