Self Expression

<i>”A fool has no delight in understanding,
but in expressing his own heart.”
Proverbs 18:2</i>

I am an artist.  I create, I move, I manipulate and emulate things around me and through me in order to create.  An artist is simply one who <i>creates</i> an object to a pleasing end.  Artists come in many different forms; such as painters, singers, song-writers, poets, sculptors and so on.  All of them sharing a common bond of creating work that exemplifies an aspect of it’s creator or the creator’s intent.  All art is representative of something, even if it’s just creating for the sake of creating.

Artists are usually passionate, and so therefore use the creation of art as an outlet for that passion.  Talent is almost irrelevant since art can be subjective from the creator to a viewer, or even a viewer from viewer.  It doesn’t need to adhere to a third party technical standard in order to do what it’s creator wants.  There are many fine, talented people that create but are not artists because their passion lies elsewhere.  Originality is not important, or even the views of a subjective viewer because the point of the creation is to simply adhere to that aforementioned third party standard.

So we have passion that drives an artist to create.  The artist creates art in order to express that passion and is personified through the specifics of the craft.  So logically we can ask ourselves the following questions:

Is art completely subjective or is there a common standard?
Is the best form of art derived from the deepest of passions?
Ultimately what is the highest beauty worthy of being expressed through art?

May I submit to you that all of the questions have the same answer?  Because in earnest they do.

Is art subjective?  Let’s delve deeper.  Can art have a different impact or message from one person to another?  Yes, of course it can.  We are all different, all coming from different background with different life experiences that taint and mold our worldview in which we see things like art.  A song that brings me to tears might only bring indifference to another person.  But we must realize that we are coming from an internal perspective of how a piece of art moves us in our personal way as opposed to an external view which is relating in a more logical and purposeful approach.

If I were to write a song that to me was the ultimate in beauty but was nothing but chaos to every other that heard it I would not say that my art is subjective and only those who live on my tier of creativity can understand, I would say there is something <i>different</i> in my worldview from others.  Different can certainly mean wrong in this case.  So assuming my art is flawed because of my flawed worldview, my art comes becomes a failure as it goes against a more universal standard.  But what is that standard?

Is the best form of art derived from the deepest of passions?  Now with our understanding on the unreletivistic nature of art we see this question in the following light:
Can a worldview that is in accordance to a higher standard which is fueled by large depths of passion create a high form of art?  Yes.  This is also where talent comes into play to help bridge the gap between the differences, the gaps if you will in our own worldviews which might view the art differently.  Talent can be described here the best bridge between worldviews to one view that is higher.

So we have the following equation: Deep passion= best art.  What then is the deepest passion?

Ultimately what is the highest beauty worth being expressed through art?  In understanding beauty we must also understand that beauty does not come to us as an open gift.  There are parameters around beauty that must be regarded and protected.  There are different levels of love, each expressed by different relationships.  Each has it’s own essence of beauty but likewise expressed different by each.  There are lines that are not meant to be crossed.  In our own worldviews we can understand the purpose of beautiful art out of it’s place, but that does not justify it’s existence outside of it’s borders.  But the highest beauty, as it were, is just as accessible to all regardless of experiences or highly evolved worldviews.  Ergo it’s expression through art should be reachable by all.  It is universal in the fact that it’s innate beauty can far surpass any gap we might have between our worldviews if it is sufficiently expressed with talent.

So the question begging to be asked to come to a full conclusion is this:

What is the highest beauty?

Please forgive me as I have only answered my own questions with more questions.  I have done so in order to attempt to follow logic in it’s course to come to better understanding of the answer.  But now that we have an understanding of the roots of the questions and both their philosophical and existential implications I can give the answer and supply a sufficient reasoning.

God.

Plain and simple everyone.  It’s God.  The Trinity, to be more exact.  Within the Trinity we have perfect love, perfect relationship, perfect communication, perfection of will and actions, perfection of the mind, body soul as expressed by three beings all relating to each other as one.  We are the creation of God as His expression of that love and passion being poured into our very being.  All of us bear His image as a sign of that love.

But we are fallen and seek to express our own fallen hearts.  Our distortions in our worldviews we come to love and seek to create art for instead of our Father’s love.  The shards of a broken image of God become mirrors for our souls in the way we express art.

What is the standard I was talking about?  God’s law.  God’s law is His will for us to live our lives in accordance with Him in order to have a perfect relationship with Him – the purpose behind our creation.

What is the deepest passion?  The passion that comes from realizing our fallen state and then returning to Him in approach of relationship.  Through salvation, just a mere taste of that divine passionate love God has for us is enough to fill us for eternity.  Do you realize that?  Since God in His character is infinite, His love and passion is infinite.  If we are the expression of His infinite love, then we can draw that same passion for Him through Him.

What is highest beauty?  All of the beauty that we see around us derives from the creator of beauty, the one who wolds the standard and content of perfect beauty in His hand.  This is the ultimate in contrast!  Our sinful nature – the darkest of blacks and the most chaotic of chords in relation to the brightest of whites and the most harmonic chords being played into eternity as the sinful nature is driven from us by God’s love.

I hear all the time from my fellow artists, “I lost inspiration” or, “There’s no passion that drives me”.  Taste of what Christ has to offer, drink from His overflowing and infinite cup of love and beauty and you will never quench of thirst again.

The best we can offer apart from God is dirty rags compared to His tapestries.  Read Psalm 51 and read what it’s like to beg God for that passion.  Read Jeremiah 20:9 and see a passion that burns hotter even than our own desires.  Read what Christ did on the cross willingly to bring us to that point of perfect expression – His love.

Renhetens Elv (Jesus kom til Jordan for å dø)

Norwegian. Translation = River of Grace, Jesus came to earth to die.

Given to mankind for all to believe.
Sacrifice of life for all to receive.
-Øle Borud

Right now there is a Danish revival happening, led by a man named Mikael Thomsen. He is young, but he is wise and passionate about the things of God. In a culture where anti-religion is the best a Christian can afford, but paganism is the norm, the message that Mikael gives is in direct contradiction to his society. In almost all of the traditional Scandinavian countries paganism and very specifically anti-Christian sentiment is a cultural norm, can and is punishable by law if you preach outside a church. It’s considered a hate crime. It’s considered “anti-family.”

Look around at other countries around the world and their policies and laws. Look at our own Country and the way it has been going for the past century. The majority of legal actions have been taken in the name of morality! The entire world as we know is trying to undergo a change of how we define morality.

Justification is all the rage, perceptionism and popularism is abundant in our own America. Baseless existentialism is the best we can expect of any decent apologia (Ancient Greek = reasoned response) to the rest of our Country. We can’t define, we can’t explain, we can’t give an intelligent reasoned response for what we believe and why it is God who gives us the moral framework in which to live. We just “feel” it to be true.

Paul Washer in some of his recent messages has made this declaration,

“If the Church in America is to survive it either needs to undergo a massive revival or horrible persecution.”

We need to grow from the inside out. Teach each other, extol one another, keep each accountable and grow in the Lord to His glory. Let our hearts be put aflame with His truth with an unquenchable passion which a power that knows no chains of hell! Or we will undergo a persecution in our own ‘godly nation’ that will teach us the hard way.

Many people will renounce their faith in either situation. It is quite possible that a revival will happen and persecution will be the countries answer to it. People will see consequence to their actions and follow the dictates of their hearts – deceitfully wicked God hating hearts.

“Whoever loves this life shall lose it, whoever loses this life will gain it in eternity.”

I’ve seen a lot of people, many of them my friends, place their hope in the recent Presidential election. Yes, the leader of this nation will represent us unified before God. Yes, God will bless a nation who’s leader follows the will of God. Yes, there is much at stake if this position is misused. But our hope is not in Presidents, it’s not in a conservative agenda, it’s not in historical landmarks or political representations before God, it is in Christ alone.

The One who sits at the right hand of God almighty died and became all abomination and sin, threw damnation and condemnation into hell and came back to life to save us! If you don’t understand what I mean by Jesus becoming sin understand this – you are not saved because Jesus was tortured. You are not saved because the Jews betrayed Him and the Romans beat Him, you aren’t even saved because He died on a cross. You are saved because on that cross He took all iniquity and sin, bore it upon Himself as our propitiation before God the Just and had His Father look away.

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

We have forgotten this in America. We have reduced following God and all of His mandates to “it’s a relationship with Christ alone.” We are weak, thin skinned and rebellious anything else that resembles God. We just want our Christ that died on a cross because He loves me.

If that’s your view on Christ you will never understand the depth of His love for you. It so much more than just He loves you and died for you…He gave up perfect and holy communion with God to take your debt so that you might have fellowship with Him again.

God has been removed from the cornerstone of our country to an option that is open to any emotionally needy citizen.

We need revival. Yea, we need persecution. We need something to take us out of our apathy and contentment with cultural norms. It’s not because Barack Obama is President, it’s because we put him there. We, the people, have created a representative democracy that can only go down the tubes as it were if we let it. And we have.

Pray for our President in earnest. Pray for our Country. Pray for revival and persecution if need be. Pray for fathers hearts to turn to their children, pray for men to be men and women to be women.

But most of all pray for brokenness. Pray for a broken, contrite heart before God. That is all He ever wants from us.

A bit of fun

Fixation

As in…fixed.  Figured out how for you, the reader, to post comments on here.  Took me a bit….but I fixed it.

 

Comment away as the Spirit leads.

 

-Andrew

Passion

“Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”

1 Corinthians 10:31

 

It was 2005, I was holding a summer long internship with the MasterWorks Festival as chief videographer.  My job was to, in a nut shell, record every orchestra, drama, dance and classical guitar performance and it’s connected Master class.  MasterWorks takes pride in the fact that it has some of the best musicians in America as it’s teachers…and students.

 

So you see it was quite a treat for me to simply set up my camera and watch a flawless performance of pieces of work such as the New World Symphony, Les Mis, Canon in D, etc.  What hit me the most was the passion these performances had.  The look and feel of passion of the some of the performers as they played their art.  I obviously connected with that, having similar inclinations in life that were passionate.

 

But I hit a fork in the road.  I could continue to live as I was, down the right paths but not exactly ‘lively’, or to do whatever I did as passionately as possible – even at the risk of burning myself out completely.  I choose to live passionately, because I would rather face burn out or loosing that passion than to live without it and to see the world change and me stay still.  Whatever I’m gonna do…it’s gotta be passionate I told myself.

 

Let me change gears for a moment.

 

Let me say that passion is NOT an emotion.  It can drive emotions of all shapes and sizes, but itself is not an emotion.  You see passion can drive intellect as well.  In one’s search for truth you come across aspects of emotion vs. intellect, impulse vs. thought and wild abandon vs. singular action.  If passion was an emotion it couldn’t drive people like Ravi Zacharias to become one of the smartest and most ambitious of today’s Christian apologists.  You can’t just “feel” Josephus or William Blake.  You have to read them and ‘view the world through the eye with a conscience.’  Although he very wisely interweaves emotion to describe his passion which fuels his pursuit for godly intellect, they are still two different entities.

 

John Piper is probably the forerunner in Christianity today in the doctrine of the Trinity.  The many aspects of the Trinity he brings to light and shares with others passionately.  He is especially big on the glory of God and what that means.  I quote,

 

“It is God’s will that you exalt in the hope of the glory of God.  I say that without the slightest fear of any  contradiction.  The will of God for every person is infallibly that you would exalt in the hope of the glory of God.  Whatever else you do, whatever else you feel; do this, feel this, value this, pursue this, exalting in the hope of the glory of God.  Nothing is more important than this.

 

But it starts with the spiritual perception or apprehension, or seeing or tasting, you have to see it!”

 

In short, God uses passion for you to completely understand, to taste and see, to believe.  Whenever God is revealed to you, it is revealed by passion.  Pouring over holy Scripture endlessly like John Calvin or praying 6 hours a day like Martin Luther shows passion that drove these men to God.  Emotion or intellect alone will not get you there!

 

All finite things can eventually be known.  They can be discovered, examined and memorized.  They can become boring.  Expressing emotion for the sake of being emotional or intellectual pursuit for the sake of intellectual completeness cannot get you through life, because you will find the end of them.  Misplaced or ‘man made’ passion will defuse and burn itself out because it has nothing to sustain it.  That’s why Heaven will never be boring.  You see since God is infinite in all things, we will be constantly finding new beauty and new glory of God every time we see Him, even in a glorified and perfect body.  Eternity will be spent in complete awe and learning of something new and beautiful of God every day.

 

If you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.  The Holy Spirit not only regenerates our souls and gives us communication to the Father through Christ, but it also gives us conscience.  But the most important thing the Holy Spirit will do is to keep a fire that will burn forever in you.  A fire for God.  Passion from God that made you seek Him, passion from God that will never go out, passion for God that will never exhaust.

When you were first saved and started repenting of your sins, your eternal life started.  Your quest and hunger for God was first realized at that moment.  We have already started the Heavenly process of finding out new things of God.  But because we still have fallen bodies and deceitful hearts there are stumbling blocks that keep us away.  That’s where the Spirit comes in to bring you back.  If God began a good work in you, He will finish a good work in you.  God will always come back to you when you run away, disciple you, and put you back on the path.

 

If you have ever asked can this life get worse,

If you have ever asked where God has gone,

If you have ever asked why we lack inspiration in our daily lives, it’s because we have forgotten about the Holy Spirit dwelling within us giving us passion that comes directly from God!  Yes, our life on earth can and probably will get worse.  But it will be of no matter if we trust in God and give Him all the glory!  Yes it seems like God is no longer here, but that’s not because He left, it’s you because you did!  When we can’t ‘feel’ God or ‘know’ God it’s because we are leaning on either emotion or intellect to take us to Him.

 

Only by the passion of the Holy Spirit will bring us to God.

 

John Piper - http://downloads7.sermonindexmedia3.com/17/SID17087.mp3

Paul Washer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J471VobaZks

Post Number 1

Well, it’s getting close to 1 am and I’m showing no signs of slowing down.  Thankfully I have a large supply of Paul Washer and Voddie Baucham sermons.  Please excuse my dust while I get this blog figured out!

 

-Andrew

 

P.S. Spioraid is Irish (Irish-Gaelige) for “Spirit”, notably the Spirit of God.