the idea of the superhero has been a rich part of our cultural backdrop since before people were writing history down. cave paintings depict a coming together of worlds- great hunts involving great hunters. the timeless conflict in art and literature has been over whether it is more valuable, indeed more human, to depict that which is in the natural world or to depict that which could exist within the realm of the supernatural.
the monty python sketch Bicycle Repairman is sublime. in it we find a world of superheroes, all dressed like superman, living everyday lives through commonplace experiences: waiting patiently at the laundromat, taking the bus to the office, badly repairing potholes in the road, riding bicycles. yet when one particularly poor bicycle rider goes careening into a fence and wrecks his bike, none of his superpowers will save him.
he needs a new kind of hero- one who may not be able to fly or see through walls with x-ray vision, but who is gifted with deep insight into the principles governing how bikes work.
1 Corinthians 12.14-31 is the classic spiritual gifts passage, likening people and their respective giftings to basic body parts, reminding us that we are not to look down upon others because of their lack of expertise and giftedness in our areas of strength and blessing. however, upon closer look, there is a message at the beginning that is often overlooked...
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
see, many of us are terribly good at missing the affirmation here. we think that because we don't play an instrument or pray well in public or possess the unique ability to motivate 13 year-olds to actually read their bibles, our role in the church is probably somehow secondary.
yet in the world of supermen, the humble servant diligently using his gifts is the hero… regular people have within themselves the capacity to be instrumental in the realization of God’s redemption dream. could it be that we are all unwittingly superheroic, having been entrusted with gifts and endowments granted by God’s grace and mercy, and equipped and empowered to employ these gifts in a life-changing work, that we would see with our own eyes the day of the Lord?
perhaps our identity issues arise from growing up in smallville- a place where nothing amazing ever happens- a place where our true self is denied expression to the point where we forget who we truly are? perhaps we deny our superheroism- diminish it and understate it, rendering it fruitless by our own volition to the point where we no longer see our role in the work God intends to do here?
What are the characteristics of ClarkKent?
He’s weak… he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward.
ClarkKent is superman’s critique on the whole human race.
(Quentin Tarantino)
contemporary christian recording artist michael w. smith put the proverbial question of existence into words and music, effectively deconstructing the loaded "why am i here?" question into something so familiar to so many that it became a hit crossover single on secular radio in the early 90's...
The wind is moving but I am standing still A life of pages waiting to be filled A heart that's hopeful- a head that's full of dreams But this becoming is harder than it seems Feels like I’m looking for a reason Roaming through the night to find my place in this world My place in this world Not a lot to lean on I need your light to help me find my place in this world My place in this world
If there are millions down on their knees Among the many, can you still hear me Hear me asking where do I belong Is there a vision that I can call my own Show me… (Michael W Smith)
the quest begins with the questions. through them, God is given voice to speak in response… speaking our role in his work back into us, calling us into active service and reminding us of the things we’ve always known…
in the secret in the quiet place in the stillness you are there in the secret in the quiet hour i wait only for you i want to know you more
i am reaching for the highest goal that i might receive the prize pressing onward pushing every hindrance aside out of my way i want to know you more
open the eyes of my heart, Lord open the eyes of my heart i want to see you i want to see you
see you high and lifted up shining in the light of your glory pour out your power and love as we sing 'holy holy holy'
i want to know you i want to hear your voice i want to know you more i want to touch you i want to see your face i want to know you more
holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy i want to see you... (andy parks/ paul baloche respectively)
we need to be careful what we ask for, lest we get where God will open our eyes… we invite God to come and manifest himself when we join the elders, the angels and the heavenly creatures in singing “Holy Holy Holy”…
BUT when we sing this- when God may well intend to respond to our prayerful call/cry for vision and insight- we check our watches and start to get our stuff together so that we can do whatever it is that we’ve planned to do next…
what if, on this day, God said:
I want to pour vision and insight- my word and manifest presence- into this place to ready you for a work that I intend to do through you in this community, this city, this province, this country and to the ends of the earth…
Wait- where are you going? Don’t you want to see me? Don’t you want to hear my voice, touch my face, all like you said?
What do you mean ‘that was just a song?’
in the movie 'the notebook', james garner's character, noah, reads a love story to this elderly woman (played by gena rowlands) named allie that he regularly visits in a hospice. as the story of two young lovers progresses, the audience begins to pick up hints as to the identities of the characters in the story: the young man and the young woman in the story are noah and allie long before a debilitating mental illness claimed huge portions of allie's memory and personality. he reads to this stranger in hopes of calling back to himself, if only for a few minutes, the girl he fell in love with and has been with for decades. he reads the love story to call her back to her true identity and their mutual love. he reads and hopes.
near the end of the film, the veil falls and the recognition in her eyes and the warmth in her voice authenticates the transformation. she asks him how long they have (for she is, in the moments of lucidity, aware of her condition) and he confesses that the last time she returned it was only for five minutes.
all that hope and tireless perseverence and waiting for five minutes?
five minutes of what?
of true intimacy
of thingsbeing the way they were meant to be.
of relationship restored
of paradise regained
as heart wrenching as it seems, it appears as though five minutes of these things is worth it all...
they put some music on (irving kahal's I'll be seeing you) and dance together, sharing sweet words of love and intimacy, but when she starts to dream and to plan for a future, he cautiously says 'not tonight, darling'
but she's already gone. the time counter on the player says we're at about three minutes this time. his heart breaks yet again, and with it, the hearts of the audience watching the film.
i suspect this is a poignant enactment of something that takes place unendingly between God and his beloved- us. God moves closer and we, in a moment of lucidity recognize his face, giving both ourselves and God a taste of what once was; what was always meant to be; what can't really take place again until death from our fallenness reunites us forever.
and God's heart breaks again and again as he whispers 'not tonight, darling' while i'll be seeing you plays in the background. someday it will be different. someday it will be forever.
but until then, God keeps visiting, inviting us to remember by reading us an unending love story until that day when all the veils fall and the light and freedom of the eternal now replaces the shadows of this temporal causality cage that is life just east of eden.
I'll be seeing you In all the old familiar places That this heart of mine embraces All day through.
In that small cafe; The park across the way; The children's carousel; The chestnut trees; The wishin' well.
I'll be seeing you In every lovely summer's day; In every thing that's light and gay. I'll always think of you that way.
I'll find you In the morning sun And when the night is new. I'll be looking at the moon, But I'll be seeing you.
I'll be seeing you In every lovely summer's day; In every thing that's light and gay. I'll always think of you that way.
I'll find you In the morning sun And when the night is new. I'll be looking at the moon, But I'll be seeing you. (irving kahal)
God often uses symbols and metaphors- things like storms and floods and such- to communicate with people. The problem with speaking in metaphors and symbols is that people don’t always get them right away… and yet, if God were to come out shooting straight with humankind, one of two things might happen:
a) heads explode while bodies are consumed by holy fire. b) people would simply get used to God (perhaps this familiarity is what caused the rebellion back in Eden)
see, God knows his created well enough to know that he must temper his revelation, lest we become so familiar with the stuff of the mysteries of God that God’s presence and revelation no longer matter to us… they become the feeling of life and are dismissed in the same way that clean air, fresh water and savory food no longer cause us to pause and be thankful..
in the regular things, we regularly fail to grasp the deeper meaning. we miss the poetry of God. falling back upon our need for literal meanings and empirical reasoning.
but nothing gets our attention like a good storm.
my son tells a story of a kid that he went to school with in the early grades. his name was leroy.
leroy was a thrill seeker and was prone to try anything, especially if there was sufficient adrenaline rush involved. as a ten-year old, he had already discovered the correlation between personal danger and social esteem, and had become somewhat of a folk hero among the fifth graders. however, his greatest feat was still ahead of him...
until the day of the big storm when leroy's social status was elevated from folk hero to local legend.
it was a beautiful, sunny saskatchewan day in the late spring. however, as is true of most beautiful sunny saskatchewan days in late spring, the wind picked and and started to take over everything. as clouds began to gather and darken and the ubiquitous wind rose to sculpt them in real time, everyone on the playground was running for shelter and safety. leroy, however, turned and ran right back through the wind to the dustiest spot on the playground.
where he ran in circles.
faster and faster he ran, kicking up a tremendous amount of dust until he was barely visible at all to his schoolmates, all watching the spectacle from safely inside the building.
but amidst the dust and the wind and the circular run, something strange began to happen...
now years later, the kids, all much older and more sophisticated, reflect upon the scientific possibility of it all and the realization that some stories do grow in the telling. however, on that day and for a long time afterward, the only fitting assessment of what they had all witnessed was that
that was the day that leroy started the tornado.
seeing something happening and participating in it rather than fleeing from it…
what if one were able to measure the movement of the wind and build a merry go round right at the centre of where a storm were to touch down? what a ride that would be! hmm...
Q: what do we do when we hear that God is moving? A: head for the storm cellar? A: go out and play in it- embracing it and being embraced by it, participating in the stories of God that people will tell for decades, maybe even centuries…?
window weather: this is another sunny day, but i can't help noticing that the wind is picking up...
*youtube convergence credits: visuals from the wizard of oz and audio from great gig in the sky (pink floyd)... speaking of playing with serendipity, if you watch wizard of oz, having cued pink floyd's dark side of the moon cd on the third roar of the MGM lion at the beginning, you will experience one of the most interesting aesthetic coincedences ever discovered...
the first record bought with my own money wasn’t a cool one…it was a ktel compilation of novelty songs from the late 50's and early 60's called Looney Tunes that would still find favour among Mad magazine reading 12 year-olds in the 70's. being that i fit the demographic targetted by the marketing strategies employed (there was a silly commercial with bad animation that offered cartoon exerpts of a few of the songs, making them seem far more brilliantly satirical and emotionally satisfying than they actually were) i rushed down to the closest retail store and bought my own copy full price.on it was along came jones- a song of considerable melodrama performed by a group called the coasters... not the craziest song on the record, but perhaps the most spiritually meaningful.
mel·o·dra·ma
1.
a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.
(huge thanks, as usual, to www.dictionary.com and www.biblegateway.com)
sometimes, in our desire to understand and summarize a lesson in scripture, we can reduce it to the level of melodrama…the depth of God’s desire to redeem his own, the crowned of creation, from an agreed-upon autonomous existence hell-bent on self-destruction can often come off as a simple white-hat versus black-hat cartoon.
and then he grabbed her! (and then?) he tied her up! (and then?) he threw her on the railroad track! (and then?) a train started coming! (and then? and then?)
and then along came jones...
now, describing placing black hats and white hats upon real-life characters caught in a day to day existence on fallen planet earth is trickier than writing a simple plot with simple characters and putting it to music...
nothing is ever simple or tidy.
and yet scripture bears witness to the following through of God’s promises to remain involved. God promises a restoration of all things, and then takes humanity through a series of successive approximations, revealing in holy moments, glimpses of his glory; offering hope for the future of this fallen race in God’s bigger picture.
at the end of his second chapter, the prophet joel describes 'day of the Lord' and in this description we read of an incredible deliverance that is promised to 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.' the UK band delirious reflects upon this to some degree in a song of theirs called God's Romance which has a rather catchy and intriguing chorus:
Everyone here is the kingdom come Here is the God who saves the day And we will gladly run into the glorious Son Singing that Jesus is alive what i find so engaging about this lyric is the melodramatic, saturday morning superhero phrase: the God who saves the day.
being that we read the phrase 'the day of the Lord' so often in scripture to describe a time when, according to Gospel.com, "God will make his creation whole again and destroy evil," i find the melodrama of the God who saves the day accessible and attractive.
having watched too much tv as a kid, i remember the song along came jones being most poignantly enacted on the old irish rovers tv show…
in it, jones drove the train.
I don't care about economy, I don't care about astronomy But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets There's slow, slow train coming up around the bend. (Bob Dylan)
Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11.4)
zig·gu·rat
(among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians) a temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower, consisting of a number of stories and having about the outside a broad ascent winding round the structure, presenting the appearance of a series of terraces.
in my home town there is a ziggurat of sorts. upon a hill that is dangerously close to the local airport there is a beacon. this hill has trails that encircle the thing like the terraces on the ziggurati, allowing climbers young and old to take a one hour round trip hike to the summit and back. kids in gym class at the nearby high school regularly ascend this thing for credit, as do my 70 year-old parents, not so much for any credit as simply to stay agile and 'young.'
on holiday recently, i decided to ascend the ziggurat and talk to God about a couple things that were on my mind. now when the babylonians presumed to simply knock on heaven's door uninvited, God made it very clear that relationship with God had to be on God's terms. God treated me gently, but surprised me by doing all the talking when i climbed up to see him that warm day in july, 2008. honestly, i can't even remember what i was going to bring up for discussion. all i remember is what God taught me as i journalled at the summit:
***
the path:
others have gone before me. i can vaguely see their footprints. so much comes down to which path- which set of footprints i choose to follow.
my parents say it is a one-hour round trip to climb this hill... but they go the nice, well-travelled, gentle slope. so i'm thinking :
i'm way younger- i can go directly up the mountain- there is evidence all over it that others have done it and i'll make quick work of this thing... did i mention i'm way younger?
so i set out clambering frantically up the steep slope, scurrying over the scree, sweating grasping and gasping; pausing with trembling legs and burning lungs. i see the mountain pather running almost parallel to mine, but getting onto it would require descending a bit and i'm just too stubborn (that's the easy road) and i continue on my frantic own way.
eventually the gentle path meets mine and i conclude my morning climb leisurely... arriving at the summit at almost exactly forty-five minutes' climb. i save myself no time, but get a better workout, i suppose.
question is, at age seventy-four will i be interested in a better workout? will i be able to maintain this pace over the long haul or will mountain walks go the way of running marathons, swimming laps and pushing weights in the basement?
oh to be a long distance runner instead of a sprinter.
respect the river respect the rock
God has given you dominion but there are things in your domain that will take you if you fail to afford them the proper respect. remember that they are partners with God in that they have been here since long before you and will remain long after. remember that flippant disregard of their awesomeness will result in pain and potentially even death in consequence...
lessons about God to be learned everywhere...
***
The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;
for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.
Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ? Who may stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.
He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from God his Savior.
Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob.
Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
Who is he, this King of glory? The LORD Almighty— he is the King of glory. (Psalm 24)
the challenges invite, in us, a sense of humility in the light of God’s revealed Word. however, we have an important role in this education, this initiation…
open up the doors and let the music play let the streets resound with singing songs that bring your hope songs that bring your joy dancers who dance upon injustice ((m. smith/ s. garrard, circa 1994) years ago i had a conversation with a pastor who disagreed with singing the words above in church gatherings because he contended that no one knew what dancing upon injustice was, so why would we invite people to sing words they couldn't embrace?
one could probably say this about pretty much any congregational song, not because of the inaccessibility of the songs but because the more heterogenous the group of people, the greater the likelihood that someone is there who doesn't have a clue... however, perhaps it's the job of everyone else (as per 1 corinthians 14.24-25) to worship so intentionally, so meaningfully that the individuals in their midst who are exploring the faith are challenged to look closer and ask questions.
but what does it mean to dance upon injustice?
a friend of mine used this phrase "praying with our feet' on another blog to attempt to explain the meaning of a smudge walk. nice- occurs to me we should all be doing this more.
joining with our community in a smudge walk, i prayed with my feet this week.
for me, the most impactive moment in the day took place before the walking even began. to hear a father who had lost his son to gang violence speaking words of peace just days before the one year anniversary of his family's great loss was astonishing. to hear him confess that, while his healing journey had not yet taken him to the point where he was able to forgive...
1) he trusts Creator to bring justice and comfort and
2) refuses to vengefully raise his own hand against another son of another and
3) extols all of his friends and family to do the same- i was deeply moved. romans 12.19 came to mind.
and in this moment, i pondered the cost of peace, checking my own balance in the grace column and wondering if, were i to be in this man's shoes, the cheques i wrote with my mouth might all come up NSF in my heart.
i mean, i get so wound up and passionately intense about things that are really very little of a big deal.
example: at the international tattoo celebration (not what we typically think of when we read the word 'tattoo'... google 'saskatchewan international tattoo festival' for more conext) there was a hoop dancer performing for the crowd. surrounding him were dancers fancy dancing and all of this was accompanied by a band of singers and the drum. awesome. stole the show.
but during the intermission, a guy who had been sitting in front of me turned to me and asked 'so what do you think?'
and i, being an idiot in many ways, told him. i reflected upon how magnificent i felt that this portion of the show was...
(tangent: but left out the bit where i was moved to tears by the moment in the show when all these other cultures with their ring-around-the-rosey dances poured onto the floor taking up all the space that had been so luxuriously occupied by the hoop dancer and his troupe until there was just this mass of people all crowding together waving their hands in the air, pressing in and affording the dancers and the drum no room to do anything but stand... now i know we like to celebrate canada as a diverse mosaic and all, but this portion of the show illustrated the cost of our culturally diverse canadian identity. perhaps this is what an aboriginal friend of mine meant on msn last week when he confessed to not actually feeling 'canadian' at all)
... and how it seemed like this performance had owned the room. to this, the guy began to go on and on about how the men around the drum weren't wearing 'ceremonial costumes' and how it looked as though they 'didn't even care enough to dress up' for this show.
there are two things that challenge my grace reserves with limbic system precision: 'rednecks' and the 'religious right.'
so i was in it now and i knew there was no way out because i was all emotionally involved and yet was trying very hard to speak words of peace, not violence, recognizing all the while the bitter taste of argument rising up like bile in the back of my throat.
it didn't help that i love the sound of the singing and the drum- always have. it didn't help that just earlier that day i had been attending the regina version of 'national aboriginal day of action' at the legislative building and had been served a satisfying dose of drum band singing already. it didn't help that i have issues with people imposing their views upon others as to what to wear and what is appropriate in any cultural context- much less contexts that the opinionated may or may not understand deeply enough to offer their 'direction.'
so i pushed back, challenging this guy with the idea that perhaps this was that chosen 'uniform' for the guys playing the drum. i invited him to look at the orchestra and note that those in the orchestra were dressed neither uniformly, nor in culturally distinctive colours and patterns- that they were dressed as people in an orchestra 'should dress' for an event like this... bla bla bla- who cares?
my wife just rolled her eyes and went to buy a coke for our son. no guilt by association here! ha ha.
now take this ridiculous situation and line it up beside the experience of this father whose home had been broken into and whose son had been killed while sleeping... suddenly all that other stuff feels like far too much about far too little.
we read paul's words in ephesians 6.15 about having our feet shod with readiness to walk the gospel of peace.
we sing about dancers dancing upon injustice in a song called 'did you feel the mountains tremble?'
now typically, this blog has leftover sermon notes and youtube clips to illustrate them in the interest of continuing the dialogue that begins on sunday mornings. however, it's not really fair to say that anything is 'typical' when there has not been a post in over two months...
in explanation, the 8 week series 7 Habits for Highly Reflective Families that we did on sundays wasn't really the kind of thing that i post. for the real continued dialogue, there are three things one should do:
1) buy stephen covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, and read it
2) read the narratives of the patriarchs (abraham, isaac, jacob, joseph) found in genesis 12-48,
3) talk about the connections between these 'less than perfect' families portrayed in scripture and the ideas put forth in covey's book with someone else who may or may not have read them...
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1.1-2)
The trouble with a classicist he looks at a tree That's all he sees, he paints a tree The trouble with a classicist he looks at the sky He doesn't ask why, he just paints a sky
The trouble with an impressionist, he looks at a log And he doesn't know who he is, standing, staring, at this log And surrealist memories are too amorphous and proud While those downtown macho painters are just alcoholic The trouble with impressionist is The trouble with impressionist is
The trouble with personalities, they're too wrapped up in style It's too personal, they're in love with their own guile They're like illegal aliens trying to make a buck They're driving gypsy cabs but they're thinking like a truck The trouble with personalities is The trouble with personalities is
I like the druggy downtown kids who spray paint walls and trains I like their lack of training, their primitive technique I think sometimes it hurts you when you stay too long in school I think sometimes it hurts you when you're afraid to be called a fool The trouble with classicists is The trouble with classicists is (lou reed, from songs for drella- a fiction which is a musical and lyrical tribute to andy warhol)
see, the main problem with comparing God to anything or anyone is that the 'likes' may be poignant and meaningful, but they are infinitely outnumbered by the 'unlikes.' it's a given that any comparison metaphor is going to fall way short...
we are trying to describe infinity in finite terms we are trying to describe holiness in fallen terms we are trying to describe perfection in fatally flawed terms we are trying to describe transcendence in descendant terms got it.
so to subject the character of God to the defaults that people often have towards something like abstract expressionism and troubled, dysfunctional and in all ways lost characters like the artist jackson pollock is problematic at best...
kurt vonnegut, in his inspiring book of neo-art-historical fiction Bluebeard describes a scene between an older, more established artist (compared earlier on in the book to a taxidermist who 'stuffed and mounted and varnished and mothproofed supposedly great moments, all of which turn out to be depressing dust-catchers, like a moosehead bought at a country auction or a sailfish on the wall of a dentist's waiting room') and an impressionable young padawan who wants to be a great artist someday...
After Dan Gregory at our first meeting ordered me to make a super-realistic painting of his studio, he said that there was a very important sentence he wanted me to learn by heart. This was it: "The Emperor has no clothes." "Let me hear you say it," he said. "Say it several times."
So I did. "The Emperor has no clothers, the Emperor has no clothes, the Emperor has no clothes."
"That was a really fine performance, " he said, "really topping, really first rate." He clapped his hands appreciatively.
How was I supposed to respond to that? I felt like Alice in Wonderland.
"I want you to say that out loud and with just that degree of conviction," he said, "anytime anyone has anything good to say about so-called modern art."
"O.K." I said.
"It's the work of swindlers and lunatics and degenerates," he said, "and the fact that many people are now taking it seriously proves to me that the world has gone mad. I hope you agree."
"I do, I do," I said. It sounded right to me.
"Mussolini thinks so, too." he said. (sorry, the link i copied and pasted here was broken by the blog template... you'll just have to go out and buy the book like i did...)
still, when we look behind the mythologies of these stunningly original thinkers and the stereotypes arising from their difficulties with regular day to day relationships, circumstances and life, we are treated with a stunning metaphor that works on many levels... even many of the insults and accusations match...
i was reminded of God recently while watching one of my favourite biopics: Pollock.
there is a scene which is almost hypnotic, in which the painter gazes upon the canvas, deciding how to best place the essence of who he is; an image- his image- upon the canvas in a way that articulates who he is, not just his ability to create. viewing this film, i was challenged to consider to just what degree the comparisons can be faithfully made between the creation, intentions and involvement of God in life and the approach taken by the one particularly misanthropic artist.
(we just need to remember the earlier bit about the unlikes greatly outnumbering the likes, lest we default to a misanthropic God... although many of the insults and accusations hurled at God also match, i believe that they are more indicative of humankind's misanthropy, not God's. this is probably a tangent for a whole nother blog...)
in Possibilities I, published in New York, Winter 1947-8, jackson pollock describes his process:
My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.
It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.
Narration Spoken by Jackson Pollock in the above posted Film by Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg 1951: The method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.
Sometimes I lose a painting. But I have no fear of changes, of destroying the image, because a painting has a life of its own. I kind of let it live.
interesting that an adbar on the website from which i pulled the transcripted monologues above is inviting website visitors to purchase a 'how to paint oil' dvd on which a 'top world realist' teaches a 'simple method ANYONE can learn. i wonder if the realist's name is dan gregory...
see, my experience with art lessons was less than inspiring. however, my experience with worship lessons changed my life.
Q: What kind of teacher is God? Q: How does God best express what God desires to express through us? Q: How does God ready us for this expression?
i remember sitting in a seminar where the writer of many rich and meaningful songs had agreed to try to unpack his process for the would-be worship song writers in the room. before he went into his own songwriting preferences and processes, he was very careful to remind everyone in attendance that writing worship songs or otherwise reflecting the face of God aesthetically, bearing the image of God through art must needs begin with spending time with this God, reading, praying, practicing, journaling...
through an interesting string of miracles and redeemed accidents, i had found myself, over the year prior to this session, in a small subterranean room with a notebook, a bible and a guitar. Jesus' approach to teaching method had to do with placing opportunity before me and then inviting me to engage, to explore, to extrapolate. for me, there was no method apart from opportunity and invitation. the songwriter's words certainly affirmed this, as does the teaching in psalm 25.
perhaps our problem is that we are struggling so hard with how to be the artist that we have lost sight of what it means to be the art?
in 1 Thessalonians 5.17-18, we read ceaseless prayer.
keith green wrote an old song based on this verse called Make My Life a Prayer To You.
jim brooks, abstract expressionist colleague and friend of jackson pollack, painting around the same time said:
I lay on the first stroke of colour. After that, the canvas has to do at least half the work!
john michael talbot, the singing, songwriting, secular franciscan monk who modeled worship and intimacy with God for me in his body of work that i have come to deeply love over the last quarter century or so put it this way...
An empty canvas waits before the Painter It waits to be the painting it must be Unto this end it’s rightfully been created To reflect the rightful beauty the painter sees A beauty that will surely find its life within its dying So another might be born again And in this constant death a constant beauty created Within a constant love that never ends
Jesus is the Master Painter The Holy Spirit is the Master’s brush To be dipped within the colours that portray a father’s love That the Master’s painting might be born of us To portray the beauty of the Master’s brush That the canvas of our life might know the Master’s touch
An empty canvas waits before the Painter An empty canvas destined to be hung Within the gallery once it has been created Will the canvas bear the beauty of God’s Son? (Talbot, 1980)
***
Life is to be an art work… a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in a lost and despairing world. (Francis Schaeffer)
I DON'T KNOW IF I HAVE THE STRENGTH WHAT IF I- WHAT IF I DON'T MAKE MY NEXT GOAL I’M ON MY KNEES AND PRAYING THAT YOU’LL HEAR YOU NEVER LEFT ME BEFORE AND YOU SURE WONT LEAVE ME NOW(Wicks)
a friend of mine wrote this song and shared it with the crowd recently. as i read the lyrics, thinking about easter and the sacrifice of Christ offered to both God and man in an effort to reunite the two in deep and meaningful communion, i was impressed with how well my friend's lyrics seemed to reflect some of the same themes as the psalmist. in the psalms we read again and again how alone and helpless and subject humankind often feels (kinda tragic considering this autonomy was the thing that we wanted most in the cosmos) to the will of an invisible deity. we often catch ourselves saying things like 'all i can do now is pray' which carry with them a sense of spiritual and circumstancial impotence as the shoulders that have been humbled and bowed by whatever burden of fallenness has settled this week eventually are incapable of anything more theologically astute than a shrug.
yet our sense of aloneness is reduced in direct proportion to the number of people we hear from who are also feeling alone.
in 1997, TIME magazine named industrial angst rocker, trent reznor (a.k.a. nine inch nails) as one as one of the year's twenty five most influencial people:
Trent Reznor INDUSTRIAL ROCKER
Trent Reznor is the anti-Bon Jovi. He is the lord of Industrial, an electronic-music form that with its tape loops and crushing drum machines, harks back to the dissonance of John Cage and sounds like capitalism collapsing. But Reznor, with his vulnerable vocals and accessible lyrics, led an Industrial revolution: he gave the gloomy genre a human heart. It's been said that he wrote the first Industrial love songs.
...On the hit song Hurt Reznor sings, "I hurt myself today/ To see if I still feel/ I focus on the pain/ The only thing that's real." The Downward Spiral sold more than 2 million copies; earlier this year Spin magazine named Reznor "the most vital artist in music."
reznor is one of my all-time favourite artists because, call it what you will, his sadness offers the rest of us hope in that he reminds us that we are not alone in our feelings of disenchantment and pain. (originally posted at http://northvus.blogspot.com/2007/02/industrial-love-songs.html)
it’s knowing that somehow we are alone together that fosters hope within the most dire of circumstances.
it is the hope of the psalmist- that resolute 'yet i know that my Lord is able to rescue me' that often comes in the final strains of a psalm of lament- which is the poet's acknowledgement of God's sovereignty after having spent awhile unloading the burden.
bono recently wrote an introduction to the psalm installment of grove press' pocket canons. in it he states that:
Explaining belief has always been difficult. How do you expalin a love and logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of whack? How about the poetic versus the actual truth found in the scriptures? Has free will got US crucified? And what about the dodgy characters who inhabit the tome, known as the bible, who claim to hear the voice of God?
You have to be interested, but is God?
Explaining faith is impossible... Vision over visibility... Instinct over intellect... A songwriter plays a chord with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head.
One of the writers of the psalms was a musician, a harp-player whose talents were required at 'the palace' as the only medicine that would still the demons of the moody and insecure King Saul of Israel...
At age 12, I was a fan of David, he felt familiar... like a pop star could feel familiar. The words of the psalms were as poetic as they were religious and he was a star. A dramatic character, because before David could fulfil the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting, the is where David was said to have composed his first psalm- a blues. That's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God- 'My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? (Psalm 22)
I hear echoes of this holy row when un-holy bluesman Robert Johnson howls 'There's a hellhound on my trail' or Van Morrison sings 'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.' Texas Alexander mimics the psalms in 'Justice Blues': 'I cried Lord my father, Lord eh Kingdom come. Send me bakc my woman, then thy will be done.' Humourous, sometimes blasphemous, the blues was backslidin' music; but by its very opposition, flattered the subject of its perfect cousin Gospel...(Bono)
author francis schaeffer, in his essay Some perspectives on Art said that "If there is no continuity with the way in which language is normally used, then there is no way for a reader or an audience to know what the author is saying. (Schaeffer)
perhaps this is why Jesus came in the first place...to make the language of holiness as accessible as the language of fallenness and alienation…
as tom wilson of junkhouse quipped:
the devil gets all the glory but it's Jesus that sings the blues...
interesting that Jesus invites us to share in his singing of the blues... to unite, as he did, blues and gospel- to become gospel, good news, for the other.
we were talking about worship, and i was drawn to something i wrote long ago as i tried to articulate these things that were so out of my depth (i know i've posted this online before- here we go again)...
worship isn't a designated time or place
it isn't a calculated emotional curve or a mosaic or isolated holy moments no, although these can all be part of worship, it a gestalt of all of them for the earnest servant of God... it is a day by day, hour by hour, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat song to God. it begins at the foot of the cross, through the moment of acceptance and straight on until morning. it is both active and passive and therefore all consuming. it is the reason that all creation exists- to reflect back the glory and the love of almighty God.
worship is saying 'you are' to I AM
one of the things that we take from the scriptures is that worship is sacrifice… but what is sacrifice?
the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.
2.
the person, animal, or thing so offered.
3.
the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.
4.
the thing so surrendered or devoted.
Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son" Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on" God say, "No." Abe say, "What?" God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but The next time you see me comin' you better run" Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?" God says, "Out on Highway 61." (bob dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, 1965)
Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I came from… Duluth to be exact. I always felt like I’d started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere from it, even down into the deep Delta country. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors. (bob dylan, Chronicles Volume 1, 2005)
in Genesis 22, God commands Abraham to sacrifice his certainty, his hope and his future out on the road that begins at WHO YOU WERE and travels to WHO YOU WILL BECOME…it is a story of origin, journey and revelation.
that dylan chooses to explore this biblical story in what some have called his most perfect song, is interesting. at the heart of this song and, indeed this biblical story, is an acknowledgement of how we are often called by God to release the things of which we are most sure, and to do so as an act of worship. paul's letter to the romans, chapter 4.1-3 speaks lovingly of abraham's life, sacrifices and faith, reminding the readers that these were 'counted to him as righteousness.'
further on in romans 12.1-2, we are challenged to present ourselves as living sacrifices. it appears as though faith and opportunity meet out on highway 61- the main thoroughfair of our lives, the place where everything on the journey happens- and the decisions we make at this crossroads are crucial to our moving forward, even when this particular usage of the word 'forward' is a foreign one.
Highway 61 Revisited, with Dylan squeezing a police-car siren in what is probably his most perfectly written song, is sung as the ultimate tall tale. You find out that not only can anything happen on Highway 61… it already has… carrying runaway slaves north before the long highway had a single name and, not so much more than a century later, carrying Freedom Riders south. (Greil Marcus, Like A Rolling Stone- Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, 2005)
see, the road from any here to any there only becomes meaningful when we choose to engage with it… when we redeem it from being simply a means of traveling from one place to another to being a place in and of itself… by becoming intimately involved in the journey itself, we come to recognize the grace and the wisdom afforded us by every step, every sign-post, every rest stop…
in canada, hitch-hiking the No1 is much different than driving it, which is much different than sleeping it away in the backseat, and much different than flying over it. The slower the mode of travel, the greater the opportunity to grow intimately acquainted with the road itself and to gather fruit from the journey…
I find when I'm always going, or thinking about going, or trying to go I have a tendency to miss things. (hineini)
as i thought more deeply about the implications of abraham's story, i was reminded of my friend, who blogs under the name hineini, and some of the things that he has shared about this, one of his favourite passages of scripture in the whole bible. rather than presume that i was afforded some higher vantage point, being the preacher in the room, i invited my friend to reflect upon where these scriptures take him- especially when it comes to embracing this notion of sacrifice.
Genesis 22, or the story of the binding of Isaac, has always been one of the biblical passages that has spoken most strongly to me and what its said to me has changed as I have grown older and most recently, now that I have a son of my own.Most of us have heard it so often it has become, like many of the stories we find in the bible, familiar to us, but it is a terrible story, a story that makes me tremble, a story about the costs, the incredibly high costs, of love.
The story begins with God calling to Abraham and Abraham answers “Here I am”This is the same “Here I am” of Moses, of Samuel, of Isaiah, and of others.It is a greeting but it also means “I will” or “I stand at the ready”. God goes on to request of Abraham saying, “Take your son, your only son, the son whom you love, Isaac”.Its as if we are hearing only one side of the conversation.God says take your son and Abraham replies I have two sons Ishmael and Isaac.God says take your only son to which Abraham replays but Ishmael is my only son with Hagar and Isaac is my only son with Sarah.God says take the son whom you love most and Abraham replies I love my sons equally.And so God chooses for Abraham...”Take Isaac”.Take Isaac and offer him as a burnt sacrifice.Its a frightening request, its horrible, unimaginable.But we know Abraham's response, we know what Abraham's great faith leads him to do.He agrees.He gathers a few things, splits some wood for the sacrifice and with two servants and his son Isaac, heads out to an unknown place, a place that God will show him.It must have been a long trip.Much longer than the two days it took to travel. I can't imagine what he must have been thinking, God's request echoing through his head with each step.
God shows him the place for the sacrifice and Abraham leaves his servants, loads up the wood for the sacrifice on Isaac and together they climb.It must have been a quiet climb.At one point Isaac asks his father. Dad, we have everything we need for a sacrifice except the animal, where is it?
What can Abraham possibly say?Surely he wants to answer his son, and he does.But yet he can't answer his son, not with out terrifying him, maybe causing him to flee.Abraham says only “God will see to God's sheep for the sacrifice” or in another translation, “God will provide”.Something we may say fairly often, daily even.
The story continues, Abraham and Isaac arrive at the place, Abraham builds the alter and lays out the wood and then his eyes move to his son.Was there a struggle?Did the boy try and get away?We don't know but I cannot even imagine that scene as I look at my son.The text says that Abraham bound his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood and drew back the knife to slaughter his son.What was he thinking?How could he?But yet Abraham knew that there can be no holding back when God makes a request.That even our most cherished, those things we love the most, can not be held in reserve and that at any moment God might ask of us, out of love for God, to sacrifice what we love.
To me this begs the question “what about now?”What if my friend comes to me relating a similar demand placed on them by God.What if they tell me they think God is telling them to sacrifice something precious to them, maybe some of us have heard this before, its not unheard of.But what if they were to come and tell me “God is asking that I sacrifice my son, or my daughter”.Surely I would intervene, I would have too. I would try to help them, or stop them or both.Love demands it.Maybe that’s why Sarah isn't told, why she is kept out of the loop.Its too terrible to tell her, the mother of the sacrifice.Surely she would have forbid it, fought tooth and nail in the name of love to save her son. Who wouldn't?Maybe that’s why Abraham remains in Beer-Sheba after the ordeal while at the beginning of Genesis 23 we are informed of Sarah's death not in Beer-Sheba but in Hebron.Maybe it was too much to bear, her husband sacrificing her only son.The stakes are so high.
So too with Isaac.The text tells us in verse 6 that after leaving the servants “the two walked off together”.Abraham and Isaac climbed to the site of the sacrifice but in verse 19, after God stops the sacrifice, stops Abraham from slaying his son, Abraham is the only one mentioned who descends to rejoin the servants.Isaac isn't mentioned.Did Isaac return with his father?Could he have? We don't know, the text doesn't tell us, in fact we never see father and son together again in the text.Maybe this is the cost of love.The stakes could not get any higher.It cost Abraham his son and his wife.
I'll be the first to say I'm not up to the task.The demands of love are hard enough as it is when it demands my time and my attention, but my son?I don't think I could, and that’s what scares me.Knowing that at any moment God may arrive, demanding of me, for loves sake, that I sacrifice what I love.It makes me wish there were rules, or limits, someway to say “God would never ask this of me” “I can keep this certain something to myself.”But the story of Abraham reveals this isn't the case.Of all the things Abraham should have been able to keep for himself his son should have been it, a gift given to him by God.Of all the things which should have no part in Love surely murder is one.But even this is asked of him.The stakes are high, the highest, love is life and death.
In verse 14 Abraham names the place of the sacrifice. He calls it Adonai-yirch, or “The Lord will see”. God will see what our response is to the demands of love, to the demands of those around us who are in need and from which we can hold nothing back if we want to truly love. How can God not see? If, as the text tells us in 1 John that God is love then how can not see each and every demand of love placed on us. But God is not only the one demanding as in the story of Abraham and Isaac and not only the demand itself as love but is also the recipient of love for Jesus tells us in Matthew that whatever we do for the least of those around us, whatever we do for those who confront us and demand we love them by their very presence with us, whatever we do for each and every person we encounter we are doing it to or for or with God. And we can call each and every one “Adonai-yirch”, God will see. (hineini)
so what do we do with this?
what do we do if God steps into the story and asserts that it is God’s desire that we place the one thing that matters most to us- our certainty, or grip on the way things are supposed to work out, our picture of progress, our sense of stability and order- upon the stone table of sacrifice?
what songs shall we sing together then?
our original self is created to bring honour and glory to God through our involvement in and realization of God’s dream for us all together:
“That they would be my people and I would be their God…”
the realization of this dream involves daily worship, daily sacrifice... are we up to it?
recently at a silent auction for my son's school band, i bought a lump of coal.
not just any coal, mind you- this was actual r.m.s. titanic coal (bearing its own numbered certificate of authenticity and everything) that had been collected from the bottom of the atlantic ocean by entrepreneurial excavation crews. i bid against another pastor and eventually won the auction- which, of course, meant that i was no obligated to buy the item... sure showed him!
however, like with most things, this led to that which led to something else and i found myself pondering an image in my heart: all those people, floating in the cold…
romans 7.14-25 speaks of the writer's exasperation with being a sinful man. he has already acknowledged back in romans 3.23 that 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God' but what seems to really be getting his goat is the fact that he feels powerless to break his habitual 'falling short'...
no matter how hard he tries no matter how strong his resolve he cannot save himself.
if it were an email, he would probably hit the caps lock button before typing verse twenty four, where his frustration with himself comes to an explosive climax:
WHO WILL RESCUE ME FROM THIS BODY OF DEATH?
who indeed?
all those people floating in the cold...
speaking of atlantic crossings, emma lazarus wrote an invitation that has been immortalized by its placement upon the statue of liberty, but which could be very appropriately placed upon any church sign:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
this seems to paraphrase Jesus' words in matthew 11.28-30 about the weak and the tired finding rest. the problem is that, were we to place either the poem or Christ's words on the church sign, the question that would still hang in the air for me is who would come in response to this?
or perhaps, more cynically: what right have we earned to invite?
rick mckinley, the tattooed pastor of imago dei in portland oregon, said recently to someone from leadership journal that
Our goal is not to create a community of volunteers; the goal is to glorify the king by doing what he’s called us to do. We’re in a story that’s been going on for thousands of years… The story of Jesus putting the world back together through the gospel.
all those people floating in the cold, with a small, fortunate few sitting in lifeboats; fear over what will happen if the lifeboats go back and try to rescue those in the water; dismay of some over the self-centred reticence of the rest in the sparsely filled boats to go back and rescue the perishing; frustration of those in one boat going back with how many have been lost because the rescue took too long to organize, with help and hope coming too late to all those people floating in the cold... (note: this youtube clip was the best i could find... however, it has been hacked a little and misses some important dialogue between molly brown and the people in her lifeboat regarding social responsibility and fear. it also has, for some reason, been edited to no longer contain the lifeboat leader's key line of regret: "we waited too long". just rent or buy the movie and watch it- the clip serves as a loose reference only! ha ha.)
perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few... (matthew 9.37)
in any event, i don't think i'll ever be able to watch the final moments of titanic without feeling a sense of urgent responsibility for all those people floating in the cold.
