The Fear of Miracles

i.

You must have had your own dreams
the life you always thought you’d lead
the roads you wanted to follow
the secret victories
But God sent you an angel
with his monster’s wings
heavy with heaven’s incense
blue and red, gold and green
And when he finished speaking
this world had turned unreal
the walls around you paper
the sky itself a spell
and singing through it all
the strains of a song
that burned the world with a blue flame
as you began to sing along
but the world was not consumed
only changed
the angel’s wings shone like the sun
the walls faded away
a shepherd became a king
a king became a child
the dead laughed and the lame danced
as the rich men cried
and all the dreams you’d called your own
glowed, then turned to ash
and you nodded your head
and the angel vanished
and left your dreams at your feet
like the cinders they always were
but buried there among them
was a crown made from stars.

--Carey Wallace

Christmas tidings from the Arts Ministry staff. Thank you, Carey, for sharing the first part of your Christmas poem with our readers. Carey Wallace is the author of The Blind Contessa's New Machine.

BODY LIFE: Proximity

He who has the Son has life. 1 John 5:12

Do you feel it? I know I do. Fragmentation. There is distance yet between the life I wish to live in my body and the life I am currently living. Just as a pianist is always reworking her repertoire and dance makers constantly rework classic choreography, it feels like I can only ever see or enjoy a proximate measure of beauty in this life as I work to close the distance between truth and experience?

If the Incarnation reminds us that life in the body is not merely a waiting period before the Renewal of All Things, the Ascension shows us that there is a something more that is, at present, out of reach--something for which to hope, a directive for our strivings. The Russian writer, Anton Chekov, in the closing scene of his masterwork Uncle Vanya, examines the idea that those who suffer in the body will finally be at rest. The vision of hope offered, perhaps in desperation, by the character Sonya portrays a kind of relaxing exhalation: “…we shall see all earthly evil, all our sufferings swept away by the grace which will fill the whole world, and our life will become peaceful, gentle, and a sweet caress…We shall rest!” This sentiment also rang true for the writers of early Negro spirituals and twentieth-century gospel singers whose oppressive circumstances fomented their longing for bodily and spiritual rest.

Growing up between these two aesthetics, gospel music and classical theater, I was never sincerely interested in the kind of hope that could only offer post-mortem relief from my experiences of suffering. Unfortunately, it seemed that this was exactly what Christianity was selling and I was a reluctant customer. As scholar N.T. Wright revealed in his timely laymen’s book, Surprised by Hope, I was among those believers who survived on “what is at best a truncated and distorted version of the great biblical hope”. How happy I was to learn that there is another way of engaging with Christianity and the grace which will fill the whole world.

For me, I continue to wonder how each encounter with beauty on earth, though temporary, can lead me closer to the culmination of beauty in the earth, Thy Kingdom Come...Certainly the birth of Jesus was the first taste of this beauty, the breaking through of eternal hope in that dark, earthy cave filled with the smell poverty, of animals and the cries of a teen-age mother giving birth. The marring ache of injustice was there at the moment of the incarnation, that knowing which says this is not how it should be! And into this knowing, Jesus was born. In the midst of it, he died on the cross. But perhaps the glory of Christianity is the particular hope which arises if you believe that he who was the first taste of eternal beauty is also the first taste of eternal life.

Belief in the resurrection is almost completely about the hope we have in the body. And this is the hope that I need because, like Uncle Vanya and like my slave ancestors, I am still living my life in my body with all my capacity for joy and suffering. I need a hope which has significance for these years of struggle and ecstasy, inspiration and mundanity. As we celebrate Christmas, earth’s first glimpse of eternal beauty, let us also remember he who is LIFE itself, undying and without fear.

--Kenyon

BODY LIFE: The Irrationality of His Harvest

Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy--Psalm 126:5

Artists understand something of what the farmer knows in his tilling and planting, in his waiting and watering--the one thing we do not control is the harvest. Harvest fruit, whether sheaves of wheat or pages of poetry, is born of divine strength and wisdom. Do we resent this process in our art-making? The mystery and helplessness of not being able to control the outcome? Do we make demands of ourselves and of our work that God would not endorse? Do we even want to scold the Maker for the kind of fruit that he prefers and the harvest he schedules?

God honored our bodily lives by taking human form. He is closely familiar with our prolonged, seemingly limited, seemingly fruitless harvest and yet he says we shall reap with shouts of joy. Where does this shout come from? What kind of paradoxical notion of joy is this? Is this just another religious saying that holds no relevance for real life?

On the cross, Jesus Christ faced the most disastrous dry period that could ever come upon anyone. He was completely and mercilessly cut off from his life source, left to die alone underneath a dark and empty sky with no God to call on and no chance of rescue. And he suffered this experience in the flesh. Now, the worst possible human disaster will never happen to us because it already happened to him on the cross. Ah! now there is that shout of joy from deep inside you. When once it hits you that no amount of dry ground, no seeming hopelessness, will ever be able to destroy the seed of divine life that grows in your body if you believe in him who died and rose again… For those who believe, the ground is never quite dry. For those who believe in him, even death itself can only lead you to resurrection.

Are you waiting for your harvest time? Will you trust him with your dry ground? Will you say with Paul, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that is being revealed in us…” and with King David, “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living. Be strong, take heart and wait for the Lord”? He is cultivating a shout in your uttermost.

Kenyon

Square Halo Books

Today I am going to share with you an interview I conducted with Ned Bustard, Creative Director of Square Halo Books, Inc.

Q: First things first, please explain to me the significance of your company name.

Ned: In church art there are round halos, triangular halos and square halos. The square halo was for people who were living saints. It was our desire to publish books that would serve Christians in our day. So it seemed a good fit.

Q: How did you company get involved with making art books?

Ned: Well, it wasn't our vision when our company began, that's for sure.

We started with the goal of being a press for theological works. We wanted to create a place where folks could get published, regardless of who they were. Looking back at the history of our company, we were featuring art in our books even from our first title. And our non-art books continue to feature art like Gregory Wolfe's Intruding Upon the Timeless which contains many beautiful engravings by Barry Moser, and our most recent theological title The Beginning which had a suite of linocut prints created expressly for the project, yet also released as a separate portfolio. The artists included in that effort were myself, Chara Bauer,Tanja Butler, Matthew Clark, Tyrus Clutter, and Edward Knippers.

But we started doing books particularly about art because I wanted to read a book like, It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. It didn't exist, so we made it. That book ended up featuring several New Yorkers: Tim Keller, Krystyna Sanderson, James Romaine, and Makoto Fujimura. The premise of It Was Good was that A Christian looks at the world through the eyes of one who has a restored relationship with the Creator, and receives a new vision affecting every area of life—including the creative process. I believe at that point we need to ask the question, "what does it mean to be a creative individual who is a follower of the creative God?: It Was Good sought to answer that question through a series of essays on artmaking—and with lots of full color art. Ironically, many books on the arts don't have much art in them.

Q: Mako Fujimura is involved with Redeemer in many different ways and sometimes attends services. Have you made any other books that include his work?

Ned: Yes, Mako has become a good friend. After It Was Good we worked with James Romaine to make the book Objects of Grace: Conversations on Creativity and Faith. That was a collection of conversations with some of today's most intriguing artists—Sandra Bowden, Dan Callis, Mary McCleary, John Silvis, Edward Knippers, Erica Downer, Albert Pedulla, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Joel Sheesley and Makoto Fujimura. In addition to the interviews it also featured a discussion with Mako on how September 11th impacted him and the art community. After that book came out we published Faith and Vision: Twenty-Five Years of Chrisitans in the Visual Arts, which featured Mako's work, and then just recently we had the pleasure of publishing Rouault-Fujimura: Soliloquies which is a small book that pairs Mako's work with that of Georges Rouault.

Q: What book projects do you have in the works?

Ned: We have a couple of non-art books coming down the pike, but the next title to come out will probably be the "sequel" to It Was Good— It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God. That project includes (among others) Redeemers own, Tom Jennings. We don't have a release date for that yet, but if folks are interested in that or in any of our other books, they can visit our website, or follow our blog, or "like" our Facebook page.

Q: Thank you for sharing your love of God and art by creating Square Halo Books. You have also given us some great Christmas gift ideas. We look forward to reading It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God.

--Maria

Water in the Desert

“And all mankind will see God’s salvation.”

This is John the Baptist’s ministerial tagline taken from the prophet Isaiah. Make straight paths, fill in valleys, lower mountains, all of these feats now possible by human ingenuity. But these accomplishments begin with a voice in a desert proclaiming the impossible is now evident: God is near. Culture is made through our longing for eternity.

Like John, artists are called to barren places to proclaim through word and deed God’s active and baptizing presence in the world. Here, little hope grows into highways and byways to God. Through our hands we smooth the rough places: one designs a bridge, while another writes a song that speaks into the heart of our universal pain. Either way Christians are called to be actively constructing wonders that reflect God’s salvation.

Isaiah and John the Baptist are usually associated with Advent for they make the bold proclamation that God will show himself in this world. In many ways artists are like these prophets. In the wilderness we live life preparing our communities for a final face to face with our Savior. Through our creations we acquaint, acclimatize, baptize, presage what ought to be, what can be, what shall be. Therefore, artists and prophets:

You who bring good news to Zion,

go up on a high mountain.

You who bring good news to Jerusalem,

lift up your voice with a shout,

lift it up, do not be afraid;

say to the towns of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

-Isaiah 40:9

This Advent become like John and Isaiah. Testify concerning Him through your art.

--Maria

Art as Relational

God desires for us to know him. So, when the Word became flesh, the Triune God actively established himself in our world through a relationship. Even now when we read the four apostles' distinctive gospel accounts of their time with Jesus our emotions are drawn upon because of specificity of time, place, people, and things—their experience and our experience become essential. The artistic value of the narrative is its ability to feed the imagination by employing what is familiar: emotion, experience, the things we bump against day in and day out. Unlike the scientific that views things as object, Jesus, Incarnate, make all things subjects. In the same way, art employs things—ideas, emotions, people, and places--and begs for the participant to “see” them. At a recent lecture the sculptor Anish Kapoor reminded the audience that “art is good at saying ‘come here and take a look at me.’” * Art, therefore, can assist in detecting Jesus, who John relates “was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.”

Roberto Goizueta also reminds us how the aesthetic “allows us to live life itself as an end in itself rather than as some-thing to be understood.” Goizueta observes when we treat subject like object--analyzing emotions and things as information, we continually set apart the emotional and spiritual dimension of our humanity (Goizueta, Caminemos Con Jesus, p.94). Likewise, John Dewey notes how in our society "prestige" goes to those who use their minds “without participation of the body.” Dewey continues that a further mind-body separation occurs when we depend and take control of the “bodies and labors of others” to accomplish our ideas and wants (Dewey, Art as Experience, p.21). As artists we frequently experience this disconnect when we are asked to create something overnight with no consideration for creativity's lengthy and costly process. The prophet Isaiah laments how we are people who hear, but never understand; we see, but never perceive. It takes relationship between the heart, mind, and body to hear with our ears, and understand with our hearts, in order to be healed.

Art allows both emotion and experience to formulate connections and weave patterns until the next experience causes us to establish anew our way of seeing, feeling, knowing. Art enables our transformation, the taking in of the new. And, indeed, it became the gospel writers’ mission to explore the new world Christ initiated. Furthermore, according to theater director Peter Sellars, our experience with art “holds us together.” * The sharing of art deepens our relationships with one another and with the art itself. Think of how much more we understand a work of art through the action of describing it to another. Art enlarges us. We, reciprocally add to its profundity. Through Christ, we no longer look at the world as object, to be owned, exploited, ignored. The king, who calls us his subjects, asks us to be in relationship with the world. Art is one way of embodying this commitment.

--Maria

* Quotes from Anish Kapoor and Peter Sellars are from the New York Public Library Lecture Series event of November 13th. Their conversation also included Brian Eno.

Missing the Mark

Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang up and I died. Romans 7:9

I like to say I got into acting on a fluke, but I believe God wanted me to be an actor so that I would become more like Him and that through my work others would see what Christ has done. In my pursuit of each character I discover that God is changing me, whispering to me about my own heart. The work of the actor has been called incarnational. We embody characters and enter the world of their story in order to pursue their ultimate good no matter who the character might be. All good actors discover their character through compassion, identifying with them and seeking their highest end.

I once prepared a scene for a TV episode in which my character was being questioned by the police at his little brother’s funeral. At first I believed my character was angry at his brother for having lived such a careless life and ending up a statistic. Just beneath the surface of his anger was latent sorrow and grief. Simple right? But the moment of breakthrough in the audition room came when I realized that my character was actually angry at himself and desperately trying to avoid the shame and guilt he felt for being unable to save his brother, a task that was never within his ability to accomplish. It turns out there’s something more universal than grief…pride.

A funny thing happens in our hearts whenever we hear about the thing which we must become… or else. Somehow we construct a perimeter by which we can measure or express our negligible resources to pull it off. And when the dust settles we’ll tax the world and everyone in it before we can admit our own failure to measure up to the standard. It’s a very fancy version of the blame game. The bible refers to this high standard as the law. But why is it that a perfect description of our intended purpose in the world, our teleos, awakens in us a sense of dread or even self hatred rather than inspired moral character?

In the Garden of Eden (Genesis chapters 1-2) Adam and Eve had no concept of their smallness in the great scheme of things, and they were never meant to. An infant is small but is never made to feel small in the world of the family. In fact it’s just the opposite. We’ve all seen how the nuclear center of the family shifts to accommodate a new born. But let the infant get the idea that it will enact it’s sovereignty on the local government to produce abundance and society on its own, then it must either have a moment of devastation or else it must find a vision more within its reach.

The gospel shows us that Jesus Christ the King, who does all things well, made himself lowly and condemned on the cross so that we could be held in great esteem by our Heavenly Father. He became insignificant so that we could become God’s treasured possession. Most of all, he fully claimed the condemnation that cries from every corner of every human heart “You’ve missed the mark!”

As you continue to reflect on the intersection of Christ's work on the cross and your own work in the world, consider how these gospel-conversant questions for the actor might also apply to your daily reception of God’s favor and love, which he stands ready to lavish on you in every moment of life, especially now.

Kenyon

Suggested Questions for the Actor in Loving Pursuit of a Character:

(Also may be helpful to ask questions in first person or “in character” using "I" and "my")

■ What does my character like most about herself/himself?

■ What is she/he most proud of in the story of their life?

■What would she/he likely change about herself/himself or their story if they could?

■ What mark or measure would she/he feel they have failed to attain in life?

■ What does she/he most regret in their life?

■ With whom does she/he need to be reconciled?

■ How will they she/he know they have been restored in that relationship?

■ How will she/he know when everything is finally ok in their story?

■ How would they describe “the good life”?

The Art of Suffering

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

T.S. Eliot, Second Quartet, East Coker, III

Suffering loosens the belief we are in control. When all we undertake falls apart and God seems to have gone on vacation, distress discerns an action that can be accomplish; that of waiting. What accompanies an artist’s wait? We create in hope. It is this aspect of art that reflects Christ’s redeeming work in the world allowing us to render every act of creativity as a sign of hope. Art reaches for the eternal despite our society’s refusal of such categories. As Christians we understand this hope as the beauty of redemption through the salvific works of Christ.

Edward Farley in Faith and Beauty maintains beauty is a manifestation of Christ’s redemptive work. Redemption allows us to uphold what is deemed valueless. Here, the darkness becomes light, the cast off is repurposed. Artists have the ability to take what is broken then reconstitute and employ it towards art. For Farley it is this transformative action that constitutes beauty. “Redemption reaches and reshapes into new freedoms all the ways in which the human being is infected by sin” (Faith and Beauty, 93).

John Dillenberger goes further and suggests difficult art needs to exist. He relates how the “literary and the visual are… affirmations in their negations; indeed, they negate in order to affirm” (A Theology of Artistic Sensibilities, 224). Artist make plain what needs to be—what should be, what can be. Ultimately, it is hope that drives the impulse of art making for it seeks to grasp Jesus’ work of redemption and transformation. Whether we are believers or not we all long for renovation. The nature of transformation, therefore, must fall under the Christian artist’s purview. In our own work we accept the waiting and the mysterious chaos of our lives then proceed to shape, arrange, and re-form it. Jeremy Begbie encouragingly reminds us, “In Christ, all that is ugly and subversive in the cosmos has been purified, beautified and fulfilled. Therein lies the promise for the transformation of all things” (Voicing Creation’s Praise, 175).

Redemption does not negate or ignore the ravages of sin but restores all things. Jesus’ transformative power goes further to redirect and transforms our inordinate desires. It is in the waiting where our love, hope, and faith finally reaches out for the Triune God. Barbara Brown Taylor speaks about this in terms of disillusionment. “Disillusionment,” she writes, “is the loss of illusion—about ourselves, about the world, about God—and while it is almost always painful, it is not a bad thing to lose the lies we have mistaken for the truth” (The Preaching Life, 8). It is in darkness we begin to see, feel, know. While waiting for God we offer him the pain, suffering and the waiting, which in turn, makes our work his.

Wait—for the darkness shall be light,

Maria

The Physicality of Grace

…You have given me relief when I was in distress. --Psalm 4:1

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. --Psalm 18:19

You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. --Psalm 31:8

If we put ourselves at the center of our lives, the world becomes a very small place. We become like an infant in a crib, pent up and cut off from the physical reality of the world in which we live. But grace offers us a different experience of ourselves and the world. Through grace we receive the physical world and our own bodies again.

When the Psalmist exclaims, “You have brought me into a spacious place…” he imagines a realm over which he does not have complete control. For in the world of his control he finds himself hunted by cruel enemies and tortured by guilt. In this world of his own making he is murderer, thief and adulterer. Yet when “in the day of his disaster” he is met by the Lord, he is led into a spacious place. This large room is an incredibly visceral description of grace as is David’s own physical sense of relief. He no longer feels trapped by his own deficiencies, instead he is lifted up and out. Relief came to him in the body because grace is a physical-realm response to a physical-realm problem. As a man thinketh so is he. But let us not limit this to the rational mind only. As a man thinketh also includes our imagination and our perceived existence in the physical realm.

Holiness connects us to deeper reality and we enter holiness by relinquishing control of our physical life to Jesus Christ. We enter holiness only through the realm of grace and we enter grace through yet another embodied experience. That is, the life that we would otherwise have lived in our bodies now must die in order for us to truly live.

Reflection

When at last we give up trying to protect ourselves against the flood of destruction that is due to us because of sin, and when at last we allow that flood to come crashing down as it has upon our Lord. When at last we put our imaginations to their highest use and remember him who gave himself for us and yet was without sin. When we see him, blazing and bleeding, seated at the right hand of God with our world under his feet and our destinies in the twinkle of his eye…When we see that he became inglorious for us, as shameful as a rapist, as guilty as Macbeth so that we could be wrapped up and held in the safest arms in the universe…Then we will enter the spacious place, that broad room of David, and the great, ancient sigh of relief which only the gospel of grace can induce in a human soul.

Kenyon

The Artists Role As Connector

Last April’s InterArts Fellowship, entitled “The Artist as Cultivator,” sought to investigate the connections between art and prayer. Without too much explanation we hoped the art--in the form of dance, song, music, and poetry, would lead some to prayerful ruminations. But, we also longed to portray the beauty of prayer.

One of the outcomes of April’s IAF were two separate Reflect nights initiated and facilitated by Nathan Troester at his church in Williamsburg. Nathan commenced the evening with prayer and a short theological presentation, later asking the handful of invited artists to reflect and response through their respective artistic mediums.

Graphic designer, printmaker, and creative director of Live From Bklyn, Dailey Crafton, shares his account from the first Reflect night in Live From Bklyn’s blog. I link the post here, but allow me to excerpt some of the content for this reflection:

as i meditated on the concepts of the transcendance/eminence of God, my thoughts were drawn toward the name that God gives himself, “I AM.” this name speak of self-existence, completely independent upon anything else for survival. transcendence defined (and named). i also thought about the Christian doctrine of God-incarnate in the person of Jesus. about how he had a body, hair: a beard. eminence. from these thoughts i also moved into thinking about the material/immaterial dichotomy. immaterial God, material man. I AM material, as it were. i’mmaterial. and that was the concept.

within the swirls of the piece, you can see the word i’mmaterial. and the line is a continuous, unbreaking line, symbolic of the infinite. i also wanted to capture the idea of humanity, so i used a pattern that to me is evocative of hair, a beard to be more specific.

What Dailey’s description from the Reflect event provides is an example of how artists can integrate prayer and art while also portraying their role in connecting abstract ideas with concrete matter. Yet more is being bridged, we also see the reconciliation of spirit and body, work and faith, product and process. Dailey demonstrates how art belongs in the realm of theology, and theology certainly can shape our art. Witnesses to such interactions come away with a deepened understanding of God, while also refreshed by possibilities. It is firmly set in my mind how artists are called to be bridge builders in our ever increasing disconnected world.

Pray artfully,

--Maria

Thank you, Dailey, for allowing us to reference your blog post. Dailey’s i’mmaterial linocut print is available through his online shop.

When Life Doesn't Stop; Making Time For Your Dreams

“In creating, the only hard thing’s to begin; a grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.”

James Russell Lowel

I have lived with an idea for a book for over eight years. Of course the inspiration hit me just as I became pregnant for our first son – right at the dawn of a new age of monumental time consumption. But over the years of considering and thinking about this idea, I realized that never does a spark of inspiration hit just as you are about to go to a divine lake retreat for three weeks of uninterrupted creative time. Never. Last spring, I realized that I had three main obstacles that were looming over me and making me more than procrastinate, they were causing a paralysis: time, task, and comparison.

I have been part of International Arts Movement for over 10 years. IAM is an arts organization not just for artists, but for anyone who has a desire to rehumanize their sphere of influence; to creatively make it more good, true and beautiful. I have always come away from their conferences feeling inspired and motivated to be a better person in every area of my life. But the last two conferences were especially significant to me as they helped put legs to something my heart had desired for many years – to write.

Makoto Fujimura, painter and founder of IAM, says that when he paints, it creates time in his schedule because it feeds his soul. It made me think about time to create in a whole new dimension. I had thought about time linearly: time out equals time gone. There is not enough time to get the things done merely to survive, let alone the seemingly luxurious time to write. But what it – what if– time to create didn’t take away, but added? I had also toyed with the idea of waiting until a more perfect time arrived. I know – it’s laughable. I knew there was no such thing as a perfect time, yet I still deliberated over it.

And who hasn’t thought of writing a book? Millions of us have. It’s on many of our bucket lists: get a book published. Whether that is from a desire of status, accomplishment, or because we have something we must say… I’m not sure. But for me, whatever the motivation, the task itself seemed gargantuan. It was like looking up at the Cliffs of Dover: straight up, impossible to climb, and fearsome to complete.

Then as I looked at the idea of my novel, a 1930′s historical fiction mystery set in New York City, I made a deadly choice: I compared how others write, to how I should write. Most of the mystery authors I love to read create an outline from beginning to end before they begin. So I tried that – and failed miserably. I had characters, I had a general sweep of where I wanted to go… but an outline was a virtual impossibility.

Finally, after a lot of frustration, I found some inspiration. I went to a book signing by one my favorite authors, perhaps one of the most creative people I’ve ever met: Jasper Fforde. He said that he often “just wrote” because he liked to see where his writing would take him. And he frequently used what he termed as “off-ramps.” Events or actions thrown in here and there – completely unrelated to the current storyline – that he may or may not choose to use at some other time in one book or another. I loved that. I loved the idea of letting characters and situations develop as I crafted them, seeing where possibilities could take me. Click to read further.

-L.A. Chandlar

Laurie is a longtime member of IAM, wife, mother of two, and lay ministry leader. And she still finds time to write! Please visit Laurie's website for more of her musings.

The Artist as Theologian

Remember the days when a conversation at Starbuck’s about the deeper matters of life and longing would inevitably end with one party resolutely declaring, “Well, that’s true for you but it’s not true for me”? It seems like only yesterday that relativism reigned as the catch-all response to issues of ultimate concern from philosophy and religion to sociology and even law.

In his recent talk at InterArts Fellowship, Steven Garber sought to orient our community of artists to the times in which we live and encouraged us towards meaningful actions and conversations within our hearts, communities and world. As he does in his book, The Fabric of Faithfulness, Steve reminded us of how the Age of Enlightenment and the rationalism of the modern era have left many in contemporary society with a dulled awareness of human destiny and purpose. Yet, Garber notes, even relativism is coming under strong suspicion amid the devastating scenarios of our war-torn and disaster-prone world, not to mention the accompanying nihilism which offers a bleak and gangly vision of human flourishing.[1] Unfortunately, this dilemma has left many in our society confused, depressed and floundering for a sense of meaningful purpose for their lives. [2]

It seems that in order for the church to navigate this scenario, artists must become engaged in developing our shared understanding of both our times and our God. Cue: the artist as theologian. Clearly, God's world is not black and white. There are grey areas that cannot be packaged or easily reconciled without the use of abstract thinking and imagination.These times may require the presence and participation of artists within the church in order to know God and make him known within a culture that has lost its anchor in rationality and reason yet has grown increasingly suspicious of relativism as an easy fix to the inconsistencies between our knowledge and our experiences. As artists we tend to live in the tension between the what is and the what ought to be as we work. Our gifts and our way of seeing allow us to accept and explore mystery.

What might it look like for your work to become a context in which the mysteries of God are explored and embodied? Have you ever experienced a way of living and working in the arts that integrates and enlivens your engagement with the gospel? Will you as an artist identify with the community and calling of the people of God?

Kenyon

---

[1] The Fabric of Faithfulness, Garber. After Virtue, Macintyre. Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, Bernstein.

[2] Generation Me, Twenge.

Our Story

Artists in the Church need to develop a theory of art informed by the bible in order to return to the world a profound story. With society’s loss of the meta-narrative contemporary lives feel detached, humanity’s significance seems to have diminished, we have forgotten what it means to be human. Despite how the power of God’s story has shaped Christian lives for some time now, we choose to depend and trust those who can feed us information, analysis, doctrines. Furthermore, viewing soul salvation as the primary function of Christianity means we have missed the rich dimensions of God’s redemptive plan for the world. We have disconnected God from our everyday lives and experiences. As Christians we need God to break into our lives in real and tangible ways. We need to reconnect with the whole Christian narrative. Perhaps art, which so heavily depends on narratives, is one way we can practice entering into God’s story again.

The whole of the Christian narrative speaks of a triune God, his people, and his plan for the world. God as Father, Son, and Spirit is a unified diversity. Likewise, he is the true unifier amid the great variety he has created. Therefore, our God is equipped and has equipped us to handle the many episodes, sagas, and movements that are part of the Christian epic. We need artists to formulate new stories rooted in the biblical narrative. We need to write, play, and dance in the margins of our beloved texts.

Typically, in our contemporary society, an artist’s identity is tied to what they create, not in God the creator. Our formation as artists, our art, must flow out of what we know and experience of God. If faith transforms our art, think how much more, the Triune God will open the art-making praxis to inform faith further. Gerardus van der Leeuw asserts art will intersect with religion if it “turns to the absolute; where the wholly other is.”(Sacred and Profane Beauty, p.33) Van der Leeuw quoting Jacques Maritain writes “If you want to make Christian art, be Christians, and seek to make a beautiful work, in which your entire heart lies; do not try to make it Christian.”(Sacred and Profane Beauty, p.36) Part of formulating a theology of the arts is redefining what it means to be a Christian—God’s work of art. Let’s begin to retell God’s story through our hands, feet, lips.

Maria

There, But For The Grace of God

there

but for the Grace of God lay I still

paralyzed but not still

devoid of peace bereft of hope

leper

perishing

languishing, lost, in a bed, in, deep in oppressive, depressive despair, slave to myself, blind to all else...

only by His command was I able to rise! And come forth

broken

one foot in front of the

other

unsure

afraid

desperately alone

unloved

unwanted, and therefore

worthless...

worthless.

(or so i thought - little did i know i was)

limping towards Love that saves

away from where my death was certain, imminent, and well underway

now

restored

redeemed

and Eternally Loved i lay me down to sleep

and sleep soundly

in the selfsame bed

finding my rest in

Him who my soul doth keep.

ileana santamaria

Vocalist and musician, Ileana Santamaria, typically performs this poem to the music of the classical Spanish piece, Nana by Manuel de Falla

The Dialogue Continues

A friend of mine tells a story of a woman he loved and lost to a terminal illness. He recalls how he strove to make her last days so full of life. She dreamed of going to Italy, and because it was clear she would never make it there he transformed her hospital bedroom into a living Italian montage complete with a gondola! He painted the walls with scenes from Venice, Rome and Florence...all to make her feel full of life. He went on to recall being by her side as she lay dying. Offering him some of her last words, she passionately whispered, "He is Life!"

Scripture tells that He who has the son, has life (1 John 5:12). If there's one thing we are seeking in New York City it's this sense of really living: to have Life. Artists especially depend on this over- abundant sense of being alive to both suffering and joy.

Last fall we began considering six themes regarding the calling of the artist in view of the gospel. Now, as we start a new ministry year, we invite you to consider one over-arching theme which we will approach this coming Monday at InterArts Fellowship with the help of Steve Garber. The theme is simply Life, capital "L". We intend to explore this theme in four ways:

Abundant LIFE

Body LIFE

Spirit LIFE

Eternal LIFE

Through our programs, events and conversations with you we hope to explore the reality of abundance, the imminence and import of life in the body, the mystery of the spirit and the hope of eternity. Join the dialogue through quarterly gatherings of InterArts Fellowship, in Arts Vocation Groups and on our InterArts Facebook page.

Hope to see you soon. Take care in the city!

Kenyon

Walking With Christ

Reading Roberto Goizueta’s Caminemos Con Cristo (we shall walk with Christ) startled me into realizing how much my own theology of work aimed folks solely towards kingdom transformation in our world. To be sure, this is a good and a worthy project, but Goizueta has reminded me how social transformation is not our end and purpose. In Genesis, God deems humanity good, before he gives out work. Therefore, while God calls us to cultivate, perhaps we should perceive this human activity as aesthetic: the desire for a beautiful life that drives us to do good. Now, I recognize, process and production are not mutually exclusive when we put ourselves into God’s hands. But, I need to be constantly reminded not to measure and value human worth as the world does. So, forgive me, while I counter the pragmatic tendencies of our present realities by promoting process over production. As Goizueta points out, it’s the process, the way we go about our work that makes us distinctly human beings.

While, it's the artist-side of my role as an arts ministry coordinator that encourages artists to create works that are community building, social commentaries, theological meditations, and mimetic observations; its my theological-side that reminds them that their creations do not define them. As my colleague Kenyon constantly quips, "It's your life, taken up in Christ, that determines your worth." While art accomplishes wonderful things, our ability to do, mainly demonstrates we are beings. Ultimately, it’s not so much what we produce, but how we allow our strengths, abilities, foibles, and failures shape the way we live in God’s grace.

The parable in Matthew 20 concerning the hired workers illustrates how God is not as concerned with productivity as we tend to be. Here, he compensates those who worked all day the same as those he commissioned a few hours before pay. In fact, the parable depicts a landowner more preoccupied with giving men work, then his need to pull in crops. This landowner goes out five times to ensure every man within his reach has purpose and meaning for that day. It is God who hires us, therefore, making us desirable.

In a kingdom where the last will be first, our Christian theologies of culture must not solely rely on transforming the world through our work. Goizueta outlines the danger of this one-dimensional agenda: “If the act of production is the prototypical human activity, then all human activity will tend to be judged by the criteria of production…Human life will be viewed and valued as the means or instrument through which we produce a desirable product, whether that product is income and profit, food, or the classless society.”

What? You haven’t written that socially transformative book or shaped lives by calling to attention the horrors of corruption through a photo series? In Mark 18, Jesus calls a child and brings him before his disciples, who were intent on finding out the kingdom hierarchy. Jesus tells his audience, those who are humble like a child, become the greatest in the kingdom.

When introduced to a child, it is not usual to ask the child, or their parents, what they do for a living--a child just lives. Healthy children experience awe and discovery through play. They find joy in newly acquired abilities. Indeed, these actions are precious gifts befit for the kingdom.

Shall we walk with Jesus as we work?

Maria

Passion

The inclination to do good, whether it is conquering a creative technique or a particular ski slope, falls under the realm of the aesthetics. Aesthetics, therefore, relies on desire, this in turn, incites us towards action. This is one of the theories William Dyrness works with in his latest book, Poetic Theology. Here, Dyrness relates how it takes human passion “to act, build, and create;” therefore, we should view these events as deep soul movements towards reaching the good. For Dyrness, our best moments are shaped, not necessarily by what we know, but by the longing “for a life that is attractive.” So, Dyrness asks Christians this question: “In places where community development is in progress, what sorts of practices might best reflect this impulse?”

What are the structures, stories, and events that act like beacons orienting our daily developments? What are our best shared activities that help shape beautiful and good communities? Where do we invest significance? Because of Christ’s redeeming work in the world we should seek out elements and practices that correspond with the gospel in order to sculpt deep and meaningful lives. We need to pick up God’s pattern of play, celebration, and redemption found in the surrounding cultures. Beauty draws people together, beauty also directs us towards God. Beauty, therefore, should also be a hallmark of God's people.

Dyrness further cautions how non-manifested values merely remain separate from us—mere abstractions. As we explore our traditions and the Scriptures we must continually take into account the human drive towards the aesthetic. For Dryness, the impetus to create an attractive life is an expression of God’s presence. We all long to be complete, but as the people of God, this hope relies on Christ's beauty and glory. Far from distractions, we must learn to see worldly goods, this includes our vocation as artists, not as means of power or self-glory, nor as an end in itself, but as a gift pointing us towards a life with God and his good creation; God reflected in and through our cultural patterns and trends. The Hispanic theologian, Roberto Goizueta reminds us how the aesthetic is “rooted” in the concrete. Aesthetics happens through our bodies, for “life is always corporeal.” It, therefore, becomes the artist's job to manifest the human need for the transcendent. Alysha Creighton’s stop action animation The Touch depict these themes of desire, embodiment and the transcendent. The Touch reminds us how the arts, the material, are conduits of God’s touch.

We must question if the desire we have for Christ and his kingdom is purely negotiated through the abstract and propositional. If so, we must devise concrete practices to pull the kingdom into our everyday reality.

Allow your art to draw you, and others, to the love of God. Receive his touch.

Maria

Thank you, Alysha, for granting permission to use, The Touch. Alysha Creighton recently completed a summer residency program at SVA.

Glimpses

This week, while walking back to the office from lunch, I was struck by the image of a demolished building undergoing construction on a midtown street near Broadway. It's the kind of thing you could walk by every day and never notice at all. But as I took in the scene, I was impacted and, honestly, a little disgusted at it's current state. I began to imagine what it might have been before it was demolished: a nice restaurant, hotel or office building. Still, I found it difficult to imagine that it could ever be anything of value again. Whatever it was before has been utterly ruined. My thoughts were interrupted when a piece of dry wall flew out of nowhere onto a pile, startling me.

I hadn't even seen him because he was buried so deep underneath the debris. A young worker, taking his job quite seriously, had gone down under what used to be a stairway and was gutting the basement with a vengeance. In that moment I saw a picture of our faithful Creator. He is committed to restoring all things: our hearts, our relationships and the very structures of creation itself from the rooftop to the bassment. Can we see him at work? Will we put on a hard hat and follow him into the dark?

As we look toward the Center for Faith & Work Conference, let's pray that God will give us glimpses of His spirit accomplishing His work of renewal in the world. Let's ask God to open the eyes of our hearts to see him at work in our city.

Kenyon

The Spirit's Work

In my apartment building in Queens, I am fortunate to have a superintendent with a kind and humble heart. James is a man of principle and deeply committed to his family, including his autistic son, Jason. We live in an old pre-war building with lots of issues so I am in regular communication with James for repairs. The problems in my apartment don't seem to be unique among the other 60 rentals in our building because this year James installed a little drop box in the lobby with instructions for how to make a service request and a little pen dangling from a string. It works like this: the tub gets clogged...again, and I drop a little note in the box explaining the problem, the level of urgency and a range of times that I can be available to receive the work. So, far it's been a pretty efficient little system, with perhaps one drawback. I'm never exactly sure when he's coming or how long it will take to do the repair. Most often, I find myself interrupted from REM sleep by the doorbell and jolted unexpectedly from my Tempur-Pedic pillow about an hour before I had intended to wake up on a weekday morning.

I can't help but notice the similarities of this ongoing relationship to that of my prayer life. I receive so many answers to my prayers with the same scraggly disposition that James meets when he shows up at my door, toolbox in hand. What do we imagine the Spirit's work will look like when we pray, "Lord, change my heart. Make me more like you"? It is far more the will of the Father than my own that I be transformed into one who reflects his character. The disconnect comes in how I tend to think about and imagine the process of bringing about this transformation.

For the most part I think we have quite a different view of our hearts than God has. It's fitting. The plumber has quite a different view of your toilet than you do as well. For you, it's part of an unconscious habit of doing a business about which you take no particular notice until something has gone wrong. In God's reality your heart is a place of massive devastation, and yet also a place of glorious beauty and potential. This has everything to do with who he is, and the quality of his nature. In his nature lies the hope of our hearts. He's on the job. But are we awake to receive him?

Kenyon