No Grumpy Rose Watchers

by Michael Winters

Garden of the Garden #001 by Michael Winters

“It’s very hard to be grumpy when you’re looking at a beautiful rose—try it. It’s turning to what is good that fills out the life of the emotionally and spiritually mature person. As you step into spiritual maturity, you step into the wonderful world of God so rich with good things that we won’t have enough time to concentrate on them.” - Dallas Willard in Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms by Jim Wilder

At Arts Feedback Group we generally begin each session by going around the circle answering the question, “What is something beautiful you’ve experienced recently?” This question is a joy to ask because it brings forth joy. People light up as they share the beauty they’ve experienced.

We become like what we behold.

While we pay attention to a rose, we become a little more like a rose. Grumpiness becomes less possible. If we lovingly pay attention to Jesus, we become more like Jesus. In a world competing and scheming for our attention we must learn to exercise authority over our own attention. Don’t let algorithms and the media giants (or the Christian publishing industry for that matter) decide for you what is worthy of your attention. God has made you sensitive to beauty, truth and goodness. The apostle Paul encouraged the Philippians, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” Dallas Willard adds, “That’s what the spiritually and emotionally mature person’s life is filled with.”

This is not to deny or ignore the reality of injustice, tragedy and sin. Instead, attentiveness to the beauty of God and God’s creation helps prepare us to be the kind of spiritually mature people who can enter the real, broken world and create into what Makoto Fujimura calls “the New”, healing some of the fractures in our broken world.

What is something beautiful you’ve experienced recently?

Like a Bell

by Michael Winters

Kris Martin, Bells II, 2014, bronze, 160 x 320 cm
Installation view Sculpture In The City, London Photo Nick Turpin

At the moment, I can’t think of a visual artwork more tragic than Kris Martin’s Bells II. Two monumental bells are joined in such a way that neither can fulfill its purpose. Like much good art, this metaphor is a sign pointing to a wide range of potential meanings. Among other things, it could definitely serve to symbolize all the bells that have not been rung during covid—concerts and plays and exhibits and worship services that have not happened, or at least not happened with their full freedom ringing. However, the image isn’t only about bells that can’t ring. It’s about the joining of two bells, a terrible co-dependency that keeps each bell from ringing. And what is a bell if it does not ring?

It’s like Judas joined to his greed, or like Peter joined to his fear and denial.

In the marvelous book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard experiences an episode not unlike Moses at the burning bush. To describe the inner experience of that external vision, Dillard writes, “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.”

It makes me wonder if God has made us all bells. Sin has kept us from ringing—by co-dependencies, or ignorance, or wounds like cracks in the liberty bell—but in our joining with Jesus, as he is lifted, we are lifted and ring true.

The resurrection of Christ makes me hopeful that we’ll all be lifted and we’ll all ring true and clear, like Mary Magdalene when she recognizes the risen Jesus and hears his voice. Ronald Rolheiser retells the story from John 20 in his book Sacred Fire. Picking up where Mary is outside the tomb weeping:

“Jesus meets her, alive and in no need of embalming, but she does not recognize him. Bewildered but sincere, she asks Jesus where she might find Jesus. Jesus, for his part, repeats for her essentially the question with which he had opened the gospel: ‘What are you looking for?’ Then he answers it: With deep affection, he pronounces her name: ‘Mary.’ In doing that, he tells her what she and everyone else is forever looking for—God’s voice, one-to-one, speaking unconditional love, gently saying your name. In the end, that is what we are all looking for and most need.”

Hearing Jesus’ voice saying our name is what will lift us up and make us sing like a bell.

Artistic Vision / Divine Revelation

by Michael Winters

"38” oil on paper, by Cameron Alexander Lawrence, now on view at Sojourn Arts through April 11, 2021.

After the recommendation from  How You Create Podcast host Ben Terry, I recently began reading The Death of the Artist by William Deresiewicz. It’s mostly about contemporary difficulties surrounding art and money (a great resource for an aspiring professional), but early in the book he also tells a story about his introduction to seeing the world like an artist, even if he’s not an artist himself. In a dance criticism class, he came to experience a new way of seeing when his professor gave an assignment:

“She sent us into the world, to simply look at people move. Look, and describe. That course changed my life. I learned that I had never seen the world before, because I’d never bothered to, and I also learned that that is what art and loving art are about: not being a snob, not distracting yourself, but seeing what’s in front of you. Finding out the truth.”

Learning how to see and finding out the truth is a lifelong occupation. The work is never done. Looking at the surface of things, like the way people move out on the street, reveals a treasure trove of information about the true nature of things. This is God’s world and he’s made it incredibly interesting and worthy of attention. Through learning to see things as they are we get glimpses into not just surface-level truth, but even deeper meaning. As Deresiewicz outlines the history of art though, he seems to understand the revelatory quality of artistic seeing, not as a compliment to divine revelation, but as a replacement of it.

“As traditional beliefs were broken down across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—by modern science, by the skeptical critique of the Enlightenment—art inherited the role of faith, becoming a kind of secular religion for the progressive classes, the place where people went to meet their spiritual needs: for meaning, for guidance, for transcendence.”

I believe he describes the general movement of history accurately. I don’t mean to argue with that. (Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton and others lay out a similar understanding.) But for someone committed both to Christianity and to art, what are we to make of this?

As Christians, we believe the divine revelation of God in Christ, known through the Holy Bible. When Amazing Grace sings, “I once was lost, but now I’m found / Was blind, but now I see”, this gift of vision is credited to the amazing grace of God, not merely to a transformative artistic experience.

But just as artistic vision doesn’t replace and cancel out divine revelation, divine revelation doesn’t replace and cancel out artistic vision (or general revelation). We can experience both. Both are real. And when the scriptural revelation of God is combined with the revelations of his creation experienced through our senses, we’re really onto something. I believe accepting both the divine revelation of God in Christ and the revelations available through artistic seeing grant the most fully wakeful vision.

I appreciate William Deresiewicz’s understanding that art is about learning to see and finding out the truth. These are noble aims and like him, I also believe art is a compelling discipline to get us there. In the end though, art is a limited discipline, as is science or politics. Each offer valuable lenses to extend our vision, but they can’t replace divine revelation. We’re dependent on the amazing grace of God.

...some other force (the Spirit??) is leading

by Michael Winters

We’ve got a new exhibit going up here in the Sojourn Gallery this week. It’s a series of paintings by Cameron Alexander Lawrence gathered under the title Until I Can See You. I’ve really enjoyed talking and emailing with Cameron while the work has been developing. Recently he wrote:

“…I can't really explain it—there's this momentum behind the work that feels very, very right, but it's different from what I've done before. In a way, it almost feels like what I paint is out of my hands and some other force (the Spirit??) is leading.”

“The Distance Between Two Fires” by Cameron A. Lawrence. Acrylic on canvas. 48 x 48 inches

I’m wondering how many others have had a similar experience. Over the years I’ve heard many people express a similar feeling. Very rarely I think I’ve felt it myself. You get to a stopping point and look at what you’ve made. You know you made it and yet it feels like it wasn’t totally you that made it.

Cameron wondered with question marks whether it could be the Holy Spirit and others have suggested the same with more or less certainty. For example, our current intern McKenna O’Hare’s website homepage quotes André Gide: “Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”

Or, for another example, on the Cultivated podcast’s excellent recent episode with Makoto Fujimura, Mako says, “If there’s one thing I know for sure, God creates through us.”

How can he be so certain? Our co-creation with God can’t be proven, but by faith, we can lean into it. In our lives and in our work, we can pray and hope to live our lives in tune with the Spirit. Maybe our artistic practice can even be time to practice listening for the voice of the Spirit. It’s incredibly mysterious. Jesus himself seems to admit the mysterious nature of the Spirit. In John 3, after blowing the mind of Nicodemus by telling him no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again, he elaborates: 

“Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

May this be true of your life. May you be like one born again and like one blown to and fro, not by waves of uncertainty, but by gusts of the Spirit.

Mary Oliver's Devotions

by Michael Winters

For Christmas, I received a copy of Mary Oliver’s poetry collection, Devotions. I’d like to share here what is probably her most famous poem, “The Summer Day.” I bet you’ve heard the last two lines even if you didn’t know from where they came.

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

There’s so much to reflect on here. Between her first question about the Creator to her last question posed to the reader, the poet is paying attention to the world at hand. She asks who made the grasshopper, but clarifies this grasshopper. Like any good artist, she’s interested in the particulars of what she finds in front of her.

She says, “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention.” In this contrast of prayer and paying attention, might she be suggesting that the two have much to do with each other?

And when she comes to that last striking question, “what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?", my mind goes into business mode. I think of making plans and resolutions. I assess. But surely, in the context of the poem, this is not what she has in mind. She’s celebrating a decidedly unproductive day and then confronting us: “Tell me, what else should I have done?”

A couple weeks ago in Sojourn Midtown’s “Planted” sermon series, Pastor Nathan preached on Christian meditation, encouraging us to root ourselves in the scriptures this coming year. He encouraged us to pay attention to the Bible and let that attention lead us into prayer. For me, I think I’ll plant myself in Psalm 16 and the Gospel of John. But I also want to plant myself in the particulars of the world in front of me. Like Mary Oliver I want to know “how to be idle and blessed.”

Whether paying attention to a grasshopper or the scriptures, time spent meditating on beauty, truth, and goodness before God is no waste.

Jesus, the most creative person who ever lived

by Michael Winters

What did Jesus make during his earthly ministry?

I like to ask this question in a group context and see what answers come to the surface. People usually first think of the most tangible or art-like expressions of making. Someone will point out he was a carpenter (Mark 6:3). Someone will remember that he scribbled in the sand before saving the woman caught in adultery with his words, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” People will think of the miracles. Jesus turned water into wine. Jesus made the blind see, the lame walk. He made fish and loaves of bread multiply to feed thousands. People will think of his famous parables and so many phrases that have become part of our everyday speech.

“A Place at the Table”, charcoal on paper by Craig Hawkins, part of his series “Emmaus Road”

Then people will think of salvation. Jesus made the way to be reunited with God the Father. And finally, people will think of the kingdom of God. Jesus made the kingdom of God come near and grow like a mustard seed.

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard writes, “Saying Jesus is Lord can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate in saying Jesus is smart…He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who has ever lived.”

Similarly, we can also say Jesus is the most creative person who has ever lived. The effects of his creative work have reverberated through the centuries and have spread across the entire globe.

Jesus’ work while living an incarnate life 2000 years ago—his words and his actions—created a revolution larger and more pervasive than any other in history. Many in his own time wanted him to create a different kind of revolution. They wanted him to create a fast-acting attack on Roman rule. He instead made a peaceful revolution that worked more like yeast working through dough. Jesus’ words and actions spread through Israel and the Roman empire, and they continue working their way through all the religious and political powers today, altering the course of history forever.

Jesus not only lived a perfectly creative life in his time on Earth, but he is also Creator of the universe together with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Colossians 1:15-17 ecstatically celebrates this:

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Jesus. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Our life is held together by the most creative person who ever lived.

Generosity From Artists, Generosity To Artists

by Michael Winters

In my experience, artists are some of the most generous people on the planet.

I recently received an unexpected small box in the mail. I love receiving mail and when the return address told me it was from Gene Schmidt, my excitement doubled. Gene was the first artist we showed in our current gallery space when we opened in 2012. It was an exhibit documenting his project Lovetown, PA.

And now here was this generous gift of a box in my mailbox waiting to be opened. As I unwrapped cardboard and tissue paper, a curious small object emerged.

It’s an old fabric measuring tape wound around some unknown core, in total larger than an egg, smaller than a baseball. The measuring tape is aged, and I wonder where it has been and what it has measured. For some reason it reminds me of my grandfather. The tape lies surprisingly flat to itself. It’s tight and seems to have no chance of unraveling. It seems like it must have been glued down but there’s no evidence of glue. And, I think meaningfully, there seems to be no chance of this object functioning to measure anything again. It has left the world of simple utility and now lives in the realm of art, where there’s generally no standard unit of measure.

Mini-Measurement by Gene Schmidt, gifted to the author.

Gene started his art career measuring pretty precisely, though poetically, in his first major project, Manhattan Measure. Manhattan Measure was what it sounds like: Gene measured Manhattan. He walked the length and width of Manhattan with thousands of red yard sticks, laying down one yard stick at a time, never using the same yard stick twice. Since then he’s continued the measurement theme, but moved towards things impossible to measure.

Documentation of Manhattan Measure, 2006-2008. Photograph by Alicia Hansen.

In Lovetown, PA, completed in 2010, Gene laser cut hundreds of floor tiles to spell out the entire text of 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient. Love is kind…”. With just one letter on each tile, he laid the tiles out as he walked through the city. When he got to the end of the passage, he’d pick them up and start again. Coming after Manhattan Measure, his project Lovetown, PA can also be viewed as a city-wide measurement, though the means of measuring is no longer bound to the clear calculations of yardsticks. In Lovetown, PA the unit of measure becomes a letter, which becomes a word, and then a full declaration of love, or at least a declaration of what love is.

Documentation of Lovetown, PA by Gene Schmidt. Photograph by Alicia Hansen.

Installation view of Lovetown PA by Gene Schmidt at Sojourn Arts, 2012.

Now that Gene is making these Measurements sculptures, of which my gift was a mini-measurement, what does it mean that these measuring devices can no longer fulfill their function? I’m not sure exactly, but it makes me think of things that can not be measured precisely—the true value of art, generosity, grace, gifts.

And there are things better left un-measured. 1 Corinthians 13:5 tells us love “keeps no record of wrongs.” Love doesn’t keep the score on wrongs. It’s not worried about measuring.

Measurement by Gene Schmidt

In my work with artists over the years, I’ve been impressed over and over again with the generosity of artists. Gene’s a good example, but there have been literally hundreds of other generous artists pass through our community too. They don’t seem concerned about keeping record of all they’ve given. After over a dozen years of arts ministry at Sojourn, the generosity from artists has been one of the biggest encouragements and one of the most common observations.

One of my hopes for the coming year is that we would witness as much (or more!) generosity going to artists as coming from artists.

Below are some ways you might consider being generous towards an artist whose work you admire:

1. Buy art. An artist needs to make money in order to keep producing their work. The pricing of art is notoriously obscure, and often wildly fluctuates, but to support an artist don’t just wait until you can get a steal of a deal. Buying directly from an artist is great, but galleries or other retailers selling for an artist are part of the support system and are worthy of support as well.

2. Send an artist a gift card or buy them lunch. If it’s someone you know or have a mailing address for, send them something to say thank you for the benefit you’ve already received from their work.

3. Ask what supplies they need and provide them. Making art is often expensive. If you’d be willing to front some cost for an artist to make something, that would blow their mind.

4. Give a monthly contribution. Some artists, like Andy Cenci and Kelly Kruse, have Patreon accounts so you can support them in a small dollar amount each month and receive perks for doing so. But even if an artist doesn’t have a Patreon account, you could suggest giving a particular dollar amount monthly and agree upon some sort of arrangement where you receive an artwork at the end of 12 months.

5. Be generous with encouragement. If you like an artist’s work, find out how to get ahold of them and tell them!

6. And tell others. Online or in person, be a fan and share what you appreciate about their work.

Creative Work Under the Creator

by Michael Winters

In a wonderful 2015 talk, “Three Visions Necessary for the Christian Artist,” pastor and musician Vito Aiuto argues a Christian artist needs vision regarding three crucial questions:

1. Who is the world?

2. Who is God?

3. Who am I?

In this post, we want to consider that second question, “Who is God?”

Obviously this is a gigantic question. Here we just want to scratch the surface, hoping to open up some new ways of considering what a vision of God might mean for artists. Christians believe in the triune God, the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For this post, we’ll focus on God the Father as Creator and in future posts we’ll consider what it means to be an artist in light of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

There are two basic ways we can know something about God - The Bible (special revelation), and God’s creation (general revelation). Here, we’ll briefly look at both of these approaches to consider how a deepening relationship to God the Creator may change us and our art.

God revealed through the Bible

Below are a selection of direct quotes taken from the Old and New Testaments, direct statements describing who God is…

God is God; He is the faithful God.

God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire.

God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.

God is with us; He is our leader. 

God is greater than any mortal.

God is exalted in His power. Who is a teacher like Him?

God is a righteous judge, a God who displays His wrath every day.

God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.

God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.

God is a God who saves.

God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

God is a sun and shield.

God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.

God is full of compassion.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

God is the builder of everything.

God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.

God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

All of these statements describing who God is come after the Bible’s first revelation of who God is in Genesis 1 and 2. These first chapters of the Bible reveal God as Creator. The Bible begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God speaks the cosmos into existence. He says, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He spoke all of it into being and called it good. God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” God proceeds to do just that, to make mankind in God’s “image,” in some important sense, like God.

If humans are created like God, what does this mean? Among other things that could be said, it must mean that we, like God, also have creative capacity.

According to this foundational biblical story, every human being is God’s creation. All the earth and all the universe is God’s creation. This understanding gives us humans an honored place in the created order. We are not merely a happenstance of biological function. We are God’s creatures. God made each of us and knows us intimately. As Psalm 139:13-14 says,

“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.”

“The Temptation and Fall of Eve” by William Blake, 1808.

The creation account puts humans in an honored position, but also a humble position. Genesis makes it clear who is in charge. According to this view, we are not God. God is God. God has created humankind and given us responsibility (Genesis 1:26-28). This responsibility we can call “creative power.”

God revealed through God’s creation

Our creative power, used for good or evil, happens in the context of God’s creation and always in relationship to the Creator. Our day-to-day life on planet Earth is where we relate to God. God is not a “character” in the Bible. He’s the God of creation, God of planet Earth. The earth is creation, not merely “nature.” All of us—whether Christian or atheist or otherwise—growing up in the 20th or 21st century have inherited a worldview that doesn’t really line up easily with this truth. Modern thought has tended to reduce creation to its composite parts. It has often failed to see the interconnectedness within creation itself and even more crucially creation’s connection to the Creator. We’ve inherited a way of thinking that doesn’t actually expect to experience God in the world. Yet “the earth is the Lord’s and all the fullness thereof” (from Psalm 24). This is the only world we now have in which to relate to and experience God. If we’re going to consciously relate to God within our lifetimes, it must happen here.

Once this reality sinks in, we enter a re-enchanted world where soil and seeds, water, bread and wine are themselves and yet transcend themselves. In short, we develop a sacramental vision. A sacramental vision is a way of seeing that integrates the visible and invisible, the divine and the human. A sacramental vision sees God’s grace active within physical reality.

Similar to how we can know something of an artist by getting to know what the artist has made, we can know something of God by considering what God has made. In Romans 1, Paul makes it sound obvious: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” If this is true, what can we infer about God based on the vastness of the universe? And can we infer anything about God based on the existence of octopuses?

What does this mean for us as artists?

When we grow in our knowledge of God, either through the scriptures or through our life experience in God’s creation, we grow an overflow from which we ourselves can create. For artists, this inevitably makes its way into our work, directly or indirectly. Our understanding of God will always be terribly incomplete, but with attention, it will continue to change and grow. Our understanding of our own place in creation will also change and grow. Our art is a space to work out these understandings. We seek to know God and God’s creation as wholly and clearly as we can and attempt to give witness to that vision.

As our knowledge and trust of God the Creator grows, and as our ability to see the creation as God’s world grows, these benefits for artists may develop as well…

• We experience more wonder and awe. These are key ingredients for a creative life and lead us to valuable artistic vision.

• We find our life is a great gift as God has given it to us, including even the hardships. This gratitude makes us more generous in sharing our art with the world.

• We realize our identity is found in who God has made us to be. Our identity becomes less dependent on success and the approval of others. We are more free to make the art that we feel should be made.

• We are humbled, knowing our smallness before God. But we are honored, knowing we are known and loved.

In summary, a growing knowledge and trust of God the Creator gives us an incredible spiritual foundation for living whole-hearted lives, as men and women, but also as artists.

Creative Response

1. List 10 things God has created. List 10 more. Follow up question: What characterizes His creation? If we think of God as the ultimate artist, what is His style?

2. Read Tamisha Tyler’s poem “Who is God?” Read it at least two times slowly. Then, using the format of her poem as a template, create your own poem based on your own experience of relating to God.

Learning to Breathe (Creative Input)

by Michael Winters

Recently, I began learning how to breathe. It seems like something I should have had down pat by age 38, I know, but somehow when I was young I started bad breathing habits. I wasn’t aware, but under heavy exercise or heavy stress it would get worse and this would lead to migraines, fatigue, and a host of other unpleasant symptoms. For the exercise-induced migraines I’d gone to a neurologist and had an MRI and blood work and the whole deal. None of the specialists thought to ask me if I knew how to breathe. 

Artist Jason Leith, the director of Saddleback Visual Arts, once told me, “You have to breathe in to breathe out.” 

Vessel no. 2 by Jason Leith

This is undebatable truth, yet I had never thought of it in the literal sense or in the metaphorical sense in which Jason intended it. We were talking about creative output and the difficulties of consistently producing good work. To consistently have good creative output, you consistently need good creative input. So what is good creative input?

It could be a book or a movie, an album or a waterfall. Good creative input is the stuff that opens you up to new ways of seeing and hearing and thinking. This certainly includes spiritual disciplines like prayer, reading scripture, and meditating, as well as meaningful conversation. Experiences of inspiration and wonder feed your soul, and your creative output is the overflow of these combined experiences. Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer of Wilco, considers it his life’s work:

“Sometimes I think it’s my job to be inspired. I work at it. That’s what I do that most resembles work. It seems to me that the only wrong thing I could do with whatever gifts I’ve been given as a musician or an artist would be to let curiosity die. So I try to keep up with other people’s creative output. I read and I listen. I’m lucky that’s what I get to do with my time—keeping myself excited about the world and not being discouraged when it loses its spark.”

As artists busy with other responsibilities, it can feel selfish to dedicate time to creative input. You might feel that your limited time needs to be used to make your art rather than consider other people’s art. It also takes money to really experience other people’s art. Aspiring musicians and actors need to go to as many live shows as possible. Aspiring visual artists need to travel to museums and galleries. This is a necessary investment. It may seem selfish, but if you suspect creating art might be an important part of who God made you to be, the dedication of time and money to your creative health is merely faithfulness. Breathing in the inspirations of other people’s work is key to breathing out your own. To get there, you might consider instituting a weekly, or at least monthly, creative discipline, like an artist date. If you can get over inhibition towards pursuing inspiration, then the journey becomes a pleasure and a joy.

I recommend you create your own system to keep track of the inspirations you find. I keep a pocket size journal on me so I can jot down anything that inspires me or makes me feel a strong emotion. You might do a daily sketchbook, or you might keep a blog. To get the inspirations working into your own output will mean taking time to not only feel inspiration, but also to take note and ask yourself why the thing inspired you. If reading Peace Like a River really got your imagination going, what was it exactly about the book that inspired you? In words or sketches, try to get to the center of the inspiration. Was it the family relationships, maybe specifically the sibling relationships? Which scene in the story stuck with you most? Usually when inspiration occurs, there’s a strong connection to your personal history. This is worth exploring and will help inform your own future work. (I’m making a note to write a future post about this.)

So, you have to breathe in to breathe out. However, the breathing lesson that really improved my health and has kept the migraines and fatigue away is the inverse truth: You also have to breathe out to breathe in. In the literal sense, this is important because if you don’t fully exhale, carbon dioxide builds up, your body tries to get more oxygen, but your lungs are already partially filled with carbon dioxide. This creates a cycle of shallow breathing, or holding your breath, leading to oxygen depletion. 

Related to creativity, it’s important to “breathe out” creative output, because that’s what creates the space for “breathing in” new inspiration. Like holding your breath, if you find yourself not getting inspired and not creating anything new, you’ll get blocked. When the rhythm of input and output gets off, it can be really hard to get back in sync. Starting by just making one small thing might help open up the space to seek out new inspiration.

Sojourn Arts Feedback Group participant Tim Robertson once shared a metaphor for culture with me. He said culture is like a lake. The lake is always evaporating and there are no streams naturally flowing into it. Artists must constantly fill the lake with new buckets of work. This is a never-ending task completed by generation after generation. This is a high and laborious calling and we need all the inspiration we can get.

Quote by Sherrie Rabinowitz. Sign: “Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy” by Lauren Bon. Neon, edition of 12.

A fulfilling and fruitful creative life is built on a healthy rhythm of input and output, breathing out and breathing in.

Questions for Reflection

Think about the relationship between your creative input and your creative output. To which do you usually give more attention? 

In the coming season, do you want to devote more time to creative input or creative output?

Creative Response

Make a list of the artists or other individuals who have inspired you most.

Further Reading: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

On Voting: Zac Benson’s Sheep Among Wolves

By Michael Winters

I imagine artist Zac Benson bent over a table, emptying small bottles of holy water into a bowl, mixing the holy water with plaster, and forming little sculptural sheep, one after the other. Dozens of these little sheep are fit into a clear acrylic cross. On either side of the sheep-filled cross, we see two other clear acrylic crosses, one filled with 3-D printed donkeys and the other with elephants, symbols of Democrats and Republicans.

“Sheep Among Wolves” by Zac Benson (2018). 32” x 18” x 3” each. Acrylic glass, polyactide, plaster, holy water.

Zac Benson writes, “I have struggled with voting ever since I came of age. I always felt every candidate and every party used my faith, my morals, as a pawn. At first, much of what they said was appealing and I started to get swayed based solely on the fact of their attentiveness to my faith convictions.”

“Sheep Among Wolves” (detail) by Zac Benson (2018). 32” x 18” x 3” each. Acrylic glass, polyactide, plaster, holy water.

Zac Benson’s “Sheep Among Wolves” functions as a visual parable for Christians feeling politically homeless in our polarized times. His statement above stops abruptly, refusing use of words to reveal if he’s felt a sense of conclusion or resolution regarding how to vote. Like all parables, this visual parable is better left unexplained.

We are left with a central image of little toy sheep, handmade from plaster and holy water, piled together in a clear acrylic cross on a white wall. Let those who have eyes see.

Three Creative Disciplines

by Michael Winters

‘Creative’ and ‘discipline’ might sound like an unusual combination if you’re not familiar with the idea, but really creativity needs discipline to thrive. A discipline is a practice, and so a set of creative disciplines provides a routine for regularly feeding and training your creative soul. 

Creative disciplines are like spiritual disciplines. They are habits chosen to slowly and quietly transform you. In Christian spiritual disciplines, like prayer, scripture reading, worship, and others, the Christian practicing these things is submitting him or herself to these habits in order to abide with Christ and thus become more like Jesus. We experience this as spiritual growth.

Creative disciplines similarly are meant to lead us toward creative growth. Hopefully, spiritual disciplines and creative disciplines will complement each other and together participate in your formation.

There are three creative disciplines each of our arts team members (staff and interns) complete weekly and which we tell each other about during our weekly meetings.

A collaged card for a gift and encouragement to an artist in our ministry.

1. Art as Gift

Each week make something for someone and give it to them. For our team, this is often a handmade postcard. Sometimes it’s a drawing torn out of a sketchbook, or a little sculpture pieced together and left on a friend’s porch.

This discipline has three primary goals:
1. Training yourself to understand art primarily as a mode of blessing and gift, rather than primarily as commercial product or as merely self-expression for private purposes. Over time, giving small art objects away habituates you to generosity and trains you to see that your art is for others.
2. Getting accustomed to creating quickly. If you’re going to give something to someone each week, you’ll need to work quickly. This is intentional. The speed of production is intended to grow your output and quiet your self-criticism, disciplining you to churn out work without overthinking it. You are becoming someone who makes art regularly and has a consistent flow of production.
3. Blessing others with your creative work. This discipline is designed to make you a better artist, but it’s also genuinely for the sake of those receiving your art. What could you make that will make their day better?

2. Write an Encouragement to an Artist

Each week write to another artist whose work you appreciate. Tell them you appreciate it and what it has meant to you. You can write artists who you already know, but I encourage you to write to artists you don’t know personally. Even many fairly well established artists don’t receive fan mail.

This writing could take a few different forms. You could send a message via social media, or you could send snail mail if you know the address. Or, you could write a “public letter” addressed to the artist, but posted on your own social media, sharing about the artist’s work and what it’s meant to you.

When sending your encouragement, you should do so without any expectation of a response, though it’s nice when a reply is returned. Many real life relationships have begun from this kind of simple encouragement. This discipline has the potential to greatly expand your web of creative relationships.

Of course, a purchase from an artist is an encouragement too, so a written encouragement paired with a purchase is even better!

3. Artist Dates

Viewing Julie Baldyga’s Heavenly People at KMAC.

Each week go by yourself on an outing that inspires you creatively. This idea comes from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. This might be a trip to the museum or the bookstore, the art supply store or a concert. Do something that feeds and fuels your creative soul. Don’t be afraid to do something that stretches you, too. Plan these outings a week or two ahead so that you have something to look forward to and so that your schedule doesn’t crowd out the time.

Hear Julia Cameron communicate the idea of an artist date in this video.

Summary

These three creative disciplines aren’t a conclusive list by any means. For example, studio time is a basic and necessary discipline for most artists. And some routine of creative community can also be incredibly important. Our Arts Feedback Group functions that way for many involved in our ministry. Having a few artist friends in regular conversation can invigorate your creative practice. Additionally, keeping a sketchbook, or different forms of journaling and list-making, can become vital creative disciplines.

It’s important to find 3-5 creative disciplines that work for you and stick with them. Like with spiritual disciplines, you may find yourself falling out of the habit, but there’s no benefit to beating yourself up about it. It’s okay to simply pick up where you left off. And it’s also okay to revise your chosen disciplines over time. Remember, the goal is creative growth.

Let Justice Roll Like a River

“But let justice roll on like a river,
    righteousness like a never-failing stream!” - Amos 5:24

2020 is rolling like a river, but it’s not a river of justice or righteousness. The big picture view we get from our small screen devices is injustice, polarization, violence, tragedy.

When we read the verses leading to Amos 5:24, the well known verse gains more potency. Amos describes the day of the Lord as a day of darkness, not light. He surprisingly says, “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord.” Verse 19 sounds like someone from 2,700 years ago describing the vibe of 2020:

“It will be as though a man fled from a lion
    only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
    and rested his hand on the wall
    only to have a snake bite him.”

Around every turn is an unexpected danger. This is how Amos imagines God’s judgment for the religious people acting unjustly toward the poor. Amos is compelling people toward justice. Their religiosity and their “beliefs” aren’t cutting it.

How do we imagine justice? Can we imagine a just world?

Our ability to imagine a just world will determine how we act in the present. For Christians, who believe God is bringing history patiently toward a just fulfillment, the kingdom of God is that just world. Jesus taught us to imagine it. It’s like treasure hidden in a field. It’s like a mustard seed. It’s like yeast mixed into flour. Our imaginations must expand. Jesus’ teaching is consistently pushing beyond the merely legal to what is truly good. His gaze is focused further out beyond the religious laws of his day to a vision of the kingdom of God, where what God wants done gets done. We must be able to imagine a just world and then live according to that vision.

The community art project seen above invited church attenders to do that, to imagine a just world. People were given markers and asked to share their vision of a just world on the cut out letters. We don’t all imagine exactly the same thing. That’s to be expected, but may God grant us growing imaginations, more able to see Christ’s kingdom, and may God grant us courage to act boldly in pursuit of that vision.

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• Sojourn Midtown recently created a webpage full of resources following the recent sermon series, The Gospel, Race and Justice. Check it out here: https://sojournchurch.com/midtown/justice

• Hear Sojourn Music’s 2015 “Let Justice Roll”

Far More Abundantly

by Michael Winters

20 years ago, Sojourn Community Church had our first public church service. At the time, I was starting my first semester of college. Now, 20 years later, there are a few young men and women who are in their first semester of college after having spent their entire childhoods participating in the Sojourn community. That’s amazing.

I’ve tried to write something that would be fitting for the moment, to reflect upon the meaning of 20 years, but others have done it well, (Mike Cosper: The Land of My Sojourn: Looking back on 20 years) and maybe the image below, which we made for the occasion, says what I have to say.

God has done far more abundantly than we could have imagined 20 years ago. We had wild imaginations, but not this wild. There is a power that is at work within us, the church. The Holy Spirit is working in a million winding movements none of us can map. We witness what we can witness. We give God glory in our time and we pass on what we’ve seen and heard to the next generation. Time keeps going. Amen.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” - Ephesians 3:19-20, NASB

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Thank you to Chuck Heeke and Shaelyne Meadows, who helped make the above photographs. Thanks as well to the portrait subjects and all the volunteers who painted the signs.

When is Soon?

by Michael Winters

“Get Well Soon” and “When is Soon?” by Carrie Hardaway

The above images by Carrie Hardaway reflect something many people are feeling lately. “When is Soon?” asks the image on the right. I remember back at the beginning of COVID-19 in March when we tried to make plans for May, and then in May when we tried to make plans for August. We keep thinking surely in another month or so…

And when it comes to the cycle of police killing, outrage, things roughly going back to the status quo, police killing, outrage, etc., we think surely something soon will break the cycle.

The psalmic way of saying “When is soon?” is to say “How long, O Lord?” This God-oriented refrain repeats in Psalm 13:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.” (Psalm 13:1-4)

The psalmist’s hope in God allowed him to express his feelings fully, but also pivot from desperation to trust and gratitude.

“But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.” (Psalm 13:5-6)

In Christ, we too can pivot to trust and gratitude. We know Jesus has already broken the cycle of violence and sickness and death. We can lament the pain we ourselves experience and the pain others are experiencing, but we don’t lament as those who have no hope. Nearly 2,000 years ago Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection made the definitive blow against all evil, and He has secured a future free from sin and death available to anyone and everyone who will accept it.

We accept Jesus and await that future, and we pray for Christ’s kingdom to come as we work to live in God’s will on earth here and now, as it is in heaven.

I hope that we as artists, like David in Psalm 13, can make art that both expresses the full range of human emotion and is fortified by deep trust and gratitude toward God.

Black Sheep Artist

“Black Sheep” (2020) by Sammi Lawson

by Michael Winters

The above image stuck with me this week. Sammi, who regularly participates in arts feedback group, made it and showed it to me. Do you ever feel like a black sheep?

Artists often do. Artists often skirt the edges of groups, not totally jumping on anyone band’s wagon. Makoto Fujimura calls this border-stalking:

“Artists are instinctively uncomfortable in homogenous groups and in ‘border-stalking’ we have a role that both addresses the reality of fragmentation and offers a fitting means to help people from all our many and divided cultural tribes learn to appreciate the margins, lower barriers to understanding and communication, and start to defuse the culture wars. Artists on the margins of various groups can be deputized (not conscripted) to represent tribal identities while still being messengers of hope and reconciliation to a divided culture.” - Makoto Fujimura in Culture Care, p. 58

This border-stalking is an important and powerful role. Our divided country and world needs artists who are able to act as peacemakers and justice-seekers. I want to quickly suggest two additional ways among many others that artists can do this.

1. Reveal commonly held values.

   The recent fights over monuments have revealed that many of our public monuments don’t fairly represent the values of the surrounding populations. I believe it’s now clear that many monuments around the country should come down. It’s not as clear what should replace them. What can we, as Louisvillians, or Americans, collectively value and esteem? What is the true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent (Philippians 4:8) that we can collectively affirm? This is serious work when on a grand public scale, but the same issues are at play when it comes to what is put on the walls of our local coffee shops and galleries.

2. Imagine a better world.

   Artists themselves must be able to imagine a better world, act accordingly, and invite others into that world. We pray as Jesus taught us to pray: “May your kingdom come. May your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We’re constantly confronted with what’s wrong in the world. The problems facing humans today are legion. It’s tempting to spend all our energy on staring down the problems at hand and reading others’ comments on these problems. Grounded in reality, we must reserve energy to imagine the world that could be, act accordingly, and invite others into that vision.

If we’re not careful, being an artist-peacemaker can be a lonely role, and we can find ourselves feeling like we don’t fit in anywhere. In other words, we can feel like a black sheep.

What I especially like about Sammi’s drawing though, is this: It’s okay to be a black sheep if you are Jesus’ black sheep. Jesus knows all about your struggles. He was a border-stalker, too. He was a prophet unaccepted in His own hometown. He was a Jew in a Roman-occupied territory. He was a brilliant teacher, but clearly did not fit in with the other teachers. Multiple times He started to have crowds rally, but they wanted signs and wonders and free food more than God’s kingdom revolution. He had the disciples, but they constantly misunderstood Him. Jesus wasn’t a sheep trying to fit into a group though. He’s the Good Shepherd over all humanity and He can take care of you. Psalm 23 is not only fitting for funerals; it’s a fitting Psalm to meditate on in the present moment:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

May God comfort you, lead you, and empower you to imagine His Kingdom.

Never / Too Late for a Renaissance?

by Michael Winters

Yesterday I sent out notification letters for our recent exhibit call for entries, Made in the Belly of the Whale. It’s fun to send out the acceptance letters, but sending out rejection letters is the worst. A juried process is inevitably a subjective process. A juror is drawn to certain artworks and not others for a variety of reasons. I respect juror Annie Lee-Zimerle’s choices and stand by them, but there’s a piece not selected I wish more people could see.

The two pages of McKenzie Rich’s sketchbook collage Renaissance bounce back and forth, questioning and answering one another.

The text included could be read, “Never…Too late for a renaissance?”

Or it could be read, “Too late for a renaissance? NEVER.”

The imagery of the collage shows what appear to be two women of color pulled from fashion magazines and a series of brown blocks and brown paint swatches that could represent a gradient of skin tones.

“Renaissance” (2020) by McKenzie Rich. Collage in sketchbook.

Renaissance, in general, is about revival, or renewed interest in something. For example, in the specific time period we refer to as “the Renaissance,” 14-16th century Western Europe experienced a revival of interest in Ancient Greek and Roman thought and culture.

So, in McKenzie’s collage, the imagery and text together seem to be asking if we can believe in revival. Specifically, can we believe in revival for people of all skin tones?

After sitting with this piece for a bit, I prefer the second way of reading the text: “Too late for a renaissance? NEVER.”

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In Sojourn Midtown’s new sermon series, The Gospel, Race, and Justice, the pastors proclaim the good news about Jesus that revives people of all ethnicities and empowers them to live for justice for all people. Listen to the first sermon in the series here.

Think About Such Things

by Michael Winters

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” - Philippians 4:8, NIV

In my early years of arts ministry, when I came to this verse and tried to reconcile it with my interest in art, I felt inner conflict. Now, I think I get it.

In those earlier days, Philippians 4:8 suggested to me the imagery of the Christian book store I visited in the 90’s. It was located on Shelbyville Rd. in St. Matthews, around the corner from Lazer Blaze. When you walked from the hard landscape of asphalt and concrete through the front doors of the Christian book store you entered a soft space with wall-to-wall carpet and golden fixtures holding small sculptural lighthouses and etched glass plaques with images of praying hands. The artworks they had available for sale, if not prints of actual Thomas Kinkade paintings, were in the same genre.

“The Light of Peace” by Thomas Kinkade

I passed through this Christian kitsch to visit a back corner of the store where they kept items of a very different aesthetic sensibility. I was there to see which Christian punk and hardcore albums they had in stock. Here, I bought No Innocent Victim’s Strength on tape and later Strongarm’s Advent of a Miracle on CD, which I would still argue is a fantastic album.

The front of the store felt overly interested in a surface-level loveliness that felt dishonest to me. It didn’t account for the difficulties of life on planet earth. The Christian visual culture there felt dismissive of reality. But in the “alternative” music I found in the back corner of the store, a radical aesthetic spoke to me of the radical lifestyle Jesus lived and taught. It felt “real” to me, but I wouldn’t have said the music was “lovely” or “pure”, and my mom certainly didn’t think so. So, again, what to do with Philippians 4:8?

It’s worth noting that Paul wrote Philippians while on house arrest in Rome. He’d come through a series of serious hardships and now was in chains and with few friends nearby. It would have been easy for him to grumble and complain, to think depressing thoughts, but in chapter two he writes, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’” Again, there’s a push from Paul toward the good. Don’t get dragged down with complaining. He admits the context is warped and crooked, but he doesn’t want his readers to think crookedly. Despite hardship and hard truths, think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.

"Stacking the de-limbed trunks of an immature ’harvest,’ Columbia County, Oregon," from Turning Back by Robert Adams

More than anything else, one quote from the photographer Robert Adams really helped me reconcile a reality-based aesthetic with Paul’s admonition. In Why People Photograph, Adams says what we’re all trying to do is “affirm life without lying about it.” For whatever reason, this declaration unlocked the division in me that kept loveliness separate from truth. In my arts education, serious art was truthful and often ugly. Loveliness was suspect. After reading Adams and paying attention to his photographs, somehow I was able to shift my taste to greatly appreciate the lovely, as long as it was honest.

Now, for me, Philippians 4:8 no longer conjures up images of baby-faced angels in my mind. Instead, it encompasses a broad range of thinking. The values I hear now in this verse align with a pursuit of justice and beauty I unapologetically seek. Maybe my tastes are becoming more traditional as I get further from my youth, but I know it’s more than that. I think the years of Christian spiritual formation are changing my tastes. I still recoil from any art that purposefully bypasses reality. I’m also no longer attracted to art that’s all harsh “truth.” I now long for art that is aiming to reveal true loveliness and righteous excellence.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” - Philippians 4:8, NIV

How many pietàs?

by Michael Winters

Untitled #33, Jersey City, NJ. © Jon Henry.

In Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, Imani Perry writes, “We wail and cry, how many pietàs?” And a couple pages later: “As a Black mother, when I read about one of those children whose life has been snatched, at first blush I think, ‘That could have been my child.’ But I have demanded of myself that I turn away from such egotism. The truth is that is not my child. My children are here, and they stand with me, to honor their dead.”

Photographer Jon Henry and his portrait subjects have chosen to contemplate what Imani Perry demanded she turn herself from: “That could have been my child.” Jon Henry has made dozens of photographs showing mothers holding their Black sons, not standing, but cradled, or draped over the mother’s legs, as if dead. In his words, these images were, “created in response to the senseless murders of Black men across the nation by police violence.” This ongoing project, which he calls Stranger Fruit, started in 2014, but has recently found new audiences after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The images are arresting, direct and formal compositions made in informal locations. The poses vary, but all are reminiscent of a pietà.

A pietà is a traditional Christian image showing Mary the mother of Jesus holding the dead body of Jesus. By far, the most famous pietà is Michelangelo’s sculpture which sits in St. Peter’s at the Vatican. (It’s worth noting that Michelangelo’s Pietà is also an ethnically-specific image and was also made to directly appeal to his time and place.)

Michelangelo’s Pietà, 1498-1499. St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican

Untitled #10, Flushing, NY ©Jon Henry

By utilizing the pietà motif, Jon Henry is drawing connections between the dead Christ and murdered Black men. He’s drawing connections between Mary’s sorrow and the sorrow of Black mothers who fear for the safety of their sons. These images are working on multiple levels. They are telling what artist Steve Prince calls a poly-narrative, referencing Mary and Jesus, but also clearly referencing living people in America today. The focus here is on the contemporary situation.

Untitled #29, North Miami, FL ©Jon Henry

What do these photographs want from me?

I think these images want me to see these people and respect them. These images request my compassion for all mothers and fathers who feel, “It could’ve been my child.” These are real people in front of our gaze.

The idea from Genesis 1 that people have been created “in the image of God” is familiar to most Christians. Because all people are made in the image of God, all people have equal and great worth. It’s a terrible sin when we fail to recognize the image of God in individuals. Like in so many other areas of American life, African-Americans have experienced disproportionate consequences of this failure.

Jesus is the perfect, unblemished image of God. That image wasn’t blurred by his suffering. In Christ’s suffering he was still the perfect image of God. In Jon Henry’s photographs, the men and boys pictured are posed in the image of the Jesus who suffered. This should help us see the image of God in them. Can we see the image of God in them? Can we see the image of God in other people that look like them? Our increasing ability to see the image of God in every person is a mark of Christian maturity.

And we also must remember what Imani Perry wants us to remember:

“…yes, there is terror, but there is also incredible beauty. And there’s a way in which the repetition of the narrative of the terror almost evacuates the full humanity of their lives, and my life, and also the incredible beauty. And so the question, for me, is both how do we acknowledge the social reality of deep inequality, of mass incarceration, of death of innocent black youth, and also recognize that it’s important to assert and reassert the full humanity and beauty of their lives, and also to offer them a vision of their lives that is meaningful — and a kind of witness that I think actually speaks to the entirety of the human experience.” - Imani Perry, on On Being, Sept. 26, 2019

See more of Jon Henry’s photography at jonhenryphotography.com.

Is a change gonna come?

by Michael Winters

“I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh, just like a river, I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it will

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die
'Cause I don't know what's up there above the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it will

And I go to the movies, and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me, don't hang around
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it will

Oh, when I go to my brother
I'd say brother, help me, please
But he winds up knockin' me
Back down on my knees

There been times that I thought I wouldn't last for long
Now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it will”

- Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come”

This song, beginning with an image of a black man running, today brings to mind Ahmaud Arbery jogging, then pursued and shot by Gregory and Travis McMichael. This event, appropriately called a lynching, seems like something that might have happened back when this song was released more than half a century ago, but it happened in 2020. When events like Ahmaud Arbery’s death occur, it makes us question if anything has really changed.

Though much has changed, much has stayed the same and the world is not free of racism and violence. Sam Cooke’s song is honest about deep struggle - fatigue, fear, abuse - but in the end it manages to be hopeful. In the song, the source of hope is not obvious. It’s not clear how he knows a change is going to come. Given the experiences hinted at in the song, hope even seems unlikely, but the song is insistent: a change will come. Even though he writes, “I don’t know what’s up there above the sky,” it seems faith of some kind is at work.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) It’s easy to be discouraged by the news, and it’s necessary we should wrestle with despair, but we can’t end there. Even though we haven’t seen the change we’d like to see, we have confidence in what we hope for. This is faith. For Christians, this faith is made possible through Jesus. We trust that Christ has reconciled and is reconciling all things in heaven and on earth to God (Colossians 1:20).

This trust should inspire us to sing along with Sam Cooke, “A change is gonna come, oh, yes, it will.”

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This line of thinking started for me when I ran into musician Ben Sollee while out for a walk last week. When I got home my intent was to look into his new music, but I was drawn to 2008’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” This is Ben’s modified cover of Sam Cooke’s classic.

The video above starts with Ben playing his version of the song and then he discusses his use of “music as a technology to generate affection.”

He says, “A good song with a well-sculpted melody can grow the heart. And the truth is we assign a lot of value and worth to how close we feel to something. And we tend to protect what we care about.” This offers an excellent answer to his TEDx talk title question: “Can music change society?”

Artists, by using the “technology” of melody, shape, color, form, syntax, can help grow affection in us. Music and stories of all kinds can help us care, and as Ben points out, quoting Wendell Berry, “It all turns on affection.” As listeners and viewers, we should engage art not only for entertainment, but also to grow our affections. And this has great implications for what we might choose to consume. If we find that the news of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor’s deaths don’t stir our emotions, it might be that our affections for black Americans have been under-developed. Or our affections for black Americans might have been mis-developed by unhelpful and stereotypical media portrayals. The same is true for any other group of people with whom we don’t have much deep and direct experience. Engaging art is one way to help us compensate for our weaknesses. We might consider listening to more classics of the Civil Rights movement, or we might read the literature that will help generate empathy for the experience of African-Americans.

Additional Notes:

• Sam Cooke wrote the song partially in response to an experience of being rejected at a whites-only hotel while on tour. For me, this called to mind Pastor Jamaal William’s own 21st century experience of discrimination at a hotel, shared in his recent video regarding Ahmaud Arbery.

• Leon Bridge’s 2016 fantastic song and video “The River” has some interesting parallels and contrasts with “A Change is Gonna Come.” You can also hear Bridges talk about the story behind the song here.

• Ben Sollee’s more recent projects include production of “Lift up Louisville”, an encouraging and ambitious collaboration of so many Louisville musicians made during the pandemic.

Who will save the planet?

by Michael Winters

Today is Earth Day, the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. To mark the occasion, National Geographic created a special “flip” issue. Both sides of the magazine function as the front and reading from either direction tells a story about what planet Earth could be like in 50 years. One side offers an optimistic viewpoint, and the other direction gives a pessimistic viewpoint.  

This format made me question which side I identified with more. Will humanity look back 50 years from now and tell a story about “How we saved the world” or will we have to tell “How we lost the planet”?  

The “How we saved the world” optimist’s side is considerably thicker, but mostly because nearly all the advertisements strategically land there. Emma Marris’ “The Case for Renewal” is summed up in the contents page: “We already have the tools to feed a larger population, provide energy for all, begin to reverse climate change, and prevent most extinctions.” The rest of the optimist’s side of the issue puts a lot of faith in these “tools” too. The tools seem to be mostly new, more, and better technology, as well as legislation. Nuclear, wind and solar power are held up as beacons of hope. Legislation like the Clean Water Act is commended. On this side we also find an electric car road trip story and good news about global gains: In the last 50 years food production has more than kept up with population growth, life expectancy has increased substantially, and maternal deaths have been roughly halved. Some of the global increases in human health provide the strongest arguments for the optimistic view.

The “How we lost the planet” pessimist’s side focuses mostly around all the current and expected future effects of climate change. Oceans are rising, temperatures are rising and weather is becoming more extreme in many places. Forest loss, coral loss, and loss of animal populations are also featured here. This side of the magazine is not as hopeful about “tools” to solve our planet’s problems because human consumption keeps outpacing any improvements we can make technologically. The growing demand for more energy and more access to cheaper goods for more people makes it unlikely our re-tooling will save us. One of the most troubling predictions here is the uncanny overlap of poverty with climate change disasters. Though they contribute much less to climate change, many of the places already struggling the most economically are likely to receive the worst effects of climate change. 

So again, will humanity look back 50 years from now and tell a story about “How we saved the world” or will we have to tell “How we lost the planet”?  

What might the Christian faith contribute to this conversation?

Admittedly, much more should be said about this than I can say here. Also, I don’t expect National Geographic to include God in the conversation about the future of the planet, but as a reader I can’t help but read through a Christian lens. From a Christian perspective, the titles “How we saved the world” and “How we lost the planet” are striking in their absence of God. In the pages of this magazine, salvation and damnation are entirely in human hands. It’s all up to us whether we save the planet or let it go to hell.  

I don’t wish to diminish human power or the consequences of our actions at all. I believe both individually and collectively, humans yield incredible power to bring healing or destruction, beauty or ugliness. If you don’t believe it, watch the documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, or just check out the project’s incredible website. We’ve altered this planet in remarkable and terrifying ways. If humanity goes unchecked we have the power to utterly destroy the planet, and we have power to bring healing too, if not ultimate salvation.

However, to be optimistic about the planet’s future, I think our hope needs to lie in something greater than human ingenuity, even as wonderful as human creativity can be. Especially since the Industrial Revolution we’ve been incredibly clever at meeting human needs and wants. However, the unintended consequences of our cleverness continues to make even more daunting situations, requiring ever more complicated cleverness. Our ultimate hope must be found elsewhere.Greater ingenuity—more cleverness—is not the answer.

I don’t know how else to say it: Our best and only hope is found in Jesus.

I’d find myself more optimistic about the future health of the planet if we all caught a holistic vision for Christ’s sacrificial love for the world. I fear an optimistic view that places its hope in human tools and technology is not enough and will fail us. 

Jesus’ sacrificial love is our salvation and our model for human action in the world. Jesus' life can reorient how we relate to everything. In him and in the Trinity, we find an ecology of love. We must confess, sacrificial love is not our posture to the planet. Rather than sacrificing for the sake of the world, we use up the world to build our own wealth and comfort. I admit my own guilt here. I’m caught up in destructive systems of waste as much as anyone. The misuse of our power leads to diseased relationships and rapid declines of biodiversity. This is to say, our human power is often working against the flourishing of life. I wish it were different in the Christian community, but I know it’s not. Christians have often failed to see the importance of caring for the physical environment, believing that it’s really only “spiritual” things that are important, as if we could even imagine spiritual things apart from physical reality. Christians’ disregard for ecological health is yet another glaring inconsistency with a pro-life stance. And even for those of us who see this inconsistency, we’re mostly failing to meaningfully change our lifestyles.

God knows, we all need a change of heart, and the renewal of our minds. As with salvation, renewal must come from more than human tools. Tools will always be needed and will be a critical part of movement toward sustainability. We must innovate, but we need something outside of ourselves for salvation. This is true for the salvation of our souls, and also the salvation of the planet.

Usually on April 22, millions of people all over the world do something for Earth Day - plant trees, or participate in a trash pickup. This year, our effect on planet Earth comes more from what we’re not doing. Not driving as much and not pushing industry forward is allowing cleaner air and less carbon emissions. What’s been disastrous for the economy has been a sigh of relief for the planet and reveals the unsustainability of the status quo. Today is an opportunity for us all to reconsider our relationship to the Earth. How do we really want to steward our time and money and creative power when we again have fewer limitations?

Can we re-imagine ourselves not as gods declaring our will on “nature,” but as creatures seeking to live in a right relationship to all of creation?

Most importantly, can we accept the sacrificial love of Christ and in turn love the world sacrificially?