Learning to dance with God...

Whenever we plan a public "gig" at church - inviting old friends and new to be a part of the musical mix - there is always fear and trembling.  Will people come?  Will the set congeal in a way that is not only beautiful and moving, but fun and satisfying for everyone involved?  Will the equipment work?  Will some one's feelings be hurt by my editorial decisions? And on and on it goes... and truth be told, we won't know any of the answers until after June 2nd when the deal goes down.

For the time being, therefore, I'm setting my anxieties to the side to celebrate what looks like a truly entertaining and fun show. What I had originally thought might be a blues and jazz gig has taken on a rock and soul persona.  Where I thought we might be horn rich, I now see that we're flush with killer guitars - and stunning vocalists!   And what I once imagined might be a small group of available artists has slowly grown to nearly 20+ that includes three of the young musicians from this year's confirmation group and my very talented brother-in-law making his Berkshire debut.

So, what Frank Zappa once prophesied at the start of "Lumpy Gravy" - 'the way I see it, Barry, this is going to be a very dynamite show!' - is likely to be true: this show is going to be a total gas.

Now putting these gigs together is a unique spiritual discipline for me because they always teach me something about trust and being open to the prompting of the Spirit . Truth be told, none of our shows end up the way I first heard them or conceptualized them in my imagination. I was certain we were going to be playing hard jazz and down and dirty blues. Hell, I thought we'd pull it together for Fat Tuesday. But schedules, health, family commitments, other musical gigs and the liturgical calendar all conspired against my first notion. So now, instead of "All Blues" we'll be playing "Natural Woman" and "Bad Bad World" - and that is just how it should be.  Working with who is available to do something creative is a living exercise in "letting go and letting God" because the alternative is deep frustration.  What's more, as Meister Eckhart taught, "Reality is the will of God - it can always be better - but start with what is real."  Shaping the artistic vision for these kinds of shows regularly invites me to practice the Serenity Prayer: there truly are all types of things that I cannot change.  

That's true for my role in conducting rehearsals, too.  It seems that I have been invited by the Spirit to call the players into community and share the broad outline of the vision - and then let them take it deeper according to their own gifts.  Talk about trust!  Most of the time, the wider band only practices once for the whole show; the core band - my partners in Between the Banks from church meet weekly for at least a month shaping close harmonies and song structures - but the whole ensemble usually is only able to meet once before show time.  (That is scheduled for this coming Tuesday, May 28th between 6-9 pm.)


Thank God all my musical partners hang up their egos and anxieties at the door and just let it flow when they arrive!  But here's the thing, in order for this "go with the flow" groove to happen, some careful groundwork must take place first.  Here is what we all need for this to work:  a) a clear road map (i.e. set list - which I will still tweak as the practice ripens); b) a working sound system in place and ready to go (nothing is more maddening than having to wait for the sound crew to set up while we try to practice); c) clear assignments re: who is to sing and play on what songs (like a wedding rehearsal, it becomes chaos if you negotiate details   at this late stage); d) food and drink (to keep energy up); and e) a commitment to moving the rehearsal moving along in a gentle and respectful way (because OMG can musicians.... wander when we're having fun.) Somebody needs to tell the guitarists not to "noodle" on their instruments in-between songs because that drives the vocalists insane.  And, likewise, singers need to be reminded not to chat or carp about anything while still facing their microphone (no coughing or sneezing into the mic either!)

Back in the early days, I knew how to bring people together - and I could help shape a vision for a show - but I was agitated and annoyed with doing all the organizational aspects of pulling it together. "People should just show up, do their part, give their best and get it on!" I used to think.  Maybe... but it rarely happens, so if I want something creative and satisfying to come to birth, I have learned to live into the gift of leadership.  (Something I find many still resist in music and the wider church to my deep frustration. Dianne recently told me, "You should simply make it part of your spiritual commitment NOT to participate in meetings or musical encounters that you can't share some of your leadership skills."  I think she is right.)
These days, like any party - or worship celebration - I know that before the music can become fun and satisfying, some careful preparations are in order.  Gertud Mueller-Nelson puts it like this in To Dance with God:

Ritual making and ceremony always requires a leader, someone who is not afraid to recognize his or her talent, insight or ability and who will step forward to use it.  Collective ceremonies don't just happen.  An embarrassment at stepping forward or a misconception that leadership is the enemy of democracy allows whole communities to remain unconscious and bereft of real richness... Making ceremony requires the vision of one who is willing and ready to take the leadership and to be as conscious as possible.  This person takes responsibility, be it for the spontaneous moment, or on a regular basis, to respond to the greater good of the community or family.

Doing this is one of my gifts. I am still learning, of course, to practice it with care and tenderness.  But I'm no longer afraid of it nor baffled that I must  embrace it with flexibility and openness.  There will always be fear and trembling before a show, but I think that's a good thing... and it will only grow within me until Tuesday's full rehearsal.  But even then it is just an invitation to surrender and learn to dance with God, yes?  What a treat. 

Preparing for the next five years of ministry...

A few weeks ago, after returning from our mini-get away for our anniversary, I had the chance to speak with my church council about looking forward to our next five years in ministry. Some may know that I was called to Pittsfield in 2007 to engage the people, my gifts and God's Spirit in a quest that is sometimes called "church renewal." So now, after almost six years, it is clear that we're ready to take this work to a deeper level.

At the close of my first year, our leadership team discerned a clear mission that has guided our efforts and helped us stay the course.  It is as follows: In community with God and each other we gather to worship, to reflect on our Christian faith, to do justice and to share compassion.  For the past 5 years we've given major attention to building community through reflection and worship. We've also deepened the ways we share compassion with one another and the wider community, too.  Over the next five years, while each of these commitments will mature, we must also find the best way to actively engage in doing justice.  Clearly our decision to be an Open and Affirming congregation will drive some of this work as will our recent commitment to help bring to birth a regional, inter-faith, congregation-based justice organizing project that is affiliated with the Inter-Valley Organizing Project (http://www.intervalley project.org/)

Two up-coming events speak to me of how the Spirit is now leading us to give shape and form to this mission:

+ First, on Saturday June 1st, we will meet for a full day leadership

team retreat. The day will start with Eucharist and prayer. Then we'll move into a critical reflection concerning each component of our mission statement - worship, reflection, justice and compassion - and what themes/insights from Scripture and tradition help us best understand what the Spirit is asking from us at this moment in history. In addition to eating together, we will close the day by sorting out how our historic, beautiful, expensive and always broken building helps us advance our mission.  Believe me, there are some intense and complex decisions about all of this that need to ripen during this retreat - and what we discern will clearly shape our ministry for the next five years. 

+ Second, on Sunday June 2nd, we will sponsor "Beats 4 BEAT" - a rock and soul music concert to benefit Berkshire Environmental Action Team.  Not only will some of our best musicians rock the house with original compositions but we'll pull out all the stops with songs from Canned Heat, Coldplay, Guster, Aretha Franklyn, Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock.  Three of the young people from this year's confirmation group will be featured along with some of the top regional performers from beyond the congregation, too. It will be a gas to make beautiful music again with these new/old friends - and - it will showcase a deep spiritual conviction of our ministry:  that beauty can save the world.

The visual artist and theologian, Mako Fujimura, wrote: "Dr. Elaine Scarry of Harvard, in her classic little book called Beauty and Being Just, states, 'Beauty, sooner or later, brings us into contact with our own capacity for making errors. (pg. 31) In other words, the encounter with beauty convicts us, and that conviction causes transformation. She continues:

The beautiful, almost without any effort of our own, acquaints us with the mental event of conviction, and so pleasurable a mental state is this that ever afterwards one is willing to labor, struggle, wrestle with the world to locate enduring sources of conviction – to locate what is true. Both in the account that assumes the existence of the immortal realm and in the account that assumes the nonexistence of the immortal realm, beauty is a starting place for education. (pg. 31)

As a faith community, we are learning to trust the beauty of the Scriptures and the Spirit in deeper ways.  And as this happens our imagination is resurrected: now we can see the world - and our church - as it should be rather than worry just about dead-end "facts" or zero-sum bottom lines.  And as a creative community, we are finding new ways to invest in young musicians - and dancers and painters and singers and writers and entrepreneurs, too - regularly bringing them together with time-tested artists so that we might create something beautiful together in community. Lewis Hyde cut to the chase in his book about creativity, The Gift, when he wrote:
 

It is the assumption of this book that a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, that works of art exist simultaneously in two "economies," a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift, there is no art. (xvi, The Gift, Second Vintage Books edition, 2007)

It is my working assumption that the Spirit is calling forth our gifts in essential ways, too. With prayer and patience, community and creativity, beauty and blessing we are finding a deeper way to be faithful for this moment in time. We have got a ton of work to do in preparation for this weekend of creativity - and over the next five years - but what a sacred privilege, yes?   

credits:
1) labyrinth in tall grass @ www.tallgrassretreats.com
2) sculpture @ www.hancockchurch.org

Resurrecting our imagination...

In the Guardian article by Giles Fraser I quoted earlier in the week, there was a penetrating observation that is important to the work I do as a pastor, an artist and someone trying to make sense of life in 21st century America.  He wrote:

"The power of art," says Marcuse, "lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality." My fascination with religion is its ability to do precisely the same. That it is able to suggest there is more to reality than the flat-footed empiricism of those who believe that if you can't count it, touch it or weigh it, it doesn't exist.

Not a week goes by that someone doesn't say something like this to me:  "Do you really believe that you can help keep this church alive for more than a few more years?"  Some are that blunt.  Others cast their doubts by worrying about  our aging building - or our shrinking endowment (still over $1 million dollars) - or the lack of interest in religion by the wider public.  After all, New England only rivals the Pacific Northwest in people who call themselves "spiritual but not religious."

For a time I tried to share the "deeper facts" with those who can only see the obvious: our modest numerical growth over the past 5 years is moving in the right direction, our stunning financial stewardship continues to ripen each year despite the current economic recession, there is a greater awareness and participation of our role in a variety of creative community events, a deeper appreciation for our civic contributions is rea, too etc. But I've come to the realization that I need to quit trying to teach stones to see, because here's the deal: when the only way you can imagine the future is related to the bottom line, there are never enough "facts" to push someone into a vision of faith. And Jesus said something about throwing pearls before swine, too didn't he?

Artist and theologian, Mako Fujimura, once put it like this:

How we allocate our funding has to do with fundamental bottom line issues. Churches are operating under a utilitarian pragmatism, with a "zero sum game," of resources competing with one another, much like a big businesses. We do not see beauty as valuable. Why? Well, I believe this mindset has as much to do with how we view the gospel as how we view the arts.  Jesus commended Mary of Bethany (in John 11-12) for extravagantly offering perfume valued at a year’s worth of wages to anoint him for his burial. She broke open the nard of mystery of our being, of who Christ was, and Jesus stated the she "has done a beautiful thing to me. And wherever the Gospel is told, what she has done will also be told."

My question is this: Is our gospel accompanied with just as gratuitous, generous, creative and beautiful acts as Mary's? Perhaps both the quality and the power of our art would reach a different height and depth if we created from that perspective. (See my essay "Beautiful Tears" on my website.)

Last week, for example, I met a real estate developer - who is also a person of faith - who wants to work with us in finding alternative funding sources that will help us do two things:  grow our creative ministries deeper while linking our physical plant to the well-being of the city. This wasn't a "head in the clouds" dreamer, but a man who knows how money works.  He wants to link his gifts and wisdom with our need because, as he said, "I want to give something back to this place that will help give my life deeper meaning." Like my Cleveland friends in the Pentecostal world used to say, "Jesus wasn't kidding when he told us to make friends with unrighteous Mammon." What we have to do is learn from those who know how to get things done in this economy so that they can help us advance mission and ministry.

My congregation faces some serious challenges - far more than we have either the wisdom or financial resources to resolve all by ourselves - and as so often happens this has caused some to grow frightened. Even short-sighted. But now is not the time for fear or retreat. We are on the cusp of something bold and new that is only beginning to take shape.  The old way of "doing" church - and funding our ministries - is dying. In some ways it is like Maundy Thursday - some hard and uncertain times are certain to come as we give up zero-sum/bottom line thinking - because Easter is just around the corner waiting to resurrect our imaginations.

credits:
1) takingtheyoke.blogspot.com
2)  Leonid Afremov, "White Imagination" @ www.redbubble.com
3) The Imagination Tree @ www.subliminalhacking.net

The Spirit testifies to the grace of God in Christ...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for this Sunday - Trinity Sunday - and the closing message re: what worship means for our living.  Sorry there's no art this week... more soon.

Introduction

The older I get, the more I love the ministry and poetry of the apostle Paul.  Over the years I have discovered that like me he doesn’t always get it right – in fact, sometimes he is so totally wrong that it is painful.  Even worse, when his words are taken out of context and used to wound others, it is always ugly. 

·        Ask any preacher about that one and if they are honest they’ll tell you stories that will make you sick to your stomach concerning how some folk in their brokenness can twist and distort your words into something mean-spirited and cruel.

·        But… when old Paul is right, his words can sing in ways that inspire courage and hope and understanding like none other in our Bible.  Some of the first words I ever committed to memory come from Paul’s writing to the ancient church in Rome:

We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because (hope is) God’s love (being) poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Now I know that conventional wisdom advises that we NOT boast in our suffering:  we have been taught to get rid of inconvenience and pain as quickly and efficiently as possible.  And when we can’t distract, mask or evade our suffering, then we complain and carp and whine about it.  But Paul says there is another way – a way born of the Holy Spirit – that empowers us to take even our deepest sadness and fear and let them become for us a pathway into hope. Peterson’s reworking of Romans 5 puts it like this:

We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy… we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit- (because we are nourished on hope.)

·      Do you sense something of the contrast Paul is describing for us?  Left to our own devices, he says, we will grumble about or evade whatever wisdom our wounds might carry – we’ll want to get through it all as fast as we can – and more often than not we’ll do so as self-absorbed whiners.

·      But those who know – those who have tasted something of God’s grace in the very life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ – will hold their tongues and practice patience so that by the spirit of hope we might be led into new truth and greater strength for living.

I think that is what Jesus was telling his friends in today’s gospel reading, too when he said:  In this moment you cannot grasp everything.  In fact, you probably don’t want to know the whole story.  You cannot bear it.  But when the time is right:  the Spirit of the Truth will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.  He won't draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said.  He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you (so that you know that) everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I've said, 'The Spirit takes from me and delivers to you.

This is how we become a blessing for another:  we respond to all of life with hope born of the Holy Spirit.  It takes practice, commitment, forgiveness, patience, community and humility so that we both learn from our mistakes and discern how God wants to us them for blessings.

Insights

Small wonder then that the closing segment of our worship each Sunday is called:  bless – a time to respond to God’s grace with our lives and our resources.  It is our weekly practice of giving shape and form to living lives that are centered, engaged and reflective.  The very structure of our worship, you see, is a template for cultivating the hope born of the Holy Spirit that St. Paul described.

·      We begin by coming together as a community, letting go of our anxieties and becoming centered in God’s love. As we celebrate God’s love, we remember our sin – our wounds – our brokenness and hand them over to the Lord for healing and forgiveness.  The first two parts of worship are grounded in grace.

·      Then we open ourselves to a wisdom and tradition that is not only bigger than our experience but also deeper than our knowledge:  we listen to the voices of our ancestors in Scripture and seek to find our response twenty centuries later.  We gather, engage, reflect – and then bless.

We do these things over and over again, week in and week out, because it would seem we need a lot of practice to live by hope.  It is not easy to rejoice in our suffering so that it becomes for us not just a trial, but a way into the very character of Christ who trusts God in all things.  Jesus was clear about this if we go back to the words in John’s gospel:  Christ tells his friends that he knows they won’t grasp the depth of his life, death and resurrection all at once – you can’t bear it he says – it is beyond comprehension. 

It is a mystery how God brings blessings out of something like the Cross, yes?  But Easter is God’s response to Good Friday – new life and resurrection is God’s reply to our sin – and hope is God’s answer to our fears and shame.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says, “I will not leave you alone.  I will send you the Paraclete – the source of spiritual friendship – who will take you by the hand and guide you into the future with hope.”

·      Earlier in John’s gospel Jesus says about the Spirit:  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears (from me) and will declare to you the things that are to come.

·        So right out of the gate Christ is bringing a word of comfort:  it is natural to be confused, to NOT grasp the fullness of God’s love all at once.  So, please, stop fretting and worrying about it, ok?  What you are feeling is natural – try to learn from those feelings – because they can lead you to hope.  And let’s be clear: I am talking to myself right here as much as I am preaching to you about this, ok?

Often I hold on to what Paul said in another section of Romans:  We know (that is, we trust) that all things work together for good, for those who love God.  He doesn’t say that all things ARE good, right?  But for those who love and trust God, even the worst things in life can be turned upside down so that blessings can triumph over sorrow.  Paul wraps up the eighth chapter of Romans like this: I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He knows – and has experienced in his heart, soul, mind and flesh – that God’s Spirit always leads us through our suffering towards hope.  That doesn’t mean we won’t hurt – or be confused or afraid – it doesn’t mean we won’t stumble and fall either.  We will… it just means that even our failures are not the end of the story for those who trust the grace of God in all things. 

At the start of this month, Dianne and I celebrated being married for 18 years – not a record at all – but a blessing for us nonetheless.  And while we were away, walking by the ocean in Portland, ME we got to talking about some of the changes we’ve been through over those years – how we’ve grown up a lot – hurt one another from time to time – and found the grace to grow through that pain.  Looking backwards is not all bad, you know? And one of the things I’ve been pondering in my heart since that walk is the mystery of all that has taken place during those years:  how back when we were first married there were things that we could not bear together – things about our commitment we were not yet ready to hear – but now, nearly 20 years later, we’re stronger and more attentive.

I suspect that is part of what Jesus was trying to tell his friends in today’s text:  you won’t – and can’t – grasp the totality of God’s truth yet.  So I’m going to send you a Friend – the Paraclete – who will take you by the hand (if you are paying attention) and lead you towards the path of hope. Now notice something here:  these words – you aren’t ready for things yet… but there will come a time when I will send you another who will take you by the hand – sound a great deal like what Jesus said to Peter at the end of John’s gospel. 

·      In that setting, Peter has betrayed the Lord, run away from the community and tried to lose himself in his old ways.  Jesus comes to him in mystery and after a breakfast on the beach of fish and bread, Peter’s eyes are opened and he recognizes the Risen Christ.

·      And after asking his old friend, “Peter, do you love me?” Jesus goes on to say:  In your mature love – tested and humbled – you must become a blessing. (Don’t waste this pain!)  When you were young and strong you could go wherever you wanted to go, but now that you are older I will send another who will lead you into those places where you do not want to go.

He was talking about places of personal surrender and confession, places of ministry and service, places that speak truth to power with humility and grace, places that challenge the status quo with love and forgiveness:  to be a blessing, it would seem, you must take the hand of the one Christ sends to us who leads us into places we would never dare imagine if left just to ourselves.

This is the only way we can boast in our sufferings:  when we are being led by the Spirit. For only God’s Spirit in Christ can turn suffering into endurance – and endurance into character – and character into hope. In the Spirit we can imagine the world as it ought to be – not as it is – a world where sharing by all means scarcity for none – a world where God’s will is done on earth as it is already done in heaven – a world where we listen more than speak and forgive more than judge.  A world born of God’s Holy Spirit is guided by hope.

And let me go a little deeper here because the radical truth of these words can be lost in the English poetry of John’s gospel:  The Paraclete – the Holy Spirit who is our friend through Christ – comes from God to testify and witness to the truth of Christ’s way.  And the word the text translates as “testify” is martyresei – a form of the Greek word martyr – meaning one who speaks from personal experience.

·      In its original context a martyr was not a sacrificial lamb, but rather one who had personally experienced and lived the truth – in this case the power of God to bring hope into our despair and life into our death.

·      A martyr was a witness who not only knew the right words, but had experienced them, too.  So what does that tell you about the Holy Spirit? 

The Spirit acts as our helper having intimate experience trusting the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  To be a martyr is to practice trusting when all evidence is obscure – listening beyond the voices of confusion, shame or fear – resting in the assurance that Christ will not leave us alone – and sharing compassion and justice even when no one else thinks it will make any difference. Jesus says the Spirit – the Paraclete – has done this and will help us do so, too.

Do you recall what Paul taught about the Spirit back in I Corinthians 12 and 13?  After reminding the church that there are a variety of gifts given to us by the Spirit to strengthen the community – gifts that include faith and acts of love and even sometimes speaking in tongues – he wraps it all up like this:  now I want to lay out a far better way for you. If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

 

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.  Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back but keeps going to the end.

The essence of the Spirit empowers us to love as martyrs – those who know and trust the grace of God from the inside out – and if that sounds crazy or too demanding or something you can’t get your head all the way around, here is the good news:  Jesus said that’s exactly what he expected.  Some things are just too much to bear in the beginning – they require practice – in community – open to the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

Take, for example, how we practice this truth in the blessing section of worship when we gather to celebrate Holy Communion.  Three truths are observed: 

·      First we recognize that we are are part of a community – not just a collection of odd individuals who stumbled into this place by accident – by the very Body of Christ.  That means when we stand and come forward to the table, we do so with great attention.  Together we are approaching the Lord who is made known to us in the breaking of the bread.  So this should be a time of joyful reverence – quiet and focused – without chattering or visiting.  It is like a pilgrimage to Jesus that we share together, but our attention is always on Christ rather than ourselves.

·       Second, we remember that it is Christ who stands at the door to offer us grace – not me or any tradition – but Jesus.  So our standing and coming forward is a body prayer that lets us practice choosing to live a disciple.  That’s the fundamental reason why we don’t come to you to serve you – then the emphasis is on receiving rather than choosing – it is passive rather than active – too easy to conclude that communion is about getting something from the Lord before offering yourself to God.

·       And third, after we have actively humbled ourselves and intentionally chosen to step forward, we practice returning to our lives by going to our seats in silence so that others are not disturbed.  It would be so easy to chat with a friend as we stroll back to our seat, but that would distract others from their pilgrimage.  With respect and love, we return to our seats and our lives to pray for the whole body.

The same idea shapes giving our offering, listening to the choir and receiving our marching orders at the close of worship, too:  they all point to how we practice becoming part of the body of Christ called to give witness to love as martyrs.  Now at first these practices seem odd – even uncomfortable – and some would say boring or irrelevant.  That’s mostly because we cannot bear their deeper blessings – we must first learn to watch and wait and practice in prayer – so that it is the Spirit rather than our habits who leads us.  Think of it like this: 

Once upon a time there were two young brothers who had lived all their lives in a city behind great stone walls and never saw field or meadow or anything of nature. But one day they decided to pay a visit to the country.  So as they walked along the road they saw a farmer at his plowing – and watched him with amazement. "What on earth is he doing that for! He turns up the earth and leaves deep furrows in it. Why should someone take a smooth piece of land covered with nice green grass and dig it up?"

Later they watched the farmer sowing grains of wheat along the furrows. "That man must be crazy! He takes good wheat and throws it into the dirt. I don't like the country!" said one in disgust. "Only crazy people live here." So he returned to the city. His brother who remained in the country, however, saw a change take place only several weeks later. The plowed field began to sprout tender green shoots, even more beautiful and fresher than before. This discovery excited him so he wrote to his brother in the city to come at once and see for himself the wonderful change. His brother came and was delighted with what he saw.  As time passed they watched the sproutings grow into golden heads of wheat. Now they both understood the purpose of the farmer's work.

And when the wheat became ripe the farmer brought his scythe and began to cut it down. At this the impatient one exclaimed: "That farmer is crazy!  He's insane! How hard he worked all these months to produce this lovely wheat and now with his own hands he is cutting it down! I'm disgusted with such an idiot and going straight back to the city!" His brother was more patient an held his peace as he remained in the country.

He watched the farmer gather the wheat into his granary. He saw him skillfully separate the grain from the chaff. He was filled with wonder when he found that the farmer had harvested a hundred-fold of the seed that he had sowed. And then he understood that there was logic in everything that the farmer had done.  (Brian Stoffregen)

So, too, with practicing the way of the Lord in worship for those who are led by the Spirit:  we have been called to share God’s love in the world as martyrs – those who know and trust the wisdom of the Lord from the inside out – it is an upside down way of living.  And it is filled with blessing.

Art and faith can be partners...

This past weekend, Giles Fraser shared a challenging and insightful column in the Guardian newspaper. (Check out "Bean-counters will never understand the transcendent value of art or religion @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/belief/2013/may/17/bean-counters-understand-transcendent-art-religion ) In a word, Fraser takes on ideologues of both the Left or Right and urges them to look beyond the narrow confines of the next election to see the importance of nourishing truth, beauty and goodness as essential to the common good. (His article is as follows...)

"In a situation where miserable reality can be changed only through economic growth, the concern with aesthetics demands justification." These are very nearly the first words of The Aesthetic Dimension, Herbert Marcuse's 1978 critique of Marxist aesthetics. Except Marcuse spoke of "radical political praxis", not "economic growth".

I have adapted his question for our current dominant ideology, for I don't suppose that a German Marxist philosopher is bedtime reading for Basingstoke MP and culture secretary, Maria Miller. Former economics graduate and advertising executive, Miller likes her culture to be functional, to be judged by how it boosts the wider economy. And it is part of Marcuse's argument that art becomes mere propaganda when it is forced to bend the knee to the prevailing ideology – and that is true whether it be Marxism or free-market economics.

In a thoroughly depressing speech given last month to gathered arts executives at the British Museum, she told them: "When times are tough and money is tight, our focus must be on culture's economic impact." The argument for publicly funded arts needs to be reframed, she insisted, "to hammer home the value of culture to our economy". Those whose orchestras and theatres and galleries are recipients of government funding were hardly in a position to say what they really thought about this touchy-feely philistinism from their bean-counting paymaster.

I do hope that Miller – and a few of the arts executives too – get to see the perfectly timed Propaganda exhibition that opens today at the British Library. There they can see what happens to art when it does the bidding of the political classes. Or instead, maybe Miller will listen to the recent intervention of Anish Kapoor on the opening of his new exhibition in Berlin, unfavourably comparing the respect and support that Germany gives to the arts with that of Britain. "In short, Britain's fucked," he concluded.

Marcuse's attack upon the aesthetics of his Marxist forebears was that they didn't much care for aesthetics at all. They just wanted art to serve the purposes of revolution – hence the collapse of the aesthetic into the sort of realist propaganda with which communism specialised and with which Miller's approach has so much in common. They both want to turn art into advertising.

I ought to confess my interest in all of this, for it may seem that I do not have a dog in the fight. I do. "The power of art," says Marcuse, "lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality." My fascination with religion is its ability to do precisely the same. That it is able to suggest there is more to reality than the flat-footed empiricism of those who believe that if you can't count it, touch it or weigh it, it doesn't exist. In an age where religion has made itself look so foolish, art carries the torch for the sort of transcendence that art and faith once shared. Kapoor's work, for instance, rightly resists categorisation. And his extraordinary biomorphic sculptures have a beauty and significance about them that cannot be reduced to mere explanation. Like religion, he is trying to say things that cannot be said.

The Marxes and Millers of this world are a mortal danger to true art for they are constantly seeking some reductionist explanation of its value. It may be that some conclude that art (and religion) should therefore have nothing to do with the state and thus give up on state support. I have some sympathy with this. But the alternative may be that these arts executives will then spend their time schmoozing wealthy funders in the Ivy, lunches that always come with strings attached. And art is too valuable to be placed in the hands of those who think value means money.

Two points in his argument are critical. First, art that is driven and shaped by political ideology and/or the highest bidder used to be known by another name: propaganda. Fraser calls attention to the current exhibit of 20th and 21st century state sponsored propaganda at the British Library for a crash course in understanding what is at stake when art is reduced to serving the ideological imagination. (For more information go to: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/ exhibitions/propaganda/ index.html) Those of us who have read both Animal Farm and Brave New World - maybe even Fahrenheit 451 - will recall that when the public imagination is force fed a diet of restricted images, sounds, creative forms or movements, the soul of a people is slowly starved to death.

Second, it used to be religion that helped ordinary human beings envision a world better and more beautiful than the status quo. Fraser writes: "The power of art," says Marcuse, "lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality." My fascination with religion is its ability to do precisely the same. That it is able to suggest there is more to reality than the flat-footed empiricism of those who believe that if you can't count it, touch it or weigh it, it doesn't exist. In an age where religion has made itself look so foolish, art carries the torch for the sort of transcendence that art and faith once shared. Ours is an era bound by the bottom line - our metaphors for all that is important are driven by the world of commerce - so much so that many no longer know how to think beyond what is currently profitable and/or expedient.

All the more reason for a robust creative economy that is not constricted by small minds and hard hearts. This is a place where artists and creative people of faith can find common ground. Mako Fujimura, a visual artist and person of deep spirituality, wrote about his former neighborhood in lower Manhattan. Along Canal Street there once was a thriving trout fishing opportunity - but those days are long gone. Into this reality, Mako makes the following observation:

I contend though that the problem is not that Canal Street is no longer the trout stream, but that we no longer imagine that it ought to be one. The issue is succumbing to the futility of the situation at hand, and despairing of the world as it is, saying there's nothing we can do about it. When we cease to seek a world that ought to be, and stop using our imaginative capacities generatively, we have forfeited our capacity to hope, and re-create. In this sense, recreation, even the leisure of fishing, points to re-creation, our central task of rebuilding a broken universe. If a trout, or other enchanted creatures of nature, cannot be allowed to inhabit our urban world, swimming against the currents of the economy and flowing into the currents of cultural production, we have already closed the door to the generative reality, making the re-humanization of our world unattainable...

In the confluence of such an imaginative journey, economy and culture flow into each other, as double headwaters into our future world; therefore if we care about any of these streams, we must ask audaciously, "Can't Canal Street be a trout stream again?"Art brings possibilities of re-creation back into the broken world. Artists are instinctively generative, and they are used to asking impossible questions. That's why they are the first to enter dilapidated corners of the cities, and to see before anyone else, the potential for re-creation in an abandoned loft. Far after the trout disappeared, artists moved into abandoned Canal Street. Soho then became home to many arts institutions, galleries and artists. The streets were teeming with creative talents. Paul Taylor Dance, a premier modern dance company, practiced there. The painter Romare Bearden, the first African-American visual artist to receive the National Medals, had his studio right on Canal Street. But Romare Bearden passed away, and Paul Taylor Dance Company has been replaced by the Gap. (Refractions @ http://www. makotofujimura.com/writings/refractions-31-trout-the-dow-and-our-bottom-lines-part-ii/)

Let me suggest that as our local Berkshire creative economy matures, we need to honor the voices of artists - and creative people of faith - with as much if not more value than politicians and the business community. To be sure, we can find common ground as allies - and must work together for the common good - but not if art is only a means to selling a product. Or worse yet, becomes a vehicle for beautiful but narrow-minded propaganda.

credits:

1)Anish Kapoor's piece Two Blues at the Lisson Gallery in London, October 2012. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty http://www.guardiannews.com/?guni=Article:guardian logo

2) www.stevekmccoy.com