Light Within Light: Psalms and the Arts of Insight

In a multi-faceted collaboration that reaches across differences between faith traditions, cultures, and artistic and academic disciplines, the three authors offer a deeply integrated reading of twelve psalms. Each psalm is interpreted from multiple perspectives--visual, literary, and liturgical--as they explore the texts through the "slow arts" of poetry, painting, translation, theology and prayer, preaching, and collaborative thinking.

The selected psalms highlight three themes: the physical elements light and earth, and the ever-surprising process of human transformation through longing for and encounter with God. These themes, which are central to the Psalter altogether, are explored somatically through Fujimura's paintings, many of them using the materials and meditative technique of Nihonga, traditional Japanese art.

New dimensions of familiar texts appear as the authors explicate aspects of their own personal, artistic, and liturgical experiences of hearing and dwelling upon them. Fresh translations with accompanying essays illumine some of the semantic choices made by the ancient poets, the complexity and integrity of each of these small theological works, as well as profound ambiguities that are often obscured in translation. Sermons, meditations, and theological essays suggest how these texts have figured prominently in the thought and prayer of Jews and Christians through the ages, as well, and why those exploring and practicing contemporary spirituality in its various expressions can still find here fresh, even counter-cultural voices that speak to the challenges we face with honesty, clarity, and hope.

Ellen F. Davis is the Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School.

Makoto Fujimura is a widely celebrated artist with paintings in galleries across the United States, as well as internationally (including in Japan and Israel). He is the author of Art + Faith: A Theology of Making (Yale University Press, 2020) and Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering (InterVarsity, 2016), as well as the founder of Fujimura Institute.

Rabbi Shai Held is a philosopher, theologian, and Bible scholar. He is president and dean at the Hadar Institute.