Art in Worship for Reconciliation

“…, the healing of past hurts and the practices of forgiveness? What art is made or featured within worship to help communities move toward restoration? ”

Team Members/Contributors

Liv Larson Andrews Salem Lutheran Church Contact Me

About this pastoral study project

By visiting the Grunewald Guild in central Washington and the Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland, I seek to discover worship practices that heal wounds within communities. I am curious to what extent art plays a role in such worship. I seek to bring healing practices home to my small urban church and invite my community into practices of restoration. Avocationally, I am an artist and wish to bolster my art-making by having time apart in these two sacred places.

The Grunewald Guild is a community of artists and faith leaders teaching spiritual practices alongside fine arts in rural Washington. The Corrymeela Community is a resource for interdenominational reconciliation along the coast of Northern Ireland, a small slice of a whole region marked by religious strife. Each of these two communities offers a unique witness about the path Christians may take toward healing, and how that path may involve art and worship. I wish to spend a few weeks in both locations to absorb the ethos of each place and to glean a touch of its wisdom by participating in art and worship in community myself.

Two artists of these places interest me specifically. Brother Mickey McGrath of Philadelphia is a "Guild Master" at Grunewald, and teaches a sketchbook class at the Guild at least once a year. He lives and works in a poor neighborhood, making art with his neighbors that leads to transformation. I received instruction from him in the summer of 2016 and seek to spend more time in his company. Padraig O'Tuama is a poet and leader at the Corrymeela Community. His work profoundly touches on the era called "The Troubles," several decades of deep conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the region. He has visited my home in Spokane, and I wish to learn what restorative worship looks like in his context. For both of these artists, their artwork is essential to the living out of their faith as well as their community engagement.