View Towards Pontoise Prison, In Spring 1881

I get the sense that Camille Pissaro was always on the outside looking in for something new. This painting is titled, View Towards Pontoise Prison, In Spring. That may seem strange, a painting with a prison at the center. Pissarro's contemporaries might well have painted out the prison because it disturbed the bucolic interpretation of nature. Like the factory smoke stacks in another painting we viewed, a prison on a perfect spring day would spoil things.

Here, Pissarro boldly but gently includes the building. Ah! Right away there is a simple soul-place the painting might touch. Many people paint out from mind and heart what or who they don't like, disapprove of, are disturbed or threatened by. They frequently don't see the tendency in themselves. It isn't a Christly way.

Notice that we are looking at the prison building through the window of a new Spring: the leafed out trees, the sky of amazing color and cloud, the fullness of light, the field planted with young plants. It's a picture of hope and possibility. Our nation has a disproportionately large prison population. A chronic complaint about it is that it is more punitive than restorative. Our recidivism rates are high, which suggests that time in prison hardens people rather than evolves them. We love to say we are a Christian nation, but Christianity is about helping the new man, new woman, to emerge and grow into possibility.

We realize too that while looking at this painting we might think of prison and prisoner as something far off when in fact, we might all well be prisoners in our own right. Addictions are prisons. Being taken in by the culture of owning things is a prison: "I want it all and I want it now". There is the prison of anger, resentment, prejudice, pettiness, dissatisfaction, indifference to the plight of those far away. I can live in the prison of my own denials. Religion fails when it doesn't help us to see ourselves. At Easter, Jesus exits the prison of the cold, stone tomb. I'm supposed to follow. For us, that cold, stone tomb is an inner reality.

A final thought - though you may well have your own: Do prisoners have a place in my prayer? There are prisons for juvenile offenders, the criminally insane and women. I might pray for those who work in prisons who often lose heart and become embittered themselves. I might pray for the families of prisoners, those who have been victimized by terrible crimes, those imprisoned for life who are mentally and spiritually destroyed by incarceration.

There are prisons around the world that brutalize people instead of trying to help them. We send out rockets to the farthest reaches of space, but often don't try very hard to reach far inside prisoners. We might wonder whether we really believe in the converting power of  Christianity. Or does conversion only mean getting someone to leave their old religion to join the "truth" of our own. That's a rather small view of conversion.

A Street in Auvers, (Thatched Cottage and Cow) ~ 1880

The fifth of eight Impressionist Exhibitions was held this year - 1880. Remember, Pissarro and his friends collaborated in creating these exhibitions in response to the exclusive, tradition bound, high style of the Paris Salon. This year, Cezanne, Renoir, Sisely and Monet, the groups most important members, chose instead to participate in the Salon exhibit.

I can't help but feel Pissarro's disappointment and perhaps sense of betrayal, as four collaborator-friends must have talked and planed, behind his back. Anyone of us may know that feeling. Pissarro is fifty years of age when he paints A Street in Auvers. Money was scarce and he had a family to support.

Having said that, this painting is not gloomy or dour. The blue sky is full of clouds, but they are not storm clouds.

The two peasant workers have stopped for a chat, the man is carrying sticks for fuel, the lady is walking her cow to pasture perhaps. They live in this little commune of Auvers, a cluster of houses with thatched (straw) roofs. 

Notice there is a path or rough road through the village. Seeming to invite us in, it is wide at our end but then quickly narrowing, it disappears around the bend of the unknown. Poor Camille, his friends left the Impressionist Exhibit going to what they perceived to be tried and true (or simply more lucrative). Pissarro needed the money, still he leaned in, trusting, but certainly unsure of what lay ahead. 

The Persian Mystic, Rumi wrote: "As you start to walk on the way, the way appears." Some people quit or even turn back when the future feels unsure or the present moment paralyzes them. But Pissarro found his way by setting out and carrying on, apparently trusting his inner voice.

Jesus did that. From the very start we see Jesus in the Gospels on the road to Jerusalem, where the great drama of his dying and rising will take place. 

A Path in the Woods, Pontoise 1879

What a day for a walk through the autumn woods. Notice the ground is slope-d, as if we are in a hilly place, unable to see too much into the distance before we come to the hill's crest. How alive this wood is - every leaf, every bit of ground, every whisp of cloud, every pathside flower is a dot, a stroke, a touch of paint on the canvas, which makes for an image that seems to vibrate with life. 

The sun is playing with the trees and path. There are golden footprints on the ground. "The earth is charged with the grandeur of God," the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote. Note the word, charged. It is as if the world is electrified with God's energies. This is grace.

But how sad and dangerous for our planet that every year the earth loses three trillion trees. They are largely destroyed by human carelessness and greed: mining, drilling, deforestation for grazing and the raising of drug crops. In many places the trees are completely gone, having been chopped down or bulldozed for developments, malls, parking lots. What a sad sight, a city tree struggling for life: suffocating in the midst of traffic's poisoned air, or imprisoned in cement and asphalt.

"What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; long live the weeds and the wilderness yet." Hopkins - Inversnaid 1881.

To whom is Hopkins addressing his plea for nature to be left alone? God? Humankind? Is this a prayer or just an expression of his heart-desire?

Intercessions ~ Fourth Sunday in Lent

Creation of the Plants ~ Romanian Icon

Today is called Laetare Sunday:/ Rejoice Sunday./ May the Church be renewed in Joy,/ with sins forgiven and wounds healed/ - joy in the miracles of Christ and our anticipation of His triumphant Easter Resurrection./ We pray to the Lord.

Pope Francis visits Morocco this weekend./ We pray for Christians and Muslims to learn that we are not enemies/ but can embrace each other as friends,/ patterning for the world a way to peace,/ working together for the needs of the poor and forgotten./ We pray to the Lord.

For the President of the United States,/ our Congress and those in leadership everywhere,/ mindful of those countries where the people are stressed by wars,/ famine,/ poverty,/ un-employment and internal division./ We pray to the Lord.

One priest-author has recently written that there is not a crisis of faith in the world, / but a crisis of love./ As the Springtime unfolds/ may we learn to love in some new way,/ leaving for the generations behind us,/ a planet which is alive with awareness,/ respect and compassion./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for the sick who have been entrusted to our prayer,/ asking for gifts of healing and comforting./ We remember as well those who work in hospitals,/ nursing homes and hospices./ For the healing of old wounds and memories which might still afflict us./ We pray to the Lord.

May we stay encouraged this Lent,/ and not be lost to despair,/ resentment,/ cynicism,/ or any bitterness that might rob us of the energies of mercy and love./ We pray to the Lord.

A Street in Pontoise ~ 1879

I like this painting; it is a sunny day. Perhaps it is later morning as the woman walking up the street is without a coat. There is some horse and carriage traffic. Notice how Pissarro has painted the wheel so we can sense its motion. We can feel the quivering of the tree.

The stone sidewalk on the left has been torn up ahead. The lady with the market basket will have to walk around the construction. In the 19th century there were no plastic orange cones.

This is a dirt road - no cement, no asphalt, not even cobble stone - just hard packed earth from all the plodding of horses, carriages and human feet. Roads like this turned to mud in the spring thaw, but as soon as the summer set in, they would become hard-packed like stone.

Jesus said, "You must do better than the pharisees who are actors - good at keeping everyone else in line with lots of laws and observances." Oh my, there are lots of Christians who think this is their mission, keeping everyone else in line. They can be hard to bear and give religion a bad name.

Full of passions, we need to take ourselves in hand. Softening our own Pharisee-hearts which can be hardened like this Pontoise road - packed down hard with malice, callousness, coldness, mean-spirited judgments and petty assessments.

Standing before this painting, I realize the well-traveled Pontoise road is an image of my heart. I acknowledge every bit of it and then: "Jesus mercy, Mary help!"

The Cabbage Field ~ 1873

Camille Pissarro lived in the Paris suburb of  Pointoise 1872 to1882. Cabbage Field is one of over 300 landscapes he painted in a very small geographical area. After more than a little rejection and obstruction, this painting was included in the first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. 

We may find it difficult to believe, but the art critics who viewed this painting thought the cabbages in the front of the field were vulgar (in poor taste). Perhaps they felt that cabbages were a poor person's food and beneath the dignity of the high-end people who could afford to buy paintings. 

I'd suggest the real theme or idea of the painting isn't cabbages, but the early morning fog which envelops the trees and the two workers who have begun their day. We might also consider that Pissarro has intersected very strong horizontal and vertical lines in the laying out of the field and the trees in the foreground and background. This coming together of planes may perhaps cause us to feel very peaceful - almost as if time has come to a standstill with the contemplative figure standing alone.

There are two workers seen here in this painting. The one further away from our view is bent over. The closer one is standing, perhaps stretching her back. Lots of people still work long hours in fields picking or harvesting the fruit and vegetables we eat. Often they are migrants, away from home and following the crops as they ripen. These are people who pick strawberries, cherries, asparagus, peaches, apples, peppers, celery and  cabbages.  We might cultivate a prayerful awareness of them when we take our meals and become sensitive to their working conditions which are often exhausting, dangerous and difficult.

Kitchen Garden at the Hermitage ~ Pontoise ~ 1879

A kitchen garden is where the vegetables are grown for home use. It is often placed outside the kitchen door, so the one preparing the meals has easy access. Here is the artist's kitchen garden at Pontoise. The little phrase "at the Hermitage" seems to be the name used for a cluster of houses in the town - perhaps a kind of neighborhood. We can see it beyond the wall and the trees.

Pissaro painted this garden many times. He kept turning to face a different direction within the same garden. Maybe there's a metaphor in there for our political and religious thinking. Some people never dare to look in a new direction.

Here we see the garden wall and a couple of paths that lead throughout. If we look closely we can see the brushstrokes which  cause the trees to quiver. This front part of the garden grows cabbages, vine tomatoes or pole beans. Something vine-y grows on a trellis behind the tall tree on the left. But what is new in Pissarro's images is that he almost always includes people in his landscapes. People are never spoilers - they make the painting happen. Here, the gardener is bent over and his wife stands next to him with the basket waiting to be filled. 

Bending over is a devotional, even liturgical gesture. But our work can be (should be) consecrated to God. My Catholic boyhood days always began with a class recitation of The Morning Offering- the giving of the day's efforts to the glory and purposes of God. And Ora et Labora is the monk's motto: the day's balance of prayer and work.

But I'd suggest it's really this inclusion of people in the first place that matters the most. Some people live a kind of religion that's not very inclusive of others. Or it only includes people who are of the same doctrines, disciplines, colors and kinds. Why is that? Isn't religion supposed to change and evolve us - not just give us items to believe in (which is a very low level of religion) but grow us up in the heart? 

William McLeod is a 9 year old Catholic boy in Utah. When he arrived a little late for class on Ash Wednesday, having been to Mass, his teacher told him at once that the black cross on his forehead was "inappropriate" and had to come off. He tried to teach the teacher about the meaning of the sign, ("We're getting ready for Easter") but she handed him one of those wipes we pull out of a plastic can and either took it off herself or directed him to do it. His classmates watched as he dissolved into tears. 

Jesus wants us to know that religion without the sensitive companionship and care of others isn't much of a religion. And yet, lots of Christians are causing tears or tolerating the tears of others - watching, tysk-ing or shaking their heads, but not saying or doing anything about it. "The Catholic blogger world is a cesspool of hate," the Vatican director of social media said. 

Remember the songs Fred Rogers taught us: I Like Someone Who Looks Like You! It's You I Like. Won't  You Be My Neighbor? I Like You Just the Way You Are.  These song-themes are about the radical inclusion of others. Maybe we should sing some of them at Sunday Mass. Pissaro shares these ideas gently too in dozens of paintings - but today, in the kitchen garden.

The Woodcutter ~ 1879

There's a little humor in the full title of this painting: Pere Melon, The Woodcutter.  Pere Melon translates Father Melon. But melon is the French word for the bowler hat worn by this kind of lower class working fellow. 

Who is this man? Does he work for himself or someone else? Who are his people? Pissarro worked long and hard on this painting,  using many thousands of paint strokes. Perhaps he was letting us know he understood the tedium of the man's work.

The painting's background isn't flat but seems to rise, as if the woodcutter is at the bottom of a hillside or slope. We don't see the top of the landscape, only part of a tree trunk leaning a bit to the left. But the ground, covered with grasses and small plants seems to sparkle with the energy of light and life. The paint strokes themselves seem to reflect the man's and the earth's energy.

This fellow is leaning into his work, isn't he? He steadies the branch with his left foot and grabs the saw solidly. "Put some back into your work" a supervisor might have called to a new worker years ago. This is a kind of labor many people are no longer interested in. Some years ago I hired an electrician to put path lights along the stone walk to the chapel. When he finished and presented the bill, I saw that the wires were left on top of the ground. When I asked about this, "Aren't you going to put the wires underground?" he said, "Oh, no one wants to dig anymore."  Dig?! Lifting two inches of sod is now considered digging? 

Anyway, Pissarro wants us to know that work has dignity and value. When a young woman shows up at the door of the novitiate of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, she's soon informed, "If you're going to last here, you have to be ready for not just work but real labor."  That means sorting through heaps of street garbage looking for thrown away babies, scrubbing bedpans, washing soiled sheets by hand, preparing huge vats of food, picking infected people up off the pavement. 

In our Lenten prayer we might ask for strength to endure the difficulties of our own work and perhaps become more mindful of those whose work makes our own lives nicer or easier, (an intercessory prayer for the Vietnamese woman who made my shirt) and blessings for those who in this world still have to work laboriously hard - including the animals who are alongside or ahead of them.

The Banks of the Oise River ~ 1877

The Oise (pronounced waz) River, begins in Belgium and flows into France. It runs about 212 miles before entering the Seine. This painting is one of a series Pissarro completed showing the river from  different angles. 

What beautiful colors, especially in the sky, the grasses along the riverbank and in the reflecting water. Here, Pissarro's brushstrokes have become loose and short which fills the painting with energy. The water, plant life, the village to the left of center, the cloudy sky, the strollers on the dirt road - all harmonize in a very lovely way. 

But look, there is a factory off in the distance pumping dirty smoke into the sky, as if to spoil the clouds. The vertical line of the smoke stack is mixed in with the lines of distant trees. In a time of industrialization, invader factories grew up along the Oise River near Pontoise. Pissarro's contemporaries were still painting nature as pristine and undisturbed, but Pissarro admits the factory. Perhaps he is telling us that we have to hold contrasts in tension. 

Some people see things as black or white. Not a few religious people think this way: "You're in or you're out." But life isn't this way. The factory is making a mess of things. Sometimes what's messy has to be recognized and admitted. So, for all of that, let's not miss the brightness of the day, the light-reflecting river with the lush banks, the good company of the folks walking along the road. And even though it isn't emphasized by Pissarro, way off in the distance we discern the cathedral of St. Maclovius de Pontoise at the top of the road.

"What good is a road if it doesn't lead to a church," Russian Proverb

The Garden at Pontoise ~ 1877

Wednesday we looked at Pissarro's painting of The Vegetable Garden with Trees at Pontoise. Today, we're in the same springtime, the same garden, but in a different part of the property. This wonderfully lush garden must have required lots of time and effort to keep it all flowering so abundantly. 

But this garden scene is more interesting for the addition of the lady with the young child. Here, a lovely 19th century lady, dressed in a light, white dress, and holding a parasol over her head, has turned her attention to the little girl who is entertaining her with a toy trumpet.We see other toys on the ground around the child's feet.

Who are these two? Are they Pissarro's relatives who have served as models? Is this a nanny who has the care of the young one? It doesn't really matter. What matters is the charm and the right-ness of it all - that the woman has turned and given her complete attention to the child. If we zoomed in on the lady's face, we'd be able to see she is smiling.

I was in a diner a year or so ago when a young father came in with his five or six year old boy. Even before looking at the menu, the father opened up his laptop, creating a wall between himself and the boy, who started shredding paper napkins and heaping the scraps up into a pile. What a missed opportunity.

I was pastor to a small rural parish some years ago. Someone introduced us to an African nun who had opened a school community for AIDS orphaned children. We raised $25,000 in a short period of time and bought her the truck she needed to build a permanent building. Maybe this Lent is inviting us to do something for children.

Intercessions ~ Third Sunday in Lent

Spring time is the season of melting./ In this Lenten-spring,/ may we experience the great flow of God's love for us / and in kind,/ a great flow of love here/ for one another and beyond./ We pray to the Lord.

The world loses three trillion trees a year/ largely due to human carelessness or greed:/ drilling,/ mining,/ grazing,/ and deforestation for the raising of drug-crops./ We pray to understand,/ protect and love/ the paradise-home God has given us./ We pray to the Lord.

Pope Francis travels to Morocco at the end of March as a servant of hope./ May the small Catholic minority be encouraged./ Bless the many migrants who pass through Morocco/ looking to find a place of safety and peace./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for the President of the United States,/ our Congress and those in authority around the world./ Instruct those in leadership to serve and protect the littlest and the least./ We pray to the Lord.

For our families and friends,/ we ask growth in holiness and well-being./ Heal our sickness,/ our divisions and anxieties./ Give us Lenten insight,/ that we might know how to follow Christ's Gospel-Way more closely./ We pray to the Lord.    

During Lent,/ may we rely on God's strength to raise us up out of cynicism and disappointment./ May we discover some new joy and enthusiasm for the Works of Mercy./ May our minds and hearts be turned to the things of peace./ We pray to the Lord.   

                                                                                                                                                                 

The Vegetable Garden with Trees in Blossom, Spring, Pontoise ~ 1877

As a young man, Pissarro was encouraged by his mentors to paint outdoors (en plein air). And so he became a kind of country landscape master, painting gardens, country roads and paths, rivers, fields, orchards, forests and farmhouses. Late in life, when his eyes failed him, he rented top floor hotel rooms overlooking city parks and boulevards, painting what he saw outside his windows.

Here at Pontoise, Pissarro painted while sitting next to another great impressionist artist, Cezanne. It was Cezanne who said of Camille Pissarro, "He was in closest touch with nature." We are in the apple orchard with the two great painters, behind the house where Pissarro lived. There is a great rise in the landscape and what appears to be a three-storied apartment building at the top.

It is spring. The trees in the center and to the right are old and somewhat gnarled. The other trees are young, and Pissarro reveals them in the happiest of spring colors: shades of pink, the green- grass covered earth and the leafing out of other trees, the prettiest blue and white sky. Even the blue roofs of nearby houses get in on the Spring action.

We know the expression Seize the day, but here, more wonderfully still, Pissarro has seized the moment, as the flowers of fruit trees are delicate and transitory, and a blast of wind and rain can spoil them quickly. Seizing the moment is a good way to live. "Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment," the English author Ellis Peters said.  This is a way to pray  unceasingly, as St. Paul instructs us in 1Thessalonians 5:17. To notice. To detect. God is here.

Pissarro paints the garden that is carefully cultivated, but a heart can be cultivated too. I want to cultivate my heart in the things of prayer. But the Greek word Saint Paul uses adialeiptos doesn't mean "without stopping" but surfacing, recurring or returning again and again. We live busy lives requiring our full attention as we do our work and interact with people. But during those busy days we experience dozens of hopes, wishes, glances, good intentions, even sighs. Acknowledging them: those are prayers. Trust it. 

Kateri Tekakwitha prayed with her eyes. Therese of Lisieux prayed with a sigh. Looking carefully and deeply at Pissarro's Vegetable Garden with Trees in Blossom - I sigh. That's a good prayer.

Landscape with Flooded Fields ~ 1873

Pissarro sat to paint outdoors this early spring day. It is a scene of waiting-anticipation.  That's more a Spring sky than a Winter sky. Maybe we can sense the damp air moving those clouds along. A flock of birds seems to travel with the wind. The trees have not yet leafed out, but the snow has melted. The grass has begun to green again. But the flooding suggests the ground is still frozen beneath the surface. The fence along the edge of the orchard needs repairs after the winter wind and weather. 

And you know what's wonderful about these paintings: they are for everyone. You don't need specialized language or intellectual skills to appreciate them. They are always alive - possessing a power to resonate with the personal life of the viewer. All we have to do, is stop and look.

We may admire this painting and even feel a little regret, "I love the way Pissarro can paint reflections in water. Oh, I wish I could paint like that." Or, we might allow the painting to touch some inner place of anticipation. Perhaps some neglected soul-place that is waiting to be opened up and evolved. The 13th century Persian mystic, Rumi, wrote: 

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it don't you?" 

May I encourage each of us to answer the poet's question. Perhaps this is why we have this Lent.

Flowering Apple Trees at Eragny ~ 1895

We're jumping ahead here to a painting Pissarro completed when he was 65 years old. But why? Because we need some cheering up. So much ill feeling and dis-ease these days in our national life; our Church life. Such troubles in the world. We might imagine stepping into this little apple orchard of young trees at Eragny, a suburb of Paris, about 16 miles from city center.

Pissarro loved to paint 'en plein air' - outdoors - often completing a painting in one sitting. He painted flowering orchards, vegetable and flower gardens, different seasons at different times of the day. He was observant of cloud formations and movement, light and shadow and village life. And just as we see here, he observed people who are often workers, but workers at rest or engaging in conversation.

Have you ever inhaled an apple orchard in spring bloom? Felt the air vibrating with bees? We might spend a few minutes with this marvelous painting; let it serve as a gloom chaser. Is yours a gloomy Lent? I hope not. Jesus doesn't want or need that - Jesus who loved the birds of the air and the flowers of the field.

Red Roofs, Corner of a Village, Winter ~ 1877

It is wintertime here; the trees are bare. But notice, without leaves the trees act as a kind of sheer curtain through which we look beyond to the cluster of white-ish houses with their roofs of orange-red and brown clay. And there is more, as beyond the houses, there are green and brown field-covered hills, and even a horizontal road, and then still another layer of trees at the top of the hill. Only then, finally, there is sky.

We tend to think of the winter as a dead time, but Pissarro has painted his winter landscape using a brush technique called impasto. Impasto is not smooth painting, but rather, thick paint is applied with shorter brush strokes in a somewhat rough fashion. Put worked this way, the paint strokes capture more light and possess an energy not seen on a smooth surface. 

This isn't a dead winter landscape - the energy is in the ground. It's in the trees themselves waiting for spring. It's in the hill waiting to receive the seeds. It's in the houses where people live. It's in the dirt road which takes people from here to there. It's in the ever-changing sky. Do I see the planet this way - charged with the divine energies of potential and possibility? Or am I just walking by, head down, and maybe inside, all screwed up with what I'm calling problems.

The Little Bridge ~ Pontoise ~ 1875

In 1874 the Pissarro family moved to Pontoise, a suburb of Paris. At that time Pontoise had a population of a little more than 8,000 people, but that wouldn't be a particularly accurate figure, as rural farm workers were often not counted.

Pontoise was a community of rich and poor, owners and renters, factory workers and farmers, new money, little money and some old aristocratic money. Indeed, this little bridge was found on the property of the Chateaux de Marcouville. But Pissarro didn't believe in private property, and so he eliminated the big house with its aristocratic associations and made the forest a bit more primeval. An interesting note: while protesting the great divide between rich and poor, only people of substance would have been able to afford his paintings to hang in their grand houses. But to be human is to be a creature of contradictions and tensions.

Another interesting point: Many painters in Pissarro's day traveled extensively, always in search of the perfect vista or subject. But Pissarro tended to stay closer to home. Perhaps that's because he was sent away to school in Europe when he was only twelve years old and understood homesickness.

Pissarro painted over 300 images while living in Pontoise, many of them different angles of the same subject. So for example, he would paint a street looking in one direction, followed by a painting of the same street facing in even a slightly different direction. 

This little bridge, Le Petit Ponts, wasn't painted with brushes but with a knife. Pissarro was always trying something new, so much so that art historians say it may not be a good idea to call him simply, an Impressionist.

Maybe there's something to be said for creating a Lent that is close to home and circling around: 

• Who is near whose hand could do with some holding?
• Who are the people I've been sitting near at Mass for so long and whose names I still don't know?
• What dream have I had that's never been seriously pursued? I know a woman who has always wanted to draw. She attests that she can't draw, but in her retirement she dedicates an hour every day to drawing. No judging, just drawing.
• What book has been sitting on the shelf forever, and still hasn't been picked up?
• Is there some little spiritual practice I have longed to take up, yet from which I have always excused myself? Perhaps ten minutes of silent sitting each Lenten day.

Hoarfrost ~ 1873

After not a little rejection, this painting, titled, "Hoarfrost" was displayed at the first Impressionist Exhibition of 1874. I love Pissarro's ability to lean in to new work and new ideas despite harsh criticism. He was no quitter. Here, the new impressionist style is on full view, breaking with the approved themes of his day which were great religious, mythical, historical and military scenes.

Camille Pissarro loved painting outdoors, and he loved ordinary people, who are almost always represented in his images. Here, a peasant is out early in a winter morning, carrying fire wood he has gathered from somewhere else. The field is likely his own. We can see the frozen furrows running from the top of the rise to the bottom. The hoarfrost cuts across on an angle, making the ground and translucent frost into a kind of woven fabric. 

Camille is telling us that this older man (he walks with a stick) though faceless, has dignity and value, even in the everyday task of collecting wood to heat his home. All around the world there are people whose dignity is denied them - they are trapped in systems that exploit, manipulate, grind down, devalue, cheat and abuse them. Pissarro would have felt that classes and castes have no place in our world - that every human person is of great and irreplaceable value. 

Some people get nervous with that kind of talk. We can be so quick to put nasty labels on things we don't understand or that make us afraid. Pope John Paul II would have understood Pissarro's painting of the wood-carrying, old man and the frosty morning. He said to the post Soviet Union young people of Kazakhstan:

"Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? What is my destiny? My answer is very simple but it has tremendous implications. Listen, you are one of God's thoughts! You are one of his heartbeats! To say this, implies that, in a certain sense, your life has infinite value and your irreplaceable individuality, is what is most precious in God's sight."

A final thought about the weaving in this painting. Our lives are like this woven ground and frost: the people we've met, the schools we've attended, the jobs we've held, the way we were parent-ed, the books we've read, the paths we've chosen, the places to which we've traveled, the friends we've had, the best and worst treatment we've experienced. And somehow, thanks God, we have come to this day, to this moment. What about that? Can you identify it in your own life? 

Intercessions ~ Second Sunday in Lent

Spring officially begins this week./ Its melting and fresh growth are signs that we can change./ May God bring to completion the good begun in us./ We pray to the Lord.

Spring is the season of seed planting./ May the seeds of inclusion,/ courtesy,/ hospitality and hope/ be planted in us./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for Pope Francis/ who leads us in walking the Lenten way of prayer,/ fasting and care for the poor./ For those who are pilgrims to the Holy Land and Rome during Lent./ For those who are preparing for Baptism at Easter./ We pray to the Lord.

On the feast of St. Patrick,/ the Apostle to Ireland,/ we pray to spread the good news of Christ's victory over shadow and sin,/ by living lives reflective of Christ's generous heart of love./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for the President of the United States,/ our Congress and all in positions of authority./ For our friends and family members,/ mindful of those who ask for healing/ and freedom from anxiety./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for those who have suffered greatly after the destructive tornadoes in Alabama,/ and the many around the world who are grieving the loss of loved ones,/ after the Ethiopian plane crash this week./ We pray to the Lord.

The Forest ~ 1870

Here's another forest scene, painted just a year after Wednesday's, "Entrance to the Forest..." Does the angle of the sunlight suggest it is early morning? A father has taken his little girl off for some play time. Perhaps he is telling her, "Now don't run away where I won't be able to see you." She appears to be standing quite still - listening. This is called docility - to be teachable. 

There are an awful lot of know-it-alls out there - lots of self-proposed experts. Social media today means you can say whatever you want about anyone and anything, and it's to be accepted as the truth. Or some people read or listen only to what will reinforce their already formulated opinions. Religious people are not exempt; Catholic blogs can be angry places. Docility lacking.

I know a young couple who at seven years of marriage were having a hard time of it. At some point they were able to put things back together. When I asked  how they managed to do that, the husband said, "We agreed to stop trying to change the other." A lot of docility in that recipe.

Maybe Pissarro's painting of bright, morning trees and little people, suggests that docility (teachable-ness) advances light. Do I ever read anything or listen to anyone that might take my thinking off into a brand new direction? It's exciting to do this, and can give one a fresh sense of being quite alive!

The Banks of the Marne ~ 1864

Perhaps this is a good place to visit early-on in Lent as Camille Pissarro painted this picture in 1864, when he was just 34 years old. It is an example of plein-air technique: taking the easel outside to capture all the variety of natural light and color.

Here the artist is sitting on the banks of the River Marne - a great river that runs east-southeast of Paris, roughly 320 miles long and which feeds into the Seine River. Important note: There may be few early Pissarro paintings as the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1871, causing Pissarro to flee to London and to leave behind all his belongings. When he returned home, all but 40 of 1500 paintings had been stolen, paintings which represented twenty years of work.

We should never minimize the losses of other people or allow anyone to minimize our own. I was ordained only one month in 1979 when someone broke into the church and stole my ordination chalice. It was an antique, sterling silver and gold cup. In the morning, the policeman said I shouldn't even try to find it; that it would have already been melted down. Some losses are profound. We can be sure that Pissarro's great loss informed his later work.

So we are lucky to have this painting. Pissarro loved trees, ground and roads. Roads are very important - they give depth to the painting. Christians are familiar with the road to Calvary, the Easter road to Emmaus, the road to Bethlehem or Jerusalem. But we don't know where this Road Along the Marne leads; it simply opens up for us at the bottom of the painting. Can I imagine stepping on to it?

The road invites us, as if to say, "Come along, let's see where we go together." Notice that the road bends to the left, a little past the woman who is walking along. But there is a horizon way beyond. What might we discover there?

As Lent begins, we set out together. Every church saw crowds of people on Ash Wednesday. Some were serious, others superficial or even superstitious. Some have never grown up spiritually, and all they can think of is what to give up for forty days, something that doesn't cost to much.

But ultimately we are alone on this well-traveled road. It is an alive road - green and watery, with wispy clouds above. The journey is an interior one. How do I feel about that? And do I have any creative ideas or insights about this Lent?

Two Women Chatting By The Sea ~ 1856

At at age twenty-six, Pissarro moved to France and began private studies with a number of art masters. But his paintings still reflected his boyhood life in the Caribbean.

This painting from that period is titled: Two Women Chatting by the Sea. The atmosphere is still hazy; is it morning? Do these ladies know each other? Do they see each other every day? Are they long lost friends? It can be fun to imagine these things, but perhaps what matters most is simply that they have stopped for each other. 

A lot of people today walk with their heads down. We're in such a hurry, we don't even see others. Or we do see them but don't want to get too close. Some people think it's rude or intrusive to make eye contact. I've wondered at times if some people at Mass sit so far apart from others because they don't want to have to shake hands. Or we can go to Mass and sit near the same people for years and know nothing about them and their families. This early Pissarro painting seems to depict the opposite of this kind of thinking.

Even though they are clearly about the business of their day, the women have stopped. The lady in the white dress and yellow scarf carries a large shade-creating covered basket on her head. She is also carrying something else in her yanked up skirt. The woman in the blue dress carries a basket on her left arm. The dirt path they walk is well traveled. We see some some folks on a raft, but they are out a good distance. Maybe Pissarro doesn't want anything to distract us from the conversation of these two engaged women. 

Camille Pissarro wasn't a religious man, but people mattered to him greatly. It's rare to find a Pissarro painting that isn't people-d. Indeed, other people should be a major concern of religious practitioners. Doesn't Catholic prayer begin with The Sign of the Cross? Touching forehead and heart, a strong vertical aspect is established. Then touching left shoulder and right - an equally strong horizontal dimension. God matters, but also the people who are to my left and right, near and faraway. Jesus is so clear: Love God; love neighbor. 

The horizontal flatness of the basket on the woman's head, the background mountain with the flat base and horizon - all echo this horizontal sense of relationship. Waking up to this is part of the Lenten call to conversion. 

Pissarro depicts endless roads in his paintings. With these Caribbean ladies, we travel our own life-road everyday. Lent beckons us to wake up to some new understanding or direction as we walk along.  Pope Francis has said:

"Conversion of heart is more important than conversion of creed. It's more important to help people in their walk with God than to sell them your brand in the religious marketplace."

Maybe this Pissarro painting proposes forty days of stopping, if even for a greeting. A Christian might find this idea particularly attractive as so much of what Jesus does begins with his simply stopping. Don't give up anything - except what I need to give up in order to stop for others. Resist running by, going down a different aisle, waving from a distance. In all the period piece British dramas, everyone's always stopping for teatime with others. We've lost the sense of stopping like that. Indeed, so has Great Britain, which has recently declared loneliness as a national crisis. Sad, but honest. 

Laundress on the Banks of the River ~ 1854

This painting, Laundress on the Banks of the River is early Pissarro painted in 1854, when he returned to his boyhood, island-home for a short time. 

One art critic wrote that Pissarro is not interested in telling the viewer a story. He isn't interested in whether you feel anything or not? The only way I'd agree with that comment is that Pissarro might not be consciously telling us a story. I would say a painting like this is a kind of daydream. We can learn a great deal about ourselves by looking in on daydreams. Carl Jung says that our daydreams are more important than our night dreams.

Camille Pissarro loves the outdoors: the dense clouds, the morning atmosphere, the water, the great rocks, the green things, the ground itself. Look at how small the woman is in this landscape. No matter how people may fill a stadium for a sport event or rally, we are each still only a tiny piece of creation.

She is washing clothes - alone. Is that wet laundry bleaching in the sun on the grassy slope to the left? We know nothing of who she is. Is she a mother with a husband and children? Is she perhaps the oldest daughter who has this family responsibility? 

What is she thinking about while she works? Perhaps she's singing to herself. Or maybe she's quiet and just listening to the sounds of water, birds and breeze. She might be grumbling about her deary and monotonous life, but that's not really the feeling of the painting, is it? Maybe she's gratefully counting her blessings.

Could the painting be a personal invitation to guarantee myself some silence and alone-ness this Lent?  It's not always easy. Many people are surrounded by other people and noise from morning til night. 

I was visiting a woman in a Catholic nursing home one afternoon. When I got off the elevator I stepped into a large community room where one nurse was distributing medications to a large number of patients. I asked her, "Are there any sisters still working in this place?" She said, "Yes, a few, but they're over in the convent now for their quiet time." I asked, "When do you get quiet time?" She said, "When I get home after work." Then, after thinking a moment, she added, "No, on second thought, in the car on the way home after work." 

So the Lenten question might be, "Do I have some "Shh" time? "Be still and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10 says. That doesn't necessarily mean I need more church time, but it might be a call to find some bit of solitude - like this washer women. Some people have the empty space and time but they fill it with media noise. Solitude and silence makes them nervous. What's that about? 

This woman is working nestled in the rocks, like an ancient monk. And what might I do with my own Lenten solitude of even a few minutes each day? I don't need it to think about how to solve my many problems. I could just be present to the moments, which are a precious gift. "You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother's womb. For so many marvels I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders. You knew me through and through, my being held no secrets from you.Psalm 139:14-15.

Woman Carrying a Pitcher on Her Head ~ c.1854

Here is one of Camille Pissarro's earliest paintings. If the date is correct, he would have been twenty-four at the time. It is one of the first of many paintings whose title begins with the word Woman. This is a Caribbean woman: Pissarro having returned from Venezuela to St. Thomas to help his father with the family business.

Already, as a young man, Camille isn't painting great military battles, dramatic mythological or religious scenes, but an ordinary lady going about the business of her daily life. Notice too that he has not painted the woman as depressed or bent over in the drudgery of her life, but tall, even statuesque though barefoot, and happy. 

Pissarro honors this woman in the dignity of her life. She doesn't wear dirty rags, but a flowing, patterned scarf, standing proudly on the road which likely links her home with the well or market where she has filled her jar. We'll see that Pissarro never paints people in a degraded state - everyone has a valuable contribution to make. No one is negligible or disposable. This is a wonderful insight for a painter so young, who is not religious, and whose society (like our own) was striated: a few who have a lot, and the many who have little or nothing.

This painting was created 165 years ago. And there are still many women in the world who go barefoot. Many women in the world who carry burdens on their heads. Many women in the world who travel dirt roads. Many women in the world who inwardly possess the dignity of the Children of God but who are ground up, abused, exploited and essentially invisible.

These are the victims of what is known in our own country as otherism. For all the talk of our nation being a melting pot - no nationality or race comes to this country without first having to run the gauntlet of being hated and unwelcome. Often then, the ones who were hated, in time become the new haters. It's the nation's original sin.

We're a church-y nation - significant numbers of Americans are in church each Sunday morning. Yet for all of the religious do-ing, there's still lots of folks with hate in their hearts - people who are unwilling to see and accept other people in their diversity and variety, as precious and born of God. Troubling to say, but things don't seem to be getting any better. 

So, in view of young Pissarro's happy painting, we might have a care for the folks who wash the restaurant dishes; the waitresses; the ones who stock the store shelves; the ones who clean offices, hotel and hospital rooms; who do the scut work of nursing homes, who work the night shifts; clean bathrooms; back-breakingly pick lettuce, strawberries, cabbages and apples. Very often these bottom- of-the-pile folks come from far away places, are under-paid, exposed to health hazards, and have little sense of their dignity and worth.

Portrait of a Boy ~ c 1852

This Pissarro painting has only recently been discovered and has been dated somewhere between 1852 and 1855, before the artist relocated to Paris for art studies. Pissarro had returned home to Virgin Islands (where he was born) and which at that time were called The Danish West Indies.

The portrait is of a young boy of African descent. What is so wonderful about the painting is that Pissarro paints people in their everyday lives. Real people matter.

Everyone deserves to have his or her portrait painted, not just "important" people with refined tastes and who can afford commissions. This boy wears a dull homespun shirt, not red silk. That might be an apron around his neck or the edge of a bag used to hold the things he picks in a field. He wears a soft crumbled hat, not a gentleman's stiff stove pipe hat. 

We can imagine how surprised and perhaps afraid this young man was when Pissarro asked him to sit for the portrait. To have one's dignity acknowledged! All the sermons in the world won't convince people of the inherent dignity of each human person: that each person is unique (one of a kind) and of inestimable value. Pope Francis has virulent enemies, even in Catholic countries, for his consistently promoting this message.

Sonogram images are a kind of portrait that can wake people up to the reality and value of the pre-born child. But maybe today, we need new portrait painters to sit at the world's borders where desperate people gather, sometimes in great numbers, looking for some kind of  salvation. Or portrait painters who roam around America's cities where homelessness is again on the rise. Armies of portrait painters, randomly pulling unknowns out of crowds, the message being: In a world of anonymity, there is you, and you, and you, and you. An antidote to the infection of "them" and "otherism" that has got us so sick lately.

"Such as we are, such are the times."  St. Augustine of Hippo.

"Change your mind; change the world." 

The boy in this portrait had a story and a family - just as we each do. His work mattered. And Pissarro, who wasn't at all a religious man, understood this well. We might print a copy of this young boy and place it among the holy picures in our prayer corner or prayer book.

Intercessions ~ First Sunday of Lent

We pray for the Church at the start of Lent,/ may we fast from anything that devours the earth,/ learning some new depth of simplicity and humility in the care of our planet./ We pray to the Lord.

In once again hearing the account of Jesus tempted to power in the desert,/ may we follow him,/ relying only upon God's power/ which is the power of justice,/ compassion and love./ We pray to the Lord.

At the start of Lent, /we pray for seminarians and priests,/ asking for servant-leaders who have put away every trace of clerical elitism./ For the healing of the Church/ so deeply wounded by sex abuse and cover-up./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for the President of the United States,/ our Congress/ and those in leadership around the world./ Grant that they would be honest and wise guardian-servants/ and courteous to all./ We pray to the Lord.

For Pope Francis as he travels to Morocco at the end of March./ We pray for Morocco's tiny Christian population,/ and for the many thousands of migrants who travel through that country,/ hoping for safety,/ peace and well-being./ We pray to the Lord.

At the start of Lent may we fast from complaining,/ condemning and criticizing./ We ask health and comfort for the sick/ and endurance for care-givers./ For family and friends/ and for anyone who is alone/ or suffering grief and trouble./ We pray to the Lord.