My eyes were closed as the music played quietly at the end of the evening church meeting. I was comforted and ready to go home and rest, safe in the sense that he was “on the job”. It was just “all good”. Something in the message that night had convinced me once again that the life of peace I longed for was within reach. I was sure that the Gospel had provided for me a way out of the “too much drama” that our crazy worlds tend to become. And then, just before he dismissed the crowd, the speaker repeated a Scripture he had briefly referred to earlier, Psalm 87:5-6, “And of Zion, it will be said, ‘This one and that one were born in her; and the Most High Himself shall establish her.’ The Lord will record, when he registers the peoples, ‘This one was born there.’”
Immediately my calm was stirred with a thousand images, all decorated with festive and beckoning question marks. I sensed that God, in addition to wanting to give peace, wanted to wage some kind of colorful war! He wanted to burst upon the world in a new wave of manifestation that captured a postmodern, existential generation with more impact than Speilberg, X-Box, and Cirque du Soleil combined. He wanted to birth from His throne things that would attract attention to his many-sided omnipotence and when someone asked, “Who produced this?” the answer would come, “This one was born in Zion!” As I stood taking it all in, I realized that the Scripture was accomplishing both sides of its sword-like mission: it had first pierced through to my heart with comfort, but from the safe harbor it had created, it was now calling me back out to adventure at sea! While still promising to hide me from the scary world, God was calling me to it!
The verses swirled around inside me for days, continuing to erase the notion that the Christian life was destined to be only a placid lake of calm. When I finally read the entire Psalm, however, I found that an amazing verse 7 followed the two verses the speaker had read. After all that imagery about being “born in Zion,” the psalmist said, “Both the singers and the players on instruments say, ‘All my springs are in you.’” I had made the mental leap to imagine that the things “born in Zion” might not only be individuals, but artistic expressions and creative endeavors. Now here was the next verse virtually declaring that that when the Kingdom of God is in full manifestation, God will erupt in the arts. So moved was I that I immediately renewed my membership to the nearest art museum, just in the hope of nurturing the connection between Kingdom and craft!
I have thought long and hard about the “theology” of the arts, not because I want to have it pinned down, but because the quest itself seems to have been “born in Zion.” Why is it that men and women who would never sit and listen to an expository preaching about Jesus declaring his words to be “spirit and life”, would stand for half an hour before a Chagall with strange imagery about the cross? Why is it that, at the Tate Modern in London, when I discovered with the special dimly-lit meditation room created for the large Rothko blocks of color on canvas, I entered only to disturb the private sanctuary of a young businessman whose well-worn leather laptop case and wrinkled suit explained his need to be there? Why is it that a band like U2 seems at times to do more to stir the spiritual consciousness of a nation than those who claim that task as their profession? Why was Elton John’s the voice that best expressed a nation’s (perhaps the world’s) grief over their fallen princess? Why is it…?
I believe that the power of the arts begins with the fact that they are acts of creation. Just as God created (yes, I believe he did) the worlds by pulling his invisible dream into this material realm, so artists of all types are involved in MANIFESTING some invisible reality, or version of reality. Large-scale creation is a divine work, and small acts of creation that mimic it are also tailor-made for divine expression. Creation implies an intention to express something that first existed only as an idea, a concept or an impression. Artists who are captivated by the drive to create are dancing in the shadow of the divine—they are flirting with God. In all our advanced quantum wisdom, we are only coming to revisit an ancient truth: that even matter itself can make spiritual connections. If this is true of individual atoms, how much more is this true of the paint, paper, or celluloid capturing the forces of the heart from those who interact with it as they create? The arts allow human beings to share, to a small degree, the experience of God when, after he left his “studio” of creation, he declared concerning the work that came from his spirit, “It is very good.”
God dreamed of a human race with which to share his vast resource. Like creation, all art is about dreaming. Van Gogh said, “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” With that statement, he assured us that the passion of the painter is not the color on canvas itself, but the vision it expresses. In fact, the invisible nature of the dream drives artistic expression. Dave Matthews has written in his lyrics, “Don’t lose the dream inside your head. It’ll only be there till you’re dead.” A sobering reminder, but one that rings true for all dreamers. In a sense, art is the dream that someone refused to take to the grave with them.
Joseph in the Bible was probably not the first, and certainly not the last, to discover that dreams are often misunderstood. He dreamed of future events that involved his brothers humbling themselves underneath him. How could his brothers have known that their humility would be the road to their salvation—that Joseph would be the sole means of their physical survival in the days to come? Artists in the church have often been treated much like Joseph was—thrown in a pit of confinement and accused wrongly of syncretism and sin. In fact, in the Christian subculture (yes, I’m going to say it), we have created a cult of style that accepts only landscapes or peaceful lighted pastoral scenes, or the occasional paintings of angels, but shuns anything that looks “disturbing,” never realizing that those dreams too, might bear messages from God, even if they do humble us!
In the recent movie, “Mona Lisa Smile,” Julia Roberts’ character is an art teacher trying to break a group of privileged and provincial young women out of their limiting mental grids about art (and ultimately about everything). She shows them a bold painting of a piece of raw meat by Chaim Soutine, and asks them, “Is it art?” Of course, she wants them to ultimately answer in the affirmative, but first uses the debate to ask the broader question regarding the definition of art. The amazing thing omitted from the movie, is that Soutine was a Russian Jew who immigrated to Paris in 1913 at age 20, after a childhood of poverty in an Orthodox ghetto. Though he trained in Paris, he could not have painted meat solely as a Parisian, for he was also a former member of a community that understood hunger. When I look at the Soutine “Carcass of Beef”, I do not see the strange mixture of beauty and ugliness that is exposed flesh. I see a larger comment on the desperation life can bring and the mystery of the body’s need to sustain itself. To a man remembering hunger, meat must have looked like a dream, the fulfillment of longing. And yet, the painting conveys the disturbing fact that blood was shed to provide for someone’s hunger. The notion of sacrifice that probably lurked in the edges of Soutine’s Orthodox consciousness “bleeds though” (pardon the wording)! Is it art even if it is disturbing? Has anyone read the myriad scenes in the Old Testament where God spared no disturbing detail?
Am I reading too much into a painting? If I am, it is because I have accessed my own ability to dream. Psalm 126:1 says, “When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream.” (Verses 1 – 4 really should be read.) I have been “brought back” from the captivity of narrowness and legalism and my imagination, now infused by God, is far from mute. I believe that God wants to re-open the collective “right brain” of the body of Christ and do a similar thing. He wants to allow dreams, imagination, and expression to flow once again—filling every medium available and impacting every level of society. He wants to conquer the whole mind of the church—the abstract as well as the concrete.
Interestingly, an oft-quoted verse in Isaiah contains a fairly unrecognized insight into this brain-divide: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You…” (Isaiah 26:3) The Spirit Filled Life Bible points out that the word for “mind” used in the verse “is not the usual Hebrew word, but rather a word meaning, creative imagination.” So Isaiah 26:3 could be saying, “He that keeps his large mind (right brain, creative imagination established in God will find peace in his small mind (left brain, detail and fact processing). Christians often have the left-brained facts and details of theology pinned down to a science, but still have no peace. Perhaps our Christian “facts” would take on new life if we opened our creative imaginations fully to God and let them soak a while in the rivers of purpose that would flow out! Perhaps re-discovering the language of the dream would push through dozens of mental log-jams of our own making. Have we lived in a realm of results and requirements so long that we have slotted God into that sad and ARTLESS state in our minds? We need to wake up! Stephen Tyler and Aerosmith (and now Eminem) should not be the only ones singing, “DREAM ON!” We should be dreaming on…on canvas, on film, in stone, in mosaic, in word, in cyberspace, on drums, in dance…
At the heart of the universe is a God with much to say. Christians have connected with him as a living, breathing current entity, so how can we relegate his words to mere lecture? We cannot. God always preaches beyond the lecture to anyone who will listen and through anyone who will care—even when they do not recognize Him! Next to the Jackson Pollack that hangs at the Tate Modern in London, there is a plaque noting that Pollack was tapping into mathematical principles like chaos and fractal geometry years before they had been elucidated in the halls of academics. Pollock preached a universe that defies the linear constructs of absolute predictability and is open to interactive participation. Without knowing it, he was echoing the heavens and earth in declaring God and his unfathomable depths! He captured the edges of Zion, declaring a Creator who would be contained in no man’s box!
I do realize that seldom have connections between Jackson Pollack and the preaching of the Gospel been made! Yes, I am either brilliantly insightful or uselessly eccentric. Trust me: I have endured the objections of countless Christians and non-Christians who have shared quite readily with me their prolific denouncements of the value of “modern” art. (What they meant was non-representative art.) I am not saying that everything parading around as “art” has prophetic significance. But, artists are seekers and, more often than not, there is a redemptive element in the fulfillment of their quest!
When I recently watched the new film about Martin Luther which starred Joseph Fiennes, I marveled how personal the upheaval that set off Reformation seemed. Fiennes portrayed Luther as more seeker than expert, often groping in the dark for the way through to the light he could not forget. He had not been shown great visions of how the world would be changed: he only knew the fire inside his own heart and the desire for others to share it. The thought came to me as I watched, “Never underestimate the power of one man’s personal quest.” Jackson Pollack, like all artists, was fueled by a personal quest. If his quest led him to an edge of truth, I believe it is meant to be seized upon, rather than rejected, by a church who has already found the Center of all truth!
When Mel Gibson made “Passion of the Christ,” the profile of the arts among the Christian community was raised a bit. In Christian coffee houses and among the Sunday after-church restaurant crowd, discussions of Mr. Gibson’s motives and beliefs could were frequently overheard: Did he get it right? Why so violent? Why so hideous to watch? I wish he would have… (you finish the sentence). One Sunday morning, while attempting to lead the “worship” portion of our church meeting, I realized something about the movie that broke me from any further discussion of how Mel made the movie. I realized that what was important was not “how” but “why” the man made the film. I am convinced that Mel Gibson, at the root of it all, intended The Passion of the Christ as a personal worship to God. Just as I was standing there trying to lead a song in my best voice with my best expression so that God would receive worship; and just as I write now from my heart, attempting to string words together in some way never yet discovered by the human mind, so Mel Gibson IS A STORYTELLER, and film-making is his craft. Say what you want about theology, doctrine, emphasis, or style and it matters little. Mel Gibson had to do what he does—MAKE FILM—as an act of worship to the God whose praise is destined to fill every medium. Who can criticize a man’s worship directed to the living God as he has experienced him? You did fine, Mel and may you (and all “worshippers”) be healed from the scars of criticism! Mel Gibson incarnated Psalm 87:7 “All my springs are in you…” and he certainly can be counted, like Joseph, among those who dreamed and were misunderstood.
But what of artists who do not, like Mel Gibson, profess Christianity? What about rough rock bands who are “too cool to care” about anything remotely sentimental? Are their springs of creativity anywhere near the divine flow? Well, ask them about the music—just the music—and really listen to their answers. Listen as they tell the MTV audience or the Rolling Stone interviewer in great detail which chords they tried before they decided on the chord they used in the third bar of the bridge. Hear the awe in their voices when they try to explain how the music “came” to them—where they were sitting, how many drinks they had had, etc. And listen to the sincere gratitude when they, especially the ones who have been around for a while, thank the fans for “buying our records so we can keep doing what we love—making music.” Statements from even the most controversial artists still so often reveal a sincere respect for the gift of music and its inherent spirituality.
Deal with it: like never before, artists are becoming a force in the earth. Not only do they lead society in expressing passion, they also often lead in expressions of benevolence as well. The artistic community has organized multiple tributes from Farm Aid and Live Aid to 9/11 concerts, and now to Tsunami Relief, raising millions upon millions of dollars. Why? Because to be an artist means, to some degree, to have the springs of your heart opened. And, whether the creative community recognizes it or not, the springs of the heart flow from God as does the motivation to give. Redeemed or unredeemed, the heart that bubbles up in expression—drama, dance, song, visuals AND generosity—shouts from a source beyond this tangible realm. We Christians believe him to be the God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. How desperately we need to accurately reflect him as the source of all heart-springs to a world that is bubbling over! (As Ecclesiastes says, “He has set eternity in their hearts.”)
On Bravo’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” hosted by the endearingly eccentric James Lipton, Anthony Quinn was asked one of the traditional questions, “If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?” Quinn leaned back and gazed at the ceiling as he answered, “I understood you, Tony, I understood you.” I believe that is what God longs to say to every artist. He does indeed feel the outflow of their hearts. He “gets them”. Does the church? Do we try? Are we partners in dreaming with the creative community—the only difference being that our dreams have a King—or do we draw a line between us and them, calling our art “sacred” and theirs “secular”?
I know these are hard questions for anyone interested in holiness, but I believe that Jesus set a precedent of provoking the hard questions. He proved in the Zaccheus encounter that he knew how to skip the criticism of human behavior and hear the beat of a human heart. He proved with the woman caught in adultery that he subordinated judgment to compassion. And he proved in every parable he ever used that he was passionate about creative communication of invisible truth. Surely as his followers, we can strive for no less.
When things are “born in Zion,” all the creators will say, “All my springs are in you…” God, let the church rediscover the hidden springs.
