Shapes of the Seasons

Jo Love, from the Wild Goose Resource Group, shares a creative way of how Christmas cards were ‘reshaped’ for Lent.

What happened to your Christmas cards?! Jo had a greater need for them at Gorbals Parish Church in Advent – the same materials were then used in a deliberate ‘reshaping’ for Lent.

Our theme approaching Christmas was the Magnificat, and the whole congregation was involved in charcoaling mysterious shapes outlined on red painted canvas boards. Instructions were followed almost correctly, with some folk guessing at what would appear when all the boards were re-joined and hung on the wall! It was our very own depiction of a dancing Mary, with no correction made to an inadvertent black semicircle in one corner. This glorious ‘mistake’ was variously interpreted as a party balloon in the house or perhaps the belly of a dancing Elizabeth!

Accompanying and mirroring Mary was a back wall display of four quotes from the Magnificat, one added each Advent Sunday, in large white lettering (cut from recycled Christmas cards!) reminding us of God’s world-turning vision of the hungry being fed and the lowly lifted up while the proud, mighty and rich are scattered, brought down and sent away empty. It was intentional that every Sunday we had to do our own physical turning around to see again these strong, bold words of Mary’s song!

In preparing for Lent, the Spill the Beans lectionary readings did not easily suggest six visual symbols, so we looked more closely at the words instead, and chose six phrases spoken by Jesus, which were laid week by week on a purple fabric pathway winding its way up the central ‘aisle’ towards the cross. These phrases are formed from the same lettering as the Magnificat, a very apt reshaping of Mary’s words into her son’s…

“not peace but division”

“the angels rejoice over one who repents”

“cut it down! leave it one more year…”

“surely they will respect my son”

“give God what is God’s”

“if only you knew what is needed for peace”