Two perspectives on art and God:

[tocryabout]

Chapter 2 is getting towards done, so I'll have it up before too long. In the meantime, because I'm reading Rahner, here's some of his "Prayer for Creative Thinkers":

"In words and in images, in their whole attitude and presentation they express what is in man because they proclaim what they themselves experience. And in expressing this let them express everything! Grant them the experience that man is not merely the frustrated hell of his own nothingness, but also the fair and blessed land over which stretches the heaven of Your own infinitude and freedom. They do not need to be constantly bringing You into everything they say. They must make mention of You only when they are filled with the spirit of the purest happiness or the deepest pain. For the rest let them honour You with their silence. For the rest let them praise the earth and humanity. But in doing this they must always bear You silently in their hearts, for it is here that their creative work has its source. Then even the slightest song becomes an echo of the rejoicing that takes place in Your heaven, and even when they have to tell of the most sombre depths to which man can sink, still their record of this is encompassed by Your compassion and permeated by a longing for light, virtue, and the eternal love. Then even an attempt to entertain is still a reflection of the gentleness and patience with which You love us in our daily lives. Give them the courage to attain to the light and to the joy in the darkness of this age and in all the hunger and poverty of our hearts. Such courage is a grace that comes from You. But give it to them, for we have need of such high courage."

(Karl Rahner, Prayers for a Lifetime. New York: Crossroad, 1984.)

And coming at it from a different direction, Bono:

Did you feel religious when you went to church?

Even then I prayed more outside of the church than inside. It gets back to the songs I was listening to; to me, they were prayers. "How many roads must a man walk down?" That wasn't a rhetorical question to me. It was addressed to God. It's a question I wanted to know the answer to, and I'm wondering, who do I ask that to? I'm not gonna ask a schoolteacher. When John Lennon sings, "Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes are wide open" -- these songs have an intimacy for me that's not just between people, I realize now, not just sexual intimacy. A spiritual intimacy.

[...]

You never saw rock & roll -- the so-called devil's music -- as incompatible with religion?

Look at the people who have formed my imagination. Bob Dylan. Nineteen seventy-six -- he's going through similar stuff. You buy Patti Smith: Horses -- "Jesus died for somebody's sins/But not mine..." And she turns Van Morrison's "Gloria" into liturgy. She's wrestling with these demons -- Catholicism in her case. Right the way through to Wave, where she's talking to the pope.

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues, on one hand -- running away; gospel, the Mighty Clouds of Joy -- running towards. And later you came to analyze it and figure it out.

The blues are like the Psalms of David. Here was this character, living in a cave, whose outbursts were as much criticism as praise. There's David singing, "Oh, God -- where are you when I need you?/You call yourself God?" And you go, this is the blues.

Both deal with the relationship with God. That's really it. I've since realized that anger with God is very valid. ...

Somebody told me about this article, and rather mangled Bono's message by phrasing it as "every song is addressing God somehow", which I don't think is what he's saying. But I like that mishearing: I'm very taken with this idea that every work of art is an expression of a relationship with God, even if the artist doesn't believe -- maybe ceremoniously ignoring Him, maybe lying, maybe being truthful, maybe delivering a message straight to him.

Anyway, if you listen to depressing Radiohead songs and think, "This is what Thom Yorke would say to God if he could," it has some kind of effect.

One more quote about art, although not really about God (except in the crypto Rahner-Bono way):

"Once, very much since I’ve been fending for myself ... my parents said to me, "Martin, you spend too much time on your work. You work on a painting long after it’s been done ... the details are beautiful, but no one sees that part." That’s what my parents say a LOT.

LOT.

Well I say to them! “It makes me a shitty living but I LIKE DOING IT!” That’s all I can figure out so far ... and I am fucked ... but what do I do?

...and so the artwork took a long time.

I wish artists specified what drugs they were on when they wrote what they wrote."

- Martin Tielli

I'm not sure why I like that so much, but I do. I dig on his determination to produce beautyness, as he calls it.

Comments

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

You're far too clever for your own good there Alex.

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

I'm not the one who came up with this. I REPORT, YOU DECIDE.

(I'm in love with my new Peter Sellers icon.)

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well who says I was talking about this post, eh smarty pants?

I'm rather fond of it too...*thinks about stealing*

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

For you, of course.

(Everyone else can make their own hilarious inside joke icons.)

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

Now that's something I haven't done! I need an inside joke icon. Quickly, I demand that you and I do something which allows this.

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

I can make you a "The Illogical Hall" icon, if you like...

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

I would approve so heartily it would likely hurt.
Any shows coming up? I feel the need to travel.

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

Great Lake Swimmers at Elixir on Thursday, Jan 12. And the Sadies at the Grad Club in February. You would love the Sadies--nay, you shall. Just see them live, don't bother with their albums.

And voila:

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

What the hell, imageshack?

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

Mind if I join you for the Sadies?

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

Definitely. They are quite a bit (QUITE a bit) less pretty than Joel Plaskett, but they completely play sweaty surf/rock/country with fiddles and howling and psychedelic guitar.

It's Thursday, Feb 16, so see if you can fit it in.

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

I'll be able to. I suppose I'll get used to this late night driving thing, actually it was a delightful trip. So yes, how much will tickets be?

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

The Grad Club's site doesn't say, but $15 max, more likely $10.

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, that's the small little place you pointed out. I'll be looking forward to it!

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, brilliance incarnate.

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Someone (I think it was iMonk's Michael Spencer?) wrote a nice article about the Psalms and Jesus at Lazarus's tomb, comparing it to the blues, but of course I can no longer find it. Anyway.

Something about smart Germans, they either write in tight paragraphs that you can't break up into soundbites or they make the best aphorisms evar omg (Nietzsche, Wittgenstein). I have no great desire to write like a German myself, but it's still an admirable trait.