Review
“Wounded in Spirit has become my guide.” —Philip Yancey
“For those who are hesitant to leap into the good news too quickly, David Bannon’s book of Advent art and reflections will be a valuable resource. Bannon, who has a felony conviction and whose adult daughter died in 2015, has lived through the realities of failure and grief. In this book, he intersperses carefully curated photos of Christian art with his own reflections on the artists—their lives, their tragedies, and their persistent hopes. Bannon also evokes an honest grappling with grief by including brief quotations from a variety of thinkers: Carl Jung, Annie Dillard, Terence Fretheim, Isabel Allende, Elie Wiesel, Julian of Norwich, Simone Weil, N.T. Wright, and Søren Kierkegaard make appearances. Particularly evocative are the excerpts from Friedrich Rückert’s poems, which Bannon translates here into English for the first time: Do not wrap yourself around the night, / bathe it in eternal light. / My tent is dark, the lamp is cold, / bless the light, the Joy of the World!” —Elizabeth Palmer, Christian Century
"A lot of the art and sentiment that comes with the holiday season seems to traffic in the trite, the sugary sweet and cloyingly familiar. The music and visuals, David Bannon has long believed, downplay the griefs that come with our ordinary human lives. But the scenes of joy and glory in Advent and Christmas help us most when the graces take seriously the grit, when the flights of heart don’t overlook the heartaches. David has expertly curated the finest of art to unearth stunning works. His reading in wide Christian sources has also allowed him to cherry-pick the just-right quotation again and again. And the stories he tells of the dramas behind these iconic pieces! We glimpse the lives of those who not only suffered, but met in their losses and creative pursuits none other than Christ, both infant and savior, close-by but also king and Lord." —Timothy Jones, Pastor, past Visiting Scholar, Princeton Theological Seminary, and author of a book on the Trinity, This Question of Love.
“This book summons an almost visceral response in its brilliant counterpoint to the customary understanding and celebration of Advent and Christmas. In the arena of wounds and griefs, though each experience is unique, we are joined in our humanness, finding common ground. The word sympathy means being together in profound distress. Art makes such anguish visible. Commentary penetrates and elucidates. These meditations and images are a marvelous gift.”—Luci Shaw, Writer in Residence, Regent College, author and poet
“This glorious full-size hardback book (with a wonderful foreword by Philip Yancey) is the most beautiful devotional book of the season. Each meditation is paired with a moving reproduction of classic art, nicely reproduced on rich, glossy paper. This is a treasure to behold. Wounded in Spirit stands out not only because of the subtly lavish design but because of its amazing content and spirit. David Bannon writes from profound personal experience, offering ways to commune with God through Scripture. He also tells some poignant stories of artists who lived through great pain. He himself has gone through some very odd stuff, and much grief. His adult daughter died of a drug overdose even as his own professional life was in difficulty. I could review this book in great detail, but I suppose you get the picture – it is very handsome, mature, thoughtfully spiritual and honest about the great brokenness of our lives, of our society, of our times. This book will inspire in the deepest, truest sense of the word as it evokes ways to be honest about our sadness and helps us find God’s comfort (and joy) in this season. That is uses artwork to help us get there is such a blessing as sometimes words just fail. This book is a gift for the hurting, but a gift for any of us who feel what we feel these days.” —Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Books (Dallastown, PA)
“‘Christmas can be a time of joy but also of tears, memory and prayer. Celebration does not always come easily.’ So describes Wounded in Spirit: Advent Art and Meditations, a gorgeous full-color art book to help the grieving get through the season...If you like art and find that it feeds your soul, and you are struggling with grief as Christmas approaches, this may be the Advent book for you. Every day there is a new artist, with one or two examples of their work and several quotations about grief and loss and love. Here’s a two-page spread of a typical day’s meditation. The liturgical season of Advent begins this Sunday, December 2, but the book is organized by the month of December, with the daily reflections beginning on December 1 and ending on Christmas Day. Instead, the book focuses on what was going on in the lives of the artists themselves. The answer: a world of pain. Some of the artists profiled here are famous for their suffering, like Vincent Van Gogh, whose infamous ear mutilation happened the day before Christmas Eve. But many are painters I’ve never heard of, and their stories are heartbreaking...As Richard Rohr puts it in one of the book’s well-chosen quotations, ‘I think your heart needs to be broken, and broken open, at least once to have a heart at all or to have a heart for others.’ This Advent, may you work through grief and beauty simultaneously. God is good.” —Jana Riess, author of Flunking Sainthood, Religion News Service
"I’ve come to love this quiet, grieved, book of hopeful pilgrimage. Written by a man who lost his daughter, it bears the depth of Advent’s darkness; the long shadows in which we sit with questions and a torturous quiet. It’s very hushed, there is nothing triumphal about it and at moments, it can be bleak as it allows you to sit with the grief you may find in this season. But it is richly beautiful and it thrums with a real and quiet hope as it explores the art that emerged from the darkness in the lives of different creators. What does it mean to hope, to reach forward, to walk in faith while still in the darkness? This Advent resource leads us into that faithful way." — Sarah Clarkson, From the Vicarage
From the Author
After my daughter died, I sought solace in reading about others who knew similar grief. Many creative artists endured terrible losses and found ways to express their wounds and hopes in painting, sculpture, poetry, prose and music. One need not have suffered to create great art but I believe that great artists communicate truth in their work. Truth can be painful. It can also be joyous, hopeful, sorrowing and profound. Great art speaks to us across the centuries. It reminds us that we are not alone.
Some hurts are so deep that the wounds will remain with us all our lives. We each grieve in our own way—no one can know our individual sorrow. At the same time, others have traveled their own paths, stumbling and crawling, through the same dark valley. Somewhere in this book readers may discover an artist, a painting, or a bit of grief research that resonates with them, that offers a communion of grief.
As a child I wondered at the psalms of lament: why were they included in the Bible at all? Never mind the terrible sorrows of the prophets. Now I see. There is grief and harm and waiting in this life. There is also joy and hope of reunion—surely the very heart of Advent. Great religious art communicates all of this and much more that words may fail to express. In it we find recognition and, at times, precious moments of peace.
From the Inside Flap
Depression and suicides spike at Christmas, as loneliness and the memories of lost loved ones invade the background cheer. My own father died in mid-December, before his twenty-fourth birthday, an untimely death that forever cast a pall over our family&;s Christmases. We know, all of us, the dissonance of which Simeon spoke to Mary: of love splattered with blood, of consolation that proves diffused and fleeting. Art brings that dissonance to the foreground, with a poignancy that wounds the spirit like a sword.
&;Philip Yancey, from the foreword
From the Back Cover
Depression and suicides spike at Christmas, as loneliness and the memories of lost loved ones invade the background cheer. My own father died in mid-December, before his twenty-fourth birthday, an untimely death that forever cast a pall over our family’s Christmases. We know, all of us, the dissonance of which Simeon spoke to Mary: of love splattered with blood, of consolation that proves diffused and fleeting. Art brings that dissonance to the foreground, with a poignancy that wounds the spirit like a sword.
—Philip Yancey, from the foreword
About the Author
David Bannon taught college for many years and publishes on art, history, culture, and translation. He has appeared on The Discovery Channel, A&E, and The History Channel and has been interviewed by NPR, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal. He has lectured at libraries and museums and was curator of Asian art for the Florence Museum of Art and History in South Carolina. The present book is a result of the author’s own brokenness, wounds, and grief: he was convicted on felony charges in 2006; his daughter, Jessica, died in 2015. David currently lives in South Carolina with his wife and their cat, Yeti.
