Anchor Images: When Words Fail 

This month I am focusing in this blog on what I call “anchor images”–those symbols that can help us live with a core message throughout a worship series. I believe strongly in the power of symbols to help us express sometimes what words cannot. This is most true when we are dealing with difficult or painful topics. A ritual action connected to a symbol can allow us the freedom to interpret in many ways, staying open enough to encompass the variety of human-spiritual experience.

I want to share a video of a recent worship experience I helped the United Methodist General Conference put together that offered a time of listening to the stories of how the church has been complicit in the oppression of indigenous peoples, especially Native Americans and then offer a way to commit to a journey of repentance. As you can imagine, finding the right words, the right symbols, the right actions was problematic and quite a bit controversial. I needed to find a symbol that could be connected to our shared human experience, connect to the experience of indigenous people in some way and also connect to our biblical roots.

Since our overarching anchor image for the 10-day (27 worship experiences!) General Conference was the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, I also wanted to stay in that “palette.” We had driftwood, lightning, sand, water and rocks in that palette and so I began to play with the idea of rocks for this particular service. When I say “play with the idea,” what I mean is that I start to brainstorm–gathering information, doing research, collecting pictures, and studying scriptures. There was the connection of the biblical reference to “even the stones will cry out.”  Then my research uncovered the fact that many indigenous cultures see rocks as ancient witnesses to history. There was also the shared human experience of rocks being something that can build but also that can cause harm, depending on the human wielding them. I really began to see the possibility of stones being able to anchor our very difficult task of creating a ritual action of commitment. Of course, my collaboration with the group of indigenous persons in the creation of this experience was the last step in confirming this was an appropriate metaphor.

I invite you to watch the video excerpts below to see how this anchor image came to life and helped us address a moment of depth. My introduction of the ritual action hopefully gave just enough background for the symbol to invite people into the meaning… and to make their own (the “be repenting, y’all” reference was a nod to the speaker who had just used this phrase). You will see then how the rocks symbol was also underscored in the Benediction as well.

Download the entire script of this worship experience.

Hear more music by Marcus Briggs-Cloud, Native-America musician and theologian .

See the whole service in the archived live streaming (April 27).