A chance for music, reflections and art...

I received a fascinating offer earlier this week: the production director of our local public access television station stopped by to ask if I would be interested in doing a weekly show - and they would show our Sunday worship, too. Now there are two things that really intrigue me about this. First, people in the Berkshires REALLY watch public access TV - I can't tell you how many times conversations have grown out of things people have seen on our three public access channels - so this would be a great way to connect with the wider community.

And second, it would be an opportunity to explore what IMAGE editor, Gregory Wolfe, and writer, Annie Dillard, call the "pile-up" - that place where art/beauty/religion meet and sometimes collide. He writes: The more I have worked in the realm where faith and culture meet, the more I have become aware of the tradition of Christian Humanism. I am well aware that the word humanism strikes many people as inherently anti-religious—we’ve all heard the word modified by “secular” for so long.

But this is one of history’s little—or perhaps big—ironies. Because the truth is that the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West gave birth to humanism: to the sense that every individual life in infinitely important, that our humanity is in fact an image of divinity, and that the culture-making capacity of humankind is the key way in which we both understand and express our sense of transcendent mystery... (I really mean "Religious Humanism" because my quest...) really refers to Jewish Humanism, Christian Humanism and Islamic Humanism. However one might want to argue the truth claims of these faiths, the strands of humanism that run through each of them have much to say to one another. And perhaps never more urgently than in our own time.

So wouldn't it be a challenge - an honor and sacred privilege (and a whole lotta fun, too) - to do a weekly show that explores how the phony sacred/secular divide needs to be buried once and for all while inviting local artists and people of faith to share their wisdom, questions, creations and insights? I think it would be a total gas!

Take, for example, this creation by artist, Laura Fisher Smith, who has given birth to icons of the homeless (which appears on the Episcopal Cafe's "Art Blog" - http://www.episcopalcafe.com/art/art/) If art reflects the people who lived during the time of its creation, then Laura Fisher Smith's icons should give each of us cause to stop and re-evaluate our priorities. Art records the evidence of a society's existence. Smith's icons of the homeless, such as the one seen above, proclaim what she values most, and bluntly reveal her concern for the marginalized, the sick and the needy. With a creative vision filled with both mercy and advocacy, she paints individual persons who are homeless with a dignity and grace once reserved for saints.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg as I think of the artists in the area - the poets and painter, musicians of every variety as well as sculptors, dancers and writers - who would be great to meet in a way that helped us all go deeper. Classical violinist, Daniel Hope, recently put it like this about the insights he has gained after working with world musicians of different nations and genres: "There are so many wonderful, wonderful musicians in the world, I cannot possibly make a distinction between the fact that they might play classical music, or bluegrass, or Irish traditional, or Indian music... and if one is open enough to meet them halfway, that's when it gets really interesting." (http://api.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96046890)

Let's see what happens as we keep our eyes open for another way for the word to become flesh and dwell among full of truth and grace.