|
Back to Sermon Archives
July 8, 2007 - 8:00 am
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Exodus
35:30-35, 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, 27, Matthew 25:14-30
Ratatouille
[Rat-a-too-ee]: So Few Artists, So Many Arts”
Julie and I began Artown by watching the new
delightfully animated movie “Ratatouille” and eating it (not the movie) several
times since. It’s what’s called a “peasant stew” of eggplant, tomatoes, green
peppers, squash, sometimes meat seasoned with garlic. In the movie the rats
take over the kitchen as never before. With their impeccable senses of smell
and taste, they bring forth the most extraordinary dishes of the most ordinary
ingredients. They are able to revive the reputation of the restaurant of the
legendary Chef Gusteau and his profound motto, “Anybody can cook!” His unlikely
son and successor in the business depends every step of the recipe on his
“Little Chef” rat friend hidden in his chef’s toque. He observes “Not everyone
can be a great artist, but great art can come from anyone.” Thus the sermon
title: Few of us think of ourselves as artists. Yet anything we love doing and
try doing as well as we can, becomes an art with us.
It expresses the insight of Bishop Shamana who
is preaching here at 10 today from her book, Seeing in the Dark: A Vision of
Creativity and Spirituality: “We know more than we know we know!” Something
worth expressing in some way “is scribbled on the inner cavity of our bones!”
We are already creative, and have been since each of us was created – to be in
the image of the Creator of all! God don’t make no junk, as we say – and
neither do we! Even creative recycling of what others call “junk” is an art
form in itself! Especially until we go off to school, 90 percent of us show
“high creativity.” Between ages 5 and 7 that number of us who think of
ourselves as creative drops to 10 percent! For adults it is 2 percent! Early
on something, or someone, does a real number on our consciousness of and our
confidence in ourselves as self-expressers – through whatever art form.
Art forms basically are the creating of
something from nothing. They are the ordering of what is chaotic. Though I
imagine they may also involve the “chaoticizing” of too much “order!” Art
forms often select and combine existing elements to make something new. They
bring the light out of the darkness. They bring forth life when and where there
was no life before. Art forms are pathways to God, to the world, to ourselves.
Bishop Shamana quotes Bay Area potter Mary Richards – as in “Thou art the
potter, we are the clay” Neither potter nor clay can do without the other! Who
and what is being shaped and formed is as indispensable to the process as who
does the shaping and forming! “Every person,” says Mary Richards, “is a special
kind of artist and every activity is a special art.” We are invited to do
whatever is needed to recover our creativity.
Thus the symbol on the front of the bulletin:
the “Sankofa” bird of West Africa. A loose translation of “Sankofa” is “go back
and fetch what you forgot!” Go back to our roots, our origins and our
ancestors, to reclaim our sources and resources of creativity. Gather and honor
the best that our past has to offer, in order to move forward in new and
empowered ways. While loss of past may be most visible as violation of persons
and peoples subjected to slavery and intimidation, it may happen to any one of
us. We may lose, forget, forego, be stripped of essential parts of ourselves.
We may be “put down” or repressed at an early age or by a traumatic event and go
into defensive denial of parts of ourselves we fear will get us in trouble. The
best-meaning institutions of early life – including family, church and school! –
end up in spite of themselves “saving” us from our own creativity.
In traditional symbol “Sankofa” is expressed as
a mythic bird flying forward while looking backward with an egg (that is, the
future!) in its mouth. Bishop Shamana refers to “Sankofa” symbolized here as “a
heart embellished with two scrolled circles that meet in the center.” She says,
“The good news of the Sankofa principle is in the promise of restoring our
creative imagination as the past meets the future within our embellished
hearts.” She cites the poem of Maya Angelou, “And Still I Rise,” calling us to
worship this morning, as example of “the healing power that comes from linking
hands across the Sankofa bridge with our ancestors who, like hers, trod in the
dirt of history.” How might our history heal?
How might full awareness and appreciation of who
and where we have been heal us? And how might full awareness and appreciation
of who we are now heal it?
The Bishop further cites Bezalel of the Exodus
story this morning, assuring us that respect for art and craft is built into our
being as people of faith. God summons forth the work of the artist to construct
the very place of God’s “dwelling” among us. Even our own beautiful sanctuary
is not the only place where God “is.” But it is the place where we come seeking
God! We make it and keep it in such a way as we hope is “worthy” of God –
inexpressible mystery, source of all – yet given to us to express in all the
ways by all the means we possibly can. This passage alone evokes every kind of
craft and artistic design – in gold, in silver, in bronze, in stone, in wood, in
yarn, in linen, in wool – We name it, God can use it! To glorify God and to
express our own richest humanness!
This intersection of “God’s time” or “kairos”
with “clock time” or “chronos” is what Bishop Shamana calls “creos,” the time of
our creativity, our self-expression. In doing the best we can with whatever
sources and elements we are given, we are closest to when and where and even to
who God is. It is the meeting of what we most need to offer with what the world
most needs to receive. Not that the world always knows or acknowledges what it
most needs! But it is a matter of our own identity and integrity, through all
our diversity and complexity, that we express who we are and what we stand for,
what we bear witness to, against all the odds. Anything that may be seen,
heard, touched, tasted, read, felt, even smelt in any way expresses our bliss,
our ecstasy, what is called forth in us, at our very being!
We are called to be free to regard our own
creations as God regarded all that God made in Creation – “It is good!”
Whatever it is, however I did it or made it, it is good. God cares about it and
is glad it and I both exist! Art, says Bishop Shamana, “is love made visible.”
The persistent love of God speaks to us in the language of our heart – in
dreams, music, clay, canvas, the wind, the mountains; through color and stones;
and we learn again that creativity is a collaborative process between the
Spirit, our gift, and our yes. Our part of the process is to watch and pray –
to listen and be attentive to that divine presence, the voice of the holy, the
flap of angel wings and notes in the breeze. Then we act.
Then we act! In ways we are barely conscious
of, in ways beyond our control, often even irrational and impossible ways – but
we act. We act to honor what Bishop Shamana calls “the missing parts of
ourselves!” The parts that manifest Jesus, that make present and powerful some
aspect of his life and work – especially his work of healing and liberating and
incorporating in new ways at new depths into loving and beloved personal
communion and shared community. Thus Bishop Shamana risked naming herself anew
while she was a second-career seminarian preparing to go forth to preach Jesus
in word and in deed.
She tells at some length the overall creative
process of what she calls –
-- identification of the problem, issue and
goal;
-- saturation by as much research and
brainstorming as possible;
-- incubation by letting the unconscious work
its mysterious magic;
-- illumination of the solution by sudden
insight and “Aha!”; and
-- verification as response and confirmation by
trusted peers.
She is led to combine the word “shaman” – One
who illuminates and heals; raising the consciousness of the given community
through images, myths, symbols, and metaphors of enlightenment. -- and the
word “mana” – The divine essence and energy that is within us; a creative
power greater than ourselves, which can be mediated but not totally possessed.
At last she issues the public announcement --
“Celebrating a New Name / Beverly Jean Shamana / (formerly Anderson)
“The Journey” -- A name is a significant symbol of who we are. It brings
with it history and heritage, and contributes to the life and character of each
of us. As in the biblical Creation story, where naming expressed the nature and
God relationship of the being so named, the naming event is also embedded in
those ancient roots. As I celebrate the birth of this new surname, I also honor
the two names given at my birth and joyfully embrace the totality of my life’s
journey.
Do we hear those last few words? “And joyfully
embrace the totality of my life’s journey”?! God not making no junk starts with
us! Nothing about us – who we are, what we do, what others do to us, what
happens to us – ever is lost. God makes everything precious that is. But
anything about us may be redeemed! Repaired, restored, reconciled, and renewed!
Nothing, no one – not even you, not even you, not even you, not even me -- is
beyond the infinite and creative love of our God for us! That is such good news
but so hard to hear. I wonder how we in our own playful minds and hearts might
name ourselves anew today? What new word or two for us might express the
essence of who we are and want to be? All other creativities and expressions of
us proceed from that deepest core. Who are we, really? Who are you, and you,
and you . . . name ourselves!
We “see in the dark,” says Bishop Shamana,
naming her book. Therefore we stumble about, feeling and finding our way –
clumsy, awkward, imperfect, often hilarious – Can I get a witness? We have no
way of knowing for sure what we are doing, where we are going, how it will all
“come out” as we say. We just know we cannot keep ourselves to or for ourselves
any longer! Life is much too short never to get around to knowing and honoring
all that we are, all that we have to offer and share with others and with the
whole church and world. “God paints with crooked lines,” says Bishop Shamana,
and we, our creativity, is God’s shaky paintbrush! Day by day, saint by saint,
God is “working” this world anew!
“Art” itself means “connection,” the joining and
fitting together of old things in new ways. It is the way of connecting
“piece-making” as in quilting, for instance, with peace-making as in community
-- as in rejoining and refitting the elements of common life so that all persons
and peoples are honored, served, done justice. We are, God is, creating a whole
new world – a new whole world. Jesus is alive and well and a part of each new
beginning -- each forgiving, each healing, each giving of vision and voice, each
unburdening, each overcoming of evil, each laughing at our own shared human
condition, each naming of passion for life!
Bishop Shamana “names” the NAMES Project and the
AIDS Quilt that grew from it as signs of Jesus alive in our midst. In two weeks
A Rainbow Place will perform as part of Artown “A Life Worth Living” about
Nevadans with HIV/AIDS. Even now a group of inspired young person-artists is
making banners and flags of “Sankofa” and peace for our bell tower and our
sanctuary. Jesus is so alive!
There is so much more to say. Our work is
merely to create anew the whole world beginning with us! It is to see not only
“recreation” which is now a huge industry among us, gobbling up resources, but
“re-creation” as the free gift of God for use in all available times of our
lives. Whoever we are, whatever the gift of our everyday lives, we dare not
withhold ourselves! We dare not risk that the world will miss being
“re-created” by missing the one indispensable piece of the whole each one of us
has to offer. Bishop Shamana addresses each one of us –
Create your own official title. Put it on
your refrigerator door, your license plate, your office door, your lunch box:
Artist / Engineer, Artist / Gardener, Artist / Father, Artist / Artist, Artist /
Cook, Artist / Punster, Artist / Videographer, Artist / Birdwatcher, Artist /
Librarian, Artist / Babysitter, Artist / Calligrapher, Artist / Bookkeeper, and
so on. [How do we name our own art?]
Jesus said to let your light shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it
shine!
Amen.
top of page
Archives
|
