Beauty for the Least of These
This month I wrote an article for Plough about visual art as ministry in a homelessness center in Northern Virginia. I’ve included an excerpt below, and I encourage you to read the whole thing on Plough’s website!
When picturing a homelessness shelter, what images come to mind?
One might picture fluorescent lights, cheap plastic chairs crowding around dated-looking tables, stressed volunteers dashing about, and, of course, those struggling with homelessness – receiving services, chatting with others, or trying to take a nap in spite of all the noise around them.
With that image in mind, the Lamb Center, a daytime shelter for the unhoused in Northern Virginia, might be surprising. At first glance, the center has all the trademarks listed above: a no-frills operation that serves hundreds of people each day with meals, laundry, showers, Bible study, and case management. Take a second look, however, and notice: there is art everywhere on the first floor, where the Lamb Center’s clients (who are called “guests”) receive services.
To the left of the front door, by the desks where guests check in, is a hodgepodge of drawings made by past visitors. A script verse of Galatians 5:22–23 – the fruit of the Spirit – is vinyled to the overhang above the kitchen. A cluster of paintings surrounds the elevator to the second floor, which houses administrative offices and the organization’s food pantry. One painting depicts Jesus mid-laugh, eyes crinkled shut in joy. Another shows a man in disheveled clothing kneeling on the ground and hugging Christ’s legs, a modern reminiscence of Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son.
Most curious of all are fourteen small illustrations in dollar-store chrome frames, interspersed all around the edges of the common space where guests sit. No bigger than postcards, these illustrations depict the stations of the cross – a series of fourteen images portraying events from Christ’s last day on earth before he was crucified. Stations of the cross, traditionally found in many Western Christian church contexts, are most commonly used for devotional contemplation during Holy Week in observance of Christ’s death and resurrection. These stations are printed onto silver paper, with a larger gold print at the end of the series titled, “Jesus is raised.”
The stations are reminiscent of German woodcuts in style: flat illustrations with sharp angles, textures created by line patterns, and expressive subjects. An accompanying booklet, available on request, includes the station illustrations along with narrow panels that illustrate a corresponding story in the Old Testament, a passage from Scripture, and a prayer.
The stations were created by Steve Schlossburg, rector of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. Schlossburg first encountered the Lamb Center – somewhat reluctantly – in the summer of 1998.
“I was the most disposable member at the church I was working for,” says Steve. “They came to me and they said, ‘Well, the Lamb Center is looking for a new director. Just go over there for a summer and we’ll pull you back out at the end of the summer.’ I didn’t know much about the Lamb Center, but I had volunteered in shelters from time to time, and I thought that wasn’t for me. But I went over there, and by the end of this summer, I was different. I applied for the director position there. That’s the last thing in the world I would have ever set out to do, but something happened to me…”