Epiphany Daybook +5: Salt of the Earth

Blessed Epiphany, friends!
I'm looking forward to sharing with you a weekly Epiphany Daybook devotional post for these eight weeks of witness. I apologize for missing last week. We were traveling and I was unexpectedly unable to get to the post. 

You can read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Epiphany.

Look:  Saltcellars, Rebekah Pryor - source  [H/T: Artway.eu]

Artist Statement:  “Saltcellars (2017) is a motif of maternal lament. It is part of a larger body of work that seeks to critique traditional images of the mother in Christian religious art and generate new ‘icons’ that might more fully, ethically represent real maternal experience.

Carl Jung states that salt ‘pervades all things’. It is abundant and universal. In his volume called Mysterium Coniunctionis, he writes, ‘Apart from its lunar wetness and its terrestrial nature, the most outstanding properties of salt are bitterness and wisdom... The factor common to both, however incommensurable the two ideas may seem, is, psychologically, the function of feeling. Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering.’ (Jung 1970, 241)

My Saltcellars functions to preserve and offer a taste of both the bitterness of maternal lament and the wisdom of love that enables the mother to survive it. In this way, it contrasts the opposition of bitterness and wisdom that Jung describes, where one excludes the other, with salt cast as ‘the carrier of this fateful alternative’ (Jung 1970, 246). Saltcellars suggests that bitterness and wisdom exist at once in a woman’s maternal experience. Her body feels both.” (Rebekah Pryor, May 2018)

Listen*: The Kingdom Is Yours, Common Hymnal - Spotify | YouTube (w/lyrics) 

Read**:  Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 112:1-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Matthew 5:13-20 

Monday: Psalm 80; Genesis 25:19-34; Hebrews 13:1-16; John 7:37-52 

Tuesday: Psalm 78; Genesis 26:1-6,12-33; Hebrews 13:17-25; John 7:53-8:11 

Wednesday: Psalm 119:97-120; Genesis 27:1-29; Romans 12:1-8; John 8:12-20 

Thursday: Psalm 146; Genesis 27:30-45; Romans 12:9-21; John 8:21-32 

Friday: Psalm 88; Genesis 27:46-28:4,10-22; Romans13:1-14; John 8:33-47 

Saturday: Psalm 87, 90; Genesis 29:1-20; Romans 14:1-23; John 8:47-59 

Pray:  Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Do: This week walk through the neighborhood where you live, work, or worship. Pray the collect for this week (above), and ask God to open your eyes to the people and places He's asking you to proclaim the Good News of the liberty and abundance Christ offers any who will follow Him. Ask a friend to pray for you to answer readily to what the Spirit reveals to you during your prayer.

*Listen to my entire playlist on Spotify: Epiphany - Beatitudes . Add it to your account by clicking ‘Follow.’

** Sunday Scripture readings are taken from the Revised Common Lectionary (Year A). Daily Scripture readings are taken from the Book of Common Prayer (Year 2).