"How many of you are artists?" ...show of hands

From a review of a great book  ("Orbiting the Giant Hairball"):






One thing MacKenzie loved to do was to speak to school groups. He’d spend the day going into all the different classes starting with the kindergarten in the morning and ending with the sixth graders in the afternoon.
He started the same way with all the groups. He said
“Look, I’m an artist and I love to be around other artists. I look at your walls and you’ve got art on them so there must be artists here. Anybody an artist?”
In the kindergarten everybody in the class is raising both hands in the air, jumping about all excited saying
“Yeah, Yeah! I’m an artist! I’m an artist!”
They’re not just an artist, they’re an enthusiastic artist!
By the first grade, still every hand is up, not so much dancing around, not as many double hand raises but everybody is still an artist.
You get to the second grade and that’s where the first bit of attrition occurs – not every single child raised their hand. Then it progressed. He would get two or three people raising their hands starting in the fourth grade, a pretty pivotal moment in terms of identifying as creative.
By sixth grade when the children are old enough to understand this, the couple of people raising their hands are nervously looking round to see if they’re going to be judged by their peers.
It’s not just a fear of failure, it’s a fear of being judged. Creativity is as much about the ability to come up with ideas as it is about the courage to act on those ideas – Creative Confidence.
So Gordon Mackenzie asked the sixth graders
“Hey! What happened to all the artists in this school? Did all the artists transfer out? Did all the artists go to art school? I don’t think so. I think something much worse. I think someone or something has told you it’s not OK to be an artist. If you don’t remember anything else I say today I want you to go home and remember it’s OK to by an artist.” link

More from Bono on the psalms

A year ago, Fuller Studio posted the great Bono/Eugene Peterson conversation on the Psalms; it's here.  Of course, at the time, I wondered what gems were left on the cutting room floor.  My prayers were answered a few months later here.

Now, on the anniversary of the film, they have released further interview excerpts with Bono, filmed a bit later.

Here they are below, from this link.

 Tim Neufeld, at this link, posted some power quotes:

Psalm 82 is a good start. [It says] defend the rights of the poor and the orphans. Be fair to the needy and helpless. Rescue them from the power of evil people. See, this isn’t charity, this is justice.

I try to get to the place where the song is singing me.

We [U2] have a hunch that God is not that interested in advertising . . . . It’s art, rather than advertising, that the Creator of the universe is impressed by.

Taylor: One thing you’ve learned about God through your reading of the Psalms. Bono: “He listens.” Taylor: One thing that you’ve learned about yourself through your reading of the Psalms. Bono: “I don’t listen enough.”

I want to argue the case for artists – or potential artists – who might be listening in on our conversation and are not giving expression to what’s really going on in their life because they feel it will give the wrong impression of them. We don’t have to please God in any other way than to be brutally honest; that is the root not only to a relationship with God but the root to a great song . . . .

I think all art is prophetic.

I went finally to Jerusalem… And I went to Golgotha, and I went to the site… where death died. That’s where death died. And so, I don’t really believe in it anymore. It has no power over me as it had when I was 14 years old.

“Where Death Died”

---

+ Mako

"Holy Rembrandt!"

portrait

     "I was in England during World War I,  moneyless and miserable.  My wife, who is younger and more courageous than I am, said 'Let's go to a museum for relief.'  There was destruction in the whole world.  Not only were bombs  being dropped on London--but every day we heard of another city being destroyed.  Devastation, ruins, the annihilation of a world becoming poorer and sadder.  That was bitter.  I looked at Rembrandt's last self-portrait: so hideous and broken; so horrible and hopeless; and so wonderfully painted. All at once it came to me: to be able to look at one's fading self in the mirror--see nothing--and paint oneself as the  néant, the nothingness of man. What a miracle, what an image! In that I found courage and new youth. 'Holy Rembrandt,' I said.  Indeed, I owe my life only to the artists."
-Oskar Kokoschka, in  Horst Gerson, Rembrandt Paintings, p. 478.
 Told in Henri Nouwen and Walter Gaffen's "Aging," p. 91

Eugene Peterson and Bono film on Psalms: cussing without cussing

Here is the new Fuller Studio film of Eugene and Bono on Psalms.
                      Links and quotes below


Gotta love so much about this film..like Eugene calling Rolling Stone Magazine "Rolling Stones"..
and a mosh pit a "mash pit." (;

If you like the hilarious story  (excerpted above) about how EP first turned Bono down, there's  a whole video of EP on that and more here.

 --
EP:

"At twelve years old , [the psalms] showed me that imagination was a way to get inside the truth.

  ....translating a psalm...To try to get them to realize that praying  wasn't being nice before God.. The psalms are not pretty; they're not nice...just pray this psalm..  It's not  smooth; it's not nice, it's  not pretty; but it's honest.  And I think we're trying for honesty..which is very, very hard in our culture.

We need to find a way to cuss...without cussing. And the imprecatory psalms surely do that.
 We've got to some way in context; and the context is the whole Bible; whole psalter...to tell people how mad we are.

...We have crosses in every room in this house.  But when I look at those, I don't think of decoration; I think 'This is the world we live in..and it's a world with a lot of crosses . '  And I would just like to spend my life in doing something about that through Scripture, through  preaching, through friendship.  My years are getting shorter, and I don't have many  left; but I don't want to escape the violence..."

Bono: 

"The only way we can approach God..if we're honest..is through metaphor; through symbol.  So art becomes essential; not decorative.

..The psalmist is brutally honest about the explosive joy that he's feeling and the deep sorrow or confusion, and it's that that sets the psalms apart for me.And I often think,
'Why isn't church music more like that'? ..

...I'm talking about dishonesty. I find in a lot of  Christian art ..a lot of dishonesty. I think it's a shame because these people are vulnerable to God (in a good way)...porous; open.. I would love if this conversation would inspire people who are writing these beautiful.., gospel songs:  write a song about their bad marriage; write a song  about how they're pissed off at the government. Because that's what God wants from you: the truth... The truth will set you free; it will blow things apart. Why I'm suspicious of Christians is because of this lack of realism..and I'd love to see more of that in art and life and music."

(answering "What is the work of the artist..in acknowledging the intensity; the reality of the feeling without indulging the feeling?").
Having feelings is perfectly normal. ...David danced naked in front of the troops; that's one reason I like him .. abandonment... very important... understanding our bodies as well as our minds and ourspirits.  The Three-Personed God --The Trinity--is reflected  in our body, mind and spirit..,We really  do ignore this.

--
EP  prays:

"Be with us as we continue our lives of serving You with poetry, with the arts, with psalm, finding ways to enter into what You're already doing:  not calculating the chances, but doing what's right there, what You've already started doing..."

Listen for the prophetic summary in the last two words of the film
 ...from Mrs. Peterson.

 --------------------------


See:

• Story of the film, along related quotes with resources 
• Behind the scenes

•  Bono audio: God at the 9" Nails Gig 

• atu2:"The Message Author Says U2's Message is Refreshing, Faithful, and Honest

 

women, artists, outsiders and introverts: strong church leadership

 From Mandy Smith's The Vulnerable Pastor, pp. 122-124:

Being a woman can feel like weakness.  When you are a woman, your  own body teaches you your limits. From the time you're small, there is always someone bigger, with a stronger body and a deeper voice. And as you grow, you learn how little control you have over your own body, from a sometimes painful, often embarrassing inconvenience that will visit you every month to the strange season of having a person growing inside of you for 9 months. When the little bundle makes its appearance, your body goes from creator of life to sustainer of life. All kinds of new systems kick into gear. It's a miraculous process but one completely beyond your control. As you go from mother to grandmother, your body begins to change again, throwing you into a state of confusion as the steady cycles you have grown accustomed to become syncopated and erratic and then finally stop altogether.

If being a woman teaches humility and collaboration, isn't it a strength to be a woman?

Inhabiting this ever-changing form forces you to acknowledge (even celebrate) your limits and to sense your responsibility to and reliance upon the broader community.

 So if being a woman teaches humility and collaboration, isn't it a strength to be a woman?

In the church, these are leadership skills.

 

Being an artist can feel like weakness.  If you're an artist, you are spurred on by an unending search for truth and beauty. You can have your breath stolen by the smallest, seemingly insignificant thing and be unfit for anything else but crying or singing or writing about it for the rest of the day. And once you've found that tiny sign of hope, you must make sense of it. And so you make things to process and express it, trying to capture all the feeling and meaning for others through the limited media of notes and words and paint. You step into a creative process that is sometimes cruel and raw, a little too close for comfort. Then, with shaking hands, you put that outpouring of your soul into a public form and hope that someone understands.

 

If creative people know how to find truth and beauty, even when it's hidden in brokenn

 ess, if they're comfortable with mystery, failure, and vulnerability, isn't it a strength to be an artist?

In the church, these are leadership skills.

 

Being an outsider can feel like weakness. Being on the outside means always having that vague sense that you didn't get the inside joke. You feel like a child again as you have to learn things that are obvious and basic to everyone else. But over time you compensate. You learn not only to speak but to listen in other languages. You become self-aware as those things which were once transparent about yourself (back when everyone around you was the same as you) are suddenly glaringly visible. For the first time you feel the weight of the lens of your own culture, your own assumptions, and eventually, you learn how to switch glasses.

If being displaced helps us relate to the ways God's people have always been the sojourners, isn't it meaningful to be displaced?

If outsiders know how to be flexible and self-aware, to communicate in a relevant way in many contexts, isn't it a strength to be an outsider?

In the church, these are leadership skills.

Being an introvert can feel like weakness. Thinking of the perfect answer a day after the question makes you feel dumb, even though your belated but perfectly-worded response is more insightful than the one given by the quick-thinker in the room. Needing to recover from extended periods with people draws labels like "anti-social," even though you may have great social skills. Longing for depth and complexity and silence makes you feel like a precious egg-head in a world hungry for sound bites and noise.

If introverts know how to listen, and are unafraid of silence, depth, and authenticity, isn't it a strength to be an introvert?

(link from a pre-book article by Mandy)

 Similar article
 ---



More by Mandy on women and weakness

art and true falsehood

"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth."
- Picasso, context

"Falsehood has no place in fiction"
-Arthur C Danto, context

epistemology of film/history

Visions of the Past

The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History

by Robert A. Rosenstone

Official promo:

“If you’re in search of a thoughtful overview of film and history as rival routes to the past, check out the essays collected in Visions of the Past...Rosenstone nicely reverses the assumption that history exists only on paper, approved and stamped by historians.”—Carlin Romano, Chicago Tribune

“[A] fascinating analysis of the traditional and nontraditional historical film...This is solid scholarship written in a manner that makes it accessible for a wide range of readers.”—Choice

“The pieces represent work over a wide time span and demonstrate Rosenstone’s evolving attitude toward the historical movie...The author knows of his subject from various perspectives...[and] presents his arguments simply and clearly, without drowning the reader in jargon or obtuse references. Well recommended.”—Library Journal

“In these essays, Rosenstone writes with the fervor of the convert...urging historians to admit that film can often do what books can’t...Rosenstone is really rooting for modernist or post-modern cinema--the likes of Alex Cox, Chris Marker and Trinh T. Minh-ha--as the only adequate chroniclers of our fractured sense of the past.”—Sight and Sound

Can filmed history measure up to written history? What happens to history when it is recorded in images, rather than words? Can images convey ideas and information that lie beyond words? Taking on these timely questions, Robert Rosenstone pioneers a new direction in the relationship between history and film. Rosenstone moves beyond traditional approaches, which examine the history of film as art and industry, or view films as texts reflecting their specific cultural contexts. This essay collection makes a radical venture into the investigation of a new concern: how a visual medium, subject to the conventions of drama and fiction, might be used as a serious vehicle for thinking about our relationship with the past.

Rosenstone looks at history films in a way that forces us to reconceptualize what we mean by "history." He explores the innovative strategies of films made in Africa, Latin America, Germany, and other parts of the world. He journeys into the history of film in a wide range of cultures, and expertly traces the contours of the postmodern historical film. In essays on specific films, including Reds, JFK, and Sans Soleil, he considers such issues as the relationship between fact and film and the documentary as visionary truth.

Theorists have for some time been calling our attention to the epistemological and literary limitations of traditional history. The first sustained defense of film as a way of thinking historically, this book takes us beyond those limitations.  link

"Christ Can't Be Pictured"

I was stunned to see this title at the used book store.
I shouldn't have been.

It's a classic Reformation principle .. for some.. that words are more important than images;

even that any images/imaginations of Jesus..therefore art..are forbidden as they are idolatry.

Note the picture (image!) on the cover consists of words about Jesus. 

The well-meaning, but misguided premise, according to the author's blog:

Pictures "de-present" Christ—much more than they "re-present" him. The purpose of this book is to call Christians back to the Bible for their revelation of who Christ is.

The pictures everybody uses to represent Christ are not pictures of Christ at all. They are forbidden by Scripture. They are rooted in a non-biblical monistic idea of God—akin to pantheism. They become idolatrous, not just when they are "worshiped," but at the moment they are given the name of Christ.   link

The whole book can be read on the right-hand bar of the author's blog.

An ironic quote:
"This book is necessary to bring Christians to their senses."— Richard Bennett

Hmm, primacy of senses and primacy of word..

The author comments:

"'The Passion of the Christ' movie  by Mel Gibson...That is perhaps the deadliest influence of the movie is its subliminal denial of the Deity of Christ. Those who made the movie can insist that this man on the screen images Christ. Promoters of the movie may claim that the movie proclaims the Deity of Christ. But the movie makes us call Jim Caviezel “Christ”. This is idolatry.  link

What would Mark DeRaud say?

reading Scripture with its own hub symbols (not our own), prophetic (not royal) consciousness, and outwordliness of the third (not 1st or 2nd) kind

Note: if anyone reading this has all three of these books, let's get together yesterday(:

1) Kent Blevins:

Webb discusses 'hub symbols'--our deepest values, those things most sacred to us to us,  the self-evident facts that are assumed as part of the way things  are.. The hard truth is that we do not go to the Bible and derive our values from it.  Every one of us has a system of hub symbols formed before we ever consciously  engage  the Bible..If we have a truth-seeker's openness to correction, that hub symbols inherent to the text itself will gradually become more and more powerful....  p107, 117 of "How to Read the Bible Without Losing Your Mind"

2)How is this mode of reading/re-reading related to what Brueggemann has coined
prophetic consciousness (vs. royal consciousness)?.  See especially chapter two of "The Prophetic Imagination" (The Royal Consciousness: Countering the Counterculture):

The task of

prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish,

and evoke a consciousness and perception

alternative to the consciousness and

perception of the dominant culture around us  (3)

 ....The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” (pg. 45)

3)And how is all this a Pauline  "otherwordliness of the third kind" via a centered/fuzzy setness:

It is not an outworldliness not just in the sense that a Christ-believer objectively belongs with and in a future state (of being justified by God on the day of judgement and taking up some kind of life in the heavenly politeuma), nor in the sense that he subjectively understands himself, for his own individual part alone, as belonging with Christ. No. It is also an outworldliness of the third kind we identified. It is one that shows iteslf in 'the present evil world' to which Paul has  been crucified, namely in  a specific  set of genuinely other-regarding mental attitudes towards other human beings (believers and non-believers) and in the practice of that set — in that world. -Troels Engberg-Pederrson, Paul and the Stoics, p 177

Shift Happens in the 1860s and 2010s: ecclesiological impressionism and Judas burnings

I am convinced that studying earlier eras of cultural shift/liminal transition helps us get a better handle on "this weird moment in

history" (David Dark's phrase)..

For example:

1)

I wanted to show how many of the issues we think are unique to our time have actually confronted the church for a long time. Nineteenth-century Paris was wrestling with new ideas in politics, art, terrorism, technology, sexuality, and secularism. It was in many ways the first modern city, reinvented around creativity, consumerism, and a highly visual media landscape. It was filled with competing ideologies: conservative, liberal, Christian, atheist, socialist, capitalist. It is a great period to examine in order to allow the reader to examine our own culture with fresh eyes.

It’s humbling to realize that what we see as the issues of our day are much older. When you realize this you discover that previous generations of Christians have wrestled with these questions. For example, in the mid–20th century, a whole generation of leading intellectuals and writers—T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers, Evelyn Waugh, and numerous others—were concerned by what they saw as the destructive trajectory of modern culture, and returned to faith. Such stories give hope that some­thing like that could happen again. -Mark Sayers

Which, in turn, got me interested in this book:

The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade  (1860s) That Gave the World Impressionism

Hmm, maybe we're entering an age of ecclesiological impressionism.
------------

Then there's this, from the same decade:

2)Click the read the "Judas at the Jockey Club" chapter, pp 89-14 here.

As an American in the late 1800's, owning a farm was not too uncommon, especially if that farm was located in Mexico. At this time, though, Mexico was in the Porfirian Era (1876-1911). In this certain era, Mexico was being encountered by two very different cultures at the same time: the industrial, and the traditional. These distinctively separate cultures impacting Mexico made it as what can be described as "backwards" in a sense, as Mexico was practically regressing as the world around it was moving on to bigger and better things. Mexico was so behind that "many had concluded that Mexico had yet to advance beyond chipped rocks as utensils." (p.67). Mexico at this time had locked itself in a stagnancy of its own traditions. The people were simply too anxious towards newer technology to move ahead and replace what they had known for so long.  Judas at the Jockey Club/ Austin Pabian



This brilliant and eminently readable cultural history looks at Mexican life during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, from 1876 to 1911. At that time Mexico underwent modernization, which produced a fierce struggle between the traditional and the new and exacerbating class antagonisms. In these pages, the noted historian William H. Beezley illuminates many facets of everyday Mexican life lying at the heart of this conflict and change, including sports, storytelling, healthcare, technology, and the traditional Easter-time Judas burnings that became a primary focus of the strife during those years   (emphasis mine)

Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico (Second Edition) by

William H. Beezley

Following his discussion on sports and Mexican hierarchal society, Beezley moves on to Mexico’s technology during modernization and what it meant for people. Previously, Mexico had never tried to modernize; however, during Porfirian rule, this was the main concern. Before modernization, the people had rudimentary technology. The author talks about their clothes and how men and women barely wore anything before Porfirio Díaz ruled. Also, he covers field technology. The interesting thing is that even after receiving more advanced technology, the people altered it to resemble their old tools. Another new technology was that of the bicycle, previously mentioned, which showed sophistication and class according to the elites. Overall, this was a time of changing technology enforced by the government, while the people still clung to tradition.
The author Beezley follows up the previous sections, sports and technology, with the final section on Mexican traditional celebrations, in particular, the Jockey Club Judas burning episode. First, to make things more clear, the author explains what a Judas burning is. Judas burnings is a secular event which occurs after Lent and Holy Week. Artisans craft piñata type effigies, often resembling someone or signifying something, which would be burned in celebration. Before delving into the actual Judas burning to which the title refers, it sets up the history of Judas burnings and how they are celebrated around the world. He highlights places like Spain, Germany, Venezuela, and Italy. One example is how the Germans believed that the ashes from the burned Judas, if planted on May Day, could help to prevent the blight. Beliefs like this stemmed all through Europe and Latin America. Judas burnings first appeared in Mexico at around the early 16th century; however, the exact date is still unknown. Some interesting facts which the author included about the burnings were that usually the Judas effigies contained fireworks and even sometimes had live cats insides, or, they would be laced with sausages and coins. Reading about the combination of cats and fireworks really shocked me.  However, this was something that normally occurred to thrill people and give them a sense of life and death. Now, although Judas burnings were a sense of celebration, they also signified a time for social disorder. Judas burnings were opportunities to put a face on the things which they felt were oppressing them. It was a time for the world to be turned upside down and for social equality to prevail. It was a time of social reversals. The author said that, “servants and laborers of every sort refuse to work; you can neither do anything nor get anything done. The only recourse is to spend your time in the streets like the rest” (Beezley).  So, join to the streets they did, and this is what led to the Jockey Club episode.
What occurred during this fateful and last Judas burning sponsored by the Jockey Club is only one example of social disorder caused by Judas burnings. For this event, there were four Judas figures who were riding in a hot air balloon. The figures included a mulatto covered with sausages and coins, a butter vendor also covered with the sausages and coins, a singer playing the guitar covered with pesos, and a beggar also covered with pesos. Every piece of the display symbolized something. Nothing was coincidental.
So, what happened to Judas burnings and this opportunity for the people to rebel? Well, the government finally succeeded in outlawing it for a while; however, Judas burnings could not be kept quiet for very long when in 1905 there was a world economic crisis, in 1908 there were Judas burnings in retaliation. Unfortunately, the government which valued order succeeded in quieting Judas burnings by turning them into child’s activities which the author compares to the Fourth of July.
To conclude, Porfirian rule was a difficult, controversial time for Mexico. Old and new intermingled and clashed. This was portrayed through sports and leisure activities, technology, and celebrations. It was felt and rebelled against. It was a true example of liberalism and conservatism in Latin America. In the end, Judas at the Jockey Club is a book which conveys the sentiments of a people embarking on a new age.  link

I have some pages marked in the Judas at the Jockey Club that trigger some parallels to our current ecclesiological/culture shift:

"Because the Judas burnings were not officially sanctioned by either  church or civic officials, this festival had a spontaneous and creative character. These celebrations, without official approval or support, remained outside the prestige system and manipulation of even the confraternities (Catholic lay brotherhoods called cofradias) .When a shopkeeper, a merchant, or the Jockey Club exploded a Judas it did so without a bureaucracy, without creating a Judas Day committee (except in 1893), and without giving prestige to the person who hosted the burning.  The informality of the celebration emphasized the extra-official character of the event that became the freedom of action of the people who rejoiced at the end of Lent. ...
All those who witnessed the destruction of Judas or who heard the explosions were involved.  None remained aloof.  Understanding the ritual requires that the people be seen as united participants rather than divided into actors and audience...
The Judas festivals dramatically demonstrate social reversal. Social inversions fulfill several functions; they serve as rebellious rituals, role reversals, and institutionalized clowning ...
Washing of feet took place..
..The changing location of the Judas  burnings graphically displays the struggle in Mexico between two segments in society ...medieval heritage of authoritarianism and Roman Catholicism embellished by exigency with indigenous practices. This tradition was shouldered aside by the emergent culture of capitalism and material development that promoters called Progress.  pp 95-107...

Well, there are plenty of dots to connect.  Just read that paragraph without the historical variables, lather, rinse repeat..and apply to today.

One intriguing app: the "institutional clowning" of Judas.
MacPhisto anybody?  Holy fool?

See

• \GEEZ:adbusters, culture jamming, holy fools
• Bono: "Don't lose your faith in this holy clown/idiot"
• holy heteroclite:: "Es una mentira como una catedral."

 Other connections to this decade and ours?
US Civil War?

Mark DeRaud: "good news for this chaotic moment that we're in.."

As Mark DeRaud wrapped up his chapel message for Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary 
today, he said...well, play the video here below.  It will help to have the end in mind for anything else I quote him as saying throughout his talk:

I think it was recorded, so I will post the audio soon as possible.
 Here are some highlights:

1)A pastors/leader should be 

• coach
• curator
• counselor
• teacher 
• I don't have to tell you which two Mark suggested we haven't emphasized/trained for (:

I want to hear more from Mark about the curator thing!

2)You can see what his scriptural backdrop was..one of his paintings.
His Scriptural backdrop was Isaiah 29: 13-14

The Lord said:

Because these people draw near with their mouths
    and honor me with their lips,
    while their hearts are far from me,
and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote; 
 so I will again do
    wondrous things with this people,
    shocking and amazing.
The wisdom of their wise shall perish,
    and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden.

By the time he was done we had a sense that the painting made the same message.
Ask him about it.
As a starter, note the two men reading with no ears or eyes.
One of the curses of the Reformation is that Protestants tend to rely on words only, on not images.

"The  mind is plastic," he maintained.
Even in us older modernity-based focus, the visual/image base of the brain can be restored.
Limbic system  science is clear that new  (old) pathways can be formed..through art.  See these links.

God will do wondrous things through us, as we regain our new mind.

That should leave you

curious. Do check out a

book that has been foundational for Mark's message: "The Reformation of the Image."

And check out these video interviews I did with Mark about the fallout of the Reformation.




3)He spent a good amount of time sharing his experience of being invited to paint murals

at Holy Spirit Catholic church, and the service he was invited to where they were unveiled.
Complete slideshow  of the murals here or here.

I can't believe Mark's classic posts on that experience have been taken down.
Here are the original links, in case someone can find them on the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine page for the original site
I can't.. argggg...they must be there somewhere!):

• Sacred Space: Part One: The Spiritual Language of Beauty 

• Sacred Space Part Two: If These Walls Could Talk

• Sacred Space Part Three:The Barren Cross

 Today, the take home was, as he posted on facebook:

 I was confronted with a body of believers who considered my artistic gift a vocation rather than a curious, useless affliction in the Kingdom of God.
It was the only place or time I was asked, "Did you think the service was beautiful?" A thought my Protestant mind had never considered, let alone would have an opinion.

I was given a position paper on the value of art, written by the Pope. I wept. I wept because I had fought against the call to be an artist, because to be an artist in my Protestant culture was to be, essentially, claimed useless, a non-thing.
The only 'important calling' I understood was to be a book reader and speaker, a preacher. link

He said of the Catholic church,  "their entire place had a language."

--
More:

• Gallery of Mark's art
• Facebook page Mark DeRaud Artist
• all posts on this blog labeled "Mark DeRaud" (see "topical diving" on upper right, or click his name below
• Here is an actual recording of an older  Art N Soul gathering Mark and Wendy facilitated at our church  facility

El Greco and The Cretan paradox: mystic...or not

Good article on El Greco:

The Cretan ParadoxIt's riveting and highly influential, but El Greco's work never quite fit. Could the reason lie in his birthplace?

By Morgan Meis....El Greco’s bodies are longer and stretchier than those we encounter in daily life. He portrayed the human form as you might see it in a vision or a mystical trance. He looked at painting, it would seem, in the same way that his contemporary — the great mystic Saint Theresa of Ávila — looked at prayer. They were both seeking spiritual ecstasy.
Except, there is no evidence that El Greco had any interest in spiritual visions or mystical ecstasies. Instead, he read boring tracts of Counter-Reformation theology and studied Renaissance art theory (we still have his library). El Greco was no Baroque painter, but he was no mystic either.
What to do with an artist who slips through every explanation?...full article

"the supreme heroes in our soulless society"

"Only a few achieve the colossal task of holding together, without being split asunder, the clarity of their vision alongside an ability to take their place in a materialistic world. They are the modern heroes.... Artists at least have a form within which they can hold their own conflicting opposites together. But there are some who have no recognized artistic form to serve this purpose, they are the artists of living. To my mind these last are the supreme heroes in our soulless society. "
- Irene Clairmont de Castillejo, quoted in The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Coporate America

"Keith Richards, Firestones and the Persevering Artist"

 From Pete Hilmelman's column, "Keith Richards, Firestones and the Persevering Artist (How Sensitive Creators Can Best Bring Their Work Into the World"..

...There are three basic stages to the creation of commercially viable art: You conceive the idea, you develop it and then you bring it to the marketplace. The marketplace is the tough one because it demands that you shut down the excess emotion.

If I were selling Firestone tires, for example, it would be so much easier than selling the wares of my inner-life. When someone says they approve of the music I write and record, it makes me happy, when they don't, it can be depressing. It can make me feel like the essence of who I am, (which I believe my music is) is unlovable.
I'm not sure that makes me an anomaly among creative people. Being thin-skinned to the world and steeled to the hard realities of making art a commercial endeavor is a paradox that's painful and difficult to sustain. Some people try to alleviate the sting by offering platitudes.

"You're so much more than what you create." That's trying to get me to disentangle my art from who I am. But I can't. That statement is total bullshit to the one who is doing the creating.

"No one can make you feel bad about yourself except you." Talk about blaming the victim. And it's a lie if there ever was one. People can and do make you feel bad.
Then there is this famously unhelpful one: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." C'mon, Nietzsche, it can also leave you weeping in a fetal ball...

Managing the paradox is all about being part of a collaborative experience, being part of a band..

The way ahead is easy. Call a sensitive-antenna-ed friend and have a conversation about love, meaning and empathy over lunch. And next time you choose to isolate yourself, make sure you're doing it because it's an aesthetic decision, not merely a choice of convenience. Your art will be better for it and the talons of the marketplace will feel a lot less sharp. 

Guest post by Mark DeRaud-- The Atonement Part 3: Reintroducing the "Good" in the Good News of the Gospel

  I (left) am honored to host a new series by guest poster Mark DeRaud  (right)

Click Mark's name under "topical diving" at right for more on Mark

Part I, click here
Part 2 click herePart  3 below:

 The Atonement Part 3: Reintroducing the "Good" in the Good News of the Gospel
  by Mark DeRaud

"[Christ] gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age..." Galatians 1:4

New understanding of the Atonement reorients us from concern for life hereafter (Do you know where your will spend eternity?) to the 'here' and 'after'......Life, life in the present, in the New Covenant of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 59:21). Now.

"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," invokes heaven coming to earth rather than us going to heaven.

Just prior to the Reformation (launch in 1517) Michelangelo was in Rome creating his masterful mural on the Sistine Chapel ceiling under the auspices of Pope Julius II.

artwork by Mark DeRaud

Needing to fund Michelangelo, the expansion of St. Peter's
Basilica and assorted military campaigns Pope Julius II stepped up the sale of indulgences to raise money.

What better sales program was there but to turn up the fires of Purgatory's cleansing flames, then offer indulgences for a price, to quench them? Reformers had had enough and Luther ignited a revolt.

While Luther maintained belief in Purgatory, Reformers eventually abandoned Purgatory along with their rejection of indulgent sales, leaving us to inherit a pre-occupation with hell-fire, eclipsing the good news gospel message that God's Kingdom has arrived for the taking, now.

The Atonement, then, has been relieved of its 'earthiness'. The Atonement, even as administered under the Old Covenant, is popularly understood as God's means to transfer souls into heaven through Christ's blood.

So strong is this concept that we gloss over scripture that argue the Atonement is meant to transfer us, or better, Jews, from the Old Covenant into the New, here on earth, here on earth in the Spirit, with eternal life secured for a distant Final Judgment. Gentiles are then invited to join the family of faith.
This view, Atonement as a transference from the Covenant of Law to the Covenant of Grace (Charis, from where we get Charisma) better aligns our evangelism efforts to those of Christ and the Kingdom of God He preached, "on earth as it is in heaven."

Good News! You have access to the love, power and gifts of God, here on earth as it is in heaven, secured by Christ's atonement.

"For He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son." Colossians 1:13

"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God," says Jesus, "then the Kingdom of God has come upon you." Matthew 12:28
by Mark DeRaud

"Literary Forms/Physics Formulas": chapter of 20 of "Art and Physics" by Shlain

other chapters here