New Years and New Lives

I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions.

Never have been.  Probably never will be.

I can't stand the mentality that comes from "failing" to meet your resolutions, which inevitably happens.  There's about two months where we're all really good.  We eat better, we laugh more, we go to the gym, we save well, we cook more, we spend more time with family, we volunteer, we stick to our resolution.

Then something happens.

There's a crisis.  Or not.  For whatever reason, we decide that it's ok to go out to dinner, just this once.  Or maybe, I don't have to go to the gym today cause I'm not feeling well.  Or whatever.  Our "just this once" or "not today" soon becomes the new habit.  One day turns into two, turns into months.  Then we wake up one morning and realize it's Christmas and we haven't made progress on our resolution since April.

And so, after "failing" for another year, we decide we're just going to put it off, because New Year's is just around the corner.  We can take care of it then.

Instead, we just create this cycle where we improve ourselves for a few months, and then backslide into our old habits.  Instead of actually growing and changing, we create a self-perpetuating and self-affirming cycle that helps us stay the same.

The New Year's resolution problem, for me, is that once we slip up, that's it for the whole year.  I think, "Man, I didn't go to the gym yesterday, so I don't have to go today, maybe I'll go tomorrow."  Or "Well, I already ruined the not eating out thing, so why not grab dinner with some friends tonight too?"  There's no grace.  There's no second chance for keeping the resolution.  When you fail, you fail.  So you better just start again next year.

Yet, the good news that is proclaimed time and time again in churches (and probably synagogues and mosques and temples, etc) is a message of grace upon grace.  That we believe in and are transformed by a living God of second chances and redemption.  That, no matter how badly we mess up, God is still there reaching out to us, pulling us up, and setting us on the road again, telling us, "Ok, you can be better this time."  And then we might make another step forward, and we fall again.

And because it's easier, we take our New Year's resolution mentality.  "Well, I sinned again.  Guess I'll just wait til God shows up at the end to fix me and make me perfect.  Which means I can do what I want til then."  We ignore the fact that every single time we fall, God is there to pick us back up.

Every single time.

Martin Luther wrote in the Small Catechism that "every day we die to sin and are raised to new life in Christ through our baptisms."

Every day we die to sin.
Every day we are raised to new life.
Every day, God reaches to pick us up, set us back on the road, and encourages us to be better.

Perhaps, it's not just every day, but every minute, every second, every time we mess up, or make a mistake or sin.  Every time we fall, God is right there to reach down to us and pick us up.  Always providing a second chance.  Always providing grace upon grace.

However, it's not cheap grace.  Nor is it easy to receive.  For us to fully appreciate and understand just how frequently God reaches down to us, we must be honest with ourselves.  And that's hard.

We have to be honest with the fact that we made a mistake.  We have to confess the fact we fell short.  We have to be able to look around us, and see that we have, in fact, fallen.  We have to be able to admit that we need help picking ourselves back up.

That's a mentality that's pretty foreign to the Western culture we live in.  We are proud.  We want to do for ourselves.

Do we need help?  Absolutely.
Will we admit it?  Never.

Despite our stubbornness and pride, God still reaches down to us.  God still offers to pick us up and help us.  We just have to be willing to swallow that pride and let God help us.  We have to be willing to die to the sin that keeps us down, so that God can raise us up.

We have to die to sin, not every lifetime.
Not every year.
Not every day.
But every moment.
And every moment we can be raised to a newness of life.   We can be raised to restored relationships with God and with one another.  We can experience second chances.  We can know grace.  We can know peace and wholeness.

So, if I had to have a New Year's resolution, and I might, it would be to allow myself to experience grace.  To be honest with my own shortcomings and allow God to raise me up through them.  To admit that I need help and let God help me, especially through those around me.  To allow myself to die to sin and be raised to new life. To let each setback be another opportunity to be a leap forward instead of an opportunity to continue to go backwards.

So maybe it's not really a New Year's resolution, but a New Life resolution.  Or maybe, a New Day resolution or New Moment resolution.  It's not a measurable goal; it's a journey.

And it's a journey that I'm not walking on alone.

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.