REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & ART

          They left the great granite plain and flew over a garden even more beautiful than anything in a dream.  It in were gathered many of the creatures like the one Mrs. Whatsit had become, some lying among the flowers, some swimming in a broad, crystal river that flowed through the garden, some flying in what Meg was sure must be a kind of dance, moving in and out above the trees.  They were making music, music that came not only from their throats but from the movement of their great wings as well.           "What are they singing?" Meg asked excitedly.            Mrs. Whatsit shook her beautiful head.  "It won't go into your words.  I can't possibly transfer it to your words.  Are you getting any of it, Charles?"            Charles Wallace sat very still on the broad back, on his face an intently listening look, the look he ...

Those of you who know me know that my two favorite authors are C.S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle (yes, I'm a Narnia fan.  But my favorite Lewis novel is actually Perelandra  and every time I re-read it I end up in tears for the possibility of what we, as humanity, lost the moment we fell in the garden.) I've read this quote by C.S. Lewis before.  But when I rediscovered it today, it made a deeper impact especially considering yesterday's post: The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe, or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father...

Edited to add: I mistakenly posted this to the Art Chick blog today instead of here.  And I was so excited to be back in the groove... oy. I apologize for not keeping up the challenges over the last two weeks. We've had a bought of strep throat, friends in from Maryland, a new nephew born, a trip to Indianapolis, Rusty's mom visiting from Maryland. I'm so glad to be back to thinking about the connections between faith and art and how they can benefit our relationships with God and with each other. I fill you with Naming. Be! Be, butterfly and behemoth be galaxy and grasshopper star and sparrow you matter you are be! Be caterpillar and comet Be porcupine and planet sea sand and solar system sing with us dance with us rejoice with us for the glory of creation seagulls and seraphim angle worms and angel host, chrysanthemum and cherubim (O cherubim.) Be! Sing for the glory of the living and the loving the flaming of creation sing with us dance with us be with us. ...

The poet Horace once wrote, " Nothing is beautiful from every point of view."   To which I reply that I believe the opposite is also true - nothing is ugly from every point of view.  And so begins your training, young padawan: Change your point of view.  Literally. There are an awful lot of times when we look around and take a quick mental inventory then move on.  We glance over things that are familiar to us and may even miss small, unfamiliar things altogether if we're in a hurry.  Sometimes the environment in which an item resides can make it seem more unattractive and not-beautiful than it really is (your cube, your overgrown backyard, your least-favorite relative's house...) A 19th century British painter named John Constable once said," There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade and perspective will always make it beautiful."   I think this is one of the most ...

Don't worry. It's nothing tragic or urgent. It's just personal. Wondering how to take God's path for my existence rather than one that may have more to do with my ego and personal feelings. I was telling one of my friends about a totally bizarre answer we had to a prayer we've been praying for almost a year now. Last week we got a phone call from the Fairfield library saying they thought they have something that might belong to us. Having only been there once, maybe twice in the last year and half since we've been back I couldn't imagine what it would be. I thought maybe it was my library card from when my purse was stolen back in 2002. It turned out to be God answering a year-old prayer in an amazingly creative way. We have all of our important documents in one plastic file folder that is usually in a safe place in the house. That folder was taken with me to register Sean for school around this time last year (it has our birth certificates, soc...

I fill you with Naming. Be! Be, butterfly and behemoth, be galaxy and grasshopper, star and sparrow, you matter, you are, be! Be caterpillar and comet, Be porcupine and planet, sea sand and solar system, sing with us, dance with us, rejoice with us, for the glory of creation, seagulls and seraphim angle worms and angel host, chrysanthemum and cherubim. (O cherubim.) Be! Sing for the glory of the living and the loving the flaming of creation sing with us dance with us be with us. Be! Oh, I love pretty words and the flashes of heaven they bring forth.

In regards to Brian's comments, I can hear some of you wondering, "but isn't the the duty of the artist? To help the non-artists among us to see things they can't see on their own?" To that I say, "almost." It's a fine line, but not quite it, at least in my opinion. I firmly believe we, as artists, are called to help people come into fellowship with God on many different levels - through performance, through song, through music, visual arts, mutli-media, etc. But we're not to worship for them. We're here to help them learn to see more, look deeper and listen to everything, not just the surface noise. If I create something that helps you come into worship with God? I'm humbled. Honestly. But if I create something that helps you see a new way of coming to a place of worship on your own? Something that you learn that you can take with you? That's even more thrilling for me. It's cliche, but true, that "teach a...

When I first started this blog I had posted a few challenges to make people try to think outside of their own little frame of reference as well as to help get your mind going. Things were hectic, like I said in that last post. I didn't give this as much attention as it deserved because I was just thinking of it as a hobby or an interest that didn't require much more than the extra few minutes I had after living my real life (a.k.a. doing laundry, feeding kids, cleaning bathrooms...) But over the last few weeks I've been questioning some of why I believe what I believe. And I've come to the conclusion that God was hitting me with those questions to help me realize some things about myself and how I see Him and the world he created. I can't really explain it so I'll use a very generalized illustration: say you have a real estate agent, an accountant and an artist looking at a house. The real estate agent would note things like the location, the square foota...

Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure. Then, slowly, the shining dwindled until it, too, was gone, and there was nothing but stars and starlight. No shadows. No fear. Only the stars and the clear darkness of space, quite different from the fearful darkness of the Thing. - A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle November 29, 1918 – September 6, 2007

Hey, people! Jodi found her "cosmos." She sent me an email saying, "You may post them, or a link...that was a ton of fun. It made me find the stuff that makes me happy now matter how messy my house is." She sent me pictures for your viewing pleasure (and to reiterate the point of this whole thing): Bulletin board in Computer room , originally uploaded by Yoda0419 . Click here to view all of Jodi's "Cosmos" photos! P.S. if the link to the "Cosmos" set wasn't working for you on that last post when I first posted it? It's been corrected.

Ok, so I didn't see many comments from the last post and I wondered if maybe I ended that last post the wrong way? I totally didn't mean to go all Martha on you and say that your homes should be "art" or that you need to work on them or make them into Better Homes and Gardens or anything. Disclaimer: I told you when this started that I'm bad at verbalizing things... I'm apparently all about the visuals, remember? Anyway , I don't want anyone to think I'm asking for photos of a "beautiful" house. I mean, you can certainly email me photos of your beautiful house if you want. I love pictures! But what I was really trying to go for was the idea of finding beauty in the common, you know? It goes back to the "Cosmos in Chaos" that Madeleine L'Engle talked about in Walking on Water and the idea that if you can find any aspect of beauty or good or peace or "cosmos" (I love that term) then that art is "good...

Sorry. It's not that I haven't been thinking about the blog. It's just that we put our house on the market last week and have been dealing with all of the psychotic decluttering and cleaning and touching up that goes along with having to have your house ready to show at any random time. Woo hoo. Anyway, this next part of chapter two is something I really do struggle with quite a bit. The writer does want to be published; the painter urgently hopes that someone will see the finished canvas (van Gogh was denied the satisfaction of having his work bought and appreciated during his life time; no wonder the pain was more than he could bear); the composer needs his music to be heard. Art is communication, and if there is no communication it is as though the work has been still-born. Sweet fancy Moses! Seriously? Because every time I secretly long for someone, besides myself, to find meaning and joy in my artwork? I feel like admitting that would make me a sell-out. A bunch of...

Hi, everyone! I want to give everyone a heads up before I disappear on you for the weekend. Don't worry, the blog isn't going inactive. We're going out of town for the long weekend and will be gone from Thursday until Monday night. I will be back online with somethingoh-so-interesting to say (uh huh...) on Tuesday. I have an assignment for you but it's not artistic. If you've been meaning to get the book and haven't gotten around to it? Pick it up sometime over the weekend. I'd love for you to be reading it too, so you can keep me in line and let me know when you think maybe I've missed the mark. Accountability is a good thing. Second thing. Any of you who are reading but feeling like you don't really count as a "real" artist, or writer, or creator of things such as gardens and baby blankets and such? Try to get over it this weekend! I whole-heartedly call you an artist. If you are interested in this topic and this blog at all, you very...

Ok, if you didn't read the revised version of the last post, please go and read it first. It's ok, we'll wait up for you... Great. Alright, so I think this section of the chapter is really really good for clearing up some of yesterday's questions in regard to "Is it good is it bad or does it matter?" Remember, I did say that the narrative of this chapter flows so smoothly from one topic to the next that I was afraid I would chop it up and it wouldn't make as much sense. The very next paragraph after where I left off? says this: It is impossible for an artist to attempt a graphic reproduction of Jesus in any way that is meant to be literal. I sympathize with the Hassidic teaching that it is wrong to try in any way to make pictures of God or his prophets... But in a way, both miss the point which the Eastern Orthodox artists are taught when they study the painting of icons... The icon of Jesus may not look like the man Jesus two thousand years ago, b...

**Edited, please read!** I spent quite a lot of time worrying if this post would offend anyone. You know why? Because I don't want my post to be "bad art" and turn anyone off to reading more of this book or more of this blog. I'm leaving the intro and the passages from the book but taking out most of my wondering if this or that is bad art. My opinion in still the same, which is pretty much in line with the book. But, with one exception. I do think that what's bad art for some can be good art for others. I originally said I didn't think so, so let me explain why I changed my mind. The first reason is because I realize that not all of us are in the same place spiritually. We all come from different traditions and denominations. We can't possibly know what speaks to whom. And I'm so sorry if I came off sounding like I think I do. The other reason I changed my mind on that point? I started thinking about the book The Secret Life of Bees . In it, the si...

Ok, so back to finding cosmos in chaos. What does it take? How do we do it? I don't think we do anything. And at the same time? We have to be doing something all the time . I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself and I'm hoping I can explain this so it makes sense. In terms of doing as in the "correct action to take"? I don't think there is one. This is art and creativity. There are a million actions you can take that are all just as good as the next. But when I said we have to be doing something all the time? I mean we have to be aware. We have to retain that imagination and creativity that can only exist if we are open to our feelings and our impulse to create instead of trying to make something because it's the latest style or to get something sold or because it'll be "good Christian art." I think that takes faith. And though we, as Believers, throw around the word faith quite a bit I think we pretend to know more about ...

Jodi is a great artist and a friend of mine from Cincinnati (I live in the Washington D.C. area.) She has been such a good friend for me to have spiritually because her faith is tremedous and she tells it like it is. This art journal entry is awesome. Thank you, Jodi!

Ok. I wrote last night's post in a hurry. And to be honest, I had this huge idea in my head but couldn't quite get it out like I wanted to. Which is why I am an artist who makes stuff and not a writer (like you couldn't tell? Puh-leeze.) I'll let Stephen King explain: The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than a living size when they're brought out . (from The Body - which, when he's not being completely disgusting? King can write a beautiful sentence or two.) Anyway, back to last night's post. I'm so fascinated by the idea that we, as artists, may have a different type of "sight." Or maybe a deeper version of what some others have? I don't know. I didn't mean for that last post to sound like "Because we are teachers, if you're a good little Christian artist...

In chapter one, Madeleine L'Engle bring up the idea of artists being charged with helping the human race "remember." She says, In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and grace. In one of his dialogues, Plato talks of all learning as remembering. The chief job of the teacher is to help us to remember all that we have forgotten... One of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the Garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God's children are meant to be. We? Are the teachers. Those of us who create are teachers. Our specific work of art isn't the glorious thing iteself. But the feeling it invokes - joy, peace, comfort, whatever the emotion - for the briefest moment reminds the world of that which we forgot and will someday find again when we go to be w...

Preface: I'm so excited to see that there are people reading this! Not to be popular, but to have other people to bounce this stuff off of (just because I write it doesn't mean I'm right.) I hope if you are reading this, and you want to say something? That you'll say it. Feel free. Less lurking, more throwing yourself into the fray. My older son, Liam, is seven. He is a huge fan of a line of computer games called Backyard Sports . In these games you have the opportunity to get to know each player by clicking on their biography. There is background music, animation and all that fun stuff that keeps Liam from paying attention when I talk to him. One morning I heard Liam listening to some of the players bios and when he called me into the room, I figured he had found yet one more that made him laugh so he wanted to show me. Instead? He said, "Listen to this music, Mom." The player was talking so at first I didn't even realize there was anything to the back...