First of all, you may want to Google “Las Meninas” and see a picture of the painting by that name by Diego Velazquez. And maybe you have seen the painting in Museo del Prado in Madrid. It is very enigmatic. There are several little girls in the painting. It’s title is translated “The Ladies in Waiting.” And there is the painter with his easel painting a picture. Of the king and queen whose images appear in a mirror. And there is someone in the background in a doorway. And some other adults including a dwarf looking on and a dog asleep. So what is it a painting of? What is it about? An artist painting a painting? The little girls? The monarchs in the mirror? Illusion? Delusion?
This painting was the subject of an art class for Shaun, an American astronaut on the spaceship in Samantha Harvey’s novel, Orbital, when he was 15. Another student seated near him engaged him about the painting which he cared nothing about. He wanted to be a fighter pilot.
This other student became his wife. And sent him a postcard of the painting writing on the back all the issues addressed by the teacher about the painting. And Shaun brought the postcard with him on the spaceship to remind him of his wife.
At one point on the voyage, another colleague on the spaceship, Pietro from Italy, asks about the postcard. After reading the postcard, this scene ensues: “Pietro stares for a while at the painting, and a while longer, then says, It’s the dog.
“Pardon?
“To answer your wife’s question, the subject of the painting is the dog. . . “
“Now he doesn’t see a painter or princess or dwarf or monarch, he sees a portrait of a dog. An animal surrounded by the strangeness of humans, all their odd cuffs and ruffles and silks and posturing, the mirrors and angles and viewpoints; all the ways they’ve tried not to be animals and how comical this is, when he looks at it now. And how the dog is the only thing in the painting that isn’t slightly laughable or trapped within a matrix of vanities. The only thing in the painting that could be called vaguely free.” [pp. 150-160]
To me, this is an aim of our Lenten journey and our life’s journey. To be free. Free of the posturing and props and pretenses that obscure our true identity and our freedom.
Prayer: In these holy days of Lent, may we try to affirm our deep down humanity that is so often hidden behind many veils and pretenses. And may we also try to see the full humanity of others. Then we can be free. Amen.
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Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.
The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024. It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship. They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period. The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 