Clearly Seen

Bill Walsh — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:28:48 +0000

Beauty Placed

Bill Walsh — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:26:56 +0000

“It is as though beautiful things have been placed here and there throughout the world to serve as small wake-up calls to perception, spurring lapsed alertness back to its most acute level.”

On Beauty and Being Just, pg. 81
Elaine Scarry

Beauty as Profession

Bill Walsh — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:15:21 +0000

“Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky … question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One who is not subject to change?

The Explanation, then, of the goodness of creation is the goodness of God. It puts an end to all controversies concerning the origin of the world…The heretics mention, for example, fire, cold, wild beasts and things like that, without considering how wonderful such things are in themselves and in their proper place, and how beautifully they fit into the total pattern of the universe, making their particular contributions to the commonwealth of cosmic beauty.”

St. Augustine
The City of God 11.22

Echo of Eden

Bill Walsh — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 00:29:22 +0000

“Our work in any field of the arts will be imitative. We will be thinking God’s thoughts after Him—painting with His colors; speaking with His gift of language; exploring and expressing His sounds and harmonies; working with His creation in all its glory, diversity, and in-built inventiveness. In addition, we will find ourselves longing to make known the beauty of life as it once was in Paradise, the tragedy of its present marring, and the hope of our final redemption. All great art will contain this element of being an echo of Eden: Eden in its original glory, Eden that is lost to us, and Eden restored.”

Christianity and the Arts
Covenant Theological Seminary
Page 7

Bill Walsh — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 00:13:44 +0000

Glory Oozes

Bill Walsh — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:00:40 +0000

In the works of His hands God is revealing His glory and grandeur. Sometimes it surprises us, flaming out for an instant only to recede again into what we normally regard as the commonplace. At other times it seems to ooze around us, gathering strength and power, rich and fragrant, filling the place we occupy with an unmistakable sense of the divine presence. So powerful, so undeniable can be the sense of God’s self-disclosure that it is remarkable that most people seem to take so little notice of these evidences of divine glory and grandeur. Occupied with the affairs of this world, they trudge through their daily routines of trade and toil, unmindful of the glory shimmering and beckoning around them. They take the creation for granted, or even abuse it. Having shod their feet with the comforts of material existence, they surfeit themselves with an abundance of things, preferring these for their own sake alone, rather than for any firsthand experience of God revealing Himself in what He has made.

T.M. Moore
Consider the Lilies, pg. 8

God’s Grandeur

Bill Walsh — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 04:31:57 +0000

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down thing;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)

Bill Walsh — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 01:19:49 +0000

Bill Walsh — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:08:56 +0000

A Gift, Not a Commodity

Bill Walsh — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:32:03 +0000

Jesus is telling us that these things we use and take for granted, like the arts, can have a central place in our conversation about the eternal. Because they are ephemeral and spindly, they ignite. Because they are throwaways, they serve a greater purpose. Precisely because the arts are useless, peripheral, and ephemeral, they are significant, essential, and permanent for God’s Kingdom. The arts are a gift, not a commodity. To the extent that we commoditize art and value art as the price dictates, to that extent we will devalue ourselves. To the extent that the arts are devalued in the church, to that extent we will dehumanize and devalue the gospel. We will end up “selling” the gospel as cheap, utilitarian merchandise, filling our mall-like churches with trinkets only worthy of 15 seconds of fame and attention.

Makoto Fujimura, Consider the Lillies, The Ooze