Reflecting on Culture

What helps you to live well?

What are your travels through life teaching you?

We chose this image because it reminded us of different aspects of culture: writing; law (the vellum is a recycled legal document); faith (the words are from the Christian Scriptures [Latin: in principio erat verbum; English: In the beginning was the Word].

The artist Susie Lieper says of the work:

Would we have culture without the word? Probably not. Because without words it may be impossible to formulate thoughts and ideas. In Columba’s day the written word was predominantly Latin, texts were written on vellum (the skin of an animal), and salient texts were illuminated in colour. This work reiterates all these aspects: the Latin biblical phrase is painted in colour on vellum (a recycled legal document), and, harking back to Columba’s day, there are no word breaks. But just as culture is constantly evolving, this work diverges from tradition: the challenge for the modern viewer is to read the counters of each letter, to enjoy the visual appeal of the words as well as their meaning. Culture should challenge us. It should encourage us to see the world in new ways, but ways that have some link to the past.

How does this image speak to you?

Which things in your culture are you most grateful for?

How do you respond to this image?

Is it more important to find things we share with others, or to celebrate our differences?

When do you feel most fully alive? Where do you find the seams of gold?

What are the stories that have shaped your life? Have they damaged or healed you?

Take One Step

Read a psalm from the Bible (eg Ps 34, which Columba was copying out just before he died). 

Then try writing your own - an honest, heartfelt version of what you might say to God, as if to a mature, trusted friend.

Visit your local museum or support your local festival.

Words for the Heart

I will not die an unlived life,
I will not live in fear 
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
allowing my living to open me, 
to make me less afraid, more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, 
a torch, a promise.
I chose to risk my significance,
to live so that that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom, 
and that which came to me as blossom
goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova

God, kindle Thou my heart within
A flame of love to my neighbour,
To my foe, to my friend, to my kindred all,
To the brave, to the knave, to the thrall,
From the lowliest thing that liveth,
to the Name that is highest of all.
From the loveliest thing that liveth,
To the Name that is highest of all.

Blessing of the Kindling, Carmina Gadelica (No. 82)
collected by Alexander Carmichael