A thought occurred to me the other day (as happens occassionally) that there are some writers/artists who are deemed to have drained the well of inspiration dry because they have not published anything recently. Some artists will claim that this is true – that they have run out of steam and ideas and need a break or a complete change. Stephen King is an example of a writer who has claimed that he had run out of ideas and that From A Buick 8 would be his last book – the recent publication of Cell would seem to challenge this however.

 

Anyhow – I find it difficult to believe that an artist/writer ever stops being what they are. My position is that a writer always writes – if not on paper – they are constantly creating vignettes in their head as they move through life. The stage is always being set, the characters are always being fleshed out and little plots are always being indulged to one degree or another.

 

It seems to me the idea of an artist drying up is a trap laid by either culture, the artist or both. The trap is that culture and/or the artist begin to define art by how it is consumed. If it is liked by a certain number of people or a certain kind of person than it is art. When people stop enjoying my creations I am no longer successful and have been deemed or deem myself to have "dried up" – the muse has fled.

 

I believe that art, first and foremost is a very personal thing ultimately created by the artist for the artist. That others would connect with it is something of a bonus to the artist. There are certain universal themes that artists tap into but this is not what determines the attractiveness of the art to the outsider. Rather it is how well the artist connects with their culture’s understanding of the universal theme at that moment in time.

 

Inevitably then, if the above is true, an artist who desires to make a living from their art must inevitably compromise the art to ensure its "marketability" to someone. Of course the artist does not live in a vacuum but in culture and is informed by culture so their art will be as well – this means that periodically the popularity of the average artist’s art will wax and wan as culture’s influence on their lives waxes and wans.

 

It seems to me the most lasting and critically acclaimed (ironically) art has been that art which in some sense eschews the culture it was born in and seeks out and speaks directly of the universal theme. Still – I am not aware of any art that has completely shed the cloak of culture – such art would be completely incomprehensible and would be the universal itself.

 

In that sense than God is the only pure art. Everything else is a good or bad attempt to explain God. This might explain the attractiveness of Christ over the past 2,000 years. He being the only perfect (God) representation of God in a culturally relevant form (human).

 

Christ is God, the perfect poem dedicated to Humanity.

 

P.S. Now I understand why I like the first line of The Gospel According to John:

 

The following is a prayer St. Patrick is credited with writing and praying every morning:

 

The BREASTPLATE of Saint Patrick

I bind myself today, –
To the power of God to guide me,
The might of God to uphold me,
The wisdom of God to teach me,
The eye of God to watch over me,
The ear of God to bear me,
The Word of God to speak for me,
The hand of God to protect me,
The way of God to lie before me,
The shield of God to shelter me,
The host of God to defend me

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me,
Christ in the eye of every man that sees me,
Christ in the ear of every man who hears me –

Salvation is the Lord’s,
Salvation is the Lord’s,
Salvation is Christ’s,
Let thy salvation, 0 Lord, be ever with us.

 

We took the kids skiing today and had a blast. It was an eventful day at Frost Fire ski hill in North Dakota. We went with our Senior Pastor’s wife Ruth and their kids Nathan and Larissa. Matthew, Caleb, Nathan and Larissa spent the better part of the day taking snowboarding lessons (which they loved). They picked it up pretty fast.

I have not been skiing in 17 years but it came back like it was yesterday – what a great time. I forgot how much I enjoyed it. I have absolutely no caution at all on the hills – its all about speed and risk…I hit every run (I will regret it tomorrow).

Itsy managed to get her tube pointed in the wrong direction and promptly sped into the parking lot right into the back of a car where she ended up with a bloody nose and a loose tooth. She wasn’t too keen on tubing after that (than she wanted to ski).

Mu Jin (our Korean exchange student) and I spent most of the day together – he boarded and I skiied.

From a Biblical perspective this works quite well – we are clearly called to battle evil but at the same time told that only Christ in the end will eradicate it finally. This can be a difficult thing to understand – that we are to fight something we have no power to overcome on our own – however that is not the point…the point is when we see injustice we are called to fight it because it is wrong…not because we can beat it.

Hey – I actually removed the old counter and sink from our upstairs bathroom and put in new ones. This may not be a big deal to you Mr. Fix Its out there but it’s cool for me.

 

 

I am sad today.

 

My heart is like a soft earth in Spring – it feels everything today, a rare day. We have a funeral in our church today for Mary Buhler – she was 99 years old and a powerhouse of faith in Christ. Now, this likely has something to do with my sadness but I didn’t know her at all so there is likely more to it.

 

I was looking at her picture album in the foyer and was struck by how beautiful she was as a young 19 year old newlywed in Russia standing with her brilliantly confident 20 year old groom. It got me thinking about the corruption of life by death. Death is unnatural. People try to call death a natural part of life but I am beginning to see that it is the least natural thing in existance.

 

I am sad today.