Romans 13.8-14: You Know What Time It is

 Paul, over and over, reminded his readers that Jesus was coming back. They should pay attention to that and remember how they are to live as followers of Christ. With every day that passed following Christ's ascension, we are one day closer to Christ's return. Because of their certainty of Christ's return, Christians are people of the future -- oriented toward the day of Christ's return. Christians are to live in that day rather than in the evil past (Romans 13:13).

Does the kind of clock we have say something about our view of time? Is time cyclical like a clock with hands that sweep around the face? Is time digital, numbers changing but standing in place? Is time sculptural? 

Calling James Borden a clockmaker is a true statement, but his work is more than that. His clocks are indeed sculptural, hanging on walls, sitting on tables, even suspended from the ceiling. These kinetic sculptures are large pieces, some as large as 10' wide and 6.5' tall. They tell time but they engage more of the viewer than your average clock. 

James Borden. Suspended Clock made of Walnut, Cherry, White Oak, and Box Elder. 

Can you figure out how to tell time with this clock? Does it change how you perceive time and the passage of time? That's what Paul hopes his words will do for the Christians in Rome. He wants them to remember that every moment moves us closer to Christ's return. That should change how we perceive and value and use each day. Paul's timetable may have anticipated a return sooner than events have proven to be true, but the ultimate day is still moving toward us. Each day bringing us closer to salvation than we are right now. 

Leave Only Footprints...Or Maybe a Little More

Burning bush (Exodus 3:1-15) and burning coals (Romans 12:9-21). Two (more) stories in scripture that employ some element of fire or flame. There is an interesting fire-related difference in the two, though. When I think about burning coals, I imagine the grill that fired hundreds of family cook-outs and barbeques. I can picture those glowing charcoal briquettes (my dad was in the lumber business...no gas grills for him). Heating up slowly, passing through the flame stage and then becoming a bank of glowing embers ready for the ribs, sausage, corn, portobello mushrooms, and more that might be on the grill on any given occasion.   

       

       Vincent Van Gogh. Peasant Burning Weeds. 1883. Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)/Drents Museum (Drenthe)

After dinner the coals were usually still glowing enough that the coat-hangers-turned-marshmallow-sticks were brought out, sometimes with chocolate and graham crackers, to make dessert. The coals were dealt with before bedtime, and by the next morning there was nothing but a pile of cold ashes. 

There were no ashes after Moses left the holy ground where he spoke with God. Because the bush burned but was not consumed. That means no ashes. Aside from the bush, which was there before, only Moses' footprints were left. 

Paul's instructions to the Christians in Rome (Romans 12:20) include a quote from Proverbs 25:21-22. Do more for your enemies, he instructs. Give more, love more. As I heard more than once when I was growing up, "Kill 'em with kindness."  Heap burning coals on their heads. The hope seems to be that at the end of such actions as feeding hungry enemies and giving drinks to thirst ones, what will be left isn't just cold ashes, it is a new or restored relationship between former enemies. 

Take only photographs, leave only footprints is good advice for walking through nature. Such attention to detail is important when thinking about the potential for fires. We have all seen what is left (or not) after a wildfire. For Moses and the Christians in Rome, the result of the fire is not destruction. It is growth and transformation. People who are no longer enemies. Moses commissioned to lead God's people. Those are what is left. Not just footprints. Maybe a little more. 

On Art&Faith Matters on Facebook, another part of Paul's instruction in Romans. Can you tell which verse from the thumbnail at left? Check your answer on Facebook. 

Romans 12.1-8: Transformed

 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds (Romans 12:2a). In his Romans commentary (Interpretation), Paul Achtemeier suggests this translation: Do not let yourself be shaped by what everyone else does, but rather let yourselves be transformed by a whole new way of thinking... (p. 195). 

One of the most ordinary things in the world is a piece of computer paper. 8.5" x 11" is standard in the US. A4 paper is standard in the UK. The paper is plain and smooth so that it can pass through a printer. Until the paper is acted upon in some way, it simply exists with no real meaning on its own. But with the right mind in charge of the paper it is changed into a report on an infinite number of ideas and information. With the right mind in charge of the paper, it is transformed into art.

                    

Peter Callesen transforms A4 paper (in inches 8.3 x 11.7) into complex paper sculptures evoking a variety of responses. In his hands, through his mind, the paper becomes a world of thoughts and ideas. Two examples are above. The works are created from a single piece of A4 paper. Callesen's cuts are made precisely so that the paper from the cut shape is perfectly transformed into the 3-D shape you see. Thus the flat hand shape is crimped and folded into the skeletal structure of a hand (left). The birds are created from the 2-D shapes drawn on the A4 paper.

This is definitely the world (the mundane) transformed by a whole new way of thinking. 

For Peter Callesen's work, click here and here.

Romans 10.5-15: Beautiful?

Approximately one in a thousand people would disagree with Paul as he wrote to the Romans. In the section for this week, Paul declares that the feet of those who bring good news are beautiful (Romans 10:15). But approximately one in a thousand people are affected by podophobia, and those people probably wouldn't find any feet beautiful.

Podophobia is defined as a persistent, irrational fear of feet (podos "feet" + phobia "fear). For some, their podophobia means they will not touch their own feet. For some, the sight of any feet is disturbing. Some do not want anyone else to look at their feet. Bringing good news or not, those feet would not be appreciated.

My day job is teaching high school art. In the classroom next to mine, my colleague has beginning art students do a graphite drawing either of their hands or of their feet. The year when "feet" are in the syllabus results in many more comments by students. The students are "creeped out" by feet as they (or the photography students in my class) take photos of their feet to serve as reference photos (left above). One family has had multiple children in that beginning art class during "foot year". We've suggested they should frame and hang all the feet drawings as some kind of weird family portrait.

My teaching colleague knows what Albrecht Durer knew: hands and feet are demanding subjects for students, but they are also subjects that are very helpful as students are learning to draw. While podophobes (and beginning art students) may be "creeped out" by feet, Leonardo da Vinci is credited with describing the human foot as a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.

Durer's study of two feet (left bottom) is a study for a now-missing altarpiece. In an interesting intersection, these feet will become the feet of Paul. Durer has made the feet of Paul into a work of art. Perhaps Paul's math would say that engineering + art + good news = beautiful.

(Bottom) Albrecht Durer. Study of Two Feet For the Apostle Paul in the Heller Altarpiece. c. 1508. Brush and grey ink, grey wash, heightened with white, on green prepared paper, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands. 

Romams 8.26-39: All Things

Paul wrote to the church in Rome reminding them of something they apparently already knew: that all things worked together for good for those who love God (Romans 8:28). Note that Paul didn't say that all things were good. Rather, in God's hands all things can be made to work together for good. Joseph knew the truth as well. After he revealed his presence to his brothers in Egypt, he told them that though they intended Joseph's sale to the passing caravan to be detrimental to him (Joseph), God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20)

How you perceive something has to do with context.

Josef Albers understood that color worked the same way. Albers was first a student and then a professor at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, in the early part of the 20th century. Albers and his wife Anni (a textile artist and Bauhaus graduate) were invited to America in 1933 to develop the visual art curriculum at Black Mountain College (NC).

In 1963 Albers published Interaction of Color, a limited edition book with silkscreen illustrations demonstrating the truth of color: the same color will be perceived differently depending on the colors it is next to.

In the example top left, the purple circles appear to the be same color as they sit on black and grey backgrounds. The two circles are actually two different colors, as demonstrated by the bars of color beneath the circles-in-squares. Context. Perception. 

What about the grid pattern on the yellow and blue backgrounds? Are the grids the same color or different colors? Do you perceive the grid color differently because of the two colors that are the background...because of the context in which the grids are placed?

It's worth remembering that God doesn't see things as humans do. God's view is longer and broader than ours. What we perceive as good, God may perceive as detrimental. What we see as disaster, God may see as preparation. What we believe is the end may be a beginning. What you meant for evil, God meant for good.

Scripture tells us that good things, detrimental things, disasters, preparation, ends, and beginnings are all in God's hand. And God can use all those things for good.

For Josef and Anni Albers, see the Joseph and Anni Albers Foundation.
For the 50th Anniversary Edition of Interaction of Color, see Yale University Press.

Romans 8.12-25: Now and Later

Paul speaks to Christians in Rome about dualities: flesh and spirit, a spirit of fear and a spirit of adoption, sufferings of this time and the glory to be revealed, what is seen and hope for what is not seen. (Romans 8:12-25) There are dualities of time and matter and emotion and more. Paul contrasts a sense of now and later as he talks about what it means to be a child of God. He doesn't deny the existence of either option. Instead he seems to lift up the fact that they co-exist (though their co-existence is not always the rightest thing for children of God).

Lee Krasner was one of the first women in American to embrace Abstract Expressionism. She experimented with forms and colors. She cut up and recycled her old paintings. She refused to show in the 1943 art show titled Women, wanting to be known as an artist rather than a woman artist. Despite all this, Krasner may be best known beyond the art world for being Mrs. Jackson Pollock. Krasner met Pollock when both artists had work in a show in 1941. Married in 1945, the couple was estranged when Pollock died in 1956 from an alcohol-related car accident.

Lee Krasner. Charred Landscape. 1960. Private Collection.

Following Pollock's death, Krasner moved her work into Pollock's former studio at the couple's home. Between 1959 (the year her mother died) and 1962 Krasner created large-scale paintings dubbed "Night Journeys," because they were created as Krasner dealt with insomnia. The paintings hold elements of both the loss of Pollock and the freedom that Krasner was granted at his death. No longer was she in his shadow. No longer was their volatile relationship causing her pain. And yet there was pain in the loss of the artist and husband who was also colleague and critic. The paintings are both-and rather than either-or.

Paul (interestingly) calls attention to labor pains (I'd be curious to know Paul's experience with labor pains) as a parallel. There is the now of labor pains but also the later of what those pains produce. That's how life is. The reality of now and for us as Christians, the later that is promised. I can't promise that we all wait patiently, but it is true that we do have to wait for the later..

Romans 7.15-25a: Two People

We should have no problems understanding polarities: the extremes of...well...almost anything. The north and south poles are as far apart as anything can be on the earth. We can be sleeping, or at the other extremity, awake. Optimism and pessimism. A full inhale and a complete exhale. The things I want to do and the things I don't want to do. Or, as Paul says it: the good things I want to do and the evil things I do instead (Romans 7:15-25a).

Paul's cry is probably universal. We've all probably found ourselves doing things that we knew were wrong (and not really what we wanted to do), but somehow we just couldn't stop ourselves. An angry word. An unkind response. A decidedly un-Christlike judgment. It's as if there were two people in us: one who lives to be faithful to Jesus, and the other who looks out only for Number One. One part of us that is spirit. One part of us that is flesh. Polarities.

Frida Kahlo. The Two Fridas. 1939. Mexico City: Museo de Arte Moderno.

Frida Kahlo's painting called "The Two Fridas" puts two self-portraits side by side. One portrait shows the artist in European clothes; the other shows the artist in Tehuana garments. Both figures have visible hearts: one is broken and damaged, the other whole and beating. The figure on the right holds a childhood portrait of Diego Rivera, the artist from whom Kahlo had been recently divorced. An external vein connects the portrait to the object in the other Frida's hand - a hemostat that clamps the flow of blood that has soaked spots on the white dress. Two Fridas sitting in front of a stormy sky.

Anyone trying to reconcile different versions of themselves or diverse elements within themselves can feel the tension in the painting and understand the significance of the stormy sky. The differences between the two portraits are many, but each figure's inside hand clasps the other's, securely connecting them despite the differences.

Kahlo's struggles were not the same as Paul's, but both artist and apostle knew the effort required to manage opposing expressions/forces/wills/inclinations within themselves. Many of us also know the effort required. Paul's conclusion is this: I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:24-25, The Message).

In this time of polarities, may we remember that the answer, thank God, is Jesus Christ.

This week on Art&Faith Matters on Facebook, another way to see two views of a person in one portrait. 

Evil for Evil

Among the exhortations in Romans 12:9-21 is the encouragement to "not repay anyone evil for evil" (v. 17). This phrase was chosen by Alphonse Mucha as a subtitle for one of the panels of his masterwork "The Slav Epic."

Alphonse Mucha is best known as an Art Nouveau poster artist working in Paris. His posters usually included a female figure along with natural elements and the lettering typical of the Art Nouveau style. As much as he is associated with Paris, though, Mucha was in fact a Czech, born in what was then Moravia. He decorated the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pavilion at the 1900 Exposition Universelle and collaborated on the Austrian Pavilion. While researching the culture, history and traditions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mucha developed the idea of an epic for all Slavic people - what would become The Slav Epic. These twenty large-scale canvases illustrate twenty episodes in Slavic history, some specifically Czech history and others from the history of various Slavonic regions. Mucha's purpose for the epic was "to unite all the Slavs through their common history and their mutual reverence for peace and learning" and then to "inspire them to work for humanity using their experience and virtue" (Mucha Foundation). The twelfth painting is titled "Petr of Chelcicky at Vodnany: Do Not Repay Evil for Evil."

http://www.muchafoundation.org/gallery/themes/theme/slav-epic/object/223

In this scene Chelcicky (also spelled Chelcice) walks among the dying, wounded and displaced citizens from the village of Vodnany, which found itself in the crossfire between the Hussites and the Germanic forces during the Hussite Wars. In the background, large plumes of smoke rise from burning homes while in the foreground Chelcicky, holding a Bible, encourages the people not to seek vengeance or retribution. The rejection of violence is a hallmark of Chelcicky's teaching.

The work, which shows not the battle itself but rather the aftermath of battle, was completed in 1918, probably not coincidentally the year that World War I ended. Though the clothes in the painting may be that of 15th-century Czech peasants, the overall scene of destruction, injuries, death and humans pushed almost beyond endurance is repeated in images from around our world today.  

Mucha seated in front of panels from the Epic.

For a full exploration of The Slav Epic see: http://www.muchafoundation.org/gallery/themes/theme/slav-epic