The Drowning Ritual- Forgiveness
The Drowning Ritual
Sunday, January 15, 2012
I painted yesterday in the prayer room for 24/7 prayer & worship and brought my things in to church again this morning in order to be ready to paint tonight for the Sunday at 6:30 WHCC service. So more or less “because the stars aligned” and I had all my stuff already with me, and in truth because I had one of those “nudges” in my spirit, I asked Ryan minutes before the WHCC 11am youth service if I could paint during his lesson on forgiveness this morning. He graciously gave me the thumbs up.
I had no idea what to paint other than that the day was about forgiveness, and as Ryan opened by sharing about the hurts will all receive (and inflict) in life, I made red gashes across the surface of the painting and a spiral shape emerged. As I prayerfully put the marks down, I was envisioning an ever-shrinking sense of capture, ensnaring... the coiling of a snake perhaps, that comes from the bitterness and anger we nurse in our hearts when we refuse to forgive.
Ryan went on to share about a particular betrayal that he and his family received at the hands of some fellow Christians, and the struggle it was for him to forgive and not give into the rage and sense of vindication his heart demanded. As he was sharing I had a vision of a figure who was bound hand and foot, in scarlet, at the bottom of the painting- symbolic of a human spirit caught either in guilt, or unforgiveness. I painted him in.
“The Drowning Ritual- Forgiveness” Oil on Board. 18x24”
The metaphor is a wonderful illustration of Christ’s rescue of us, condemned in our sins He “swam” down from heaven and took the weight from us- dying Himself and letting us go free. At the end of the lesson students and staff were invited to come up and pray to ask for forgiveness, to give long withheld forgiveness, or to receive the forgiveness offered to them through Christ. I pray this image reminds us of this great teaching and the promise of freedom through Christ’s forgiveness, and our call to forgive in the same measure.
Ryan then shared a clip from “The Interpreter” with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and in the clip Nicole’s character described “The Drowning Ritual”. In the South African native tradition, if someone was murdered then a year to the date of the crime the perpetrator was bound and dropped in a lake to drowned. The family who was wronged then had the choice to either let the guilty drowned and have justice, and a life of continual grief, or to swim out and rescue the accused and by doing so earn a life a peace. I loved the imagery of this figure swimming down to redeem and rescue, and how it prophetically echoed the image I had already started of the victim bound hand and foot... sinking to the bottom of the image.
“...and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us... If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Mark 6: 12, 14 & 15. N.L.T.
