Kingdom Waiting

I’m always amazed how Jesus’ parables convey a kingdom not estranged from this world, but very much bound to it.  Despite the eschatological-end times dimension found in Matthew 25, the three stories within focus on the work accomplished in the present.  

In the first narrative we come across ten virgins awaiting the bridegroom in order to enter the wedding festivities. The wise maidens carry extra oil for their lamps. They are able to join the celebration unlike the five who missed the procession due to their search for fuel. The Scout Motto be prepare can be invoked here. The parable of the talents is the second narrative. A master, about to embark on a long journey, entrusts three servants with talantons, dispensed in proportion to their proficiencies.  Here, the good servant multiplies the wealth of the master.

The last tale ushers the listener into the future as the Son of Man sits as king on his throne. Here, we watch him separate people as a shepherd segregates sheep from goats. Those positioned to his right are ones who cared about earthly matters: they fed, clothed, cared.  Yet we must remember these humanitarian concerns are fueled by anticipation for the coming bridegroom, master, king; thus rendering them kingdom works.

Kingly people live life fully in the present, shaped and marked by a future. What, then, does it mean for the wise artist to be prepared? Are we hording, neglecting, or diminishing our talents or are we investing our time and energy to multiplying what the master has apportioned? And, most importantly, does our wisdom and entrepreneurial skills work to re-establish the best of humanity?

If Jesus is the good king his priority becomes care of his kingdom. A thriving kingdom provides the basic needs for its inhabitants; therefore, by seeking human flourishing through our practice of medicine, economics, law, or art, we become kingly servants.

It took the life, death, and resurrection of Christ to re-establish humanity. Let’s follow his lead as we wait for him, the bridegroom, master and king.

--Maria

Time Continuum

Space-Time Configuration

What does the worker gain from his toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to the end.  Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.  T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Investing time in the studio always yields benefits. The work focuses or branches out into new forms. Pleasurable discoveries shifts the expenditure of our time, expenses, energies as we grasp towards that elusive something. The pursuit is future-oriented, but to obtain it we must be fully vested in the present, all the while sustained by positive past experiences of accumulated processes of art making.  

Yet sometimes the need to create is mere burden. No explanations needed for He has also set eternity in the hearts of men. We experience something good when we make art. And just as our studio practices hones the work, it is a pattern parallel to God’s perfecting of the cosmos through time, space, the particular, through Christ. We cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

What does this mean for artists? First off, eternity is continuous with our present world. Time present and time past are contained in time future. And time future double backs into time present: our time. God is with us through his promised Spirit, the hallmark of a new age. This means we don’t have to get it right the first time. Just as the whole of creation is groaning waiting for God to perfect it, our art is practice. One day the grunts and groans will eventually give way to true worship of the Triune God. Christ has already set the Spirit life in motion--we have the firstfruits of the Spirit awaiting the future redemption of our bodies. He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Secondly, since forever belongs to us, time is not a burden. One of the characteristics of our culture is the weight of time. We never have enough of it so we weary ourselves with too much work, too much play. The more we invent time saving devices to increase leisure, Colin Gunton notes the less capable we are of being able to dwell “in the body and on the good earth.” (Gunton, The One, The Three, And the Many, p.77). In God’s timelessness, he sets patterns of living: birth, death, plant, pick, kill, heal, extirpate, build up. Life does not happen all at once for we are to dwell in each zone discovering its merits and faults.

Isn’t this what we also learn in the studio? Idea, concept, action, introspection, more action, wait for the paint to dry, curse, smile, scrape off the paint, start again with the marks of the old refined by the new. What does the worker gain from his toil? John Dewey remarks how “Every work of art follows the plan of, and pattern of, a complete experience, rendering it more intensely and concentratedly felt.” (Dewey, Art As Experience, p.54) Artists, think of your art making practice as a sensitizing or priming agent for the ultimate experience of eternity.

Let the future break into the present; make art.

--Maria

Not As The Flowers

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His flesh: ours.

-John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter, Stanza 2

The lilies that will adorn our churches this Sunday are redolent of fresh life, yet for Updike this symbol is much too subdued. Christ’s resurrection signals so much more: we can forget about Easter fineries, for we will one day wear Spiritual bodies. And just like the angel at the tomb in John Updike’s poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter, we will be weighty, “opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen, spun on a definite loom.”

The resurrection indicates a new way of being. A life animated by the Spirit, tabernacle in a physical body— the earthbound people of God. Easter for artists signals the re-creating capacity set into motion by our Triune God: the Father’s undying love, spurs the Son’s self-giving, and the Spirit’s creative activity overcomes death for all. For artists this dynamic movement reverberates into our own lives as we continually advocate and sacrifice for art to then experience some semblance of renewal. If our God re-creates out of brokenness, even death, please consider this Easter what this means for your art. “Let us walk through the door:”

The stone is rolled back; not paper-mâché,

Not a stone in a story,

But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

-John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter, Stanza 5

--Maria