It's not often that community art, religion and public transportation overlap, but they will tonight as the DART Stations of the Cross marks Good Friday along the Red and Blue Lines.
Last year's ride was organized by a couple of Dallas churches -- the Church in the Cliff and Journey -- to "explore Good Friday through meditation and mass transit."
The solo meditational approach to community art along the DART won't announce its presence like some other recent public transit happenings, so if you want to join in, you'll be looking for volunteers in black armbands at Mockingbird Station between 6 and 7. The full release about the event's below, and the blog created for last year's ride details how that one shook out.
If you're skeptical that a ride on the DART could lend itself to a spiritual encounter, some photos on the Church in the Cliff's site (from the great Courtney Perry of The Dallas Morning News photo desk) could help convince you.
DART Stations of the Cross is a community art project which links an ancient spiritual practice with mass transit. It is presented on Good Friday by two emergent churches in the Dallas area, Church in the Cliff and Journey. Participants are encouraged to arrive at the Mockingbird DART station between 6 and 7 pm this Friday, April 2nd and to look for volunteers with black armbands.
Volunteers will provide a set of fourteen devotional cards comprised of original paintings and poetry reflecting on the traditional themes of the Stations of the Cross. Riding from Mockingbird to the end of the line in South Dallas participants are encouraged to flip cards as they pass through the stations and to consider the ways they encounter God's presence, or absence, in the urban landscape. You will be asked to get off the train three times -- at Pearl, Union, and Cedars -- as a movement of solidarity with Jesus each time he falls. (At all of these stations volunteers will greet you, and at the first one you will have the opportunity to donate to the Stewpot's Open Studio which supports homeless artists). Once you reach Westmoreland, the last stop on the red line, you will receive final instructions before riding the train in silence back to Mockingbird station.
All are invited to participate! Ride alone or gather with a group of friends. For more information contact Courtney Pinkerton at 214.233.4605 or email [email protected]
