by Mindy Hills, Director of Dominican Center Marywood
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” —Isaiah 43:19
As the earth softens beneath the breath of spring and the Lenten season deepens, Dominican Center has become a canvas of quiet transformation. Lent is often seen as a time of fasting and reflection—but it also becomes a time of creation. This year, we weaved together ancient practice and emerging technology, silence and imagination, to offer a series of programs that awakened the spirit through visual imagery, poetry, and even artificial intelligence.
Lent, in its essence, is a season of pilgrimage—forty days of returning, listening, and letting go. The terrain is inner and outer, sacred and wild.
Letting Images Deepen Our Lenten Experience, led by Kimberley Mulder, Spiritual Director, encouraged participants to sit with sacred images of the Divine. Both photography and iconography guided quiet reflection in a Visio Divina format to allow for prayer filled curiosity and wonder. We were reminded that God is an artist and Lent is one of His most beautiful canvases.
Our participants in the Holy Landscape of Lent Through Poetry journeyed with Esther Yff-Prins, Spiritual Director, through the gentle stream of poetry accompanied by intentional images.
Perhaps our most curious and daring offering this season was an informational workshop on Artificial intelligence and its future implications on spiritual imagination and formation. We shared conversations about the history, limitations, and future possibilities that could benefit us in our evolution as human beings.
Facilitator Harry Plantinga, Professor of Computer Science at Calvin University, used AI generated images for his presentation and encouraged the participants in this workshop to imagine what it means to collaborate with technology in a sacred context. Treat AI not as a novelty but as a mirror — an unexpected partner in creativity, he suggested. Harry experimented by using AI to write poetry and invited participants to consider whether this might stir the soul in ways that generate positive reflection.
The Lenten season is about transformation. Fasting from distraction and Feasting on mystery. These three programs were offered as guideposts to make space for God to speak in new and surprising ways.
