Let me tell you about this little icon of the Mother of God which I've owned for fifty years. It has accompanied me wherever I've traveled, been assigned or lived. It's a rough icon. Perhaps the artist was not skilled, or his materials were limited, or only the hands and faces were intended to show, the rest of the icon hidden under a metal cover called a riza.
No matter - the pastel Mary in my boyhood parish church had her hands folded in prayer and she held no Infant Christ. Mary makes the most sense when she holds her Son. This orange and white Mary with her dressed-in-yellow Son, looking out from heaven's orange-framed window, got my attention at once.
No matter - the pastel Mary in my boyhood parish church had her hands folded in prayer and she held no Infant Christ. Mary makes the most sense when she holds her Son. This orange and white Mary with her dressed-in-yellow Son, looking out from heaven's orange-framed window, got my attention at once.
In her children's book, HIROSHIMA NO PIKA (The Flash of Hiroshima) Toshi Maruki tells of the morning of the August 6th 1945 atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima:
Then it happened. A sudden, terrible light flashed all around. The light was bright orange - then white, like thousands of lightning bolts all striking at once. Violent shock waves followed, and buildings trembled and began to collapse.
I see in the little icon of Christ born of Mary, God has entered our orange and white atomic world in all of its fearful horror, radiated suffering, burning wounds and black rain. God is with us in our unconsciousness.
And Jesus is dressed in yellow, the color of the sun! In color-symbology, yellow is the color of intelligence and the distribution of wisdom, spiritual maturity and inspiration. It is the color of warmth, love, generosity, peace and purity of spirit.
Among the Hebrews yellow was the color of the marriage canopy. In Christ, God is wedding himself to our exhausted and unfaithful world. In this icon, the Jewish Jesus is already wearing yellow, the color of the star Hitler required Jews to wear.
Having entered our world
of flash and flame
you dressed yourself
in yellow
O Jewish Jesus,
Share with us now
the wisdom we need ~
peace for our home ~
our planet home,
and grant us the joy of your
healing mercies.
