the violin
has this way
of unraveling me.
Madeleine L’engle says all of life is a rhythm,
“tension, release; tension, release. Work, discipline, obedience,”
and I would add, joy, pain, healing, peace...like that of a violin,
“pull the bow string taut, and then let it go.”
The tension keeps you in the vein of life,
the release keeps you from breaking.
Madeleine tells me, “The strings must be taut before they will play,
but if they are not released, they will break.” And so we sing.
sometimes the violin saves me.
i learn from these lungs of wood the wail of green and stabbing joy,
teaching me to cry, to crescendo; to love, to ease.
string after string, tension and release.
you just need to drop everything and go listen to this song right now.
your muse will thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fm3qbYfxGY&feature=related
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
because i always write about the incarnation
The Incarnation of Christ, as one of the core Christian beliefs, is composed of the Word given skin, of theology given a body, lungs, hands, and eyes. John 1 speaks of the Incarnation beginning with creation, stating that “all things were made through Him” (John 1:3). In this divine creative process, all things that were brought into existence began with the Living Word, and as humans made in the image of God, our words are intended to function similarly. Our words are not intended to stay stagnant or shelved, but to grow into our very doing, to become incarnate in the tangible outworking of our lives, and this applies particularly to the arts. A biblical view of creative writing unfolds out of an understanding of the Incarnation, which teaches that just as the Word became flesh in the Son of God, language is intended to become manifest in life.
It has always been the natural succession of words to blossom into corresponding action, ever since the creation of the world, when God said, “’Let there by light,’” and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). In this perfect universe, untouched by sin, there was no gap between language and literality. What God said, was, without discrepancy. His Word was enfleshed perfectly in sun, earth, sky and sea. The oneness of word and actuality is glorifying to God, which He expresses in Isaiah, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return void…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
But the entrance of sin into the world drove a destructive wedge between our language and our living. In this gap, untruth interrupts holiness. In the divide between the Word of the Lord and the way of sinners, the poison of hypocrisy is formed, which is simply the word unlived. James recognizes the dangerous tendency to disconnect our language from our living, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). Rather than deception, James pronounces blessing for those who look to God’s Word and then proceed to live it.
The purpose of the Christian writer, then, is to patch this divide, to re-join, restore and remind us that the Word once became flesh and walked among us and that we, like Him, are made to be whole. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the wholeness that existed in Eden; in Him there is no crevice to crack to seamless flow of word and deed. And Scripture teaches us how to live like Him, as we read the divine word and seek to translate it into obedience. This incarnation of word in action, language in living, makes us whole. As writers, we are entrusted with the work of reminding a broken people of this wholeness, of picking up the pieces through story, metaphor and creative word, and so returning the minds of men to the Incarnation.
The written word, as creatively communicated in story and poetry, can help us to interpret our lives in light of the greater, eternal context.
Madeleine L’engle comments in Walking on Water, “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.” Creative word is powerful in its ability to inspire connectedness between daily life and heavenly glory. Words can be for us anchors and footholds, able to tie down the majesty of idea to our level of living. Michael Malone, a contemporary novelist, compares reading literature in one of his books to peering through a periscope: both enable us to “see around corners” and expand our vision. Stories give us the incredible gift of perspective: offering us a glimpse of eternal reality, showing us the connectedness of life, and assuring us that the glory we read of in Scripture and the daily cycle of our lives do, in fact, operate in the same sphere.
Flannery O’Connor suggests this as well, “The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.” Good writing connects the regular details of our lives with the glory of our souls and puts them on the same plane.
The response of the Christian to the revelation of God should be that of Mary’s, who said to the angel Gabriel, “May it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:39). Mary, who Scripture describes as a woman in God’s favor, invited the divine word to manifest itself in her very life, which was fulfilled literally in the Incarnation. In the same way, we invite the Incarnation into our lives when we obey God’s Word. We give our faith a face when we love the widow, feed the hungry, visit the sick.
The Christian writer, Madeleine L’engle writes, should be like Mary as well, “who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.” L’engle remarks, “I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.’” In the creative process, the writer-artist responds to each idea like Mary to the angel’s revelation, “Yes, manifest yourself in my very flesh, that I may nurture you, cultivate you to grow, and pour you into the world for men to see”. The Christian writer uses language as a frame, clothing the abstractness of idea in the flesh of syllables, sentences and words, and then presenting it to the world as a bright and shining advent.
Of course, language is a gift that, like any other, may be abused. If language is so nearly knitted together with living, then language that is untrue will necessarily result in untrue living. Just as there is sanctifying power in the word of truth, there is destructive power in words of untruth (John 17:17, 1 Timothy 4:5). The heightened responsibility of the writer, as stewards of this powerful word, is clear: “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36).
It is from words that our actions are born, and it is by words that we will be judged. The glorious task entrusted to the Christian writer is to fashion words in the manner of the Incarnation: words that point men to wholeness, and language that teaches us how to live.
It has always been the natural succession of words to blossom into corresponding action, ever since the creation of the world, when God said, “’Let there by light,’” and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). In this perfect universe, untouched by sin, there was no gap between language and literality. What God said, was, without discrepancy. His Word was enfleshed perfectly in sun, earth, sky and sea. The oneness of word and actuality is glorifying to God, which He expresses in Isaiah, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return void…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
But the entrance of sin into the world drove a destructive wedge between our language and our living. In this gap, untruth interrupts holiness. In the divide between the Word of the Lord and the way of sinners, the poison of hypocrisy is formed, which is simply the word unlived. James recognizes the dangerous tendency to disconnect our language from our living, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). Rather than deception, James pronounces blessing for those who look to God’s Word and then proceed to live it.
The purpose of the Christian writer, then, is to patch this divide, to re-join, restore and remind us that the Word once became flesh and walked among us and that we, like Him, are made to be whole. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the wholeness that existed in Eden; in Him there is no crevice to crack to seamless flow of word and deed. And Scripture teaches us how to live like Him, as we read the divine word and seek to translate it into obedience. This incarnation of word in action, language in living, makes us whole. As writers, we are entrusted with the work of reminding a broken people of this wholeness, of picking up the pieces through story, metaphor and creative word, and so returning the minds of men to the Incarnation.
The written word, as creatively communicated in story and poetry, can help us to interpret our lives in light of the greater, eternal context.
Madeleine L’engle comments in Walking on Water, “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.” Creative word is powerful in its ability to inspire connectedness between daily life and heavenly glory. Words can be for us anchors and footholds, able to tie down the majesty of idea to our level of living. Michael Malone, a contemporary novelist, compares reading literature in one of his books to peering through a periscope: both enable us to “see around corners” and expand our vision. Stories give us the incredible gift of perspective: offering us a glimpse of eternal reality, showing us the connectedness of life, and assuring us that the glory we read of in Scripture and the daily cycle of our lives do, in fact, operate in the same sphere.
Flannery O’Connor suggests this as well, “The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.” Good writing connects the regular details of our lives with the glory of our souls and puts them on the same plane.
The response of the Christian to the revelation of God should be that of Mary’s, who said to the angel Gabriel, “May it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:39). Mary, who Scripture describes as a woman in God’s favor, invited the divine word to manifest itself in her very life, which was fulfilled literally in the Incarnation. In the same way, we invite the Incarnation into our lives when we obey God’s Word. We give our faith a face when we love the widow, feed the hungry, visit the sick.
The Christian writer, Madeleine L’engle writes, should be like Mary as well, “who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.” L’engle remarks, “I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.’” In the creative process, the writer-artist responds to each idea like Mary to the angel’s revelation, “Yes, manifest yourself in my very flesh, that I may nurture you, cultivate you to grow, and pour you into the world for men to see”. The Christian writer uses language as a frame, clothing the abstractness of idea in the flesh of syllables, sentences and words, and then presenting it to the world as a bright and shining advent.
Of course, language is a gift that, like any other, may be abused. If language is so nearly knitted together with living, then language that is untrue will necessarily result in untrue living. Just as there is sanctifying power in the word of truth, there is destructive power in words of untruth (John 17:17, 1 Timothy 4:5). The heightened responsibility of the writer, as stewards of this powerful word, is clear: “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36).
It is from words that our actions are born, and it is by words that we will be judged. The glorious task entrusted to the Christian writer is to fashion words in the manner of the Incarnation: words that point men to wholeness, and language that teaches us how to live.
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