Environment & Art

By now you have experienced Easter, after a glorious blooming of the Lenten journey. Just like a plain, onion-like bulb brings forth an unpredictable lily or amaryllis, so Easter celebrates our belief in the resurrection, which comes as a grace-filled surprise out of death. The liturgical environment reflects that faith: The desert has given way to oasis and the sackcloth and ashes have turned to gold and incense. Death is transformed and life triumphs. Now the problem is to keep it going for eight weeks.

While plants and blooms die, fabrics usually wear well, as does paper. One year for the Easter season I used rolls of bridal runner. Long (and very cheap) panels were hung on every wall, each decorated with a design in silver and gold paper that moved between looking like water drops falling and flames rising.

Panels (plain or decorated) can also be strung overhead, allowing light to reveal the pattern in the lace-like paper. Simple strands of three-inch ribbon (I recommend yellow) can be run along the underside’s center. One or both ends of the panels, whether hung vertically or horizontally, can either be cut to an arrowhead point, cut straight (something I hardly ever do) or cut in a wavering line like water. These lace-like paper panels have the benefit of being easily adapted to Pentecost by the addition of ribbon or metallic paper painted in various tones of red, orange and burgundy.

Of course it will be important to emphasize the triumph from the cross throughout the Easter season. If you don’t have a resurrection-style crucifix (and I don’t think you need one) you might want to ensure your Lenten or processional cross is decorated appropriately. Greenery is important and usually readily available. To the greenery add either fresh flowers each week (not an impossible task for someone) or flowers that will dry yet keep their color and shape. White, spray-like “baby’s breath” fills in such arrangements well, as does yellow and white statis. One year I wrapped the large cross in damp moss and chicken wire and decorated the entire cross with these two flowers. At Pentecost I used a can of florists’ spray paint to “dust” the edges of the cross with red.

With regard to those Easter lilies and other flower arrangements that do not last the season, replace them with appropriate indoor plants. Some plants may need additional sunlight during the rest of the week, but it is usually possible to move them. Arrangements of greenery (which will last several weeks if you give them plenty of water) can also be used. While I am not an advocate of artificial flowers, I did once use some when flowers were needed in places that people could see but not easily reach to water. I regularly use dried flowers in arrangements for the season, but again usually on high pillars or somewhere not easily accessible. A rule would be “nothing dead or artificial can really represent the season of life,” so use an abundance of living colors and textures wherever you can, even if they have to be replaced once or twice before Pentecost.

We know that getting the church “ready for Easter” takes much work. Resist thinking that Easter is over on Easter Monday. Have a review of the entire space each week. Is the whole community still enclosed in glory? Where does the celebration start? At the door? In the parking lot? Further, if you have a lot of Easter-season weddings at your church, planning could be done with the couples to build them and their decorative arrangements into the season.

One final comment. The environment for liturgy should be a part of the whole. Is there anything in the environment that makes people think twice or, better, three times? Or is it possible to take in the environment for worship with one look and, after a breath of admiration, ignore it? Easter is a season, like Christmas, that lends itself to “decorating.” What we are trying to create, however, are environments that have something unique to contribute to faith.

This season risk life, which is never symmetrical or straight. This year “say something new” rather than dust off the old. This year let the artist in you come out of the tomb.