Last night while praying, I had a hard time focusing on Jesus. Every time I felt like I was lifting my eyes to him, I kept seeing all these people in front of me waving their hands and talking on top of each other. I tried not to focus on that but every time I looked I kept feeling this room full of people arguing with each other. Everyone had something to say and no one was hearing anyone else because everyone was yelling and shouting at the same time. It was kind of hilarious, sort of like a chaotic courtroom, but the more I wanted to see Jesus the louder these voices got.
Finally I got the picture that this was like a big cloud in front of heaven. It was really a big distraction but I just resolved that I was going to “soar” past this cloud and stand with Jesus. I’ve learned over time that there are all sorts of distractions and even voices of self-judgment that make us think that we can’t get close to God or that we can’t see or visit heaven. Sometimes with me I feel like I can’t get clean enough. Like, in order to visit Jesus I have to spend a lot of time confessing. But as I sat there last night I could hear Jesus near me through the cloud of voices and he was saying, I forgive you, before I could even get the words of self-doubt out of my heart. I can’t believe it, it really is just a matter of fact and accepting it by faith that you don’t have to jump a lot of hoops to get near him. He’s really in the business of giving us instant baths.
The first thing he did was take my left hand and I felt him guiding it to something I could not see. My hand started tingling in “real life”, which is usually a sign to me that I am receiving or giving something. I let him move my hand around and suddenly he gently lowered it into a pile of what seemed to be feathers. They were so soft and so nice to touch. I thought this was a little weird so I said, “why am I touching these?” And he picked one up and put it in my palm. He said, “these ARE feathers. I am giving you a bunch to take back down there.”
I realized that the cloud of people arguing were Christians. There was a lot of arguing and divisiveness going on in the church right now. It makes sense that this cloud of argument keeps people from getting all the way near Jesus. People stop at where the church is stopped at, get caught up in the arguments. It was almost like a tripwire that the enemy had set up on the way to heaven. I don’t know if any of you have seen the movie “Mystery Men,” but in the movie there is a weapon that is called “blamethrower”—once it is aimed and shot at someone, that person starts blaming the person next to him and then it turns into a full-scale argument where the people no longer have control over their mouths. This is what it felt like in this cloud. It was nearly impossible to get past this cloud unless you determined you were going to ignore it and shoot out of it.
He said, “the church is about to make some breakthroughs. People who have never trusted or listened to each other before are about to start listening to each other. Will you hand out these feathers to them?”
Then he asked me to describe the feathers, and I wrote: Feathers tickle. They make you laugh. Feathers blow wind when moving, they make wind when flapping. Feathers land in unexpected places, they travel on wind. Feathers are soft.
“Feathers are ferocious in their own way,” he said. “Place feathers where there are swords against each other.”
I knew these feathers were going to make people soften, make people laugh and breathe a fresh wind. Contention has a way of making the air very stale and stifling. But these feathers are going to ripple into the cloud of argument.
So here I am writing this out, and doing that by faith. I am handing some of these feathers out. Will you take one? Even if you don’t need one, perhaps you can carry one to someone who does.
God has been speaking to us a lot about unity in the church lately. I don’t understand all of what is happening but it feels like the disunity and the arguments are reaching a fever pitch—and something is about to change.
Last night I had a dream where I was talking to an old friend who is kind of a punk-anarchist-thinker-believer. He's an interesting writer and thinker, and in the dream I was telling him it was time to publish that zine he had always wanted to do--but he said, 'oh zines are dead. We are living in an age of marketability and advertising. Nobody wants to read a zine. Books and writing are disappearing, you can't do them anymore.' He said this without a shred of cynicism.
I think the dream was more or less about some of my own fears, but also about some of the lies that come after artists. We are living in a time when communication and tools are so democratized--anyone can have a blog, anyone can make a CD. While some of this helps to take the pretension and exclusivity off of art, it does homogenize unique gifts. This happens in the church as well as the art world. A lot of preachers or ministers, even if their gift is more oral than written, feel pressured to write a book... it is kind of an expected thing in church circles. As a result there is a lot of mediocre writing and teaching in Christianity--not because the teachers are mediocre but because they don't really understand acutely the areas of their own domain--and so as a result the book has less of an impact than the spoken message. Their domain might not be a book or a blog, but since everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't we? As a result writing as a separate gift from teaching, or preaching, becomes devalued.
There are so many blogs now that review fashion, music, products from a unique voice but they are employed and contracted with advertising. Leave aside the fact that there are now exclusively advertising blogs, many otherwise creative blogs now have Google advertising on their sidebars. This is becoming more common than not. For the purposes of this essay, I want to separate blogs and websites that are used for communication and networking purposes, and blogs that are used for writing and expression. In the latter case the democratization of blogging and websiting has given room to a lot of people who otherwise had no outlet, a new outlet. But because the standards are low, writing on the net gets very sensationalist and cheap. This is why it becomes such an easy target for marketing.
One of the things that was spoken to me in the dream was, "no one wants books anymore." Which I immediately knew was a lie. People are not going to stop reading The Brothers Karamazov, because it has truth in it. Books are going to keep going, because there will always need to be an alternative to what constitutes most of internet writing, which is becoming more and more market-driven. Art is becoming increasingly a marketing product. Artists are not products, we know this. But because my generation is one of the most creatively-bent generations ever, the lines between art and commerce are increasingly blurred. Most of our gifts are channeled into marketing and design--creating products, selling things. Advertising has become a viable creative field for artists. The most creative films I've seen lately are commercials. However, after watching one such commercial, I had a hard time trusting the humor in it. The humor was made to explicitly sell a product. This is the same problem that happened to the Soggy Bottom Boys in O Brother Where Art Thou; their song and even their freedom from jail became manipulated by a politician for his own election.
My point is that advertising and the marketplace, if they are the primary frame behind art, quickly cheapen the creative vision, or overcome the creative vision for the sake of promotion. It is really important for my generation to separate the terms culture and art. What we often call "culture" includes art, but culture is usually a frame through which something is sold and promoted. We often are told to go buy something or visit something because it is interesting culture, or it "has a lot of culture." Now when we say, "I want to go there because it has a lot of culture," what exactly does that mean? Sometimes we mean the collective creative expression of a certain place or group of people. Usually, we use it to describe a part of society that promotes the arts. Now that "culture" has become a marketable thing, cities and communities are able to draw people by levying "culture". Starbucks is "cultural" by that definition, but is it artistic?
There is a place where art and commerce are supposed to intersect, but artists and those in business need to really re-evaluate where that intersection point is. Artists are by natures teachers and demonstrators, and so when commerce is the frame around art, or ministry becomes the frame, whatever, the art quickly loses its value as truth. Both artists and commerce are guilty for this. Truly, artists are often poor, touring around in their beat-up vans, exiled from mainstream culture, scrounging up tools to make their vision. (Just read Van Gogh's letters to his brother.) This is not always a depressing fact, but it is a fact that artists often produce their most valuable symbolic insights--whether they are writers, visual artists, dancers or musicians--when they are challenging the status quo. The most profound books of the 20th century came often from writers who were either exiled from their own country, or in prison (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whom I'm reading right now), or simply without a book contract.
The other day while I was walking about praying, the Lord showed me that artists thrive best in adversity. Not just because they like railing against the system, but because they are meant to break barriers, break conceptions, and ultimately, break open to new areas of truth that have been long neglected by society. When there is a lot of support or even financial comfort around an artist, artists often quickly lose their vision and while they still produce meaningful things their connection and dependence upon commerce for their livelihood is difficult to entangle. For the same reason the church grows the most amazingly when there is persecution.
This is not to say, 'go seek persecution' or 'go seek poverty' or live without a record contract. Many of my artist friends are going to have a lot of financial and commercial success, and I think this is part of their destiny--because God is giving that to them to give them a platform. However, there should be new ways of supplying artists with their tools, and there needs to be a bit more distance between artist and industry. Starbucks, for example, is now a driving force behind music; however the music becomes "starbucksified" and neutered, in my opinion. There was a time when Leonard Cohen or Muddy Waters were something you discovered in a corner somewhere with a friend, like a delightful surprise, a gem--and it changed the way you looked at things, heard things. But when things get oversaturated and given the homogeneic beatnik tone of a Starbucks frame, they really lose their originality. This is unfortunate for the artists. A live Rothko painting was not meant to be printed out en masse to decorate coffeehouse walls... No matter how hip it is to like abstract expressionism, it takes the emotion and revolutionary energy out of it. I had always seen Rothko prints everywhere and always thought 'oh that's nice', until it became bland and uninteresting. It wasn't until I got up close to one of these enormous paintings that I nearly cried and realized what it was about.
The world of commerce, and especially the church, need to understand that artists have a job to do, and that they have a vital role in society which is far more than "cultural"--they are not just here to decorate and make things more interesting, they are here to teach us something. Artists on the other hand, need to evaluate the degree to which they actually need the support of google ads. It is really important for artists to have a vision of how far their work should go--is it meant to be on iTunes or is that just an accepted fact of being a musician?
I am in the midst of publishing my first book, and I know that in my life I will make books with more official publishers, but this particular one God told me to spend my own money on it. It is going to be letter-pressed with a gold ink-stamped cover. This is not a cheap project, but he wanted to reinforce to me the beauty of books in his kingdom. In the church, books have become cheap, covers are cheap, design is cheap. Sometimes something does need to be done quickly but some things are meant to take time and honor.
In the case of blogs, there are some things that I write quickly but some things that are real pieces. I spend time on those. I edit them and think about their content. I ask myself if what I'm saying is true, because I realize that as a writer I have the ability to impact people. As well, I also realize that this medium is not my best medium. For that reason, I have saved a lot of mine and Derek's blog entries which were more "timeless" pieces, and I want to publish them someday as a series of essays. I consider them worth making the leap from blog to book. Even if blogging is not my "best" medium, I still feel like challenging the cheapening of internet writing. Writing is not just a gift, it is something that is meant to be honed. Years ago, when I used to publish columns and poems for newspapers and magazines, I was rejected so many times that I started to wonder if I'd ever be a "writer"--but now I am thankful that I was rejected because rejection really makes you challenge yourself creatively. I'm a much better writer than I was 10 years ago.
So, what I want to say to you, if you have a dream of a punk-anarchist-zine, and that is part of who you are, you should do it. That is where the truth will shine the brightest.
Just got back from a very verdant and rich trip to my family's home in North Carolina. Reminded of roots, and how the spiritual nutrients travel across time through those roots, regardless of where we end up sprouting. I know that it is somewhat a rarity in my generation to actually have your own parents as people who inspire you on any level, but especially spiritually--but mine do.
My mother is simply a star, and just keeps pushing back religion from her walk with Jesus more and more as she grows older, freeing up so many to just be with Him, directly as we are, outside of the confines of any certain prescribeds way to meet with God. She has a knack for keeping God out of the box!
Recently, she met God at gallery show in Vienna, through a series of paintings. The work was Claude Monet, and she just kept saying how God was in the paint. She said that God reminded her in the most glorious way, that when people create, they express Him even when they don't know Him! It is like the act of creating brings one into a symbolic realm where God perforce shows up. That as image bearers, we are bound to express Him whether directly or indirectly. Mom and I discussed what happens when darkness is the subject as with Anselm Kieffer's work etc, but her point was so passionately true--that God made us and so shows up as we search to express...anyways, mom rocks, and keeps inspiring me.
My father, of course just keeps growing in wisdom, and something like practical kindness. The thing is, his spiritual life just keeps growing into the next appropriate season, and hasn't stoped, even though he has obviously been very "successful". He models Watchman Nee's teaching that the christian is above all to keep growing up in all things into the fullness of Christ. Neither mom or dad have stoped growing, and continue to incarnate new parts of Christ's Life each season!
I hear lots of talk about how stuck many people's parents are spiritually; it just made me thankful to hang with mom and dad, and see them as spiritually alive, awake and questing deeper into spiritual reality.
At the end of my trip, I visited a dear friend who now has cancer. He is a musician and a real subtle and refined person before the Lord. As God spoke through laughter and just the life of friendship into him, I was reminded that ours in a generation of overcomers--we are made to suffer into very deep parts of Christ's Life. God gave me a word for him about preserving his life, but I could tell that the work of suffering had already yielded faith not fear in my friend's life. I still feel humbled by my time with my friend.
Anyways, this trip reminded me that I have had so many good teachers over the years--people where I encountered different aspects of Christ's life. I lived for many years with a jewish man from Argentina, who taught me so much about fathering creatively, and just to notice the discarded things in life, and how God was constantly redeeming them. Each person is such a rich deposit! But then when you read your own story, and go back to earlier chapters, and see where He was already shining in the midst of the pages--sometimes between the lines--it just leaves me thankful, and sort of awed.
The size of our shield increases in proportion to our faith. Paul said that "over" all, take up the shield of faith. Another way of looking at "over all" is to say covering all. This much like the very large Roman shields of that day--a huge taller than our body shield.
That the size of our covering or shield was in proportion to our faith is also what Jesus spoke of when He said if we had the faith of a mustard seed, then... So if we had the faith, we would be able to receive the full scale of His Shielding. Now of course, God shields us even when we are not even aware of it; however, Paul is talking about "taking up" this shield. So that this is shield we actually activate by faith.
Do we have the level of faith to take up the full grand scale of the shielding made available to us? This is what Paul is mustering us up to do--increase our faith until a huge portion of Christ is actually made manifest as our shield...His Shield is as big as we are able to allow it to be. If it were allowed in by faith, the shield itself could push a mountain aside, or raise a dead man, or...David said that God WAS His shield, His buckler, His Strength. To the degree that God is allowed to be by faith, we will be be shielded.
Last winter, I noticed a Dove ad in a magazine from England that looked very different than all the other ads. The women in it were different and so amazing looking. They were beautiful, but they were not 5 foot 11 and 100 pounds. Some of them were much shorter, and much, much curvier. Some of them were covered in freckles, some of them were older. The ad just featured six or so faces of women… did y’all see it? The ad was sponsored by Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” and each woman had a question underneath her, like
“What do you think?
oversized or outstanding?
wrinkled or wonderful?
ugly spots or beauty spots?
etc.
Since then this new ad campaign by Dove went on to feature six different “larger” women in their underwear for a firming cream ad. And it is really stirring a lot of attention. Don’t know if you’ve seen them or not, but their ads are now in just about every major women’s magazine. They have a website campaignforrealbeauty.com that is just devoted to changing the way women perceive themselves. The front of the website starts with this simple statement
For too long,
beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling stereotypes.
You’ve told us it’s time to change all that.
We agree.
Because we believe that real beauty comes
in many shapes, sizes and ages.
It is why we started the Campaign for Real Beauty.
Now I don’t know about anybody else, but I am SO GLAD that somebody is taking a positive step in this direction. I think the major, number one problem with the fashion and beauty industry is that it.is largely prostitutional; it holds out a fraction of a woman’s identity as a way of getting women to buy things, or wanting to look like something they are not. The effect it has on women is pretty much the same as the effect it has on men—men want to have sex with them and women want to become them. Men might struggle with pornography but women have their own version. As you all know we are constantly comparing ourselves to each other, to some ideal. Our version is basically buying the fantasy that is being held out to us—we get jealous of other women, we diet to death, we want to feel sexier, and we start to define ourselves in terms of our sexuality and appeal. But we still become trapped inside the same prison of shame and guilt that happens with pornography.
Now how silly is it that women line up like frenzied animals to buy the same purse that Jessica Simpson wore last week?
It doesn’t seem so far-fetched when you think about how the fashion industry hawks our desire for some kind of idolized beauty in order to sell. Celebrities and models are actual people but in the end all we see is this idealized “thing” we want to become. It basically prostitutes the women behind them.
Obviously these ads go a long way in showing alternative images of beauty. They show beautiful each individual woman is with all her “quirks” because those quirks are quite beautiful. But also, the other refreshing thing about these ads is that the women in them are not sexualized, so even though they’re in their underwear they are not being presented as something sexual. This makes you look at them differently. In other words, they are nice to look at but not because they are being offered as something that nobody can have. In fact, they are not being offered as something “to have” at all, but as people who are unique and unto themselves and as a result you enjoy looking at them without feeling shame or lust or jealousy.
Derek has written about this before, but nudity is quite beautiful. I am taking a figure drawing class right now and we spend hours a week drawing naked people, and I have never once felt embarrassed or ashamed to look at them, or even looked at them sexually. It’s all a matter of seeing. A woman can be fully clothed and still look unattainable and even pornographic. Pornography is a way of seeing that basically the enemy has created, reducing women to desirable sexual objects, and this “way of seeing” saturates even women’s fashion magazines, not just Maxim.
I don’t want to look at a woman in that fantasy way. In the case of the Dove ad, thank God, somebody said, we have to do something about this. The people at Dove researched and found out that only 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful. They were quite smart as they went about this, and there are multiple parts to what they have started, including funding a research project on beauty by Harvard women scholars, to a new program for Girl Scouts to discover their beauty, to an international website that is trying to dialogue with women of all ages.
Where we are at right now is that women have such narrow definitions of beauty that these ads are obviously setting off all kinds of buttons. I read yesterday that a newscaster in Chicago described the women in the ads as “chunky” and got like 1000 hate-emails. The funny thing to me is
What’s wrong with “chunky”?
It’s almost like we need to redefine the language of beauty itself?
What if God thinks chunky is beautiful?
Well, I know, I know easier said than done. But somebody has to start somewhere. I like fashion magazines because I love fashion but I am dying for the day that there is one that comes out where the women look uniquely themselves and aren’t wearing lust all over them. However, these ads are a step in a good direction and I really hope that we hear more. Regardless of what they are selling, it is still refreshing to look at a woman who is standing in her bra and she is as old as my mother and you do not feel that she is 1. trying to be younger, 2. trying to be sexy, 3. trying to sell you something. When women are being themselves, they are actually very, very beautiful. I really do believe this and feel it fundamentally. And I think these ads nail that, by focusing on this woman’s flaming red hair and face covered in freckles you are suddenly taken to a windy high mountain where she is holding your hand and laughing and you have peered into the eyes of a queen. That is how each woman should be beheld—not as something to take or to rip the clothes off, but someone who is a queen and who you are PRIVILEGED to see a glimpse of, and was created before the foundation of the world. Any less is disgrace to that woman.
God has changed me a lot here, because I no longer really look at false standards of beauty and think they are pretty. Really. As I get older, I am more and more drawn to people who have found their “personal style” and are comfortable not only with their bodies but their ages and where they are at in this particular season of their lives. I find pregnant women gorgeous. I think that elderly women have a regality that you just don’t see in younger girls. They have something in their eyes that feel like emeralds.
I really love to ask women how they perceive themselves. One thing I’ve felt led to ask some of my friends lately is what about yourself do you dislike and why? And then ask them to ask God why he made them that way and to ask for HIS eyes on this. Why do I have big arms? Wide hips? Small feet? Short legs? Poochy tummy? Whatever. Then why do I think that is bad? Or perhaps they aren’t really “poochy” or “wide”… maybe the term is different. We really have to challenge ourselves here!