Whilst in England for a conference and my (successful!) doctoral thesis viva, I took some time to visit the Cathedral Church of St. Philip. St. Philip’s is very modest – not what one might expect from a cathedral – but it boasts some exquisite stained glass by Edward Burne-Jones. Indeed, one’s eyes cannot help but be drawn to the large stained-glass adorning its apse. The image is of the Ascension. Christ is depicted in glory; beneath him are 11 apostles and Mary gazing upward. Christ is cloaked in a deep red robe and flanked on either side by angels. With the sun shining brightly on the afternoon I visited, the red robe glows so intensely that one’s view is almost overcome with it. It is as if the robe has become a red blotch upon our vision; we cannot look anywhere without seeing it. Because it is there – everywhere – we must either leave or look at it and ponder its existence. And so I pondered the blood of Christ on this warm English afternoon. A parishioner scurried about me dusting the pews; a vicar sat nearby reading; a group of elderly women held a quiet meeting in a corner. Even so I was able to have a moment of something meaningful.
Archive for the ‘Creating Space’ Category
A Red Robe in Birmingham
Saturday, September 26th, 2009Art on Favelas
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009From BBC.com: ”The French artist JR first made his mark in Rio de Janeiro last year, as giant posters of staring eyes started appearing on buildings in the city’s oldest favela. He was drawn there following the controversial deaths of three young men, amid alleged collusion between Brazilian soldiers and a drugs gang. But now JR’s work has made it on to some of Rio’s grander structures. Take a tour of the city with the artist himself, and meet the people who inspired him.”
Click here for a slideshow and the artist’s commentary on how his art infuses value into needy spaces.
Click here for JR’s website and portfolio (which includes his work done in Kibera, Kenya).
Making Space
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
Spanish Muslims leaving Spain
Allow me to quote at length a passage from Kathryn Miller’s Guardians of Islam: Religious Authority and Muslim Communities of Late Medieval Spain (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008):
To demonstrate how such mastery of self might operate for the Mudejars [Muslims living under Christian rule], al-Mawwaq offered an anecdote concerning a famous fourteenth-century Muslim sheikh, a Sufi scholar and leader living in territory conquered by the Christians. The Muslim sheikh continued to conduct his meetings in a zawiya (place of meeting for Sufi scholars) after the conquest, even allowing an interested Christian official to attend. Whenever this man visited, the sheikh moved over “to make room by his side” so that the religious outsider might join the scholarly circle, despite the fact that Muslims historically harbored grave doubts regarding contaminated knowledge and public exchange with Christians. Having been criticized by a student wary of such intercourse and concerned with the possibility that an infidel might distort Islamic beliefs, the sheikh maintained that his hospitality and overt compromise had their uses. When the student himself suffered an injustice at the hands of the Christians, the sheikh simply “made room by his side” and asked the official to rectify the wrong. Needless to say, the student’s attitude toward the sheikh’s tactics changed and his master’s pragmatism became less blameworthy.
…. Al-Mawwaq was aware of the implications of cultural intercourse, and knew that boundaries between religious communities became more ambiguous and clouded by contact. His anecdote was meant to show how the dismantling of barriers (or “making space”) between Christians and Muslims constituted one strategy for protecting the flock (38).
Al-Mawwaq’s strategy is innovative and counter-intuitive. When faced with the disappearance of one’s culture or religion, the temptation is to abandon what is foreign for what is familiar or simply to build walls, but certainly not to “make space.” Give Miller’s book a read for more on Mudejar strategies for maintaining their faith and culture.
Creating Mud Spaces
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
Go here for a BBC tour of mud homes being built in war-torn Gaza. Building materials are among a host of items prevented from entering Gaza, forcing locals to rebuild homes using bricks made from a mixture of mud and straw. Leaving the political analysis aside, I am intrigued by the architectural choices made by the builders. Even though these structures are temporary solutions to a lasting problem, creativity and purposeful design were not sacrificed.
On Pilgrimage and Baptism
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
The Baptism of Christ by Master of the Life of Saint John the Baptist, tempera on panel, c. 1330/1340, Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art
N.T. Wright’s book The Way of the Lord is a very fine theological treatment of Christian pilgrimage. As a leading New Testament scholar one might expect a rather erudite approach by Wright, but the reader is instead met with a thoughtful, even inspirational, reflection on the importance and value of modern pilgrimage. Wright is also the Anglican Bishop of Durham, and so one might also be surprised to find him reflecting on the spiritual significance of an act pushed far to the margins by most Protestants.
Wright is hesitant to give pilgrimage his wholesale approval, or rather he is keen to point out the ease in which pilgrimage might be abused. Of all people, New Testament scholars might be the first to highlight the shift from the Old Testament’s emphasis upon holy land to the New Testament’s emphasis upon a holy people. Nevertheless, there are some spots, some spaces, whether part of an official pilgrimage or not, that have the mark of holiness. There is little in (Protestant) theology to account for this. But as Wright himself concludes, “The only answer I have to this day is that when God is known, sought and wrestled with in a place, a memory of that remains, which those who know and love God can pick up” (5). And so Wright recommends pilgrimage to holy places because: 1) it has a “valuable role within the Church’s teaching ministry;” 2) it is a “stimulus and an invitation to prayer;” and 3) it can be “a time of real growth and depth in discipleship” (9-10).
In this light, The Way of the Lord will be most helpful to Protestants, but it contains some of the finest and most succinctly clear reflection that I have read in some time. This is particularly true of Wright’s thoughts on the relationship of pilgrimage to baptism. I’ve long grown tired of the in-house debates – sprinkle or immersion, infant or … non-infant. The son of friends of mine was recently denied baptism by a pastor who thought that the boy’s explanation of one aspect of Christian doctrine was inadequate. When I was told this, it was all I could do to not violently drown the pastor in the nearest baptismal. Indeed, baptism is a serious matter, but we so often miss the point. Wright masterfully reminds us of the point in a way that I’ve not come across before.
Reflecting on the Jordan River, Wright briefly accounts for its significance to Israel in spite of its rather meek appearance. It was at this river that the Israelites (not the Israelis, mind you) crossed over into the Promised Land. It was their baptism, of sorts, and Joshua, their leader, marked the occasion with two stone monuments. Wright comments, “The symbolism is obvious. This crossing of the Jordan was the defining moment for the twelve tribes of Israel. It made them who they were; and it made the Promised Land what it was” (27).
So it was for Naaman, the commader of the Syrian army (cf. 2 Kings 5). Struck with leprosy, Naaman heard of a certain Jew in Israel whose God seemed to specialize in curing just such a malady. He found the prophet Elisha, made his request, and was told to do something unthinkable. Go wash yourself 7 times in the Jordan, he is told. The Jordan? That measley, dirty, excuse for a river? What could it hurt, he concludes. He goes to the Jordan, passes through it as he is told (like so many Jews had done centuries before), and is healed. Even more, he is convinced of the unsurpassed power of the one God, Yahweh. As Wright reflects, “He has a new loyalty …. He has been given a new identity. He has been defined, for good, by that moment at the Jordan” (28).
Some time later a man named John baptized in the Jordan another Joshua, i.e., Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus. “And when he went down into the water and came up the other side, the Spirit descended on him, and God himself declared that this was his beloved Son. And just as the many streams of eastern Israel run down into the Jordan, so the many rich streams of Israel’s history were channelled into that one moment. This was the moment that would ever after define the people of God” (29). “In New Testament terms, an unbaptized Christian is an anomaly to be rectified as soon as possible. Baptism says what John was saying, what Elisha was saying to Naaman: here, washed in this water, are the covenant people of the one true God” (30).
For its clarity a rather long quotation is excused:
If we see baptism … as the defining moment at the formal beginning of Christian pilgrimage, we should be able to avoid some of the problems that have been associated with it. Much modern Western thinking has been deeply suspicious of symbolism and symbolic actions, seeing them as mere mumbo-jumbo. Baptism is often regarded as a useless ritual, more to do with social convention than with living faith. This is perhaps an inevitable reaction to the view which has so emphasized the sacramental validity of the action as to make it appear almost magical, as though by splashing water on someone and mumbling a few words one could make them a Christian and save their soul for ever …. In our generation, though, we are starting to be more aware again of the power of symbolic actions; and the time is therefore ripe to reappropriate the glory and mystery of baptism. Sacraments are not sympathetic magic; but neither are they mere empty signs.
You cannot, then, turn away from the font like a latter-day Naaman and say, “I might as well have a bath at home in comfort.” You must abandon your cultural pride, and submit to the humiliation of sharing the death of Jesus, so that you may now be defined by that moment, that action, and set out on a new path of resurrection life. If you want to do business with Jesus, you must go down to the Jordan, and wash. You must publicly and visibly share his dying and rising, and be defined by that event for the rest of your life.
This enables us to understand the meaning of baptism for those of us, myself included, who were baptized as infants and who cannot consciously remember the event. Baptism is a beginning, not an ending. It is the start of a pilgrimage, not its conclusion. Think again of the children of Israel. They looked back to the wilderness and the Jordan as the moment when God had set them free, had given them a new identity. That didn’t make them perfect, any more than baptism makes us perfect. Precisely because God has set us free, we are free to rebel, to go our own way. We are free, like the Prodigal son, to go off into exile, to choose a way of life which will lead us far from our Father’s house. But even in exile we remain people who have been defined by that moment under the water. The death and resurrection of Jesus, to which baptism points, function for us like the … stone in the river, defining who we are. And the covenant love of God in Christ reaches out, yearning after us, urging us to return and be truly his people again” (31-32).
On Dialogue and Eating
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Brace yourself: I must admit that I am socially handicapped. Not challenged … handicapped. Large groups stress me out, but smaller, more intimate settings are often cause for some concern as well. I anticipate awkward moments of silence in which I, as 1 of only 2, 3, or 4 conversational partners, must initiate some sort of discussion that might rescue us from the discomfort of simply breathing in front of one another. Inevitably, my attempts result in my own embarrassment which, at the very least, can become a topic of conversation for others to discuss. It is no small wonder, then, that I managed to woo my wife and trick her into marrying me. Actually, she some how manages to press out the best of me, but with everyone else, interaction can at times be a strategic challenge.
Imagine if you will a dinner party. “My free range chicken with white bean ragout is delightful,” someone remarks. “How’s your duck breast with whipped sweet potatoes?” I frantically search my mind for something brilliant to say, the process of which causes me to forget the original question. For my response, I finally choose to form a sentence made of 3 words: “It is good.” My body courses with a sense of triumph, but where do we go from there? Occasionally, I’ll switch things up. Instead of silently thinking of things to say, I’ll think out loud. ”This silence is awkward isn’t it? I’m trying to think of something brilliant to talk about, but … nothing.” I’ve discovered that this tactic actually increases a sense of awkwardness that even manages to creep to other dinner tables. Suddenly, whole restaurants are filled with quiet, breathing diners.
I have come to the conclusion, that my handicap is not helped by the average Western meal. In this setting, diners are separated by a table. We sit on distant islands called chairs in front of our own individual plates, silverware, napkins, and glasses. Our food is served to us on our own plates which then function as secondary borders separating us from other diners. If at a restaurant, we often have separate, unique meals; we may even have our own, unique beverages. Unique is fine, but it prevents us from sharing experience. Dialogue may flow among the more skilled conversationalists among us, but it must do so – knowingly or unknowingly – over barriers: chair, table, plate, unfamiliarity.
I’ve eaten in other cultural settings before, but a recent dinner with friends at a Moroccan restaurant brought fresh perspective. There were no islands or borders. Instead, we sat on the floor around 1 large, common plate. There was no silverware, little individuality that might create distance. With our hands, we shared an abundance of food spread sporadically on the large plate. Sticky with delicious goodness we held our hands over a bowl – each one intermingled with another – as rose water was poured over them. ”What is on this chicken,” someone asked, “it’s incredible!” We all responded in agreement because we were all tasting it; we all held morsels in our fingers, delicatley maneuvering it from large common plate to mouth. Between courses, we reclined and reflected on experience. Dialogue flowed naturally and without pause – even from me! – because the food and the setting drew us together. They were bridges of conversation and togetherness. I no longer felt handicapped. I was suddenly a conversational champion – brilliant, thoughtful, hilarious, and I daresay, even more attractive! My awkwardness didn’t creep over to others because these new bridges were conduits through which lives could be shared. A space was created for the 4 of us that elicited intimacy, not because we each were necessarily up to the task of fine conversation (though 3 out of 4 are already pretty good at it), but because we each became part of one another when we entered this space of relationship connected by bridges of intimacy.
Image source
Creating Space with Precision [2]
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
Sistine Madonna (Raphael)
If the Carmel Mission can somehow create a meaningful space with its lack of precision, then there might possibly be a myriad of examples in which intentional space is created on the basis of artistic and architectural precision. We’ve been fortunate to see some of the world’s greatest examples of this, but one such example is close to home.
Newly renovated just 3 years ago, Sacramento’s Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament is precise in its layout, design, lighting, and decoration. Each of these design elements is intentional in drawing attention to the sacraments, the Eucharist in particular. Examples are numerous, but two are most worth mentioning here.
Upon entering the cathedral one approaches the baptismal font bathed in soft light. Water cascades from the fountain itself onto a larger pool beneath it. As it does, it flows forward over a mosaic floor that begins with darker tiles and ends with brighter ones. These color changes are meant to represent baptism itself – a transition from death to new life, from darkness to light. Indeed this imagery is carried forward as one’s eyes move from the soft light over the baptismal font up through the nave. As they do, the light grows brighter and brighter. At its most luminous point, light falls on the altar itself and the occasion of the Eucharist.
Even more powerful, albeit more subtle, is the placement of an exquisite copy of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (see the image above; original now in Dresden, Germany at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister). It is hung in the north transept, perpendicular to the crossing and the altar (see a diagram here). Facing it you see on the right St. Barbara, saint of funeral. Her face is turned down almost out of duty. She is accompanied by two angels at the bottom (Raphael apparently modeled these after two boys who watched him paint the piece). In the center is the Blessed Virgin Mary holding Jesus. Though you may not be able to tell from the image above, St. Mary’s face is troubled and angry. Jesus is clearly terrified. Pope Sixtus (pope when Raphael painted) kneels on the left. He gazes almost reluctantly towards Christ and the Holy Mother. His right arm is outstretched and a slightly bent index finger points towards . . . something. It is perplexing – the faces of anger and terror, the pointing finger – until one turns around to see just what angers Mary, terrifies Jesus, and what St. Sixtus points to. Just as Raphael originally intended, St. Sixtus is indicating Jesus’ fate, for an about-face reveals this, Christ’s mission. The crucifix measures 13 feet and is topped with a crown (halo) 14 feet in diameter. It is the climax of the liturgy and the Eucharist itself. It is holy space created with artistic precision.
Creating Space with Imprecision [1]
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Over the holiday weekend, Sarah and I drove south to visit the beautiful San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, a Spanish mission built in the late-18th century (more pics here). It was the site of several ‘firsts’, including the first confirmation in what was then Alta California and California’s first library.
Its gardens were captivating. So was its history – it was very much an extension of the Spanish missionaries who founded it, attested to by the ubiquitous homage to Santiago (St. James the Apostle) and even Santiago Matamoros.
Most intriguing by far, however, was the mission’s architecture. Portions of the its formerly dilapidated structure have been refurbished. The ceiling of the basilica, for instance, is immaculate and precise. Its exposed brick rafters form perfect arches, hovering over the nave and almost pulling you towards the altar. Apart from these exquisite reclamations, the architectural style is noticeably imprecise. This is most apparent when approaching the exterior from the front. There is hardly a straight line. The left tower’s dome is slightly misshapen. Perched atop the main doors – where there might normally be a rose window – is a rather (severely) twisted star.
These imprecisions, for whatever reason, are hardly bothersome though. And after discussing it length, we concluded that they could simply be the result of workers on the missionary frontier; perhaps clergy trained in theology, yet lacking the skills of craftsmen. Even so, these imprecisions exude heavy doses of warm honesty and humility. They draw you towards its doors and beckon you to enter. Once inside, you are are drawn further towards the altar. At the rail, you are compelled to kneel and gaze upward. As it turns out, such honest imprecision becomes a beautiful picture of the Spanish missionaries’ theological intentions (or at least what they should have been) – to create a space where honest incarnation is mimicked and offered.
Art and Reconciliation
Saturday, June 28th, 2008I have just come across “The Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Artists” written nearly a decade ago. See here for the piece in its entirety, but here is an especially notable selection:
In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God. It must therefore translate into meaningful terms that which is in itself ineffable.
In Christ, God has reconciled the world to himself. All believers are called to bear witness to this; but it is up to you, men and women who have given your lives to art, to declare with all the wealth of your ingenuity that in Christ the world is redeemed: the human person is redeemed, the human body is redeemed, and the whole of creation which, according to Saint Paul, “awaits impatiently the revelation of the children of God’ is redeemed.
That is your task. Humanity in every age, and even today, looks to works of art to shed light upon its path and destiny.
Thinking Medieval [2]
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008Towards the end of the 10th century a certain Abu ‘Umar Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Sa’di visited Baghdad. Whether or not he was on holiday we cannot be sure, but in any case he chose the obvious vacation option of attending a few sessions of religious discussion in the homes of some famous Muslim scholars. As he describes it:
At the first session I attended I witnessed a meeting which included every kind of group: Sunni Muslims and heretics, and all kinds of infidels: Majus, materialists, atheists, Jews and Christians. Each group had a leader who would speak on its doctrine and debate about it. Whenever one of these leaders arrived, from whichever of the groups he came, the assembly rose up for him, standing on their feet until he would sit down, then they would take their seats after he was seated. When the meeting was jammed with its participants, and they saw that no one else was expected, one of the infidels said, “You have all agreed to the debate, so the Muslims should not argue against us on the basis of their scripture, nor on the basis of the sayings of their prophet, since we put no credence in these things, and we do not acknowledge him. Let us dispute with one another only on the basis of arguments from reason, and what observation and deduction will support.” Then they would say, “Agreed.” Abu ‘Umar said, “When I heard that, I did not return to that meeting. Later someone told me there was to be another meeting for discussion, so I went to it and I found them engaging in the same practices as their colleagues. So I stopped going to the meetings of the disputants, and I never went back.*
More often than not, religious discussions like these took place on paper. Evidence for public discussions is extremely rare. What is available often comes from Abbasid Baghdad where Abu ‘Umar visited. Beyond the fact that this discussion actually happened, two items are of interest: 1) it took place in an environment that fostered genuine respect for one another (notice also that this genuine respect occurred within a discussion of superior/uniquely true religion); and 2) the participants refused to debate or discuss on the basis of one’s own scripture. Arguments from the Qur’an or Hadith, however valid, were not to be used against Christians since they did not value them in the same way as did Muslims. Likewise, Christians would likely not argue on the basis of the Bible since Muslims did not place the same value in it that Christians did.** In other words, they realized that they did not agree on everything. They were aware of the details of each other’s faith. While they did not wish to expunge scripture from debate or dialogue, they were not willing to argue in circles.
In my last post, I suggested that we should learn from past mistakes. Our forebears originally deemed Islam irreligious. With time, many re-evaluated their assessments and chose different approaches. We should learn from these mistakes and the process of correcting them, but as we see in what Abu ‘Umar witnessed, we might also learn from what was done correctly.
*From Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Humaydi, Jadhwat al-Muqtabis, as quoted in Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam, p. 64.
**On this, consider Theodore Abu Qurrah, a 9th century Melkite, who recalls the challenge of a Muslim opponent: “Persuade me not from your Isaiah or Matthew, for whom I have not the slightest regard, but from compelling, acknowledged, common conceptions” (from his Opusculum, quoted in Griffith, p. 94).
