A Hummingbird and Art

Lost in the glossy pages of my book, I missed its arrival until the need to consider this line, “Nature became a doorway to the infinite, so much so, that they (the Romantic poets – who wrote in reaction perhaps to the Modernist poets) invested in it the power to transform the human spirit.”  That one rang my bell because I was sitting on our deck in the morning sunshine, tall evergreens blotting out the houses in front of me intentionally, to get as close to nature as I could – honestly because immersing myself in nature tends to draw me closer to God.

Anyway, there I sat, pen in hand and journal on my lap when I happened to look up and notice the tiny grey hummingbird flitting from one deep purple trumpet flower (what I call them because it describes them best) after another, gulping down fast draughts of nectar. Suddenly he heads my way. I pause, and he does likewise, his wings almost invisibly beating the air.  Determining I am harmless, and not a source of nectar, he drops a speck of white – kind of a “so there!” gesture – and busies himself draining the remaining flowers.

The book, it is downstairs or I would give you the title right now, discusses the church and art and it is fascinating.  Although God seemed pretty interested in beauty, check out the Old Testament and the design for the Temple and the garb of the priests for instance, there is little about art in the New Testament.  You see art in the early church first in the Catacombs, and later in the great Cathedrals – where art was the method of choice to communicate the gospel and the Bible narrative in a non-literate culture.

But literacy and the enlightenment and then modernism changed both the utilitarian view, influence of art, and the appreciation for art…and with the postmodern culture, art also lost its moorings.  Modernism and its philosophy that science and the ability to empirically demonstrate anything ruled culture could only be followed one way, and as the pendulum generally swings, postmodernism said knowability was only in the mind of each person. 

Have you ever heard anyone say, “It may be right for him, and that’s OK, but it’s not right for me”?  Or have you heard, “I think it means this, but that doesn’t mean it has to mean that to you.”  That same philosophy permeated postmodern art – or what is called art.  During the Renaissance, the artist sought to reproduce the image he or she saw – even if the seeing was in the mind, so the gospel, the truth could be clearly understood and understood to mean the same thing to each viewer.

Today, much of art, be it performance art, film, music, collages – flat and three dimensional, are not meant to have a common meaning.  In response the church fled art!  Did you notice that you seldom see any artwork other than the ubiquitous head of Christ in a protestant church?  But God’s people are still creative!  How is it that we cannot share that creativity in the church…well, in some churches we do get creative with our music….but it is seldom that we see other expressions of art in a church. We sing poetry as lyrics of a song, but I can’t remember hearing an adult use poetry in worship.  We invite chalk artists in or have power point presentations, but how often do we have other forms of art used in worship?  I don’t have a solution, and I have only started the book, but I do know God is still drawing creative people to Himself, and I think their giftedness is to be shared.