Daily Nourishment for Tuesday of Holy Week: Who Shall Deliver Me?
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
Palm Sunday marked the beginning of Holy Week in the Christian tradition. SDW Daily Nourishment will provide Pauses, Prompts, and Practices to help readers explore the meaning of this liturgical season and notice personal connections between these specific days and our present realities. All are welcome to engage with the art and ideas below.
“Human beings characteristically see patterns and make connections. Christians ought to celebrate that faculty and receive it as part of how we find our way to God.” - Lauren Winner, “Encountering Art and Encountering God”
Pause.
In a comfortable position of rest, take a couple of deep breaths, then add a breath prayer using phrases from Psalm 6, one of today’s appointed Psalms:
Inhale: Have pity on me Lord, for I am weak
Exhale: heal me, Lord, for my bones are racked
Or
Inhale: My spirit shakes with terror
Exhale: How long, O Lord, how long?
Or
Inhale: Turn, O Lord, and deliver me
Exhale: Save me for your mercy’s sake
Silently name and give your attention to the first phrase as you inhale.
Silently name and give your attention the second phrase as you exhale.
Repeat the breath prayer as many times as you like.
Prompt.
Read the poem below then take a few minutes to look at the painting that’s inspired by the poem.
Who Shall Deliver Me?
By Christina Rossetti
God strengthen me to bear myself;
That heaviest weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight of care.
All others are outside myself;
I lock my door and bar them out
The turmoil, tedium, gad—about.
I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?
If I could once lay down myself,
And start self—purged upon the race
That all must run! Death runs apace.
If I could set aside myself,
And start with lightened heart upon
The road by all men overgone!
God harden me against myself,
This coward with pathetic voice
Who craves for ease and rest and joys
Myself, arch—traitor to mysel ;
My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog whatever road I go.
Yet One there is can curb myself,
Can roll the strangling load from me
Break off the yoke and set me free
Fernand Khnopff, I Lock My Door Upon Myself, 1891 (Neue Pinakothek, Munich)
Practice.
Take 10 minutes to respond to the breath prayer, poem, and painting. You can take notes, freewrite, draw a picture, and/or consider these questions:
What do you want to be delivered from?
What might deliverance look like?
Which characters from books or films show you what it looks like for someone to be delivered from suffering, pain, hardship?
Want More?
This video about the painting above is pretty interesting.
And this audio clip about the poem and painting from guggenheim.org is interesting too.
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Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
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