spin off #2: art and soul

Sometimes I ask friends, when we are past the "where do you work, where did you grow up" part of a relationship, what really makes them tick. My theory is that this might tell me more about a person than what they actually do as a career or spend their free time on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My rational for being so interested in this question, I think, partially comes from my own struggle with being an artist, not trying to justify it as a monetary exploit, but as something that has deeper value which I believe is important to not overlook. I've tried to stop disclaiming my creative side, since I believe it to be a gift, and a gift is not meant to be thrown back. This perspective makes me want to tease this X-factor out of other people who might also be sneaking around with their soul hidden on the inside. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second reason I think I'm interested in this question comes from an old friend who phrased and rephrased it enough times to make it stick to me. He was the one who first asked me, "what scenario is it that makes you feel truly alive" and then suggested that something about that scenario said something deep and integral about me. I've never really quit mulling that over. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I went to a church a while back, where this guy named Jeremy was speaking. He was a pastor at a church in Whistler- which I'm not sure is to say something about his lifestyle or the lifestyles of those he aims to pull from lives of degraded snowboarding... In any case, a friend apologized for his sermon after, saying that Jeremy had wandered around without ever getting anywhere- which is fairly true, but since I felt he was talking to artists, i think it might have made sense to those whose brains don't make sense on a strictly "sense" level. Frankly, art points to truth and truth of experience in a way that empirical data just can't. At least, that's how i feel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So he gets talking about how beautiful Victoria's architecture is, and how one could feel the presence of God in the Royal Conservatory building and he goes on, saying that "what's going on is that artists... can point us to the creator... have a very unique role in the church in that through [their] creativity and through what [they] create [they] have the joy and the privilege of pointing people to the Creator, And so often what happens with [the artist's] work is that they become signposts- they become guideposts, pointing the lost and the wondering to where Jesus is.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I thought that that was a rather beautiful idea. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeremy made mention of Romans 1:20, which suggests that creation gives testament to God. We, he concluded, as a part of God's creation, and a part of the redemptive process of our own creativity (as inherited from God for we see that God is creative and man is "made in his image") we, humans, can also participate in this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interesting... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I come back to the tree: just doing its job: standing there. Its very releasing to me to think that what i have to do, is not so complicated. Certainly one of the most moving lines in literature to me has been an oft-quoted one, but one of the few which has truly moved me emotionally. It is Gandalf to Bilbo- you probably know the one- its in the movie too. When Bilbo is feeling overwhelmed by the weight of his conditions Gandalf reminds him that he is not alone in his sentiment- but he cannot change conditions: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Jeremy asks, "What are you creating?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Its a simple question. Followed by the obvious next: has my creativity found its fullness in its giving Glory to God? Here is where I think the connection between discipleship and creativity is found. I think that Discipleship, in a big way, is finding wholeness through discipline in a world we consider fallen. It effects our creativity as it does the rest of our lives; optimizing its purpose, defining through discipline the inherent beauty from rough. Like art in itself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not saying that Christian disciples have a monopoly on this process, and surely not on art, creativity or beauty. But we also live in a world where all creation doesn't SEEM to point to God all the time. Poets have observed the tyger, the nymph and the spider and asked valid questions as "What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" Calvinists have done well to use the doctrine of "The Fall" to explain this; and i suppose i must also lean on this useful concept. However, I also want to believe that God has long been interested in redeeming the world- that it is an oft-dark canvas on which he paints his drama of light. If an artist can bear witness or play a part in this process, knowingly or not, I feel that they may find their creativity fulfilled. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If someone reading this observed me without knowing me they might cry hippocracy, since much of my art, i think, tends to the intense, the dark or possibly even the obscene. I don't know that I could apologize for this. I tease it out and try to define it in relation to God. I value honesty greatly and have reason to believe that God does more.I pray and I trust that even my honest life meanderings here on this blog have served in some simple way to point to God- not by saying "Praise, Praise!" but by being a creative creation and by living day-by-day in His grace.