quotation anthology

8/6/2019 Quotation Anthology

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QUOTATION ANTHOLOGY

by

Rosie Perera051657

INDS 501: The Christian Imagination

Loren Wilkinson

Regent College

Winter Term 2005



The Christian Imagination class is about as interdisciplinary as they come. I thought it fitting,

therefore, to begin with a quote I came across which encourages the integration of the various

disciplines in our lives, including – and ultimately for the benefit of – our art:

Each of us are multi-faceted people with a variety of interests from politics to the arts,

from financial investments to recreational pleasures....In our lives, we almost have to

segregate these varied interests, but in primitive societies they intermingle as one. Art,music, religion, food gathering, birth, marriage and death, are all intertwined. Each

represents an essential part of life, and none can exist without support from the others.

Why we have evolved into a civilization that segregates these aspects of life into

essential and nonessential aspects could be a lifelong study for teams of anthropologists. But I feel that each of us who are seriously interested in making

photographs [or any art] could benefit greatly by trying to integrate the many facetsof our own lives. (Barnbaum, The Art of Photography, 152; italics mine)

In my photography, I often go for months with no inspiration. It usually takes a trip to some exotic

place to get me shooting again, but often my creative juices start running whenever I pay attention to

and appreciate the beauty of Creation, thus integrating my faith in a Creator-God with my

photographic art. Similarly, a common piece of advice to would-be writers is to “write about what

you love.” I aspire to be a writer (in some ways I already am), and it is appealing to approach writing

projects with that same sort of integrative intent, drawing on the myriad interests in my life.

Barnbaum also writes:

Creativity is a product of desire, thought, experience, and experimentation. It is also a product of inner conviction. Taken together, these imply intelligence and

commitment. (141-2)

This annotated anthology arises out of an assignment rather than a desire, but I hope I’ve put

enough thought and experimentation into it, and drawn enough upon my experience and inner

convictions, that it will reveal my intelligence and commitment...

In writings on theology and the arts, several themes tend to emerge, so I have grouped the

remaining quotes under these headings: Creation/Creativity, Incarnation, Redemption,

Sacrament/Holiness/Transcendence, Worship, and Revelation/Discovery/Proclamation/Truth-telling.

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Creation/Creativity/Image of God

It is hard to talk about creative art without evoking the Creator of the universe. Our artistic

endeavors are frequently spoken of as either a reflection of our being created in the image of God, or

a response to his creation.

“The characteristic common to God and man is...the desire and the ability to makethings.” (22) “It is the artist who, more than other [people], is able to create something

out of nothing.” (28) “[T]he mind of the maker and the Mind of the Maker are formed

on the same pattern, and all their works are made in their own image.” (Sayers, The

Mind of the Maker , 213)1

I agree with Sayers that the human impulse to create is derived from our being made in the image of

God, but I would disagree that it is the only characteristic common to God and man. There is also,

for example, our relationality. Nonetheless, observing our creativity is indeed a way that we can

come to know better the Mind of the Maker. I believe that the delight which I experience in making

something beautiful must approximate the satisfaction God felt in his creation when he looked upon it

and said that it was good.

Regarding the second of Sayers’ quotes above, I would say that either humans are not truly

capable of creating something out of nothing (as God did), or else if we are, then it is not the

exclusive domain of artists to do so. As a computer programmer, I felt like I was creating something

out of thin air (out of the ideas in my mind) every time I wrote a piece of software – even more so

than do people who work in the graphic and plastic arts, because the “building blocks” of computer

programs are not anything physical. They are mathematical and logical constructs, and commands

akin to “Let there be....” Perhaps one could argue that I was acting as an artist when I was doing that

work.2

1 Throughout this paper, multiple page numbers in parenthesis in a given paragraph all refer to the source listed at the end

of the paragraph.2 This would be an interesting avenue to explore further. I have written about the craftsmanship of computer

programming in my MCS comprehensive paper.

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I would also disagree with Sayers that all the works of artists are made in our own image. I

carved a dolphin out of wood the other day. Is that in my image? I doubt it. Are live dolphins made

in the image of God? I think not.

In a twist on the theme of artist as imager of God, William of Sens, in The Zeal of Thy House,

is an example of the artist as rival to God:

William: “We are the master-craftsmen, God and I—

We understand one another. None, as I can,

Can creep under the ribs of God, and feelHis heart beat through those Six Days of Creation;

Enormous days of slowly turning lights

Streaking the yet unseasoned firmament;

Giant days, Titan days, yet all too shortTo hold the joy of making. God caught his breath

To see the poles of the world stand up through chaos;And when He sent it forth, the great winds blew,

Carrying the clouds. And then He made the trees

For winds to rustle through—oak, poplar, cedar,

Hawthorn and elm, each with its separate motion— And with His delicate fingers painted the flowers,

Numberless—numberless! why make so many

But that He loved the work, as I love mine,And saw that it was good, as I see mine?—

The supple, swift mechanics of the serpent,

The beautiful, furred beasts, and curious fishWith golden eyes and quaintly-laced thin bones,

And whales like mountains loud with spurting springs,

Dragons and monsters in strange shapes, to makeHis angels laugh with Him; when He saw those

God sang for joy, and formed the birds to sing.

And lastly, since all Heaven was not enough

To share that triumph, He made His masterpiece,Man, that like God can call beauty from dust,

Order from chaos, and create new worlds

To praise their maker. Oh, but in making manGod over-reached Himself and gave away

His Godhead. He must now depend on man

For what man’s brain, creative and divineCan give Him. Man stands equal with Him now,

Partner and rival. Say God needs a church,

As here in Canterbury—and say He calls together

By miracle stone, wood and metal, buildsA church of sorts; my church He cannot make—

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Another, but not that. This church is mine

And none but I, not even God, can build it.

Me hath he made vice-gerent of Himself,And were I lost, something unique were lost

Irreparably; my heart, my blood, my brain

Are in the stone; God’s crown of matchless worksIs not complete without my stone, my jewel,

Creation’s nonpareil.” (Sayers, The Zeal of Thy House, 69-70)

Even though I disagree with the underlying premise, this speech is such amazing writing that I

couldn’t help including it. I think there are parts of it which do resonate as true – those parts which

speak of God’s feelings, and ours, upon the completion of a creative activity.

Trevor Hart sums up well the premise underlying Sayers’s assessment of William’s audacious

boast. It comes from an ancient (and unhelpful, in Hart’s opinion) view of the Promethean nature of

art:

[S]ince only the gods can truly create at all, acts of human poeisis result at best in aseries of clever fakes or imitations of the genuine article....The aspiration to participate

in some sense in a creativity akin to God’s original creative act is, in other words,

inherently rebellious. (Trevor Hart, “Through the Arts: Hearing, Seeing and Touchingthe Truth,” Chapter 1 in Begbie, Beholding the Glory, 6)

I’m with Hart here over against Sayers. He later refutes the ancient Greek ideas, and calls art a

“participation in God’s creativity.” (16) More from him below.

I include this next quote from The Zeal of Thy House, not because I like it, but simply because

it is important in the corpus of Christian reflection on the arts, and it sums up so well Sayers’s main

idea expounded later in The Mind of the Maker – that of the trinity of artistic creativity. Also it

serves as a foil for my later reflections on Hart’s ideas.

For every work of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly.

First: there is the Creative Idea; passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning; and this is the image of the Father.

Second: there is the Creative Energy, begotten of that Idea, working in time from the

beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter;

and this is the image of the Word.

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Third: there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the

lively soul; and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.

And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist

without other; and this is the image of the Trinity. (Sayers, The Zeal of Thy House,110-11)

I find Sayers’s terminology (Idea, Energy, Power) unhelpful in thinking about art, and her whole

analogy somewhat tenuous. The aspect of it which most enriches my understanding is the notion of

art as incarnational, which is the subject of the next section of this paper. I did like her discussion of

scalene trinities, in which art either has too much idea and not enough fleshing out, or is

overwhelmed by technical ingenuity with no idea behind it, or is too emotional with no coherent idea

or incarnational discipline. But I think it goes beyond reasonable extrapolation from Trinitarian

theology to see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in those overemphases.

In contrast, for Hart, art is an obligation, a response to, and a sharing in God’s creativity:

The creative authority of the Word who becomes flesh...creates space for, facilitates,

and deliberately seeks the responsible exercise of such freedom in every sphere of

human life. Responsible creativity of an artistic sort is thus not only warranted, but

may be viewed as an unconditional obligation laid upon us and called forth by God’sgracious speaking to humankind in the life, death and resurrection of his Son. Indeed

we may go further, and suggest that it is not only a proper response to, but also anactive sharing in...God’s own creative activity within the cosmos. (Hart, “Through theArts,” 18)

To my mind, his is a much more graspable and exciting way of thinking about art than Sayers’s. This

view fires me up and energizes my actual creation of art, whereas Sayers’s concepts, to use her own

critique, are heady (father-ridden) and virtuosic (son-ridden), but weak in the spirit/ghost department.

Incarnation

Picking up on the one person of Sayers’s trinity of creativity which I find most useful, here is

the first of two writers talking about how the arts model the Incarnation:

It may be that language itself, and the very possibility of communication through

words, bears witness to the primal act of communication in the incarnation of theeternal Word: every effort to incarnate our own thoughts in the web of language is

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underwritten by God’s expression of his Word in Christ. In that sense all literary art,

even self-consciously atheist literary art, is in some way, consciously or

unconsciously, modeling and bearing witness to the mystery of incarnation. (MalcolmGuite, “Through Literature: Christ and the Redemption of Language,” Chapter 2 in

Begbie, Beholding the Glory, 32)

The parallel Guite draws between the spoken or written word of humans and the creative word of

God is interesting, but I actually find the literary arts to be the least incarnational of all the arts,

because there is little physicality involved (all the more so now that most writers no longer even push

pen across page to create their oeuvres, but use a computer). In reverse of Hegel’s valuation of arts

from the baser architecture and sculpture up through the increasingly higher forms of painting and

music and poetry, I see the progression going from less incarnational (literature) to more

incarnational (painting and sculpture). Not that “incarnationality” is a measure of how great an art

form is, by any means. Poetry can often be more sublime than sculpture. But when it comes to

human creativity modeling the incarnational expression of God, I think the more material the art

form, the stronger the connection with the prototype. However, it is not insignificant that God’s

verbal utterance (his “Word”) is given to us as a metaphor for his creative activity. This hallows the

less physical forms of human art. Thus I believe all the arts, from literature to sculpture and

architecture, find their parallels in the different stages of the Incarnation.

Lynn Aldrich writes:

Sculptors learn to respect the inherent attributes and conditions of what they have towork with, seeing these not so much as limitations but as the perimeters of a space

wherein the best work can be made. It is revelatory to note here that ‘the incarnation

did not do violence to the structures and goodness of physical matter. Matter isrespected; Jesus is still utterly human. The Son of God assumes our humanity but

does not violate it or obliterate it. (Aldrich, “Through Sculpture: What’s the Matter

with Matter?”, Chapter 6 in Begbie, Beholding the Glory, 105)

This is a good observation, but what Aldrich writes could apply equally to the other art forms. All

artists must respect the limitations of their materials. This is easier to see with the more physical arts

of painting and sculpture, but it is true across the board. Musicians deal with the limited ranges of the

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various instruments (including the human voice) and they have to ensure the “playability” of the most

technically challenging passages in their compositions. A composer can certainly write a piece that

could never be played, but it would remain “unincarnate.” Photographers contend with the properties

of light and the chemistry of film. Even in the digital age, the new generation of photographers must

struggle against bugs in software, the memory limitations of their computers, and the color

combination characteristics of the ink used for printing. The playwright has to take into account the

limitations of space on a stage, and the capabilities of human actors. And even poets, though they

can take great liberties with language, are restricted to a certain extent by the common understandings

of words in the minds of their potential readers. This limitation aspect of participating in creative

endeavors is one of the windows that art provides into the mind of the Maker.

Redemption

It is not what immediately jumps to mind when one thinks about art, but several writers offer

the suggestion that art has redemptive qualities.

The concern of literature to use language well, to cleanse and purify it, to redeem its

words from the captivity and abuse to which the powers of this world continuouslysubject them, is bound up with the redemptive purposes of God who chose that his

Word should be born as one who had to learn to use words. (Guite, “ThroughLiterature,” in Begbie, Beholding the Glory, 34)

Language is desecrated in so many ways in our world, from pornography to verbal abuse to deceptive

advertising. I find the idea of writing well, as a way to redeem all that corruption, appealing. Anne

Lamott talks of writing as being capable of freeing someone from bondage:

“Toni Morrison said, ‘The function of freedom is to free someone else,’ and if you areno longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk

freeing someone else.” (Lamott, Bird by Bird , 193)

I think Lamott herself has exemplified this in her other writing. I also think of Frederick Buechner’s

Telling Secrets and the other books in his trilogy of memoirs. I know that I have a lot to offer in this

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area, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough yet to write from my own life for wide distribution, but it’s

something I aspire towards, and writers like Lamott and Buechner are good mentors for me.

Nicholas Wolterstorff talks about the possibilities art has for bringing shalom:

“I suggest that we think of art as fundamentally a mode of stewardship, capable of

contributing to our shalom; and that in working out this perspective, we take as our

fundamental emphasis the social practices of art. More specifically, I suggest that wethink of art as involving the interplay among three sorts of such practices: the social

practice of composing works of art, the social practice of performing (or displaying)

works of art, and the social practice of using (appropriating) works of art.” (468) “Art

is ultimately for human flourishing – for that mode of human flourishing which the biblical writers called shalom. Shalom requires justice... harmony and delight in our

relation to God, to society, and to nature. But it also requires art....In its contribution

to shalom lies the justification of art. In that contribution lies its unmistakable glory.”

(Wolterstorff, “Evangelicalism and the Arts,” 473)

The sounds of the words lead me to make the connection between Wolterstorff’s “social practices” of

art and Albert Borgmann’s notion of “focal practices,”3 and I think the connection is not accidental.

It seems to me that participating in the creation of art is a focal practice, an activity which “can center

and illuminate our lives...a regular and skillful engagement of body and mind.”4 But I don’t mean to

sidestep Wolterstorff’s emphasis on the social nature of art. One of the artistic endeavors that brings

me the most joy and sense of shalom is creating music together with others in a brass ensemble. The

social nature of art can be redemptive in our individualistic age.

Sacrament/Holiness/Transcendence

Several writers talk about the arts as a sacrament, bringing us in touch with the holy, helping

us to experience God, even (for some authors) enabling us to achieve more transcendence than we do

by going to church.

Writing...is a sacrament insofar as it provides graced occasions of encounter between

humanity and God. (Hansen, “Writing as Sacrament,” 53)

3 I have written at length about these in my MCS comprehensive paper.4 Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984), 4.

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I think that with this broader definition of “sacrament” than the Church has traditionally given

(whether it be of the two-fold or seven-fold variety), just about any human experience could be

considered a sacrament: walking through Nature, giving birth, eating a meal, conversing with

friends, even sleeping. But I think it helps us take our art seriously if we think of it as fostering

communion with God.

“[M]ovies, like other art forms, help us not only to know about God, but to actually

experience God as well.” (17) “Movies have, at times, a sacramental capacity to

provide the viewer an experience of transcendence.” (57) “Garrison Keillor onceremarked: ‘If you can’t go to church and, for at least a moment, be given

transcendence; if you can’t go to church and pass briefly from this life into the next;

then I can’t see why anyone should go. Just a brief moment of transcendence causes

you to come out of church a changed person.’ Commenting on this observation, KenGire writes, ‘I have experienced what Garrison Keillor described more in movie

theaters than I have in churches. Why? I can’t say for sure....movies don’t always tellthe truth, don’t always enlighten, don’t always inspire. What they do on a fairly

consistent basis is give you an experience of transcendence. They let you lose

yourself in somebody else’s story.” (100) “[M]ovies are a window through which

God speaks.” (161) “[T]he artist is a potential sacrament maker, one who can revealthe presence of God within creation itself. Here is the theological basis for our

experience of the holy in film.” (Johnston, Reel Spirituality, 161)

I first heard of this idea of movie theaters as places of transcendence in John Updike’s In the Beauty

of the Lilies. I know I have experienced that sense of losing touch with my quotidian life when I’m

engaged in a film; and then walking out of the theater a changed person, dazed, forgetting

momentarily where I am. I have even had the sense of being momentarily transported out of my

body as I walk along rapt in the dream-world of the movie, unaware of the normal physical

sensations of walking in a parking lot (sounds, the air temperature, the impact of my feet on the

pavement). But I’m not sure I’d call this experience an encounter with God. True, there are times

when God speaks to me through the powerful impact of a film. But often that post-cinematic light-

headedness simply comes from a letting go of reality which can occur at the hands of a well-crafted

story.

Eugene Peterson speaks of the artist as mediator of holiness through beauty:

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[L]ife, which is characterized by...holiness...is mediated to us in beauty. Beauty is our

sensory access to holiness....And that is how we come to identify as apostles of the

Gospel the men and women who use words and images and sounds and textures towake us up to the beauty latent and implicit all around us. I want to reaffirm our

vocation as witnesses to the beauty of holiness inherent in all reality. These men and

women are here to call attention to the words and images, sounds and textures that pullus into detailed and adorational and believing participation in God’s life-giving

revelation. (Peterson, “The Beauty of Holiness,” 23)

I could just as well have put this quote in the section on the vocation of the artist. Like Hart’s

description of art as an obligation, a response to, and a sharing in God’s creativity, this idea of the

artist as mediating holiness to the world through beauty is a strong motivation for me to engage in

artistic creation. Interestingly, Jean-Luc Marion makes nearly the opposite point: “Ugliness may not

be the best frame for holiness, but beauty can screen us from it” (Marion, “The Blind Man of Siloe,”

68). Without the context, one is taken aback by that. He is arguing that a famous master painter can

sometimes draw attention away from the subject, and that is why icons are painted in a plain style

that doesn’t attract but draws the viewer’s gaze past the image to the prototype. In spite of the

apparent contradiction with Peterson, Marion does recognize art as being in the service of the

transcendant. So his statement is somewhat misleading. I believe there is beauty in the simplicity of

icons, albeit a different kind of beauty than in a Raphael painting.

Gregory Wolfe provides a new angle on the idea of art for transcendence’s sake:

In a politicized age, few people look to art for its ability to create contemplative space

in the midst of our restless lives....Art, like religious faith in general and prayer in particular, has the power to help us transcend the fragmented society we inhabit....

[G]reat art sneaks past our shallow prejudices and brittle opinions to remind us of the

complexity and mystery of human existence. The imagination calls us to leave our personalities behind and to temporarily inhabit another’s experience, thus allowing us

to look at the world with new eyes. Art invites us to meet the Other—whether that be

our neighbor or the infinite otherness of God—and to achieve a new wholeness of spirit. (Wolfe, “Art, Faith, and the Stewardship of Culture,” 100)

I especially like his mention of art’s “ability to create contemplative space in the midst of our restless

lives.” It is something I thirst for, and I see it as one of the greatest needs of our technological

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society. I think that both the creation and the experiencing of art (whether through performance or

audience or observation), can be an avenue for contemplation. One must necessarily slow down in

order to engage in creative work. The bodily and mental movements involved in the practice of most

arts can be a form of prayer, or can facilitate contemplation. I have an iconographer friend who tells

me that the entire process of painting (“writing”) an icon is, and must be, bathed in prayer. She has

encouraged me to do that with my wood-carving. And then, who hasn’t experienced or heard of

someone else experiencing the apparent stopping of time while entranced in front of a breath-taking

work of art? I think of Henri Nouwen’s hours in front of Rembrandt’s “The Return of the Prodigal

Son,” which was the inspiration for Nouwen’s own book by that title. And I recall the story of my

pastor’s son, when he was just a little boy (pre-verbal), upon seeing the Taj Mahal in the distance as

their family first approached it by foot. He stopped in his tracks and looked up at it and let out a little

gasp of awe. Even a young child has that human ability to recognize and experience the transcendent

through great art.

It doesn’t really fit in entirely with the theme of this (or any other) section, but I was so struck

by this quote from Flannery O’Connor that I wanted to include it somewhere:

[T]he gravest concern...for me...is always the conflict between an attraction for the

Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times. It’s hard to believe always but more so in the world we live in now. There are some of us who

have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically

what it would be like without it and if being without it would be ultimately possible or

not. (O’Connor, The Habit of Being , 349-350)

Perhaps it takes the vision of the artist/writer to make such an observation, or maybe such an

experience of inner conflict is a prerequisite for being a good artist. I know a lot of Christians who

would say they never experience any tension between attraction for the Holy and disbelief in it (doubt

for them is out of the question). I don’t know any of them who are artists, though. Thomas Kincaid

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might have his following, but I’m not so sure that is good art. If the attraction-disbelief dialectic is

the soil from which artists spring, then I am surely being well fertilized as an artist!

Worship/Wonder/Attentiveness

In many ways, art is a form of worship. Worship is a response formulated in attentiveness to

God’s creation, something which artists of all stripes are especially good at.

Poets are driven...by the desire to really see what is before them, to attend to

particulars in all their uniqueness and diversity. (Andrew Rumsey, “Through Poetry:

Particularity and the Call to Attention,” Chapter 3 in Begbie, Beholding the Glory, 51)

Surely, to be a good poet, one must be attentive to details in the surrounding world. Luci Shaw in her

poetry workshops emphasizes the importance of writing about particular, concrete things, things we

know well. Rumsey’s quote could apply to the photographer as well, and probably also to the (non-

abstract) painter. I know that when I take camera in hand to do a specific shooting project, my

powers of perception are heightened. I might see things I wouldn’t have noticed before, if I am on a

hunt for, say, subjects that can be shot with only a 210mm lens. I am also reminded of the movie

Smoke, where through his photographs, Auggie shows details that are otherwise overlooked.

The poet’s first response to the world is stillness and wonder, passive reflection beforeactive exposition. Poetry ‘takes in’ before it ‘gives out’, and considers itself addressed

by creation, called to attention. Response to the incarnate Christ frequently starts the

other way around – our questions, our interrogative analysis....Far more than we needto address God we need him to address us, which is precisely what he does in

Jesus....Before it is anything – our idea, our principle, our doctrine – the incarnation is

God’s initiative, his word addressing us, to which our first response must be what the

late Denise Levertov beautifully describes as ‘Primary Wonder’:

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Days pass when I forget the mystery.

Problems insoluble and problems offering

their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber

along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing

their colored clothes; caps and bells.

And then

once more the quiet mystery

is present to me, the throng’s clamor

recedes: the mystery

that there is anything, anything at all,let alone the cosmos, joy, memory, everything,

rather than void: and that, O Lord,

Creator, Hallowed One, You still,

hour by hour sustain it.

Poetry and incarnation both begin with annunciation. Not for us to say how it will be,

what form and time God will take for his creative work. Only for us to receive and

say, ‘Let it be to me according to your will.’ (Rumsey, “Through Poetry,” 52-53)

I believe we as humans are made for worshipping God. Wonder is a natural response to the

“quiet mystery” in his creation. The psalms are filled with this kind of response. I have had

experiences when I have wanted to break into song at the awesome beauty of a glowing sky or a

sweeping view from a mountain. Nearly all worship takes place through poetry, music, and visual

art. In fact, it’s hard to imagine any sort of worship that does not. Music is probably the most

universal (almost anyone can sing, even if badly) and also the most immediate, because it is possible

to erupt into song, maybe even a spontaneously invented song, at the moment of experiencing the

emotions that congeal in worship. No pen or paper or paints need be present. But if they are, all the

better for the writer or poet who is accustomed to turning every experience into material to write

about:

“Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who survived childhood has enough material to

write for the rest of his or her life.” (4) “So much of writing is about sitting down anddoing it every day, and so much of it is about getting into the custom of taking in

everything that comes along, seeing it all as grist for the mill.” (Lamott, Bird by Bird ,

151)

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As I mentioned earlier, I’m sure I have enough material already to write about for the rest of my life.

The problem is developing the discipline of writing every day. Lamott’s advice has inspired me.

Henry James once said that a writer is a person on whom nothing is ever lost. That

sounds like a focused Christian identity to me: the men and women on whom nothing,at least nothing that has to do with life—and virtually everything does—is ever lost. O

worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. (Peterson, “The Beauty of Holiness,” 26)

We need poets and writers more than ever today, when most of us go about our lives in such a hurry

that we don’t notice anything. In Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town,” Emily laments this sorry

state: “I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed....Do any human beings ever

realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?” The stage manager replies, “No.” And then

after a pause, he adds, “The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.”5

Saint Thomas Aquinas says that art does not require rectitude of the appetite, that it is

wholly concerned with the good of that which is made. He says that a work of art is

good in itself, and this is a truth that the modern world has largely forgotten. We arenot content to stay within our limitations and make something that is simply a good in

and of itself. Now we want to make something that will have some utilitarian value.

Yet what is good in itself glorifies God because it reflects God. The artists has hishands full and does his duty if he attends to his art. He can safely leave evangelizing

to the evangelist. (Hansen, “Writing as Sacrament,” 57)

A counterpoint to Wolterstorff’s view that art should bring about shalom and justice, Aquinas’s idea

exalts “art for art’s sake.” He says that in spite of having no utilitarian value, art, by the very fact of

its being good in itself (as God called his creation good), gives glory to God. I think there is room for

both views. Some art is indeed utilitarian (a carved wooden bowl, for example), but it is still good

and beautiful in spite of (or in addition to) its function. And art that seems to exist only for its own

sake can have a variety of functions, such as bringing a little joy into a depressed person’s life.

One last depiction of artistic creation as an act of worship (or in this case prayer) is in The

Zeal of Thy House, when Raphael says:

Behold, he prayeth; not with the lips alone,

But with the hand and with the cunning brain

5 Thornton Wilder, Our Town (New York: HarperCollins, 1957), 100.

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Men worship the Eternal Architect.

So, when the mouth is dumb, the work shall speak

And save the workman. True as mason’s ruleAnd line can make them, the shafted columns rise

Singing like music; and by day and night

The unsleeping arches with perpetual voiceProclaim in Heaven, to labour is to pray.

(Sayers, The Zeal of Thy House, 34)

I am grateful for Eugene Peterson who first expanded my definition of prayer to include more than

simply expressing words of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication to God. For

example, a walk in the woods, enjoying the fresh air and the birds can be prayer. The monastics, with

their dictum “ora et labora,” understood work, too, as part of the life of prayer. The work of an artist

can be just as profoundly an act of prayer as the manual labor in the fields of a monastery. I think

especially of Father Dunstan Massey’s fresco painting and sculpture at Westminster Abbey, which

for him I’m sure are acts of prayer and worship. Again, I recall my iconographer friend’s advice to

pray while doing my wood-carving, which I think implies praying in and through doing my wood-

carving.

Revelation/Discovery/Proclamation/Truth-telling

Many writers talk about art’s capacity to reveal or proclaim truth, both to the artist through the

process of creating the art, and to the audience (viewer/listener) or participant (actor/singer). Jeremy

Begbie’s concept of “theology through the arts” is all about this. We learn about God through doing

art. Others in Begbie’s circle affirm this position:

Clearly...the meaning or significance of art cannot be confined to the level of simple

physical manifestation and perception. Art draws us deeper and further, takes us beyond the surface in some sense to see or experience something which otherwise

remains hidden from us. (Hart, “Through the Arts,” Chapter 1 in Begbie, Beholding the Glory, 9)

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Like most writers, I don’t know what I know until I start to write about it. The very

process of writing becomes the process of revelation. I write not because I see but in

order to see. I don’t have a vision of the world which must with missionary fervour be passed on. (Nigel Forde, “The Playwright’s Tale,” Chapter 7 in Begbie, Sounding

the Depths, 64; italics his)

I have definitely experienced something similar while writing in my journal. I just start writing, and

what comes from my pen turns out to reveal something I might have known all along but was

unaware of. It feels like revelation from God when that happens. Likewise, in my newly learned

craft of wood-carving, I have experienced in a small way something like what Andy Goldsworthy

experiences when he gets to know the natural world by doing his ephemeral art in the outdoors. I’ve

learned from my teacher, John Patterson, to let the wood tell me what direction to carve in. When

you’re cutting diagonally across the grain, you can only go in one direction, or else the knife will get

stuck and redirected between the grain lines. You can tell by looking, but if you forget, and try to cut

the wrong way, the wood will let you know!

I had the most extraordinary experience in the dance session of the Christian Imagination

class. I became aware of my body in a new way, and found myself paying attention to it as I moved

about the next day and beyond. I wrote in my journal, “this morning as I walk on the treadmill I find

myself wanting to be present to my body instead of being absent from it engrossed in a book, even if

that book might be the chapter on dance in Beholding the Glory.” I did not read that time, as I

usually do when I’m on the treadmill,6 but rather delighted in my physicality, and that time of

exercise became a time of dance and worship. That experience of being intentionally “present” to my

body has recurred frequently since. Therefore, when I did get around to reading the chapter on

dance, it really resonated with me. Sara Savage writes about how dance contributes to self-

knowledge and knowledge of others and ultimately of Christ:

In the West there has been a tendency to exalt and isolate the intellect while demotingand marginalizing other aspects of our humanity....One major casualty has been our

6 This goes to show that I’m probably usually not going fast enough to get a very good aerobic workout!

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understanding of our emotional life. Our emotions, and our physical bodies which

register those emotions, have often been regarded as messy hindrances to the pursuit

of truth.

This kind of intellectualism has had a marked influence on the ChristianChurch, and, not least, its approach to the person of Christ. At times it has encouraged

an attitude to Christ which gives excessive weight to what can be expressed in propositions, apprehended by the mind. This has limited the resources with which wehold together the divine and human natures of Christ. Two extremes typically result:

Christ is all/only divine or Christ is all/only human....Movement is a language that

connects us to our bodies, and to our emotions which resonate within our physical bodies. Our bodies and emotions necessarily contribute to our self-knowledge and

knowledge of others....I am suggesting that movement – and its concentrated, stylized

form, dance – can enrich our knowledge of the person of Christ....[D]ance has the potential to subvert some of the cultural (mis)understandings that have handicapped

our understanding of our own humanity and rendered our approach to the incarnation

over-intellectualised and barren. (Sara B. Savage, “Through Dance: Fully Human,

Fully Alive,” Chapter 4 in Begbie, Beholding the Glory, 65-67)

Another aspect of art which I’m lumping into this section is that of proclamation or truth-

telling to others (which goes beyond the artist’s own discovery while creating or performing the art).

“[G]ood writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to

understand who we are.” (3) “Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it.

If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act

—truth is always subversive.” (Lamott, Bird by Bird , 226)

This reminds me of Emily Dickinson’s line, “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.”Sometimes truth told plainly is not heard, but when told “slant” (e.g., through art), it

can penetrate even the most obstinate soul. Jesus’ parables are a prime (and very

artistic!) example of this.

Summary

In all my reading for this course, the quote that best sums up the philosophy of art that I have

developed over this semester is Trevor Hart’s, when he says that artistic creativity “is not only a

proper response to, but also an active sharing in...God’s own creative activity within the cosmos.”

(Hart, “Through the Arts,” 18) We respond to God’s creativity in delight and worship. We share that

creative impulse, being made in the image of the Creator. And our vocation is to participate in the

world as “sub-creators” (so Tolkien, in “On Fairy-Stories”), engaged incarnationally in the arts. The

fruits of this will include discovering and telling the truth (revelation), mediating holiness through

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beauty (sacrament), and bringing shalom to the earth and the human community (redemption). Glory

to God in the highest!

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

I’ve included the page count of everything I’ve read for this course, even if I didn’t find quotes in it

suitable for this anthology. In some cases I read only a portion of the work referenced. Total read:approximately 1500 pp.

Barnbaum, Bruce. The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression. Dubuque, Iowa:

Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1994. [77 pp]

Bascom, Tim. “A Beautiful Affliction: The Art of Erica Grimm-Vance.” Image 31 (Summer 2000):26-35. [10 pp]

Begbie, Jeremy, ed. Beholding the Glory: Incarnation Through the Arts. London: Darton, Longman

& Todd, 2000. [117 pp]

Begbie, Jeremy, ed. Sounding the Depths: Theology Through the Arts. London: SCM Press, 2002.

[57 pp]

Cairns, Scott. “Shaping What’s Given: Sacred Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Image 25

(Winter 1999-2000): 73-82. [10 pp]

Capon, Robert Farrar. “The Oblation of Things” in An Offering of Uncles in The Romance of theWord: One Man’s Love Affair with Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. [11 pp]

Dillard, Annie. “Notes for Young Writers.” Image 16 (Summer 1997): 65-68. [4 pp]

Hansen, Ron. “Writing as Sacrament.” Image 5 (Spring 1994): 53-58. [6 pp]

Johnston, Robert K. Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,

2000. [195 pp]

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Random House /

Anchor Books, 1994. [237 pp]

Marion, Jean-Luc. “The Blind Man of Siloe.” Image 29 (Winter 2000-2001): 59-69. [11 pp]

O’Connor, Flannery. The Habit of Being . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979. [dabbled,approximately 120 pp]

Peterson, Eugene. “The Beauty of Holiness.” Image 29 (Winter 2000-2001): 21-26. [6 pp]

Reed, Ron. “Is the Theatre Really Dead?” Image 42 (Spring/Summer 2004): 41-45. [5 pp]

Sayers, Dorothy. The Mind of the Maker . New York: HarperCollins, 1987. [229 pp]

Sayers, Dorothy. The Zeal of Thy House. London: Victor Gollancz, 1937. [111 pp]

Steiner, George. Real Presences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. [144 pp]

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Wilkinson, Loren. “ ‘Art as Creation’ or ‘Art as Work’?” Crux XIX, No. 1 (March 1983): 23-28.

Republished in With Heart, Mind & Strength: The Best of Crux 1979-1989, pp. 289-299.

Edited by Donald M. Lewis. Langley, BC: Credo Publishing, 1990. [11 pp]

Wolfe, Gregory. “Art, Faith, and the Stewardship of Culture.” Image 24 (Winter 1999-2000): 96-

104. [9 pp]

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Art in Action. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980. [63 pp]

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “Evangelicalism and the Arts.” Christian Scholars Review 27.4 (June 1988):449-73. [25 pp]

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quotation anthology

Documents