Little Treasures

Do you ever get the feeling that you were meant for another time or place?

My wife, Emily, and I were walking to a restaurant on the East Side this week when I noticed a small gathering of people, furtively surrounding a row of cardboard boxes on the sidewalk. I immediately recognized this scenario. The all-too-familiar posture of contained, pedestrian greed was all the evidence I needed that time was short. I had to act. Emily suppressed her hunger momentarily and followed me across the street. Books! There were books! Freshly left on the sidewalk from some nearby office or studio, some of them looked new! I waited for Emily’s voice to patiently remind me that I’m not allowed to collect any more books, but it didn’t come. Too late now, I’m digging through boxes like a looter in a national disaster, only with a faint sophistication and poise as if to say, “I certainly don’t need these books”.

In a box that seemed to have belonged to a graphic designer, a lover of beauty, I came across my little treasure. The striking cover was all purple hues, natural textures, lavender in a field…it was a book dedicated to lavender, and to how its fragrance and bloom so richly adorn the region of Provence in France. Well! I wasn’t going to miss this! I scooped the book up nonchalantly, giving eyes to Emily that it was time to make our exit. She was relieved that I’d only accumulated a single book. At dinner, we talked and dreamed of France…again. What would our lives look like in France? “What would we do?” she said. We both agreed that it would be reason enough just to BE there.


Ok, so we certainly have a romantic view of the French countryside, but I wonder if some couple in Provence isn’t dreaming of New York City. We have these inexplicable desires to be elsewhere, don’t we? More than that...we believe in our hearts that we could, in fact, be meant for another existence altogether. The little treasure I found in the box on a city street made me long again for my true home, my true city. C.S. Lewis affirms this longing in his timelessly lucid Mere Christianity, suggesting that if we have desires which cannot be satisfied in this world then it must follow that we were meant for another world.

Perhaps our art-making, too, serves as a reminder of our other worldliness. Not merely that inspiration emits from a mysterious source, but that we as artists are consumed by work that addresses elements of our world which are not entirely of this world. As we discussed at Inter Arts Fellowship this month, art extracts information from text or experience which is not expressly present in time and space. In this way, art groans with the universe in eager expectation for the final and eternal proliferation of beauty and grace, the Redemption of all things! As I live my days in the city, I’m thankful for lavender reflections in cardboard boxes, and for the beautiful reminder of art. May we always be graced to discover it.

--Kenyon

Art and Care

Last spring I attended a retreat for Christian art leaders held at Laity Lodge, outside of San Antonio, TX. How gracious for an organization to provide space where leaders could share their stories of healing and spiritual deepening through the use of art. Listening to these various accounts I realized just how much artists are currently using their gifts as tools towards pastoral care and spiritual growth, regardless of whether they classify it as such.

Professor Howard Clinebell defines pastoral care as “ministry of mutual healing and growth within a congregation and its community.” (Basic Types Of Pastoral Care And Counseling, p.26) To witness God’s people utilizing the language of art for the well being of its community is exciting. Having to be always an advocate for the arts in this pragmatic society, I found these testimonies to be a healing balm for my own soul. I am in awe of God’s provision for the Church. This organic impulse to utilize art in the most humble ways also widens the scope of art within our postmodern context. In our society art is a thing onto itself — it exits for its own sake. To counter the bias of our scientific and technological society this belief is sometimes necessary, but art also lives to heal, unify, as well as to inspire.

One year after the Laity Lodge retreat, the Center for Faith and Work decided to incorporate a more creative hands-on approach in our yearly retreat. Our desire was to grasp great teaching by engaging it through a variety of activities that included embodied interaction. After all, as Margaret Kornfeld reminds us, “God is a God who wants to be remembered and has created our bodies — with complex neurochemical systems — so that memory is possible.” (Cultivating Wholeness, p.86)

The weekend began with individuals creating a personal collage representing the good/bad of their vocational field. This activity enabled retreaters to process their circumstances and articulate them to group members. Later on, we commenced our evening worship by passing out glow sticks that illuminated our parade to the meeting hall. Once we reached our softly lit destination, participants beheld a giant mosaic floor scroll made from their collages. Surrounding the mosaic were simple musical instruments, waiting to be picked up and played with. The glow sticks, now collected together in a glass urn, illuminated our evening filled with songs, prayers, and praises. All these concrete activities helped reinforce our teaching for the weekend: our stories, held together, can become aligned with God’s story.

Art is a receptacle for our stories. But, art also helps us to understand God’s story in deep and meaningful ways. Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon put it this way:

"How does God deal with the human fear, confusion, and paralysis? God tells a story: I am none other than the God who ‘brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of Bondage’…In telling that story, Israel comes to see itself as a people on a journey, an adventure. Its ethics become the virtues necessary to sustain Israel on the road." (Resident Aliens, p.54)

Art reminds us that beauty is possible even in the midst of our broken and confused lives. Art helps sustain the community of believers on the journey of being and becoming the children of God.
--Maria