The Newsletter of Artist, Composer, Thinker Steven Homestead | May 27, 2022
Todays' newsletter continues thoughts that I shared last week. If you didn't get a chance to read it, you can find it linked here.
Faith Lives in Mystery
Part 2
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to speak at Mako Fujimura's studio at the Brehm Center. In the context of a gathering of artists and faith leaders, I shared how I think artists and art are important to the Church and how artists can bring the Church back to a posture of holding space for mystery and symbolism.
So much of scripture, which is foundational to the Church, is poetry and visionary experiences, yet much of the Church has lost the culture of reading it with those lenses. When we view the right scripture as poetry and prophetic symbolism, we can hold it with the abundance it deserves. When we treat the Bible only as something to figure out, we end up reducing it. We diminish it and then, when we "find the answer," it's the end of the road. We don't need to look further. I think it’s important as well then to remember that the Bible isn’t a book but a library. (This also has implications for prayer, turning what should be a conversation into simply a search for an answer. "Thanks God, I got my answer. I don't need to spend more time with you today."
So, if we have questions, if there is mystery, it can cause us to look, to seek, to walk forward. I see in this the importance of relationship. God is a person. You are too. Wouldn't you want someone you love to look, seek, and walk forward to know you more, to uncover your mysteries? The question, “How was your day?” might be rote for a couple coming home from a day at work, but better to ask the question than accept the emptiness of holding onto the answer from yesterday or last month.
Questions cause us to move in relationship with each other and with God. I think that’s why it’s important that this is written in Genesis: “Late in the afternoon, when the breeze began to blow, the man and woman heard the Lord God walking in the garden,” (Genesis 3:8a CEV).
What I find here is evidence that God was in the garden to spend time with Adam and Eve, to move in relationship with them. But the very reason they hid in response was because they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In a way, the grasping for knowledge ultimately left them unsatisfied. They ate an answer that left them empty. To have lived in the mystery would have been to leave the fruit un-eaten. They would have then made space for the mystery of “not knowing,” and in that, they would actually have been leaving space open to encounter more of God.
When we choose to do the same, we find that faith lives in mystery. And we also find that God is waiting for us there.
Rising Together: A Community Phoenix Downtown Santa Ana, 2nd Street Promenade
Saturday, June 4th, 6pm-9pm
Next weekend, you're invited to the Downtown Santa Ana Art Walk. I have the opportunity to bring an interactive project titled Rising Together to the community. People will be invited to write any hopes or dreams they want to see resurrected or reborn onto colorful paper feathers. These feathers will then be attached to create the two large wings of a symbolic community Phoenix.
If you're in the SoCal area, I hope to see you at the Art Walk, rising together.
