On Schaeffer's Reading

1. "True Christianity means the lordship of Christ over the total man."
The "total man," I believe, comprises of spirit, soul, and body, the three of which intertwine fluidly and cannot be simply compartmentalized rigidly outlines. Spirit, of course, we know, is ineffable, that which is unspeakable or even representational, so how then can that possibly relate to art, which tends to be humanistic and employs actual medium? We can easily make the connection between soul/body and art, because these are the core of what the artistic work is about; and yet these are precisely what serves as stumbling block to the overtly religious, who cannot reconcile spirit/body and therefore find it also difficult to marry spirit with art. The same overly religious may advocate that all things of the soul are mere psychological meanderings that hold no eternal value, or that the body and its hedonistic craving for pleasures is also nothing more than a stumbling block to true transcendence; thus art, which in the recent years has become more and more secularized, tends to be reprimanded as worthlessly pagan. This, however, is not what the scripture teaches when the prime case of the Lord Jesus becoming wine and bread, concrete artistic symbols, serves as cornerstone of the Christian faith. When we partake of communion, commemorating the very lordship of Christ over us, we mean that his blood and body becomes ours, his desires becomes ours, his very essence becomes integrated with all of humanity. To worship the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength means literally with all of your affections, your intelligence, your artistic eyes, hands, ears, your every physical and mental faculty. That is, to create art, worthy of He who created you.

2. "Man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocence and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, and latter by the arts and sciences." --Francis Bacon
Agree. The pursuit of a degree in liberal arts has always been one of the driving forces of my life. Like Newton, I want to marvel at the gravity of this world under the sway and motions of a law testifying the hand of God. Like Hayden, I want to catch the majesty and order that can be produced from one musical note after another. I believe that an unashamed love for this natural world reflects also an undying love for its creator, sustainer, and caretaker; not only so, but a restoration of the lost mandate to govern over the land through earnest studying, knowing, and integrating of its mysteries.

3. "And upon the skirts of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the skirts thereof." (Exodus 28:33)
These shades of pomegranate move me. And if I may be allowed to speculate, moved God as well. The "unnaturalness" of blue in a pomegranate, the "uncommonness" of purple, and even the "uncanniness" of scarlet must mean that God himself revels in the imagination, in inventiveness, and the celebration of that which is beyond what the eye merely sees. Perhaps as an artist, one ought to see through a different Eye, a divine one, of compassion and grandeur.

4. Regarding the Temple of Solomon having cherubim, palm trees, and flowers in the same bas relief:
I remember reading this passage for the first time in late middle or early high school and being utterly struck by the image of such lush texture and color in the Temple of God. In the eye of my mind, it seemed like paradise. Free, festive, and fragrant. There is also warmth in the air. I wanted to be one of those priests, though I am neither male or Jew, to enter and serve in such a holy place. Our God is not a small one, but GOD, mastermind behind heaven and earth, the one who holds the universe and its stars in the palm of his hand. I believe that he deserves a nice house.

5. Do I expect to see "art" in heaven?
I'm not sure what kind of art it will be, what kind of beings we will be, or even what heaven will be like, exactly.... Vaguely, I think that heaven cannot be contained in our limited imagination, its consistency, whether similar to the air, soil, and water we know in this world, or not. What I do know that, it will be even more "real," or as C.S. Lewis words it in The Great Divorce, "substantial." The art, then, representational or expressive, must also reflect the same upgrade in reality and substantivity. 

On Manuel Luz's "Redemption Through Art"

"We redeem the empty stage with dance and movement."



1/ What is your definition of art? Do you think it is congruent with the idea that God is the Creator, the Artist God?
The first question: that's deep. I believe that art is something intrinsic, something real, inside coming to surface and colliding in contact with the material world. Whether collaborative, as in medieval artists who built the soaring cathedrals--or individual, with expressionists voicing their visions onto canvases, art connects the human soul, the aesthetic eye, the motion of hands all together with concrete medium to deliver that which is true and in such a way that no other thing, logic or science or professionalism, can. And God is indeed the ultimate Artistic One, the most real, indeed The Reality who invades our reality with that which is most true.
                                                        
2/ Think about something you believe is beautiful. Do you believe that beauty is objective (not dependent on what we think or feel) or subjective (in the eye of the beholder)?
Beauty is almost entirely subjective, except we may forget such a thing as collective subjectivity, or in Jungian terms a collective consciousness which comes to consensus in judgment of that which is beautiful, or true, or good. For one, almost everyone admires skill and vision, or we can say, craft and genius. Style preference may vary, but these two remain cornerstones to art universally.

3/ Is beauty important to God? If so, why? Why is beauty important to us?
Often things that seem pointless to us, such as pain (which is also utterly brutal), usually offer no immediate gratification of pragmatic measures. Likewise, "art for art's sake" also seems absolutely ridiculous. Personally, I don't believe in such in a statement. I don't believe that art can escape from fundamentally human and therefore bias and therefore even so harsh as propaganda. I don't, however, believe that art or beauty must be "practical." I'm pretty sure that God didn't have to make the Grand Canyon or bestow lavishing colors on a single butterfly. I think it's out of delight; I think He just had fun. The sheer pleasure of aesthetics and potential inspiration derived is immeasurable. Without it, I don't think I can go on living, let alone the magnificently creative and genius God who must have had very fine taste.

4/ In your own words, express what you think Madeleine L’Engle means when she writes, “To paint a picture or write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity.”
Foremost, reaching into the creativity inherently within a human is akin to tapping into a kind of divinity. The imago dei allows us, in a God-like manner, to find fluidity and discover the rhythms of the this world in refreshing ways unimagined before. To write a story means living and walking and listening among the characters in their distinct world. It is to take part, to commune, with reality.

5/ Think about a story (book, movie, play, etc.)or work of art that moved you. Was it a story or work of redemption?
Many many things have moved me, the most recently being, ironically, a rather sentimental Japanese film of the first love experience. Because of falling in love, the heroine Shizuru, young and with child-like demeanor for her age, determines to mature, to become a woman worthy of Segawa's love. And along with her maturity, also the maturity of the terminal disease inside of her. I don't know if technically that can be called a redemption story. It is actually heavily influenced by Buddhism and the idea of reincarnation, that one connects with another due to special bonding from a previous life, a bonding which will continue as the person returns in the next life in a different form. This bond, or more specifically the love between Shizuru and Segawa, is what, for that moment and time, tied the two together irrevocably. I think it's more like a story of sacrifice and fidelity. Perhaps, what is redeemed is not the individuals but the time they were together....