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.

Kelly Kruse on Brahms Requiem

by Kelly Kruse

Composed in 1868, the Brahms Requiem was the first work of its kind in German. A Requiem is a traditional Mass for the dead, but this liturgical form became a musical genre in its own right, and one that many composers sought to master, for sacred or secular reasons. What makes the Brahms Requiem unique is the absence of traditional Latin liturgical texts and the use, instead, of texts from the Luther Bible. Brahms also never makes direct mention of Jesus, which became a point of contention for many people when the work premiered. Brahms, finding himself situated in a post-enlightenment world, could be quite ambiguous and even evasive when discussing his religious beliefs. Some historians believe he was an agnostic, and therefore the Brahms Requiem, though set to biblical texts, has often been viewed as a humanist rather than religious work. As a visual artist, my first body of work, All Flesh is Grass, was inspired by the biblical texts and structures chosen by Brahms for this work. The following essay integrates material adapted from previous writing I have done on my experience with the work. I have written extensively on the Requiem here, including background on Brahms and a movement by movement meditation on the work. 

Throughout this essay, I will refer to things that are happening in Movement Two of the Brahms Requiem. Here’s a great recording if you’d like to listen. I highly recommend headphones or speakers cranked up. There are intense louds and softs in classical music, often more so than other genres.

I provide specific timings and comments in the endnotes for you if you’d like to know exactly where I am when I’m discussing musical moments. 

I first heard Ein Deutsches Requiem, the monumental choral and orchestral work by Romantic composer Johannes Brahms, when I was twenty-five years old. I was in the last year of my graduate study at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. I had been studying music intensively for eleven years at that point, and I was no stranger to Brahms. Despite all of my semesters of Music History and my love of Brahms, at that point in my life I only knew a handful of his solo piano works, his art songs, his violin concerto, and his four magnificent symphonies. I had heard of his Requiem, but I had never experienced it firsthand.

In retrospect, I’m grateful I walked into the experience without having heard any of the music before. I did not know God personally at this point in my life, although I felt there was most certainly a God. Even the act of listening to music seemed to connect me to an unseen, invisible source in the universe. Performing music, at its best, meant I could be a vehicle for this unseen beauty. To this day, my experience of music remains heady and complex in an intellectual and emotional way that is utterly unlike any other art form. 

Many artists I’ve met describe a connection to the unseen that is visceral. I have come to describe this sensation with a single word, Sehnsucht. Sehnsucht is a German word that translates to longing, but what it really describes is a homesickness for a place we’ve never been. C.S. Lewis describes this sensation beautifully in The Weight of Glory. For me, the experience of listening to Brahms is filled with Sehnsucht. 

I attended that performance of the Brahms Requiem at IU with my best friend and studiomate, Laura. Laura’s faith defined her life, her ambition, her longings, and her art. She and I had many formative conversations while we were in graduate school. She sat with me in my doubts and unbelief and helped me to know God. My first evening with the Brahms Requiem, sitting next to the woman who would baptize me a few years later, was electrifying. 

Like many people, I have vivid memories of the time and place in my life when I first heard a piece of music. On my seventeenth birthday, I heard the Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for the first time, a piece that is seventeen minutes of unadulterated Sehnsucht, filled with cavernous expanses of darkness, light, and beauty. I used to lay on the floor in the orchestra room in high school with headphones during my study hall, closing my eyes and disappearing from all reality into that auditory world.  I was warned by mentors and older musicians that I could become numb to that electrifying sensation of music the more I studied it and intellectualized it. They said I would have less tearful responses, less goosebumps, and less wonder. While in some ways, there could be some truth to that idea, I think I was talking to the wrong people.  

The moment I heard the first bars of the Brahms Requiem that evening, I lit up inside. The second movement, in particular, took me on an emotional rollercoaster. I was captivated, haunted, and elated. It reduced me to tears. I didn’t read any of the translations of the German text that evening. There was no intellectual grasp of a spiritual message, no deeper meaning, just a pure sensation of the invisible made auditory. The music overtook me. I spent weeks afterward in the music library listening to recordings of the second movement in particular, trying to integrate that experience of the music into my body.

Not long after this experience, I graduated and grappled with the direction I would take in my life. Like many young artists, I felt pulled in many directions, unsure of how to make a life out of art. I moved from Indiana to Kansas City. I went months without listening to classical music during some of my early years in Kansas City, too distracted trying to make ends meet to sit saturated in beauty. I began to seek God more deeply, and eventually, his Spirit came alive in me. I began to understand that Sehnsucht was a longing for him, for the far off country of perfect relationship with him. It was like my entire life my sight had been out of focus, like the experience of being at the eye doctor with the wrong lens. The doctor snaps the right lens into place, and suddenly what was fuzzy and indistinct has sharp edges and a shape. God’s presence in my life gave these powerful, indistinct forces of beauty a shape. His shape. 

The Brahms Requiem changed forever for me when I woke up one morning in the summer of 2014 after a gut-wrenching nightmare about the death of a close family member. It was one of those dreams where I woke up and felt the physical weight of grief and stress because my brain experienced the same neurological effects as I would in waking life. I made myself get out of bed to go for my morning walk on a trail near my home, eyes straining in the darkness of late summer dawn. That summer I spent most of my four-mile walks listening to sermons, podcasts, and Proverbs, but on this particular day I was still shaken by the grief of my subconscious, and melancholy lingered. I skimmed my music playlists and saw the Brahms Requiem, unlistened to for several years. I was overcome by the desire to press into the feeling of melancholy, so I clicked on it. The shuffle feature pulled up movement two, the same movement I had been obsessed with years before.

Despite my powerful experiences with this music before, it was like I heard that movement for the first time that day. I looked up the translation of the biblical text and read it as I walked. I let the power of the music overtake me like I used to, but I was a different woman than I was the first time I had heard it. I had stood in the valley of the shadow of death at the funerals of friends too young to die. I had made a transition from a spiritual seeker to a woman captivated by God. I had battled deep depression, crippling anxiety, and disillusionment with my life. I had walked with those close to me through battles with mental health and addiction. I had watched friends divorce, have miscarriages, die of cancer, and bury their children, and I had yet to turn thirty. My eyes were wide open to the brokenness of a world that is not functioning the way it was meant to. One of the best biographies on Brahms, written by Jan Swafford, says that he wrote the opening theme for the second movement (intended for a symphony) the day that one of his best friends, Robert Schumann, jumped from a bridge and attempted to end his life (1). Brahms was living with the Schumanns at the time, and he was a witness to the pain of Schumann’s decline and eventual death from mental illness. Schumann left behind his wife, Clara, also a famous musician, and eight children. 

That morning on the trail, I was disarmed and vulnerable from my dream. I felt the tears well up as the choir began its muted declaration of Isaiah 40:6 (2).

“All flesh is grass,  
     and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades…”

By the time it reached its first great and terrible climax (3), my tears flowed freely. It was the only reaction I could have to the powerful reality of death that Brahms had covered with his thick, powerful harmonic voice. The music creates a very real sense of the relentless force of death in the listener, to create an irresistible wave of sound that you are powerless to stop. It gave me the ability to see the world through a clear lens as a thing whose most shimmering pinnacles will inevitably be overcome by the ash of death. Though our beauty is as delicate and matchless as the most precious flower, we are ultimately just like that flower and will wither, all color will drain from us, and we will eventually be returned to the dust. Thankfully, Brahms gives us a glimpse into the hope that God provides us in his choice of the next text for the second movement, James 5:7 (4).

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.

The music lightens and lilts, as though to let sunlight through the clouds. At the ends of the two musical sections of this interlude, the underlying music pulls at the ends of this hope, attempting to unravel it. Brahms does successfully unravel it eventually, dragging us back into the dark beauty of his setting of Isaiah’s words once again (5). That morning, it became clear to me that this musical theme, though I had already heard it, seemed to sting more, and it almost felt cruel. I thought of Lazarus, raised from the dead. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that though Lazarus was raised, he still died a physical death again. If he didn’t outlive his sisters, they had to mourn him again. And if we are healed from sickness, eventually we will have to mourn the loss of our health again. So where is the hope that endures forever?

The crescendo into Brahms’ repeated climax of the death march theme was much more devastating to me the second time around. Still crying in the early dawn, I stopped walking, overcome by even deeper hopelessness. Not only was I feeling residual sadness from my dream, I was also flooded with real memories of burying loved ones. There was yet another layer of deeper mourning as the music exposed anticipatory grief in me. If I live long enough, I will one day bury my parents and countless others who are close to me. This is a cruel reality for all of humanity and a concept that we often hold at a distance, something our logical minds recognize but that is kept carefully walled off, inaccessible, so that it will not crush us.

It occurred to me that day that Brahms, through his chosen texts and the way he sets them, brutally and masterfully reveals the realities we face, whether in the past, present, or future. If art is only saccharin and sentimental, it feels flimsy and transparent in the face of life's difficult realities. If we buy into the conventionally beautiful and comfortable side of our faith only, denying the existence of death, when we are overcome with the unavoidable reality of it we may crumble irreparably. It is not uncommon for our faith to crumble in tandem. I'm not saying we should spend our time only dwelling on sin, brokenness, and death. Our fragile human souls are not built to carry that kind of weight. We must partake in the transforming joy that God offers us, or all we have left is the reality of this world’s passing, whether it is delayed, put off, or sentimentalized. No matter which of those three methods we choose, we aren’t really capable of dealing fully with the ramifications of death. We can attempt to numb the feelings of grief or anger by religious or irreligious means.

The fact remains: regardless of our individual belief systems or cultural constructs, we all must reckon with death. As the voices decrescendo and fade with the music at the end of this second statement of Isaiah 40, there is a sliver of silence and pause - just enough that you almost think it ends there, in death and despair (6). That morning I spent on the walking trail, my soul felt like it did end there. I had forgotten what came next. Brahms had yet to set the second half of verse eight.

 Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in Ewigkeit. (But the word of the Lord endures forever.)

Brahms does not leave us with the heaviness of death crushing our hearts, because God doesn’t leave us there, either. A unison "ABER!" shattered the momentary silence through my earphones, and I heard something I hadn't heard before, though I had listened to this work literally hundreds of times (7). The new lens snapped into place and I found clarity. The gospel offers a 'but.' We all must suffer, and there will be death, but..! The Word of the Lord endures forever. 

Jesus is called the word made flesh. Jesus endured. His body was put in the tomb to rot. Aber—But!—he rose from the dead. He conquered death, not just for his own human body, but for mine, too.  According to scripture, Jesus lived the life that we should have lived, and in his human flesh, died the death that we should have died (completely forsaken by God, pained, humiliated, and alone). God entered the world to be what we could not be to do what we could not do. Suddenly I found myself crying for a different reason. Tears of joy were replacing the tears of sorrow, my very own Psalm 126 (a Psalm which Brahms sets in the first movement). He closes the second movement with a promise from Isaiah 35:10 (8).

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain gladness and joy,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

If we cannot escape the penalty of death and brokenness by ourselves, then the only way we could do it is to be ransomed. The good news is that we have been ransomed. My weeping can truly be converted to songs of joy. That day on the trail, as Brahms' almost-fugue raced triumphantly to the close of movement two, I found myself weeping tears of joy. The words that Brahms stretches out and sets over and over again at the end of the work are Freude, ewige Freude, or Joy, eternal Joy! This is the power of music, for me. It softens and disarms me, and it leaves me open to the power and truth of God’s word, and then its unseen forces seem to enter my body, helping me to physically and emotionally process these complex theological concepts. As we grow and change in faith, our perceptions of art grow and change with us. The art waits, ever ripe fruit that God offers as ways to taste and see that He is good. 

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Kelly working on a piece for her series All Flesh Is Grass.

Kelly Kruse is a visual artist, singer, and arts educator living in Kansas City, Missouri. She uses her work to explore the painful, beautiful experience of human transience, longing, and suffering. She developed a visual devotional practice as a response to her battle with depression, through which she wrestles with beauty, history, and theology. Kruse describes her work as contemporary illumination. Like the medieval monks who perfected the art of illuminated manuscripts, she seeks to awake in the viewer a sense of spiritual contemplation. Her first exposure to the idea of illumination came when she studied Medieval and Renaissance music in Italy. Her background in classical music and opera puts her in a unique position to explore the intersections between scripture, poetry, musical works, and the visual arts.

She has exhibited her work at galleries and institutions across the country and her work is featured in collections around the world.

In addition to her painting practice, Kelly is an active classical musician and maintains a private studio as a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She has lectured in music history in addition to serving as a masterclass teacher and clinician. 

You can view Kelly’s artwork at www.kellykrusecreative.com and follow her on Instagram at @kellykrusecreative.

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Music Endnotes:

1. 0:00-0:45 - listen for the pedal timpani, a hallmark of Brahms’ style. Throughout the entire work, especially in movement three, you’ll hear pedal timpani that can serve as a reminder of the relentlessness of death. Timpani are pitched percussion instruments, and so using them as a pedal (continuous) tone causes them to clash occasionally with harmonies above them. 

2. 1:15-2:20 - This is the first statement of “Den alles fleisch est is wie Gras, or “For all flesh is like grass.” Listen for the “blooming” swells in the music, mimicking the beauty of flower opening.

3. 2:55-3:35 - By the end of this climactic moment, the music fades and falls alway, like the grass. 

4. 4:00-5:00+: Here, the textures thin and the music becomes more light and transparent, like the clearing of clouds. We’ve shifted from B-flat minor into G-flat major. Rhythmically, it is much more like a graceful dance than a death march. In a sense, this section feels more dreamlike than the first. 

5. 5:28-5:45: The happy melody of hope melts away and back into the death march. In a way, this repetitive form mimics the cyclical nature of life and death. The structure of this work is A(musical idea one), B (musical idea two), A (a return to the first idea), and then it has a fugue-like C section tacked on the end. 

6. 920-9:30  - the work sounds like it may be coming to an end here.

7. 9:30-9:57 -  a complete break in the texture and a jarring key change from B-flat minor to B-flat major. 

8. 9:58-end - a triumphal fugue-like ending featuring heroic soaring melodies and imitation between some vocal lines. There are subdued moments where it almost seems like it could collapse back into the darkness from the beginning, but joy always wins out. 

This post is part of an ongoing series where we ask artists and arts professionals to share a piece of artwork that has significantly impacted their formation as a Christian. 

A Creative Walkabout with Sarah Hall

by Jordan Lienhoop

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Sarah Hall en route to create a tree rubbing.

For painter and puppet-maker Sarah Hall, going to the woods every day is all the inspiration she needs to generate new ideas and thoughts. Whether having a walkabout or watching a cicada hatch, the outdoors sparks shapes and stories inside her that become large tree rubbings and plein air painting puppets, inspiring kids (and adults!) to be curious explorers of their communities as well.

See more of Sarah’s work on Instagram at @hiyo_post and follow Gorp at @hiyogorp.

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“Gorp” (2019) by Sarah Hall.

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“Holiday Series” (2019), tree rubbing by Sarah Hall. Acrylic on canvas.

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“Holiday Series” (2019), tree rubbing by Sarah Hall. Acrylic on canvas.

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Tree rubbing by Sarah Hall. Acrylic on canvas.

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HIYO postcards from Gorp (2020) by Sarah Hall

This post is part of a series featuring artists involved in our ministry and community in Louisville, Kentucky.

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.

Jonathan Anderson on Andy Warhol: Revelation

by Michael Winters

Sojourn Arts interns at the exhibit . “Eggs,” 1982. Andy Warhol.

The Speed Museum is now exhibiting Andy Warhol: Revelation, “the first exhibition to comprehensively examine the Pop artist’s complex Catholic faith in relation to his artistic production.”

When the exhibit was shown previously at The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, artist and art critic Jonathan Anderson gave a talk, sponsored by the Beatrice Institute, titled “Religion in the Age of Mass Media: Andy Warhol’s Catholicism”. This talk gives a lot of additional background information and insight into the exhibit.

The Sojourn Arts team watched this video before we went and it really helped us appreciate the experience, so we recommend checking out both this video and the in-real-life exhibit.

In addition to giving this insightful talk, Jonathan Anderson is an artist. Back in 2008 or so, we exhibited paintings from his series Groundings.

His writings have also shaped the ways in which we think about our work as Sojourn Arts, especially the book Modern Art and the Life of a Culture: The Religious Impulses of Modernism, which he co-authored with William Dyrness. He’s a go-to figure to follow for the intersection of contemporary art and faith. His instagram account leads to fascinating contemporary art you might not come across elsewhere.

Andy Goldsworthy: Rediscovering a Spirit of Freedom

by Jason Leith

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Sycamore patch, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, 31 October 1986. Andy Goldsworthy.

For much of my life I have wrestled with two sides of myself. One side loves to play and wonder and the other is stiff and suffocated by logic. This second part of me is not the truest part. I am thankful I have discovered ways to leave this part behind. One way is when I embrace the play and wonder inspired by other artists. At twenty years old, as I was still learning to embrace my liberated side, I am thankful someone introduced me to Andy Goldsworthy. 

Creating much of his artwork in surrounding nature of his hometown village of Penpoint Scotland, Goldsworthy’s process is wonderfully unfamiliar. Hands empty of tools of any kind, he steps out into nature and begins gathering elements of the created world to make site specific sculptures. Many of the works are planned in the moment and he uses no glue, no hammer, no machinery. 

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by Andy Goldsworthy http://photovoltaicpoetry.com.au/about/place/andy-goldsworthy-ice/

I smile remembering how he arranged icicles to look as if they are weaving in and out of the trunk of a winter aspen. I find delight in the seamless color gradient of fall leaves he arranged on the ground like a Buddhist mandala. My heart jumps remembering the way he collected hundreds of reeds from a damp hillside and mended them into a tapestry suspended from a lone tree. 

One of his works takes hours, sometimes days, and the process is as important as the final vision. Every failure in the form of collapsing rock or melting ice is a way Goldsworthy finds reconnection with nature and with himself. Each collapse requires a moment for few deep breaths, but it provides a lesson about limits, physicality, and our relationship with creation. As we push and play in nature, it can teach us. When a sculpture is finished, he photographs the result and releases it to the mercy of time and the elements. Soon enough, every sculpture crumbles, melts, or blows away.

At my first introduction to Goldsworthy, I was simultaneously puzzled, frustrated, and delighted. How can you move into a project without a plan ahead of you? How could he let his work just crumble away like that? It must be saved! But slowly, I acclimated to realize the joy and freedom in his process. 

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Sycamore leaves stitched together with stalkshung from a tree, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, 1 November 1986. Andy Goldsworthy.

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Leaning into the Wind, a Magnolia Pictures release. © Thomas Riedelsheime, all rights reserved. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

I distinctly remember the intersection of Goldsworthy’s work and rediscovering the lighthearted side of my relationship with the Lord. My spiritual life was defined by duty, obedience, and mission. These things are not bad, however, I had lost sight of the truth that wherever the Spirit of God lives, “there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:16). I had forgotten how the Lord wants to enjoy, wonder, and just be with his kids—no agenda. One of the gifts he wants us to enjoy is the beauty and infinite discovery found in the created world.

The first time I tried to channel Andy Goldsworthy out in a southern California trail, my unhindered child-like spirit came leaping back. All the brooding weight of duty was lifted as I arranged geometric rocks into a puzzle and gathered dried flowers to make my sculpture. Looking back, I realize in moments like those, my friendship with the Lord was growing. 

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by Andy Goldsworthy https://vedantus.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/andy-goldsworthy-1.jpg

Goldsworthy’s work and process shows me how to leave weight and stiffness at the door when approaching my relationship with God. I do not have to have a grand plan for the future. There is no need to dwell on the past. I can just breathe in the moment. When things collapse, it’s okay. I take it as learning. 

Goldsworthy believes that our connection to nature is deeply linked to our connection with ourselves. If we are disconnected from nature, he believes our sense of self will suffer. There is no doubt that growing up, I had lost connection with vital parts of who God made me to be. But Goldsworthy’s encouragement to simply step out into nature and make something breathed life into me, reminding me of the lightness of God and how I have a standing invitation to reconnect with him whenever I choose. No weight, just wonder.

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Jason Leith is the Pastor of Visual Arts at Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. His work focuses on socially engagement through portraiture. His Sacred Streets project featured found object portraits of the homeless on Skid Row, Los Angeles. He graduated from Biola University with my BFA and is currently receiving his Masters in Global Leadership at Fuller Seminary with an emphasis in Art & Theology. See more of his work at www.sacredstreets.org/ and follow him on Instagram at @JasonLeithArt.

This post is part of an ongoing series where we ask artists and arts professionals to share a piece of artwork that has significantly impacted their formation as a Christian. 

If it be your will

by Michael Winters

Artist Enrique Martínez Celaya recently shared the song “If it be your will” by Leonard Cohen. Though released on Cohen’s 1984 album Various Positions, it’s a timely song today, a fitting prayer for those of us trying to learn when to speak up and when to keep silent.

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will

And since we’ve mentioned Enrique Martínez Celaya, here below is a time-lapse video of his painting, The Prophet (2018). It’s amazing to see it change over time.

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

Honing Her Craft: Melissa Mann Bean

by Jordan Lienhoop

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Self-portrait of Melissa Mann Bean

Photographer, designer, professor, mother: Melissa Mann Bean has held numerous titles over the last 24 years, adding mixed media artist to the list as she pursues new mediums and continues to hone her craft. Drawing on those roles and experiences, she warmly shares her journey and insights with young artists and women artists through mentorship and retreats.

See more of Melissa’s work online at Melissa Mann Bean Artwork and follow her on Instagram at @melissamannbeanartwork.

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“Sewing History” (2020) by Melissa Mann Bean. Gouache, paper, photographs with stitching, acrylic on tissue paper with ribbon from an antique fabric (the mask). 18”x24”

“Twin Towers, NYC” (September 1, 2001) by Melissa Mann Bean. Different prices on print sizes/paper available. Contact artist.

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“Don’t Be Anxious, Caged Bird” (2020) by Melissa Mann Bean. Watercolor pencil on watercolor paper, ink, found hand written paper in antique hymnal, flower original photograph. 8”x8”. $45 + shipping.

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“Orchard Trees, Shelby County Kentucky” by Melissa Mann Bean. Different prices on print sizes/paper available. Contact artist.

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"Praiseworthy: Laying Down Grief” by Melissa Mann Bean. Acrylic and found antique papers/poem on canvas, original photograph of hummingbird taken in Yew Dell Gardens. 12”x24"

This post is part of a series featuring artists involved in our ministry and community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Ned Bustard on Re-Defining Success

by Michael Winters

“For me, the idea of success has shifted from, ‘Am I making a lot of money?’ or ‘Am I the best in the biz?’ to ‘Am I being responsible with what God has given me to do and make.’” - Ned Bustard

Ned Bustard: Making Good from Cursive Films on Vimeo.

We were glad to have Ned Bustard participate in our 2019 exhibit Word & Ink. Ned has worked on a ton of book projects including Every Moment Holy, and he also runs his own publishing company Square Halo Books and Square Halo Gallery in Lancaster, PA.

Da' T.R.U.T.H.: A Medium for Mentorship

by Jason Stephens

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Music did not save my life. Jesus did. But God used music to serve me in ways no one else could in my early days of walking with Christ. In 2011, Da’ T.R.U.T.H.’s album, The Whole Truth taught me about the true character of Our Lord and how God can use someone’s gifts for His glory and kingdom. 

I gave my life to Jesus in September 2011. I had no church and I knew very few Christians. One month after giving my life to Christ, I started a Bible Study and by God’s grace, I didn’t lead the attenders astray. Before each Bible study, I would google the passage, questions, and answers. I really knew little about God and His Word as a new believer. I needed someone to come along side me to help lay the foundation of my faith. At the time, I didn’t think I had someone to place this role in my life. 

Before that September, I was a weed-smoking, Frat strolling, spoken-word artist. I was steeped in the campus’ black popular culture. Then, the gospel was shared with me through two separate InterVarsity members at the University of South Florida. The Lord then did something radical in my heart by convincing me that He saw me and He was demanding that I repent and follow Him. So one night, while alone in my home, I prayed to Jesus that He would save me. But as I entered the college ministry circles for fellowship, I felt I couldn’t relate to the Christians that were unfamiliar with my cultural experience. By doing this, I cut myself off from many of the opportunities to learn and grow as a Christian and embraced the pursuit of doing my own thing for the Lord. In hindsight, I would have approached community and discipleship differently. Despite this, God, in His great grace and mercy, still used me on the campus. In the meantime, He sent me someone I would listen to. Someone I would submit to. Someone I could relate to. His name was Da’ T.R.U.T.H. 

After I had emptied my entire iTunes library of all the music that embraced my old life, I replaced it with Christian rappers. Da’ T.R.U.T.H. was by far the one I listened to the most. The music was good, but the music was simply a medium for mentorship. He helped me to establish the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. In many ways, he equipped me to lead those Bible studies every week. The album itself, was a testament to God’s grace and power. 

Da’ T.R.U.T.H had committed infidelity in his marriage in the past. His affair was revealed publicly in 2009 and he took time off from music to repent and restore himself and his marriage. “The Whole Truth” was the first album following his restoration. The album chronicled his repentance. He spoke freely of his sin and how God had shown him grace. He expressed how his wife had forgiven him. He taught me that God really did forgive. Jesus really did redeem. 

What I needed in my life was for someone to affirm that what I was experiencing was real. I needed someone to tell me more of what Jesus accomplished when He rose from the dead. This album is filled with the simple truths that lead to eternal life. My favorite song on the album, is Freedom. I was listening to this song when I decided that I, like Da’ T.R.U.T.H., wanted to use my voice and gifts to proclaim the goodness of Christ for the rest of my life. I have been pursuing this calling since.

Verse 3 of “Freedom” by Da’ T.R.U.T.H.:

I'm here to offer you hope through all your highs and lows
Might I propose that with Jesus nothing is impossible
He can provide you with strength to get you through obstacles
He got the power to rescue and get you out the hole
There is a pot of gold, for all the pride that goes
Throw your hands up and surrender, know that the Father knows
You on the winding road, but you are not alone
Hand Him the keys, and move over so He can drive you home
And do more than just give directions, He got the blood that will cover up all your imperfections
He got the keys that'll set you free from your prison sentence
You can raise up cause He specializes in resurrections
So give Him praise, and give Him reverence
When sinners pray, it's in His presence
You find the joy and strength that you need to make a change.
And break the shackles, let Him break the chains. All you need is...Freedom

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Jason Stephens is a college ministry director at Sojourn Church Midtown and spoken word artist in Louisville, KY. He is currently working on an MDiv at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His passion for seeing people radically changed by the gospel drives his life and ministry. You can listen and subscribe to Jason’s spoken word here.

This post is part of an ongoing series where we ask artists and arts professionals to share a piece of artwork that has significantly impacted their formation as a Christian. 

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.

In Pursuit of Beauty with Leandro Lozada

by Jordan Lienhoop

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self-portrait by Leandro Lozada

Photographer Leandro Lozada became enchanted with photography at a young age, spending hours looking at the photographs in National Geographic and the ones hanging in his mom’s house. When he was 18, he saved up for his first Canon point and shoot camera from the pawn shop, and from there, his creation and pursuit of beauty grew.

Check out Leandro’s work online at Lozada Photography and follow him on Instagram at @lozada1816. To see Leandro’s Saints project that was mentioned in the interview, click here.

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photographs by Leandro Lozada

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photograph by Leandro Lozada

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photographs by Leandro Lozada

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This post is part of a series where we feature artists involved in our ministry and community in Louisville, Kentucky.

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.

Artist Emulation: Andy Goldsworthy

by Jordan Lienhoop

“Rowan Leaves and Hole” (1987) by Andy Goldsworthy.

“Continuous grass stalk line held to mud-covered rocks with thorns, Swindale Beck Wood, Cumbria” (1984) by Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor and photographer that uses natural items found in nature to create art. Oftentimes his pieces seem unreal, as in the examples above: surely the leaves have been spray painted and surely that is a line drawing added to an image. But it’s entirely natural, furthering the wonderment and appreciation of nature that his pieces evoke in viewers.

Inspired by his work and the warmer weather, we asked our followers on Instagram to get outside and create a piece using found natural objects.

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by an unknown artist in the Shelby Park neighborhood

In Shelby Park there is a giant tree with a branch that arches so far over that it creates an enclosure with its leaves and branches. It was on my way to work one morning that I came upon a circle of broken sticks formed inside this enclosure. The effect was truly magical.

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by Melissa Mann Bean

Melissa was interested in “the idea of things in nature imitating each other,” bringing to mind the similarities between butterflies, with their delicate wings, and the veins on leaves. She added Thoreau’s quote to her piece, saying, "God has shown me many things through nature over the years, that so many things are better when they’re wild and free!”

by Tommy Booher (Jordan’s Grandpa)

While visiting my grandpa’s house this past weekend, I noticed his brush pile in the small clearing before the woods - what an unexpected joy to stumble upon! He had unintentionally created a perfect mound of sticks, branches, and twigs, capturing the spirit of Andy Goldsworthy.

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by Jordan Lienhoop

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To learn more about Andy and his work, watch the documentaries Rivers and Tides (2001) and Leaning Into the Wind (2017) or peruse the University of Glasgow’s ongoing digital catalogue , featuring his pieces from 1976-1986.

Artist Emulation: Sedrick Huckaby

by Jordan Lienhoop

“Untitled” work on paper by Sedrick Huckaby.

“Her Hands on the Word” from series Big Momma’s House by Sedrick Huckaby. Oil on canvas on panel. 32 x 36.25”, 2008.

Our second Artist Emulation features Sedrick Huckaby, a contemporary painter whose work focuses on the African-American family and its heritage. He lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas, with his wife, artist Letitia Huckaby, and their three children. You can follow Sedrick and Letitia online @huckabystudios. For this emulation, we asked people to create a portrait of a family member or roommate without showing their face, using paint, oil pastels, or crayons.

Here are the creations inspired by Sedrick:

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by Brittany Anne Jennings

After answering the question, “What animal would your significant other be?”, Brittany created a portrait of her husband Darren as a crow on her shoulder.

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by Savannah Hart

Savannah created an abstract portrait of her roommate Kirsten using the makeup she chose to wear that morning.

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by Jordan Lienhoop

I painted a portrait of my grandma, showing a box she created when she was near my age and dried flowers from her funeral. I included my hand in the photo because I am even more a portrait of her than these objects.

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?

You Can Never Hold Back Spring: Observations from Self-Isolation

by Kevin Janes

As I’m confined to my home and immediate surroundings like most of our community, the most striking observation I’ve made is how my attention is piqued like no other time in my life since childhood. Alongside the anxiety and uncertainty of the times, I’m reminded of what author David Dark calls his “attention collection,” those things you notice, are moved by, and catalogue in some special corners of your brain and heart for fond recollection later (apologies to David Dark for maybe missing the mark on that definition!). 

Music and nature are two things I hold dear, so it’s no wonder I’ve got a heightened awareness of the power they both have to inspire and comfort during this new (ab)normal pace of life. For the last month as I’ve gazed out the window watching birds and squirrels, or taken solitary walks in my neighborhood tracing the origin and ending of a creek that runs through it, I’ve watched God’s annual re-creation we call spring unfold like one of those flipbook animations. Subtle progressions greet me daily: a new bud here, a flash of color there, wild babies, birdsongs, earthen scents, solar warmth. Recurring companions I’ve been meditating with have been a quiet tune by Tom Waits called “You Can Never Hold Back Spring,” and Luke 12:22 – 31 (don’t be anxious, consider the lilies…). Perhaps an odd pairing, but these are odd times: 

You can never hold back spring / You can be sure that I will never stop believing
The blushing rose will climb / Spring ahead or fall behind
Winter dreams the same dream every time / You can never hold back spring
Even though you've lost your way / The world keeps dreaming, dreaming of spring

So close your eyes, open you heart / To the one who's dreaming of you
You can never hold back spring / Remember everything that spring can bring
You can never hold back spring…

Tom Waits, from Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, 2006

“Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! … 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,[b] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”   

Luke 12: 22-24, 27-31, ESV

 Our world is a strange and wonderful place. For those of you that enjoy compilations and lists like I do, here are some further observations, both natural and musical, from my Attention-Collecting-Self-Isolation, Spring 2020 Edition:

-  I saw two cardinals kiss the other day! It happened under a tulip in bloom – call it April mistletoe. Their bills clicked with a tiny sound like a toothpick snapping. Then I saw it happen again on the fencepost a few days later. Who knew avian mating rituals could be such a dopamine hit.

-  My daughter and I were on a walk and saw a squirrel scurry up a tree with a 6-inch diameter pancake hanging out of his mouth. Our startling presence made him drop most of it, but I’m sure he went back for it later.

-  My daughters got recorders in their Easter baskets this year. Of course they quickly learned to play the proverbial recorder jam, "Hot Cross Buns." While they played a duet of the tune, I was outside puttering around the yard and heard a mockingbird tweeting the tune! Mockingbirds are known for mimicking other birds' songs, and the occasional car alarm sound, but I've never heard one sing "Hot Cross Buns."

-  A robin kept flying into our garage scoping out nesting places. I closed the overhead door every evening and she’d sit on the fencepost watching me with either confusion or disdain. So she’d changed course and is actively constructing one our electric panel box outside the kitchen window. We’ll leave this one be and see if we get any babies in a few weeks.

-  A pair of likely migrating water birds (herons, cranes, egrets – we can’t be sure) landed in our neighbor’s backyard this morning. Good thing their Great Pyrenees wasn’t outside at the time.

-  You’ve likely seen colorful sidewalk chalk art and games from kids in your neighborhood, but have you seen a woman walking a dog jump a hopscotch course without missing a beat? Happened in the 2500 block of Hillbrook Dr, Hikes Point.

-  Also inspired by spring, Louisville singer-songwriter Joan Shelley has been busy writing and recording in self-isolation. Check out these new singles, “Blue Skies” and “Between Rock & Sky.” Spare $2 and download them if you can. Touring artists’ income has ground to a halt this spring, and the summer is in question as well.

-  Strange times can provide beautiful opportunities. Chance The Rapper read Matthew 11:28 on national television the other day (Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” NLT). He’s open about his faith, so a public recitation from him isn’t a surprise, but the kicker is that Late Show host Stephen Colbert asked him to. 

-  Here’s an oddity: After nearly 60 years of legendary recordings, Bob Dylan finally scored his first (gasp!) Billboard #1 hit single last week. No, it wasn’t an anniversary re-issue of “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Blowing in the Wind.” It was a surprise-released  17-minute murder ballad called “Murder Most Foul” about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It’s a mesmerizing, meandering opus that references over 70 other songs, prompting NPR Music to compile a playlist of them.

-  Finally friends, we lost two of our best songwriters in the last month, Bill Withers from heart disease (age 81), and John Prine from complications from COVID-19 (age 73). True American treasures, both men were more in tune with the beauty and hilarity, loveliness and ugliness, and joy and sorrow of humanity than most writers that ever dared tell a story. There’s a plethora of tributes, past concert footage, and music to hear online from both artists, so enjoy that virtual rabbit hole if you so choose. 

-  While no man is perfect apart from Jesus, is there such a thing as a “perfect” song? Yes there is. Also, here's a great mini set by Bill Withers recorded in 1972.

-  Lastly, here's a lovely remembrance of John Prine from Pitchfork, along with a few classic live videos, particularly "Hello In There" and "Bruised Orange."