The lost art of appreciation.

Yesterday, Philip Ryken let the discouraged artists of the Christian community have a voice on The Gospel Coalition’s blog.

Artists included those “called to draw, paint, sculpt, sing, act, dance, and play music.” My heart sunk when I saw that writers weren’t once mentioned in the list or in the whole of Ryken’s address to the art-wary church.  “The church doesn’t even consider writers artists anymore!”

I’ve had a day or so to sit on it. I think that in my knee-jerk reaction I lobbed the arrow at the wrong target. There’s an even more complex issue at play behind the absence of creative writing in the church – of all modes of artistic communication – and it says far more about the culture than it does the church. It’s the primary reason I stayed away from writing in any sort of public forum for years:

If it requires critical thinking, it is too cumbersome for our commodity-driven glocal community.

Those that have the most appeal and are gathering the largest followings online through social media are in no way artists. Form rarely strays from the numbered and bullet-pointed or long-winded, “stream-of-consciousness” rambling. The essay and the fiction piece are lost amidst hoards of proud armchair philosophers waxing eloquent at a 9th grade reading level. If a quick, practical application is not presented at the end, the words were obsolete. In a world where we can press a button and have an entire album downloaded to our hard drive, or type a few words – 140 characters, to be precise – and broadcast our thoughts to a hundred or a thousand perfect strangers, we can’t imagine having to spend longer than 30 seconds on anything.

We don’t know what to do with writing that isn’t immediately accessible. So, we ignore it.

Under the list of offenses made in the modern church toward word artists, this is the greatest. But I hope others like me who read TGC’s blog post yesterday are prepared to give careful (albeit painful) consideration to the possibility that church’s dismissal of the arts is actually a contextually-appropriate and expected response. However, that is not to say it is a biblical response.

Consider with me for one moment that the blame does not actually fall upon the church: the absence of writing or any art form that requires prolonged meditation in the church is actually a symptom of sin’s degradation of culture.

If this is the case, then the answer is not simply to let artists hang more of their paintings in the gathering space or make more time during the service for performing artists.

As believers, we are conduits of life. We revitalize the cities and rebuild the desolate lands through the presentation of the gospel.  We teach other believers and not-yet-believers anew what it is to see beyond the surface of a thing.  Jesus exemplified this perfectly during His ministry, providing not only a template, but a wellspring of inspiration for the artist longing to restore a deeper appreciation for the arts in his or her community:

His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?”

He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. That is why I use these parables,

For they look, but they don’t really see.
They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.

Matthew 13:10-13

Jesus, our perfect, holy and beautiful Creator: the original frustrated artist. Those few who longed to understand did understand, but can you imagine God incarnate communicating life-saving truths about the kingdom to a thousand other blank stares and glazed-over expressions?

What I see in Ryken’s blog is evidence that we as artists feel we shoulder the burden of keeping the arts relevant in the church. But Jesus knew that to embed the mysteries of the gospel and eternal life a little deeper in His words was to make them deliberately inaccessible.  Only the movement of the Spirit could drive a man to mine deeper and work harder for the pure gems of truth that lay below the surface.

As sin erodes our understanding and does its work in the culture by transforming our desires from truth to convenience, beauty to accessibility, mystery to omniscience, the arts will be further pushed aside.

Perhaps what we need is not prayer for a revival of the arts in the modern church, but for a revival of souls that rekindles a passion for the arts as present-day parables pointing to vast eternal truths. Whether by our will or not, all created things point to a Creator. Artists, with this truth in mind, our response should not be to beg for an appreciative audience, but to teach our audience to appreciate.

Be ready to engage in difficult discussions with leaders who are having a hard time seeing artistic expression as valid a mode of worship as song, prayer, the preaching of the word and communion.

Take time to explain your sculptures, your paintings, your poetry. Don’t scoff at those who don’t immediately understand or know how to understand.  (See Matthew 13:17,18)

Invite those few who show real interest to visit a gallery with you, attend a lecture, hear a symphony.

For those more extreme camps of Christianity who condemn artistic expression as worldly, lovingly communicate that it is not only the arts that are fallen, but our understanding or appreciation of them as well.

Be long-suffering, my artistic brother or sister. This is the already and not-yet kingdom of God. When this broken world is restored, eyes and ears will be opened once more to beauty and mystery and truth. The arts are a weathered and age-worn canvas, but not beyond the restorative hand of Creator God.

Waiting in the terminal.

Center Church is a massive and daunting read – akin to dining at the all-you-can-eat buffet serving only meat and potatoes – and I am not one who likes to take small bites and chew methodically.  Instead of taking theologically-dense works like this one and breaking it down into manageable portions, reflecting, and responding, I usually end up reading it twice in a row. After the reading, I sit there like a gluttonous mass of over-stuffed Christian and go into a catatonic state of digestion that will last days, weeks or months, depending on how much I was challenged, convicted, brought to repentance and empowered with boldness. 

I may have to read this one three times.

I really liked the picture that Keller created in my mind with this airplane analogy.

…keep in mind is that it is not the quality of the faith itself that saves us; it is what Jesus has done for us. It is easy to assume that being “saved by faith” means that God will now love us because of the depth of our repentance and faith. But that is to once again subtly make ourselves our own Savior rather than Jesus. It is not the amount of our faith but the object of our faith that saves us. Imagine two people boarding an airplane. One person has almost no faith in the plane or the crew and is filled with fears and doubts. The other has great confidence in the plane and the crew. They both enter the plane, fly to a destination, and get off the plane safely. One person had a hundred times more faith in the plane than the other did, but they were equally safe… Saving faith isn’t a level of psychological certainty; it is an act of the will in which we rest in Jesus. [1]

I am the wary passenger every single day of my life. 

Let me be totally clear with you: if it were not for the Holy Spirit literally lifting my doubting, hesitating legs and helping me take those precious few steps between “boarding” the plane and “on” the plane, I would not be on the plane. 

The decorum it takes for those of us who have a fear of flying to hold it together while waiting at the terminal at the airport really cannot be described. 

What I try to look like on the outside:

I’m only mildly interested in the journey I am about to take. I’m an old veteran, really. See me with my headphones and my games on my smart phone and a casual eye on other waiting passengers? I’m just half-listening to the flight attendant on the intercom. You can tell I do this so often that I don’t need to actively listen to hear my row announced. I just intuitively know. I’m in no hurry to get on, so I’ll just relax here casually while those uptight travelers crowd the counter waiting for their “MVP Gold” boarding call.

What’s actually going through my head:

There are two men under the aircraft with clipboards comparing numbers. Something must be wrong. Are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist? I see plenty of room under that jacket for a bomb. I don’t know much, really, but is there any way we’d survive a crash from 28,000 feet to even be able to use those flotation devices? I’m going to be up in the air. Miles into the air. Slides over the wings won’t do jack for me. Perfect time for me to remember the nightmare I had about colliding with another airplane midflight. Will someone please show me the results from the most recent safety checks on this craft?

Not exaggerating. I have so little faith that I will land at my destination when I board an airplane that even after I am at cruising altitude, beverages are being served and I’ve found a suitable distraction for the next hour, I’m still eyeballing the other passengers suspiciously and jumping at every change in the sound of the engine.

Praise God that this plane’s ability to land safely at its destination does not depend on my confidence in the plane, the crew, or the people I’m traveling with, or we would have crashed before we’d even made it through takeoff.

The problem arises when we try to perfectly comprehend, from an intellectual standpoint, Jesus and the Gospel before we will lay down our sense of control, our doubts, our lives. 

Let’s take the 737 for example – my vessel of choice flying to and from college in California years back.

I was, and remain, terrified of flying. I had two choices if I wanted to get home to my family each break: to either accept my doubts and fears and board the plane nonetheless, realizing that my fear did not gain me any more control over the plane than if I perfectly understood and trusted it, or to never board the plane in endless pursuit of total confidence in and understanding of the technology that was going to get me into the air and back down again in one piece.

I could have studied engineering and aerospace, read all the manuals on how a 737 operates and is piloted, interviewed the entire crew and reviewed their full list of qualifications and credentials. I could have meticulously inspected every nook and cranny of that plane. I could have, in some twisted and unlikely scenario, performed background checks on every other person who was going to be traveling on that plane with me.

In doing so, I would have missed the bigger issue at hand, which is that I actually believed all these things would have given me peace about the flight.

It’s not the plane with the problem. It’s not the crew, or the passengers. It’s me.

Dear friend, don’t get so tangled up in checking the wiring on the plane and examining every detail that you miss the journey of a lifetime.

You have two options. Get on the plane, or spend your whole life figuring out a reason not to get on the plane.

Whether you’re sweating and shaking uncontrollably, or calmly walk onto the plane with your head held high and pretend to have absolute certainty of your destination, the plane will do what it was intended to do.  And when you get on the plane (because I know you will) recline your seat, put in your headphones and rest.

Rest, rest, rest. You need it.

 

 

[1] Keller, Timothy J. (2012-09-04). Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (p. 36). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Gage at 5 months.

What a joy it is to raise this little weirdo. He makes me laugh every day. Full update coming at 6 months!

The rebrand.

Saul became Paul. What’s not to love about a name change? A flavor change?

In all seriousness, it was time. The more of “me” I put out there, the less of me I want readily available. My readership from around the web has been creeping up. For the sake of privacy for my family, and in light of a recent decision to pursue writing as a side-project to motherhood and discipleship, I’m entering a blog chrysalis.

But only in 15 minute spurts. Too many dirty diapers. I’m reading the gospel of Mark and Timothy Keller’s tome, Center Church, while nursing my child and scrubbing countertops.

So, if you were wondering where the new name came from, I guess I couldn’t have come up with a better description for the world inside my head. 

More flash fiction, creative non-fiction and essays, in addition to life “stuff”, are on the horizon.

 

Prophesy.

He fumbled in his pocket for the lighter, creeping cautiously along the forest floor, each step snapping twigs and alerting creatures of the night to his entry. Delicate orbs reflected some unearthly presence. Watching.

The delicate swish of synthetic fibers under a breeze heightened his awareness. His pullover jacket did little to block the wind as it traveled, searching for the path of least resistance around him.  It found his neck. Biting cold tendrils of the night grasped him by the throat.

The trembling blackness was bearing down on him. A crack, an echoing rumble. Somewhere nearby there was water. Water meeting water.  He heard drops colliding, amassing, yielding to unwritten laws set in motion by unseen hands.

They were searching for him.

He felt the familiar roughness of metal plunged into the deepest recesses of his pocket. Smooth plastic and bits of paper. Never mind the receipts, the scrawling notes, hastily written letters and numbers. Unless they burned. He’d need something to start a fire.  Paper. Twigs and dry wood. He could find those; he’d have time, if the storm held off.  He knew how to build a fire. He’d stooped over pits and helped little hands feed hungry flames.  They’d gone off in search of the dried bits, the offerings of the forest, tossing in pinecones just to watch them burn. He would keep silent vigil long after their tent had zipped shut.  

Click. Click. Click.

A familiar scent seemed to lift off the ground beneath him. Dust. Earthy and pungent.  Particles rising up into the sky, beckoning. 

Click. Click.

Anything. Just a spark. He could work with a spark.

Click.

He felt the first drop on his thumb.