I did not grow up celebrating Lent. Advent, yes, but Lent had Catholic connotations wrapped up in it. And while I think it would be healthy for someone coming out of Catholicism to abstain from Lent, for evangelicals unaccustomed to such discipline it can be a sobering exercise, preparing one's heart for the coming Resurrection.

This year I decided to do something unusual. I would fast from using colour in my images. Switching my iPhone's camera from colour to black and white was easy with iOS 7. Finding a photo to post (almost) everyday was the greater challenge. Although the discipline made me aware of the shadows and forms everywhere in our world, it was easy to become repetitive.

Another challenge was finding texts to match the images. Malcolm Guite's beautiful series of sonnets for the church year provided much inspiration, as did BIOLA University's Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts Lent Project. Of course, scripture was a constant guide and I used a stripped down version of the seven last words of Jesus for one week. (Click on the images below and then hover over them to view the words.)

The effect on my feed and my heart was one of subtle sadness, a weariness and watching that suited life in a fallen world. But as the days went on there grew a steady, constant hope. The Resurrection was coming. All things (including colour) would be, and will be, restored.

"The forests of the world are burning now And you make late repentance for the loss."  - Malcom Guite, "Ash Wednesday"

"I'm throwing stones up at your window I'm casting shadows up on your door."

"His suffering becomes our suffering. His death is our death."

"A good measure — pressed down, shaken together, and running over."

"His love still breaks and pierces like a knife."

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

"Ask Seek Knock Enter by the narrow gate Do not be anxious."

Hope sustained through long days of fasting and prayer.

"...our Saviour is being ground like wheat."

|Greatly troubled in spirit| |Anchor you sustain|

"Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”

"Our very being is laid open and bare before God through his word."

"We walk in the Light  As He is in the Light,  We have fellowship with one another,  His blood cleanses from all sin."

"It’s fear that sets these tests and proofs, not Love."

"We have been buried with Him through baptism into death... So we too might walk in newness of life."

"Son burns night & day, a fire set by hatred. Still— Love is the kindling."

"Therefore comfort one another with these words."

"If he could just glimpse  He might suspect a kingdom  Even now."

"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."

"He gives himself again with all his gifts Into our hands."

"Now he receives again and lifts on high The gifts he gave and we have turned awry."

"Divinity and dust come face to face. He staggers beneath the black weight of us all And falls with us that he might break our fall."

"By accident his life was stalled and stilled Becoming all he was compelled to be."

"Through all our shrouds of daily pain Shining once again."

Lamentations (University of Calgary, April 15, 2014)

Courage, dear heart. The light will be here soon.

"Then Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit." Good Friday

"Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief." Easter Sunday

This review was originally published in April 2014. The images are from the film and are not my own.

I was introduced to this film over a year ago and knew then that I looked forward to returning. But the question was how long to wait? I didn’t want to rush it. But I also knew that this movie would be the perfect fit for Holy Week. So on Holy Saturday I turned down the lights and pressed play.

I am now more familiar with the painting this film brings to life so effortlessly, particularly its lighting. Its costumes and props are so rough and lived in that their foreign realism shocks us.

The theological and artistic heart of the movie is the intersection of ordinary people’s lives with the cruelty of the world. We see this intersection graphically when the life of a young couple is ground to a searing halt after the man is brutally torn from his wife and lifted up to die while on their way to market. We see it subtly in the crows, ominously and repeatedly visible through the window of every house, particularly Brugal's as his young wife cares for their rowdy children.

But nowhere is the contrast more obvious then when these smaller images of the divine morph into an anachronistic representation of the ultimate intersection - the passion of our Lord. In the history of art anachronistic paintings of the crucifixion are common but we see them less in our film driven age. So in the film, when Judas betray Christ by visiting a cathedral's confession room or the condemned thieves meet with a priest before being dragged to their crosses, it’s like cold water to the face. And it reminds us that the world Christ came to save is our world; in this movie, the Flemish world.

In the film Christ’s crucifixion is given a weightiness, most notably in the scene when the miller, representing God, “parts the clouds” by pausing the windmill and with it the scene below him. But when the gears resume their turning and the people their moving and the world its cruelty, I longed to see some glimmer of the resurrection. There lies Christ’s body in a grave, holes on his feet. There is the sun, welcomed after the darkness and violence of the night. There are the people, moving on, dancing, showing Christ in the way they care for their offspring.

There is only one difference. In the background this time there are no crows.