Art (and other things) as the Continuance of the Incarnation

"Surely I will not come into the chamber of my house, nor go up into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, until I find out a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty God of Jacob." Ps. 132:3-5

The desire of David expressed here should be the desire of us all, i.e., to give the Almighty a residence amongst men. Having been indwelt by the living God (II Cor. 6:16-18), it should be our goal (whether in preaching or evangelism, art or service) to manifest in our mortal flesh the God who is there. Our lives (regardless of our personality or talents, occupations or preoccupations) are to be a continuation of the Incarnation. Too often our words and witness, our worship and work, are about the manifestation of maxims and moral lessons, or (perhaps what is worse) ourselves. As good as maxims and morals may be, they are not the best thing, the needful thing. What people need is not platitudes, but rather a holy God and His forgiveness; and if that is not what we are manifesting in whatsoever our hands find to do, then we are merely wasting time.
"Sir, we would see Jesus," said the Greeks to Philip at Passover (John 12:20-21). That is the key: to make Jesus "see-able". As temples of the Holy Ghost (I Cor. 6:19-20), all that God is is ours, and we are being transformed into His holiness (II Cor. 3:12-18; I Pet. 1:13-16), into Christ-likeness, which is God-likeness. Such an internal activity cannot and should not be hid, but we try anyway. What bushel is there that we have not tried to utilize in hiding the light of God within us? Some even have been utilized in the name of making the light brighter! Oh, how we fail! But grace is greater; grace is constant; and grace will not be satisfied until the work is finished (Phil. 1:6). And herein is the work: to build a dwelling place for the mighty God, to make the place where men can see Him face to face. Whatever we say (from the pulpit or the streets), whatever we do (from the feeding of the poor to the writing of the poem), all is to be done for the glorification and manifestation of God to men.

-Jon Vowell

The Nature of Christian Art (so I think)

I have written on worship lately on one of my other blogs (here and here), and those musings have got me thinking on the subject of Christianity and art. I made a point in both of those entries of noting that much modern worship is idolatrous because of its incorrect utilization of and focus on stage performance and its overt focus on individual subjectivity. I counter this mode of worship with the claim that, though our subjectivity is important, it must be bound to (and thus subservient to) the objectivity of God (i.e., who He is and what He has done and will do; His character and His actions). I do not doubt the sincerity of modern worshippers or worship leaders, but much of the stage performances that pass as "worship" serve only to distract us from the God who is to be the center of our worship. We often walk away saying, "That was a great show/performance," or "That made me feel refreshed/revitalized/empowered/etc.," rather than saying "God is so good/great/holy/loving/righteous/etc." (or if we do say that, what we mean is that Him being good/holy/etc. is contingent upon us enjoying the show and/or feeling refreshed/etc.). Older (more medieval) Christianity understood that all things are to point us towards God, and the less distractions, the better.
That has lead me to think about this: Plato (in Republic) trashed on poets and performers because (1) they are liars, or (2) if they speak any truth, they are too many steps removed from the Truth, and thus will distract their listeners from the Truth. It works like this: there is the Truth (the Form of the Good/God/Reality/etc.), then there are imitations/copies of the Truth (books/speeches about the Truth), then there are imitators of the imitations (poets and performers), and then imitators of the imitators of the imitations, etc. The farther along you go, the farther from the Truth you get as each layer of imitations/imitators could serve to distract from the Truth itself. However, that raises an important question: is Plato right that this possibility of distraction necessarily means that all imitations/imitators are bad?
The answer, of course, is no. We cannot conceive of the Truth as we are (viz., fallen and finite), and thus we need "imitations/imitators" that are of the Truth to point us in the right direction. It is true that each imitation can serve as a distraction, but that does not change the fact that the Truth is a part of them in some way, shape, or form. The issue is whether or not it points its audience back to itself (and thus becomes a distraction) or points outside of itself to something else (i.e., the Truth). Therefore, it is not the thing itself that is wrong, but rather the thing that it drives our focus towards. The same can be said of worship, which is supposed to drive our focus away from ourselves and towards God. That much worship today looks like a performances piece does not make it bad per se. That much worship today, in being a performance piece, distracts our focus away from God and to itself (or what it worse, to ourselves), is bad.
The same can be said of art, and my fellow Christian artists must be in constant prayer over this. At all cost, our works must never distract our audience with itself (or ourselves, or themselves). It must be a sign post that points to God. It is His quality and character that must ultimately be felt in the end, not the skill of the artist or the feelings of the audience. This, of course, is a matter of prayer and submission, not nit-pickyness and paranoia (remember how to write). However, we must be reminding ourselves always that our purpose is to make others aware of Truth; to guide them (whether they be believers or not) away from us and themselves to the God who is there.

(Addendum: Note amendment to these thoughts in a later post)

-Jon Vowell

Artistic Musings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

That there is a "time" for every "purpose" makes one doubt whether or not anything is truly 'outside' of the pattern, outside the whole. Everything, from that which we desire (birth, healing, laughter, love, etc.) to that which we abhor (death, killing, weeping, hate, etc.), all is a part of the pattern, the music, the tapestry of God.

Perhaps (just perhaps) we err when we say (or when we suppose to say) that God 'controls' everything, the image usually being that He grapples everything to the ground and dominates it with his foot on its neck. Answer me this: does God 'control' all things as victor over loser, or as master over composition? Is the glory of God's sovereignty the immutability of his iron fist or the beauty of His flowing hand? To put it on a (somewhat) more personal level, is God merely the tyrant of the universe, or is he my mother at the piano, whose fingers flow so smoothly and seamlessly over the keys that artist and instrument seem absolutely one in being and purpose?

Perhaps God gave us art so that we could understand Him better, not only in capturing those beatific revelations of Himself, but also in understanding that He deals with the universe of space and time (and consequently its inhabitants) as does an artist with their magnum opus. God is 'in control' in that all the beauties of His work (though some beauties look ugly when focused on solely themselves) spring forth from Himself, for in Him we live and move and have our being.

The Secret to Writing a Story

There is a scene from the movie Desperado that has stuck in my mind for years. Near the beginning of the film, Antonio Banderas character instructs a small boy on how to play a guitar. He tells the boy how (obviously) there are two hands involved in playing a guitar: the hand that strums the strings and makes the sound, and the hand that holds the strings and makes the chord. Antonio motions to the chord hand and tells the boy, "Forget about this hand," and instructs him to concentrate only on strumming. This scene reminded me of how my dad (who plays the guitar) told me to actually do the opposite: forget about the strumming hand and concentrate on the chord hand. In either case, the lesson is the same: there are two parts involved in making this art, and in order to do this art correctly, you must concentrate on one part at a time.

The same is true with the art of writing a story (and even writing in general). There are two parts to writing a story. One part is writing the story, i.e., getting the whole amalgamated menagerie of images, people, places, and events out of your head and onto paper. The other part is shaping the story, i.e., honing what you've written into a fine piece of literature. The first part is to write; the second part is to write well. The problem most people have in trying to write a story is that they try to do both of these parts at the same time. While trying to pour forth their soul through ink and paper, they keep distracting themselves with thoughts of using images, shaping themes, developing characters, and so forth. This can lead to a story being grounded before it ever truly takes off.

I speak from experience here. Many of my latest stories never seemed to go anywhere because the whole time I was writing them I was constantly saying, "What does that mean?" "How is the theme developed?" "What is the purpose of that character(s)? that place(s)? that event(s)? that image(s)?" My story writing was stagnant because of this, until I realized that those questions were to be asked when you are shaping the story, not writing it, and that shaping and writing were two totally different parts of a story's creation. Once I grasped that, I sat down and pounded out a new story, and the results were immediate and amazing. There was a freedom and flow to the whole process that had been absent before, and I found myself actually desiring to write on it more and more as the days went by. Compared to my old story writing style, the difference was like night and day.

The secret to avoiding the unfortunate calamity of grounded (and therefore lost) stories is the secret of guitar playing: forget about this hand, i.e., forget about the "shaping" part and concentrate solely on the "writing" part. However, unlike guitar playing (where you can forget and focus on either hand), in story writing, you write the story first and shape second. Without the written story, then there is nothing to shape. Try and shape while you write, and you will ground out and lose your story. Write it and then shape it, however, and it will come as natural as breathing.

Such concentration is truly a discipline. You may find (as I did) that you are constantly battling your own mind as it furiously tries to analyze and categorize your story in the midst of writing it. Such inclinations must be pushed under if your story is to survive, and that will take some effort. At all cost, while you write, you must put all "shaping" thoughts out of your mind. Just write the stupid thing; get it out of your head and on paper. Do not worry about characters, settings, events, and images while you write; just write. The "analyzing" and "worrying" part will come later; right now, what matters is that the story is merely written. Later on, you will concentrate on writing it well.

A Comment to Master Jenkins about Christianity and Culture

In regards to Christian Guitar Hero:

Making knock offs of culture does not influence the culture. It merely reveals the opposite, that we are influenced by the culture, and that we are just a bunch of johnny-come-latelies. Is Christianity so shallow and uninteresting that not only can we not produce any great art, but we also cannot produce even good entertainment?
Seriously now, no joke: what would happen if a Christian truly applied the mysteries of the Trinity or the Incarnation or the Atonement to a video game, or a comic book, or a commercial, or an animated series, or a movie, or a novel, or a sermon, or our individual lives? Have our wells run dry? I think not; it is we who have run dry, we who have left off the living waters of Jacob's well for the paltry dust of the world.

In Defense of Literature

This article is a good (albeit short) piece on the importance and necessity of good literature that will properly affect the mind towards necessary ideals. In short, good literature give us high standards in all realms, whether those realms be moral, political, philosophical, or theological.

There and Back Again

When you stand on the frontier of yet another writing endeavor, you should pause to consider the past. Though you see nothing ahead of you, you can indeed see for miles when you look over your shoulder. Before you lies a wilderness of blank pages; behind you lies a wonderland of freshly written words and writings. At your feet lies paths untrodden; behind you lies the well-trodden paths across familiar lands. Before you lies discoveries unknown; behind you lies a wealth of treasures already dug up. Before you lies new lands and oceans to cross; behind you, with you, all around you, is the God that has led you thus far, and He will lead you further up and further in.
Never once think that you can ever plumb the full depths that is the well of God (Romans 11:33). You can never search across all His lands and find nothing new under the sun. Every new poem, story, journal, or post started, every new journey begun, stand as defiant testimonies before all the world that the God you serve and know has no end in sight, that He is indeed the perpetual mystery, the eternal adventure, the everlasting undiscovered country. As you step out once again, let Him keep your feet, and you will be swept off into Him.

Writer's Prayer

"Now I set my pen to write,
I pray the Lord, my light, my life:
Even if I die before I wake,
This journey shall have no end..."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2008