Wounded in Spirit: Advent Art and Meditations: A 25-Day Illustrated Advent Devotional for the Grieving with Scriptures and Stories Drawn from the Work - Hardcover

by David Bannon (Author)

When celebrating Christmas does not come easily, David Bannon offers a book of reflection, beauty, and hope.

Christmas is difficult for many of us. While some are expressing joy, others are re-living painful memories and reminders of loss. This book is a journey of beauty and meditation for those for whom ordinary Advent devotionals could never help.

David Bannon writes from profound personal experience. His reflections provide a way to commune with Scripture and with God. These are paired with beautiful paintings created by wounded artists, including Gauguin, Tissot, Caravaggio, Tanner, Delacroix, Van Gogh, and Dürer. In their wounds, and from our own, we may once again encounter "God with us."

Based on the latest research in history and grief, Wounded in Spirit also returns to where Christian art began. From mourning in Roman catacombs to works of the masters, Bannon leads us to join the world's great artists on their pilgrimages of brokenness. This is a book of hope.

From the Author: After my daughter died, I sought solace in reading about others who knew similar grief. Many creative artists endured terrible losses and found ways to express their wounds and hopes in painting, sculpture, poetry, prose and music. One need not have suffered to create great art but I believe that great artists communicate truth in their work. Truth can be painful. It can also be joyous, hopeful, sorrowing and profound. Great art speaks to us across the centuries. It reminds us that we are not alone.

As a child I wondered at the psalms of lament: why were they included in the Bible at all? Never mind the terrible sorrows of the prophets. Now I see. There is grief and harm and waiting in this life. There is also joy and hope of reunion--surely the very heart of Advent. Great religious art communicates all of this and much more that words may fail to express. In it we find recognition and, at times, precious moments of peace.

Front Jacket

Depression and suicides spike at Christmas, as loneliness and the memories of lost loved ones invade the background cheer. My own father died in mid-December, before his twenty-fourth birthday, an untimely death that forever cast a pall over our family's Christmases. We know, all of us, the dissonance of which Simeon spoke to Mary: of love splattered with blood, of consolation that proves diffused and fleeting. Art brings that dissonance to the foreground, with a poignancy that wounds the spirit like a sword.
--Philip Yancey, from the foreword

Back Jacket

David Bannon taught college for many years and publishes on art, history, culture, and translation. He has appeared on The Discovery Channel, A&E, and The History Channel and has been interviewed by NPR, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal. He has lectured at libraries and museums and was curator of Asian art for the Florence Museum of Art and History in South Carolina. The present book is a result of the author's own brokenness, wounds and grief, which he describes in the opening pages. David currently lives in South Carolina with his wife and their cat, Yeti.

Author Biography

David Bannon is the author of two books on grief: Wounded in Spirit: Advent Art and Meditations (Paraclete Press, 2018) and Songs on the Death of Children: Selected Poems from Kindertotenlieder (Toplight/McFarland, 2022). He taught college for many years and has been interviewed on The Discovery Channel, A&E, The History Channel, NPR, Fox News, and in The Wall Street Journal. David and his wife currently live in South Carolina.