June 5 & 12 A Season of New Creation

June 5 & 12         A Season of New Creation

We are headed toward the culmination of this series exploring creativity as a spiritual discipline.  As I will be gone this next week, we are glad to have Brad Wishon’s assistance and leadership. He’ll be sitting in with worship team this Wednesday and joining in on the Studio fun Sunday morning.

June 5 - Art Makes the World New

Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens

   and a new earth;

the former things shall not be remembered

   or come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice for ever

   in what I am creating;

for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,

   and its people as a delight.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem,

   and delight in my people;

no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,

   or the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it

   an infant that lives but a few days,

   or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;

for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,

   and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

   they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

   they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

   and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain,

   or bear children for calamity;

for they shall be offspring blessed by God—

   and their descendants as well.

Before they call I will answer,

   while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,

   the lion shall eat straw like the ox;

   but the serpent—its food shall be dust!

They shall not hurt or destroy

   on all my holy mountain,

says our God.

I’m offering these thoughts in general terms as I have thought about the entire series. I realize that as the worship team and Brad work on constructing the service they may take things in different directions.

Isaiah tells us that our Artist God is working on re-creating the world. This ancient hymn sings of us as participants in that new heavens and earth. This new work of art will be radically different from the world we now are a part of. It will be a place where predators and prey will live peaceably together. If ours is a world hell-bent on calamity, the work of art God yearns to create with us is one adamant on life and well-being. The new earth we are invited to create calls us to nurture our peaceable selves, and wean from us our predatory ways.  I see what Chris Brown is doing is a way of working on building, creating that new earth. They are speaking wholeness and healing into the world by offering an opportunity for hurting people to tell their stories.

Good News: God is still creating.

Subject:  We are divine artists when help God recreate the earth.

Experiential Field: We connect with divine energy when we create healing and peace.

June 12 –Pentecost Sunday    Art Fest!

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

I want us to celebrate the divine fire of creativity! Everyone is given the gift of fire, of Spirit, of inspiration!  All those “breath” words that have to do with the way the Spirit works: inspire, expire, conspire, and respire. They all have to do with taking the Spirit in and out of us. I especially like “conspire” which means “to breathe with.” Our artfest  is a conspiracy! We conspire with the divine Spirit to make art, make a new world, make love and peace and justice.

Worship this day should really be a big party. Can we find some Fire Dancers? Not real fire, but liturgical dance with streamers and flames of fabric. Hot music, we need hot music!  Maybe we can conga-dance from worship into the festival!

I wondered a few weeks ago if we could have the Studio in Bond Hall, but I am not absolutely committed to that idea. My thought was to be able to seamlessly transition from worship into the festival, but with issues of setting up food (hopefully the displays themselves will be able to be set up on Saturday), and such it is probably simpler not to.

Good News: We are given the gift of Holy Spirit.

Subject: Pentecost happens all the time, whenever we engage our creativity.

Experiential Field: Creativity is joy, because it connects us with God, our Creator and partner.

May 29 - Artful Vision

Sunday May 29 -  Artful Vision

John 8:1-11

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

Art enlarges our world. Art changes the way we see ourselves and see the world we live in. All art and creativity is in some way autobiography because it comes from within us and expresses something of the place from which it derives. Art shows us ourselves.

Hatred and anger narrow our vision. Those with stones in their hands see something less than human, an infected animal to be put down, an object to focus their rage upon. 

Jesus was engaged in art-making in the midst of this episode. What was Jesus writing or drawing in the dirt that day? We don’t know. The crowd of men is using the Mosaic legal code as a justification of their abuse of the woman (and it is always appropriate to ask where her co-conspirator in adultery was in this whole encounter). Jesus took the time to be creative. He typically did not answer their direct but implied question. (Do you say that we should follow the law or not?) In is dust-writing or doodling he sees a completely different issue. It is not the men against the woman. Not us against them. Not anybody against anybody. Jesus sees that we are all in this together.  No one is without sine, no one is perfect. All of us are doing our best to figure out how to get along in this complicated, messy, imperfect world. Or we should be.

So, what was it that allowed Jesus to see the situation so differently than everybody else? Maybe, just maybe, it was because he did not react instinctively. He took the time to bend down and write or draw or do something creative in the dust. That moment of creativity freed him from giving a yes or no response, a this or that vision, an us or them approach.  Art connects us to the whole.

Good News: Jesus shows us an inclusive, compassionate vision.

Subject: Jesus’ example invites us to engage in creativity for compassion’s sake.

Experiential Field: Art connects us to God and enlarges our vision of the world.

The art of Ted Lyddon Hatten challenges us to look at the world differently, deeply, to sense the underlying connections of our relationships and actions.  His Good Friday installation reminded its viewer that myrrh is excreted from a particular tree when it is “wounded.” Ted invited participants to sprinkle myrrh on a world map where they saw the world as wounded. The myrrh reappeared on Easter, brought for anointing the body but there was no body to be found. The glass of expectation was cracked open. Ted uses art as liturgy. He invites worshippers to interact and contemplate their relationship with the art. Ted has agreed to be with us via Skype, and will send us more images of some of his work. How might we make our worship space a place to encounter art? And how will we invite our participants to engage in creativity and art on this day?

May 22 - Art has Power

May 22 – The Power of Art

Now the spirit of God departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from God tormented him. And Saul’s servants said to him, ‘See now, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord now command the servants who attend you to look for someone who is skillful in playing the lyre; and when the evil spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will feel better.’ So Saul said to his servants, ‘Provide for me someone who can play well, and bring him to me.’ One of the young people answered, ‘I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the Lord is with him.’ So Saul sent messengers to Jesse, and said, ‘Send me your son David who is with the sheep.’ Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a kid, and sent them by his son David to Saul. And David came to Saul, and entered his service. Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. Saul sent to Jesse, saying, ‘Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.’ And whenever the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand, and Saul would be relieved and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him.

In 1697, Williams Congreve penned:

“Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”

Some two and half millennia previously, King Saul and shepherd David played out the same drama. Saul was afflicted by something (The text is clear that the evil spirit was from God, but remember that this was written by somebody intent on upholding David’s greatness and chosen-ness. Thus, Saul has to be “un-chosen.”) and that something tormented him. David’s music was his balm. David was a renaissance person: warrior, shepherd, poet, musician, strategist, and nation-builder. This story highlights his artistic side. It is David’s art that calms Saul’s troubles.

Good News: The gift of creativity heals and renews us.

Subject: Creativity and art are our gifts to make a difference in each other and the world.

Experiential Field: We experience the energy of Life/Christ/God when we are creative

Art has power to change and transform us and the world. Art can soothe us, it can rile us up. Art can reflect the world to us, or show us a whole new vision. Art can draw us into solitude, or unite us in community. Art has power. Our question is how to open ourselves to that power, and how to direct that power in life-affirming ways.

This is the week that Jack Evans will be our featured artist. Jack practices haiku, a Japanese form of poetry that limits itself to just 17 syllables in three lines: one line of 5 syllables, one of 7, and a return to 5. Within this discipline, we are given a very simple approach to writing poetry. It is my hope that we can invite our people to write haikus during the morning. Jack will be able to tell us about haiku, and to share some of his own. He has also agreed to write a couple in the midst of and in response to our worship.

Within that context, I wonder what stories we can tell when art has changed us, or our situation, or the world? How has art helped us address difficult times? When has art enlivened us? I’ve told you before about being in the National gallery with my sister-in-law and her husband. We walked into a gallery that displayed the works of Mark Rothko (large, color field paintings). Rothko is one of my favorites and the paintings literally took my breath away and I had to sit down in their presence. Chase and Cathy were a little confused by it all and wandered off to another gallery. But for me, there was energy, life in that space!

This would also be a good week to run the video about the power of words that I referenced last week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgi0t2ap-us

And a couple of random thoughts: we want to be clear about inviting everybody to participate in the art fest on Pentecost Sunday, June 12.  And remember that I will be out of town on June 5. We also have 2 artists that we have talked with but not used yet: Chris Brown with his RISE project, and Ted Lyddon-Hatten who has agreed to with us via Skype. We also talked about inviting in vocalists of differing genres, and even possibility a tattoo artist. I’d like to do a bit of looking down the road to the culmination of this series.

Sunday May 15

May 15 – Art Saves the World

Genesis 6:14-20

Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive.

My connection between the scripture and this week’s theme is pretty direct: Noah was an artist. He built the ark. There were some instructions from God, but not blueprints. Because Noah responded to this (granted, rather dire) inspiration, the world was saved. I believe that again and again art and creativity saves the world. It hallows the most precious things, it offers new vision. Like the cellist of Sarajevo (whom I highlighted a few weeks back), who played music in the very midst of war, art reminds us that life is about m0ore than destruction, greed, or hatred.

                When we create, when we respond to God’s invitation to co-create we save the world one piece of art at a time. Art is not just decoration; it is resuscitation, rejuvenation, resurrection.

Good News: Even in an awful story about an angry God, there is the promise of life.

Subject: We humans participate in the salvation of ourselves and others, and it is a creative endeavor.

Experiential Field: We experience the precious gift of life when we create.

Heather M shared some interesting inspiration for this week:

Okay - I have some ideas.  I am a secret Fine Arts minor and took a life-changing feminist art history course, so IMHO, you can't talk about ART, without mentioning the guerrilla girls.  Basically, its a band of renegade art feminist (Judy Chicago is rumored) http://www.guerrillagirls.com/ who protest the fact that the art world is very sexist and many women artists are just not displayed in museums, textbooks, or galleries.  

May 15   Art Saves the World           Genesis 6:11-22

So when I read "how art can save the world", well how CAN art save the world when art is a reflection of society and a big fat mirror of sexism lies in our precious art world!!

Heather’s question applies to the bible as well. How can texts so dominated by patriarchy and male politics (both when they were written and how they have been applied ever since) convey for us the “still-speaking God”? I think the miracle therein is that does show up, and speak and transform us but we have certainly made it more difficult because of our human accretions. So, too, art is human and often as flawed as the humans who make it and display it. So, too, the Creative Spirit can break through in any gallery, studio, or street corner.

The forms we choose, including the words we select can either convey or inhibit the Spirit. Here is a video that highlights how our choice of craft can realign our world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU

I really like where we went for Mother’s day last week, but I want to keep before us one of my major intentions for this series: to give those in attendance an opportunity to participate in creation of something. What kinds of creativity can we invite them into?

I have an update regarding some of the artists who can/may/will participate:

·         Jack Evans is available next week (May 22) to share about haiku writing.

·         My friend Ted Lyddon Hatten is willing to join us via Skype to talk about his socially conscious sculpture.

·         I had an interesting conversation with Chris Brown about the Rise project that he and 2 friends are undertaking: a cross-country bike ride to raise awareness of suicide. Chris is a film-maker and one of the other partners is a photographer, but they see this whole endeavor as a work of art and passion (http://risephoenix.org/).

I also know we discussed have vocalists from a variety of genres, and possibly a dancer as well. As of this week (May 15) we are one month out from our SCUCC Art Fest.  The Spirit is moving quickly!

Sunday May 15

May 15 – Art Saves the World

Genesis 6:14-20

Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive.

My connection between the scripture and this week’s theme is pretty direct: Noah was an artist. He built the ark. There were some instructions from God, but not blueprints. Because Noah responded to this (granted, rather dire) inspiration, the world was saved. I believe that again and again art and creativity saves the world. It hallows the most precious things, it offers new vision. Like the cellist of Sarajevo (whom I highlighted a few weeks back), who played music in the very midst of war, art reminds us that life is about m0ore than destruction, greed, or hatred.

                When we create, when we respond to God’s invitation to co-create we save the world one piece of art at a time. Art is not just decoration; it is resuscitation, rejuvenation, resurrection.

Good News: Even in an awful story about an angry God, there is the promise of life.

Subject: We humans participate in the salvation of ourselves and others, and it is a creative endeavor.

Experiential Field: We experience the precious gift of life when we create.

Heather M shared some interesting inspiration for this week:

Okay - I have some ideas.  I am a secret Fine Arts minor and took a life-changing feminist art history course, so IMHO, you can't talk about ART, without mentioning the guerrilla girls.  Basically, its a band of renegade art feminist (Judy Chicago is rumored) http://www.guerrillagirls.com/ who protest the fact that the art world is very sexist and many women artists are just not displayed in museums, textbooks, or galleries.  

May 15   Art Saves the World           Genesis 6:11-22

So when I read "how art can save the world", well how CAN art save the world when art is a reflection of society and a big fat mirror of sexism lies in our precious art world!!

Heather’s question applies to the bible as well. How can texts so dominated by patriarchy and male politics (both when they were written and how they have been applied ever since) convey for us the “still-speaking God”? I think the miracle therein is that does show up, and speak and transform us but we have certainly made it more difficult because of our human accretions. So, too, art is human and often as flawed as the humans who make it and display it. So, too, the Creative Spirit can break through in any gallery, studio, or street corner.

The forms we choose, including the words we select can either convey or inhibit the Spirit. Here is a video that highlights how our choice of craft can realign our world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU

I really like where we went for Mother’s day last week, but I want to keep before us one of my major intentions for this series: to give those in attendance an opportunity to participate in creation of something. What kinds of creativity can we invite them into?

I have an update regarding some of the artists who can/may/will participate:

·         Jack Evans is available next week (May 22) to share about haiku writing.

·         My friend Ted Lyddon Hatten is willing to join us via Skype to talk about his socially conscious sculpture.

·         I had an interesting conversation with Chris Brown about the Rise project that he and 2 friends are undertaking: a cross-country bike ride to raise awareness of suicide. Chris is a film-maker and one of the other partners is a photographer, but they see this whole endeavor as a work of art and passion (http://risephoenix.org/).

I also know we discussed have vocalists from a variety of genres, and possibly a dancer as well. As of this week (May 15) we are one month out from our SCUCC Art Fest.  The Spirit is moving quickly!

Artists in God's Image - Mother's Day

May 8 – Artists in God’s Image

Exodus 35:4-19

 Moses said to all the congregation of the Israelites: This is the thing that the Lord has commanded: Take from among you an offering to the Lord; let whoever is of a generous heart bring the Lord’s offering: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and fine linen; goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, and fine leather; acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing-oil and for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and the breastpiece.

 All who are skillful among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded: the tabernacle, its tent and its covering, its clasps and its frames, its bars, its pillars, and its bases; the ark with its poles, the mercy-seat, and the curtain for the screen; the table with its poles and all its utensils, and the bread of the Presence; the lampstand also for the light, with its utensils and its lamps, and the oil for the light; and the altar of incense, with its poles, and the anointing-oil and the fragrant incense, and the screen for the entrance, the entrance of the tabernacle; the altar of burnt-offering, with its grating of bronze, its poles, and all its utensils, the basin with its stand; the hangings of the court, its pillars and its bases, and the screen for the gate of the court; the pegs of the tabernacle and the pegs of the court, and their cords; the finely worked vestments for ministering in the holy place, the holy vestments for the priest Aaron, and the vestments of his sons, for their service as priests.

Good News: Our skills and arts are worthy of God.

Subject: We participate with God in creating a world of art, beauty, justice, and love.

Last week we observed that God delighted in creating a home for us: the world,, the universe we live in. The text from Exodus shows the great skill and creativity brought to the task of creating a home for God, the tabernacle. Our understanding today is not that God dwells in a specific place or structure, unlike the ancient understanding, but the importance of the task is still the same: creating (or re-creating) the world as a fitting home for God. It requires of us our best skill, art, passion, and imagination. The art of creating a home for God in today’s age may not require skill at gold-smithing, but we are in dire need of peace-smiths, painters of justice, and authors of hope.

One of those artists was Julia Ward Howe. She was a hymn-writer and peace-activist. She was one of the first to conceive of a Mother’s day observance, but very differently than the Hallmark card-dozen roses kind of holiday we have today. Here is her original call:

Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870).

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons
of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a
great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at
the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the
alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
of international questions, the great and general interests of
peace.

Julia Ward Howe
Boston 
1870

As I write these thoughts I hear news reports of Bin Laden’s death and see much rejoicing on Facebook at the news. And I wonder, what kind of artist’s are creating our world these days? What kind of home are we crafting for the God of Life and Love?  I’ve been dwelling on three words for what I believe we are to be about as artist of the Spirit: creativity, compassion, and joy. It’s somewhat harder to come by tonight.

Experiential Field: We experience God’s hope and joy when we are artists of peace.