Cypriot Iconographer Charalambos Epaminonda is a good friend of the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, one of the first five artists featured in my on-line art holdings. He created this week's image of the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus at my request for an Advent art exhibition of modern depictions of the Madonna. Trained in the traditional conventions of icon-making, Epaminonda pushes the boundaries of this conservative sacred art form by presenting the central figures as if they are an integral part of a cubistic background of leaf and branch, fish and bird, wind-stirred forest and flowing water. The usual iconographic colors of red and blue mix and mingle here with shades of gold in a scintillating palette of maroon and aquamarine, lavender and lapis lazuli. Epaminonda offers us a stunning visual distillation of the theological conception of "Deep Incarnation," where God took on flesh not just to save humankind but all of creation, which, as we know from the Apostle Paul's description in Romans 8:19-21 (NIV), waits "in eager anticipation for the sons of God to be revealed ...[so] that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage of decay and brought into the freedom of the children of God." (John Kohan)