My Thoughts

Ironically, something as spiritual as the discipline of iconography, is filled with controversies as any other area of life, or religion. If you surf the web for any length of time about iconography, you will find (sometimes heated) discussions about the points of controversy. Let me list just a few that come to mind:

• Only Orthodox Christians can paint/write icons.
• A true iconographer is licensed or anointed by the Orthodox Church.
• Icons are written, not painted.
• “True” icons can only be written with egg tempera.
  Icons are the experience of God in line and color and therefore can not stray from forms already existing. Any other attempts are the ego of the write/painter at work.

Let me say, right up front, that I will never be considered a “true” iconographer. I am not an Orthodox Christian. I paint icons using egg tempera and modern acrylics. (To paraphrase Peter Pearson, “God doesn’t care what media you paint in, he only cares about the change of heart in the painter and the observer.”) And I am just contrarian enough (or egotistical enough) to fully believe the Holy Spirit can direct one to paint a message in a theologically correct manner that is creative.

And that leads to the name of this website, Divinely Common Icons. I have traveled about the world and met many people and observed many miseries. I have been taught and influenced by a large number of exquisite spiritual teachers. Through these observations and teachers I have learned, that on the whole, we “don’t want to see a messy God, a dirty God, or a lame God.” (Jean Vanier, Speaking of Faith interview, 2007). And yet, these are the very people that all holy scriptures remind us to serve. These are the very people who are commonly among us – so common we tend to forget them, we tend not to see them. When we meet these common saints in life we pass by them without noticing their holiness, for holiness has no external characteristics.

The icon is an indication of the participation of a given person in divine life. And as I paint more and more icons, I find myself contemplating the divinity within these common people – reminding myself that the divine is in everyone. It is my moral duty to see this and to honor it. It is my spiritual journey (for the present) to challenge myself to see and contemplate the divine as I paint. Painting icons is the closest I get to living a contemplative life.

The icons I paint lead me to a deep appreciation of the people and the message of spirit they bring to me. I believe the writer/painter of icons is literally following the admonition of Proverbs;

“Do not refuse to do that which is good when it is in the power of your hand to do it.”
Proverbs 3:27

Through the nudges of the Holy Spirit and the power of my hand, I paint the Divinely Common Icon.