Art 29 | unobtrusive lucidity

Contemplating Beauty

I woke up early a few days ago, and stood on our balcony for a while. It’s one of those places that make it easy for me to meditate and focus when I’m there…easy for me to see God. That morning I was actually there early enough (not necessarily happy to be awake that early, but…may as well make the best of it, right?) to see the pink tint start to come into the sky during daybreak. I had a chance to watch the pink overtake the dark, turn everything to blue, and become the morning.

It was beautiful.

I can’t think of what my life would be like if I didn’t make the time to meditate on things like that. Karen and I were talking a few days ago about how I’ve become more interested in quiet reflection as I’ve moved into my 30’s. Not like I’m old or anything, but it is a transition that has taken place.

I’ve found that I need to appreciate beauty.

Dostoyevsky said “beauty will save the world.” My first instinct was that that’s a pretty sweeping statement. But the more I find myself fixed on God after I’ve spent time thinking about beauty, the more I wonder if perhaps he wasn’t right, if even in an indirect, abstract sort of way.

In any case, I am a better person because of that sunrise. A couple of years ago, I remember sitting in a restaurant on Clearwater Beach outside of Tampa, Florida, and watching the sun set. The effect was even more pronounced then.

Will beauty save the world?

I don’t know. But it has at least changed mine for the better. I’m glad I’ve taken the time to see it.

Subjectivity and Faith

By the standards of many (especially many seminary students that I encountered during my education), I basically just cursed in that title. Are subjectivity and faith mutually exclusive?

I don’t think so. I read a great blog post on Infuze Magazine this morning discussing the use of cursing in writing by authors of faith. I know a lot of Believers who would stop reading a book immediately upon encountering a colorful metaphor, or who can’t watch a movie without a device to remove all of the questionable language, and I think that’s sad.

We forget that it is okay to be offended. You can come away from an encounter with any story or visual experience strongly upset and full of dislike, and that’s okay, as long as you can articulate why you dislike or are disturbed by it. Good art, in whatever form, disturbs someone. That’s good, because disturbed people think.

I saw a bumper sticker with a great slogan last week: “Comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable.”

Perhaps modern evangelicals are so scared to be offended because they so love being comfortable. When they are offended, they think. And, for some reason, the common misconception about faith is that it involves checking one’s intellect at the door.

When I read the Scriptures, I realize that Jesus wasn’t one who was afraid of being offended. In fact, He frequently did the offending. All of us, including artists (perhaps especially artists), are called to do the same. When a Believer writes a novel, and a character curses, that’s fine if that is what the character would do. It is the overall message of the story that is important. The realism of that character is part of what is necessary to convey that message.

So, are we to take passages of Scripture that encourage us not to use objectionable language as subjective? I’m not arguing against a concept of absolute truth. I just wonder how God defines “objectionable language.” I imagine it is probably different that we would from within our cultural and semantic moors. A commenter on the above-mentioned blog post also draws the distinction between using rude language and swearing, or taking the name of God in vain. I strongly disagree with the latter, and would never utilize it in a story. There is a line. There is a point where the subjectivity stops.

I just think most of us arrive at that point far earlier than we need to.

Straight From Krypton

I read this interview this morning with Danny Fingeroth, an active force in the comic book industry and author of at least two books about the commentary that comic book superheroes provide on our culture. Take the time to read it…its fascinating.

This has become a topic of great conversation over the last few years, I’ve noticed. While comic book fans were once isolated to the daring few geeks who wore superhero t-shirts and hung out at the local comic shop, I’ve noticed more “closet” superhero fans emerging with the huge influence of movies such as the X-Men series (that paints a disturbing commentary on prejudice) and NBC’s hit drama, Heroes (which asks the question, what if we were meant to be something more?). There has been significant conversation among evangelical circles over the Christological metaphor of the Man of Steel in Superman Returns, the importance of redemptive faith imagery in X-Men 2, and the emphasis on forgiveness in Spider-Man 3. I even recognized redemptive faith imagery in Ghost Rider (although it took the form of a beautiful woman showing significant cleavage). M. Night Shyamalan painted an intriguing portrait of faith within the concept of a comic book superhero in Unbreakable.

As you’ve guessed by now, or read here before, I was one of those comic shop geeks in my childhood, and still collect today. I’m as conversant about the history of the X-Men and Transformers as I am theology and Scripture. I love the story, the visual aesthetic, the commentary that comics and superheroes paint of our culture. I love how they point to hope…a hope of redemption.

Isn’t that what good art is supposed to do, anyway?

Regardless of whether or not you’re much into the comic book or superhero “scene,” watch for the themes presented in these stories…don’t just go for the action when you see them in the theater. If nothing else, their portrayals of good and evil are convicting. And while I tremble at the thought of reading philosophical undertones into everything (as some recent commentaries on superheroes have been wont to do), I think that there is something there we can learn from them. As with anything worth finding, we just have to look deeply.

Existing in a Vacuum

Douglas Groothuis, who blogs at The Constructive Curmudgeon, recounts a conversation between himself and a nameless youth while in line to purchase the conclusion of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which paints an all too-realistic portrayal of an increasingly illiterate generation. While Groothuis is frequently painfully conservative, I found myself nodding in agreement with this conversation.

With a wistful smile.

I’m saddened when I contemplate that high school students today are largely clueless as to classic literature, the Scriptures, and art in general. In our technological innovations, I fear we have misplaced critical items in our cultural heritage. We fail to educate students in an appreciation of the arts (not typically the teachers’ fault, I’ve noticed, but rather the system) in favor of over-emphasizing the maths and sciences, resulting in a worldview that has cast aside mystery and desires to quantify everything.

Even more dangerously, it chooses to ignore as superstition anything that it cannot quantify.

Should I mention here that we can’t quantify God?

I guess our innovations should be making access to art and great literature easier, but instead we permit our children to rot away brain cells in front of video games and American Idol instead of cultivating an appreciation for (and a relationship with) the Scriptures, Shakespeare, Van Gogh, or Miles Davis.

It is conversations like these that cause me to realize the extent of the damage. It is bordering on cataclysmic.

The Power of Persuasion

The power of artistry and media for persuasion can be used for occasional malicious intent.

I know, I know…you just read that and said, “Well, duh!” Seriously, though, I stopped to think about the direction our culture might have taken had certain extremely persuasive expressions not have occurred.

This afternoon, I read an intriguing article in PRINT Magazine about the post-World War II marketing blitz for hygiene products, and how the result was a silent panic among Americans that their body odor and bad breath was a horrendous burden to those around them, and so off they rushed to purchase whatever miracle-cure hygiene product was depicted in the given ad. I wonder if our definition of hygiene might be a bit different today if that hadn’t happened?

I wonder how much better our nation’s health statistics might look if the definition of “beautiful” hadn’t been programmed into us as that of a overly-tanned, eating-disordered supermodel (who wasn’t so perfect herself prior to digital image manipulation), or a muscle-studded he-man (notice I’m omitting a crack about an Austrian accent…oops, guess I didn’t, did I?).

I wonder how many public figures have risen or fell solely because they upset or made good with the right celebrities, artists, and commentators?

I remember an old 80’s song (I’m dating myself) by Snap called The Power. A line in the song (I won’t quote here for copyright reasons) makes reference to getting off the artist’s back, or regretting the attack that his lyrics would prove to be; in short, an ominous threat that an adequately persuasive and public expression against someone could spell social or political disaster.

The power to persuade is never to be taken lightly. Those of us with that ability bear the weight of making certain that we are persuading to the correct viewpoint, which requires some objectivity instead of an overly permissive post-modernism. All of us should also remember the value of critical thinking when confronted (as we are daily) by a marketing blitz for some item or other. The last thing our overly-materialistic nation needs is to allow ourselves to be programmed by more faulty imagery and fluffy feel-good words.

Who knows how history could turn on an eloquent speech?

We should know how it already has.