Jen's Offering: 'Writings' & 'Eucharist'

'Writings' (Painting)
'Eucharist' (Song) (I'm experiencing technical difficulties, so I hope to have the song up soon!)

Thoughts from Courtney on "Seredipity"

[Chelle's post on Serendipity] reminds me of Steve Taylor's advice to Donald Miller to be a working artist and "put in his hours". As a storyteller, I think of seminary as "putting in my hours" in some ways. The art we make happens out of what we are immersed in, right? I can't force a serendipitous discovery in rehearsal…but I can rehearse. I can't seem to write performances that reveal God…but I can revel in the revelation I've received and just keep performing. Chelle, you asked "how do these moments happen?"
Is it merely a matter of "noticing"? That language makes me think I could train my senses to sneak up on serendipitous moments and take them by force if I'm self disciplined enough. I do believe in the discipline that keeps our eyes and ears open and ready to receive the beautiful…but isn't there an element of gifting there? It's serendipitous because I wasn't seeking it---but I found it. Or Someone gave it to me.

I guess I'm trusting at some point that the sun will set just right and the people will stand and listen and eventually sit on the grass while I'm telling my story. It will be Serendipity born in the midst of discipline? I'm not saying that one comes from the other, but they definitely seem to touch. I guess I'm left with the same question: How DO these moments happen? I don't know, but thank God they do!

-Courtney

a thought from this summer... or "pat the puppy"

Last night I had a "pat the puppy" moment (a la Annie Dillard). My husband and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went to Green Lake to hear a friend's bluegrass band. They were set up down from the Bathhouse next to the path.

The music was fun and enjoyable to listen to--I really like that old-timey harmony! I sat back, listened to the music, watched the people, watched the dogs, watched the people with their dogs (lots of dogs) and observed people's reactions to the music. For one thing, the band was really good. When you are walking around Green Lake, you don't expect to come across a good bluegrass band. So, people would stop and stand. Then they would move closer. Then they would come and sit down. Of course, there were those who started to dance, but that never lasted very long. I think everyone was amazed by and drawn to the music. The audience came and went, but everyone seemed, well amazed is not the right word, they seemed delighted and surprized. Serendipity. (The faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.)

This moment of joy and discovery came and went very quickly (almost as soon as I noticed it), but I was there, under the fading blue sky of a warm Seattle evening listening to music, content with the world.

How do these moments happen? Random beauty surrounds us, yet we rarely stop to notice. We have no ears to hear nor eyes to see. We just don't have the time, or don't take the time to truly live where we are.

A few years ago, Joshua Bell, one of the great violinists of our time, participated in a little experiment. A reporter in Washington thought it would be great to set up Bell as a busking violinist in the subway. They were worried that they might cause quite a scene and were prepared for crowds and a bit of chaos. What they were not prepared to face was indifference. Only about two people (out of over 1,000) stopped to hear him play. Only one really recognized him (she had just heard him perform a few weeks earlier). Indifference rather than serendipity. Random beauty ignored.

Here are a couple of articles about Joshua Bell's experiment, if you are interested:

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/04/06/DI2007040601228.html

I don't know if there is really anything that we can really learn from this. We all have our moments of "noticing". However, if we don't ignore something at one time or another, then we would be overwhelmed by it all--not just the beauty. "How could any human being endure such ravishment of the senses, every hour of every day for many winters and summers?" But if we don't look, hear and touch, how will we ever experience serendipity?

Yet we prepare for a great music, and we want to be ready to play when the time comes.

Serendipity to you!

Chelle

A New Class, but an Old Blog

I thought that it would be fun to start including this blog in our class. It may be that you love having a class blog, or that you choose simply to ignore its existence. However you view this, it is here.

What is the class? The Artist's Way. No, we are not using the book. Why not? I'm not really sure, I just wanted to teach this class differently.

Anyway, I thought that I would let one of you, yes you students, have the first word; via Maritain. Here is a thought from Jen G!! Thanks, Jen.

"Since the community needs art and artists, the community has certain duties toward them. Just as the writer must be responsible, so must the community.

In actual fact what the artist, the poet, the composer, the playwright expects from his fellowmen, as a normal condition of development for his own effort, is to be listened to, I mean intelligently, to get a response, I mean an active and generous one, to have them cooperate with him in this way, and to feel himself in a certain communion with them, instead of being confined, as happens so often nowadays, in an intellectual ghetto.

This means that the primary duty of the human community toward art is to respect it and its spiritual dignity, and to be interested in its living process of creation and discovery. It is no more easy or arbitrary to judge a work of art than to judge a work of science or philosophy. A work of art conveys to us that spiritual treasure which is the artist's own singular truth, for the sake of which he risks everything and to which he must be heroically faithful. We should judge of it as the living vehicle of this hidden truth; and the first condition for such a judgment is a kind of previous consent to the intentions of the artist and to the creative perspectives in which he is placed. In judging of the artistic achievements of their contemporaries, people have a responsibility, both toward the artist and toward themselves, insofar as they need poetry and beauty. They should be aware of this responsibility."

- Jacques Maritain in The Responsibility of the Artist, 89-90

Well, I hope that we will have more thoughts to share about life, spirituality and the vocation of the artist. Until then, go in peace and serve the Lord.

-Chelle