Tag Archives: Art

Wesleyan Accent ~ Not Yet Fully Awake: Dr. Matthew Milliner

Note from the Editor: As Christians continue into Eastertide, Wesleyan Accent is pleased to share this profound Easter sermon by art history professor Dr. Matthew Milliner, which was preached in All Souls Church in Wheaton, Illinois. You can see more from him here.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

It’s exciting news when the most brilliant disciple of the atheist Sigmund Freud sees the need for belief in God. As many of you know, the name of this student was Carl Jung, and there is a lot one can learn from him. But here is one thing he really got wrong: “It is funny,” Jung tells us, “that Christians are still so pagan that they understand spiritual existence only as a body and as a physical event. I am afraid our Christian cannot maintain this shocking anachronism any longer.”

And so having cited this unfortunate remark of the great Swiss psychiatrist, please indulge me again, maybe with an Alleluia at the end this time.

He is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The field of Biblical studies is wonderful. You can learn all kinds of things about the Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman contexts in which the Biblical books were originally written, you can learn the original languages. But as in any field, some people in Biblical studies make some miscalculations. I speak of the Biblical scholar Gerd Lüdemann: “A consistent modern view must say farewell to the resurrection as a historical event.”

Having heard that, please indulge me once again.

He is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The notion that you can keep Christianity without resurrection has aged about as well as pay phones, in-flight ash trays, spitoons, hoop skirts, zuit suits, and those massive televisions that we used to have to cram in our living room and the gargantuan pieces of furniture we used to hide them before the flat screens came along.  You still sometimes see those huge TVs on the curb, usually with five garbage stickers on them because no one wants them!  And who would want a Christianity without resurrection either?

It’s often said if the resurrection isn’t true, don’t go to church, go to brunch. Well I was at one of those Chicago brunch meccas just this week and I overheard the bartenders planning the cocktail menu for this Sunday – Easter morning. And they said, “We need to mix up our menu to bring people in.” One employee said, we could change up the Bloody Mary with a bloodless Mary, which I guess is some kind of cocktail. And how I wish I had had the courage to say then and there, “Sounds like perfect cocktail for someone without resurrection hope on Easter Morning! Bloodless Mary.” But because he is risen we’re not at brunch, we’re here instead to drink from the veins of the risen Christ, and today at least we’re throwing in brunch too. 

I’m sure you know the great John Updike poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter:

Make no mistake: if he rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded

credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

Or better than Updike’s poem is this bald statement of fact in 1 Cor. 15; “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”  Or Acts 10: “We are witnesses to all that he did… They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day.” That is not a pious sentiment, a clever aphorism, haiku or a sonnet – it’s journalism. They killed him, God fixed it, says St. Peter.

One reason that resurrection matters is because it addresses our root anxiety. There are a lot of surface anxieties in our lives, and some that cut a good bit below the surface. But if you follow those anxieties to their root, and ask yourself, “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” The answer tends to be: “somebody could die.” That’s about as bad as it could get. And that root anxiety of our impermanence is what drives so many of our worries, agendas and sins – and so the root anxiety is the one Jesus addresses this morning not just by his words but with his body, by conquering death and replacing it with the root peace of the risen Christ.

That root peace is why Roger Persons, a member of our congregation, when his wife Jean died while they were watching TV together, was able to address her then and there and say, “Walk with the king.” That root peace is why Jason Long and I, sitting at the top of Central Dupage Hospital with Brett Foster as the sunset beamed into the hospital room so strongly that I had to put on my sunglasses, felt strangely, in retrospect, like Brett was preparing us for our own deaths as well. When I think of Brett, my memory now skips from that hospital room to his funeral where we heard these words from the Orthodox poet, Scott Cairns, about the resurrection – not Jesus’ resurrection, but mine and yours. 

…one morning you finally wake

to a light you recognize as the light you’ve wanted

every morning that has come before. And the air

itself has some light thing in it that you’ve always

hoped the air might have. And One is there

to welcome you whose face you’ve looked for during all

the best and worst times of your life. He takes you to himself

and holds you close until you fully wake.

And in our gospel passage, Mary of course – like all of us on this side of death – is not yet fully awake. She makes first contact with the resurrected Jesus, and it’s about as awkward as Peter embarrassing himself by trying to pitch a tent on Mount Tabor. Mary’s problem is that she thinks Jesus is dead, and when she sees that he’s gone, she consoles herself by saying, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

I wonder if it’s her root anxiety in the form of a sentence. It signifies confusion, frustration and maybe even a little panic. I almost imagine her wandering off in a daze reciting those words in some kind of stupor. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then the disciples show up, Peter and John. And of course, the best illustration I know of that moment in all the world is a train ride away at the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s by the African American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. It shows Peter kind of concerned, almost twiddling his thumbs because he knew he blew it – and John, the beloved disciple has this beaming look on his face, as if to say, “I knew it!”  Tanner suffered from racial prejudice all his life – he believed in resurrection. Still, in our passage, neither Peter nor John stick around.

But Mary wanders back, still clinging to the best she can do under the circumstances. Call her the Bloodless Mary, wringing her hands as she repeats, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” And then she gets what we all think would work for us if only it would happen: an angelic visitation. “She bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.” I hope you’re catching that this is a reference to the ark of the covenant – two angels surrounding a void of presence – the absence that signifies that God cannot be contained. And the angels, puzzled, say to her, “woman, why are you weeping?”

And her reply? “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” The presence of the angels doesn’t clear up her confusion, so the Lord himself explains it to her. “She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Now that is a reference to the mystical treaties the Song of Solomon if there ever was one – God’s pursuit of the soul. “Whom are you looking for?” God asks this to all of us this morning.

But it doesn’t work! Mary thinks he’s the gardener. And she offers her good intentions and pious objectives one more time. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”  She still clings to her pre-resurrection agenda. On Friday one of our speakers said that Jesus was LOUD on the cross and I think he’s loud here too.  He has to be loud enough to snap her out of her pious plans to anoint his corpse. And so he shouts with a smile, “Mary!”

There have been a lot of good stories about Notre Dame de Paris this week, but here’s the best one I know of. Denise once told me that when she was there with her mother and sister, they were touring the Cathedral which was packed with tourists, when a mother lost her son. And my wife Denise knows the name of that boy, as does everyone who was in Notre Dame that day because the mother started to shout it. Dimitri!  After three shouts the packed cathedral fell silent but she kept shouting, no – screaming, “Dimitri! Dimitri!” until he was found. And that, after all, is what Notre Dame’s architecture is – it is the risen Christ shouting to you through beauty. Shouting your name and mine, trying to snap us out of our own agendas, even our own ambitions to serve him. That’s what beauty does, what pain does, what tragedy, suffering and joy do. They’re all the risen Christ shouting our name again and again in the Cathedral of this cosmos while the cathedral lasts.

And like Mary, we wake up, “Teacher!” and we cling to him, as any of us would. That’s what coming to church is about. But then comes Jesus’ famous lines to Mary: “Don’t hold onto me.” He does not mean back off. He tells her to stop clinging to him because he has something for her to do. Not her agenda this time but his. Namely, go tell the boys. In all four gospels the women are first, the only difference is the number of women who are present. And each gospel, the mission of the women is the same – and it is from them that we get the message with which we began.

He is risen: He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Philip Tallon ~ Make Buildings that Won’t Be Burnt Up

A wise art teacher used to say, “Make art that won’t be burnt up.” He meant, make art that will outlast the last judgment. Make art that will count as one of the “glories of the nations” brought into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:26).

Like most people, I watched in horror as one of the glories of the nation of France was nearly burnt up last week. Someone put it well in Twitter, “Had to turn the tv off. Can’t take it anymore. Like watching someone in real time smashing everything in the Louvre with a sledgehammer.”

The world mourned in real time, only to discover in the following days that much of value survived. An early echo of Easter’s surprising good news, the medieval vaulting protected the sanctuary from much of the fire. If it were not for the much later addition of the spire, the damage to the inside would have been even less. My children will get to see Notre Dame’s sanctuary in much the same state as I have.

The news made much of the response of the French people. The French are marginally church-going and the country ranks as one of the least religious in the world. It is easy to imagine that France will be, in the near future, more meaningfully Muslim than Christian. Yet the world, and the French people, love this cathedral. In many ways it is the heart of Paris.

As the burning was happening I, of course, noticed the occasional dunking on church-obsession by Christians and secularists, for opposite reasons. The Christians looked to score piety points by signaling that “the church is people, not buildings.” The secularists signaled superiority by (often mistakenly) noting that such churches were built on the scaffolding of injustice, superstition, and colonialism. There wasn’t much of this, though. It was mostly a unifying moment.

My thoughts turned to my own town. I wondered what sites here in Houston would warrant such an outcry with their bloodless destruction. The answer was easy: none. Few such places exist in the world. Few buildings are as grand or as famous as Notre Dame. The closest Houston comes to a landmark is its sad, abandoned Astrodome, which the city can’t bring itself to get rid of, but also has no use for. Our dome will never compare to “Our Dame.” We could try awfully hard and still fail to create such a work of beauty. There is, of course, the additional problem that we aren’t trying.

This week it so happened that I had the pleasure to lead a discussion on Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. As anyone familiar with the work will recall, much of what Burke bemoans is the way that the French revolution cut out the heart of civil life: the nobility and the church. Left with denuded rationality, Burke foresaw the likely result. Reason unaided by sentiment will quickly degrade into cruelty. And Burke was right. The reign of terror followed soon after the book’s publication. Despite its coincidental bearing on France, the part of the book that touched most directly on the burning of Notre Dame was a point that Burke made with reference to manners: “There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” The connection here between beauty and loyalty is apparent. Beauty attracts us, even when our reasons are unconvinced. When our nation’s politicians act in ugly ways, it helps that our nation’s capital is still beautiful.

The connection to Notre Dame is obvious. This troubled world still hungers for beauty, even as it has become confused about truth. On cloudy days it seems like the church only cares about truth and goodness (and sometimes not even those), but has left the beautiful to fend for itself. Our love of “Our Lady” reminds us of a truth that the builders knew: to help us love God the church ought to be lovely.


Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Silencing the Shame Machine: Our Call to Craft Peace

Recently, I heard a church leader describe the instinct to “drop Facebook napalm” in an online debate. What a great image. Our cultural currency right now isn’t the American dollar or the speculative Bitcoin: it is outrage.

Outrage is addictive, and it’s so easily justified: we sanctify it with the word “prophetic” or the word “faithful.” God calls us to be prophetic, to offer a bold word against corruption or misused power or oppression. God calls us to be faithful, to offer truth against confusion or heresy or trendy emptiness. Outrage energizes us when we’re tempted to lean back in apathy; it gives us a sense of purpose or righteousness when we’re feeling pointless or despicable.

Blessed are the outraged.

Even now, a few readers will want to protest about how important and urgent and warranted their causes are.

Of course they’re important and urgent and warranted. That’s not the point. Confrontation doesn’t require public shaming. If it does, we’re doing it wrong. Confrontation doesn’t require we put opponents in public stocks and heave a well-aimed rotten vegetable viral hashtag at their head. Even furious anger and indignation at injustice doesn’t require public shaming.

Do we think that shaming someone will lead to repentance? That hearkens back to The Scarlet Letter. Shaming someone else rarely calls forth transformed behavior in them – or in ourselves. Shaming another person gives us the vaulted position of judge, jury, executioner, and obituary writer without having to get our hands dirty by investing in their lives.

The great irony of our time is that we chant “don’t judge” while giving into the outrage that is comfortable shaming opponents in the public square. Maybe we chant “don’t judge” because we’re so busy shaming others; in repeating “don’t judge,” we’re trying to fight our worst internal instincts: that of devouring each other.

Our motto would serve us better if it were, “in your judging, be kind and embody humility.” And that really captures the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ better. Judging isn’t the problem: shaming is.

We are called to love and pursue Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, ancient transcendentals which have called thinkers to study logic, aesthetics, and ethics. If our outrage turns ugly, we may fight for goodness with confrontations of the truth, but we will have lost the grace of beauty, and we will have lost. If our outrage turns to ethical fragmentation, we may fight orderly and with grace, but we will have lost the grace of goodness and clear moral direction. If our outrage turns incoherent, we may fight attractively for the good, but we will have lost the order and reason and sense of truth outside of our isolated cause.

We all discern: we all judge. We judge whether or not a dairy product is good or has gone bad, we judge whether one dog is closer to the ideal of its breed than another, we judge whether a habit has a positive or negative outcome on our child, we judge whether a leader takes us closer or farther away from a goal we judge to be worthy of pursuit.

We all speak: we all confront. We confront a cashier about a mistake in our favor or against our interest, we confront a business about a mishandling of our package or our order or our service, we confront discomfort in our own lives through healthy action or unhealthy avoidance, we confront strangers, acquaintances, friends, and family members online.

What we don’t all need to do, of necessity, is to shame. A call to repentance is not inherently or of necessity shame-causing. There is no order, no beauty, no goodness in shaming: there can be order, beauty, and goodness in discernment, judgment, or confrontation.

And not all feelings of shortcoming or inadequacy are bad. I ought to feel inadequate to pilot a nuclear submarine. I ought to feel inadequate to trade stock at the New York Stock Exchange. I ought to feel inadequate to administer anesthesia to a surgery patient.

And I ought to feel a sense of shortcoming if I engage in a pattern of behavior that hurts myself, others, and God. I ought to feel a sense of shortcoming if I smack a child on the face. I ought to feel a sense of shortcoming if I lose my temper and berate a stranger.

If we are dressing up our outrage as “prophetic” or “faithful” but we don’t have love, we’re a sounding brass, a clanging symbol. Love bears all things and hopes all things. It’s hard to persevere in bearing all things and in hoping for redemption in the midst of shaming someone.

Loving acts are beautiful acts; they are good acts; they are true acts. They shout the beauty of being a person created in God’s image, they shout the goodness of peaceful confrontation, they shout the truth of our own worth and inadequacy. To proclaim justice does not require arrogance on our part. But shaming another human being requires a certain amount of arrogance within ourselves.

Jesus is Truth – the Word, or logos made flesh. Jesus embodied and spoke truth. Jesus’ incarnation gave Reality itself fingerprints. So when Jesus confronted others, it was almost always because they were busy shaming instead of confronting. The religious leaders weren’t just confronting the woman caught in adultery, they were deliberately shaming and humiliating and depersonalizing her. To shame a person is to remove the dignity of being human from them; and if we have removed their humanity, we are no longer bound to treat them with respect and care. Jesus didn’t shame the shamers: Jesus discerned – that is, judged – their motives, and he confronted them. Repentance, Jesus knew, didn’t require shaming a person, even if it did sometimes require judgment and confrontation.

Truth is beautiful: so communicating truth, however confrontational, cannot be done in a way that smears the inherent beauty within our fellow humans.

Consider, in closing, these reflections from artist Makoto Fujimura, in Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture – 

Why art in a time of war? Jesus stated, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matt 5:9). The Greek word for peacemakers is eirenepoios, which can be interpreted as “peace poets,” suggesting that peace is a thing to be crafted or made. We need to seek ways to be not just “peacekeepers” but to be engaged “peacemakers.” Peace (or the Hebrew word shalom) is not simply an absence of war but a thriving of our lives, where God uses our creativity as a vehicle to create the world that ought to be. Art, and any creative expression of humanity, mediates in times of conflict and is often inexplicably tied to wars and conflicts.

The arts provide us with language for mediating the broken relational and cultural divides: the arts can model for us how we need to value each person as created in the image of God. This context of rehumanization provided via the arts is essential for communication of the good news. Jesus desires to create in us “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Phil 4:7), so that we can communicate the ultimate message of hope found in the gospel, the story of Jesus, who bridged the gap between God and humanity to a cynical, distrustful world.

The Outraged will wear out; Blessed are the peacemakers.

 

Philip Tallon ~ How Artists Do Theology: The Resurrection

Note from the Editor: we are pleased to reshare this post from Dr. Philip Tallon that originally appeared a few years ago as a resource for Easter.

During this Easter season, I’ve been reflecting on a number of artworks that depict Christ’s victory over death.

One striking painting by Bramantino (1490) features Christ raised from the dead but still bearing the emotional and physical trauma of the cross. Jesus is alive again but seems to carry the knowledge of the torture he underwent into the new creation. It is a powerful painting, as Jesus’ haggard face seems to remind us that his suffering was no illusion and that the way of the cross will be no easier for us.

“The Risen Christ” by Bramantino (ca 1490)

But the most consistently moving painting, the one that I return to again and again, is Piero della Francesca’s “The Resurrection” (ca. 1460).

“Resurrection” by Piero della Francesca (ca 1460)

Here again, Christ carries the sorrow of the cross in his subtle and composed face, which is aimed directly at the viewer, turning the act of spectating into a confrontation. But there is also silent victory in his powerful stance. One hand holds a flag with a cross, while one foot is perched confidently on the sepulcher that recently held his body. The use of a sepulcher, rather than a cave tomb, is a nice homage to the town of Sansepolcro (“holy sepulcher”) where the mural was painted. The tomb is alabaster in color, as even death has been purified by Christ’s presence.

Like all adaptations of a biblical scene, the painter must act as a theologian. Decisions must be made in depicting the moment. And della Francesca, one understands, takes his task of visual exegesis seriously.

Not only does the moment balance gravity and joy in Jesus’ solemn triumph, but it invites us to understand that the work that has been accomplished is not yet understood by a slumbering world. The guards at the tomb bear all the symbols of power and might: one guard’s blood-red shield indicates Roman authority with its alluded SPQR (“The Senate and People of Rome”). Yet they foolishly sleep, utterly unaware that Rome’s power to bring death cannot defeat YHWH’s power to bring life. The same sleeping soldier with the shield sleepily holds on to his spear, as if clutching the last shreds of domination. Jesus’ hand, meanwhile, grips a flag of triumph with the easy authority of the Messiah whose kingdom does not originate in this world (but does extend to it).

But God’s power is seen not just in Christ’s victory, but also in the image of new creation we see in the picture. Jesus’s wounds remain. A trickle of scarlet paints his side. Dots of red stipple his hands. But his body is restored to the full fleshly life we see in della Francesca’s “Baptism of Christ” (1450). This is a real body, with weight and heft.

Perhaps even more notable, however, is the landscape behind Jesus. A testament to the artist’s thoughtfulness, the trees and hills to the left of the Messiah are barren, but to the right new life has begun. Leaves and shrubs testify to the new work of creation inaugurated by Christ. In this way, Piero della Francesca gets thunderingly right what so many Christians get so stunning wrong. Raised on the first day of the week – a day any faithful Jew would understand as the first day of creation – God in Christ has begun the re-creation of this world. This work of making all things new is not complete, but it has begun.

N. T. Wright’s address, “The Road to New Creation,” could almost be taken as commentary on della Francesca’s painting:

God is not going to abolish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it, to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it. ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom, and rejoice with joy and singing; the desert shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.’ The last book of the Bible ends, not with the company of the saved being taken up into heaven, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, resulting in God’s new creation, new heavens and new earth, in which everything that has been true, lovely, and of good report will be vindicated, enhanced, set free from all pain and sorrow…God will make new heavens and new earth, and give us new bodies to live and work and take delight in his new creation. And the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel is that this new world, this new creation, has already begun: it began when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on Easter morning, having faced and beaten the double enemy, sin and death, that has corrupted and defaced God’s lovely creation.

Wright has been making the rounds with this point for over a decade now, and has helpfully reminded us of this key piece of biblical theology. Salvation is about restoring this world, not escaping from it. But it’s worth pointing out that paintings like “The Resurrection” have been reminding us of this for centuries.

Wesleyan Accent ~ Interview: Katie Fisher’s Dust in My Mouth

Recently Wesleyan Accent chatted with visual artist Katie Fisher about her project illustrating the struggle and grief written in the Old Testament book Lamentations.  

She shares in her bio that she works as a graphic designer, writer, and visual artist. As a farm kid from the Great Plains, she learned to run wild with the wind and live in the trees. Now in Dallas, she and her husband grow as many plants as their house can hold. In her writing and visual art, she explores what it means to be human and how our very existence depends on and interacts with the world around us. 

 

Wesleyan Accent: How do you approach your artistic process? How do you delve deeply internally to express your perspective? Where are the borders of what you experience internally with how you want to communicate it and how you hope it will be perceived? 

Katie Fisher: My process of getting into a project starts with research. I try to create a base of readings, experiences, conversations, and resources that I can connect together. From this base, I start to build connections using my own voice. In the beginning, I try to find a path or catch the scent of the project.  

Dust in My Mouth came out of a personal question. I had read, discussed, and heard a lot about theodicy—why bad things happen to good people—but answers to that question did not give me tools to deal with the reality of suffering in life. Even the most eloquent and thoughtful explanations of theodicy remain cold explanations of God’s interaction in the world. I wanted better tools to respond to my own suffering and pain as well as God’s response to me. In gathering resources I looked for anything that hit on that nerve. Often before getting into a work session, I had to take a deep breath. Trying to hit a nerve never feels good. Rather than diving inside myself, I tried to bring my own vulnerability to the reading, drawing and reflecting.  

I hope others will open themselves to this work in a way that allows them to interact with the rawness and struggle found in the book of Lamentations, Dust in My Mouth, and our lives. 

 

WA: Your art project centers around “lament.” What does lamenting mean to you? What has your experience been with how lament is expressed in faith communities? 

KF: My thoughts and experiences about lament have changed so much through doing this work. The research started by looking at Lamentations but I wasn’t sure where it would end up. The communal expression of lament provided some form of an answer to my initial question of what to do with my sorrow and suffering.  

This project on lament has many parts and the initial work came as part of a collaboration with literary critic and theologian Tim Basselin. Dust in My Mouth shows my portion of the work. Through conversations with Tim, I realized much of my focus lined up with the poems of Lamentations. I decided to follow their outline and push into the text more. Each poetic movement I drew sketches around forces me to wrestle with God’s response to unanswered pleas for help. I learned from my drawings while drawing and grappling with lines of the poems.  

Through the first four poetic movements the woman, Zion or Jerusalem, goes back and forth with the poet as they both express anger and deep pain while their lives and worlds fall apart. At every turn, I asked, “What substance of hope does she have in the face of such excruciating circumstances?” If a substantive hope exists in the extremes, like the violent siege of Jerusalem, surely it would apply to me as well. Many times people want to locate hope of Lamentations in the poet’s expression of the goodness of God in Lamentations 3:21-24.  

The title of the overall body of work Dust in My Mouth actually comes from Lamentations 3:29: “let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope.” (ESV) At every turn of the project, I had to wrestle again with this line. I have written more on this perplexing image here.  

The poet’s expression in Lamentations 3 failed, for many reasons, to work as a balm of hope I needed. In looking elsewhere in the poetic expressions of Lamentations, I saw a functional, tangible hope in Lamentations 5. The people of Jerusalem come together in their suffering and express not just their individual pain but the pain of their community. Finally, for the first time in the book they come together as their dancing turns to sorrow and they sing and dance a dirge of lament. 

The book of Lamentations comforted me long before I started working on Dust in My Mouth. I found refuge in the honesty of the lines and a permission to put my own anger, hurt, and pain into my prayers. Taking those honest prayers, however, and sharing them with a community scared me. Yet, the poet leads the women of Jerusalem into communal lament. And in such a lament I find a tangible hope.  

I see lament as an outward expression of pain, sorrow, or even anger. Or, to put it more succinctly, a confessional dance of give and take. In lament, we come together—exposed and vulnerable. Deep life-giving hope activates in the dance of the corporate lament. The final drawing which sprang from Lamentations 5 shows that vision of hope and lament.   

WA: You say, “Dust in My Mouth has been a long, painful, and yet deeply joyful labor for the past two years. So many edges of the drawings were made wet with tears.” In your opinion, how does artistic expression function as prayer? What is it about the visual arts that function differently than spoken words or written language? 

KF: Our senses activate us at our core. Speaking or putting things into words requires us to go into that core area and draw out an abstraction. It seems, at least in Western philosophies, that words have a “higher” status than our perceptual reality. I disagree with that notion and instead place the higher function in our senses. 

As Lin Yutan says in his book The Importance of Living, “we all labor under the misconception that the true function of the mind is thinking…” For Yutan, the brain functions more like the tentacles of an octopus feeling for truth and eating it. Reducing prayers to words limits my prayers to the realm of abstraction. In visual art, I can pray with my whole body—not just my words.  

The visual arts affect our senses. And, again along with Yutan, I would say the education and development of ourselves on a sensual level will allow for better prayers with our words. 

 

WA: For you, where does lamentation fit in the seasons of Christian living? It seems like many North American people of faith expect empowerment, self-help, health, and well-being to be the norm. 

KF: Many people do expect celebration as the norm of life. Their experience, however, contrasts their expectation—pushing them toward bitterness and isolation in response to reality. Often when people see my work on lament they comment on the relevance and name some event happening either in their lives or the lives of people around them. They assume the human experience exists as a parade of goodness and this one isolated event has temporarily obstructed their parade. I could say a lot about the need many people have for celebratory parades to go on unhindered. In researching for Dust in My Mouth I read Soong-Chan Rah’s book Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times. Rah writes directly about the desire for some branches of the church in North America to have a constant celebration. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy.  

I think of lament as both a season and also a constant state. At times we enter into a season of lament and other times we lament alongside others—but always we dance. I think the church moves and lives in a dance of lament. That’s not to say that I see life or the church as sad. Again,  I find the tangible substance of hope in the give and take as we move together in vulnerability, honesty, and grace. 

 

WA: How would you encourage people to express their own lamentation? What insight about grief do you hope people will walk away with? 

KF: I long for this work to invite others into the dance of lament and hope it prompts people to seek out a community to share their lives with. Pain in isolation leads to despair. I know it takes courage to move toward others in an exposed way. The human experience leans more toward suffering than celebration. Even people living the most protected lives will experience the death of loved ones. At the end of Prophetic Lament, Rah uses one of the poems from Lamentations to write his own lament. If you don’t know where to start look to the examples in scripture and write your own experience into that framework. 

Out of my work on Dust in My Mouth, I created a six-panel visual show as well as a book and prints. Look for all of that on my website after November 15th.

 

 

If you enjoy the spirit of Fisher’s writing check out her visual work at katiefisher.us or follow her on twitter at @katiefisher_km 

Philip Tallon ~ Two (More) Ways to Integrate the Arts into the Church’s Mission

A friend kindly directed my attention to a recent blog post over at Christianity Today, “Seven Evangelism Environments Artists Create: How the church can leverage the arts for evangelism,” by Dr. Byron Spradlin. I give a hearty ‘amen’ to what I take is Spradlin’s main thrust, which we find in the final line: “If you are a church or mission leader, invite the artists you know to help you take a fresh look at the way you think about, plan for, and implement evangelism.”  

The bulk of the post is aimed at offering some frameworks for how artists can aid the mission of evangelism by designing environments, creating community through shared artistic endeavor, helping to express the gospel, and so forth. All of this is offered with the modest disclaimer that these are just preliminary suggestions for getting started:

These seven environments mentioned above are simply a start in stating how artistic expression specialists (artists) bring powerful and beautiful resource to the Lord’s assignment of evangelism. In fact, when it comes to evangelism, the Church cannot do without them in the mix.

This is good. The church can’t do without artists.  

However, I do have some quibbles, though I’m reluctant to pillory a post whose main point I affirm. (Lord knows, I’m not eager for some smart aleck to nitpick all my blog posts.) In lieu of a very direct response, I want to offer two things to keep in mind as we try to thoughtfully integrate the arts into the church’s mission. 

1. The arts are already and always involved in the church’s mission.

Throughout the post, Spradlin relies on a common distinction between the message of the gospel and the mode of its expression. He rightly points out that without being able to “feel” and “imagine” the truth of the message, the news will not seem good. This is right, but could still mislead the reader into seeing the truth of the gospel as something distinct from its mode of expression.

What the study of theology and the arts reveals, however, is that our understanding of the truth is always mediated through aesthetic categories. Metaphor, the interconnection of two networks of meaning, fundamentally shapes all thinking. Encountering and explaining are inextricable. Imaginative intuition and artistic sensibility are necessary for accessing the objective truths of the gospel. Divine communication is already artistically shaped, because God himself uses artistic expression. Through parables, metaphorical language, and the medium of story, the Bible assumes that the arts matter. It is impossible to access the propositional truths of theology without relying on creative expression. Punching it a bit: God has already bound up the task of theology with the power of poetry.

With this in mind, we should approach the arts not first as powerful vehicles that amplify our expression and encounter with the truth, but as a necessary element in all theological knowing. A ministry that sees the arts as intrinsic, rather than instrumental, will already be two steps ahead in fruitfully integrating the arts in ministry.  

Perhaps this all still seems nitpicky, but many Christians hold to a reductively sharp distinction between content and expression. I once heard a famous mega-pastor exclaim that the “only thing that makes music Christian is the lyrics.” By this I assumed he meant that worship could work in all manner of musical modes, so long as it kept the same message. But this overlooks, of course, that the mode of expression mediates our understanding of the message. Transpose almost any song from a major to minor key (or vice versa) and the meaning shifts dramatically. (YouTube offers many, many examples.)

2. Artists are not special (or, at least, not in the sense we sometimes think).

Even among those who value the arts, there can be a temptation to put them in a “gilded ghetto”: a separate space of distanced admiration. The same happens with artists. They can be construed as specially gifted, yet also alien. More than one working artist I know has felt this simultaneous admiration-with-distance. Theseus’s lines in Midsummer Night’s Dream comes to mind:

  Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold—

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven. (5.1)

For Theseus (though probably not Shakespeare) the poet, like the lover and the madman, is a frenzied genius who mysteriously sees more than reason can comprehend. Many people in the pews will likely hold a similar view.

Much of this is come by honestly. Plato seemed to distrust the artist as an irrational-yet-inspired creator, (cf. Ion). Likewise, Kant separated aesthetic judgment from the rationality. These ideas still haunt the Western mind, even among those who have never cracked the pages of Kant or Plato.

An important step for integrating Christian artists more fully into the life of the church is to honor their talents as meaningfully connected to the larger concerns of the church. Artistic making is often closely bound up with careful reflection on big ideas and cultural context. Spradlin goes a long way to suggesting how artists can be integrated. His generalizations are broadly true, but might also be misread to propagate the idea of artists as a special class of people touched by the muses with a mysterious gift:

Artists are hardwired to be curious about culture expressions and intrigued by and interested in culture’s ways. Through their curiosity—and a wonderful product of it: looking at familiar realities in fresh ways—they always create situations and places where relationships are formed.

Again, my goal is not to correct Spradlin’s notions, but to nuance their reception. Artists come in all shapes and sizes. Artists are people, no more trustworthy or untrustworthy in their powers than any other group. (Even here, there’s a danger in grouping artists together. A broad view of the arts accounts for the ad-man and the ballerina; the game designer and the book binder.) Those who wish to shepherd artists should plan to pastor the whole person, including the expression of their craft.

If this seems intimidating, it is worth noting that pastors are artists too. They shape sermons, and they also shape souls. As Hans Urs von Balthasar points out, the most beautiful work of art is the life of the saint.

***

Philip Tallon (PhD, St. Andrews) is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University. He is the author of The Poetics of Evil (Oxford, 2012), and The Absolute Basics of the Christian Faith (Seedbed, 2016).

Philip Tallon ~ How Artists Do Theology: The Resurrection

Note from the Editor: we are pleased to reshare this post from Dr. Philip Tallon that originally appeared a few years ago as a resource for Easter.

During this Easter season, I’ve been reflecting on a number of artworks that depict Christ’s victory over death.

“The Risen Christ” by Bramantino (ca 1490)

One striking painting by Bramantino (1490) features Christ raised from the dead but still bearing the emotional and physical trauma of the cross. Jesus is alive again but seems to carry the knowledge of the torture he underwent into the new creation. It is a powerful painting, as Jesus’ haggard face seems to remind us that his suffering was no illusion, and that the way of the cross will be no easier for us.

But the most consistently moving painting, the one that I return to again and again, is Piero della Francesca’s “The Resurrection” (ca. 1460).

“Resurrection” by Piero della Francesca (ca 1460)

Here again Christ carries the sorrow of the cross in his subtle and composed face, which is aimed directly at the viewer, turning the act of spectating into a confrontation. But there is also silent victory in his powerful stance. One hand holds a flag with a cross, while one foot is perched confidently on the sepulcher that recently held his body. The use of a sepulcher, rather than a cave tomb, is a nice homage to the town of Sansepolcro (“holy sepulcher”) where the mural was painted. The tomb is alabaster in color, as even death has been purified by Christ’s presence.

Like all adaptations of a biblical scene, the painter must act as a theologian. Decisions must be made in depicting the moment. And della Francesca, one understands, takes his task of visual exegesis seriously.

Not only does the moment balance gravity and joy in Jesus’ solemn triumph, but it invites us to understand that the work that has been accomplished is not yet understood by a slumbering world. The guards at the tomb, bear all the symbols of power and might: one guard’s blood red shield indicates Roman authority with its alluded SPQR (“The Senate and People of Rome”). Yet they foolishly sleep, utterly unaware that Rome’s power to bring death cannot defeat YHWH’s power to bring life. The same sleeping soldier with the shield sleepily holds on his spear, as if clutching the last shreds of domination. Jesus’ hand, meanwhile, grips a flag of triumph with the easy authority of the Messiah whose kingdom does not originate in this world (but does extend to it).

But God’s power is seen not just in Christ’s victory, but also in the image of new creation we see in the picture. Jesus’s wounds remain. A trickle of scarlet paints his side. Dots of red stipple his hands. But his body is restored to the full fleshly life we see in della Francesca’s “Baptism of Christ” (1450). This is a real body, with weight and heft.

Perhaps even more notable, however, is the landscape behind Jesus. A testament to the artist’s thoughtfulness, the trees and hills to the left of the Messiah are barren, but to the right new life has begun. Leaves and shrubs testify to the new work of creation inaugurated by Christ. In this way Piero della Francesca gets thunderingly right what so many Christians get so stunning wrong. Raised on the first day of the week – a day any faithful Jew would understand as the first day of creation – God in Christ has begun the re-creation of this world. This work of making all things new is not complete, but it has begun.

N. T. Wright’s address, “The Road to New Creation,” could almost be taken as commentary on della Francesca’s painting:

God is not going to abolish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it, to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it. ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom, and rejoice with joy and singing; the desert shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.’ The last book of the Bible ends, not with the company of the saved being taken up into heaven, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, resulting in God’s new creation, new heavens and new earth, in which everything that has been true, lovely, and of good report will be vindicated, enhanced, set free from all pain and sorrow…God will make new heavens and new earth, and give us new bodies to live and work and take delight in his new creation. And the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel is that this new world, this new creation, has already begun: it began when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on Easter morning, having faced and beaten the double enemy, sin and death, that has corrupted and defaced God’s lovely creation.

Wright has been making the rounds with this point for over a decade now, and has helpfully reminded us of this key piece of biblical theology. Salvation is about restoring this world, not escaping from it. But it’s worth pointing out that paintings like “The Resurrection” have been reminding us of this for centuries.

Cole Bodkin ~ Review: Silence Unbroken

The Hero’s Journey

American mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was renowned for his ability to compare ostensibly opposing worldviews, philosophies, and religions through the lens of mythology. What Campbell discovered was that the human experience could be reduced down to a single concept: the “monomyth.” In other words, all human traditions have an archetypal pattern with thousands of variations, which basically tell the same story: the hero’s journey.1

The hero’s journey involves as many as 17 stages and centers on a man or woman who goes on an adventure, is confronted with a crisis or resistance inevitably resulting in a decisive battle, and ensuing victory, which forever changes the hero(ine). At the conclusion of the hero’s journey, the audience is charged—through the power of the tale’s rhetoric—and implicitly beckoned to pursue their own personal quest. Once applying his method to various stories, movies, and books, one sees the merit of Campbell’s work and how the monomyth accurately portrays much of the common human experience.

And we Americans? We love the hero’s journey. We starve for it. It’s all around us. It’s part of the very fabric of our society. We are drawn to it, sing, it, celebrate it, and deep down in the inner recesses of our hearts, we ultimately want to be a hero.

 

Journey and Resistance

In Martin Scorsese’s recent film Silence, based on the novel by Shusaku Endo, Father Rodrigues learns that his mentor, Father Ferreira, has allegedly committed the egregious sin of apostasy. Though Christian persecution was pervasive in 17th century Japan in which the novel is set, Rodrigues and Garupe, Ferreira’s other mentee, could not possibly conceive of any scenario where their mentor could commit such an act of infidelity. Hence, they must depart immediately on their quest to investigate and (dis)prove any legitimacy of these claims.

Upon arriving in Japan, Father Rodrigues and Garupe realize that the persecution against Christians is much more severe than they had ever imagined. Yet, this will not stop our hero(es). The tandem duo is surreptitiously brought into a village full of Christians to whom they immediately minister in secret. At this point, we begin to notice that their mission—to recover or disprove the alleged news regarding Ferreira—is slightly modified and expanded: to tend to a desperate flock. To be sure, much is to be commended for their care amongst the despairing congregation; however, once the heat turns up, and the antagonist, The Inquisitor, discovers subversive Christian life in this village, a realization begins to surface: our hero’s quest has become extremely complicated and convoluted, and he has some cracks in his armor.

Without spoiling too much, I contend that characters in the biblical text begin to emerge in Rodrigues’ imagination: Pilate (the Inquisitor), Judas (Kichijiro), and Jesus (Rodrigues). Our hero develops a complex and compares his struggles and hardships with those of Christ. Without a doubt, trying to be like Jesus isn’t a bad thing. Imitatio Christi is good – yet we have limitation in our imitation. There are some things that were only intended for Jesus to undertake (e.g., die for the sins of the world). As Silence unfolds, Rodrigues’ romanticized illusion of martyrdom intensifies. Is he really the savior of this flock? Is he on a mission or a conquest?2

 

Wabi-Sabi 3

Legend has it that an aspiring disciple of the Way of the Tea, Sen no Rikyu, sought the tutelage of a tea-master, Takeeno Joo. First lesson? Tend the garden. Rikyu, with delicate precision, presented an immaculate garden before the tea master, but not before shaking a cherry tree, resulting in the perfect garden being scattered with a few random leaves.

In the 15th century an aesthetic and worldview in Japan began to manifest. Rikyu was revered as one who embodied its very essence. Wabi-sabi originated as a reaction against the popular lavish depictions of beauty in art at that time. In contrast to predominant forms of the day, wabi-sabi emphasized imperfection, impermanence, finitude, and authenticity.

A contemporary example might help us to understand. In the recent TV show The Man in the High Castle, there is an entire episode in which Nobusuke Tagomi (Trade Minister of the Pacific States) repairs a broken white coffee mug. We’d probably expect him to use some sort of white lacquer to distract any attention from previous cracks; however, he doesn’t do that. Instead, Tagomi uses what looks like a gold lacquer to highlight the imperfections (which is very wabi-sabi of Tagomi).

In Silence Rodrigues’ romantic vision of Christianity is one that exists as if there are no cracks. Filled by lofty propositional truths, and a God on a high and mighty throne, Rodrigues does his best to muster up strength to remain faultless. Continuing up the path of the hero, he repeatedly fails to recognize the cracks in his armor.

 

The Way of the Saint 4

Not all literary gurus agree that Campbell’s analysis of the monomyth—an all-encompassing existential metanarrative with variegated threads—is entirely accurate. In lieu of the monomyth, Frank J. Ambrosio has argued there are actually two paradigms: the way of the hero and the way of the saint. Whereas the hero is on the path towards the goal of achieving self-fulfillment and glorious honor, the saint is guided by love and a responsibility towards the other and one’s community. Both the hero and the saint are on the same quest—the meaning of life—but arrive at two different conclusions.

 

From Hero to Saint? (SPOILER)

At the dénouement of Silence, Rodrigues is brought face to face with his mentor, the alleged apostate Ferreira. Up to this point, Rodrigues had witnessed multiple Japanese Christians suffer torturous conditions and death. Doubt is at a fever pitch. Rodrigues even tells some of his flock to step on the fumi-e (image of Jesus) to escape this unbearable situation; our hero, however, would not concede.

Reminiscent of a stubborn athlete, our hero will not budge. And just like a coach (or person in charge) disciplining the stubborn player, by making the whole team suffer for the one who thinks they are in the right – paining the player to no end – likewise, the Inquisitor causes the village to suffer because of Rodrigues’ refusal to recant.

But the confrontation with Ferreira proves a formidable challenge. Despite Rodrigues’ stalwart attempts, Ferreira appears to be a goner.

Or is he? The once-priest tells him Japan is a swamp. The gospel will not take root in this land. The “Christians” there aren’t really Christians but syncretists (an aside which raises a host of questions regarding contextualization).

Later that night, our hero is presented with the greatest challenge. After complaining about the loud snoring, Rodrigues is informed that the sound is actually coming from the suffering of other Japanese Christians. This is the breaking point, and the most controversial scene in the movie. Ferreira invites Rodrigues to engage in the hardest act of love he will ever face—to trample the fumi-e—and thus end the torture. As declared by his opponents throughout, he is assured it will only be a “formality.”

A fumi-e tile, or “stepping-on picture,” shown to suspected Christians in 17th century Japan. This piece has been on display in Nagasaki.

As Rodrigues gazes upon the fumi-e, the silence is unbroken. The voice of Jesus whispers, “Go ahead now. It’s all right. Step on me. I understand your pain. I was born into this world to share men’s pain. I carried this cross for your pain. Your life is with me now. Step.”

And so in deep despair, Rodrigues relinquishes the pursuit of victory – the hero’s journey— and accepts defeat for the sake of love. He steps on the fumi-e. Rodrigues undergoes a Christian version of wabi-sabi; through weakness, his armor is cracked and filled by the power of Christ. Effectually, he participates in the death of Christ, and begins his journey anew toward the way of the saint.

Or maybe that is my hope? I desire that in the end Rodrigues was faithful despite what appears to be apostasy. Could it have been just a matter of formality? What even is apostasy? Is it just a declaration, an assent? What about being a functional apostate in the day-to-day without publicizing it? Could it be just an example of “alternative facts”?

There are so many questions raised by this film, and ultimately I think what we desire is resolution and certitude. But only one thing is certain to me in this film (as I suspect in the book): it’s a shroud of mystery. The world of Silence isn’t clear-cut black and white, but full of grey and confusion. Maybe Rodrigues was a hero, a saint, or both?

The conclusion of the movie remains murky. One of the more heartbreaking consequences is that our (ex)hero-saint must spend the rest of his life exiled in Japan without the fellowship of other believers (even this statement can be scrutinized, for I suspect that a touching reunion and reconciliation with Kichijiro (“Judas”) in the final scene may suggest otherwise). With few exceptions, God ultimately calls, gathers, and sends Christians out together as the communion of the saints, not in isolation.

My one-year-old daughter and I try to walk to the park whenever it’s warm enough to go see the ducks at the pond. Yesterday we saw an aberration. After visiting the pond almost daily for the past three weeks, we saw a stranger to these parts: the heron. Sticking out like a sore thumb, this majestic bird immediately grabbed the attention of my daughter, but this time she didn’t say, “duck.” She knew it was different and mysterious. As we observed for a few minutes, we noticed that although the ducks, geese, and heron inhabited the same pond, it was clear that the heron wasn’t welcomed. A few geese even hissed at it. Staring quietly as mere bystanders, we watched the heron remain by itself, all alone, in the marshy-like terrain, and in that moment I was reminded of Rodrigues.

 

 

Viewer discretion advised. This film is rated R for violent content.

Click here to watch a conversation with Martin Scorsese on faith and film recently hosted by Fuller Theological Seminary.

 

  1. I first heard this concept from Pastor/Author, Tim Suttle: https://vimeo.com/133293651
  2. This blog was helpful in identifying these themes: https://contrarianravings.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/i-was-not-silent-i-suffered-beside-you/
  3. See J.R. Briggs Fail (Kindle location 1905)
  4. Suttle, ibid.

Tammie Grimm ~ Celtic Christianity and the Coloring Craze

Chances are, you or someone you know gave or received a coloring book for adults in the last year. With titles as catchy as “Color Me Stress Free” or “The Art of Relaxation,” the coloring craze has swept the nation. Whether the book contains images of floral gardens, mandalas or other graphic patterns, the idea behind coloring therapy is to find “inner peace” or your Zen through selecting a desired pencil and shading in a printed design.

Coloring reportedly helps reduce stress in adults as it requires the brain, nervous system and muscles to use fine motor skills and therefore engages the participant in a creative action. An added benefit is that it is a skill learned in childhood, so the simplicity of what was once work for a young child is now a pleasant pastime. Regardless of any nostalgia coloring may evoke, the action of coloring allows the mind to rest from the myriad of helter-skelter activities of modern-first-world-living that keep it occupied otherwise.

Together, the right brain and left brain coordinate in the simple repetitive action of moving the pencil to dapple, daub, dot, fleck, or steadily tint the page with pigmentation with infinitely creative possibilities. No matter how many copies of the same pre-printed image are made available, each person who sits down to color expresses their own creative autonomy with the colors they choose, the techniques they use and whether or not they chose to stay within or even create outside the lines.

I wonder if coloring hasn’t become our contemporary culture’s expressed need for connection and integration. Living in a society in which so much is mechanized and automated, we lose track of who we are, how we function and who we are meant to be as human beings. Think about it: for many of us, eating and drinking – a basic human necessity- is something we access through cardboard boxes and cellophane wrappers. Yes, it is convenient to use the drive-thru line to get our Starbucks or use an app to place our to-go order ahead of time to use the handy carry-out parking space at Applebee’s or Panera’s. Such conveniences and technological assists allow us to be super productive in our overcrowded schedule. Yet, whether we like it or not, a sense of alienation begins to creep into our lives, disconnecting us from a life of intentionality, a life of integration, a life of wholeness that is a hallmark of Celtic Christianity.

Celtic Christianity, through its prayers and practices, grounds participants in the fundamentals of who we are as human beings – creatures of God, our lives connected to the earth and related to the world – even the world beyond our tangible senses.

In similar ways, the act of coloring connects us in a fundamental way to who we are as human beings, unified creatures made in the image of God who created us. Our mind, heart, and will are united in creative endeavor and that prods our soul and awakens it into consciousness – integrating our whole being. Instead of continually living a distracted existence that imperceptibly fractures our sense of self and belonging in the world, coloring is a simple, easily accessed and a typically pleasant pastime for many. Coloring allows a person’s mind, heart, and energies to become focused and provides rest and rejuvenation from the rat race that otherwise consumes us.

No wonder coloring has become a fashionable entry point for prayer and meditation. But coloring is no substitution for living a life of intentionality and integrity that is Christian. Even coloring a series of Celtic knots and designs does not make one practiced in the ways of Celtic Christianity – ancient or contemporary. It might be a start, but it is only the initial steps of a lifelong and all-encompassing journey of intentional whole-life discipleship.

In a series of several posts, I plan to explore the heart of Celtic Christianity, what such a life of integration and integrity looks like for a contemporary Christian and why such a life is authentic to our Wesleyan heritage. Each post will consider aspects of everyday life that threaten to distract and distort us from living full lives that seek the sacred and find connection with the endlessly creative Triune God who created the universe.

For those of you interested in taking this journey with me, try your hand at coloring once or twice in the next week. It need not be a Celtic design, but if a Celtic knot will help inspire or ground you in this experience a few links to some free on-line artwork are provided below.

http://www.supercoloring.com/coloring-pages/arts-culture/celtic-art

http://www.supercoloring.com/coloring-pages/celtic-knotwork

http://www.getcoloringpages.com/celtic-mandala-coloring-pages

http://www.getcoloringpages.com/celtic-knot-coloring-pages

As you color, consider the things you notice about the activity…what sorts of things are conducive to coloring? What distracts you from coloring? Do you enjoy coloring with others or do you prefer doing it by yourself? There are no right or wrong answers, but taking stock of the activity may lead to further insights about what Celtic Christianity might look like in our contemporary culture.

Until then – may this traditional Celtic blessing accompany you on your journey and serve as a benediction.

May you have –

Walls for the wind

And a roof for the rain,

And drinks bedside the fire

Laughter to cheer you

And those you love near you,

And all that your heart may desire.

Wesleyan Accent ~ Why Deny the Obvious Child?

Note from the Editor: About ten years ago I was struck by the force of this painting. Its impact felt like a body blow. Recently, as I followed the news coming from Syria, often accompanied by heartbreaking photos, the painting came back to mind. I contacted the artist to ask permission for use.

There is a robust history of artistic license when it comes to portrayals of Christ. On the one hand, Jesus Christ was a Middle Eastern man whose existence is verified by historians. On the other hand, Christians affirm that Jesus was also fully divine, the Son of God. Because of the truth that God took on human flesh to enter into our existence, sometimes artists dwell in that larger thought, portraying Jesus as an African man, or a Japanese fisherman, or as a blond-haired, blue-eyed European. Other times, artists have attempted to portray the physical specificity of the Christ child who was born in Bethlehem to poor Jewish parents 2,000 years ago. 

This work marries the visual structure of classic nativity paintings with heartbreaking detail derived from current events. It shows us Middle Eastern faces – but in mourning, ravaged by violence, not lit with a celestial bliss. And after all, when it comes to nativity art, who dwells on the part of the Christmas story where Herod has infants and toddlers killed in his pursuit of his pint-sized rival? Even the Christmas story – especially the Christmas story – can’t escape the fallen world in which it takes place, the very reason it takes place. Jesus was born, and women wept for their young sons killed by Herod’s soldiers.

Meditate, then, on this work by Sandy Blass: “Why Deny the Obvious Child?” See more of her work at www.blassart.com.