A picture is worth a thousand words, or at least wisdom claimed this at one time. Here are three images that caught my attention.
First from the Dayton Art Institute which recently had an origami art display. A piece entitled “Twisted Holy Book” by Miri Golan (2014):
The holy book is opened and there is an outpouring from the book as the meaning of the words expand beyond the limits of the book itself. The words have life in them and a force like the living water Christ mentions – they are moving, flowing, interacting with the reader of the words who in turn gives them life, an incarnation so that they can be observed by others who cannot see the book. If the words remain print on a page, they are lifeless, but when they flow from the pages into the world, into our hearts then they expand in a divine way – eternal and infinite. We, the readers, of course, have to be willing to allow the pages of life to enter our lives. We have to be looking for the living God on every page to see beyond the ink into the infinite. When we move beyond the words on the pages, we come to experience the Word of God to whom the Scriptures bear witness.
The second I saw in the Indianapolis Museum of Art was painted in 1864 by Frederic Edwin Church and is called “Our Flag”:
The year it was painted America was in the midst of the Civil War, a depressing time for the country with a lot of hopelessness, and yet the artist still had a hope in “The triumph of America.” The country was completely divided by the partisan politics of the day, by the evil of slavery – and the division sometimes pitted family members against each other. Yet, America still symbolized something – an ideal, a goodness that could rise above the turmoil, above the fray. And perhaps even the darkness was needed to make people want to find the light – to help them understand there is a light beyond the immediate controversy which can shine on us and through every darkness. It might give us hope that America is greater than what the extremists on the left and right push for and refuse to compromise on. Maybe the ideal will be the unifying factor that will enlighten and inspire our politicians to work for the common good, not for a political party when we realize the ideal is multifaceted and we may just be looking at it from different sides.
The third work I saw at the Denver Art Museum, entitled “Peace: The Beauty of Friendship Overcomes the Beasts of War” by Steff Geissbuhler (1986):
This one brought a smile to my face as Godzilla and King Kong, mortal enemies in the movie hold hands and share an ideal. The beasts of war are in our heart – individually but also collectively as a nation. We can overcome and tame those beasts, humans actually can rise above their passions if they choose. We as creatures in God’s image can rise above our mere animal nature. If we understand that we are a small piece of the big picture which is unfolding, and that we are not God, not even Godzilla, but are human, capable of soothing the beasts within ourselves, capable of opening our hearts to allow the God who is love to dwell in us. We may disagree but our warfare need not last forever.
Fraternized 