Recently, we’ve had the pleasure of meeting with lots of pastors who are seeking ways to better serve the artists in their cities and congregations. It’s been exciting to see that God’s Spirit is moving in cities around the world to build bridges between artists and communities of faith. These meetings have also given us the opportunity to step back and really clarify the concepts that we have found to be most vital in this dialogue concerning artists and the gospel.
This year, Redeemer Arts Ministries will be embarking on a ministry-wide dialogical journey, exploring what it means for us as artists to allow the Gospel to change our hearts, our communities and our world.
How can we learn to articulate our spiritual callings as artists? What descriptors, what roles and words can we assign to one who is called to the work of renewing culture through art-making? We came up with six descriptive roles or themes in which we'll root our discussions:
The Artist as Disciple
The Artists as Theologian
The Artist as Creator
The Artist as Servant
The Artist as Cultivator
The Artist and Beauty: The Glory of the Lord
Over the course of the ministry year, we will be using these roles as a framework for our discussions at IAF and in the various vocation groups. We invite you to join the dialogue through attending arts ministry events and by posting your responses to our weekly blogs as we unpack these concepts in the coming months.
See you soon at InterArts Fellowship!
Kenyon
Friday, September 24, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Embodied Soul Work
Through Christ, love took form as a body. Jesus, the ultimate love offering, is the foundation for a theology of embodiment. How does this theology relate to artists? Since we will soon relaunch a dance industry vocation group let’s refer to a dancer’s work. Hours of discipline result in wounds and pains to the body; artistic activity can be physically challenging. Yet through the bleeding and bruising we are able to witness the wonder and awe of patterned movement and physical elegance. Beth Felker Jones speaking of Christ, but a fitting remark for a dancer, proclaims, “If we want to know the shape of a holy life, we look at the wounded body.” (Mark of His Wounds, p.111)
Stanley Hauerwas commenting on the disciplined life of the artist writes, “Artists, who must learn to submit to the medium in which they work, demonstrate the kind of training necessary for any of us to see the world rightly.” (Hauerwas, “Fully Human; Art And The Religious Sense.” Image Number 60 (2009): 103) But the regiment of an artist is not just an analogy or a paradigm for the well-ordered life of a Christian, it is reflective of true Christian embodiment. Just as the ascetic directs the body to God, the dancer can likewise make room in the body for God to nourish self and others. What makes anyone want to exert such effort? Love—therefore, Jones is correct, “Love must have a body.” (Mark of His Wounds, p.108)
A theology of embodiment is crucial for our technical age, with our rational ethos. The Church needs dancers, painters, and actors to teach us how to inhabit our bodies. Christians are called to be present in space and know how to move in space with real presence in order for love to take shape physically. Let us, then, offer up to God our bodies and our bodies of work and begin to praise him. Let’s dance.
--Maria
Stanley Hauerwas commenting on the disciplined life of the artist writes, “Artists, who must learn to submit to the medium in which they work, demonstrate the kind of training necessary for any of us to see the world rightly.” (Hauerwas, “Fully Human; Art And The Religious Sense.” Image Number 60 (2009): 103) But the regiment of an artist is not just an analogy or a paradigm for the well-ordered life of a Christian, it is reflective of true Christian embodiment. Just as the ascetic directs the body to God, the dancer can likewise make room in the body for God to nourish self and others. What makes anyone want to exert such effort? Love—therefore, Jones is correct, “Love must have a body.” (Mark of His Wounds, p.108)
A theology of embodiment is crucial for our technical age, with our rational ethos. The Church needs dancers, painters, and actors to teach us how to inhabit our bodies. Christians are called to be present in space and know how to move in space with real presence in order for love to take shape physically. Let us, then, offer up to God our bodies and our bodies of work and begin to praise him. Let’s dance.
--Maria
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Gold Rush!
Before I moved to
In the Screwtape Letters Off-Broadway, Max McLean portrays a voracious demon surviving on human souls for food. During one of his disdainful lectures on “tempting”, he quips that the best way to destroy a human’s spiritual potential is to keep them always focused on the future or past, never enjoying present pleasures or provisions. It's the kind of joke that gets a knowing chuckle from the audience, as we all recognize in ourselves a constant striving for more. In a similar way, a ravenous pursuit of recognition detracts us from our true callings as artists in the city: to enjoy and to become the gift of God. God became a Gift for us in Christ, and we are meant to become like Christ who was a servant to all. So what has become our gold, our treasure? For what reward do we walk by the riverbed with pans jangling? What drives us as we write, rehearse, network, audition, study, design, paint, perform and collaborate?
Recently I came across a video of Bill T. Jones accepting a commission to create a new work. His stark humility and brazen generosity remind me of what a gift it is to be an artist: To have this food for our souls, and to be able to extract meaning from living in a way that is transferrable to others. I’m reminded that I must continue my journey as an artist for some other reason beyond recognition. Even in
Take care in the city, friends. I hear there's gold in that river!
Kenyon
Video of Bill T. Jones, Receiving a commission
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt3fdKj-P6Y&feature=related
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Word and Deed
Genesis Chapter 1 portrays the transcendent God creating the world through speech. At the pinnacle of God’s creation is humanity. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” is the decree God imparts to the male and female in Genesis 1:28. Genesis chapter 2 depicts a more intimate God, physically handling materials and transforming them into his creations. The dust of the newly created earth becomes an aspect of mankind. “By means of the mysterious ed [moisture], the dry, dead earth became admamah, living Earth.” (Kessler and Deurloo, A Commentary on Genesis, p. 42)
In Genesis 1, God creates through speech; in Genesis 2, God fashions life through his hands. All that exist comes into being through word and deed. In the same way, the New Testament portrays Jesus bringing life through both command and action. In Luke 5 he instructs the paralytic to get up and go home. While a few verses before, Jesus touches an unclean leper and orders him to be clean. But, my favorite story is that of the Centurion, found in Luke 7 and Matthew 8, who astonished Jesus with his faith. In this narrative work and command are tied together through the job details of a pagan official. When the Centurion commands, action is demanded. This is a fact from his daily life. Faith, then, for the Centurion is not a personal preference, it is a fact. If he can command action, the creator of the universe can work beyond earthly expectations. One may surmise how the Centurion holds an integrated faith and work theology, being able to see through his work, the shape of kingdom life.
For Christians, stories, poems, commands, warnings, and songs shape our lives. Words work their way into our being and doing. Through them God speaks truth, but he also gracefully eases his wisdom through our daily activities of work, play, and worship. The Centurion understood how all of life comes under God’s sphere of influence. Perhaps he perceived, like the psalmist, how the skies proclaim the work of God’s hands; how day after day they pour forth speech. Psalm 19 tells us the “commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” God’s commands, his words to us, illuminate the works of Jesus, Word and Flesh. Artists rely on both God’s words and his deeds in order to abundantly create through both.
In Genesis 1, God creates through speech; in Genesis 2, God fashions life through his hands. All that exist comes into being through word and deed. In the same way, the New Testament portrays Jesus bringing life through both command and action. In Luke 5 he instructs the paralytic to get up and go home. While a few verses before, Jesus touches an unclean leper and orders him to be clean. But, my favorite story is that of the Centurion, found in Luke 7 and Matthew 8, who astonished Jesus with his faith. In this narrative work and command are tied together through the job details of a pagan official. When the Centurion commands, action is demanded. This is a fact from his daily life. Faith, then, for the Centurion is not a personal preference, it is a fact. If he can command action, the creator of the universe can work beyond earthly expectations. One may surmise how the Centurion holds an integrated faith and work theology, being able to see through his work, the shape of kingdom life.
For Christians, stories, poems, commands, warnings, and songs shape our lives. Words work their way into our being and doing. Through them God speaks truth, but he also gracefully eases his wisdom through our daily activities of work, play, and worship. The Centurion understood how all of life comes under God’s sphere of influence. Perhaps he perceived, like the psalmist, how the skies proclaim the work of God’s hands; how day after day they pour forth speech. Psalm 19 tells us the “commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” God’s commands, his words to us, illuminate the works of Jesus, Word and Flesh. Artists rely on both God’s words and his deeds in order to abundantly create through both.
--Maria
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
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
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
Monday, July 19, 2010
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
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
Monday, June 28, 2010
Looking without seeing
[We’re sorry it’s been so long since we posted something new – it was a very busy spring! We hope you’ve been enjoying your summer so far…]
So, those of you who know me well have been wondering just how long it would take before I went on a rant. Here we go….
My husband and I have enjoyed visiting Washington, DC twice in the last two years. It’s cheap and easy to get to from NYC, you don’t need a car to get around, and the museums are free (relatively speaking – they are directly supported by our taxes). A year ago when we visited DC for the first time since childhood, we were disappointed that what we remembered as one of our favorite museums, the National Museum of American History, was closed for renovations. So, when we went this spring, we were eager to visit that museum and the Museum of Natural History, which we had also skipped a year ago because we were frustrated by massive numbers of school groups. (Okay, so neither of these are art museums…but bear with me for a few minutes, I’ll be making a point that applies to art.)
We were first shocked to find that American History Museum no longer actually displays artifacts – at least, not many. What we both loved about the museum as children was the sheer quantity of really cool stuff. Now, one or two objects might be displayed alongside large displays of “context” – signage with photographs and text, an interactive video, etc. – telling you about the importance of the artifact, suggesting how to think about it, and encouraging you to have a personal interaction with it. Although (according to their website), “The Museum has more than 3 million artifacts in its collection,” I’d be surprised if even 300 are actually on display today in the new, re-envisioned museum which is finding “new ways to present the objects of our nation's past.” Um…was there a problem with the old way?
Then we went to the Museum of Natural History. We failed in our effort to time our visit around the swarming schoolchildren and teenagers, so we stepped over and through them to get to the exhibitions we wanted to see. I remembered being gobsmacked, as our British friends would say, by the Hope Diamond as a child, and the rest of the gemstone collection, so we visited it.
The gems were incredible – but I was amazed to see that, instead of actually looking at the pieces, the schoolchildren (and their adult chaperones!) were instead compulsively photographing them, one after another, rushing as quickly as possible through the exhibition to be sure they got to see everything.
We had noticed this on our previous trip, too, at the amazing Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, which is made up of numerous statues and other creative interpretations of FDR’s presidency. A group of pre-teens – with T-shirts from a Christian school, no less – raced through the memorial, posing with the statues for photographs, and never actually took time to see the pieces and be affected by their meaning.
Imagine yourself here…sitting on FDR’s knee…or petting the nice doggie….
To have an experience of anything – whether it is a historical artifact, a beautiful piece of human craftsmanship, or a tribute to a great man – requires attention. Attention, in turn, requires an absence of distractions (like multiple layers of “context”), plenty of time (which might require being selective), and focused sensory engagement (looking, listening, touching, tasting, smelling, or moving).
Has life started to move so fast that we are afraid we’ll miss something if we pay attention? Does interacting with something, inserting ourselves into it, make it “ours”? Are we so fearful that another beautiful experience will never come again, that we feel the need to capture and hold onto it, even if only in a photograph?
1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Perhaps, really attending to what we have here – even if it is only as a digital photo of the Hope Diamond is to the real thing – can lead us to a greater eagerness and hope and joy now about what we will experience then.
--Luann
So, those of you who know me well have been wondering just how long it would take before I went on a rant. Here we go….
My husband and I have enjoyed visiting Washington, DC twice in the last two years. It’s cheap and easy to get to from NYC, you don’t need a car to get around, and the museums are free (relatively speaking – they are directly supported by our taxes). A year ago when we visited DC for the first time since childhood, we were disappointed that what we remembered as one of our favorite museums, the National Museum of American History, was closed for renovations. So, when we went this spring, we were eager to visit that museum and the Museum of Natural History, which we had also skipped a year ago because we were frustrated by massive numbers of school groups. (Okay, so neither of these are art museums…but bear with me for a few minutes, I’ll be making a point that applies to art.)
We were first shocked to find that American History Museum no longer actually displays artifacts – at least, not many. What we both loved about the museum as children was the sheer quantity of really cool stuff. Now, one or two objects might be displayed alongside large displays of “context” – signage with photographs and text, an interactive video, etc. – telling you about the importance of the artifact, suggesting how to think about it, and encouraging you to have a personal interaction with it. Although (according to their website), “The Museum has more than 3 million artifacts in its collection,” I’d be surprised if even 300 are actually on display today in the new, re-envisioned museum which is finding “new ways to present the objects of our nation's past.” Um…was there a problem with the old way?
Then we went to the Museum of Natural History. We failed in our effort to time our visit around the swarming schoolchildren and teenagers, so we stepped over and through them to get to the exhibitions we wanted to see. I remembered being gobsmacked, as our British friends would say, by the Hope Diamond as a child, and the rest of the gemstone collection, so we visited it.
The gems were incredible – but I was amazed to see that, instead of actually looking at the pieces, the schoolchildren (and their adult chaperones!) were instead compulsively photographing them, one after another, rushing as quickly as possible through the exhibition to be sure they got to see everything.
We had noticed this on our previous trip, too, at the amazing Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, which is made up of numerous statues and other creative interpretations of FDR’s presidency. A group of pre-teens – with T-shirts from a Christian school, no less – raced through the memorial, posing with the statues for photographs, and never actually took time to see the pieces and be affected by their meaning.
Imagine yourself here…sitting on FDR’s knee…or petting the nice doggie….
To have an experience of anything – whether it is a historical artifact, a beautiful piece of human craftsmanship, or a tribute to a great man – requires attention. Attention, in turn, requires an absence of distractions (like multiple layers of “context”), plenty of time (which might require being selective), and focused sensory engagement (looking, listening, touching, tasting, smelling, or moving).
Has life started to move so fast that we are afraid we’ll miss something if we pay attention? Does interacting with something, inserting ourselves into it, make it “ours”? Are we so fearful that another beautiful experience will never come again, that we feel the need to capture and hold onto it, even if only in a photograph?
1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Perhaps, really attending to what we have here – even if it is only as a digital photo of the Hope Diamond is to the real thing – can lead us to a greater eagerness and hope and joy now about what we will experience then.
--Luann
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