Choosing peace. (meditation).AN ACCEPTANCE OF THE VULNERABILITY on which peace is based, and the weighing of significance in the light of eternity, can seem to some an abdication abdication, in a political sense, renunciation of high public office, usually by a monarch. Some abdications have been purely voluntary and resulted in no loss of prestige. from life's everyday realities. Hammershoi's woman sits in an enclosed space, head bent. She could be thought to be imprisoned im·pris·on tr.v. im·pris·oned, im·pris·on·ing, im·pris·ons To put in or as if in prison; confine. [Middle English emprisonen, from Old French emprisoner : en- by her context and weakly complicit com·plic·it adj. Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime; having complicity: newspapers complicit with the propaganda arm of a dictatorship. with her lack of liberty. Yet the artist shows us door upon door, with a luminous window beyond. Light plays over the woman's form from behind as well as from ahead. If she chooses, she has only to stand erect and move down the waiting corridor. If she stays motionless (reading? sewing?), that is her choice. Peace is never imposed; it cannot be. It is a deliberate choice, an ordering of priorities in a moral context. We look at the options and evaluate them. By SISTER WENDY BECKETT of Norfolk, England, well-known for her BBC BBC in full British Broadcasting Corp. Publicly financed broadcasting system in Britain. A private company at its founding in 1922, it was replaced by a public corporation under royal charter in 1927. and PBS PBS in full Public Broadcasting Service Private, nonprofit U.S. corporation of public television stations. PBS provides its member stations, which are supported by public funds and private contributions rather than by commercials, with educational, cultural, television art series and her popular art books. Reprinted with permission from: Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations (DK Publishing, 1998; 877-342-5357). Painting: Interior, by Vilhelm Hammershoi (c. 1908, Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Norway). |
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