October 22, 2004

gitali 33 - cosmos from the chaos

While following the path all alone,
I see that my lamp has gone out.

The storm has come,
and now I have the storm as my companion.

Every now and then in a corner of the sky
Destruction lets out a mad laugh.

Calamity revels
on my head.

All this has force me to lose the path
I had been going along.

Now, which way must I go
in the inky darkness?

Perhaps the thunder-clap
will give me news of a fresh path.

Where can I go
so my night changes to day?

Been reading Walking on Water and finding it challenging and helpful.

She asks a good question:

Why is it that I, who have spent my life writing, struggling to be a better artist, and struggling also to be a better Christian, should I feel rebellious when I am called a Christian artist? Why should I feel reluctant to write about Christian creativity?
This is a great question for me to entertain. Why would it be a struggle to combine the two? Why the fear? I am a musician and a Christian. Heck, music is a significant part of why I am Christian at all. It is such an irony to me that I am afraid of its potential as a pastoral care tool.

But then that may be the problem. Music has never been a "tool" for me. It has always and ever been solace and gift, grace harmonized. It may read a little meoldramatic, but it is true. This is what music has been for me. It is healing.

Plato spoke of the necessity for divine madnessin the poet. It is a frightening thing to open oneself to the strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go of our sane self-control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting go is part of listening to the silence and to the Spirit.
This seems true to me...the fear of encountering God and enfleshing God. It is not so much to "be spiritual" and finding God there waiting for us. God's love can be a shelter in sstorms. The trouble is that God is fleshy, incranational, and as such our lives are changed, how we create and engage relationships is changed by our encounter with God. God's will transforms us. What a tired phrase, but it is true. This is where the fear is for me. "I have gifted you with music, shrouded you in music. Can you not enflesh me and gift others? Enshroud others?"

Rats. This accountability thing is a real kicker, no?

Leonard Bernstein tells me more that the dictionary when he says that for him music is cosmos in chaos.
She speaks of obedience and service and how one gleans from the chaos the wider and deeper presense of God. In art, memory becomse sacred (anamnesis anyone?). It becomes coherent and real, perhaps healing, perhaps troubling, but it is nonetheless lifted out of the chaos and articulated as truth. "Do this in remebrance of me."

Maybe I'll say more later.

Posted by tripp at October 22, 2004 06:37 AM
Comments

Your reflections on being a musician and its relation to your faith and pastoral work have a faint echo of my own struggles with vissual art and the faith. I always knew painting was crucial to my life and my faith, yet could never really bring myself to paint religious subjects, or "make use" of my art as part of ministry. Until, I began to study and then paint icons.
It is striking to me that the Eastern Orthodox sense of art as potential (not a tool for) theology, if given the proper form, is far beyond any Western (Protestant or Roman) understanding of the arts and their ability to be taken up into the economy (if that is right word to use here) of God.
I wonder if it would prove fruitful for you to study the various Orthodox chants and how they are essential to Orthodox worship, for it seems to me that Orthodox service music is simply iconography of sound. (Any Orhtodox out there please correct if this impression is mistaken.)

Posted by: Larry at October 22, 2004 09:49 AM

Larry:

From this O-wannabe, you're right on the money.

The only quibble: Icons are not only potential for theology, but if painted according to traditional form and rubric (with prayer and fasting and all the attendent asceses), they are theology.

Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at October 22, 2004 11:46 AM

Boys, I am already with you.

Except I may be using tones not approved of by the Holy Fathers. ;-)

Gregorian...that has been nice.

The occasional spiritual as well has found itself in my consciousness lately..."Lord, I keep so busy praisin' my Jesus, keep so busy praisin' my Jesus, keep so busy praisin' my Jesus...ain't got time to die." We can argue a theology of the witness of the saints and martyrs before the throne of God later, but the generous enthusiasm of that tune has been with me of late.

Apalachian tunes also have been with me.

So, I will play in orthodoxy as well...anyone have a hymnal/service music book?

Posted by: AngloBaptist at October 22, 2004 12:10 PM

Cliff,
I did not mean to say that Icons were potential theology, but that art in general was. I agree with the Orthodox here that Icons *are* theology. Which is why I recomended what I did.

Posted by: Larry at October 22, 2004 01:26 PM

Tripp, I don't fully understand what you're talking about above -- but I am a full-time artist, and you know a bit about my Christianity. If you'd like to have an email conversation about your exploration of the relationship between Christian action and artistic expression, feel free to drop me a line.

Posted by: Megan at October 22, 2004 08:00 PM