I find it amusing that today’s word of the day (from the Merriam-Webster daily email) is "luftmensch" (pronounced LOOFT-mensh). It means "an impractical contemplative person having no definite business or income."
In other words, me.
I especially find it amusing considering my blog topic for today.
The Transforming Culture symposium presented the six plenary questions in what felt like a story (as a friend said and I affirm). The first plenary session was done by Andy Crouch. (Side note, for those going to the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing later this month, I believe he’ll be speaking there.) He addressed the question, "In what way is art a gift, a calling, and an obedience?"
In other words, it’s the call to adventure, the beginning of any story.
I cannot begin to give you his entire message, but I will tell you what it generally impressed upon me. Please keep in mind that what I talk about today on my blog is not a transcript of Andy’s session, it’s my interaction with it. For more of his words directly, I’d suggest pre-ordering his book, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
Back to the session. Andy went through the creation account in Genesis in order to understand culture. He developed the idea that creation was not just utilitarian but also beautiful, that, in fact, some of the aspects of creation (i.e. gold, opal) hold their real value in beauty alone. These aspects reach their full potential when they are discovered and cultivated by the gardnerers. Speaking of these gardeners–our gardening comes from and mimics God, the culture-maker or cultivator.
As gardeners, we cultivate, or create art from the beauty God’s given us.
It’s a gift.
This art is unutile. It is unuseful. It is itself, without any attachments to utility or pragmaticism, worthwhile.
This is the beginning of my story. Crafting stories, or story-telling, is a gift from God. It in itself is beautiful and worthwhile. Do you know the freedom I have in this? While evangelism or social justice are not bad things in art (although they are often badly done), I don’t have to submit to them. My stories are beautiful stories because they echo the voice of the Storyteller.
As Andy said, my stories are beautifully unuseful to God.
They are like incense lifted to God. They are like a cheetah running and running because he can, because God created him to run. They are like honeysuckle weaved around a fence that has no other use other than to be pleasing to the eye, delightful to the nose, and surprising to the tongue.
What do my stories have to do? Be beautiful.
Andy pointed out that there are two things artists do that requires a vision of life as a gift: (1) play and (2) pain (enter into pain).
This statement affirmed me. It’s okay that I like to play with Play Doh. It’s okay that I dance around the house for no reason other than my favorite song just came on. It’s okay that I have to pause the movie because I’m crying too hard to continue. It’s okay that a squirrel dead in the road breaks my heart.
Besides affirmation, it also firmly plants us in art in a world that is at once created beautifully, corrupt, redeemed, being redeemed, looking forward to redemption. One without the other is less than. Play without pain leads to art that is too easy, comfortable, willing to let us settle for a life that has no ultimate hope because it too easily finds hope in the fading. Dare I say it is sentimental? Pain without pain leads to art that is masochistic and without grace.
Andy’s bringing together of these two aspects reminds me of my vision of art as baptism: immersing itself into Christ’s death and emmerging in Christ’s resurrection. As little Christs or the Body of Christ or the Church, we incarnate His redemption and love and suffering for the world.
This is our call as Christians.
This is our call as artists–a call to create beauty without being afraid of brokenness. A call to champion the "unuseful" in our world (and here, Andy meant people that the world considers "unuseful").
God doesn’t love us and delight in us because He has to or because He needs us. He loves as an outpouring of Himself. We are beautifully unuseful to God.
My art is beautifully unuseful.
So must my love extend to the beautifully unuseful.
It begins in a restored relationship with God, but it doesn’t stop there. That restored relationship spills out into restored relationships with other humans and with the earth. Only in Christ do we discover what it means to be fully human. Only in Christ do we defeat the power of death and evil in our lives and on earth. As we join in Christ’s death, so we join in His victory.
