Beauty and the Temple

“Where there is no temple there shall be no homes”—T.S. Elliot, (The Rock, II.40)

In the Hebrew Scriptures the Temple represents God’s abode, the place where heaven and earth collide. With the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Spirit becomes “the way God himself is now present on planet earth, by indwelling his people.” (Gordon Fee, Crux, Summer 2008, p. 5) We become the new living Temple of God, the home of heaven on earth. As artists it becomes our job to sing, dance, and paint believing that artistic activity can be a service towards God and one another. T.S. Eliot writes:

The Lord who created must wish us to create

And employ our creation again in His service

Which is already His service in creating.

For Man is joined spirit and body,

And therefore must serve as spirit and body.

(T.S. Eliot, "Choruses from The Rock")

With the Spirit, our living bodies now possess entrée to the seemingly inaccessible. It is through the Spirit, YHWY becomes Father (Gal 4:6; 8.14-17). It is through the Spirit enemy becomes brother. And it is through the Spirit we become empowered to make this world home, practicing for our true home yet to come. We need the Spirit to enable true relationships with the triune God, with each other, as well as with the material world. Much of our Christian teaching has emphasized the first two, but the biblical emphasis on the beauty of the Temple tells us God cares about the things of this world. So much so that N.T. Wright asserts, “The virtue of the royal priesthood, the new living Temple, ought to be the cultivation and celebration of beauty at every level.” (After You Believe, p. 232)

Furthermore, the Spirit joins in our creative activities; it helps give life to our materials. But ultimately life with the Spirit signals a life dependent on God. Christian cultural renewal is at the mercy of Spiritual renewal. There shall be no true beauty in our earthly home, without the beauty of the Temple.

--Maria

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