Musing On Mosaics

I can jump in a car—well, you know, if there is one available—anytime I want and drive 15 minutes down the King’s Highway and go see some mosaics from the 5th and 6th centuries in the easy-going town of Madaba. Indeed, Madaba is lousy with fine Byzantine mosaics preserved in churches and an archaeological park!

As an art form, mosaics had a rather simple and utilitarian beginning, seemingly invented primarily to provide inexpensive and durable flooring. Originally, small beach pebbles were set, unaltered from their natural form and color, into a thick coat of cement. Imagine how exciting it must have been to start playing with the stones, arranging them in artful and decorative designs and geometric patterns. As with every new technology, it seems, thoughtful people kept advancing the technology, and during the Roman empire artisans used the stones to try and approximate the volume of paintings. These artists used tesserae (time for a Latin lesson=it means “cubes”) or cut and polished stones that you carefully place in its ordered position in the mosaic line-up. In Early Christian mosaics, the preferred tesserae were made of glass, which reflects the light, and must have sparkled in the most glorious ways.

Just as a reminder for anyone not up-to-date on early church history: just after Emperor Constantine allowed the practice of Christianity in 313, Christianity suddenly became a public, and not long after, the official religion of Rome. There was a building boom for churches, and wholesale decoration programs for the churches became necessary. To advertise the new faith in all its diverse aspects—its dogma, scriptural narrative, and symbolism—and to instruct and edify believers, acres of floors and walls in hundreds of new churches had to be filled. The mosaics caught the light flooding through the windows in vibrant reflection, producing sharp contrasts and concentrations of color.

An impressive 6th century mosaic map of the Middle East takes top billing in the package tours that come through Madaba, but there are, as I said, dozens of beautiful mosaics around Madaba. Remember, this area where I live was once in the Roman Empire. Some of the mosaics are from grand homes, when a retro taste in classical motifs was popular. In the churches there are representations of the lamb and the fish, venerable Christian symbols. But many of the mosaics in this area are of pastoral scenes—scenes which no doubt reflected the daily life of the people around this ancient town. Some of the mosaics portray in detail a whole encyclopedia of flora and fauna, drawn from local experience, some probably from travelers’ tales, and also from the realms of the supernatural.

My favorite mosaics in the area are up on Mt. Nebo, that spot from where Moses looked over the Promised Land. The mosaics are found in a church built there at the end of the 6th century and are stunning—a dramatic one of a shepherd fighting a lion, and a peaceful one in which a shepherd sits under a tree watching his flock. Another one has a dark-skinned guy, kinda Persian like, with an ostrich on a leash, and another fantastic, creatively imagined giraffe-like creature. Oh, and maybe the best, a spectacular mosaic featuring peacocks and doves. It is this site that brings Jewish, Christian, and Muslim pilgrims to Jordan. Having led the Israelites for forty years through the wilderness, Moses finally saw, from this dizzy vantage point, the Promised Land. He saw things so clearly from that remote, awe-inspiring point.

I am thinking about these mosaics this week—in part because I have signed up for a class in May to learn how to make mosaics, and in part because the process of the mosaic-making intrigues me, the painstaking labor of taking the little pieces, the unpolished or polished tesserae, and placing them next to other pieces. Along the way these seemingly unrelated little pieces create a picture we can relish.

And I am thinking of mosaics this week after last weekend’s bout with homesickness. Maybe it only makes sense to me! But thank you to the friends who emailed or put comments on the blog this week—of course, there are those ups and downs, and I appreciate the love transmitted over the cyber-waves.

One of the things I learned from my family is that when you are feeling low, just look around and put things in perspective, take a gander at other peoples’ tesserae. All these little pieces comprising an image. Of course, everybody has something that threatens a “good day,” and all these little pieces make for interesting arrangements and patterns in our own life mosaics.

This week I learned that one of my good friends has been dealt a blow of rejection from a number of medical schools to which she hoped she would matriculate later this year. And another devoted friend has lost her beloved mother in the last couple of weeks. And this morning I sat with a friend distraught over the loss of a potential love relationship—she learned that a man she hoped would provide companionship couldn’t deal with her limp left from a childhood bout with polio.

Each of us could go on and on with the difficult details of our lives, our loved ones’ lives, and how each piece of these unpolished moments in our lives are often difficult, and painstaking, to place in the cement of our lives.

Those mosaics in Madaba are important to consider. While we see them in their dazzling completion, and we marvel at how they loom with an impressive solidity, each tessera, each little cube represents the mood, the moment, the frustration, the hope, with which we greet each day. Staring at these mosaics, you notice that they cast shadows, but it is the shadows which allow for the appearance of three-dimensionality. And when we let them reflect the light, we see a spiritual quality we might have overlooked, or not appreciated.

I sat down to write this entry a few hours ago—on this beautiful April afternoon at the end of the school week when Tiffany called and said, “Hey, I am going to the grocery in Amman. I know you couldn’t resist a grocery-store run! And let’s get some KFC on the way back.” Each week a few more pieces go in that mosaic.