By now each of us has surely heard of the tragic earthquake that struck the island of Haiti on January 12th. It measured a whopping 7.0 on the Richter scale and has left death, destruction and sheer desperation in its wake. Death toll estimates are ranging from 50,000 people to a few hundred thousand and the number of injured will certainly dwarf that. This would be devastating to even the richest of nations, but the devastation is amplified in what is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Rather than spend time waxing (un)poetic about pacts Haitians made with the devil, it’s imperative that Eikon and other faith groups be part of the solution. There is something that each of us can do.
Most of us are not in a position to physically go to Haiti to offer assistance. If anyone is interested in that, let me (John) know and I’ll track down a contact that can get you set up. For the rest of us, the best thing to do in situations like this is get as much money as possible to good organizations that are supplying life-saving materials and services.
As usual, the American Red Cross is doing an incredible job. They have used new communications and media to make it ridiculously easy to give. Simply text Haiti to 90999 and $10 (which will show up on your next phone bill) will be given to the organization. Maybe it’s not the $1 million that Brad and Angelina gave, but those texts have collectively added up to over $4 million.
Also, Haiti native and incredibly talented musician Wyclef Jean is working tirelessly to raise money and support through his organization Yele. You can give $5 to them by texting 501501.
On a local level, Boulevard Bread is giving 50% of today’s (1/14) profits to Haitian relief and The House restaurant is donating 100% of today’s (1/14) net profit. So, go have a meal and know that the money is going to great food and a great cause. Despite the fact that they aren’t—as self-described—”traditional first responders”, local organization Heifer International has issued an emergency appeal for funds.
There are literally dozens of organizations providing crucial assistance, and many of them have dozens of ways in which you can contribute. The most comprehensive clearinghouse I have found is at the Huffington Post here.
Eikon is sending a donation to Doctors Without Borders, but we also encourage you to find some way to contribute individually. Please share your thoughts about how we as a body can do more. Additionally, if there is a local organization providing relief that you feel strongly about, let us know and we will get the word out.
Finally, let’s keep these beautiful and shattered people in our thoughts and prayers.
over the last couple weeks, many of you have worshipped with us as we’ve engaged in this season called advent. through our modVent gatherings, we’ve eagerly anticipated the coming of the messiah. as we’ve learned, of course, advent simply means coming. during this season, we await the coming of a baby, in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. who is the savior. who is the one sent from god.
advent is about life. it’s about redemption. it’s about hopeful expectation. but advent is also about death. we not only await the coming of the christ child, but we await his death on a cross. we look ahead to the time of jesus’ atoning sacrifice in which he suffered in order to restore the brokenness of all creation. death, indeed, is a part of the cycle of anticipation.
as many of you are aware, i traveled to houston, texas a couple days ago after receiving word that our music leader, rob toon, had taken a serious turn for the worse. most of you know the situation with rob, but let me offer a very brief catch-up for those who are unaware. nearly 2 years ago, rob was diagnosed with leukemia. since that time, he has received treatment both at uams in little rock and now, at md anderson in houston. several months ago, rob underwent a bone marrow transplant and has since been recovering both in and out of the hospital. throughout this time, he has been battling infections and acclimation to life after a life-altering procedure.
so, a couple days ago, stephanie—rob’s wife—contacted me with news that rob’s condition had become seemingly grave and the doctors recommended she come immediately. we’ve now spent the last couple days at the hospital by rob’s side, watching his condition—i’m very glad to say—improve incredibly. at this point, things are still touch and go, but the doctors seem to think things have stabilized.
what has become very real to me in these last couple days is the reality of both life and death. spending time in the waiting room of an ICU in a cancer hospital offers plenty of time to experience that actuality. we are literally surrounded by those experiencing a sense of advent. of waiting.
but we’re keenly aware that this advent is much different than the hopeful expectation that describes our fundamental sense of the christian season of advent.
this waiting is full of fear and uncertainty and pain and stress. this waiting looks toward the reality not of life, but of death.
while we are certainly not expecting death with rob at this point, we are surrounded by many people that we pass in the halls and sit with in the waiting room that certainly do expect death of the ones they love. and it’s in these shared times that one sees the reality and the beauty of life.
the reality is that life means so much. it’s beautiful. and its ugly. and it’s tragic. and it’s wonderful. it means so much.
life is brief. it’s fleeting. it’s to be cherished. and appreciated. and lived to its fullest.
while many christians have this sense that life is just a temporary pitstop to some other eternal home, it’s in these times that you see that the gift of life is god-given and to be cherished. it isn’t to be wasted, waiting on the next life, but lived to its maximum potential. to be lived like it was a precious, precious endowment.
cancer is a ravaging thing that reminds us how beautiful life is. so, as i sit here in the midst of others who wait on death—the advent of loss—let us all remember that life is a wonderful gift from god.
let us love others, giving ourselves as if this life is as fleeting as it actually is.
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as a bit of an epilogue to this post, let me share my thoughts with something other than words. in the preceding days before traveling down to houston, i became obsessed with an album (like i often do with new music discoveries) called hospice by the antlers. the story describes the singers journey of meeting a woman who he loved, finding she had bone cancer and ultimately, ending with the time when she passes away.
in some ways, the album is intensely saddening, but there’s also this glimmer of hope that affirms everything i’ve said above. in spite of the narrator’s grief, there’s a celebration of life that compels him to stay next to the side of the woman he loves. in her pain and agony and withering away, he is drawn to her side. life, indeed, means so much.
in this track, the singer learns of her cancer and the impending reality of her diagnosis. my prayer is that you find the intense power of love and grief and happiness and sadness in this track.
and in the end, my prayer is that you sense—in a roundabout way—this mysterious season of advent.
kettering by the antlers
i wish that i had known in
that first minute we met
the unpayable debt
that i owed you
’cause you’d been abused
by the bone that refused
you and you hired me
to make up for that
and walking in that room
when you had tubes in your arms
those singing morphine alarms
out of tune
they had you sleeping and eating and
and I didn’t believe them
when they called you a hurricane thunder cloud
when i was checking vitals
i suggested a smile
you didn’t talk for a while
you were freezing
you said you hated my tone
it made you feel so alone
so you told me i had to be leaving
but something kept me standing
by that hospital bed
i should have quit but instead
i took care of you
you made me sleep and uneven
and i didn’t believe them
when they told me that there
was no saving you
I don’t know what I believe. That’s kind of a relief, actually, as it’s taken me about seven years to say. Since my fundamentalist upbringing never left a lot of room for doubt, I spent a lot of time bottling up the truth, which was that I no longer knew what capital-T Truth was. Admitting this to myself was difficult enough, but I also found myself faced with a somehow more daunting dilemma: how do I continue to function honestly in the Christian community without people I love rejecting me or—worse—worrying about me? Each time I would come close to exposing the true nature of my (un)belief, I could think only of a time when I had been kept up at night in anguish over a lost soul. What did I do now that that lost soul was me?
My initial solution was not to abandon my challenging but ultimately comfortable beliefs. Instead, I began reading trendy Christian books that pecked at the problem of faith but never really gave me room to doubt. I also tried a couple of newer, less-traditional churches that offered a far cry from the “as together we stand and sing” services of my youth. I was disappointed to find beneath the exciting packaging only the same suffocating space. Throughout this process, I continued trying to keep everyone convinced I wasn’t undergoing a crisis of faith; you may be unsurprised to hear I eventually gave up on the whole thing altogether.
But the whole thing, it turns out, didn’t give up on me. When I didn’t know what else to do, I turned away from institutions and to the only thing that ever consistently made sense to me. That was, and remains, love. The majority of what I’d call worship in the last few years has been simply connecting with other people, namely Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, three men who I’m convinced were wrongfully convicted of murder and who have spent the last 16 years of their lives in prison. The steps that brought me to this case and the relationships I have forged since are nothing if not spiritual.
It seems to me that every act of love, no matter how small, is an act of worship. My current beliefs about spirituality can, I suppose, best be summed up by a fairly blasphemous thought that occurred to me one morning as I was driving home from a night drinking with friends: it was the most worshipful few hours I’d had in a very long time.
It happened that Sunday morning as it often happens to me now. When all is quiet, the sorrows and joys of the day sometimes transform into tiny prayers I didn’t realize I intended to say until they’ve already materialized. I’m still not sure who I’m talking to, but the interconnectedness of all things constantly draws me back to something bigger. And—get this—I actually believe I’ve found a place where I can openly and honestly figure out the rest.
i’m excited to announce the next midrash event—a film night—in which we will be viewing and discussing michael moore’s latest film, capitalism: a love story.
whether you love him or hate, moore keenly understands how to make a movie that demands lengthy discussion and hearty debate. in this movie, moore asks tough questions about our nation’s economic system and also proposes that some people hold capitalism in the same regards, if not higher, than their religion. considering moore’s other movies—sicko, fahrenheit 9/11 and bowling for columbine—this promises to be a very compelling movie.
interestingly, this movie has an even more compelling—theologically speaking—subplot than other moore films. apparently moore delves into matters of religion in the movie, asking whether or not capitalism is a sin. in a recent column on the huffington post, moore writes directly to “those of you on your way to church this morning”, saying,
I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what’s left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother’s and sister’s keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you’d have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.
so, this is sure to be a good conversation that should warrant insights into both theology and politics. here’s a few quick details.
we’ll gather at market street cinema this wednesday, october 7 where the movie starts at 7 p.m. (of course, you’ll want to get there a few minutes early to grab a cold beverage). it lasts a little over 2 hours and at its conclusion, we’ll head over a couple blocks to java roasting company to discuss what we’ve seen.
this should be a movie fit perfectly for a midrash film night, so don’t miss it! and invite a friend! see you there.
last week, billy corgan—of smashing pumpkins fame—launched a new website, everything from here to there. in his first post, corgan expresses the purpose of the site, stating,
The purpose of this website is to discuss openly and without fear concepts of Mind-Body-Soul integration. If you are drawn to the Hidden Truths, drawn to God as something beyond limitation, and drawn to Love as the greatest force in the Universe, then you have come to the right place at the right time. This is a place of Love.
in essence, corgan has started a spiritual website that offers a safe and honest place to explore concepts of spirituality and the idea of something more. while it’s very clear that the site isn’t an overtly christian stream of thought (corgan states, “we promote no religion, and if we speak of any belief or faith system it won’t be at the expense of another”), certainly corgan is expressing themes that help to inform a broader conversation regarding religion, spirituality and ulitmately, jesus. he states,
There is God, and then there are gods, idols along the way that may convince us that the One God can be replaced by a lesser thought. To me, when I say One God, I mean One Truth, One Love, One Destination.
for billy corgan, though, these aren’t new themes. over the last 10 years or so, fans have increasingly become attune to corgan’s themes of faith and spirituality. what many are surprised by, though, is that corgan’s writing has shown his ups and downs with god ever since the beginning of the smashing pumpkins.
in 1991, the smashing pumpkins released their critically acclaimed debut album, gish. on the opening track, i am one (listen here), and in the opening line, it’s clear that corgan is someone thinking through his relationship to and with god, singing,
I am one as you are three
Trying to find a messiah in your trinity
corgan’s search for something more turned more and more into what sounded like angst and despair several years later at the release of their epic 2-disc set, mellon collie and the infinite sadness. one of the storylines that came from this album and still lingers today is that corgan’s anger and isolation was directed toward god, leading him to a place of hopelessness. while certainly there was plenty of cathartic raging aimed upward, corgan expresses that it wasn’t as dark as it might seem on the surface. in an interview with paste magazine, corgan adds some persepective to his state-of-mind during the writing of mellon collie:
It wasn’t a demonstrable need to say, ‘I’m so miserable, look at me.’ It was, ‘look at me, I’m miserable, but I’m trying to figure out a way to get out of the hole.’ That, even in and of itself, has a positivity to it because it’s hopeful, it’s not death, it isn’t nihilism. There’s actually a light at the end of the tunnel.
i don’t want to overstate corgan’s intentions, but his lyrics throughout the album sound like some of the great lamentations throughout scripture: the desperation of the songs of david or the distressed weeping of job when his world collapses or the angered cries of hosea when the bride he bought turns her back on him.
in zero, one of the breakout tracks from that album, corgan famously screams,
emptiness is loneliness
and loneliness is cleanliness
and cleanliness is godliness
and god is empty just like me
in an interview years after penning the track, corgan clarified his feelings about god as expressed in the song. he asserted that instead of the song suggesting he thinks god is not present, he means, rather, that god experiences deep loneliness much like he perceived himself to be experiencing.
continuing after mellon collie and the pumpkins’ declaration that “god is empty,” corgan only amplified his themes of faith, but making them even more overt. with the collapse of the pumpkins in the early 2000s, corgan formed the one-album wonder, zwan. on their lone 2003 album, corgan chose to include an interpretation of a gospel standard, jesus, i my cross have taken (you can hear the traditional version here and read the lyrics here). what strikes me most about this track selection is the directness of the lyrics and the fact that it takes a lot of guts to record a song like this. not only do you have to have some well of knowledge to even know this song, but you have to be willing to make an overt statement of spirituality. here’s corgan and zwan’s interpretation.
so, did billy corgan find jesus? in the aforementioned paste interview, he answers the question, saying,
No, I didn’t find Jesus. He’s been there the whole time.
no doubt, this statement is much a deeper and richer theology than a lot of christian music or christian musicians bring to the conversation.
now, to be clear, corgan has fairly definitively stated several times that he doesn’t call himself a christian, but it’s worth saying that it doesn’t diminish the truth of his words and music.
again, to be clear, it’s also worth stating that there are certainly things that corgan has presented thus far on his new website that aren’t intrinsically jesus-centered, but that’s almost the point.
one of the values that we hold very near and dear at eikon is to say that truth is everywhere. to borrow a phrase from rob bell, truth is “under every nook and cranny.” billy corgan doesn’t blatantly utter the name of jesus on his new website. he doesn’t speak in ways that evoke a strict parallel with the language of scripture. he doesn’t express a linear depiction of the arc of judeo-christian narrative.
but what he does do, though, is broaden the conversation in which all people are welcome. he helps those who follow in the way of jesus see that there’s many ways of expressing faith and truth and god. it isn’t overtly christian, but it is overtly christ-like in nature.
when corgan describes god as “One Truth, One Love, One Destination,” i think that is deeply christ-like, but is certainly spoken in a much broader set of idioms than how we may instinctively speak as people pursuing life like jesus. if there is, indeed, only one god, then corgan, in his own manner of communicating, is speaking our this god.
beginning this week, corgan plans to open the site up to others as contributors and collaborators and he says he is working on a spiritual memoir that shares the site’s name. so, we’ll be hearing more from corgan. it’s hard to say exactly where’s he headed, but it’s something worth following and engaging as he continues to smash assumptions and talk god.
You’ve heard the story
You know how it goes
Once upon a garden
We were lovers with no clothes
Fresh from the soil
We were beautiful and true
In control of our emotions
‘Til we ate the poison fruit
so opens david bazan’s—formerly of pedro the lion fame—debut lp, curse your branches. bazan sets the stage with the opening lines from the opening track, hard to be—a song about original sin and the supposed spiraling implications. ultimately, bazan reveals that he’s someone who is walking away from faith, disbelievingly singing,
Wait just a minute
You expect me to believe
That all this misbehaving
Grew from one enchanted tree?
And helpless to fight it
We should all be satisfied
With this magical explanation
For why the living die
throughout the entirety of curse your branches, bazan lays forth his dissertation of what led him—as a recent chicago reader headline proclaimed—to break up with god. in when we fell, bazan’s argument is most clear, asking a number of questions:
What am I afraid of?
Who did I betray?
In what medieval kingdom does justice work that way?
If you knew what would happen
And you made us just the same
Then you my Lord can take the blame
When you set the table
When you chose the scale
Did you write a riddle that you knew they would fail
Did you make them tremble
So they would tell the tale
Did you push us when we fell?
certainly, bazan asks some pointed questions that are, no doubt, shared by an ever-growing number of people.
we at eikon are asking the same questions.
undoubtedly, our questions may be framed in a very different way, but we’re certainly asking the questions, not in fear of destroying faith, but in hopes of making it more fully realized. often the pain of struggling with the difficult questions is the thing that refines and shapes our sense of connection to christ. bazan’s long-time friend, cultural critic and progressive christian author (of the highly recommended the sacredness of questioning everything) david dark sees the need for expanding the christian conversation. of bazan’s latest effort, dark states, “i think with curse your branches david expands the space of the talk-about-able.” we hope eikon—in an attempt to expand the space of the talk-about-able—offers an ongoing opportunity to critique the church and the story of god in a way that builds both the collective community of faith and individuals’ faith itself.
i believe bazan would agree. although, certainly, he isn’t out evangelizing about the positive aspects of the church, he isn’t necessarily on a mission to tear down the church or to ask people to blindly walk away from their faith. he asserts, like in when we fell, that, much like his parents taught him, they should follow their hearts. he sings,
If my mother cries when I tell her what I discovered
Then I hope she remembers she taught me to follow my heart
And if you bully her like you done me with fear of damnation
Then I hope she can see you
for what you are
bazan—after much thought and personal soul-searching—has come to the conclusion that the “million small holes”—as he sings in harmless sparks—in his faith have given way to almost-full disconnect. it isn’t a spontaneous divorce. while listening to curse your branches, it’s helpful and important to remember that bazan isn’t some church newbie who’s spewing venom towards a system he barely understands. bazan grew up in an assembly of god church where his father was the music minister. in fact, in a recent interview at emusic, bazan affirms his very positive experiences in the church, stating,
You know, I really liked it. That’s one of the things about it — people often think, “Oh, you just had a bad experience with church.” But that’s not really the case — my experience with church was pretty positive. I was very serious about my faith. And for me, that meant a lot of thinking outside of the box. Because I knew other people who were “serious about their faith,” and they were total dickheads. People who were really zealous just seemed to get it way wrong. They were really keen on, like, everybody going to Promise Keepers. And that seemed to me to not be what the deal was. So I led songs in Youth Group, I did that in college as well. Church was such a social thing, and I loved that. I read the Bible a lot, and took it at face value and tried to see what it could mean.
the root of what i see in bazan’s music isn’t that he rejects the concept of god, but it’s that he rejects a specific notion of god. quite frankly, it’s this pervasive notion of god in that we hope to be an alternative. bazan clarifies the acknowledgement of that notion in the aforementioned emusic interview, stating,
When I wrote “When We Fell” and when I wrote “In Stitches,” I’m singing to the Christian character of “God,” which was my only view of God for a long time. And then there came a certain point where I started to realize, “Oh, wait, I’m just dethroning a notion of God — it’s not necessarily the same thing.” And so maybe there’s this other God, a real God, that doesn’t have those characteristics. And I do make an attempt to cultivate a relationship with that being on the days I’m comfortable thinking that he might exist.
it seems to me that bazan hasn’t engaged in full disconnect from living in the way of jesus. it’s just that he’s much more interested in asking questions that uncover truth rather than uncritically believing what has been presented in conjunction with our american church culture sensibilities.
david bazan is a brother and a friend and he represents the community of people for which this thing called eikon exists. much like many others asking questions, it seems that bazan hasn’t given up and he hasn’t broken up with god, but that he’s searching for some semblance of a god who seems true and real. in his final closing statement, in stitches bazan sings,
I might as well admit it
Like I even have a choice
The crew have killed the captain
But they still can hear his voice
A shadow on the water
A whisper in the wind
On long walks with my daughter
Who is lately full of questions about you
About You
About You
as the title suggests, we have a couple very exciting announcements to make. the first one is that we have a new leader on board at eikon, derek blaylock. derek will be leading the second half of this announcement—which i’ll let him do below—called midrash. we’re super-excited to have derek on board. he’s a great guy who i know you guys will want to get to know more.
when derek isn’t rambling about politics and theology, you can find him enjoying a good cigar and a hoppy pale ale or obsessing over some tiny school in the midwest called kansas (or maybe it’s mizzou…we can’t remember…). his blog, dialogo de derek, is a great way to find out a little more about him (not to mention a good place to find a good cigar or beer recommendation). if you want to know even more about him, you can check him out on our leaders page.)
alright, enough from me. here’s derek.
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Midrash is a Hebrew word that—when roughly translated—means “commentary.” We’ve taken the word Midrash as the title for our group and created an avenue for people from all walks of life to get together and discuss pertinent topics that impact our lives, our culture, our city, our state, our nation and our world.
THE WHY & WHAT OF MIDRASH
With Midrash—and Eikon—we value engaging culture to show that God’s truth is evident everywhere. The main crux of the issue is that we realize the Bible isn’t an authority for everyone and as such, we want to be involved in different happenings that show how God’s truth intersects everyday life. As a community of Jesus followers, we need to find ways to engage culture in a compelling manner and meet people where they are both spiritually and socially.
Art—of all forms—is a major influencer in our culture, so we base a lot of our gatherings around different art forms. But, we don’t envision a bunch of high-brow art critics standing around sipping dry martinis. :) We’re very ordinary people who enjoy fun and lively discussions about all sorts of topics (and you can even choose your own beverage…).
We host various types of gatherings including the following: coffee shop discussions, film nights, art gallery viewings and the occasional large panel forum. The main types of gatherings, though, are large group discussions in which we throw out a culturally relevant topic and allow for open conversation, facilitated by a moderator. Topics in the past have ranged from violence in the U.S. to animal rights to racism in Little Rock. Our discussions are held at local restaurants, coffee shops or bars—places that are able to accommodate group discussions.
No doubt, people want to talk about the topics we discuss, but just haven’t had the opportunity. We want to provide that opportunity! Our group is open to all kinds of people: religious, irreligious, atheists, nihilists, spiritual, and non-spiritual…everybody.
Does all this sound familiar? Midrash isn’t, in fact, new to Little Rock. You may know that we took a bit of an extended break over the last fews months. We’re excited to say that Eikon is now sponsoring Midrash, as we think Midrash and Eikon make a perfect marriage. The core principles of Midrash are the same ones that guide the Eikon community. So, we’re now refocused and excited to get things going again!
THE WHERE & WHEN OF MIDRASH
We’ll return with a coffee shop discussion on Wednesday, September 9 at The House (in Hillcrest)(check their website for address and subsequent directions) from 7:30 p.m. – 8:30ish p.m.(NOTE: Midrash gatherings will change locations and times from month to month.)
We’ll be discussing the role of social media in our lives, spawning from the book, “Bowling Alone” by Robert D. Putnam. (NOTE: By all means, reading the book has no bearing on your level of participation. It certainly is not a prerequisite for attending and engaging in the conversation. It’s simply a jumping point for a broader conversation.) By plugging into our computers and phones, are we unplugging from each other? Is our social capital as a nation declining or improving as a result of these technological innovations? Is it just a passing fad or is it a step towards our society becoming more reclusive?
Midrash is a welcome place for respectful discussions and we hope you’ll come out, grab a brew, share your view and lend an ear to others’.
(Not only do we just enjoy the social and personal growth aspect of Midrash, but we also think there’s a Biblical connection. Check out the following passages of Scripture: Acts 17: 16-34, Matthew 6: 10, II Corinthians 3: 16-18, Genesis 1: 26-28. These verses speak of God’s calling for us to redeem creation through him.)
we’ve explored the intersection of faith and culture here before, specifically in the realm of the arts. this time, though, i’d like to begin by posing a question:
must/should art be accurate?
must art be “correct”? must it be definitional in nature? must it be factual?
i came across a group called B.A.S.I.C. (brothers and sisters in christ) who are based in ireland. whereas i’ve yet to learn a lot about this group, i certainly connected with their “who we are” statement, proclaiming,
BASIC, founded in 1993, is an Irish-based network of women and men (lay, religious, priests) who feel called to play an active part in building up a Church Community which is freed from the sin of sexism and healed from the divisions between men and women.
BASIC believes in a Church which affirms, proclaims, lives out and makes visible sacramentally God’s creation of women and men as equal partners and the Good News of their reconciliation and unity in Christ.
great stuff (which are certainly values that are shared at eikon). what often strikes me about groups/ministries who are committed to fostering biblical gender equality is that a thorough review of jesus’ life and teachings paired with ancient hebraic history is necessary. what then flowed from this quest was a survey of related common cultural misunderstandings. one they identified is that, often, leonardo’s the last supper is often used as ammunition against their cause, with people stating, “well, there were no women present at the last supper!”
BASIC, as a part of their journey in affirming and advocating gender equality, decided to use art as a mode of educating. they discovered that leonardo’s depiction was far from accurate, omitting the following:
women, yet the Passover had to be eaten by whole families including women
children, yet the laws of Passover require children to ask questions so that they can learn the meaning of the Passover meal from their parents
the disciples who prepared the meal during the day
so, BASIC commissioned a new version of the last supper by polish artist bohdan piasecki in which the last supper was depicted in a distinctly jewish context (supposedly biblically accurate). here’s what piasecki created (unfortunately this is the best quality i could find online):
in this, you’ll find everything that was “missing” in leonardo’s depiction: women, children, distinctly jewish surroundings, the “correct” passover food, etc.
while i certainly find this depiction to be amazing in its accuracy and i truly appreciate the educational aspect of this piece of art, it doesn’t lead me to leave completely leave behind leonardo’s version.
first, leonardo’s piece, of course, is amazing. there’s something to be said for good art. while that’s a whole separate conversation in itself, good art trumps “true”-but-bad art—art, music, writing, film, whatever—any day. i’m certainly not suggesting that piasecki’s piece is “bad” by any means (in fact i very much like it), but i simply throw this idea out there because it’s worth mentioning.
more to the point, i think art is primarily representational of much more than “just the facts, ma’am.” art is feeling. it’s emotion. it’s one’s experiences. it’s a point-of-view. it’s contextual. it’s changing.
leonardo’s piece isn’t “accurate” but it tells us something about who leonardo was, the setting in which he created the piece and the culture in which he lived. leonardo’s piece has survived not only because of the information it gives us, but because of the work itself.
last year, the ever-controversial photographer david lachapelle created a collection called jesus is my homeboy in which he represented the life of jesus in the context of very modern scenarios. in this collection, among many other scenes, lachapelle offered his own take on the last supper:
of the three depictions, obviously, lachapelle’s version is the least “accurate” in the literal sense of the word. clearly, lachapelle wasn’t trying to be accurate.
what lachapelle did do, though, was create an evocative and stirring depiction of the last supper that is, quite frankly, my favorite of the three.
i love the diversity (in spite of only males being represented) and a sense of the sordid company that jesus often kept. there’s also a sense of exploration that engages the viewer. i want to look at this depiction over and over and each time i could find something new. it’s also something that evokes a different story based on what mood you are in when you approach the piece. i can see excitement or confusion or mystery or curiosity or claustrophobia or suspicion or scandal or social engagement. it certainly isn’t accurate, but it makes it no less “true.”
so, ultimately, my answer is “no.” art doesn’t have to be accurate. art evokes something much more truthful than the truth. it presents a reality deeper than reality. accuracy doesn’t make or break a piece of art.
so, must/should art be accurate? what do you think?
one of the ways i often describe the shaping of eikon is “organic.” by this, i mean natural growth. growth that isn’t forced or contrived. it’s growth that allows things to grow in ways that aren’t foreign to their environment.
to flesh this out a little more in real life terms, i view organic growth as non-”gimmick” growth. while we certainly plan on using various streams of branding and marketing, we don’t want to turn to gimmicks that misrepresent the church and mislead people. i also use organic to work alongside the idea of being incarnational. in other words, jesus lived with the people he reached, looked like the people he reached, ate with the people he reached and engaged in the culture of the people he reached. of course, all this is in the context of being organic and natural—not in some contrived way. we don’t want to force our way into some kind of foreign culture, but rather, we hope to assimilate in an organic way. additionally, i use the term organic to move away from the idea of program/attraction-driven models that solely rely on big events and impressive displays to attract people. again, we certainly hope to create spaces that draw people in and create opportunities for people to meet and interact, but we want to do this in the context of relationships and generative friendships. there are many, many more ways to define my use of the word organic, but these are a few that help to illustrate the point.
sometimes the word organic is misused or misunderstood by some people to mean “fly by night” or “whatever happens happens” or some other similar derivative. in fact, growing an organic community is a very strategic and thoughtful process that requires a significant amount of work and commitment. julie clawson, self-described “mom, writer, activist, dreamer”, on her blog, one hand clapping, spent a little time thinking about this very issue of organic community. in talking about her and her daughter tending to their organic garden at their home, she stumbles upon some great analogies about growing an organic community. she writes:
…I am spending more and more time pulling the weeds that choke out the life of the food and attempting to do something about the bugs that are eating my food. I don’t want to dump toxins onto the land, but I really don’t want to be sharing my swiss chard with the critters either. So I’m experimenting with organic pesticides. Yesterday I made up a batch that was pretty much a mixture of pureed garlic and habanero peppers. I could barely stand being in the kitchen with the stuff my eyes stung so bad, so I hope the bugs have the same aversion to it. We shall see.
All that to say, organic gardening is work. Growing my own food and doing so in sustainable ways that doesn’t harm the environment or my kids takes works. It reminded me of…how all too often we speak of organic leadership or organization as if it is this nebulous unstructured thing. People who despise brands or hierarchy will suggest organic systems instead. But…organic gardening is hard - it takes a lot of deliberate effort. No organic gardener is going to go in without a plan, without knowing when to plant. They aren’t going to let pests or weeds take over the garden if they care about actually producing food. It’s just that as they go about their work they do so in loving, careful, and considerate fashion without imposing unnatural elements onto the garden. Understanding that work…really helps me understand more the spiritual metaphor of what an organic community should be like.
i think she presents a beautiful metaphor. while i’m not a gardener, i can really appreciate this palpable analogy that really expresses the care and love needed to grow organically. to produce something as natural as possible, it takes diligence and care and an informed plan. we hope to be a similar kind of gardener—as julie describes—at eikon.
one of the beautiful pieces of julie’s story is that she tends to the garden in community. specifically, she and her daughter oversee the garden. we hope to do the same at eikon. i (ryan) don’t want to reign over eikon as some kind of dictatorial gardener, but someone who cares for the growth alongside others. we don’t want to build needless hierarchies or divisive systems, but rather hope to come alongside people as co-laborers and co-sojourners. certainly, we’ll have leaders (which i’ll begin to talk about very soon), but we hope to build the leadership team (as we’ve already been doing for quite some time) in an equally organic way. so, we want you to begin to think about whether or not you think you have a part in this thing called eikon. as we grow organically, we need people to partner with us to help in the work of gardening.
last week, i wrote about the beautiful and often messy intersection of faith and culture regarding christ thile and the punch brothers. specifically, i looked at thile’s faith journey shown in the trajectory of his lyrics.
here, i want to shift to another art form in which we find someone expressing their journey with christ in a beautifully creative and fresh way. barton damer is a motion graphics and print designer based in dallas, tx. he’s the creative director at rt creative group which is responsible for such things as collide magazine, igniter media and echo conference. he blogs at www.alreadybeenchewed.net and you can also finding him hanging with his 3 children or skateboarding.
also, of course, you can find him producing some really amazing art that creates a pattern for the interplay between christ and art.
damer specializes in seemlessly blending the worlds of motion graphics and printed art. most of the time, it’s difficult to differientiate between one of his 2-d pieces and a motion still. his ability to create a sense of movement and fluidity in a flat piece is incredible.
what’s most incredible, though, is the way in which damer creates work that points back to a Creator without being explicitly “christian.” now, damer—particularly with his work at igniter media—certainly does quite a bit of motion and graphics work that is made to be used in worship settings or in the context of the church, but the distinction is that it never feels cheap or reverts to the most mindless form of art (think thomas kinkade). rather, he creates beautiful and moving pieces of art that engage people and elicits response.
i think that’s the kind of art christ followers should be creating. art that comes from a christ perspective doesn’t have to cheapen itself by settling for the most literal interpretation or merely slapping the word “christian” in front of it. damer is able to convey beauty and depth even on something like a line of skateboard decks (which you see an example of below). it isn’t like you suddenly look at one of his skateboards or t-shirts and say, “ooh, i think i want to accept jesus”, but what it does is engage people with beauty and truth that expresses the nature of humans as created by the most gifted Creator.
so, here’s to art that’s goal is to move and engage people not in a one-sighted and cheapened way, but to show the beauty and work that’s god’s doing in the world
here’s a few more examples of his work. to check out everthing, go to www.bartondamer.com.
