Humanity didn’t discover geometry, we uncovered it. But the geometry we’re concerned with tonight deepens our understanding of a God whose design of our universe is suffused with underlying, exquisite rhythms and proportions. We’ll look at the basis of geometric design, how it was employed in Christian tradition and conclude with examples of contemporary practice.īut what is meant by sacred geometry? Geometry is used in so many creative areas, in architecture, video games, product design, even credit cards have been designed around a geometric ideal. Image Credit: The Hospitality of Abraham, also known as The Trinity, (detail) by Andrei Rublev, 1411 or 1425-27.This blog (first presented as a lecture at Sarum College, Salisbury, England) unravels aspects of sacred geometry and how it has inspired art and architecture for millennia. The Divine Dance: Exploring the Mystery of Trinity, disc 1 (CAC: 2004), CD, MP3 download. Wm Paul Young in his foreword to The Divine Dance, 22.Īdapted from Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016) and The mirror seems to have been lost over the centuries, both in the icon and in our on-the-ground understanding of who God is-and, therefore, who we are too! You are called “to consciously participate in the divine dance of loving and being loved,” as Wm Paul Young, the best selling author of The Shack, writes. Yes, you-and all of creation-are invited to sit at the divine table. It’s stunning when you think about it-there was room at this table for a fourth. Most people pass right over it, but some art historians believe the remaining glue on the original icon indicates that there was perhaps once a mirror glued to the front of the table. Is the Holy Spirit inviting, offering, and clearing space? I think so! And if so, for what, and for whom?Īt the front of the table there appears to be a little rectangular hole. Notice the Spirit’s hand points toward the open and fourth place at the table. If we take the depiction of God in The Trinity seriously, we have to say, “In the beginning was the Relationship.” The gaze between the Three shows the deep respect between them as they all share from a common bowl. The icon shows the Holy One in the form of Three, eating and drinking, in infinite hospitality and utter enjoyment between themselves. Green: “the Spirit”-the divine photosynthesis that grows everything from within by transforming light into itself (Hildegard of Bingen called this viriditas, or the greening of all things.) The blue of creation is brilliantly undergirded with the necessary red of suffering.) Gold: “the Father”-perfection, fullness, wholeness, the ultimate Sourceīlue: “the Incarnate Christ”-both sea and sky mirroring one another (In the icon, Christ wears blue and holds up two fingers, telling us he has put spirit and matter, divinity and humanity, together within himself. There are three primary colors in Rublev’s icon, each illustrating a facet of the Holy One: As icons do, this painting attempts to point beyond itself, inviting a sense of both the beyond and the communion that exists in our midst. This story inspired a piece of devotional religious art by iconographer Andrei Rublev in the fifteenth century: The Hospitality of Abraham, or simply The Trinity. “Surely, we ourselves are not invited to this divine table,” the hosts presume. Here we have humanity feeding God it will take a long time to turn that around in the human imagination. Their first instinct is one of invitation and hospitality-to create a space of food and drink for their guests. “The Lord” appears to Abraham as “three men.” Abraham and Sarah seem to see the Holy One in the presence of these three, and they bow before them and call them “my lord” (18:2-3 Jerusalem Bible). In Genesis we see the divine dance in an early enigmatic story (18:1-8).
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