Beauty and Who We Are Becoming

When thinking about what it means to be human, it seems like a lot of theologians begin with the doctrine of the imago Dei (that we are made in the image of God).  In contrast, biblical theologian, Walter Brueggemann, does not start his theological anthropology with the imago Dei. Instead, it is the kiss of the Holy Spirit that brings Adam and Eve to life that is the foundational relationship between humanity and God. We are literally kissed by God into life, thus, Brueggeman contends, we should begin our theological anthropology with intimacy and relationship rather than with our "likeness" to God.  


I think that Brueggemann's model goes well with the idea that the doctrine of the imago Dei is much more about beauty and resonance than about whether or not we are inherently good or inherently bad. We are already in the image of God, but we need to play and practice into the fullness of that image. As my priest, Mother Melissa, preached this Sunday, the banquet is set but we are starving. The invitations were sent out, but we refuse to come to the wedding feast for one reason or another. What keeps us away? Shame, forgetfulness, busyness, indifference? 


One reason we avoid the feast is that beauty requires something of us. Many forms of beauty are not immediate to our senses. The deepest forms of beauty "pull us in" but are sometimes initially repulsive or strange. To know beauty we need learn its language and be transformed by its 'otherness'. Just like with a foreign language, we can never really know the meaning of even the simplest words until we are fluent. Here is Annie Dillard's take,

“Beauty itself is the language to which we have no key; it is the mute cipher, the cryptogram, the uncracked, unbroken code. And it could be that for beauty, as it turned out for French, that there is no key, that ‘oui’ will never make sense in our language but only in its own, and that we need to start all over again on a new continent, learning the strange syllables one by one." (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 107)

Beauty, in a spiritual sense, requires us to learn its "strange syllables one by one." We are transformed in the process but it is a long road to travel. If we go back to the metaphor of the feast, perhaps we need to learn to savor the good food offered to us rather than the junk food we may crave. We need to grow into the nourishment of this spiritual food, and to crave that which will make us flourish: body and soul. 

I am reminded here of the ending lines of George Herbert's poem, "Love": " 'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat,' so I did sit and eat."

'Spem in Alium' by Thomas Tallis

For all of you who are more visually driven, here is the song I played at the end of class this week. It shows all 8 of the choirs and all 40 parts. Thanks to the King Singers, we can get an idea of how complex this amazing piece is. Click on the link below to get to the video...

Spem in Alium, sung by the King Singers

James Alison in Tacoma

British theologian, James Alison, will be speaking in Tacoma this Friday night, September 30, 2011. The title of his talk is, "Practicing Hospitality in Polarizing Times." Alison is a Catholic theologian who has a lived into and lived out theology. I have never met him, but am intrigued by the way he articulates and lives out the gospel.
Here is the quip from the flyer:

In Practicing Hospitality in Polarizing Times, James will discuss the challenges of the Gospel, drawing from his experiences as a priest and a teacher who is an openly gay man, his work setting up an LGBT pastoral ministry in São Paulo, and his dreams of an outreach for at risk youth and rent boys. 

The talk is at Urban Grace Church in Tacoma and starts at 7PM (doors open at 6:30). There will be a dessert and discussion immediately following.

Location: Urban Grace Church 902 Market St. Tacoma, WA 98402 
Sponsors: Center for Transforming Mission | Urban Grace Church | St. Leo Church | Leadership Foundations

Sex & Gender

This week we are talking about the doctrine of God, creation, and gender, so I thought I would give some links to a few online discussions/articles about these topics. I have more reading (as always) if you are interested in doing further reading.

The Other Journal #7: Gender & Sexuality Issue (has an interview with Dan...)

Sarah Coakley on the Church's "Sex Crisis" (in three parts)

Another Reason to Watch Football

Can American football help us know God better? Well, maybe. And here is a song to help us along the way. Maybe you can sing this at your church during this NFL season!

Read My TOJ Article

Check out my new article in The Other Journal:

"Hobbits, Heroes, and Football"

OK, it is not overly scholarly, but it is fun. It starts with my reflections from a Seattle Seahawks game when I went to play with Alice in Chains at the halftime show. And yes, that's me rockin' it with sunglasses and headphones! That is the coolest I will ever be...

Makoto Fujimura: Praying in an Age of Lamentation

Ten years ago, on September 10th, 2001, my husband and I were finishing our last minute packing and saying good-bye to friends. We were leaving early the next morning for Scotland. We had sold our house and most of our possessions and we were moving half way around the world to follow the dream of higher education. What I could never have anticipated was that the following morning I would be greeted with the words, "I don't think we will be moving today. Terrorist's have attacked the World Trade Center." I couldn't comprehend what my husband Dave was telling me. I quickly ran to the TV and saw the footage. Neither tower had yet collapsed but the damage was clear.


I then realized that I needed to call my parents. They should know that Dave and I were still in Seattle, not on an airplane somewhere over the US. My mother was already at work but I caught my father at home. I quickly said that we were still in Seattle and weren't sure what was going to happen. He had no idea what I was talking about, until he turned on the news. As we talked we watched in horror as the first of the towers collapsed. And then he voiced what many of us thought at the moment, "Things will never be the same."


All air traffic was halted, planes in the air were rerouted to Canada, and everything was confusion and chaos. Dave got on the phone and got us booked on the next flight possible, the morning 15th of September, but there was no guarantee that planes would be back in the skies over the US by then. We spent the week watching the news, hearing military jets zoom overhead (no commercial air traffic), and talking with our friends. For that first day or two, everything was shut down: schools, government buildings, businesses. Americans sat inside their homes and waited in fear. What would happen next? 


Dave and I wondered if it was a good time to move to a foreign country. Was the US about to launch into a world war? Everything felt uncertain, but as the week wore on we knew that it was the right thing to move to Scotland. 


So we packed up our things once more and headed off to the airport the following weekend. We were there before 5AM but Sea-Tac was packed with people who were still stranded in Seattle. In line we heard stories of frustration and exhaustion as people who had been sleeping in the airport since the 11th tried desperately to get home. It was unclear which planes, if any, were leaving that day so we all stood in line waiting to hear an announcement about scheduled flights. Finally they called our flight and we got checked in at a special station. 


The first leg of our flight to the UK landed at JFK in New York. As we flew over NYC, the passengers were eerily still and quiet. Hardly anyone looked out the windows, at least on purpose. As we circled around for our landing, I couldn't help but see out the windows at the smoke rising up from the World Trade Center. Almost a week later and the fires were still burning and smoldering. To be honest, I didn't know what to think or to feel. The silence inside the airport was haunting. Here, at the point were many lives, nations, and cultures intersected, people from all walks of life were in shock. We all just sat there mesmerized by wide-spread grief and trauma. 


The rest of the trip was characterized by exhaustion and waiting, as well as a somber celebration of my birthday over a greasy breakfast in Heathrow airport. Once in St. Andrews, for at least a month we felt utterly displaced and fragmented, but nothing compared to those who lived at Ground Zero in New York or the family and friends of those who died in the attacks in rural Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, and New York City. 

Makoto Fujimura, Shalom (lithograph on thin paper)

This past summer, I encountered Makoto Fujimura's writings about his experience of life at Ground Zero. I was deeply moved by his compassion for his family (especially his son who was at school near the WTC and had to run with his teacher and classmates to escape the destruction) and others who were attempting to piece life back together after the attacks. With so much death and destruction in your own backyard, how in the world do you stay in the city and how can you ever learn to pray again (or for the first time)? Fujimura's words and paintings explore the vulnerable presence of God in such times, without expectation of response or devotion. He and his studio mate provided space for Ground Zero artists to exhibit their artistic endeavors and questioning, often works in progress that would never be finished. 


Fujimura's call to his community of TriBeCa was for Shalom, not an easy or comfortable word to live. In an essay written for Image Magazine in response to 9/11, Psalms and Lamentations: Fallen Towers and the Art of Tea (there is a longer version of this essay in Fujimura's book, Refractions), he talks of his message to his friends in the days following 9/11. He asserted that artists had a responsibility to create and point beyond the fear. 

Create we must, and respond to this dark hour. The world needs artists who dedicate themselves to communicate the images of Shalom. Jesus is the Shalom. Shalom is not just the absence of war, but wholeness, healing and joy of fullness of Humanity. We need to collaborate within our communities, to respond individually to give to the world our Shalom vision.

Prayer, lament, and creativity seem to intermingle in his imagination. In the decade since 9/11, Fujimura's own work is evidence of this call toward articulating Shalom. On the Patheos Blog Portal, Fujimura shares and explains some of his visual language of lament (although the quality of the images is much better on his website: www.makotofujimura.com). Our creativity must give language not only to our sorrow but should also articulate the greater truth of peace and wholeness. War and fear are only corruptions of the good, they are not the good in and of themselves. We must all witness to the fullness of Shalom revealed in Jesus, who is the one who came to claim us as his own. The redemptive movement of Jesus and the Holy Spirit are evident in the crazy world, if only we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

May we work, with all our creative energies and capacities, toward patterns of peace and wholeness throughout the created order, wherever and to whomever we are called. Thanks Mako for your vision of Shalom that transcends the darkness. May we heed the call today and every day.

And so I wish you peace. Not an easy peace, not an insignificant peace but the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Separated By a Common Language

One of the most critical tasks in the discipline of theology is to understand and define terminology. A rookie mistake is to assume that a theological term has a static meaning, or that it has the same meaning today that it had when the theologian used it, even if only a few years ago much less 1500. I often think of theological terminology as little presents packed tightly with multiple objects inside just sitting and waiting for us to open and explore. But to understand the terminology we have to be willing to do the hard work of sorting through how the language is used.

I remember teaching on the Nicene creed a few years ago when a student challenged the phrase "begotten not made." This student assumed that the term 'begotten' simply meant 'was given birth to' thus missing the theological struggle to articulate the eternal nature of the distinction-yet-unity of the Father and the Son and that the Son is 'eternally begotten' of the Father. (As the creed says, Jesus is homoousios to patri - of one being with the Father.) Theology, on the whole, is a struggle to articulate the wondrous mystery of the God who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. To reduce the language is to miss the mystery.

I think this is why so many people get frustrated with theology. Why can't the language be straight-ahead and easy to comprehend? Why are words often recategorized or reframed by theologians? But as many orthodox and heretical theologians have found, language that attempts to encapsulate that which is uncontainable or to make visible that which is invisible is bound to be difficult to comprehend. In the words of Rogers and Hammerstein, "How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?" If the nuns in the Sound of Music couldn't solve a problem like Maria, then how can we, mere mortals, ever expect to articulate the fullness of the being of God?

The theologian, Colin Gunton, talked about this as the quest to find "the least inadequate language" in which to articulate the being of God. So, no wonder we sometimes feel as if we are separated by a common language. We have to take the time hear how we each use our terminology and then we can enter into a dialogue. And sometimes it seems as if we are simply speaking with a different accent. Do we have the patience to listen and then respond, even when the other person doesn't understand. Hearing then becomes a primary task in the discipline of theology, but we often have trouble understanding one another. And in this process, we sometime ascribe wrong beliefs to the other, simply because they are using their terminology differently. Learning to listen is a spiritual discipline as well as an academic one, and we are all called to this task whether or not we are professional theologians...

So, to poke a bit of fun at this great theological task, here is video to make you think and, I hope, laugh...

Les Paul Doodle Has a Home!

I just read that google's Les Paul doodle has a permanent home. So go play!:

• Les Paul doodle

The Necessity of Play

OK, I know that I am not alone! The googledoodle over the past few days has been a joyous distraction as I have struggled to finish my syllabi for next Fall. I keep trying to write little songs, but the reality is that I have very little control with the mouse pad on my laptop. I can't seem to keep good time (my violin teachers never gave me exercises for finger strumming on my laptop!), and the limitations of the string combinations confound my creative impulse (OK, I listen to way too much 20th century music). However, I find such joy in the play that I keep returning to the googledoodle to, well, doodle about. :-)

Then I was reading in the NY Times and noticed that the man who created Mad Libs died this week. Leonard Stern was a TV writer and producer for most of his life. He wrote for such shows as "The Honeymooners," "The Steve Allen Show" and "Get Smart." According to the NYT article, he came up with the idea while writing for "The Honeymooners" but it wasn't until "The Steve Allen Show" that Mad Libs came to life. Stern convinced Allen to introduce each of his guests with a Mad Lib, inviting the audience to contribute their nouns and adjectives to the mix. Stern once relayed one of his favorite introductions: "And here is the scintillating Bob Hope, whose theme song is 'Thanks for the Communist'!"

• Obituary for Leonard B. Stern

When I think of Mad Libs, I am taken back to my childhood, especially middle school and high school. My friends and I used to sit around for hours thinking of funny adjectives, verbs and nouns, creating silly stories. So many bus trips were spent passing Mad Libs from person to person and then reading the crazy story to the whole bus. We would all break into hysterics as words were used out of context and out of place to create non-sequiturs and the occasionally too true statement about one thing or another. Mad Libs helped my friends and I--throughout our adolescence--to play and relate together. Laughter and bonding are what I remember.

And so I have to say thank you to google, Les Paul and Leonard Stern. You have all helped us to stop and play in the midst of our very busy and serious lives. Thank you for the laughter, friendship and music.

If music be the food of play, strum on!

What is a Movie?

I was reading an interesting article in the NY Times today, "In Defense of the Slow and Boring." In this article, two film critics, Manhola Dargis and A. O. Scott, from the Times talk about what is 'boring' in movies. Along the way, they ponder what the medium of movies really is. Is it pure entertainment? Is it educational? Can movies be high art ('cultural vegetables' as one critic put it)? And do the various aspirations of film directors and producers (for another discussion see, "Uneven Growth for Film Studio with a Message") matter when it comes to what a movie really is?

If the 'medium is the message', can a medium, such as a movie, ever really get past its status as entertainment (or money making venture)? Can movies be high art? Political motivators? Do they need to be anything more than action, speed and romance (e.g., this summer's Thor)? And does money or attention span have the final say about what kinds of movies can be made?

I have no answers, but I am intrigued... What is a movie?

Fujimura's Letter to the Churches

I have been reading about Makoto Fujimura this week and ran across his "Open Letter to the North American Churches." Sometimes people ask me why I talk about the arts and theology or why artists, poets, dancers and musicians feel so sidelined by the church. It is almost a, "What's the big deal?" sort of conversation.

But here is the thing, how do you communicate to someone who does not know or understand the frustration of being welcomed in to the church, but being told that your gifts are not useful or appropriate? "If only you played the guitar or the piano" "If only you sang like 'so-and-so' then you could be on the worship team" "If only your painting was more immediate and less abstract, maybe people would understand your work..." "If only you thought more like the rest of us..." Well, I think this frustration is felt by many different people on different levels, but artists are uniquely sidelined and misnamed by the Evangelical church in particular.

One of my not so helpful inner (sometimes outer) rants used to be (sometimes still is), "Why is the music in the church geared toward those who really don't understand music? My musical education and training have made me irrelevant to the church I attend. Even worse, I hate the music and it makes me sit in the back and weep because it is so theologically and musically poor. I'm starving!" (I now go to a church that features Gregorian Chant, so I have side-stepped the issue altogether. However, I still wonder if this is the best way to deal with my disappointment and frustration with an Evangelical free church style of worship, but for now I am at peace in the midst of a more structured liturgical model.)

All this to say, Fujimura's letter sparked something within me. He articulates something of what I try to communicate and teach to my students, only much better. I'm still sorting this one out for myself, and I am thankful for any help along the way. Thanks, Mako! You give me hope.

• Fujimura's Letter to the Churches

Regent Summer School

I am teaching "Beauty, Brokenness and the Cross" up at Regent Summer School this July. I'm still looking for a few more students. Here is a blog post that describes the class on Evangelical Crossroads.

Tell your friends!

Freedom in the Groove

OK, I cannot help myself. Joshua Redmonds' album, "Freedom in the Groove," just makes want to get up and dance. This album gets inside my soul. From time to time I crave it in strange ways. I just have to hear that opening where he turns the horn into a percussion instrument of sorts, setting up the groove and the melody for the tune, "Hide and Seek." The solid subtly of the groove grabs me in an indescribable way.

And it is the whole album, from start to finish, that inspires me, but maybe I'll talk about the rest of the album another time, it deserves the attention. For now, here is Joshua Redmond and his band live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1997 playing "Hide and Seek." Maybe it won't be your cup of tea, but I hope it inspires something in you.

Jesus and the Meaning of Rainbows...

OK, you gotta check out this comic. I have to admit that I laughed and laughed! (How very irreverent of me...)

Oatmeal's Rollerblading Jesus

Intently Haphazard

Today's class discussion reminded me of a poem by Denise Levertov. I love the image of the intently haphazard movements of the dog. Who knows where we will go or what we will do if we follow the dog...

Overland to the Islands

Let's go—much as that dog goes,
intently haphazard. The
Mexican light on a day that
‘smells like autumn in Connecticut’
makes iris ripples on his
black gleaming fur—and that too
is as one would desire—a radiance
consorting with the dance.
                       Under his feet
rocks and mud, his imagination, sniffing,
engaged in its perceptions—dancing
edgeways, there's nothing
the dog disdains on his way,
nevertheless he
keeps moving, changing
pace and approach but
not direction—‘every step an arrival.’

Denise Levertov, Overland to the Islands, 1958

On Hope

I love the 'goodle doodle' today (Martha Graham dancers)! A few years ago, a student in one of my theology classes did a paper and presentation on gesture in dance as a theological space for envisioning and living into the distance between promise and hope in eschatology. 
      She used the gesture of Martha Graham in particular--as you can see in this picture. As Christians, we practice this distance between promise and hope on a regular basis. With the Psalmist, we cry out “How long, O Lord? How long?” Why do we have to wait for the fulfillment of both God’s lament in Jesus Christ as well as the divine protest found in Christ’s resurrection? We live in the in-between. Hope is the space where we practice this fulfillment in our lives. Faith propels us into this unknown yet anticipated future in God and are moved into a practice of love.
    I love thinking about how dance can help us to re-invigorate the ‘gesture’ of hope, of how we practice from here to there, from there to here. It is the fullness of the gesture (as demonstrated in Martha Graham's choreography) that forms our imagination. 
I was recently at the Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship conference where a number of papers reminded me of the potential of music to call to us and induce a response similar to Martha Graham's 'gesture of hope'. Dr. Ferdia Stone-Davis argued that musical beauty could move us from a place of disenchantment (a lack of hope) to a place of re-enchantment (hope). Time is reinvested with meaning and we are moved outward. Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson contended that a model of improvisation could help us understand how beauty can move us into a pattern of call and response. Again, that we are moved outward, moved into the action of faith and hope. Finally, Dr. Randolph Johnson did a paper on how Brahms in his German Requiem was able to sound out the fullness of the gesture of hope. In the Requiem, Brahms is able to hold together the paradoxical time/space of suffering, mourning and future glory. 
This is what Jeremy Begbie calls “redeemed time” in music. Music can take time and hand it back to us. Time is restructured (moves from disorder to order in the music) and we are able to sort through our thoughts and emotions. Especially when someone dies, we need this to help us grieve in healthy ways. I believe that music does not only sooth our pain, but can also help us feel deeply the loss of a loved one. Through the music we are able to gesture into the hope of our promised life in eternity with the triune God. We are not always able to believe in the promises of God fully, but we can practice into them. And I believe that music and dance can show us how expectant waiting can be formed in us. Come Holy Spirit!

Conference in Seattle

Christians for Biblical Equality are having their annual conference here in Seattle this summer. Our own Dr. Hollins will be one of the speakers. The title of the conference is "Building Biblical Community: Transforming Sex, Power and Prejudice" and will take place from July 29th through the 31st. Check it out!

On Beauty

Today was the first day of the Beauty class. Not surprisingly, we discussed our definition of 'beauty'. In honor of defining beauty, I thought I would share a quote from Annie Dillard about the mystery of it all...

“Beauty itself is the language to which we have no key; it is the mute cipher, the cryptogram, the uncracked, unbroken code. And it could be that for beauty, as it turned out for French, that there is no key, that ‘oui’ will never make sense in our language but only in its own, and that we need to start all over again on a new continent, learning the strange syllables one by one.”

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 107  

Arcabas

Arcabas, Resurrection, 2003 (part of a polyptych)

I want to introduce you to a French artist, Arcabas. My friend Kirstin introduced me to this artist a couple of years ago. The image I have here is toward the end of Aracabas' polyptych, Passion-Resurrection. (There is a video below of an instillation of this series. All of the paintings are thought provoking.) I find this image stunning. This is a very physical representation of Christ's resurrection, yet it still maintains a sense of the wonder and the glory of the defeat of death in this act of God. It shows the tension between the pain and the cost of the cross with the triumph over the grave. This is no image of a disembodied triumphalism. It is this Jesus that sits at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf. This Jesus, who went through death back to life, is the one who is our High Priest. I think that Arcabas captures this wondrous broken beauty of Jesus in ways that I don't yet understand. His art pulls me in and helps me to see the story anew...

Here are some links for you to check out:

• Kirstin's Article on ArtWay.eu
• Arcabas.com
• A video (in French) about an instillation of Arcabas' Passion-Resurrection polyptych
• Another video of the Church de St. Hughes de Chartreuse

A Poem for Easter Monday

Resurrection, Gaudenzio Ferrari, c. 1530

Seven Stanzas at Easter
by John Updike

Make no mistake
If he rose at all it was as his body;
If the cells' dissolution did not reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The church will fall.

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--
The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart that pierced, died, paused
Then gathered again out of enduring might
New strength to enclose.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb
Make it a real angel,
Opaque in the dawn light,
Weighty with Max Planck's quanta,
Robed in real linen spun on a definite loom.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Transcendence, making of the event a symbol,
A sign painted in the credulity of a vanished age;
Let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back:

Not papier mache, 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.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest awakened in an unthinkable hour
We are embarrassed by the miracle
And crushed by remonstrance.

A Poem for Holy Saturday

Easter Saturday by Elizabeth Rooney

A curiously empty day,
As if the world’s life
Had gone underground.
The April sun
Warming dry grass
Makes pale spring promises
But nothing comes to pass.

Anger
Relaxes into despair
As we remember our helplessness,
Remember him hanging there.
We have purchased the spices
But they must wait for tomorrow.
We shall keep today
For emptiness
And sorrow.

Idol vs Icon

I have struggled with the purpose and the reasoning behind "The Artist's Way" class that I taught this past term. But Dave just sent me a link to an article in Comment Magazine by Alison Wilkinson on Marion's distinction between the idol and the icon. She then links this distinction to social networking technology and our use of this technology.

It is strange, but she seems to get to the heart of my hopes for this class. It is not the creative act itself or self expression or even our participation in artsy things that moves us toward the 'spiritual life.' Are we moved past ourselves and are we moved past things and activities toward God? How does our practice and presence in the world move us in this 'transcendent' direction, yet at the same time not leave care for ourselves behind?

Creativity is a practice that moves in both of these directions. We are taken out of ourselves yet at the same time, through our encounter with art or creation or with the creative process we know ourselves. We can only know ourselves in the light of our encounter with others. Sometimes that 'other' is a painting (e.g., Rothko or Piccasso) or it is another person or experience (e.g., the therapeutic moment). But if we linger with the painting or the person or the moment too long, as if that is the very thing that we are searching for, then we slide into idolatry. The moment of transcendence is lost.

This is why I define 'spirituality' in relational terms rather than in experiential terms. To have a spiritual experience is not to have a spiritual life. We might be transformed in the moment, but it is how we live and practice life after that moment that truly transforms us.

Thus, spirituality is practice, it is what we do day to day and hour to hour. Creativity is a practice that can either turn us inward upon ourselves or open us outward toward others. But I would like to think that our participation in beauty (of all sorts) calls us outward into the world. We feel ourselves opened toward others and toward new experience. As this is a primary agency of the Holy Spirit, then we can identify how God works through our creative and artistic impulses in the world. We are moved into the world to make meaning and to create beauty in unlikely places.

All this to say, I think this is what the class was about... perhaps I am still attempting to articulate the mystery of life in the Spirit. We are creative beings who are moved by the Spirit. But do we have ears to hear and eyes to see what the Spirit is doing today and in the moment? May we be people of the Spirit. That is my prayer...

A Bit of Musical Fun...

OK, I don't know how to describe where I am sending you except that it is a bit addictive. The person who created this cite has provided a space to play with sound. In essence, it is a square of music that plays itself. You determine the notes by selecting different blocks. Give it a try:

• Musical Fun

Some End of the Term Humo(u)r

OK, now that most of your papers have been written, I thought you would like to laugh at others (or even yourselves; or is that ourselves or maybe others?). Here is a little help in how not to make spelling mistakes. Enjoy!

10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling (by The Oatmeal)

Music, Always Music...

Here is a favorite poem of mine. I think O'Saidhail does a good job of exploring the relationship between music and spirituality. Do you see/sense the Holy Spirit in the poem?

Music, always music. And when the violins tumble
a thief has entered me.
Come and gone.
A sneaking anarchy
leaving spoors of memories I never had.

Incognito. Whimpers through crevices and pores,
quick bowings of a violin,
furious pizzicato
of what hasn’t been
whinnies and hops beyond a future I imagine.
My vigilance breaks down. Rupture of being.

This  syncopation. Offbeat,
out of phase
with myself, I vibrate.
What’s this breathlessness I can’t catch up with?

That flight of thirds mincing up a treble
clef. Lines of joy.
Matrix of frontiers.
EVERY GOOD BOY
DESERVES FAVOUR. Silences are spelling FACE.

Endless glory of some muteness that eludes me.
Approach of another face,
tremolo of forsakenness
naked and homeless.
How can I fold and suckle all its orphanhood?

Music, always music. Neighbor, are you the face
of that thief breaking in,
Hollowing me out?
A tumbling violin
breathes its cries in me.
I’m womb and mother.

“Music,” by Micheal O’Siadhail, from A Fragile City

Why Creativity?

Matt and I were having a conversation the other day about why creativity is important. In some ways, it is the question of why have a class on creativity and spiritual formation. What difference does a creative life make for anyone? Is creativity a luxury? Is it necessary? Is it simply a lovely idea for those privileged few?

So, Matt sent this video to spark my imagination. (Thanks for the video!) I think it gets somewhere near where we want to go. Freedom to create. Freedom to be. But also freedom to be disciplined and work hard.

Let me know what you think... What is the creative life?

A Quote

After class today, I started to think about Kathleen Norris, so here is a quote for you all:

“We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and even ecstasy, but the human paradox is that we find these things by starting where we are, not where we wish we were. We must look for blessings to come from unlikely, everyday places—out of Galilee, as it were—and not in spectacular events, such as the coming of a comet. Although artists and poets have not been notoriously reverent in the twentieth century…the aesthetic sensibility is attuned to the sacramental possibility in all things.”

Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries

Poem Shared in Class

Hello to you all. I hope that you are having a lovely reading week. It looks like we will get snow sometime today... I hope my rosemary bushes survive...

I wanted to share the link to the poem shared by our own JEM in class the other day. Thanks for sharing with us.

• "Poem about My Rights" by June Jordan

On Synesthesia

I was watching a TED talk today by VS Ramachandran on the mind. About 17 minutes in he starts to talk about synesthesia, the crossing of the senses. As he is a scientist of the brain, he explains why it is--physically--that some people are more creative than others. Well, something like that. Why it is that some people can link more abstract concepts--such as metaphor--together and others cannot. Fascinating stuff.

The Book I was Referring to Today

Today I was talking about a book edited by Sherry Turkle. I just wanted to give you the name: Evocative Objects. I hope that you are able to rest and be restored during reading week. I also hope that you are able to read or paint or write or sing or play or ... something that is not required. 

Peace,

Chelle

  

On Beauty

Matt sent me this video after last week's class. Very provocative...

Rothko & Pollock

I realized today that I never put up the video about Rothko. I'll put up a couple just in case you are interested...



And I'll include a famous film by Hans Namuth of Pollock talking and painting. The quality is not that great, but very interesting. There is great avant gard music! About 6 minutes (or so) in is the most famous part of this painting. It shows Pollock painting on glass. You can see his brush strokes.

He Can Do the Fandango!

Here is an amazing example of creative adaptation and imaginative relationality. This is a video of Jake Shimbakuro playing "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the Ukelele. I know, I was skeptical as well... but was totally won over. You'll see!

Lecture This Wednesday

I would like to invite you all to attend Jon Stanley's Wednesday night lecture, "God is Dead and I don't Feel So Good Myself."  Here are the details:

Jon Stanley is a graduate of Mars Hill Graduate School and is currently working on his Ph.D. in philosophical theology with the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto (yes, in Canada).

What: Alumni Speaker Series (co-sponsored with The Other Journal and The Parish Collective)
Where: Mars Hill Graduate School
When: 7PM on Wednesday February 9th, 2011

Anne Lamott at Seattle University

Check out Seattle University's Search For Meaning Book Festival this Saturday, February 5th. It looks like Anne Lamott is speaking at 10:15. Let me know if you go!

Thinking about Today...

I often wonder about the relationship between art and spirituality. What does art do for people? But something does happen. I think that is the point. So what happens? And why creativity? I felt like I was struggling with these questions today...

Well, I'll bring it down a bit and point you to the Union Gospel Mission and their challenge to bring art to folks on the street (and one of our students leading the way!). Why do this kind of work? That is a great question. Take a look at this article that was on the front page of the Seattle Times this evening. We'll talk more next week...

"Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?"

So, is it fair to say that a party band articulates something of our hopes and longings in this world. What role does humor and play take in our formation as adults? (These are the questions that keep me awake at night, or is just the catchy tunes? "I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...")

Liturgy, as I am defining it in this blog series, is: "the articulation of our prayers and longings by a public persona or persons (e.g., a band)." There is something very powerful about having your own deepest hurts, sorrows, desires and joys articulated for you, especially in song. If there is a great beat or groove, all the better.

Queen is a great example of this. All throughout Jr. High and High School, the songs of Queen seemed to voice the angst and the playfulness of me and my friends. How many times did we sing "We will, we will rock you?" across a gym floor or at some kind of competition? Too many to count. The teenage angst of competition and the need to be noticed are not insignificant characteristics of the American adolescent. Now, you can argue whether or not this music is a liturgy that forms maturity or prolonged adolescence (an important conversation), but it is significant that when I randomly say to a group of people, "Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?" that a wide range of people answer with the following line... (I know you are thinking it...)

What is that? Why are we so drawn in? Why do the words stay with us for years and years? And why is it so fun? And do you know how to do the fandango?

One last question: What does the music of a band like Queen say about who we are? An important question to ask.

With that, I thought I would share a video, for your enjoyment. This is Queen's "Bohemian Rapsody" within the context of the movie, "Wayne's World." I have to say that "Wayne's World" does beg the question: is my generation stuck in adolescence? Thought this is a sobering question, I still have to laugh, and laugh a lot. What does that say about me? Hmmm...

How About that Fremont Abbey?

So, I just noticed that Fremont Abbey was featured in the Seattle Times. A great place for faith and art! Check it out!

• Fremont Abbey

Liturgy and Popular Music

I was thinking that I would start a series on the liturgical role of popular music. I think I'll start with Freddy Mercury... man that guy had a voice...

Check out this video:

Another Class, Another Post

Welcome to 'The Artist's Way' class. I hope that this is a place and venue in which we can play. For now, I will offer up the poem by Michael O'Siadhail that I used on our first day.

Enjoy!

Music, always music. And when the violins tumble
a thief has entered me.
Come and gone.
A sneaking anarchy
leaving spoors of memories I never had.

Incognito. Whimpers through crevices and pores,
quick bowings of a violin,
furious pizzicato
of what hasn’t been
whinnies and hops beyond a future I imagine.
My vigilance breaks down. Rupture of being.

This  syncopation. Offbeat,
out of phase
with myself, I vibrate.
What’s this breathlessness I can’t catch up with?

That flight of thirds mincing up a treble
clef. Lines of joy.
Matrix of frontiers.
EVERY GOOD BOY
DESERVES FAVOUR. Silences are spelling FACE.

Endless glory of some muteness that eludes me.
Approach of another face,
tremolo of forsakenness
naked and homeless.
How can I fold and suckle all its orphanhood?

Music, always music. Neighbor, are you the face
of that thief breaking in,
Hollowing me out?
A tumbling violin
breathes its cries in me.
I’m womb and mother.

“Music,” by Micheal O’Siadhail, from A Fragile City