If you ask an artist or an architect or a theologian about their own experiences of encounter, they might talk about how they feel compelled to act from the very center of themselves. It's likely they will have their own metaphors for entering the Holy of Holies.

The Soul Takes Flame
Brie Dodson
Oil on canvas, 2002
12" x 24"

Part of what compels them onward, I think, is a need to share their encounters, to share what they have discovered during the plunge, and it is in the act of sharing that we join with the artist, or the the architect, or theologian and together come full circle with the gifts that God has provided.

This brings us back to the art of Krystyna Sanderson, who with others has given founding vision to the ECVA community. Ms. Sanderson's

Places of Light #3
Krystyna Sanderson
Gelatin Silver Photograph
1995, 7" x 10"

art provides us with an entrance through which we transcend, even if for a moment, our human perceptions of absence and separation, and perceive presence, wholeness, the glory of the Blessed Holy One.