Holy Roller
© 2000 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with platinum
2 ¼” x 10 ½” x 17 ½”
Adaptation of Giotto’s Pentecost fresco, Arena Chapel, Padua
In the South, "Holy Rollers" is a pejorative nickname for Pentecostals and other charismatic Christians who speak in tongues, get slain by the spirit, and handle snakes and do other things considered strange by mainline Christians. They are stereotyped as emotional, loud, frenzied, and from a lower social class. Some are simply dismissed as loony. Many of us see them as superstitious and ripe for manipulation. Maybe they are. But one holy roller friend of mine, a dear neighbor, is saturated with joy unlike anyone I know. Her wisdom has helped reveal the religious snobbery and misconceptions about Pentecostalism.
It was Giotto who pointed out the misconception about Pentecost, the event. I had always envisioned Pentecost as joy gone hog-wild. It was a New Testament cleaned-up, revised version of the Tower of Babel, with people gabbing and gesturing, long bathrobes flailing about. They had little burning bushes bobbing on their heads and they hollered like television preachers. Anyway, that's the image I got from a Pentecost mural I saw once, all hyped up by a melodramatic sound and light show. I searched for a more authentic image of Pentecost, plying books of Baroque and Romantic art, but with no luck. Pentecost simply has not been a popular subject in art history.
But there was this one Giotto fresco, at the end of the cycle in the Arena Chapel. Giotto is one of my all-time favorite artists. His work is quiet and compelling, not the temperament for a holy roller. But a fresco fit my criteria for a wall painting; after all what would a paint roller have to do with a painting on canvas? The fresco led me back to the story in Acts, where the disciples are gathered in a room, waiting instructions. Jesus had told them they would receive the Holy Spirit, and they probably feared what that might entail. Giotto shows the group just as they are about to find out. Their faces are wide open, their senses have perked up; do they feel or hear an oncoming breeze? They are in a liminal state of being in control and about to lose it. The Spirit has descended, but the blast of wind and fire has not yet hit. Giotto seems to tell us that the first clue is simply a still, small voice. Contemplatives know this. Mystics and Pentecostals also tell us that the Holy Spirit is experienced as a searing presence that arises unpredictably, like a chariot of fire or a whirlwind. When we are too genteel or too in control to receive it, we can just neatly write it off as bad weather.
 This gentility, this insistence on reason in the face of God's attention-getters, goes back to the Reformation, at least. The reformers, especially Zwingli and Calvin, had a zest for wiping out Catholic superstition; some of this was well founded. Upholding the second commandment against graven images, they smashed dozens of venerated statues. Many church wall paintings were whitewashed. Perhaps there was a miracle of Pentecost fresco somewhere that incited worshippers a bit too much. Perhaps an offended reformer dutifully overpainted it. They were right; the visual arts can possess great power. Perhaps it is high time the church reconnected with that power.
Giotto's painting has one oddly powerful feature. The figure third from left looks just like the figure of Jesus in the other frescoes of this cycle. Same face, same clothes. What is he doing at the table at Pentecost? The Bible doesn’t say he was physically there; after all he's been resurrected by now. Is the artist saying something else about walls—referring to that part in Luke where Jesus appears in the disciples’ room and they think he's walked through the walls like a ghost?
Meister Eckhart had this to say about walls: “The color of the wall depends on the wall, and so the existence of creatures depends on the love of God. Separate the color from the wall and it would cease to be. So all creation would cease to exist if separated from the love that God is.” (BL, 244).
There is an old Disney cartoon where Donald or Mickey paints a checkerboard onto a blank wall. Maybe this vague memory inspired this piece as much as Giotto or Meister Eckhart did. This “Holy Roller” seems to have a readiness that urges us to not separate the paint from the wall. In the paint tray, the whitewash has been transformed; the fresco is lapped up onto the roller and needs to go back onto the wall. In the firing, the paint tray warped and cracked, so now it appears bent and leaking; therefore the paint job must be swift and sure. The holy spreads; it cannot be contained. Holy rolling is the artist’s job. Like Pentecost, this signals a call to action.
Holy Roller
The power switch
is on the wall,
expectancy clings,
and we are rolling the holy
over the whitewash.
The restless haloes
breathe together
in a birthing room.
Presents descend
on red rays
that penetrate walls.
The wind, the wild fire
pass, but Peace
is what he leaves behind--
not a babble of voices
but still,
a small one.
Holy Roller
“…in truth, they have misled my people, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it. Say to those who smear whitewash on it that it shall fall…. I will break down the wall that you smeared with whitewash, and bring it to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare; when it falls, you shall perish within it; and you shall know that I am the Lord…”
Ezekiel 13:10-15
“Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, you old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
“The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.”
“While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.”
“…And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.”
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