Eternal LIFE: Love & Death

Seeing Werner Schroeter's grotesque and penetrating film Two at the MoMA's retrospective of the German filmmaker this week sent me away with a new awareness of the commonality between love and death.  Outside the theater after the 117 minute screening one wondered if any of the audience, those who stayed until the end, really got anything out of the film other than a slight headache. But if my experience might serve as a case study, the film does have a latent but no less potent effect. Upon leaving the theater a woman and her friend, both looking painfully baffled, asked us..."do you speak French? Did you get it?" I admitted that I did not fully understand my experience but not before she interjected, "something about life I assume". I surprised myself by responding, "I think it's more to do with death actually".


Looking back I don't know where I got that idea. But it grew inside of me all evening and into the next day, and the next. I began to notice a change at dinner with a filmmaker friend who had prefaced his invitation to the film with "going to see a very weird German film". I was almost astonished at the insights I gained in our discussions of the film particularly since he, arriving late, had missed the screening altogether. Anyway, this blog will hardly suffice as a review of the film, but since you won't find a public screening of it any time soon and I don't necessarily recommend sitting through it (though I would again just to see the shots on the beach and the dress blowing in the wind like a flag). I will invite you into our post film discussion with the hope of unpacking some of the truth which arose for me as the thesis of the film though perhaps not of Schroeter's body of work as a whole.


 Schroeter so effectively carries us into the mania of our self glorifying existence. The film is comprised from start to finish by a series of seemingly disconnected scenes ranging from stunningly beautiful to viscerally disturbing, sweeping through memories with little prejudice for past or present. The narrative does appear, however, and culminates in an encounter with death, a moment which has led me to draw a kind of emotional thesis from the experience: That love and death are intimately tied together. In death love is revealed and through death love is received and shared. "But how can this be?" my heart asks me...the younger part of myself, perhaps, or the naive one. Is not love a positive thing and death negative? How then can one be dependent on the other?


I presented these questions to Pamela Brown-Peterside, Community Group Director of Redeemer's West Side Congregation, with whom I shared about my experience of the film and how the filmmaker seemed to understand deeply the connection between love and death. She said immediately, "Greater love hath no man than this...that he lay down his life for his friends." This should have been obvious I suppose when you consider that the cross itself is God's proof of his own unfailing and eternal love. This is the love that casts out fear (John 4:18) and what does man fear more than death? I've heard, as well, the declaration from Paul's letters to the Romans: This is how we know what love is...while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. There it is again, love and death. Not only is all of this evident in scripture but as we learn in Gotham Fellows and in the sermons at Redeemer, the whole story of the gospel is that of creation (life), the fall of man (death) and redemption (life through death). The through-line of this story's action is certainly the incomparable, pursuing love of God.  So then it should not surprise me, this connection between love and death. But as I, looking towards our next InterArts Fellowship, strive to conceive of the impossible reality of Eternal LIFE I am continually confronted by thoughts of death, a death leading to greater love. It seems to be the unsung truth of the gospel: that death leads to life, but ultimately to love. Still my heart says, "but how can this be?". When might death ever provide an experience of ultimate love, other than in some ancient mythical tale of star-crossed lovers?

Schroeter's film presents two characters (both played by Isabelle Huppert) tied to each other by the love of their mother, a love fraught with frustrated longings for affection. The story unfolds to reveal the two are sisters, as it seems, Maria and Magdalena, portrayed as two parts perhaps of one person. He shows us how death, for them the death of their mother, tears us apart and creates another self with whom we can never reconcile until death. So in this case the death becomes the impetus and the culminating element in the character's pursuit of love and reconciliation. The ultimate reconciliation comes through her own death which is achieved or received apparently at her own hand. At that moment Maria-Magdalena, the bifurcated, wounded heart seems to have achieved at last the love that evaded her for so many tortuous and confusing years of thwarted loves and cruel memories. Certainly, Maria and Magdalena each dealt with death differently...one longing for love by seeking it and the other by withholding it from others. Finally, death unites them in solidarity and brings forgiveness for the mother who's death had so scandalized their young hearts. In this culminating scene I was confronted with the notion that love is perfected or achieved somehow in death, which left me confused and a bit battered until I realized that this is the truth on which I have based my life.


For me the film's conclusion screams the gospel or perhaps the most cutting edge of the gospel...that death is the way to life and love because Christ's death was an ultimate one. The claim of the gospel is that one died for all and therefore all died that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died (2 Corinthians 5:14). Interesting, of course, that the names of the two characters are Mary and Magdalena (Werner was thought to be obsessed with Catholicism). It was Mary Magdalene who was among those first to see and recognize Jesus after his resurrection and conquering of death. This moment for me was captured in the characters created by Schroeter. Now, to the degree that I see Christ risen from a death he died for me, my death becomes a victory and an entrance into eternal love which is life eternal according to the gospels. This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God (John 17:3).


At the end of the film there is a sort of resurrection after death accomplished through diverse mythology and magic in a voodoo-like ceremony. The resurrection portrayed leads to a measure of reconciliation and peace for Maria-Magdalena, and I saw love too. But despite this vague resolution my spirit was comforted that after all of the traumas of memory that Shchroeter subjects us (and himself) to he led us through the grave to resurrection, and by a sacrifice to a new and strange life.  Isn't this the hope we find in Christ? That death no longer has victory? When we allow the self that we have served, worshiped and enthroned with all of its desires and demands, all of its rebellion against truth and reality, even against love...when we seek to end our self-driven life so that we can be caught up in a new life given to us by the resurrected Jesus, then we can enter love...and through love, Eternal LIFE. If we seek self actualization we become more unlike ourselves and the only ground to stand on in the river of our experience is the stones of our memories. But knowing Jesus personally is evidence that we are tasting eternal life, not ephemeral self-actualization but fullness of life.


 How brazenly Schroeter reminds us of the fleeting nature of our lives and the insufficiency of memory to shape our existence. He is merciful to show us this and to point us to death of self as a way of seeking a new life. But we need not use magic to resurrect this new life as Maria-Magdalena used in the final scene of the film. There is at work already a deeper magic as C.S. Lewis would put it. A magic that is not the result of human manipulation or power. No witchcraft here. The resurrection of Christ offers humans a purely arbitrary gift, undeserved and un-conjured, from the powers that be. In Jesus we receive the reconciliation with others that Maria-Magdalena was desperately seeking but we also find peace within ourselves as we cease from merchandising our longings and accept relationship with the God who gave up power and wealth for a moment of intimacy with his beloved...you and I. It was His death on the cross that released the greatest love on earth and it is his life I now seek to live instead of my own.


Kenyon

ETERNAL LIFE: This Death Must Come

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

                                                                       

                                                                     -Julian of Norwich

What is the story underlying your journey as an artist? Are you on a path to glory? If I’m honest with myself, the pervasive narrative in which I locate my struggle to create and share art is often rooted in my own imagined “path to glory”. As you can probably guess, viewing my life with this story in my heart often leads to more than a little frustration. It can even lead me to depression. Why does it seem that God is working against this “path to glory” narrative I’ve created? Doesn’t he want me to flourish and shine, if only for the sake of others (and for the years I spent watching VH1 and MTV). How might God see my path unfolding? As we continue our meditation this year exploring the essence of LIFE, please join me in a series of reflections on ETERNAL: LIFE looking forward to our next quarterly InterArtsFellowship with Cherith Nordling and guest artists.

i. This Death Must Come

God’s path to glory always includes death. This is staggering news to us, continually. But he is the Master Redeemer and this is his way. Our way of redeeming is about self glory. That is our natural choice. Whether we are aware of it or not, we actually default to our own self glory in all things. But the Master Redeemer knows us quite well. We were not always so inclined. He also knows the whole of His creation. And he knows the future.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Yet now is the hour of redemption by death alone. This death will come, to the self we seek to glorify. And this is his most loving way. This is his mercy. For his glory is not a matter of self-actualization for the Almighty, as it would be for you and I. That is a ludicrous comparison. No, the Almighty has no maker, he is eternal, the creator of all though not himself created... His glory is for the becoming of all things which are not himself, that they might become glorified by being drawn into his destiny. And this is the magnificent work of the cross.

Through Christ’s death, the death of God, all that is not within God is brought back into him not only for his own glory but for the reclamation of glory for all that he made. The cosmos is swept into the eternal life of God through Christ’s eternal reign over death. All which lives to die, now lives in the shadow of the cross and the hope of resurrection through the risen one. So this death must come, and through it shall come the resurrection of all things by the catalytic, Eternal LIFE of Christ, who is the glory of God.

Kenyon

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

Sensible Resurrection

The resurrection of Jesus puts into effect the possibility of eternal life. But what does this incredible event have to do with the arts? CFW’s next Gospel & Culture lecture will feature Dr. Jeremy Begbie who will speak regarding A World Made New: The Art of the Resurrection and the Resurrection of Art.

We'll prime Dr. Begbie’s lecture by reflecting, here on this post, the topic of resurrection. To begin with we must acknowledge how for various reasons our modern world suffers a faith crisis surrounding the sensory. We mistrust the senses; hence we can’t seem to make much sense of art, never mind the idea of someone coming back from the dead. Perhaps John Dewey is correct when he surmised we fear what life may bring, especially since we tend to see opposition between mind-body, spirit-flesh (Dewey, Art As Experience, 22-23). So instead of allowing the resurrection to breathe life into our work as artists, it lives comfortably tucked away in our doctrines and confessions—apart and separate.

Fortunately the narrative of John 20 takes great pains to make sure we understand the disciples encountered not an idea but a risen physical body—nail holes, split side. As John Updike describes in his poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter, “molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle.”

In fact, the chapter highlights Thomas’ discomfort with hearsay regarding the resurrection; he needed to see the risen Jesus. A radical confrontation with the concrete cannot question or doubt that God is involved with the stuff of this world. And just as Thomas was accustomed to witnessing Jesus incarnate the wonders of the kingdom, he also desired to look upon the manifestation of eternity in the shape of the risen Christ.

John Dewey remarks how our society utilizes the senses to arouse passion but does not move beyond “to fulfill the interest of insight” (Dewey, Art As Experience, 19). Good art making is dependent on both the senses and good sense. And, in a similar fashion Thomas needed to fulfill this new Godly insight through all of his being—including experience. He needed to touch the ridges of torn skin to thereby and passionately proclaim Jesus as “Lord and God.”

Likewise, some of us are not content with only a theoretical assertion that Jesus is currently living in a marred physical body. We want to make sense of this information in some weighty way. This passion should stir us to mediate this astounding God-action through our actions whether it be through dance, poetry, or just living a full life practicing for the one that is to come.

Thomas’ need allows us to ground Jesus in the fragility of materiality—“regathered out of enduring might,” as Updike reminds us. Seven Stanzas at Easter also calls us to remember:

It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles; it was as His flesh; ours.

Please join us on Saturday evening, March 10, as Dr. Begbie help us discover A world made new by Christ's bodily resurrection.

--Maria

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

Irresistible Mystery

This Easter season we share the benefit of hindsight as we reflect upon Christ's death. We behold the spectacle of God's shameless love, his inordinate response to our need for rescue and reconciliation. And yet, those who were most expectant of a rescue in Jerusalem experienced instead the disaster of his trial and crucifixion, the scattering of his followers and the seeming triumph of injustice as Jesus cried out in despair to an unresponsive heaven. How can a God who went to such extremes in order to come near to humanity also be known for his elusiveness and mystery? Why would he go to such great lengths to make himself known only to play hard to get? As artists I think we have some sense of the motive in God’s mystery.

When once the inspiration comes to do something which is truly worth doing no matter the cost, an artist will often set her face like a flint in the direction of the goal until it is achieved. But if one has sacrificed greatly for someone or something, one does not announce it with trumpets and fanfare. To do so would belie a false motive. Even the most outrageous and non-conformist artist would cringe at the idea of "showing her hand".

In our historical view of the cross it would seem that the Great Artist does indeed show His hand by outlandishly sacrificing his own life for sinners. Yet many who watched him die could not perceive the implications of the event. Even in his death his motives were cloaked in mystery, revealed only to a few. The soldier who stood near the cross hearing the final words and breath of Jesus, understood him in that subtle moment to be the Son of God. What kind of tactic is this? It would seem that God, in the most radical and inordinate act of history, chose not to spell things out for His audience, but allowed himself to be misunderstood completely. Even after making himself vulnerable to the extent of nakedness and suffering cruel murder he made no justifying statements and offered no concise explanations. He remained a mystery even in His death.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
Yet we considered him punished by God,
Stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The punishment that brought us peace was on him,
And by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5)

On the cross, God shows himself to be the Master Artist. His passion for us and his response to our brokenness was far too authentic to be reduced to simple solutions and comfortable conventions. No, instead the Artist's Statement took on flesh and mysteriously dwelt among us. This was certainly an unexpected response to those he considered to be his audience. The beauty of the cross lies in its mystery, that is, in the mysterious intentions of the Master Artist who, in willingly losing it all, gave us everything. Suddenly, the sufferings of an innocent man become the hope of all who will suffer for all time.

The God of the Cross still shrouds himself in glorious, irresistible mystery, though he has made himself vulnerable for our sake. Yet will we today hear the subtle whisper of his ever present Passion? Amid the clamorous mystery of His seeming indifference to our current view of things, could the God of the Passion be as radically involved in rescue and reconciliation today as on the cross?

Kenyon

Strange Fruit

One of the artists in our community at Redeemer, a classical actress, recently encouraged me to think more about the idea of God’s sanctifying work in our life v/s our own ideas of success: His fruit v/s our fruit. In the process, I’m attempting to draw a tangible connection between our lives in the city, and the purposes of God to reconcile ourselves individually, even artistically, to Himself. How can we see a connection between our personal sanctification and the Grand Work of Renewal that God is bringing about in the world, of which our own salvation, sanctification (and potentially our creative expression) are an evidence?

Perhaps married life is a good starting place. When I got married I had some good intentions, like wanting to love and serve my beautiful-sweet Emily, and see her reach her potential in Christ. But also, in my own sinful condition, I married her to make myself happy forever and found new hope in this “perfectly wonderful person” whose love could make my life, somehow, more pleasing to God. On the surface, those don’t seem like bad things, but they aren’t exactly what God had in mind. He does intend to make me happy forever and He knows that union with Himself is the only hope of that. But happiness is not the point of marriage, though it is a pleasant bi-product. Rather, in laying down my life for my wife each day, as Christ did for me, my heart is transformed to be like His heart, bringing me into fellowship with God who is the source of all true Joy and the only reward worth longing for. It wasn’t even a bad thing that I wanted a perfect person to justify me and make me right with God. That person just isn’t my wife. It’s Jesus. So, those two, seemingly small, distinctions become major shifts in my reality and lived experience.

Just as my marriage is not about making me happy, I had to realize that my being in New York may not be for the reasons that I initially had in mind. But that doesn’t mean that the Sovereign God of my life and this world doesn’t have a reason for me being in NYC. In fact, I can take a pretty good guess that it has a lot to do with the life of Christ being formed in me (which involves a very unpopular word beginning with an “s”), and the hope that I, yes even I, can join Him in His work of renewing all things, through creative endeavors which flow from a heart and life which are being renewed through suffering (I waited until the end to drop the “s-bomb”). And He is so lovingly faithful in bringing about this end, that He will allow many trials and Graces to come until Christ is fully formed in me. “Christ in me, the Hope of Glory”!

I can’t help but think of Paul, the apostle, chained to the wall of a prison cell, probably unable to write on his own after being cruelly beaten, but joyously testifying in a letter to the church in Philippi. He writes in Philippians 1:29,

“...for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake…and, “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit…”.

Perhaps the most exultant part of his letter to the Philippians is in chapter 3 when he says,

“( vv. 7-11) Whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as [dung] in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

God bless you as you seek His purposes for your life and creative work in the city. Grace is at work here, in us and around us. Thank God for that Reality check.

Kenyon

Working Out Of The Resurrection

Just as Jesus becomes the face of the Father, his broken and resurrected body gives access to the Spirit, who helps us live a renewed life. According to N.T. Wright, from the moment of the resurrection, “the forces of decay and death have suffered their major defeat, and from now on new creation is under way, with its first signs being the new life of those who believe the Gospel.” (The Redemption, p.84) Wright understands how the resurrection not only impacts our future, but is a reality that transforms Christians in the here and now. Therefore, Beth Felker Jones is correct in stating “Resurrection doctrine is indicative not only of final hopes, but also of present attitudes toward the bodies of the living.” (Marks Of His Wounds, p. 4) Jones believes God revealed himself through our senses by the Spirit which “has granted us the body of the Son.” It is through a broken body, that new life emerges. What this means for artists is amid the brokenness, “we can invoke nature with proper care…we can appeal to the nature of our own bodies, as we know it through the risen body of Jesus who is the paradigm of our own redemption.” (Marks Of His Wounds, p.100)

Life with the Spirit transforms our thinking about bodies and bestows a new attitude towards the things of this world. In her book Marks of His Wounds Jones directs us to the Augustinian understanding of embodiment and our inordinate desires. Our bodies and the material world are not necessarily the source of our sins; it is our disproportionate desires for these things. Through the Spirit, it becomes possible to possess a right relationship with God, that reorders our desires appropriately. Our art, then, becomes the means through which we can understand God and the world in a deeper way, not an end unto itself. By the Spirit, the material realm no longer enslaves, instead, we become free to value and nuture the things of this world, including art and the things it points to. Miroslav Wolf understands having dominion over the natural world means being responsible for God’s created order not “simply the satisfaction of human needs and wants.” (Work in the Spirit,p. 147) Thus, through the Spirit, we fulfill the Cultural Mandate, not because we must, but because we long to. Christ’s resurrected body prompts our desire to see all things become new again. Therefore the resurrection, according to Paul, allows us to give ourselves “fully to the work of the Lord,” this includes our art making endeavors, because we know that our “labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)

--Maria