An Elliptical Glory: THE BRIGHT ABYSS -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 21 March 22

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

THE BRIGHT ABYSS -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 21 March 22

May be an image of fire

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 21

March 22

THE BRIGHT ABYSS

“My God my bright abyss

Into which all my longing will not go

Once more I come to the edge of all I know

And believing nothing I believe in this.”

--Christian Wiman

Image: Thailand Lantern Festival

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This web log is intended to share homilies, some liturgical materials I have prepared or adapted (prayers, litanies, etc.), and occasional journal entries.

"Elliptical" can mean "fragmentary, with words missing," or "in the shape of a flattened circle." While "glory" refers to the brilliance surrounding the Deity, it can also refer to the grace that reflects such radiance in life. In Christian iconography, a "glory" is the whole body halo around the Christ or the Blessed Virgin in paintings and statuary.

According to Kepler’s First Law of Planetary Motion, an object in orbit follows an ellipse, with the center of mass as one of the foci. The ellipse was called “imperfect” by theologians who originally objected to its use by Kepler to refine Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system, as opposed to the “perfect” circles of Aristotelian geocentric cosmology. "Elliptical" can thus also imply the 'imperfect' path between two centers, or falling toward the true center, but moving forward fast enough to avoid collision, but slowly enough to prevent escape.