Finding Works of Living Art

This is part two on my series on art and theology.  For part one, click here.

I want to revisit the piece of art done by Banksy that I talked about in my last post.

This image is from Better Out Than In

This piece tells a story.  It is shouting at us to see this man waiting for his lover by the club door.  We don't know why he's waiting.  We don't know who he is.  And yet, in this waiting man we are able to see more than just the man.  We see his love.  We see his grief over the absence of his lover.  We see parts of ourselves in this work that we can relate to.  

This picture tells a story of the human condition.  In this man we see our neighbors, our friends, our family.

In this man we see ourselves.

We are drawn to portraits like this one because in the subject of the portrait we can see a glimpse of ourselves.  In their portraits we see their humanity.

And in their humanity, we see art.

There is precedent for looking at humanity as an art.

"So God created humankind in God's image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them." (Genesis 1:27)

The image of God.

Images.  Icons.  Photographs.  Portraits.  People.

All of humanity is created in the image of God.

Do we stop to take the time to seek this image of God in our neighbor?  Do we only see the image of God in icons, or photographs, or portraits?  Do we listen to what God says outside of scripture?

We look people who surround us, at the theater, at the coffee shop, at the bar, at work, on the side of the road, but do we see them?

Do we stop to talk to them? Do we see their faces?  Do we listen to stories?

Do we find the image of God in them?

Or do we need someone to take their picture like Brandon from Humans of New York? Someone who is willing to stop, look at these women and men who get passed by day after day, listen to their stories, and then take their picture?  Someone who shouts that we might stop, look, and listen ourselves?

"I'm homeless, and I'm an alcoholic.  But I have a dream."
"What's that?"
"I wanna go fishing."

"It's kinda weird having a child of my own, because I'm seeing all the things that my father missed."

Stop.  Look.  Listen.

It doesn't seem that hard, but we miss these opportunities all the time.

We make excuses. We tell ourselves we don't have time to stop.  We tell ourselves that we have already seen our neighbor.  We tell ourselves that we can't talk to the stranger.  We say we're doing it to protect ourselves or our families.

We tell ourselves anything to avoid someone who is different from us.

How many different encounters of God are we missing when we do this though?

I've already talked about the "cacophony of voices" that Scripture uses to help us understand bits and pieces of God.  But what about the beautiful collage of images that God has created in each and every people that we encounter each and every day?

In this guy?

Or these children?

Or this woman?

All of these people, and many more reflect God in their appearance, in their actions, and in their lives.  They all have families, friends, hopes, dreams, fears, joys, griefs, trials, tribulations, and celebrations - stories that are important and powerful.  They live complex and complicated lives that mirror our very own.  They walk the same journey that you and I will walk every day.  

But we get so caught up in our journeys that we simply walk past them, even though we're all walking through life together.  We miss out on hearing and being a part of their stories, that are just as delightful, terrifying, or heartbreaking as our own. 

"If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing."

When we don't stop, we walk past God.

When we don't look, we miss seeing God's face.

When we don't listen, we deafen ourselves to God's story.

Let's stop making excuses.

Let's stop looking at people as objects that are either in our way or are a means to an end.

Let's start looking at people as subjects worthy of the same care, attention, and devotion that any artist puts into their work.

Let's start looking at people with the same awe and reverence we give to works of art such as the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel.
Let's start appreciating the living art that God creates and places in our lives every day.

This image, and the ones above taken from Humans of New York

Let's start looking at people the way God sees them - through lenses of compassion, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and most importantly love. 

Learning to Pay Attention

This is part one of a two part series on art and theology.  

Last Thursday, I joined Instagram.

I'm not really sure why I did it because I use Facebook to share my pictures and Twitter to participate in instantaneous communication.  Being on Instagram seemed a little excessive to me.  

Yet, even though I've only Instagramed one picture (as of writing this), having Instagram on my phone helps me start paying attention to things.  I'm able to start noticing things that I see every day and frame them in such a way that they say something.

#nofilter

This picture, for example.  Every night I walk my dog and I usually notice the moon, stars, clouds, etc.. But when I took the picture, I was paying attention to just how the clouds interacted with the light of the moon.  I was paying attention to how the moonlight created shadows with the branches of the trees.  I was paying attention to something that I see every day.

I've noticed this happens with many photographs that appear on Instagram.  There are tons of pictures of food, pets, family, friends, trash, and so on.  Sometimes it seem foolish or ridiculous.  When I would see these photos on Facebook, my first thought was, "Nobody cares what you had for lunch today!"

Not anymore.

Instagram's greatest strength is that everyone can become a photographer.  Everyone can take an ordinary object and frame it in such a way that people to notice it.  That people pay attention to it.  That people truly see it.

Frederick Buechner, in his book Whistling in the Dark, says that this about art.

Literature, painting, music - the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot.  In a world that for the most part steers clear of the idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.

Stop.  Look.  Listen.

Three simple commands.  Why do we have such a hard time with them?

We pause, but rarely stop.  We look, but seldom see.  We hear, but hardly listen.

We need artists from all walks of life to shout, "Look over here!  See what great mystery is present! Listen to the holy rhythms of life!"

About a month ago, I stumbled on to the blog done by the NY Graffiti artist Banksy.  While not strictly legal (as evidenced by some of the posts related to being pursued by the NYPD) I admire what this mysterious artist is trying to do.  An anonymous figure quitely encouraging people to stop, look, and listen to the life of the city; to see something in a new and exciting way that might have scared them before.

Check out more of Bansky's work here.

This piece tells a story.  It is shouting at us to see this man waiting for his lover by the club door.  We don't know why he's waiting.  We don't know who he is.  And yet, in this waiting man we are able to see more than just the man.  We see his love.  We see his grief over the absence of his lover.  We see parts of ourselves in this work that we can relate to.

And yet, people walk by this beautiful story without a second glance day after day.

I'm not sure I would have noticed it if I hadn't come across it online. I'm not sure I would pay it any attention.  I would have passed it by without a second glance. I needed a "frame" to encourage me to stop, look, and listen.

Instagram and Banksy's Graffiti give us opportunities to stop, look, and listen to the extraordinary aspects of our lives that are extraordinary only because of their ordinariness.

Too often we let these extraordinary moments go by without noting them.

Holy moments of creation slip by without a second glance.

We expect God to swoop down with a smartphone and Instagram these moments for us.  We want God to put a frame around what God has done.  And we do get these experiences occasionally.  We have moments where we see God's presence in nature - in our "mountaintop experiences."

And yet.

I have a sneaking suspicion that God works more like our Graffiti artist, Banksy.  God is subtly working within creation to quietly encourage us to stop, look, and listen.

It's never anything fancy or "loud" but it's quiet, subtle, and simple.

And yet.
Its quietness draws us in, closer and closer.
Its subtlety allows it to speak to us time and time again.
Its simplicity allows us to see this message of creation again and again and again, everywhere we go.

So it's up to us to frame some of these quiet moments for one another.  It's up to us to shout on their behalf.  It's up to us to ask people to stop, look, and listen to these holy moments where God has created beautiful works of art that have been passed without a second glance time and time again.