The Importance of Art

It all started when I married an artist. My family wasn’t particularly devoted to the arts, although my dad is an incredible craftsman, and in the last twenty years has become a stained glass artist in his own right. So, when I looked outside I used to see a blue sky, brown earth and green trees. Imagine my shock when my wife, early in our marriage, told me that the sky has greens in it, dirt has blues and trees have pinks. We both had eyes, but she saw things I didn’t.

When we would walk along a forest path she would point out sounds, textures and smells I never knew existed. She introduced me to the world of birdwatching. I now can distinguish between the sound of a red-bellied woodpecker and the beautiful flute-like call of an oriole. I am able to associate those pleasant feelings I had as a child playing in wild fields, to specific sounds and smells of birds and flowers and bugs and herbs. I was blind, but now I see.

When our eyes are opened to beauty it transforms us. We are enlightened and softened. Life takes on more meaning and we begin to escape from stifling ignorance. That is why art is important. “The love of art guards us from returning to the lumpish masses of clay from which we were taken…Observing and enjoying art gives deeper meaning to our love of God and God’s creation, humanity. Art thus leads us toward God,” says Franky Schaeffer. I couldn’t agree more.

Here in our community we are committed to art. We teach it to our children and promote it to our adults. Everyone is an artist is some way. God, the Master Artist, has made us marvelously diverse and unique and put in each of us a magical spark of creativity. It might come out in poetry, painting, sculpting, computing, decorating, singing or gardening, and 1,001 other ways. We honor Him when we create beauty, and in a way it saves our own souls.

Wrong Doesn't Equal Bad

I tilted the paper cup as far as I could to get the last drops of the Earl Grey tea. I had been reading an article by Blair Adams entitled, Two Powers, Two Kingdoms, Two Worlds at the local Panera Bread. Monday mornings I spend reading, reflecting and praying, usually at Panera. One thing I like about Panera, besides the free Wi-Fi, is that they serve hot tea that is not stale (bags are kept in airtight jars), comes in several flavors, and refills are free. All you have to do it politely ask the person behind the counter for some more hot water and a new freshly brewed cup of tea is yours for the making. Granted, it’s not as easy as walking up to a replicator, like Jean-Luc Picard, and tersely commanding, “Tea, Earl Grey, hot,” but usually it is painless. Except today.

The first mistake I made was to ask the girl behind the counter, “May I have a little more hot water?” I don’t know why I said, “little more.” I guess I was subconsciously trying to not be a bother. Well, she took me literally and gave me about an eighth of a cup of hot water. I then smiled and laughed and said, “I mean a whole cup.” She reluctantly filled the cup and handed it to me, gazing at me for my next move. As I reached for the airtight jar she snapped, “You need to pay for another bag.” Baffled, I innocently, but respectfully, stated that I thought there were free refills, pointing to the sign above our heads. Flustered, she mumbled something about that applying to the water, and then she quickly turned and walked away vexed.

Standing there, with the other patrons’ laser eyes focussed on me, I hesitated. Am I allowed to use another tea bag? Am I stealing if I take a bag? I’ll pay for it, but she’s gone now. What do I do? Scanning the room for someone who looked like a manager, I walked to the back of the store and asked a group of three official looking employees if I was allowed to get another tea bag. The manager, a smartly dressed woman in her mid 20s, apologized to me and confirmed that, yes, there are free refills for tea as the sign states. Relieved, more because I wasn’t an ignorant, greedy customer, than for the 95 cents I saved, I proceeded to get my bag and make my “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” I couldn’t help but feel a kind of shame, like I was a pushy demanding customer, but mostly I felt bad for the girl who scolded me. Perhaps, she was now feeling like she made a big blunder, ruining her raise prospects.

All this got me thinking about a message I gave a few months back entitled, “Wrong Does Not Equal Bad.” The fact is that most of our learning is done by trial and error. We will throw a lot of bad pitches before we learn to throw good ones. We are often more wrong, than right. That’s just the way it is. We aren’t born with perfect knowledge. We learn by the braille method. It’s called experience. God has made us this way and it’s good. It doesn’t always feel good, but it is good.

The thing that blocks us, however, is our pride. We think that unless we perform flawlessly we will not be accepted. The truth is that humility is more attractive than pride. Someone who is at peace with themselves and does not need to defend their every word or action, but is willing to be corrected and admit their mistakes, is a great person indeed. It’s only the insecure that need to be right all the time.

Being wrong doesn’t mean you’re bad. It means you are in error, nothing more. You lack experience. Welcome to humanity. “For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.” (Psalm 103:14). Imagine how it would have been if that girl would have simply said to me, “Oh, you’re right. I’m sorry,” or, “Oh, I’m not sure. Let me ask my manager.” We both would have walked away feeling good.

Jesus told us that we must operate on a gracious frequency. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” He taught us to pray. He knew that we will often be wrong, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re bad.

Study

As I mentioned in a past post, we’ve been reading Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline. This is a Christian classic. We’re reading through it together in our Sunday service. We’ll often go through a book together on Sundays. We take turns reading and stop to discuss the material. It really helps to do it this way because you gain different perspectives on the material that helps open up ideas that you never would have had reading it on your own.

Last Sunday we read from the chapter on study. Foster brilliantly presents compelling reasons to study. Even though I’ve heard these truths for many years, they have freshness and power. He presents four “steps” of study:

Repetition – “Repetition regularly channels the mind in a specific direction, thus ingraining habits of thought.”

Concentration – “Concentration centers the mind. It focuses the attention on what is being studied.”

Comprehension – “All of us have had the experience of reading something over and over and then, all of sudden, we understand what it means. This ‘eureka’ experience of understanding catapults us onto a new level of growth and freedom.”

Reflection – “…reflection defines the significance of what we are studying…In reflection we come to understand not only our subject matter, but ourselves.”

He then goes on to state, “It soon becomes obvious that study demands humility. Study simply cannot happen until we are willing to be subject to the subject matter.”

A Christian leader I knew years ago used to say that the mind is kind of like a candle. When you go to light it you have to hold the flame to the wick for some time until the wax melts and it finally catches. In the same way, we need to hold truth to our minds until it “catches”.

Speaking for myself, I haven’t tended to understand the truth or what God is saying until a lengthy process of repetition, concentration, and (often) failure transpired. I have a thick coat of wax. This is where community really shines. By living in such close proximity to one another, and having our lives so intertwined, the truth has many opportunities to stay focussed on my heart and mind until it can finally penetrate my thickness and catch me on fire.

“Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.” - Amy Carmichael

Liturgy

We’ve been incorporating liturgy in our services these last few months. Only a few of us grew up in churches that used liturgy, so this is something new for us. Reading David Fitch’s book, The Great Giveaway, kind of pushed us over the edge to explore liturgy. We’ve been thinking about it for years, feeling a lack that spontaneous worship didn’t seem to fill. I was concerned that liturgy might stifle or turn into “legalism”. We don’t want a head religion detached from a sincere connection with God.

Listening to an interview from Vineyard with N.T. Wright on worship, helped to confirm to me that this was the right direction for us. Wright is a bishop in the Anglican church, which is a tradition that uses liturgy. He commented that spontaneity can be as limiting as a formal program and that liturgy allows us to learn how to pray and worship from great Christian saints from history. So, we’ve been slowly incorporating it into our services and meetings. It really has enriched us and is fun exploring a vast tradition that we’ve been missing out on. We still allow for the spontaneity and free flow of the Spirit, but now we also are being regularly mentored by God’s people from the ages.