The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. ...I believe that each work of...
When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.
The figure in the icon is not meant to represent literally what Peter or John or any of the apostles looked like, or what Mary looked like, nor the child, Jesus. But, the orthodox painter feels, Jesus of Nazareth did not walk around Galilee faceless....
Reading about the response of people in stories, plays, poems, helps us to respond more courageously and openly at our own moments of turning.
Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation, or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts...
In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we were asked to endure...
When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.
If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.
but BEing time is never wasted time. When we are BEing, not only are we collaborating with chronological time, but we are touching on kairos, and are freed from the normal restrictions of time.
We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his...
As long as we know what it's about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.
Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos, we see despite all the chaos.
But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos becomes essential.
to look at a work of art and then to make a judgement as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous.
Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.
As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept o...
