Words

Isn't it funny how when something has deeply touched you, you have to share it with others? It is like the magnitude of it is not completely felt, even within yourself, until it finds a home in someone else. Well, that is what this blog is. Madeleine L'Engle, my favorite author of all time, (I guess I should clarify, God is my fave author, as He wrote the best Book ever, so L'Engle is second fave) has written a book contemplating the relationship amongst Christianity and art and life. And I have been slowly working through it, feeling my artist's soul being enlarged as I am able to relate so deeply with a woman who has walked this journey before me. Also reading Pensees by Pascal, and so I'll open this with a quote that pretty much sums up the human experience to me:
We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay it's too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching. Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
Word up, Blaise. With that as the wallpaper, I read L'Engle pondering what it means to be an artist and a Christian, not ten years from now or even ten days from now, but now. She makes a statement that resonates with me:
And as I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory. It is what makes me respond to the death of an apple tree, the birth of a puppy, northern lights shaking the sky, by writing stories."
As creatures created by the Creator, we all have within us this desire to create, to give birth to something. No matter what your profession, your abilities and talents, a person breathes life into that which they do. We were created in His image; we create in turn. L'Engle says:
"In art, either as creators of participators, we are helped to remember some of 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."
Art, like life, is all about listening, trying, succeeding, failing, not giving up. In Tchekov's letters, he says:
'You must once and for all give up being worried about successes and failures. Don't let that concern you. It's your duty to go on working steadily day by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes, which are inevitable, and for failures."

Is it not through our mistakes that we learn the most? Is life not lived by trial and error? It's all a process, and all about where the focus is. As an artist, I seek to bring beauty to the madness of the world. I seek to bring meaning to the seeming randomness of life. Why? Because that is what God did, does. Created in His likeness, I have that desire which drives the creative flow. I can't not paint, draw, create. I have to. In the world's eyes, is this reasonable? realistic? The 'starving artist' stereotype exists for a reason. But, I agree with L'Engle, "Surely it wasn't reasonable of the Lord of the Universe to come and walk this earth with us and love us enough to die for us and then show us everlasting life? We will all grow old, and sooner or later we will die, like the old trees in the orchard. But we have been promised that this is not the end. We have been promised life…the artist must be obedient to the command of the work, knowing that this involves long hours of research, of throwing out a month's work, of going back to the beginning, or, sometimes, scrapping the whole thing…and sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand. " Anyway, all this to say, art is not just a picture on a wall, a work of fiction, a grand symphony. True art lifts you out of yourself, because when you see/hear/read true art, fantastic art, you are transported to that place that transcends the piece itself--the piece becomes besides the point and you truly engage with the reason for the piece, the Source of the piece. L'Engle says:
When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew; Rembrandt's brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend.
When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.
What is it saying? It speaks to us of the Lord. It speaks to us of a life we were made for, of the Garden we lost, of the hope restored in Christ, of an eternity to be. It transcends the apparent mundanity, travail, and anguish of our day-to-day existence, and lifts our souls to God. The work is not the point; it is a catalyst, a conveyance to the Point--God. To me, that is what is what it means to be an artist. To point others to Christ. To be a witness, with whatever the Lord has given me. L'Engle emphasizes:
"Often we forget that He has a special gift for each one of us, because we tend to weigh and measure such gifts with the coin of the world's market place. The widow's mite was worth more than all the rich men's gold because it represented the focus of her life. Her poverty was rich because all she had belonged to the living Lord. As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist." The widow's mite and Bach's St. Matthew's Passion are both "living mysteries", both witness to lives which affirm the loving presence of God."
Whatever my hands find to do, may it be done for the Lord.