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Oil on Braced Baltic Birch 31” x 47” x 2”
 
I first sketched the concept for Alpha and Omega back in 2015, seven years before I began the painting. Later, I envisioned this scene to be the culmination of my series Vanitas + Viriditas, where Qohelet and Sophia finally meet. Qohelet comes from nobility, which afforded him the opportunity to pursue “everything under the sun,”[1] including wealth, sensual pleasure, entertainment, knowledge, religion, philosophy, and science—seeking to find meaning in a modern age. As a lone wanderer fighting demons of despair, he meets Sophia—Lady Wisdom—beckoning him from within the portal to a new creation.
 
Throughout this painting series, the Zen rock garden has been a recurring motif. A prominent idea in Zen Buddhism is kire (cutting) which refers to the practice of letting go of the root of life to recognize the radical impermanence of reality. Zen gardens, which are created to be dry landscapes absent of organic life “exemplify the nothingness that Buddhists claim to be intrinsic to all living things.”[2] This Zen art form is seen as an aid to attaining satori (enlightenment). While Qohelet is attracted to this way of life, compelling him to let go of all his worldly attachments, Sophia draws him back to everything that is true, good, and beautiful. The black sand is a picture of Qohelet’s soul, and the gushing waves spilling out from the portal are the Living Waters. Sophia carries a sapling, symbolic for the Tree of Life representing the wisdom that may also grow in Qohelet.
 
The twelve stones in the arch bear monograms for the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Chi-Rho stone descending from above fits into the circular portal gate as a Christological image: “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.”[3] Sophia is also a signpost to Christ, whom Qohelet comes to understand as the “Wisdom of God.”[4]
 
For Hildegard of Bingen, salvation signified a healing, greening power (viriditas): “In the beginning all creatures were green and vital; they flourished amidst flowers. Later the green figure itself came down.” Speaking of Jesus, whom she calls Greenness Incarnate, she affirms “that the fullness you made at the beginning was not supposed to wither.”[5]
 
The concept for this portal came from what the Celtic mystics called “thin places,” where the veil between heaven and earth is thin. Qohelet’s quest may be coming to an end, as he arrives at a newfound re-enchantment with the world. Yet, despite Sophia’s call to embrace the wonder that is all around, the world is still filled with enigma, where human and environmental injustices abound. Qohelet and Sophia understand that relying solely on human wisdom cannot fix this brokenness. It is only the Creator of the cosmos, referred to as the Alpha and Omega (the beginning and the end) who can ultimately restore what is broken.
 
[1] Ecclesiastes 2:11, 8:9, 9:3 NIV
[2] Leali, “Chasing Paradise: Japanese Aesthetics Part 2,” MutualArt.
[3] Psalm 118:22 (NIV 1984), the Hebrew word פִנָּה is translated as “capstone” or “cornerstone” (see also 1 Peter 2:4-7).
[4] 1 Corinthians 1:30 NIV
[5] Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues) opera, as quoted in Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen, 44.