That time of year...
This happens to me every year.
I've mentioned that I teach a class at Abilene Christian University each January called The Arts and Culture: A Christian Aesthetic, and each year, as I prepare, I again get swept up into the greatness of the notion that we share God's image, that we are made to be makers of things, and that the whole of human enterprise finds its beginning--and its model--in the forever community we call the Trinity.
In preparation for the class I start paying closer attention to poetry. I try to figure out the appeal of Orthodox thought as it relates to the arts, why Evangelical thinking about the arts seems so much less hearty. I think of God loving all the people who love art that serious folk call kitsch, why the kitsch-lovers are on a level-playing field with the brilliant when it comes to getting a heart of God. But then, the serious students and lovers of great art have a chance to do things in culture and civic life that impact our collective imaginative life, playing major roles in shaping the souls of the kitsch-lovers, whether they like it or not.
Flannery O'Connor, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Annie Dillard, Neal Postman, and Richard Kearney. I wander my bookshelves, looking at the titles. All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes, by Ken Meyers; Addicted to Mediocrity by Frankie Schaeffer: The Meaning of the Creative Act by Nicolas Berdyaev, Art, Creativity, and the Sacred, ed. by Diane Apostolos-Cappandona--there's a bunch more. There's a historical community out there, people like me trying to figure out how this urge to make fits with everything else, and as I read, the particular loneliness of spirit that belongs to artists who believe in the Christ recedes. And then it thrills me again to surf online and see that there are many, many contemporary artists and thinkers in that Christ-Artist community, and the loneliness recedes again.
I've acted, directed, written, and taught, and will continue to do so. But there is something about this time of year. If I pay attention, I feel the wonder that is God's image in art and in the ones who make it, and I'm called again to join the conversation. I suppose I think entering that particular conversation is the long work of my life, and sometimes, in the long months of summer, I forget.
Watch the categories on the left of the page for links related to books, web sites, and other content specifically related to the development of a Christian aesthetic.
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8:32:04 AM
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