We worship an invisible God, and yet as followers of Christ, we spend our whole lives in relationship with Him, reaching for Him. Worship, faith, prayer, and spiritual disciplines can all magnify or enrich our relationship with this God we can't see.

As I walk out my faith day by day, I weave in and out of themes. One theme in my current tapestry is that of mystery and paradox and ambiguity in my many layered relationship with God. I am learning that I can't box God up, any more than I can systematize the Word He gives us. We can try and try, but in the end, the more we wrestle with the paradox part of our faith through spiritual disciplines, the more God smiles on us. In the midst of and facing great mysteries, I still choose to walk forward seeking Him. This is my major theme right now, and the spiritual disciplines are a way to fold into these themes.

In conjunction with prayer, Scripture and spiritual reading, journaling (my current disciplines), I have been experimenting with visual exegesis (a phrase I coined in July, 2000) as a way to use imagery to help express these complex ideas and mysteries and beliefs where sometimes words limit or polarize us. In this paper, I will explain visual exegesis and how God is using it in my life.

"The Word is layered and cyclical and soul-filled in a way that validates our lives through the lens of the human drama." Madeleine L'Engle ¹

The Theologian and The Photographer Speak 

I'm a collector of images and stories. I have been a black and white photographer for fifteen years, and a storyteller since I was a little girl. I believe God speaks to me through images and stories, and that he is also using stories and pictures to speak through me-to tell others about God.

As both the theologian and the photographer side of me have been in dialogue over the past ten years or so, I have begun to experiment with what I call "visual exegesis," a process using pictures to see and know God and to understand more about the paradox inherent in this thing we call faith. Like using different translations, visual exegesis helps to see Scripture in new ways. I believe it helps us become more intimate with the questions, and to see fresh nuances and insights by visualizing messages in Scripture.

There is a caution against trying to see God too literally. And in fact, there is a caution against "God manufacture." ² Definitely, in our limited humanness, we can not create a God in our graven images (or even in our own image) that comes close to the majesty, power and beauty that the real thing offers. Yet, I wonder: How can we use what we have been given by God to make sense of that same God when we can not see him? Is it God manufacture to create poetry, art, or writings that bring people (or only ourselves) closer to God? Quite the contrary, when we do, I believe God nods approval at us.

As a photographer, writer, and public speaker, I have said for years that my job is to get out of the way and let God speak through me. While I still believe that, I am also wondering whether I'm missing something. I wonder whether God has given me certain gifts so that I can make sense of God and his ways precisely because of my experiences and what I have been given. Of course, I need to get my ego, self needs, and shadows out of the way so they don't poison the work, but as a communicator and artist, if my unique perception gets out of the way too much, I become yet another watered down Christian testimony that speaks to no one. I do not want to manufacture my own God by any means, but I do want to show my path and insight in approaching Him. I want to invite others to see what I see, learn what I've learned, and to know God and me a little bit more. My prayer is that my process of creation (manufacture?) brings me more in more intimate relationship with God, and if God desires, others can also come closer through my work. For me, this is approaching God's mystery with wonder, humility, and awe.

God made me in his image, and to create in his image. As long as I stay true to his Word and subordinate to Him, I believe that the work I manufacture will be pleasing to him. I realize the danger-that I would begin to manufacture my own God, and to say what I want to say. My solution to is engage in Scripture, a community of accountability, rigorous prayer time, educational and spiritual disciplines, and to surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit. 

"Religion and art stand beside each other like two friendly souls whose inner relationship, if they suspect it, is still unknown to them." ³ Friedrich Schleiermacher

The Theology of Imagery 

I lean upon a rich history in which people have used imagery as way to see the sacred or to see God, and to connect with God's story. The lineage of religious iconography in Eastern and Russian Orthodox churches that began in the 8th century shows one way. Icons played an important part in the liturgy of these churches because they were said to reflect the light of God.

In the 13th century, St. Bonaventure experimented with paintings and stained glass work as a spiritual discipline and a way to know God. He said, "All the arts and sciences are found to have points of contact in Scripture," and he looked at the arts as parables or stories that reflected the heavenly process.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, other great religious paintings and sculptures, iconography, and even Jesus' parables-these all represent imagery and symbols that were part of a visual language of earlier ages that are not as common in our visual vocabulary. In exploring visual exegesis, I am experimenting with an old vocabulary in new ways. Visual exegesis, therefore, and my leaning on black and white imagery, is a way to continue the tradition of connecting into God's story visually-his story of choosing us, pursuing us, and holding fast to us century after century.

"Rembrandt's embrace remained imprinted on my soul. I would watch spellbound for hours." ⁴ Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

To me, creating art or images is partially about sharing in God's sacred act of creation. In fact, art and the spiritual are inseparable for me-I believe that a picture is like a prayer. So as a theologian exegeting with photos, I have some mentors from which I can learn. "In the very ability to make images there is a religious component. Powerful life can speak from a painting or statue, but in an image, it is as though the life were caught fast at a particular moment, as though motion were frozen. ⁵

Visual Exegesis-The Process 

If exegesis is an explanation of a Scriptural text and a way to interpret and draw out its meaning, then visual exegesis is a way to use photography to see another layer of what the text is saying. Imagery helps us use more senses to see Scripture. It is using a new vocabulary, or looking through another lens, literally, to see Scripture in pictures.

Exegesis is like digging for artifacts. You are in conversation with the Greek and Hebrew language, literary resources, lexicons, form and structure, commentators, history, colleagues, and co-disciples about the relics in a passage of Scripture. Just like the scratches of Hebrew and Greek characters on parchment provide a tool to dig deeper, so too, does a photographic visual exegesis encourage us to use more senses to see scripture in different ways. It's as if we are listening for, or smelling, or touching the images in the text. Seeing Scripture in pictures, just like studying Hebrew or Greek, shows things that we might otherwise miss. It can open up the text. Matthew Henry once said, "We cannot see the essence of God, but we see him in seeing by faith his attributes and perfections." ⁶ Perhaps this is similar to what David was thinking in Psalm 63 when he "beheld God's glory."

Visual Exegesis is powerful as an added exegetical tool-and it is only possible after the rigorous work required to extract meaning from the text in the first place. Following the time-honored exegetical methods and after I have wrestled with a passage and written the sermon or message, then I pray for the Spirit to collaborate with me and choose the images that will tease out more meaning. I ask for illumination to choose images that reinforce or add new depth to a passage. Often it is if the spirit takes over and assembles the images and I get to watch.

A Photographic Canon 

I have a photographic canon of over 8,000 images that I have captured from all over the world. I store most of these images on contact sheets. Of these, I have printed roughly 300 8x10 prints. Photos have taken me all my life-I have said for years that I don't take pictures so much as they take me. In this way, the process is similar to prayer, exegesis, and surrendered communication in the Spirit. I see my images as portraits of prayers, and as such, they reflect the light of Christ in my life.

Art is about seeing in new ways. It is about uncovering new layers of my spirit so that I can grow closer to God. My best images penetrate with an untiring quest for truth. They invite seekers to interact with the Bible using a new translation, one that is spiritually acute, yet religion-less. My hope is to allow God to use the images, my life, my joy, and creativity in ways I may not imagine, to further his purposes in the world.

References 

¹ L'engle, Madeleine, Walking on Water, Northpoint Press, 1980, p 106. 

² Ozick, Cynthia, Preface to The Book of Job, New York, Random House, 1998, p xxiii. 

³ Vander Leeum, The Holy in Art--Sacred and Profane Beauty, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1963, p 189. 

⁴ Nouwen, Henri, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Image Books, 1994, p 5. 

⁵ The Holy in Art, p 155. 

⁶ The Holy in Art, p 193.