It is no easy endeavor to take a blank canvas and capture a moment such that it compels us to stop long enough to enter into a time and place other wise unknown to us.

When we look at a painting (the same is true of photographs), we are voyeurs peering at moment captured on canvas. If the viewer is a voyeur, how much more so is the artist who contemplates the image for an hour, a week or perhaps years, the image slowly emerging as the brush caresses the canvas. The artist takes what is seen with the eyes, reshapes it in the  intimacy of the theater of the mind, and releases it to make the journey to the cold white canvas.

The story captured may be profound, sublime or entirely pedestrian. IF the artist has excelled and  final work hung upon a wall, we are compelled to stop and play the voyeur peaking through the bushes to see the world in a way we have never seen it before.

Perhaps “voyeur” is an unfortunate term in that it has obvious negative connotations that are not intended here.  Unlike a voyeur, we enter in at the artist’s invitation to participate in the story. Yet, like the artist, what we see is both present and untouchable, real and unreal.

In the creation of art and the viewing of art, there is a danger, a precipice that entices us like a sirens call. I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who said, “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use art to see your soul.”

When a painting reveals what could be or should be or even will be in a way that makes us desire to be who God created us to be, that is a good thing. When a painting reveals the lust and covetousness, the evil that lurks in our hearts, that too is a good thing, since in so doing we see our selves as we are. We see our selves as being far from who God created us to be.

The precipice is not in revealing of who we are, but in pushing so far that the mirror into the soul, the work of art, becomes a source of perpetuating the evil that lurks within. It is painfully obvious when the line has been dramatically crossed. In the extreme, we have graphic blood and gore movies, and blatant pornography. At this extreme, the images have but one purpose, to inappropriately arouse our primary senses — our lower brain functions.

On the other extreme we have whitewashed walls lacking anything human or aesthetic. They are devoid of life. They are devoid of story, of humanity. It is like staring into mirror that reflects nothing back. It is disconnected from our experiences.

As a Pastor, I work with real people with real stories. Some stories are painful, others more joyful, but no story is whitewashed…at least not for long. We are a messy people living in a messy world.

As an artist, I seek to tell a story, often obliquely. It may be a story of hope, of the passing of time, of inner struggles, the desire to be loved, the pain of brokenness, of new beginnings, the stories of people and the stories of creation. Whether it is a buffalo on the plains or a contemplative elderly woman, there is a story and it says something about us. What do I love, what do I hate, what do I seek, what do I fear…?

As a Pastor and as an artist, I seek to draw people away from the emptiness of whitewashed walls, and to draw people from the primeval side of the precipice into a place where we see our selves as we are that we might find hope in the one who frees us to be who we were created to be.

…to be continued

What interests me as an artist? What is it that inspires me to paint? 

As I reflect on my own sketches, paintings and photographs, there are some that I like and many I would rather shred, paint over or otherwise delete. I am also drawn to some other artist’s work, but find other works hold fleeting interest.

I do enjoy dramatic landscapes, subtle landscapes, for that mater almost any landscape, but my attention is only held by a few. There is something about those few that keep me coming back to look at them, something that stirs something within. It is that special something that makes one painting rise above the rest.

The same is true of figurative or life work — paintings with people as the dominant subject. Some are romantic, some may even stir a more sensual response, some are stunningly well done (I am certainly not talking about mine in that context). Other life works are informative, perhaps a historical rendering. Like landscapes, only a few capture my attention and keep me coming back.

There was I time when I thought composition was the key. No doubt it is very important. A poorly composed picture lacks visual interest. That is true of geometric composition, values and colors. These are foundational. If these building blocks are not working, the painting will not hold my attention. That said, I have seen some wonderfully composed paintings that just do not ‘do it’ for me.

So I move onto a second answer that keeps coming to mind — “story.” Paintings that lack “story” can be magnificent realistic representations of creation’s grandeur to abstract pieces with no discernable point. Unfortunately I find many still life works to be like this too, well done but static. The exceptions are delightful, but it takes more than pretty flowers to hold my interest. I know some (many?) of my own work easily fits into this storey-less category.

If there is one human sociological thread, it is story. We all have them. They define who we are, where we came from, why we do what we do, who we look like, how we dress, what we eat, where we sleep…you get the picture. Even when we talk about pedestrian things like the weather, we drift toward telling stories. “Remember the late snow we had in May this year?” “I remember back when I was kid…”

When a painting tells a story, suggestively, subtly or even abstractly, it draws me in. There is something human about it. It’s like over hearing a piece of a conversation as you walk down the street and wonder what the rest of the story is. Our minds are quite happy to fill in the details even if preposterously inaccurate.

On the other hand, in some art the story is too overt and over powering. The “story” is so in your face that there is nothing more to discover, the viewing experience is self terminating. Such pieces are little more than a stop sign on the imagination highway. No interpretation is needed. These can be technically wonderful executed works of art, but there is an element missing.

As I look at works of masters and amateurs alike, there is a common thread that draw me in and holds me. It is more than composition or story alone. There is an engagement, a conversation. When the story is suggested, but not all told, when questions are asked but not fully answered, when the viewer is drawn onto the scene and compelled to participate in the story each time they look at the painting, that is when it rises above the prolific common.

Perhaps we can call this the Mona Lisa effect. In some ways it is an uninteresting painting, little more than a simple portrait, a “snap shot” from an age before cameras…except for that smile. What was she thinking? I wonder if da Vinci knew we would still be trying to figure that out 500 years later.

Of course not many paintings rise to this lofty level. As much as I desire to attain some sense of the Mona Lisa effect in my own work, only a few of my paintings have even approached the foot hills, let alone begun to climb to such lofty heights. Yet this dialog between artist and viewer, this engaging story telling is the muse that keeps me going back to my easel. 

…to be continued

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PS – There is a profound parallel to how we communicate verbally. Do we respond to questions in ways that terminate conversations or do we open a door to meaningful dialog? I suspect that there is a degree of laziness in all of us that wants simple answers that keep us from having to engage.

I spent four years on campus at Briercrest Seminary and the better part of the last two years in ministry while trying to finish the last few requirements for my degree. Six years…it only took six years. It seems to me that I had hoped to do it in three.

In the end, graduation was anticlimactic. It was good to see some old friends and chat with the professors who were so formative in my studies. The pomp of the ceremony, however left me a little cold. It isn’t that the speeches weren’t good, they were.

The problem is that the robes and academic lingo seems out of place when the ministry I was trained for is at best messy. The dignity of doctoral robes and masters hoods is replace by obscurity and dismissal experienced in ministry. The formal language replaced by mono-syllabic expressions.

In some small way, I felt like a soldier coming back from the front, mud caked, blood and soil stained clothes, stumbling onto a parade ground with new recruits all decked out in their dress uniforms standing in tidy lines with polished boots and unloaded weapons. The scene is both comical and borderline tragic.

In fairness, I do know that many of my fellow seminary students have lived and served in the trenches. The same is true of many of the professors. Perhaps that is what made it all the more paradoxical. I don’t a one of those people who would put on their academic garb to feed the poor or visit the sick. I also know that their own journeys have taken them through the messiness of the trenches. That’s what made them particularly good teachers.

Perhaps our academic attire needs to be traded in for sack cloth and ashes, or unadorned “monk” robes. The only problem is that we couldn’t show off our achievements–our glory. That wouldn’t be Biblical would it? There is a humility in Scripture that is largely absent in the pomp of academic graduation.

At the same time, there is something profound in marking passages with extravagance. We do that for birthdays, weddings, and even funerals. Significant life passages were also marked in the life of Israel. There were the yearly festivals, circumcisions, marriages, and later baptisms.

So perhaps there is something Biblical about marking the passage of graduation with pomp…at least as long as it is God who is ultimately glorified. That is not always easy. There is a little narcissism in all of us.

Perhaps the graduation ceremony really is reflective of life in that it says something about us. We need to celebrate passages, but how easy it is to make it all about us. How hard it is to put on the robes and hoods while remembering that it’s all about Jesus. None of it would be possible without Him. For that matter, who would go to seminary if it wasn’t for Jesus.

We live in a fascinating times. It wasn’t that long ago–really it wasn’t–that social networking sites were little more than a coder’s twinkle in the eye. The concept, however is much older.

Fast forwarding past drums and snail mail….when I was in high school I got my amateur radio operators licence. This geeky kid with less than an exciting social life was the prototypical pimply high school computer geek of this age–except I had radio with vacuum tubes and no microprocessor.

Back in those days, even before the advent of computer bulletin boards–because almost no one had a computer yet–back in those dark years of later 1970s I used Morse Code to communicate to fellow amateur radio operators. Yes, Morse Code. If you don’t know what that is, Google it.

In time communications became a vocation. Spending my days fixing communications networks and being a consumer of them too, the idea of playing with radios in my spare time became less attractive. Mind you I also got married and there were many more attractive things to do, not to mention responsibilities.

As the years ticked by, PCs became readily available for the price of a good used car. I bought one. I played around with bulletin boards, but no one I really wanted to talk to used the one I was on, at least not anyone I didn’t see at work. I do recall when thanks to telnet I was able to access crude e-mail on the Internet…but I still didn’t have any one to talk to. Good thing I was married.

Dial up Internet access, now that changed things a little. With that I could easily send e-mails to people I knew who had Internet access–which was almost no one. Back then they were even talking about this weird idea of the world wide web–weird ‘eh.

Fast forward a few years…have things ever changed. My kids have basically grown up in a world where cell phones and instant messaging have “always been there.” I wonder if my youngest would know how to talk to her friends with out texting, messaging, Facebook, twiddle and tweet.

So what has changed? Accessibility.

Thanks to high sales volumes of high tech gadgetry and networks, what was once expensive and complicated has become affordable and usable by most people (at least in my neck of the woods). What was but a dream when I graduated from high school in 1980 has caused a revolution in how we relate to one another.

I tend to view the philosophical constructs of “modern” and “postmodern” as descriptive rather than prescriptive. How we define community today is vastly different than how we did just a few decades ago–a mere flicker in the human timeline. Community used to be defined by geography. Live in the same village and you were part of that community, like it or not. Today we create the communities of our liking. All that is required is mutual access to a network. If people subscribe to texting, messaging, or social networking sites, you can be part of their community.

Point in case. Much to my dismay, I had lost touch with almost all of my high school class mates. I moved out of town and became part of other communities. Some stayed in that beautiful valley (it really is beautiful) while others moved on. When my 10th year reunion came up, I couldn’t make it for personal reasons. When my 20th year reunion arrived, business demands prevented me from going. I figured I would probably never reconnect with any one other than the occasional chance meeting…and then along comes Facebook.

I was slow to get on Facebook. My kids were on Facebook, but I stuck with a blog. A few days ago I broke down and subscribed to Facebook. Then it happened. First one old school mate and then another appeared. I confess I have had to work at remembering who some of them are. My Grad Year Book got damaged beyond repair in a flood so I can’t even go back to that to remind myself. How sad.

The beauty of it all is this; I can re-enter a community that apparently remembers me better than I remember them (to my shame). I can do it because in this postmodern world, community is accessible. I look forward to getting reacquainted with people who in a sense I never knew, at least not as adults free of the vagaries of teen age social pressures. May be a better way of stating it would be to say that I used to worry about being “weird,” but now I don’t mind it at all

I’ll end this ramble with two thoughts.

First, it is ironic that I start “high tech” networking with a single key, but now it takes a keyboard full. It took one key to say -.-. –.- -.. . …- .–…  but nine keys to say CQ THIS IS VE7.

The second, is a wee bit of paranoia…what happens when the power goes out. Did you ever consider that our postmodern idealism of community building as enabled by technologies such as Facebook was adding to global warming?  I told you I was weird.

PS – I am still happily married. Even though we live in the same house, we have been known to text each other at home–just to silly. It got really strange though when I left a message on my wife’s Facebook wall.

I recall sitting in the one class that Cor taught. The class was supposed to be on doctrine, but I think I learned more about Cor’s life and the man he is. Cor is one of those people who faced life’s challenges and lived life well. His experiences had shaped him as a man of compassion, a compassion that was evident in his work.

Cor’s guidance and encouragement of students was an integral part in the development of leaders, counselors, teachers and shepherds for the Church. His legacy will live on through the lives of each one of us.

We will miss you Cor, but we will meet again. 

Not much serious here. Just a little story from a guy wanting to sit on the deck on a warm day and read a good book.

________________________________________

    Frosty’s his heart melted when he saw the sheriff ride up to the snow fort, its walls crumpling under the mid day sun. The sheriff was a green horn. Just a kid from the south. The sheriff could feel Frosty’s icy glare, like a ice crystals blown by a howling north wind. A lesser man would have slipped and fallen, but not the intrepid sheriff with a warm heart and a laugh that could melt the heart of the coldest gal in town. Frosty’s time was up. He had a ball while it lasted.

     Frosty’s feet felt frozen to the ground. He couldn’t move. For a moment he thought he was sweating. Then he realized he was melting.

     “What do you want sheriff Spring?” The chill in Frosty’s voice was fading fast.

     “Frosty, the folks of this fine town have had enough of you. They’re tired you abusing them so you can have a fat account in the snow bank. They’re tired of hiding in there homes. They’re tired of your icy grip. ”

     “And what are you going to do about it Sheriff?” Frosty did his best to sound calm and cool.

     “Frosty, either ride out of town or you’ll be down the creek with out a paddle.” Frosty glanced down at the puddle by his feet…no he wasn’t that scared…yet.  

     Sheriff spring noticed the puddle too. “Are you cold or just shaking in your boots.”

     “You don’t scare me sheriff.” There was a lingering chill in Frosty’s voice.

     “The folks in town want you gone. Either head north or feel your life trickle away, one drip at a time.”

     “Are you threatening me Sheriff? Just wait until the heat of summer and you will all be paying big bucks for snow cones, blizzards and iced tea.”

     “Nice try Frosty, but it wouldn’t work. Your days are numbered. You’re getting old. You’re not as tall as you used to be. You’re getting soft.”

     “Who are you calling soft Sheriff. You’re just a green twig of a man. Why don’t you just leave.”

     “Oh, I plan to leave, leaf that is.”

     “What are you going to do, pun me to death…or are you packing heat?”

     “No frosty, I’ll save the bullets and let the mid day sun do that. Say, isn’t sweat running down you face. Right, cool guys like you don’t sweat.” 

     “Yeah I’m cool and your not. All you have to offer the town is mud and flowers. What kind of sheriff are you anyway. You break me up Spring.”

     “You’re melting Frosty. You’re the one making the mess. It’s time for you and your flakey friends to get out of town.”

     “Yeah, well maybe I’ll go, but I’ll be back.”

     “Not so fast snow man. Why don’t you just run off now.”

     Frosty’s fear was getting the better of him. His legs were feeling watery. His heart melted. He began to droop as his strength flowed out of him. Soon he would be snow more.

One of the occupational hazards of being a pastor is the impulse to give answers to people’s questions…even the ones they don’t ask. I am, however, becoming increasingly convinced that questions are far more valuable than answers. Let me explain.

The more I learn from the Scriptures, the more questions I have. Although the questions become deeper, sometimes the questions raised are “simple” ones. It isn’t that the Scriptures don’t provide answers. The issue is, what kind of answers do we seek?

An answer that raises no questions, acknowledges no questions or even doubt, is a dead end. There is no where to go to dig deeper, grow in understanding and perhaps even correcting error. On the other hand, answers that raise new questions promote deeper understanding, open the door for fresh dialogue and yes, even correction. This means of course that there are in a sense, no answers, only new questions.

Some may find this endless line of questioning troublesome, but I don’t. It is through the questions that we gain understanding. We grow in our knowledge of the Scriptures, of Theology, of God Himself as we dig deeper, asking new questions. We stagnate when we merely accept answers with no further questions. Our life as Christians becomes stale when we quit asking questions.

My own journey with Christ began not with answers, but with questions. I asked a couple of Christian friends a question. They tried to answer it, but realized that the answer they had was inadequate. That lead us to embark on a journey of questions together and the rest is history. By the way, I haven’t found the answer to the question.

Consider this statement, “if you are right with God you will read your Bible every day.” Is that a true statement? How about, “if you are living for Christ you will be in a right relationship with everyone else around you.” Is that a true statement? I know some people who would say yes, but I say no.

The problem is that both of these imply the necessity of the action, reading your Bible or being in right relationship, in order to be “right with God” or “living for Christ.” There is an implicit priority of doing the “right thing” to be acceptable to God. As well intended as these kind of statements are, they are wrong.

The statements are wrong for two reasons. First they presume, if only by a thread, that our works justify us before God. The implicit priority is right behavior and then acceptability. “You are good when you do ________ .” Second, and closely related, they negate grace. The statements in effect suggest, modify behavior and then “be right with God.”

That is not to say that what we do does not matter. For that matter, there is even something of a priority of act. Consider Matthew 10:38,

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

… and Matthew 16:24,

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Exactly what it means to ‘take up your cross’ is no trivial question. The question of how do we ‘follow Jesus’ is also no trivial question. A life time is too short to fully grasp either one, yet as Paul wrote in Philippians 2:12-13,

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 

That God works in us is nothing other than grace, grace that makes it possible to take up our cross and follow Christ. What that means is something we work out daily in our lives. That is the Christian life.

One of the ways we figure this out daily is by spending time reading the Bible and meditating upon it. Reading the Bible, a relatively modern benefit of the printing press and literacy, is an important way of growing in knowledge and being shaped by God, but we are not “right with God” because we spend time in the Bible. We are right with God because God made it possible through Jesus Christ to be right with God the Father.

Likewise, doing our best to live in right relationship with other people is not living for Christ. On the contrary, it is because we are in Christ, with our warts, thorns and relational thistles, that we have any hope of living at peace with one another. Yes, as we become more Christ like, we will become easier to love. Perhaps more importantly, we will find it easier to love those who are the hardest to love.

When Jesus took up His cross, He demonstrated His love for those who were hard to love. Jesus did not need to do what He did, but His love for sinners was worth more than death on a cross.

When we take up our cross and follow Him, at least in part, it means that we love others, warts, thorns, thistles and all. Loving like that is impossible for us apart from the grace of Jesus Christ and the formative work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

So to return to our two opening statements, let me suggest another way of wording them. “By the grace of God we can spend time daily reading the Bible.” “By the grace of God we can walk by the Holy Spirit, growing in Christ-like love for one another.”

More importantly, “By the Grace and Mercy of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can take up our cross and follow Jesus.” That is the heart of the Christian life. That changes how we live.

Genesis 3:5  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The idea of “good” vs. “evil” requires a dualism, the belief in two opposing principles. It seems at times that one does not have to look far to see vestiges of this assumed dualism in nature. We live in a world of opposites…or do we?

Consider the colors red and green. They are opposites on the color wheel, red being on of the three primary colors and green being a mix of the yellow and blue, the other primaries. The artist, however does not think of red and green as opposites, rather they are considered complements. Place complementary colors next to each other and they stand out. They complement each other. They are unique since the perfect complement of red will have no red in it. Interestingly, if you mix perfect complements, the vibrant colors are reduced to gray, even black.

Male and female complement each other because they are different, but one is not lesser. They are not opposites, rather complementary varieties of the same thing. Colors of humanity if you will.  We could speak of the weather in a similar way. Rain and sun complement each other, sustaining life. All of one or all of the other is devastating. Even as a tulip bulb needs the cold before it will grow in the spring, but it needs warmth to grow. Summer and winter complement each other, sustaining life through the seasons. This is the harmony of creation.

Speaking of creation, the book of Genesis tell us, “And God saw that it is good.”  Creation is good.

If creation is good, what is evil? Allow me to suggest an artistic metaphor. When that which is complementary is mixed together, it looses vibrancy. A new thing has not been created. The rich harmony has merely been reduced to a colorless mess.

The presumption of evil is the judgement that what God has created in perfect harmony is not good. Evil is to presume to judge God. Who are we to judge our creator? Who are we to presume to know what is good and what is evil…as if such a thing intrinsically exists. We can only truly know good, for that is all that God created, but it is only in creation as God intended that we can know it.

The problem, however is that we have messed with the color harmony of creation. It is only by scraping off the palette and loading on fresh paint that the vibrancy of creation can be restored. This is the reconciling work of Jesus Christ. This is redemption. This is the new creation.

Another topic that I have been grappling with is the tension between personal holiness and loving those who are unholy. Of course we are the unholy in and of ourselves, but in Christ we are made holy. We are called to be blameless and above reproach, yet also to love as Jesus loved. Jesus didn’t exactly avoid the blamable and the reproachable, if He did, what hope would there be for us?

So here we are, called to holiness and to love the unholy. Putting aside the “who are you to call yourself holy or to judge others as unholy” question–for that is not the immediate question here–we are left with what appears to be an irresolvable disjunction. How can the “holy” love the “unholy” with out becoming unholy. It sounds like taking a mud bath and staying clean. Yet, is that not what Jesus did?

It is hard to blame the Pharisees for questioning how Jesus could be the Messiah when He ate and drank with sinners. All we have to do is to look in the mirror and see our own tendency to distance our selves from the “unholy” when we are feeling “holy.” It is as if fleeing un-holiness makes us holy.

So what of it? Can we grow in holiness while growing in love for the unholy? Can we be holy and love those who Jesus loves?

Maybe the better question is, can we grow in holiness apart from growing in love for those who we would judge as “holiness challenged”?

Paul, in a prayer for the Thessalonians wrote,

Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints (1 Thessalonians 3:11-13).

It would seem that love for one another–the “holiness challenged” apparently not excluded–is a prerequisite for being established “blameless in holiness.”

This does not mean that we love un-holiness, but it does mean that we do love one another despite our mutual un-holiness. In that sense, we are called to love those who are un-holy. After all, Christ loved us first while we were “un-holy,” and apart from Christ we have no holiness worth speaking of anyway.

Perhaps the, or at least a measure of our own holiness is our love for those who seem to us to be “unholy.”