For this week’s painting, I imagined the saints radiating out from the sun. The saints I chose to picture are people who have had special significance to me in my life, whether because I did specific studies of their lives, work, and legends, or because they offer an example that I want to follow. Starting at the top, and going in order from left to right, the saints I’ve pictured here are:
- Teresa of Avila, my most beloved teacher and mentor.
- Martin Luther King, Jr., whose work and whose struggle draws me in daily.
- John of the Cross, Teresa’s great friend and another mystic in the bridal mysticism tradition.
- Enmegahbowh, who I spent six months reading and thinking about in 2004.
- John the Baptist, whose appearance in legend and folk tradition is as exciting to me as his appearances in scripture.
- Julian of Norwich, who wrote the spiritual classic “The Showings,” which I read with friends at St. John’s, Worthington.
- Florence Li Tim-Oi, who was the first woman to be ordained in the Anglican Communion.
- Christina Rossetti, who I like so much more than her brother, and who I’ll always be grateful to for writing one of my favorite Christmas Carols, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
- Brigid, saint of Ireland and wondrous in legend.
- Martha of Bethany, Mary’s sister who gets a bad rap but shouldn’t.
- Oscar Romero, who was martyred in El Salvador for siding with justice and with poor people.
- Saint Andrew, a lesser known apostle who I spend a few months researching two years ago.
- Sojourner Truth, abolitionist and women’s rights activist extraordinaire.
