While many of us were taught to close our eyes when we pray, but Iconographer Ludmila Pawlowska tells us to do the opposite:
Praying with icons is an ancient prayer practice that involves keeping our eyes wide open, taking into our heart what the image visually communicates. We focus not on what is seen in the icon, but rather on what is seen through it – the love of God expressed through it. This is prayer without words, with a focus on being in God’s presence rather than performing in God’s presence. It is a right-brain experience of touching and feeling what is holy – divine mystery. Icons are not simply art; they are a way in to contemplative prayer, and are therefore one way to let God speak to us. They are doorways into stillness, into closeness with God. If we sit with them long enough, we too can enter into the stillness and if we listen to them closely enough, with our hearts, we just may discern the voice of God
When an iconographer creates an icon, they are said to “write the icon,” not paint it. This is because it is a prayerful exercise in humility before God. They are highly symbolic, using shapes, colors, and forms to symbolize different spiritual realities. Iconographer Linette Martin writes:
The pictures are not there just to be looked at as though the worshipers were in an art museum; they are designed to be doors between this world and another world, between people and the Incarnate God, his Mother, or his friends, the saints. The primary purpose of an icon is to enable a face-to-face encounter with a holy person or make present a sacred event. Icons are also theology in color.
God is revealed not only by words to the ears but also by images to the eyes. Christ is not just the word (logos) of God but also the image (eikon) of the unseen God. From there, the word ‘icon’ is derived from the Greek. An icon is a window into the divine, uniting everyday life into the realm of God. Author Jim Forest notes:
If we are indifferent to the image of God in other people, we won’t find the image in icons. The sage advice of an old monk once said: “Do not go out and buy icons. Go downtown and look at Christ in the faces of the poor…One thinks of the advice given to medieval pilgrims: “If you do not travel with Him whom you seek, you will not find Him when you reach your destination.”
In an unstable world, icons teach us to contemplate life’s most important matters. During this particular season of Lent, I hope you will take a moment to gaze upon this icon and let it gaze upon you, as Iconographer Fr. William Hart McNichols tells us:
You gaze on the icon, but it gazes on you too. When you are looking at someone you love, and they are looking at you, there is a lot that is communicated that cannot be put in words. We need to gaze on truly conversational, truly loving images…images that will return our love.
Icons are doorways into stillness, into closeness with God. Perhaps there, we can get a glimpse of the abundant love of God that lives within us.
Visitor Reflections