Deuteronomy 30.15-20: Choosing

I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life... (Deuternonomy 30:15-20) Two choices. Who wouldn't choose life? Blessings are much better than woes. But it usually doesn't work that easily, does it? Somehow when two roads diverge in a wood, yellow or otherwise, there isn't always a sign that says, "Don't want woes? Take the other way!"  Sometimes the way to woes seems more enticing than the way to blessings. Or maybe we imagine that the way to woes will eventually curve around to blessings, because look how pleasant this way looks. The choice is sometimes harder that it might seem.

The moment of choice is sometimes characterized as standing at a crossroads. With multiple ways to go, which will you choose?

Image from ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads. Courtesy of Netflix.

Blues musician Robert Johnson (b. 1911) wrote, sang, and played the blues, though not very well at first. Playing for tips on street corners, Johnson sought out musicians like Son House to teach him how to play. In the early 1930s, Johnson disappeared for about a year from the juke joints and house parties that were home to music and musicians playing the blues. When Johnson reappeared, his playing had unnaturally improved. And the legend arose: Johnson had gone to the crossroads* and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play and sing the blues better than anyone. And he did. By all accounts that midnight choice at the crossroads led to the skill and fame that were promised, but it didn't solve Johnson's problems. Not by a long shot. In 1938 Johnson became a member of the 27 Club.

Life or death. Blessings or curses. Prosperity or adversity. When you stand at the crossroads, which will you choose? Who will you choose?

* Two different crossroads are identified as the site of Johnson's bargain: the intersection of Hwys 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, MS, and the intersection of Hwys 1 and 8 in Rosedale, MS. 

This week on Art&Faith Matters on Facebook, a contemporary photographer takes a look at people at a crossroads. (Yep, those are stormtroopers...) 

For thoughts on I Corinthians 3:1-9, click here.

Luke 15.11-32: Young Man, Young Man

The parable at the heart of Lent 4Cs gospel lesson is one of the most familiar in scripture. Luke 15:11-32 is the most familiar of the "lost" parables, though the parable's interpretive trend has offered alternatives to its traditional popular title. Traditionally, though, this collection of parables is simplified into lost coin, lost sheep, lost son. It is the last that is the subject of this week's gospel reading. And for Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas (and poet James Weldon Johnson), this son was lost. Absolutely lost.

Aaron Douglas. The Prodigal Son. Illustration for James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. 

c. 1927. Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. http://vmfa.museum/collections/art/prodigal-son_2012-278/

Following the text of Johnson's poem "The Prodigal Son", Douglas has focused on the portion of the story where the son is squandering his inheritance. Women, music, money, cards...

This is Babylon, Babylon, That great city of Babylon. 

Come on, my friend, and go along with me. 

And the young man joined the crowd. 

Young man, young man...

Douglas' original illustrations to accompany Johnson's texts were created in gouache. The work shown here, in oil, is a second version of the basic composition. More than one of the illustrations for God's Trombones was re-created by the artist.

Today we are as likely to refer to this parable as the story of the faithful father or loving father, remembering that the text begins, "There was a man who had two sons..." In 1927 Johnson and Douglas looked at the story through a different lens. Holding a variety of interpretations together helps us understand the fullness of the parable. The Douglas/Johnson interpretation reminds us of all the times that we squander what we have. But it also reminds us that there is no time that we cannot come to ourselves, fall down on our knees and say "I will arise and go to God."

For the full text of Johnson's poem, see:  http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-prodigal-son-6/
For an image of the poem and illustration in context, see: http://www.cartermuseum.org/artworks/350
For thoughts on Joshua 5:9-12, click here.