Beauty's Eschatalogical Dimensions and Ramifications

To experience beauty is to experience a deep-seated “yes” to being---even in its finitude and its moments of tragedy; and such an affirmation is possible only if being is grounded, borne by a reality that is absolute in value and meaning . . . The fact that God is the ‘horizon’ of every experience of beauty explains why even the tragic emotions can be experienced in art as beautiful, and why there is at the heart of every deep aesthetic experience . . . an intense feeling of striving toward something beyond the moment. . . This longing is intrinsic to the experience of finite beauty, for the joy of existence in any finite being can never be complete or ultimate but must point beyond itself to a final and infinite goal.

- Richard Valadesau, Theology and The Arts: Encountering God Through Music, Art and Rhetoric, pgs. 42-43.

The above quotation makes several interesting observations. First, because beauty is grounded in God the experience of it produces an emphatic “yes” to being itself even in the face of tragedy and death. Life is thereby affirmed in a way that transcends our immediate condition. Secondly, beauty’s grounding in God further produces an “intense feeling of striving toward something beyond the moment.” That is to say that beauty reveals a dimension of existence beyond our present moment and circumstance, for beauty itself cannot be contained in the moment of our apprehension of it. It captivates us while escaping us creating the desire for something more which is ultimately found in God’s self who is the “final and infinite goal.”

In short, both of the proceeding points illustrate something about beauty’s substantial role in eschatology. First, the role of art in the Church as the eschatalogically-oriented community of God should thereby be one of support for the Arts rather than the diminishment of them. It should be a place where Art, in every form, flourishes. Secondly, the Church’s responsibility to beauty also includes its responsibility to protect the natural environment. It should be the place where environmental beauty is ecologically prized and preserved as the supreme art of God.

More or Less . . .

I have been more busy with work and have had less time to think and create. Things are pretty hectic right now but I promise to post something more substantial relatively soon. In the mean time I have added a few links to this blog that I have found recently. Mostly episcopal. Good stuff. I especially like The Image and Spirit Blog of the ECVA. Check it out.

Little Experiments #2: Already Not Yet

So this is the second piece in the Little Experiments arena. I added a few more filters to this one going for a more fuzzy look. (I dont know if I like that) Like last time, the writing in the piece is given below only this time I have attempted to mimic the color scheme of the writing in the piece so that you can tell which words are highlighted. The highlighted words indicate may own interpretation of the form at the bottom of the (to me when I painted it I thought of it as an "r") but not everyone would interpret it as such. This painting is purposely more subjective than others. Nevertheless in naming the world  the letter r reminds me of redemption and resurrection and our own attenuated grasp of these realities. Thus: 

Rolling away the stone is a matter of life or death. For without this Life there is no life, the start that reignites. And while death yields a massive production whose ramifications spread far and wide, the power to heal the rupture is found, dependably intruding, redemption resounds. But we have ceased to begin, looking only to the end, forgetting the nature of the gift received. Because the kingdom of God has been inaugurated, the resurrection has begun, the power of life has been given and the end of death has become, we ought not to go on living as if we’re still in debt, but live asthough we have died already, even if not yet.

Little Experiments: Being the Form

Sometimes I tire of painting and so I fool around in some other medium as a way of expressing myself. Today I wrote a little, cut up one of my old paintings into a digital collage and made a small piece of art. (3x4 inches). One of my favorite things to do in these tiny experiments is to incorporate my writtings into their composition in such a way that legibility is compromised. To read this one you would need a magnifying glass but for you I will post the writing here:

Escapist forms of eschatology encourage us to live anywhere but here. But forever cannot be thought. Its source is not the mind. Our meaning may be projected, but is functionally experienced where we are. Now is what we know. Life is always lived at the center. Like something that is that has always been, faithfullness has the from of presence. And unlike our fleeing we were made to be present. Not because there is nothing beyond ourselves in this moment of space and time. But because by being present we transcend the limitations of life lived alone. So we should think of staying more than leaving as a matter of freedom from abndoned being.

In the Darks#3: Babies, Blackwater, Blood Brothers, Jaguar Love and Difference

For whatever reason, I love the music of the Blood Brothers. It could be their apocalyptic punk rock aesthetic, their subversive political lyrics or the strange and melodic yet dissonant changes in their music but whatever the case they are one of my favorite bands. Yet with the Blood Brothers passing the subsequent creation of Jaguar Love has me listening to Jaguar’s latest album and well . . . loving it.

Like the Blood Brothers, Jaguar’s album is filled with all same elements of disaffection though it strikes the listener as somewhat more palatable (read harmonious). Still, the lyrics are filled with dark and disturbing images and the screeching voice of Johnny Whitney is beautifully unsettling. It makes you want to “take back the rad world” but it also makes you wonder exactly which actions might achieve this end. Although we may agree on the necessity and goodness of some singular political actions or attitudes, as a Christian my worldview is somewhat in opposition to certain solutions and sentiments of Jaguar Love.

Whatever our disagreements Jaguar Love portrays a dark and desperate picture of human realities and situations which are fuel for reflection. Take for instance the following lyrics from track 11, Videotape Seascape:

Oh Townes Van Zandt haunts your headphones
the streetlights sway
You left your pregnant girlfriend in a train station in Spain.
Parades burst from your brain, plaid haired girls call your name
Fireflies weave resorts, built of light on perfect shores,
Knife thrust, lust, angel dust, purple sky’s before dusk
In the back of a pick up truck, racing from your shitty luck,

Oh Townes Van Zandt haunts your headphones
the street lights groan
That piece of shit left you at this train station all alone,,
You steal somebody’s purse, ravens rip through your skirt,
Babies in TV screens chase you out into the street,
Madrid’s finest hotel, whisky and painkillers.
If stolen master cards could pay off all this shitty luck

Black water in a crystal skull
Drink deep and hallucinate an ancient ocean
Black water pouring out your mouth
Time travel to worlds composed of ice fields and sound
When all your friends would call you they’d say it’s for the best
You can’t force a man to love you. He’d be a shitty dad.

They started the trip in the city of Cannes
They drank in streets under Cubist mansions
And when she told him that she was knocked up with thier baby you should have seen his face
And when she told him that she was knocked up you should have seen his face

Black water in a crystal skull
Black water filling up your lungs
Black water in the south of France
Black water changing all your plans

As a Christian reflecting on the subject of darkness, the lyrics above illustrate the oddity of sin and darkness in our lives. Things intended to be good so often become perverse. Something such as the gift of life, here becomes an “unwanted pregnancy.” Something meant to strengthen the bonds of familial love, reveals the lack thereof. Our deficient desires are unmasked - we desire love without commitment, community without sacrifice, action without consequence and hence the life of another becomes intrusive to our selfish desire. Life is as death, light is as darkness: “Black water in a crystal skull.” This is the bleak reality of the world in chaos. It is the world without a proper proportion for love of God and nieghbor. Sadly it is not just the lyrics of a song but an accurate and telling portrayal of one facet of the world in which we live. Jaguare Love challenges us, ”Is this what you want?,“ and the God who is seemingly absent in their songs is ironically asking the same thing. But their solutions to the darkness are not the same and that makes all the difference.