A voice says, “Call out.”
Then he answered, “What shall I call out?”

“All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. 

The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”

Continuing my interest in the art of dying, these giving tins were developed as another contemplation of our mortality, the shortness and frailty of our lives.

The theme and text are taken from Isaiah. The tins consist of obituaries and grass from a cemetery, viewed through a headstone shaped hole. 

Again, my interest is not a teenage morbid fixation on death (well I hope not at least) but rather exploring new expressions of memento mori.

Jer 42:10-16, Gal 3:13

It may seem incredible that the remnant in Judah would attempt to find shelter, safety and provision outside of God’s will, but our fear and unbelief that leads us to doubt the goodness and kindness of God towards us, will also blind us to the insanity of running to the waste places in our own lives that God has previously delivered us from.

The people of Judah had just recently experienced the devastation of their land, the exiling of their own leaders to Babylon and the occupation of their land by the Babylonians.  Fearing the wrath of the king, they were looking to relocate to Egypt to avoid further trouble.  Jeremiah, at their request, brings them this promise.

If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you. Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him, declares the LORD, for I am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand.

But if you are going to say, ‘We will not stay in this land,’ so as not to listen to the voice of the LORD your God, saying, ‘No, but we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there’; then in that case listen to the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, If you really set your mind to enter Egypt and go in to reside there, then the sword, which you are afraid of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die there.

Jeremiah goes on to prophesy about the different nations around Israel that God will judge for their corrupt societies, snapshots of destruction.  The picture is clear that outside of living in God’s will, there is no safe place.  Sin offers no shelter or covering, and we cannot hide from the curse on sin.  We can only find shelter in the one who bore the curse for us, Christ, who “having become a curse for us–for it is written, ‘cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,’” has provided us the only shelter from our own destructive habits and God’s judgment on sin.

I am still amazed by the old watches I got this summer, and as I have been researching a couple projects about the art of dying  I have seen the image of the hour glass with skulls, reminders that our “days are numbered.”  Making the most of the time we have is the theme, from the ancient Romans who gave us tempus fugit to the medieval focus on morality and preparation for death.  However you choose to think about your mortality and spend your life, the fact remains that time moves on and you can’t get it back.

I find the image striking either way and just enjoy looking at them.  Hope you enjoy.

As I read and re-read Isaiah 53 I was struck by the incredible foretelling and picture of the suffering Christ would endure. I thought of Peter looking back at the glorious salvation provided by the sufferings of the Cross, on back to the Old Testament prophets who foretold it.

“As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.”

I was amazed that by the grace of God, it is apparent to us today, though the sufferings of the Deliverer and Redeemer of Israel, the Messiah, were not understood to even the prophets who so accurately foretold of Him.

Though they had the entire sacrificial system and the theology of the sin offering for our transgressions, they would not have guessed at the plan God had to faithfully and finally buy Israel back from her sins and to open it up to us Gentiles, who have been included in that blessing of Israel. 

And I saw my many responses, my anger and sin towards God, my silence before His great plan and initiation of this salvation and my great joy at His grace that I should be shown mercy.

The piece depicts the violence done to the Servant, the scourging He bore for our benefit and the piercing for our transgressions. It is composed of layers of pages Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 and 1 Pet 1, between pages of papyrus, writing materials used by the ancients and finished with a piece of parchment made from animal skin, all signifying the Word made flesh and the sacrificial offering of Christ.

 Like a broken record, the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastics repeats the phrase “under the sun” over and over as he contemplates the human condition.  His earthly perspective and questions and experiential basis for answering predates and anticipates the Greek philosophical tradition by almost 500 years.  Here is a man seeking to understand life below a heavenly perspective and seek what is the best way we should live…and the answer is in recognition that we will die. 

Rich, poor, wise, foolish, sinner and saint, we will all die.

Just as in Plato’s dialogues, where Socrates stated that philosophy is about preparing to die, learning how to live in light of our own mortality, the Preacher calls us to consider how we should live.

However in the midst of this grim perspective, in the context of God’s wisdom we see what our great blessing is during all the days of our lives.  Ecc 9:7-9 stands out to me, “Eat..with happiness, drink…with a cheerful heart.  God has already approved your works…Enjoy life with the woman you love all the days of your fleeting life…”

Morality has been the aim of the art of Memento Mori in art history (Latin for “Remember you will die”), to encourage people in light of their mortality.  And as I reflected on the theme in Ecclesiastics I was stirred to also remember that we are not able to save ourselves through our own morality, that God remembered us, and sent Jesus to live the life of righteousness we couldn’t, and conquer death after conquering sin.

And so the piece departs from the traditional imagery of mortality, fading flowers and time flying and ends with contemplating Christ’s own death, His burial and His triumph over death.

Saw a great exhibit today at 21c Museum, work of a wife and husband team, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, that explore the 2D and 3D depiction of images and the presence of media in our lives.  Amazing pieces.

Get more on the exhibit at 21c’s site.

I hope to write a reflection (not review, I am not knowledgable enough to comment with authority on their work!) later this week.

Organizing the box of treasured old watches and watch parts I was amazed at the intricacy, design and amazingly small scale.  A couple hours spent sorting through them and seeing more and more possibilities for art projects, jewelry, photographs, etc. But I kept coming back to how beautiful the little timepieces were all by themselves. 

In such a compact space, there are such small and delicate parts that fit and work together, with precision, with a measured accuracy.  There are screws, gears, and springs, of all different sizes.  And the composition encased in metal.  Dials and small hands, all of which create a larger beauty when put together than they could as interesting little pieces all by themselves.

I wondered about the individual who had collected all these pieces to work on, wrapping individual watches in little pieces of thin paper and labeling little plastic bins of higher end watches.  I wondered at the mind that would use thin pieces of paper and old cat food cans as their sorting system. 

But even if this treasure trove came from a collector, someone made them, engineered them and constructed them, and I marveled.  I still do.

There was a sense of the beauty of these pieces of art and also of the mind and personality of the creator behind them.

I realized that the single cell, a single atom, DNA, were far smaller, more complex and too, pointed to the mind and personality of a designer.

Teachers in both the Old and New Testaments pointed to created things to impart some truth.  Consider the ant…Consider the birds…Consider the lilies…

Often time the created order also was a pointed reminder of the care shown by the Creator for his creation.

Sometimes, awe in the face of creation, at even being noticed in such a grand piece of art

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
              The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,
                And the son of man that You care for him?

Creation of things of beauty can often remind us to consider the creator.  That’s what happens every time I look at these little works of art, and then too I am reminded to consider the Creator.

I share this little treasure with you and pray it may be a silent witness to the existence of a Creator, who has drawn near to your life, closer than you may know.

­As I considered how to share these little gems I thought it best to let them just be a little picture themselves, and not try to add too much visually to their intricate and delicate beauty.  They are encased in small watchmaker tins, the actual storage bin less frugal watchmakers and watch repairmen would use to sort out watches and parts.  The images on the sides are from the above mentioned examples in the scriptures, the ant, the birds and the lilies.

Does art have the power to change us? 

Art can confront us with bold images, subtle visual puns, shocking or mundane images, new forms and old concepts revisited, often turned on their head.

But can it change us?  Can my contemplation of a work of art, because of the nature of that art, bring change in me?  Greater still, can a group of people be encountered with the power of art and find new perspectives that endure?

The same could be asked of song lyrics, pieces of music, plays, films, dance, and all forms of creativity. 

The best I can come up with is “No.”

But a thing a beauty, a visual pun, a symbol, the creative act expressed or shared as an act of kindness might create a space in time and place where we are open to God’s kindness, love and word which do bring change that endure.

I came across this idea reading Michael Card’s book, Scribbling in the Sand, and it was lost upon me.  I was reading the book, mining out the link between art and faith in general, and the powerful lesson in the first chapter didn’t resonate with me until this last week as I pondered anew the question about the role and nature of art bringing change.

Artisans creating place

Artisans called by name, constructed the tent of meeting in the book of Exodus and in their obedience and creativity they created a place where God intended to meet with His people.  It was a place consecrated, set apart.  A place of refuge, a place of contemplation, a place of renewal. 

It was a place, made through the creative activity of artisans, where God was manifest and could be encountered.  He commanded the place to be built, to His specifications and He intended to dwell there, to encounter people there.

The same is true of the tent King David set up to worship God with music before the Ark of the Covenant.  Also the Temple, built later under Solomon was a beautifully and extravagantly created place where God intended to draw near.

The Artisan creates space.

The religious leaders of the Temple had brought a woman “caught in the very act of adultery” to Jesus to try to trap Him.  Moses commanded such to be stoned by the community.  Would Jesus set Himself above Moses?  Would He defy the occupying Roman law that forbade death by stoning?

Jesus “stooped down” and with His finger wrote in the sand.  The religious leaders demanded a response, so Jesus stands and answers “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” And then he stooped back down to write in the sand.  One by one, the accusers all left, until it was only the woman there, and Jesus, creating something in the sand.

When He stood up and saw no one there, He asked if no one had condemned her, and when no one did, He said He also did not condemn her and charged her to go and sin no more.

In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus through creative activity, scribbling in the sand, created a space. 

A space between the accused woman and her accusers. 

A space between the accusers and Jesus. 

But most importantly a space where God’s wisdom, God’s holiness and God’s kindness could be encountered. 

His creative act also, paradoxically, created tension, an angry religious crowd awaited, demanding an answer, He answered and went back to the sand and in that space God’s wisdom and mercy and truth prevailed.

Our only hope and our challenge.

Then for any who would express themselves creatively, there is the realization that our art can’t bring change, that our art isn’t the source for change.  But also there is the challenge to create beautifully, intelligently, with such passion, such deliberation, such obedience that we may create a space, a physical space or a pause in time, in which God can draw us and draw near to us.