Daily Nourishment for July 29, 2024: Saint Anne and the Generations Who Have Come Before Us with Words and Guidance from Lauren Winner
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 50 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
This past Friday, at the Glen, the morning chapel observed the feast day of Mary’s parents. Anne and Joachim are neither named nor discussed in the Bible, but they are much commented on in the history of the church.
Pause.
Anna is often featured in a pictorial representation that’s known as an Anna Selbdritt — that is, “Anne herself a third” — or an Anne Trinity: St. Anne is shown with her daughter Mary and grandson Jesus. A family photo, you might say, depicting three generations.
Linger over this Anne Trinity, and consider the generations who have come before you - who are the elders in your creative life, your writing life, who have nurtured you and pushed you on your way? Perhaps invite them into the room with you.
Prompt.
The stories and images we have of Anne are embroideries - embroideries upon embroideries. Or, put differently, the stories and images we have of Anne represent people’s desire to know more.
Mary must have had a mother - what was that mother like?
One answer the tradition supplies to that question: she was a reader. She is often pictured with a book. Here she is teaching Mary to read:
The church imagines that she was widowed twice and married thrice. Here is a 14th-century image of Anne with each of her husbands.
People’s desire to know more about Anne, and indeed to be close to Anne, may have been inspired in part by the thought that Anne was unusually and especially close to God, and yet she lived an ordinary life.
Medieval women who were devoted to her may have seen connections between their own lives and hers; she was a saint who helped them grasp the holiness in their own midst.
Practice.
Who in your lineage — perhaps your actual grandmother or great-grandmother, or perhaps someone in your creative lineage — would you like to know more about than you do, or perhaps can, know? Allow yourself to imagine some of that forebear’s details and stories. Write for six minutes.
Or
Write a letter to one of the elders who nourished and shaped your creative life, who pushed you on your way. What have you not said to that person that you wish to say? What do you want to ask? For what express thanks? What do you remember about your crucial encounters with him or her? Write for six minutes.
Want More?
—Go back one generation further - here is a work of art featuring not only St Anne, but also her mother, St Emerentia
—Lucille Clifton honoring a forebear.
Today’s Pause, Prompt, and Practice were provided by Lauren Winner. Lauren served as the chaplain for this year’s Glen Workshop. During the month of July, Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment will feature Glen Workshop facilitators and other Glen-ish people, places, and things. Enjoy!
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Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings
—The July Co-Writing Schedule is live
—Save the Date: Spiritual Direction for Writers® + Enneagram for Creativity Gathering will take place on Saturday, September 28th. Recordings will be available if you can’t join us live. Speakers will be announced soon!
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