Unfinished… a theme emerges

When you say you’re a “Christian” a few things happen. Nonchristians tend to box you up into a neatly packed stereotype, dos-and-donts checklist in hand, and write you off as wacky and tacky. Meanwhile Christians tend to think of themselves as on a higher plane of existence and hold everyone else to that do-and-dont checklist they’ve made for themselves. Christians also tend to have this sense that by labelling themselves as such, they have “arrived” at some place in a static kind of way. like I’m in a plane, therefore I’m a passenger mentality. or more like a dog saying hey I’m a dog.

But what we can’t deny is there is more than one kind of dog and that not all dogs do the same thing.  There are general characteristics and certain definitions that we have applied to the “dog” label, but there are five bazillion subsets of information that are called into account if you cared to look further into it.

Here is where the title of this blog comes in. I am “unfinished.” I like that as a label. It’s connotes feelings of progress but not completion, a beginning but no ending, a hope and change but not static. I’m getting there, but I’m not there. There is a freedom in that and a call to action in that.

I was talking to the asst. pastor at church, Camper Mundy, about our art cafe ministry and my plans for our first anniversary. It coincides with the 25th Anniversary of the church which I didn’t plan, but that’s way cool. Anyway, I had been thinking of some kind of theme that wasn’t too Christianese and accessible to really anyone of any inclination. And as we talked, the theme of “Unfinished” emerged. (Camper is awesome to talk to about these things, by the way, because his mind is like this crazy playground of ideas. He’s awesome. Thanks man!!!)

I loved the theme the more I thought about it, especially from an artistic standpoint. So much of an artist’s dilemma is how to finish it – when is it finished – will it ever be finished? I have always loved when you get to see a work in progress and the choices the artist makes along the way. Sketchbooks by some of the big names, Da Vinci, Picasso, Matisse, Frida, are all fascinating to me, the exercises of vision to physical plane.

Likewise, as a writer, I love reading first and second and umpteenth drafts of what people write. There are so many things you say and things you choose not to say. You can recraft a sentence twenty times and still not quite convey what you want. Or you can sit and type out exactly what you’re trying to say on the first go.  the creative process is a wonder.

So the theme of “Unfinished” is a call to take a look at progress and regress, a blending of what is and what could be. I’m hopeful that we’ll get some good thought-provoking pieces and I’ll be spending the next few months beating the bushes and blowing the bugle so to speak to get some good stuff out there. Because you don’t want to leave it to my artistic ability – though a blank canvas would be quite fitting…

offensive tackle

No, this is not going to be a treatise on best practices for NFL teams. Because all I know about plays and techniques could fit into the subject line. (Regardless, GO STEELERS!!!!!)

No, this is about a comment made by Camper, the Asst. Pastor of my church on Sunday. He comes out with some great stuff, and this is no exception. He was talking about reading the Bible, though I would also say it could apply to anything you read or see or hear. In essence to life itself. He said that when we are offended by something, we probably need to pay the most attention to it, to figure out what we were offended by and why. Because that’s where we’ll learn something – about ourselves, about God, about others.

I found that quite profound and something I have always said, just not in those words. I much rather be in a conversation with someone who does not completely agree with me, because it’s in our differences that I have to work the hardest and that makes me either stronger in my ability to defend my beliefs, OR it points out the flimsy evidence of my beliefs and casts the burden on me to find better evidence or change what I thought to begin with. (It obviously doesn’t make me a better grammarian or I’d change that hanging preposition.)

Debate teams nationwide learn this in their drills, to take on the opposite sides of argument to discover the many points at which a good debater should speak. And more than this, any sensible person would want to know if they are wrong so they can now be right.

And likewise, what offends us makes us stronger. Offense is often more instinctual and reflexive. So few people really take a step back from “offensiveness” and seek to discover (or you might say deconstruct) the root of what is rubbing them the wrong way.

The arts are very much about this, to me, in that oftentimes the most daring and in-your-face pieces get a lot of criticism and even violent reactions by the masses. Two things happen with this kind of public reaction: people who did not yet hear about it, and probably wouldn’t have paid attention to it any way, are now immediately intrigued (because we like to see what pisses people off) and secondly, people who are afraid of facing the offensive head on must wrestle with the concepts presented.

My favorite example of this is always the “Piss Christ” that came out years ago. It was a photograph of a crucifix placed in a jar of, you guessed it, pee. The photographer’s pee if you must know. It won a little award in the southeast and it would have just gone largely unnoticed and unthought of, except a few senators decided to take issue with it and cause a big stir since National Endowment for the Arts funds had gone toward the sponsorship of the artists.

Now I happen to have a bit of a ideological problem with the existence of such a things as the NEA to begin with, government funded art never quite sitting well with me, but that may be a topic to tackle at another time. The point of this little anecdote is that many of the religious right had a reaction to this thing without really thinking about why. Sister Wendy Beckett, that lovable little nun who has a TV show where she discusses art, had an interesting reaction to the photo, saying that it depicts what the church has done to Christ. Huh. ya think? I would have loved to have seen her do an episode of her show on what the symbolism all represented to her.

Anyway, that’s just one of many thousands of examples. I’m sure you can think of your own little anecdotes too. Feel free. Just don’t send me hate mail.

ps. I just read that there is going to be a musical about Sister Wendy’s life called “Postcards from God.” It’s in pre-production in the West End as we speak. I can’t really imagine what a London musical theatre group could do with that. Hopefully it will be deliciously offensive.

Sister Wendy Beckett adores art

happy birthday marc chagall!

marc chagall was a brilliant artist whose work always intrigued me. i was first introduced to his art by a short-lived band called “chagall guevara” – a tribute to him and to che guevara. the band was pretty good but as i said, short-lived. they had a few songs that are still some of my favorites to this day.

anyway, here is my favorite painting of chagall’s - it is the ceiling mural in the paris opera house which i got to see when i visited paris a few years ago. it is beautiful and breathtaking in person. especially surrounding the infamous chandelier, aka the phantom of the opera chandelier.

chagall passed on several years ago now, but his work is unmistakable in its style and use of color.  as a jewish artist, he did quite a bit of reflection on religious themes and depicting many stories from the Torah, and later even the life of Christ.

when discussing his work, he was quoted as saying, “Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things I love.”  a great way to live if you ask me…