Artistic Expressions in a Fragile Space

This week, I've been continually reminded of the fragile space we inhabit between life and death, light and darkness, hope and despair...  We live amid such polarities and it's often hard to know exactly how to fully engage this space.

How incredible it was to welcome new life on Monday with the birth of Kaia and Ari to my dear friends Tim and Annemarie.  Couldn't praise God more for His hand in the miracle gift of these precious babies!  I'm already feeling so in love with these tiny, sweet girls!  In other circumstance, this week has brought a real awareness of the power and lure of evil in our lives.  My heart hurts over our brokenness and how sin crouches at the door waiting to devour, only to distance us from intimacy with the Father.

Jon Foreman recently blogged about how we are to make art, specifically music, in this tension of the polarities we find ourselves stretched thin between.

"Between the dialectic of life and death we are pulled tight, stretched out like the strings of my guitar. We are forever in still-life. A delicate balancing act between the end and the beginning, between the consciousness and the dream, between the forgetting that we call birth and the remembering that we call death. We are the notes dancing from the strings of time, held firm between life and death. This is the polarity of our existence, pulled tight between despair and hope, belief and doubt. We are strung tight between our birth and the grave. Humanity is dancing on the fretboard in-between. Death will one-day cut the string. Until then, we live in the tension."  

Last Friday, after skipping a class to have breakfast with my parents and a couple from church, I was driving back down to school and had this powerful moment in which I was struck with this picture of a piece of art.  I knew right away what it looked like and, in that moment, felt such an intense desire to create.  It was on a piece of wood.  It moved from the wonder and awe of creation, through a long desert of sorts that represented God's instruction in dry dead space, into an abundance of life toward God's direction for the future.  The emphasis definitely resided in the middle space.  It definitely reflected the picture I've had reading the Torah.  The day was so busy and I rushed to class in the rain then threw a bunch of clothes in a bag and headed back up north for a Jr. High retreat.  Arriving at retreat, I glanced through the booklet for the weekend and noticed that for a Saturday session the camp was setting aside time to express something through art.  Let's just say, I knew where I needed to be.  After wandering around in the woods for a bit, I found a stick.  There were magazines available and they were perfect. I found myself stumbling on the perfect pictures. Even though earlier in the day I'd cleared out the random papers in my Bible, a couple small papers remained tucked inside its pages, and they were perfect.  A couple of students that I attended the art session with asked me about it afterward and I didn't hesitate to explain, "this is what it means..."  Wishing I hadn't been so darn confident at the time as this little artistic expression has continued to become significant in other ways this week.  I'm so struck by the unique ways God speaks, especially through the arts, and continues to develop the picture and experience we have of Him.

I've never been more convinced that we are created to create.  I've never been more confident that God's Spirit is present, guiding and instructing in dry deserts. I'm hungering and thirsting for God right now.  All I can do is turn to God in adoration and worship, continually praying that the Lord's endless love would draw ever near those we so deeply love.  This has been perhaps been one of the most difficult weeks of my life.  Yet, the Lord's presence couldn't be more real and steadfast as He remains ever present in the midst of us, his beloved creations.