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Saint Christopher’s in Lubbock held its annual Icon Writing Class in early October. Fr. Peter
Pearson, a priest and iconographer from Scranton, Pennsylvania, once again led the class. Fr. Peter is the author of A Brush With God and Another Brush With God: Further Conversations About Icons.
The class is open to people of all faiths and skill levels. No artistic ability is necessary. Only a willingness to be led and the ability to grasp a paint brush are required.
As we gathered to begin the class on Thursday evening, the class members expressed their 
usual trepidations about not measuring up to the level of artistry we assume is necessary for writing an icon. Over and over again, throughout the class, we were reminded of two lessons.
The first is that icon writing is not about how well you can paint. The second is that icon writing is about the process. The process is the prayer.
We gathered in the parish hall at St. Christopher’s, excitedly chatting with people we hadn’t seen since last year and people we saw just last week. We eagerly filled plates with Jane Bacon’s much anticipated queso and chips as well as Martha Robinson’s well loved pecan bars. Then we sat down to a blank board, a few brushes and a dab or two of paint.
Step by step, Fr. Peter walked us through the process. Over and over we were reminded that there is no prize for finishing first, no reason to rush through the steps. We each had to surrender our progress-driven mindset and find a willingness to work through the steps, even when we couldn’t see or understand how they would affect the final product.
“When you lose yourself in the process,” Pearson said, “and you make the marks without thinking, your brush strokes become a prayer.”
This was a hard lesson for many of us, starting out, but the more we worked, the more contemplative we became. Our worries and feelings of inadequacy melted away as we worked through the layers of painting and prayer.
The process of icon writing is all about layers. We start with the outline, then move to background colors, the dark colors of the painting. Eventually we get to the highlights - the bits of light that we paint that take the image from something flat to something lifelike.
As he moved from table to table, coaching us through the 
steps, Pearson said “The whole thing about an icon is going from dark things to light things.”
Light is life, in this process.
Each year through this experience we form new friendships and strengthen existing ones. We chat and we laugh. We worry, we make poor marks, we get outside the lines. But we learn to embrace the process and to let our minds slow down even as our brush slows down. There is a deep sense of relaxation in surrendering to the process of icon writing.
The brush strokes, the concentration, the surrender to a process that becomes contemplation, all of these things become prayer.
I’d encourage you to try this process for yourself. Make plans to join us for a weekend next year in September - usually Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday, and finishing up Sunday afternoon. It’s an opportunity to slow down, to meditate, to work your way from the dark things to the light things.
