Monday, December 15, 2014

The Question of Art and the Healing of Society: Rector's Rambling- January 2015

December has been a very eclectic month at Briarwood.  In addition to the observance of Advent and the celebration of Christmas, I did a bit of reading in early modern Scottish philosophers and theologians, and have thoroughly enjoyed traditional Christmas events like the Lancaster Chorale Concert and BalletMet's "Nutcracker."  As I sit down to write the first Rector's Rambling of the new year, the ideas are beginning to coalesce into a discernible whole. 
www.balletmet.org/
The BalletMet 2014 production of "Nutcracker" at the Ohio Theatre, and to a slightly lesser degree, the Lancaster Chorale concert at St. Mary's Church, were for me powerful and flowingly beautiful examples of what Homo Sapiens can become by God's grace as we strive by discipline, training, and perseverance to realize the potential God gives us. 
lancasterchorale.org/

Both events brought me to tears, and the ballet even brought my son, the former Marine, to tears.  Both events are almost like human dressage.  They portray us at our best, and call us to rise above those shortcomings which so often characterize our lives together.  But they tend to be reflections of the ideas and experiences of a small, highly educated, relatively prosperous group of people.  To the vast majority of my fellows, this is another world.  In times of alienation or social unrest, such events can become for many people icons of privilege and elitism.  They have in some revolutionary periods become targets of scorn and rejection.  One upshot of such social unrest and division has sometimes been a leveling of expectation and a degrading of all that is good and noble and true in the arts, and in our relations with each other. 

And so the question becomes, "How can we make the best, the most beautiful and most ennobling things in our culture, to be the property of all people?"  It is for me a serious question, because I believe that God is the ground of all being and is perfect beauty, and perfect harmony, and perfect function.  As a Christian, one of my duties is to attempt to create a society where individual lives, and relationships, and political realities are characterized by a fluidity of motion, by an economy of design and function, by a beauty based on justice and personal responsibility, and by true spiritual and institutional harmony which enables every man and woman to reach their full potential before God.

As a community, we here in Fairfield County and Central Ohio work hard to accomplish these goals.  The Lancaster Festival does a good job of bringing the arts to all of the people (especially children) in an affordable and accessible venue.  The Nutcracker provides scores of young dancers the opportunity to work on stage with accomplished professionals.  Our worship here at St. John's attempts to blend the best of the western musical tradition and sensory apprehension and apply our common experience to the glorification of the Triune God.
Worship at St. John's Lancaster
But as recent current events demonstrate, divisions of class and race and creed are still far too evident in our society.  We manage to "convert" an individual now and then to a deeper understanding of how our art can express our hopes and our experiences, and our faith in a loving heavenly Father.  We occasionally lead a person here or there to understand that true art allows us to express our common humanity at its best as we live together in a fallen world.  But the fine arts are still a distant and foreign thing to far too many people.  The celebrated and addictive brutality of popular film and of some athletic competition still drags far too many of us into the inhumanity which grows from power divorced from our Christian faith.  The sense of violence and alienation which dominates so much modern American literature and popular music has hardened many of us into beings who assume the worst, and arm ourselves to survive at the expense of our neighbors. 

It may seem like a small thing, but I hope in the year to come, all of us might resolve to take someone to a concert, or a gallery, or even to our Easter or Christmas services here at St. John's.  Many of the concerts in our community are free to students and seniors,  and most of us have the means to treat a friend to a concert and dinner.  Our worship services are always free of charge.  I cannot help but believe that the beauty of our lives and our architecture and our music, and of our souls, are all good things.  If we present them with humility and genuine friendship to neighbors made in God the Father's own image, they will come to yearn for his appearing, and will be drawn by the power of the Holy Spirit to join us in the proclamation that Jesus is Lord!  From that glorious and transforming phrase will necessarily flow the transformation of our society into the very image of heaven.
Flaxman's Shield of Achilles 1821 
The Western Artistic Ideal of a purposeful and Harmonious Community
 

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