Holy Sophia and Other Icons

These words on iconography come from friends at The Prayer and Spirituality Commission:

Many of us were taught to close our eyes when we pray. Praying with icons is an ancient prayer practice that involves keeping our eyes wide open, taking into our heart what the image visually communicates. We focus not on what is seen in the icon, but rather on what is seen through it - the love of God expressed through God's creatures.

This is prayer without words, with a focus on being in God's presence rather than performing in God's presence. It is a right-brain experience of touching and feeling what is holy - a divine mystery. Icons are not simply art; they are a way into contemplative prayer, and are therefore one way to let God speak to us. They are doorways into stillness, into closeness with God. If we sit with them long enough, we too can enter into the stillness, into the communion. And if we listen to them closely enough, with our hearts, we just may discern the voice of God.

 First, these icons from the Church of Agios Dimitrios, in Thessaloniki, 
just a hundred yards from my hotel: 

And then, these, from the Church of Agia Sophia in downtown Thessaloniki:

Holy Sophia

Jim Forest, an activist and himself a convert to the Russian Orthodox tradition, writes thoughtfully on icons and their place in worship and practice: 

Maria Hamilton [has] noted something a priest once said to her: "Do not go out and buy icons. Go downtown and look at Christ in the faces of the poor." For this very reason, during the Orthodox Liturgy it is not only icons that are censed by the deacon or priest but each person standing in the church. If we are indifferent to the image of God in other people, we won't find the image in icons. One thinks of the advice given to medieval pilgrims: "If you do not travel with Him whom you seek, you will not find Him when you reach your destination."

In my wandering today, I'm most aware of Sophia, her companionship, her grace, even her spiritual counsel on the road.  I have met her in kind waitresses and watched her begging for coins in the park.  And in her icon, I experience her strength, her dignity, her Christ.  She is everywhere, and she is here.  Alleluia!