My Birthday, Art Nouveau and the Hope required in Art

Its my birthday and I am sitting researching Art Nouveau. I love researching art and design, well, I love research. The whole exploration of a topic or person from history or today is just very exciting as you uncover more information, you get a better understanding. What draws me continually to Art Nouveau (though this time I am beginning an Essay on Guimard and Art Nouveau) is their ornamentation. However in Art Nouveau ornamentation is the essence of the objects design. The organic flowing curves and lines of Horta's Tassel house and Guimard's Metropolitan Entrance are the application of art on an object. The utility of the object is not restricted by the art it is enhanced and gains more value as a whole. These bespoke creations are about not bringing nature into the house but of make the house closer to nature.

Plants, insects, water were all used in the creation of Houses, furniture, wallpaper, posters, cutlery and carpet. They all used nature as their influence and inspiration. Now most people will begin to use Guimard's Metropolitan Entrance or maybe Gaudi and they would have a wonderful example for Art Nouveau. For me none compare to the completeness of Victor Horta's Tassel House in Brussels. Its a national treasure, you can visit. The place seems like Horta took a forrest and turned it into marble, wood and steel to make a house. To quote from James Grady's Nature and Art Nouveau "A Horta room seems to grow and blossom, to be composed of live forms controlled by a sensitive designer." Now if that's not a wonderful image that we can take to see ourselves as the creation made by the creator, I think I should give up theology and art.

Its my birthday as I said before, and, a few years ago I would never have admitted that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. In fact there was a time when I considered myself a weed with thorns. Other than a flower that grows and blossoms by the grace of the sensitive creator God. God calls us to acknowledge that despite what we see in the world there is more beauty in it than evil. That when God made all things and called them VERY GOOD, God meant it and still means it today. We are very good creations with the ability like Horta to create beauty either with our hands, voices, minds, bodies or just with who we are. My prayer is that you and I are able to grow and blossom in time with the sensitive creator who knows that you are VERY GOOD.

Art was always made with the hope that it could change the world. We need to make art with the Hope that God made us to be VERY GOOD and base that hope in our art. Not as kitsch but with the reality that good works of art get mentioned because they are good works of art. If Horta's Tassel House can lead me thinking about myself this way then what would art made with God's promise of resurrection and renewal in the form of Jesus' resurrection bring about? I believe the correct internet response here is - Challenge Accepted.

Mark Rothko : Number 10 1950

This is Mark Rothko's Number 10.

Is it not just lovely.

Bright shining and peaceful at the same time

If you click on it you can see it in a larger size

Look at the softness of the edges

Rothko believed that his paintings conveyed emotions

They all do

Colours placed on the canvass

Not juxtaposed or ordered

Rothko places them there because that is where they should be

I suppose I am just a bit tired and emotional

This reminds me of the sun and the beach as a child

Of good and glorious blessings

That I am not as I was

Thanks Mark - I hope you're there to paint in the renewed world.

Love never dies - The cloud of witnesses

The sequel for The Phantom of the Opera is called Love Never Dies, which, despite the fact that I would never go see this show the title is very true. Love never dies and there's a few things I'd like to touch on when it come to God, Love and about those who are no longer with us.

Love is very important because it is considered a major (if not the major) attribute of God. How often have you heard people sing, say, write God is Love. How is God Love? Well, if you ask the theologians about this you will get an explanation that involves the interpenetration of God-self within the trinity. The Father loves the Son and the Spirit and the Son loves the Father and Spirit and the Spirit the spirit loves everyone too. It is a perfect loving community, sharing and loving in perfect intimacy. God has love before we came along then Love existed before creation before you and me. He has no need for us to have love, don't think that God has love because of you. God loved first, he always loves first in fact that's a good thing for us.

Jesus in the beatitudes says that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you. When you love you can love and not have it given back to you. Like God who gives and receives love within God-self when we give love it is expected to be returned back to you. In fact when it is not given back and you continue to give love its quite exhausting. Most people cannot sustain love in this situation when it is not returned if you do I think its called an abusive relationship. In the face of this Jesus says Love your enemies, but they really wont return this love, will they? Edward Schillebeeckx gives an example that the love that God gives us can take the place of the love we give to those who will not return it. So does that mean we rely on God to love us in the place of those who will not, not always. There is a limit because abuse is always wrong. What it does do is point to God as the major source of love for us. God's love available for us always and forever. We should live knowing that God's love is always there for us. It is continuos it is that same love always given to those who accept it, all of those throughout all of history.

Love never dies. So what happens to those who are not here anymore? Jesus while being crucified says to the guy on his right “Today you'll be with me in paradise.”. Jesus also tells us that there are many mansions prepared for us. This is when those reading who follow the escapist doctrine of rapture and those who take heaven as the bodiless spiritual destination are going to not agree with me. The situation of the paradise and the mansions is the place for those who believe go to after death before the new bodies they and we will get when Christ come again. Revelation makes mention of the dead in Christ who call out from under the throne for Jesus to set all things right, judge the world and renew and heal all of creation. Paul uses the term cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 21:1 that are cheering us on. I mention them not in passing but because I'd like you all to get into your heads that if love never dies then the love of those who are no longer with us is still there. These people who we love still love us they are part of the cloud of witnesses who cheer us on. Think of the biggest stadium you have seen full with players on the field. We who are alive are still on the field and those not on this earth are in the stands cheering you and I on. Their love is not gone and lost neither is yours for them. We cannot speak to them nor they to us, who can hear a single person from the stands in the middle of a football match. What we do receive is their love by God through Holy Spirit in us.

They see us and are proud of us in our endeavours they can see the field of play and they cheer us on. I say this because we need to know that their love is always there and they know we love them. Because Love never dies it always returns. God's love is so big so amazing that all of this is possible because of his love. There are those who see God as a shining light a bright wondrous thats just one way of seeing God. Thomas Merton says God is an abyss that in God there are depths that are unfathomable. This is how deep and long and wide God's love is, an abyss of love. Love that will never end, that always gives, love will always be there. How does the children's song go? Wide wide as the ocean, high as the heavens above, deep deep as the deepest sea is my saviours love. I though so unworthy, still I'm a child of his care. For his love teaches me that his love reaches me EVERYWHERE. This is just it love reaches everywhere. Love never dies because God is Love and love has ALWAYS been. Before creation there was love and after this world is reborn there will still be love. This love is available to you always and forever why hide from it?

Jesus Superman and Batman

Can you represent the two natures of Jesus by using Batman and Superman. Should you try to explain this dualism of how two things that seem so opposing like divinity and humanity are together joined in Jesus Christ?

Jesus is the Son of God, you know virgin birth, immaculate conception, miracle worker, speaker of a subversive way of life that no one has ever truly lived up to. He's a Superman whose origin is not of this world, raised by earthly parents, to bring truth, justice and Kingdom Way. Personally I have always had a hard time realting to Superman. How can an alien who though he lived alongside us could never be like us, could never suffer like us. He might feel pain emotionally but he is unable to relate to us and our situation as he is not one of us no matter how much he looks like us. There is no relationship just condescension.

Jesus is also human, unlike Superman Jesus' mother is human. Mary conceives Jesus by the Holy Spirit and gives birth to him in Bethlehem. Jesus came into this world not by a spaceship but through the birth canal like one of us. Jesus grew up, fell over, cried (I do not accept the christmas carol at all, babies cry), had friends, a business. Jesus also came to make the world a better place, to bring justice, forgiveness and a new way to live. He fought against the world order to bring about this new kingdom of God. He fought hard against those who were abusing the poor, the orphan and the widow.

Batman is not a brilliant Jesus analogy but he is human and is followed by tragedy by violence and suffering to bring about the order required. Batman's quest is a band aid, a war fought by one man against the filth, and violence of those who would live by abuse, crime, oppression and death. Batman would sacrifice his own life for another's and do what every it would take to save his city. Batman is mortal, he can die, he has no powers all he has is the mission to avenge his parents death at the hands of crime generated by poverty, cruelty and injustice.

Jesus is divine and human he does give his life to avenge the death of all our parents (Adam and Eve) a death that should not have happened the way it did. Jesus waged a one man war against sin and death telling the world he had come to free those chained to the strong man he had come to defeat. In giving his life on the cross Jesus frees us from the clutches of sin and death doing something no normal man can do. The proof of this is that Jesus rises back to life, but, his body still bears the scars of his very human suffering. A body that now exists in the dimension of Heaven that lives alongside us as Lord of this universe waiting till he appears again to come and judge the living and the dead.

People find it hard to communicate these two natures, we rarely do have anything in our world to compare to the best of humanity and a gracious and noble divinity. What we do have are constructs that depict these two natures of Jesus in the very well known and knowable characters Superman and Batman. The world's finest super-heroes joined together to make an analogy of a concept that is a stumbling block those who say they believe Jesus is the son of God. It is not a perfect analogy and no analogy ever is. It is just a momentary light of understanding that you can use to grab hold of something of Jesus nature. Jesus has to be divine otherwise he cannot save us from sin and death, he has to be human otherwise there is nothing for us to relate to. The achievement of Jesus has to be something we can attain, not through trying hard and being moral or fighting evil but by faith in what Jesus has done for all of us. Jesus is Superman from another place with powers beyond mortal men. Jesus is also Batman whose parents were stolen from him, who fights the evil powers to save us with suffering and death. We cannot separate these natures so that is the reason for me not separating Superman and Jesus.

thought this should be up

sought not searching
finding not found
discovering not discovered

Have been thinking about how we get to know those we deem special. You know, mothers, fathers, siblings, cousins and those other special people who may become very special. Often the words used to describe the special person are as a "catch" like a possession, or at the worst "scoring". We have a child, a father, a niece, a wife, a partner there seems to be a finality to the relationship once the label has been set. Saying that there is finality in the possession status of another person is presumptuous however the assumption of finality is suggested. I have found this is false.

I have had an interesting time of the last few months getting to know a few special people. My niece's and nephew and some new friends oh, and the triune God revealed in Jesus Christ. Like the other special people God is hard to get to know just by believing that I can find God and that is all. There seems to be no end to how much more depth people have and the adventure (with very special people it is a great adventure) in this exploration is difficult, dangerous and worth it.

This fumbling dance that is getting to know another person can be very quick, very slow, when you think you understand the situation you discover more. This was a real revelation when practicing silence and finding out that what was on offer from God was intimacy. That this intimacy was what I actually wanted was a bit of a shock. I never thought about God like that, in fact I am quite sure I never thought about anyone like that. Which kind of makes any relationship quite difficult. My early attempts at trying to get to know more of God were very fumbling and I required the assistance of the community to be introduced properly. Since then there have been a few fumbles but there is a depth I find in God that leads me onward. Such depths I have seen in others. It is in acknowledging depth that has brought this new understanding.

There is a trail, a path that continues onward when you open up any person by relationship. As God has depth that is unfathomable and if we are made in his image then we too have a depth that is unfathomable. God wants intimacy with us and we also need intimacy as well. We do not just search for it, it is desired and sought for. When we find it, the depth that people have (yes I see God as a person) cannot be found in its totality. You are always in the state of finding within the depths. In those depths we are always discovering more and more about the other and our self. It is a constantly changing trail that will never really lead to a final door because, as the depths of the two merge and mix they change and shimmer in reflection and response to the other. This creates more to discover together, never reaching an end but always sought, finding and discovering.

The Christology Essay

Last year I did an essay on "Holy Saturday" which is when Jesus is dead in the place of the dead. I know I wrote something earlier about this here but I have had a few people ask about it. So because of the demand here's what is one of the worst structured essays that ever passed with a 58%. I should post a version with the corrections by THE bearded benevolent one Dr. John Capper cause they show the great grace given to a disturbed student.

Describe, assess and critique the recent revival in Christian reflection on Holy Saturday.

Holy Saturday the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is the day when as the Apostle's Creed declares “he descended into Hell”. Very recently, discussion on Holy Saturday has made a rather large revival in the form of Alyssa Pitstick's book Light in Darkness and her allegations of heresy of Hans Urs von Balthasar. The issue of Roman Catholic heresy when it comes to Balthasar's progressive theories is not my concern. My attempt here is to explore this mysterious part of the Apostles creed its relevance within Balthasar's imagery, its tangled historical origins and its misuse which can lead into a foolish hope for the departed.

The traditional understandings of the descent are defined by scratchings of scripture (canonical and non canonical) pieced together to understand an event that has no witnesses. Christ's Death and Resurrection are seen for all the world but the actions and events mentioned of the descent within the scriptures and creeds have no first hand witnesses at all. All that exists on the subject has its origins in Christ's preaching to the dead in 1Peter 3:18-20 and the action packed harrowing of Hell from the Gospel of Nicodemus which are victorious in their descent. Yet even these traditional views are often are considered suspect.

According to J.N.D Kelly the descent “involves exegetical difficulties of no mean order” (Kelly:378). In his work Early Christian Creeds Kelly delves through the history of the descent explaining that teaching on the descent was “commonplace of Christian teaching from the earliest times.” (Kelly :379). Apart from showing the number of references to the descent within times past he also explores why the descent was inserted in the first place. Kelly tries to find a meaning for the inclusion of the descent into the creeds, one being that it is possible to have been included to defend against Docetic heresy.

“It is just possible that the details of the Lord's experiences were elaborated so as to underline the reality of His death...... that Christ's descent to the underworld proved His participation in the fullness of human experience.” (Kelly: 383).

Kelly also goes on to express that despite this being possible that the descent could also be taken as a further expression of Christ's death and burial. This view has been taken by Randall E. Otto who sees the descent as a “mysterious article” that to include “seems very unwise”. He concludes for the descent not to be used, that it has no “clear substantiation in Scripture” and that “there is no truly sensible or widely acceptable meaning for the clause”(Otto:150). In taking Kelly's opinion of the descent being simply restating of Christ's death and burial it is no wonder why Otto comes to his conclusion. The descent cannot just be a second affirmation that Christ was dead and buried. Otherwise the line makes no sense at all. Can you imagine reading a translation of the Apostles Creed which took Kelly's conclusion?

“Crucified under Pontius Pilate, Died and was Buried, no really! He was dead and buried.” (Apostles Creed, addition by Phillip Hall in bold)

However, the possibility of the descent underlining the two natures of Christ his Humanity and Divinity, that in Christ's humanity and “participation in the fullness of Human experience” Christ goes to the inferos – the place of the dead. That makes more sense than a reiteration that Christ was dead and buried.

Some however find it hard to accept any place of the dead. How you see the human trajectory - the journey every person takes from birth, life and death and whether that trajectory includes any destination or place like Hades, Sheol, or Gehenna - will influence your opinion of the descent. Balthasar comments on the belief of a place of the dead or an after life is not merely a cultural myth but that we are...

“...defending ourselves against a stronger conviction which tells us that death is not a partial event. It is a happening that affects the whole person, though not necessarily to the point of obliterating the human subject altogether.”(von Balthasar:148)

If we believe in a destination after death and that this is part of the human trajectory then Christ “in the fullness of his humanity” had to go there as well. In the end all of this is merely speculation that despite persistent thought on Christ's descent, it is just that Christ's. I believe that Barth says it better than I can.

“Is there any one of us who has been condemned to a sleepless night by the knowledge : I shall one day be buried and then be “pure past”? This conception in the form in which we have fashioned it and tricked it out with our own ideas is poles away from what the Creed says in crucifixus, mortus, descendit ad inferos...We cannot know of it...But Jesus Christ did know of it.” (Barth 1962:89)

In Balthasar's image of Christ's “Going to the Dead” he takes from both scripture and from the dramatic interpretations. His central theme is one of solidarity.

“In the same way that, upon earth, he was in solidarity with the living, so, in the tomb, he is solidarity with the dead.” (von Balthasar:148-149)

It is the solidarity of Christ there suffering in Hell with the dead that is writ large in Balthasar's picture of Christ's “Going to the Dead”. To Balthasar there is no three tiered universe with heaven above, earth in the middle and hell below, there is no victorious storming of Hell with Satan cowering under the invasion of divine light penetrating the dark domain. Christ is humanly dead, the traditional actions given to the descent are that of a living person even the action of descending is abandoned. Passively Christ goes to the place of the dead as a part of his death on the cross where He is really dead. There is no contact with God and with other human beings, Christ is silent and mute, dead with the dead. There is preaching but this taken as being “the outworking in the world beyond [the place of the dead] of what was accomplished in the temporality of history.” (von Balthasar:150)

The effects of the cross “the work of redemption” are “deployed and exercised in the realm of the dead”(von Balthasar:150). This is preaching can be taken as Christ's witness being dead with the dead.

The placing of Christ in Hell with the dead whether that is either victorious preaching or victorious opening the gates (doors) of hell can lead into radical thinking about the soteriological aspects of such a descent. Balthasar's theory of going to the dead is not seen as another work of salvation beyond the cross but as a natural progression of Christ's completion and redemption of the human trajectory. It is the extra-soteriological views that have been a part of the negative view of the descent and reasons for its exclusion. The full realisation of such thinking ends up in the salvation of all either through Christ's descent and resurrection or by His storming of Hell to take all back with him. It is suggested by Kelly that such universalist thinking was the true origin for the descent being added into the creed.

“….the time when the Descent was beginning to appear in creeds, the ancient notion of Christ's mission to the patriarchs [the preaching to Adam Eve et all] was fading more and more into the background, and the doctrine was coming to be interpreted as symbolising His triumph over Satan and death, and, consequently, the salvation of mankind as a whole.” (Kelly: 383)

When taken to extremes such a view of salvation leads to the place that Jurgen Moltmann finds where “Since his [Christ's] resurrection from his hellish death on the cross there is no longer such thing as 'being damned for all eternity'.” (Moltmann:254). Moltmann continues in glorious tones of freedom for all through the salvation of Christ who gives pardon so “all will be liberated and saved”. This is the extreme view of universalism one where even “Satan, the Devil and fallen angels” are redeemed as “God's Judgement puts everything to rights”(Moltmann:255).

Yet there is a more subtle slip. The vision of Christ in Hell can lead to a foolish hope where in Hell Christ can preach the gospel to those already dead. The false image of Christ's solidarity with the dead “supports the belief that the dead have not failed in faith and that, the power of the Holy Spirit, God is one with the dead” may lead one to see the descent as a “narrative knitting humanity together....including those who while alive seemed to have no chances left.” (Connell:130). Such images attract the heart and the desire to see another chance for those dearly departed.

“The descent into hell means that no place is cut off from the love of God. Even hell belongs to Christ...It means that nobody is God-forsaken, not even the person who chooses to reject God's love. It means that the last word is not suffering or death or desolation or lostness: the last word, the ever-present and undying word, is love.” (Hunt:58)

When you read Connell and Hunt in their description of the results of the descent emotions lead you to wish for this and hold onto such a foolish hope. Unlike universalism which is loud in its promise of all things being redeemed, false hope attracts using compassion and love proclaiming love conquers all boundaries and no one is ever truly lost. The unfortunate reality of this foolish hope is that it is a false view of the solidarity of Christ with the dead. It is not the dead in Hell who have solidarity with Christ but those who are dead IN Christ who have solidarity with the dead Christ.

“We must not deny that Jesus gave himself up into the depths of hell not only with many others but on their behalf, in their place, in the place of all who believe in Him... In faith we shall never cease to leave wholly and utterly to Him the decision about us and all men. In faith in Jesus Christ we cannot consider any of those who are handed over by God ”as lost.” (Barth 2001: 496)

There exists the image of an “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns [which] puzzles the will.” (Shakespere: 159) a place of the dead that is the end of the human trajectory. If to be fully human is to go to the place of the dead, then for Christ not to would be inexcusable. Christ going to the dead as correction against heresy supporting His dual natures becomes less of a possibility when you look at it this way. What has not been assumed cannot be redeemed, if there is a place of the dead that all humans go the believers position has been taken by Christ. Solidarity with Him is in his substitution for us in death and the subsequent going to the dead, a solidarity enacted out in baptism. Christ does this not for those with Christ in the place of the dead, but, for those who are dead IN Christ. Balthasar's imagery is vivid and confronting because he has stripped away the actions of a living active victorious Christ. These are actions which are impossible for a dead man which Christ has to be to stay within His human trajectory. It is hard to accept the death of God passively in torment detached from the Father but by the Spirit stretched to a sliver. It is hard to accept that loved ones who have not believed do not get a second chance but this too is true. Yet Christ's going to the dead on Holy Saturday is just the darkness before the glorious dawn of Easter Sunday. In the fulfilment of His human trajectory of Birth, Life, Death, and Going the Dead He adds Resurrection to those who believe. This is Holy Saturday it is sad and painful, it is difficult to accept because there is no way to see if it is true or not except by faith.

Bibliography

Barth, K (1962) Credo New York : Charles Scribner's Sons

Barth, K (2001) Church Dogmatics, Volume 2 Part 2 The Doctrine of God Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark Ltd.

Connell, M. F. (2002) Attolite portas, "open up, you doors!" liturgical narrative and Christ's descent Worship 76 no 2 Mr 2002, 124-143.

Hunt, A (1998) What are they saying about the trinity? (1^st ed.) Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press

Kelly, J.N.D (1967) Early Christian Creeds (2^nd ed.) London: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd

Moltmann, J (1996) The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology London: SCM Press

Otto, R. E. (1990) Descendit in inferna : a Reformed review of a creedal conundrum. Westminster Theological Journal 52 no 1 Spr 1990, 143-150.

Shakespere, W (2003) Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (12^th ed.) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

von Balthasar, H. U. (2005) Mysterium Paschale : The Mystery of Easter (2^nd ed.) USA: Ignatius Press

Faith and Doubt

I have been asked (well its actually an assignment, so, I haven't been asked. I've been told) to take part in a forum about Faith and Doubt. Everyone writes something about Faith and Doubt then reads others and tells them how wrong they are. Okay maybe not tell each other how wrong they are but maybe work out why others believe that Faith or Doubt is different from them.

So what did I say?

I had a piece about truth, faith, omnipotence, emotion, reason and other stuff. I found that there was something about faith and trust in the character of God that was amazingly pure and divine to the point that it overwhelms and hurts us.
Yet, despite all of this pushing away there is something in the aspect of the divine that draws us in as well which God also has because of his divine and infinite nature. Like when Jesus says all that hard stuff in John 6 about himself and everyone but the disciples leave. Jesus looks at the disciples and asks them why they wont leave. Peter pipes up with 'Lord, to whom shall we go?'. That is where I end up. Nothing else but God can satisfy me. None other than God has been so consistent in all things, none other than God loves me in such a way that it overwhelms me not the consume me but to sustain me.
Doubt makes me question 'Is all this true?' and when all is doubt and questions I find myself replying like Peter for there is nowhere else to go to. Nothing left but God. Nothing more true than God. Nothing more divine than God. Nothing more Love than God.

So just fall into Him.