Art 26 | unobtrusive lucidity

Prophetic Hollywood

Along the lines of Tillich’s thought process that artists are prophetic as to the problems of our society, then certainly film, as such a dominant medium of expression in today’s culture, must be assumed to be somewhat prophetic…you know, in a Wag The Dog sort of way.

So, as I read this morning about Bob Woodward‘s new book revealing a U.S. assassination program in Iraq, I couldn’t help but think that Hollywood had predicted this one, too.

I can’t wait until November…

The Substance of Inspiration

There’s a chapter in the early in the Watchmen graphic novel where Dr. Manhattan goes to Mars, and is viewing the past, present, and future simultaneously. He makes a comment in this chapter (I’m paraphrasing) about how the future already is, about how a block of granite already has a shape inside of it in its future, and how it is awaiting the sculptor to take it out for all to see.

One of those lines in a book that makes you stop and read it twice.

So I began thinking about the things I write. This weekend, I finished a shor

Cyclical Creativity

There were some fantastic photos posted in a recent contest for Wired Magazine of cities around the world. Take the time to browse these…they were a great way to start out my morning. They also got the mental juices flowing on the concept of creativity. The process went something like this:

Genesis recounts to us the original history of man, the creative strokes of a Master Artist. The narrative leaves a great deal of the story to our imaginations, as good narrative should, at least as far as those who would muse questions like, “what did that look like?”

The same chapters explain to us that our race was created in God’s image. Theologically, this is the source of every human being’s intrinsic value. There’s something else that stands out as well: a blessing on creativity and craftsmanship can be inferred. After all, God thought way outside of any box in creating us, our micro environment (the Earth), and our macro environment (the universe), as well as any other potential inhabitants of the universe that may well be out there. The thing that makes man stand out as different and above the animals of our world is that we are designed and crafted in His image, and, with that, came a soul.

That soul leads us to be creative as well. While some are apparently endowed with greater degrees of creativity than others, we all have the capacity for it…perhaps at different levels and in different ways, but we all have the capacity for it nonetheless.

This thought process isn’t new, and certainly isn’t original to me. Its one of the cornerstones of the theological study of man, and likely has been since theology was a discipline. Paul discusses in Romans that we are all hard-wired to believe in a higher power when we ponder His creation. For me, its the beach. Sitting in the sun, listening to the waves roll in, and pondering the water meeting the sky in the distance in slightly different shades of blue, I recognize God’s power and creativity like I do in no other venue.

Now, what does this have to do with the photos I referenced earlier? I guess I think of it this way: if God created us as creators, then He designed us to create as He did. Of course, we’re doing so on a much more limited scale (we can’t create something from nothing, as God did), but we can take what is in our environment and craft it into something impressive. And I think there is a spiritual component to that. For me, I see it most in the crafting of words. Although I’m not an overly visual person, though, I’ve been forever fascinated by city-scapes and skylines, especially at night. Captured, as these images were, through the lens (literally and mentally) of those with the gift of finding a still image in a situation that will be timeless, they are particularly beautiful and poignant to me, especially as one ponders the humanity within them.

So, if God created the environment for us, and if He created us as creators, then it stands to reason that He intended for us to keep building and crafting. And, while encountering His nature in its own right is an intensely beautiful thing to me, so is encountering what we can continue to add to it, as imperfect and flawed as that might be. It is all a cycle of creation, and the fact that we keep it going is indicative, perhaps, of the best our fallen condition has to offer on its own.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

I listened to a fascinating story this morning about a woman who made her way through life by lying. The people who had been victimized by her lying spoke of their difficulty trusting again…something I can relate to easily enough, as I don’t readily trust people at all. I felt incredibly sorry for this person…from a clinical perspective I’m diagnosing her while from a spiritual perspective I’m grieving for her quality of life. The story, as always, hooked me, drawing me into their world as any good story will. The story piqued my interest in the research behind it.

The host of the program interviewed a researcher who has made an interesting discovery in the brains of so-called “pathological liars.” Brain scans of the prefrontal cortex, the area that is linked to the appropriateness of social interactions, among other things, reveal interesting discoveries. For example, there are a number of interconnections in the prefrontal cortex, and there seem to be fewer of these in incarcerated individuals, suicide victims, etc. I’ve seen real-world examples of these: I once had a friend who had been involved in an accident that damaged the tissue in this area of the brain. This person could verbalize some extremely blunt things in conversation: think House in the real world.

The research referenced this morning, though, points out the presence of some white matter, also, and this white matter is (apparently) increasingly present in those who lie easily and frequently. The theory here is that perhaps the more white matter there is, the easier it is for one to dig up a lie and tell the story.

This leads me to wonder, then, where do story-tellers fall in this area? Not necessarily story-tellers like the reporter in the beginning of this morning’s piece, but fiction writers, for example. Do we have more white matter? What about actors? Have we simply located a socially acceptable medium of expression for our “story-telling” tendencies?

A second researcher featured at the end of this program focused on self-deception: the ability to readily lie to ourselves. Her conclusion was the those of us who are able to self-deceive easily tend to be happier and more successful. While certainly I recognize the ability of man to self-deceive at a frightening capacity, I wonder if the artist wouldn’t prove an exception to her theory? By her definition, the self-deceiver (or one with the ability to easily lie) sees life more positively, and that those who are more honest about life are more depressed, more pragmatic, seeing life “as is.”

So, if (and this is a big “if” backed up by only my musings and no concrete research of which I am aware), the artistic story-teller has the ability to formulate these fictions so readily, why is it that the artist is the one who paints the human condition in all of its bleakness as well as its joy? If the artist is, in some sense, the prophet of our day, then doesn’t the happiness-caused-by-self-deception theory break down?

Strange perceptual shifts tend to happen, after all, when one is exposed to the truth.

Tough Cases

My lovely wife tends to become periodically addicted to TV shows. When she does, she’ll binge on Hulu for extended periods of time, taking in an entire season in a few nights, on occasion. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind that much…after all, everyone needs a vice, and, as vices go, this is a pretty harmless form of escapism. Her choice of programming, however, baffles me at times, as it seems very out of character for her.

Case in point (as well as current addiction): Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the course of Karen’s addiction, we’ll assign this case number Buf-1.

Earlier this week, she borrowed a previous season of Buffy from a friend of hers. Enter case number Buf-2. She came home a bit later to recount to me a conversation she had with a few friends about the show (apparently there are other closet Buffy fans out there…this comforts me a bit. Perhaps we’ll add a support group to the treatment strategy for case Buf-2. Details to be confirmed later). The conversation, as Karen recounts it, was about how her friend tends to see the spiritual very plainly in prime-time television shows such as this. Specifically, her friend described to her a recent episode of Desperate Housewives, during which this friend was able to identify several women of the Biblical narrative in the characters of the show, and actually found herself inspired to search the Scriptures while the episode was on she was so taken by the similarities (perhaps she’ll comment here and leave details).

A strange development in case Buf-2.

Rewind to Sunday morning. I’m in the green room of my church waiting with two actors who were about to go on stage for a technical rehearsal. The band was finishing sound checks. I commented to one of the actors that worship music typically just doesn’t cut it for me. It always seems a bit too fluffy and happy. She felt the same. Seemingly innocent conversation, right? But wait! A connection has developed to case Buf-2!

My job involves a significant amount of driving during the summer, and my agency rents a vehicle each week for this purpose. Sometimes I get lucky, and score a vehicle with XM and an iPod connection. See, I’m very picky (some would say a bit snobbish) about my music selection. Basically, I want to listen to my music a la carte, what-I-want-when-I-want-it. XM is an alternative, because I can at least choose what genre I want, or catch up on the news. This week, however, was an unlucky week, and I have a standard radio in the vehicle. Well, since nobody uses CD’s anymore (I’m not snobbish, really!), and there’s no iPod connection, I’m stuck with one of the banes of my existence: FM radio.

After much complaining, I’m making the best of it. As I struggle with fuzzy reception and irritating commercials, alternating with periods of frustration in which I just turn it off and periods of insanity in the ensuing silence, I did manage to find a classic rock station that was tolerable. Well, classic in the sense that its the rock I grew up with. I was thinking (aka, singing and drumming the steering wheel) with the music a couple of days ago, and I realized I connect spiritual implications to nearly every song. I seem to have developed a case of my own.

We’ll assign this case number Roc-1.

Now, perhaps I just have a tendency to theologize or philosophize things too deeply…seminary can do that a guy. Or, perhaps its the artist in me that sees the metaphor in the music, which almost always paints life where the musician is/was at that time. Likely, a combination of both is happening here (I don’t recall philosophizing Guns N’ Roses or Van Halen quite so much in my youth). Whatever the case, though, I end up praying more after listening to this than I do many worship sets I take in on Sunday mornings.

Could it be that my hearing the spiritual implications in classic rock and my wife and her friend seeing them in prime-time television are symptoms of the same disorder? Could Buf-2 and Roc-1 be related cases???

Is there any hope for a cure?!?!?!?!

Perhaps, though, this isn’t such a bad thing. It occurs to me that I’d rather find the spiritual in the everyday, “real world” than a sanitized environment on Sunday mornings. Perhaps this is God being big enough to us that we see Him everywhere, instead of compartmentalizing Him into certain time blocks on our weekly calendars. Perhaps, as artists create television shows and music, they can’t help but point back to Him in some capacity as they ponder life, because, after all, we are all hard-wired to believe in a higher power (as stated early in Paul’s letter to the Romans). Perhaps all truth really is God’s truth.

And perhaps these aren’t such bad cases after all.

Prognosis: good.