BIBLIA PAUPERUM and the BURNING BUSH

Meditation/study on the O Antiphons in the Library of Christ Episcopal Church, Tacoma, Washington.

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This morning I participated in "Come to the Light," the 2018 Advent Quiet Morning at Christ Episcopal Church of Tacoma, Washington. It was a morning of worship with Holy Communion, followed by three priest-led devotions on the O Antiphons with time for mediation, reflection, and prayer after each devotion.

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The second devotion was on one of the pages of the Biblia Pauperum (Bible of the Poor). The central image was of the manger of the Nativity, with Moses encountering God/Christ speaking from the burning bush on the left and priests lifting up prayers to God via incense on the right. We heard of O Adonai. We learned of the Orthodox Church believing unburnt bush as a symbol of the Theotokos, Mary, the mother of God. We heard lines of poetry from (Saint) Emily Dickinson* and Malcolm Guite.

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*The designation of Emily as saint drew uncharacteristic laughter, loud and long, from those of us gathered, who were otherwise mostly silent.

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The burning bush of Exodus 3 and 4 reminded me of the words we heard earlier in the mornings worship from Isaiah 41:19-20—where God places "in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive" and sets "in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together." With premonitions/echoes of the tree of the Cross (since the God of all time has collapsed time within God) as well as the Jesse Tree I would discover later in the morning.

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I headed off to the church's Library for a number of reasons. First, I wanted to look up a couple of passages in a Bible. Second, we were told that the Library was much warmer than some of the other spaces. Third, I needed to be in a different space than the Sanctuary since I knew I would likely be returning to it later.

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I looked up Bible passages. I peeked through a couple of other books. I meditated upon the woody and the vegetal: burning bushes, trees, berries and cones, life locked within these seed forms, full trees yet to be realized. And, if I thought of Rilke during the first session, Goethe and his The Metamorphosis of Plants was near of mind.

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The second ringing of the bell called me back from reflection and back to the Chapel.