Introduction
Welcome to Darkness. A contemplative De-centering practice.
This interactive gallery is experienced best with an audio guide designed for this event. You may listen to the guide on your own device or with the tablets and headphones provided.
On your smartphone or tablet:
To access the guide open the internet browser on your phone and go to torncurtainarts.org/darkness and follow the instructions to access the churches’ WIFI network in your settings.
Be quiet but not silent.
This space is designed to be a contemplative space. To honor this space, please be quiet but don’t worry about being absolutely silent. If you have kids with you: (first of all, thank you for bringing them!!) Talk and process your thoughts together. Ask them questions, try not to escape the hard realities of the cross. It’s scary yes but not if you are in it together.
Stretch Yourself
Some of the stations invite you to interact with something uncomfortable. Just know that you are never required to participate. Feel free to opt out of any of the exercises. Our only request is that you be open to Jesus in the ways he might want you to stretch, provoke, or challenge you through these stations.
Take your time
These installations are designed to be prompts for prayer and contemplation. It's ok to slow down and engage with each station as long as you want to. We would just ask that when you finish with the audio portion of the station, you step to the side to allow others to hear the guide. If you are listening to the guide on your personal device, take all the time you need.
STATION 1 - The desert
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights... He was hungry. - Matthew 4:1-11
Station 2 - The garden
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.” Matthew 26:48-50
Station 3 - The temple
Matt 26: 59 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. 60 But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward.
Finally, two came forward 61 and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I can destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”
62 Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent. Matt 26: 59-62
Station 4 - The market
Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said.
70 But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
71 Then he went out to the gateway, where another servant girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”
72 He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!”
73 After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away.”
74 Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!” -Matt 26: 69-74
station 5 - The court
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.
- John 18:37-40
station 6 - the prison
And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. - Mark 15: 18
station 7 - the streets
"As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross." Matt 27:32
Station 8 - the cross
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[c] lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
... 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52, and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. -Matt 27: 45
“Atheism as a Purification”
from Gravity and Grace, by Simone Weil
A case of contradictories which are true. God exists: God does not exist. Where is the problem? I am quite sure that there is a God in the sense that I am quite sure my love is not illusory. I am quite sure that there is not a God in the sense that I am quite sure nothing real can be anything like what I am able to conceive when I pronounce this word. But that which I cannot conceive is not an illusion.
There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.
Perhaps every evil thing has a second aspect—a purification in the course of progress towards the good—and a third which is the higher good.
We have to distinguish carefully between these three aspects because it is very dangerous for thought and for the effective conduct of life to confuse them.
Of two men who have no experience of God, he who denies him is perhaps nearer to him than the other.
The false God who is like the true one in everything, except that we cannot touch him, prevents us from ever coming to the true one.
We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything, except that he does not exist, since we have not reached the point where God exists.
The errors of our time come from Christianity without the supernatural. Secularization is the cause—and primarily humanism.
Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith: in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be atheistic with the part of myself which is not made for God. Among those men in whom the supernatural part has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
A man whose whole family had died under torture, and who had himself been tortured for a long time in a concentration camp; or a sixteenth-century Indian, the sole survivor after the total extermination of his people. Such men if they had previously believed in the mercy of God would either believe in it no longer, or else they would conceive of it quite differently from before. I have not been through such things. I know, however, that they exist; so what is the difference? I must move towards an abiding conception of the divine mercy, a conception which does not change whatever event destiny may send upon me and which can be communicated to no matter what human being.
Feature 9 - Golgatha
1 Corinthians 11:23-29
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
station 10 - the tomb
John 12: 23-26
23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
credits
BY Paul romig-leavitt
Audio guide was written and performed
by Brian Davis
Sound design produced
by Danny Burton
Original score for the stations were composed
For notes about the works used in these stations