Praying with color and symbol.

ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA. Nineteen people from the NW MN Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church planned to travel to India this past November to meet with their Sister Synod in Andhra Pradesh, India. The purpose of their meeting was to strengthen their ties and relationships. They visited churches, schools and hospitals to learn about India, their history, culture and religions. As they were planning ways to strengthen their relationships between the two synods and their common faith, the team thought about the power of sharing prayer and creating art. The World Canvas Project does both and decided to create a canvas. They worked on the World Canvas twice: the first time at a School for the Blind, where students were helped writing prayers and placing their thumbprints next to their written prayers. The second time was at the Youth Festival in Visakhapatnam, where the students and adults crowded around the canvas to share painted prayers. Video by Linnea Popke–Larson.

Prayers from Andhra Pradesh

photo © Linnea Papke–Larson

CANVAS TRAVELS TO INDIA Reflection by 
Pr. Linnea Papke-Larson
First Lutheran Church
Bemidji, MN

ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA. Nineteen people from the Northwest Minnesota Synod of the ELCA recently traveled to our companion synod, the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Andhra Pradesh, India. On November 2, 2012 we flew out of Fargo, North Dakota and many, many hours later landed in a place which felt at once foreign - in landscape and culture - and at the same time familiar - in the faces and greetings of our Indian friends who were awaiting our arrival and who had, the previous year, a similar experience “in our neck of the woods” in northwest Minnesota!

Prior to leaving Minnesota, we prepared a prayer canvas. People from congregations throughout our synod penciled their prayers onto the canvas and then covered them with the acrylic paint provided, in any kind of design desired. Block by block, our prayers were offered in a variety of words, contours, colors and hues, with plenty of blank space left open for the prayers of our companions on the other side of the world.

While in India, we traveled throughout Andhra Pradesh and visited many churches and ministries of the Lutheran church there - including schools for girls, colleges, the Bible women, an orphanage, a leprosy colony, a home for destitute women, a clinic, a school for the blind and their church youth festival! On several occasions we were able to share our prayer canvas and invite people to join their prayers with ours. At the blind school, we invited folks to offer their thumb print along with their prayers, and at the youth festival we were overwhelmed with the joyful responses of the youth and their leaders gathering around the canvas to share their hopes and dreams in Christ. Prayers written in both English and Telugu, they are covered in splashes of color and design that express our common faith.

This particular prayer canvas was designed so that we could cut it in half before we left - right down the middle, lengthwise, so that each half can be finished and hung as banners - one in our companion synod in India and one our Northwest Minnesota Synod, tangible reminders of our common relationship as we travel in our respective areas and tell the story of our partnership!

  

The color of prayer

photo © Genesis+Art Studio

HOLDEN VILLAGE, CHELAN, WASHINGTON, USA. It’s been almost two years since we began the World Canvas Project at Luther Seminary and have watched it grow beyond what we initially imagined. We have participated with communities around the globe and experienced groups beginning their own canvas to take it out into the world. We have witnessed the heart’s of many praying with color, shape and form to turn suffering into community, conflict into creative energy and for the strength to hold tension for the common good. This past summer, the World Canvas Project made its way up Lake Chelan to Holden Village. We were strangers to one another at the onset, but creating together we revealed what we have in common, generated new possibilities for growth in our minds and hearts. In every prayer lifted up, we wove threads of grace together to form a fabric of hope. With the mind, heart and hands we created something together that none of us could have created alone, lifting up prayers for the healing of the earth and for one another. We will return to this sacred place and to the friendships made. Until then we offer this prayer from the book, Earth Prayers:

We join with the earth and with each other.
To bring new life to the land
To restore the waters
To refresh the air

We join with the earth and with each other.

To celebrate the seas
To rejoice in the sunlight
To sing the song of the stars

We join with the earth and with each other.

To create the human community
To promote justice and peace
To remember our children

We join with the earth and with each other.

We join together as many and diverse expressions
    of one loving mystery: for the healing of the
    earth and the renewal of all life.

One prayer among many

ONE PRAYER AMONG MANY

Reflection by Marissa Danney

Chaplain, Ghost Ranch

ABIQUIU, NEW MEXICO, USA. A prayer canvas was begun by youth at the Ghost Ranch Conference Center in Abiquiu, New Mexico.

The youth participating in Youth Programming at Ghost Ranch began a prayer canvas as they dedicated an evening to prayer and creativity.

Ranging from age 5 to 19, the youth crouched on the floor, writing and painting. Most seemed to appreciate the privacy that painting over their prayer offered, while also joining their prayer among the many other prayers already represented.

Though this prayer canvas will not travel away from Ghost Ranch, it will be added to by the many youth who travel to Ghost Ranch each week and each year.

Turning towards one another

Agape Center, Ghost Ranch photo © Genesis+Art Studio

GHOST RANCH, ABIQUIU, NEW MEXICO, USA. The World Canvas traveled from the Presbyterian Church of Ireland to Ghost Ranch, the Presbyterian retreat center that was formerly the studio and inspiration for American Artist, Georgia O’Keefe. This particular worship experience (and the setting) provided a thin space in which prayer and art were the mediums between our humanity and the divine. The prayers formed with word, color, shape and form seemed an appropriate silent language to lift up our prayers together. Nearly 50 people, children, youth and adults moved from the Sacrament of Communion to the sacrament of art and prayer. Someone made the remark that to watch the silhouettes of the people moving about the table, with a backdrop of the high desert mountains, became a prayer of movement. 

Heaven of the Heart

photo © Genesis+Art Studio

BANGOR, NORTHERN IRELAND. Our fifth prayer canvas began at our workshop Heaven of the Heart held at the Ballygilbert Presbyterian Church in Bangor. Twenty four artists joined us for a day of creative and art exploration. We concluded our time together by offering painted prayers on the World Canvas. The canvas will be part of our workshop and worship service at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico the end of June. The original canvas has been completed and is being prepared for its final home at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.