by Ned Bustard
I don’t sport anymore, and I also don’t watch other people sport. Though the world became obsessed with the olympics this summer, I am happy to carve my little blockprints, walk downtown to my local indie bookstore, and drink sweet tea.
Yet . . . volleyball.
Somehow, I love watching volleyball. I was watching volleyball the other day with my daughter Elspeth and was surprised to see that in the middle of a sea of blue uniforms, there was a red shirt on the USA men’s volleyball team. Of course, my first thought was that he would die first in this episode. Then, I remembered that this was the Olympics, not an episode of Star Trek. Perhaps the fellow forgot his blue shirt back at the Olympic Village. But, no, that can’t be. This sport thing is too important to the world and to companies marketing their goods to allow one of our sporty youths to wear the wrong shirt.
Elspeth then looked it up for me on the interwebs and said it was the “libero.” This information did not help me much, so I texted my volleyball-star nephew, and he explained to me: “The libero, sometimes called the defensive specialist, is a player who plays exclusively in the back row of the court. Using specific substitutions, the libero will switch out with the middles when they get to the back row. They are not allowed to hit in front of the 10-foot line and are usually a shorter player to give them a passing advantage.”
Wow, that is a lot to have to say. Instead of saying all that, I suppose they just get the fellow to wear a red shirt. The red shirt was a symbol.
I like symbols. This is obvious by even the quickest flip through the pages of Every Moment Holy. Odd and anachronistic things keep popping up in my art: dolphins with anchors, square halos, phoenixes, chalices with bread, butterflies, and bleeding pelicans.
Many will be familiar with symbols used to identify teachings of the Christian faith (the cross, the Lamb of God, and the ichthys), but in my art I also reach for some deeper cuts. At one Hutchmoot years ago I was milling about the Artist’s Row and overheard some ladies wishing that I could just stand next to them and explain all of the symbols in my linocuts. I chose not to interrupt them, but here, for you, I will share my secret decoder ring—or at least some parts of it.
If you’d like to see me go into greater detail about the meaning to a host of symbols in Every Moment Holy, I’ve recorded a lecture on that topic for Housemoot 2024. Buy a ticket, invite your community to your house for a gathering, and dive in.
At the end of each volume of Every Moment Holy, Doug McKelvey, the author, writes an epic liturgy in praise of Christ. My practice has been to sift through the lines of his beautiful poetry in search of visuals to use for illustrations, to join with them symbols from the history of church art, and then add in other elements that seem to fit thematically or compositionally.
A Liturgy of Praise to the King of Creation
In ”A Liturgy of Praise to the King of Creation” Jesus has an unusual halo—a swirl of electrons. This is a reference to Colossians 1:16, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” All things—even atoms.
This liturgy is overflowing with beautiful imagery, so it was more a matter of what not to include from the text than struggling to figure out what to include. Below the stars of the Southern Cross are elements to illustrate “You are The King of Sunlight and Storms” while opposite that are symbols that sync with “Ruler of the Grassy Plains” and “the Lord of the Harvest . . . The Grain King.”
Above that is a dolphin with an anchor, a symbol that often appears in Every Moment Holy. Christ is staring at this symbol in particular. This is a symbol for his Bride, the Church, and was often found on graves in Christian catacombs until the third century. The dolphin (Aristotle called them “fishes,” so a large ICTHYS, often said to save drowning sailors in ancient folk tales) winding itself around an anchor points to Christians putting all of their hope in Christ—”We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). “You are The Monarch of Meadows” is symbolized in a butterfly (a common symbol for a regenerated soul in that it starts out a sinful worm, dies in a cocoon, and emerges as a new creation) and the liturgy’s declaration that Jesus is “King of the Walruses” is represented by, of course, a walrus. The reader prays, “You are the King of the Rabbits, . . . The River God, The Swamp King, King of Glades,” so a rabbit and a turtle appear in the lower corner, chosen both to represent the text and allude to the famous Aesop’s’ Fable, just for fun. The chalice and loaf of bread in the lower right of the linocut print point to the Eucharist and the lines, “You are . . . The God of Mercy, The God of Redemption. You are The Lord of Love.” At the feet of Christ are two small plants lifted from their spots at the foot of Jesus in my New Creation print: a shamrock—reminding us that God is three in one—and a tulip, reminding us of the sovereign, unrelenting love of Christ that insures, as the liturgy ends: “There is no corner of creation you will fail to redeem.”
A Liturgy of Praise to Christ Who Conquered Death
In Volume II of Every Moment Holy ends with “A Liturgy of Praise to Christ Who Conquered Death.” Jesus is pictured with a triangular halo (as a member of the Trinity) and armed for battle with an armor-clad arm and a mighty sword. Behind him is a great mountain, spoken of by the prophet: “On this mountain, he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces . . . In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’” (Isaiah 25:7–8a, 9).
Opposite the mountain is the Tree of Life, encircled by a phoenix. The twelve pieces of fruit on the Tree symbolize spiritual authority (twelve tribes, twelve apostles, Jacob had twelve sons, God ordered that twelve loaves of unleavened bread be present in the temple each week, etc.), and the phoenix symbolizes Christ and the resurrection (in mythology a phoenix is alive, dies, and then is reborn).
On the left, Jonah is resurrected from the belly of the great fish (Matthew 12:38–41). Below the fish is the cruel kingdom of death with the great gates of Hell broken and hanging askew, or as this liturgy says, “The door that led to death has been remade by Christ into the door that opens into everlasting life.”
The liturgy also boldly proclaims: “All sorrows we endure for now are but the rattling gasp that signals death’s defeat. Christ’s heel is planted on death’s neck. Death cannot breathe. And this space in which we grieve is but the long exhale of death’s last expiring breath. This age of passing sorrows is but the long death rattle of death itself. The outcome bears no hint of doubt. The work is done. The victory is won.” Therefore, Jesus stands with one foot on the ribcage of Death, his scythe broken, and with his other foot, he crushes the head of the Serpent.
The last image in the illustration is a ram encircled with thorns, a nod to the life that came from the ram caught in the thicket in Genesis and the crown of thorns Christ was crowned with for us on the cross.
A Liturgy of Praise to Christ Who Labors Through His People
“O Christ, Exalted Prince of Heaven, O Christ, Radiant King of Earth, Your glories are everlasting. You are the living head of your body, the divine bridegroom of your church.” And so begins “A Liturgy of Praise to Christ Who Labors Through His People” in volume III of Every Moment Holy. Joining Christ in this linocut illustration is the Bride, the Church of Jesus. Jesus feeds his bride from a plate of five loaves and two fish—a miracle made from the good works the faithful have given up to him, good works he planned for them to do from before the beginning of time.
Jesus wears a cruciform-filled round halo and his bride is crowned by a double halo—a circle and a square, for she exists both in and outside of time. In Christian art, the round halo is reserved for angels and for dead saints, while the square halo identified a living person presumed to be a saint. The shovel in the hand of the Church represents the work of God’s people in general while at her feet are symbols for the work of God’s people more specifically. They include an abacus (mathematics), a magnifying glass (sciences), a hoe (agriculture), a sword (military), a guitar (music), a caduceus (medicine), a box (shipping/warehousing), an apple (education), books (writing/scholarship), a pencil (art), and scales (justice/politics). Twelve bees work industriously and the Holy Spirit carries their home, a hive full of honey (the Scriptures).
The flowers at the bottom of the illustration burst forth in truth and grace, while above it, we see the words “ora et labora” (that is, “pray and work,” the traditional slogan of the Benedictines) proclaimed on a banner flapping in the breeze.
Hopefully focusing on these three pieces from the three volumes of Every Moment Holy will be a help when you try to read into the layers of meaning woven through the linocut prints in these books. And the video that I made for Housemoot 2024 will give you even more insight. But try not to get too wrapped up in decoding every element. Enjoy the whole piece of art as a piece of art. And I will try not to figure out everything about the red shirts in volleyball, but instead, just revel in watching the game.
If you want to learn more about the symbolism in Every Moment Holy, watch the lecture Ned created for Housemoot 2024.