Recovering the pain and passion of the encounter with an image
The image of Christ on the cross is horrific: imagine being beaten, broken, and then at last punctured by nails through palms, past tendons, to wood, holding, heaving pressure down to the ground, extending the pain, until everything goes blank. Embedded in this image of pain, humiliation, dissent, and death is the worship of something ineffable. Upon his head is the crown of thorns meant to mock his claim to authority, and yet, in the eyes of many, the crown presents an image that claims the holiness of the humble and meek. I’ve encountered this image so many times throughout my life. I’ve passed by it, acclimatized to its existence, in every classroom and hall in my high school, at the masses I was required to attend at church, and on the walls of the homes and shops of my cousins and friends. I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve seen it—and not once did I pause or shed a tear. I never allowed myself to be astounded by how graphic the sign of worship was, so abundant that it seemed careless; displayed as if it held no meaning. I equated its poignancy to a stop sign: when encountered, stop. And then go. Seen, but just as soon forgotten.
As I moved on from my Catholic education, religion lost any of its hold over me. Life took over, and I was bombarded by a trying first year of university and then a year off from school spent working 40 hours a week. I was miserable about the downward path my life had taken. On a day off from work, I trekked with my friend Julia down from Oakville to Toronto. It was a joyful day, not one I initially thought would be marked with awe. We roamed, stepping past artists scrawling in the city centre where stairs entwined and rose, and we entered a building with Christian iconography. Julia quickly moved through the room while I looked up. Looming over me was a hefty bronze statue of the Passion of Christ. I can’t tell you why it was this moment of all moments, but I was shaken. Something in me was pulled out of itself, and inside I felt like a piece had at last been put in the right place. I looked up to his eyes and saw a beauty I never knew could exist in anything. It wasn’t that this statue itself was spectacular; it was something in the hands that had made it; I could see something beautiful sewn together by heartbreak and love. I thought back to all my scripture classes and remembered the revelation, a sacrifice for all those who are and were broken, to be healed by forgiveness. How painful that must be. All I could think of was the sacrifice of body and soul, given freely for all— not the science or logic of Jesus the God and Son.
It isn’t a stretch to say that our encounters with our everyday world have become habitual. We see things for their functions: a streetcar as a mode of transportation to work or school, water as a solvent necessary for hydration and life. These things that we encounter every day are so apparent that we encounter them without new thoughts and remain satisfied. Often, art seems to work against this mode of habit making—it defamiliarizes the presence of these objects and the world in which we live by touching upon the platitude of the ineffable. What we see is not as simple as a singular body or function.
Although Christianity is seemingly over-represented in images and cultural currents, the image of Christ on the cross is an image I feel has lost its poignancy. We fixate on the institutionalized elements of the Church, the images and practices that are simply seen as patterns. This eats away at the crux of what the religion embodies. I see this loss as representative of how we view and commodify art in our current cultural landscape. We are bombarded with images and words that are reduced to memes and replaced by the new, over and over, until these encounters are lost in a vast and open space. We are more interested in structures and details, because they make sense, than in the feeling of an encounter. That feeling is a visceral pull entangling our heart and soul into something deeper and beyond words. The image of Christ is filled with passion and hurt. It is brilliant not because it marks faith or is about the infinitude of the holy. What is remarkable about this image is that it explores the pain and passion we can see and feel in ourselves.
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