We saw this piece of driftwood on Port Eynon beach on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales. Someone had erected it amongst the rocks. Why had they done that? Did they see something in it? What does it look like to you?

 

For me, it was a simple and totally unexpected, although stark, reminder of Jesus the Christ, Son of God, dying on the cross in complete isolation. However, it does perhaps look more like cloths draped over the cross than a body.

When Jesus was dead, he was wrapped in white linen cloths by his friends before he was laid in the tomb. When the women visited the tomb on the first Sunday after the Sabbath, they found the tomb open and the white burial cloths lying in the empty tomb. In many churches, we drape a white cloth over the cross for the Easter Sunday celebrations as a symbol of the Resurrection of Jesus as the Christ.

On retreat in my campervan, I made a drawing of it.

Over the next year or two, during times of reflection and retreat, the ideas developed for me, especially as I was being profoundly moved and influenced at the time by Rublev’s famous icon of the Trinity (or three guests).

 

For a fuller explanation of how and why I drew this Circle of Love, you can read what I wrote several years ago .