| Angelic Choir, Burne-Jones, St. Paul Within the Walls, Rome |
For decades now, when I have felt bored or sad or troubled or angry, when I have any sense, I pray…but also I read a book, or listen to it as I walk. I watch a movie. I try to get to an art gallery. And in the book, or the film, or the paintings, I forget my troubles.
Is this idolatry? I know Christ is the ultimate answer, that God is the sea in which the river of my life will find rest.
But just as YES is a great theological word, the word in which all God’s promises end in Christ, so too is AND.
Yes, Jesus is balm and the panacea for our spirits.
But Art too is a staff that helps us bear the ills of life
Art is the spark
From stoniest flint
That sings
“In the dark
And cold,
I’m light.”
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Anita:
Idolatry? Of course not. How can anything that brings you closer to God be idolatry? As a Catholic , we are constantly being accused of worshiping graven images by having so many beautiful statutes and artwork in many of our Churches.
They are there to make a holy place to worship God but they were there to teach in the early Churches too. Up until the invention of the printing press in 1470, 90% of world could not read. They could hear the gospel being preached but an illiterate Dad in the year 500 AD, could bring his little boy to the Church and show him the Crucifix and show him how much Jesus loved us. He could show him a painting of the Holy Family and the son could see in his mind how God became human like us with a family just like he had. He could show him the statutes of the early Church Fathers like Polycarp and Ignaituis who were martyred for defending the faith. he could teach the faith to his son through art. Throughout the ‘dark ages” the only art was in the Church.
God Bless
What a lovely comment.
I just meant that I wondered whether, if I were more spiritual, I would turn to God when sad, restless, bored etc and He would fill the vacuum. Instead, I often turn to God–and often turn to art!
Being told where and when and how we should or should not encounter God is placing human limits on him and his grace. Idolatry is a misunderstood word because our modern societies no longer have idolatrous groups – people who believe the physical manifestation of their god is actually IN the image. And in that inability to really understand the idolatrous behavior of people from 10,000 years ago, many things have been called idolatrous when in fact they are appreciation of God’s grace through all our senses including sight.
That seeking “life” in anything but God is idolatry (“If you do not eat my flesh you have no life in you” John 6) was another idea from Paul, my laundry basket friend. I learnt a lot from him, and he messed me up a lot. (He was, after all, younger than i am now when we were good friends). I guess the moral of the story is– Don’t substitute human guidance for God’s guidance, both interior and through scripture.