The only overtly religious themed work in the entire gardens, it retells the beautiful story of Ruth and Naomi. Naomi, the Bethlehem widow, ends up in a foreign land without a husband and her two sons. She tells her two daughters-in-law to stay while she returns to her home, the same city in which Jesus was born. One obeys; the other, Ruth, shows such devotion and utters the famous, “Where you go, I will go; your people will be my people; your God will be my God.”

Baskin, the son of a Rabbi from Brooklyn, tells us in this sculpture how vulnerable we all are. Society’s only a few missed meals from anarchy. Individuals, every day, are just a few inches from death. Our world is just one mistake away from annihilation. As much wealth and power that we pretend to have, we are really just tattered creatures, vulnerable to the laws of nature. Nature maintains its beauty due to its perfect obedience to these laws, as Simone Weil writes, “The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that ships are sometimes wrecked in it. On the contrary, this adds to its beauty. If it altered the movement of its waves to spare a boat, it would be a creature gifted with discernment and choice and not this fluid, perfectly obedient to every external pressure. It is this perfect obedience that constitutes the sea’s beauty.”

What then is hopeful and beautiful about this statue? Brotherhood and sisterhood. Our frailty is made strong through the bonds of love and sacrifice. Is this not more evident than when we approach the manger?

4. Jeppe Hein “Mirror Labyrinth” (2017)

See for yourself yourself. Before you go, I commend a reading of Bonaventure’s The Journey of the Mind into God.

3. Jaume Plensa “Overflow” (2005)

Do you ever feel like this person? Constipated by letters and words to the point you have to grab your knees to your chest and just bare down to the point of fissuring? I do. I feel that the cure of so much of our society’s individual malcontent, anxiety, and depression can be healed through creative self-expression in writing. I do not suggest it’s the only cure, but to journal and keep record of our thoughts and actions might be a way out of Rothko’s dark hole. Look long enough and you will see the light.

2. Ugo Rondinone “The Sun” (2019)

Rondinone, the Swissman whom I know best for his phrase, “Love Invents Us,” has made a marvelous golden Christmas wreath with “The Sun.” This work brings my mind to the unceremonious crowning of Christ, but with a resurrection hope. The gilded gold, which is wearing thin at its base due to people stepping on it, serves as the triumphant, post-Crucifixion crown. The homonymous work is an acknowledgement to Dionysius the Areopagite.

1. Robert Longo “Speed of Grace” (1983)

Longo’s motivation is to give “provocative critiques of the anaesthetizing and seductive effects of capitalism, mediatized wars, and the cult of history in the US.” This remarkable work sold at Christie’s in 2017 for a mere $60,000. Its value is a hundred times that.

To a virgin viewer, one might interpret that Longo believes grace is swift, as this man looks to be either descending or ascending at 9.8 meters per second squared. That interpretation is focused on the focus of the world: the future and the past. Longo, I believe, is urging us to look at this piece. Look at it! He didn’t follow Emery’s wind driven design nor did he choose film or anything that uses change of force or motion. The speed of grace is a moment in time: the eternal now. The speed of grace is eternally one moment, frozen in love and creation. The speed of grace, ultimately, is the Resurrection.

Let us, in this season of Advent, this time of preparation and waiting, put aside the swiftness of the season. Let us find the speed of grace.

My dear friends, may the act of creation inspire you today. May you go forth with eyes open to the majesty and wonder of this beautiful day. You are gifted and beautiful; you are an act of creative love. Create something and add to this beauty.

This post was edited on 12/14/19 at 1:32 pm