HUU Sermon Archives

Icons for Living: Reflecting on the value of art in difficult times

By Merle Wenger
November 9, 2003

Chalice Lighting with reading

Excerpt from “Poetry Emotion” by Renazance

The rhythm and I walk side by side
The rhythm and I, we walk side by side
The rhythm and I, we walk side by side
Poetry emotion combine collide
Because the rhythm and I, we walk side by side

My mouth is a gun and knowledge is the clip
I pack it up with words and fire rounds through my lips
Cause the rhythm and I stroll side by side
No moon is needed and no street lights
I cast a ill black shadow in the darkest of nights
My blood pumps with the thump of the drum through my veins
I mic up my heart and the bass lines arranged
Funky rhymes tingle spines when I give you mine
I grab tight to the beat like roots to hillsides
Like Renazance tracks to beautiful sunrise
Brown eyes observe as gold rides the sky
East to west dryin grounds from the tears that cried
And soaked into the dirt from nostalgic past times
Yes I deliver skin tingle shiver
That's why we ride, the rhythm and I

Reading excerpt from When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that's death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn't have any fresh air. There's no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later, we're going to have an experience we can't control: our house is going to burn down, someone we love is going to die, we're going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head, somebody's going to spill tomato juice all over our white suit, or we're going to arrive at our favorite restaurant and discover that no one ordered produce and seven hundred people are coming for lunch. The essence of live is that it's challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter.

Reading before Second Hymn

Excerpt from lyrics of “Still Standing” by Goodie Mob

Yeah. . .
Each and every element that exists in this
Universe is manifested from a thought first
Through the inner mind's eye of the unseen power I the sky
Gave birth to mother earth and all it's worth to you and I
This most loved invention, my consciousness is an extension
Of him, yet I'm flesh and bone with a mind of my own
To dig deeper than the surface, whether I learn
From your upcomings or your downfalls we all have individual purpose
It's amazing, how the streets do the majority of raising
Of children who end up dead before hearing what you said
And it's sad, so all I can write about is what I had
Interpretations of life good and bad with a pen and pad
It seems like an abortion, when I just write a small portion
It's either crumpled up or torn without lettin the thought be born
Young minded, and blinded in those days; I didn't want to
Have a thought that I couldn't raise, nurture, and care for
Be there for, help prepare for, the times ahead
When someone doesn't agree with what is said, huh
And if they did, don't get all arrogant cause that's my kid
Just be thankful that it's good and somebody overstood . . .

Main Message

Today the Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalist Church celebrates the artists and crafts people among us. To honor art is to delight in the creative process—a process that is compatible with our first principle—“to celebrate the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” The gift the artist or craft-person gives is an unfolded representation of their inner being. The artist reveals the inner self by creating an “icon” we can use to share their truth. The artist reinforces the primal root of philosophy—which our truth springs from within us.

For many of us, icons are little pictures we place on our computer screens to simplify where, how and how quickly we can access a certain program to solve a problem. The Encarta World English Dictionary defines icon as “a picture or symbol that is universally recognized to be a representation of something.” This definition is fitting for art icons as well. Art helps us balance the abstract world with the concrete.

I think we choose from icons for love, greed, sex, deceit, anger, negativity, retribution, self-awareness, self-hatred, egotism, physical body destruction, physical body building. We choose which icons we put on our mind-screens, what order we keep them in, and most of us remember EXACTLY where the most oft used icons reside. We choose icons as a nation, as an institution, and as individuals. Life becomes difficult when those icons of our institutions conflict with our personal icons.

We like icons because they are so precise-seeming. Corporations spend millions to develop logos hoping that we will adopt their unmistakable core message as necessary icons for living. People who love guns value their great precision. Throughout history, religious zealots have used sacraments and written words as icons. American politicians even reduce their message to the simple yet precise icons of a donkey and an elephant. At General Assembly in June, Rabbi Harold Kushner quoted Bill Clinton: “In difficult times, people will follow someone who is confident but wrong, rather than someone who is tentative but right.” I think this holds true for the icons on our personal, institutional and nations brain screens. I think Americans and most of the world do not believe in the confidence of guns anymore than they believe in the rock-wrapped clubs of the Flintstones yet they often accept such icons because of their confident precision.

So, OK, if the problem is really as simple as icon selection, then which are the good icons? I think, along with the more positive icons mentioned before, that arts and crafts offer one of the most time-honored and undervalued icons to lead us out of our current morass. Think of the great sculptures of Rodin and Michaelangelo, or paintings, like those of Velasquez, Raphael and Picasso, the music of drum beating African tribes, Pachabel, Mozart, Stravinsky and Elvis Presley, the art-craft of our own members Beryl Lawson, Lynn Lough, Kathleen Burke, Phil James, Kim Stout, Eric LaFreniere, Karen Lee, Byrd Tetzlaff and Anne Hunter. Think of how Robin McNallie and others delight us with their acting art at the Valley Playhouse. Or consider the dance of primitive peoples passed on to the present day so people like our own Pat Kennedy and Lynn Lough can build on a movement tradition developed by the likes of Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Baryshnikov or Martha Graham. The art of music touches so many in our congregation that I will not name all those. Similarly I will not list all those artists of the written word, except for our poet laureate, Lee Graham.

I would like to see a weekday artistic education bus that would pull up to our public schools every day and share this important message. I think when we travel to an art museum to see an exhibit, it is easy to overlook a fundamental statement about art that becomes obvious when you ask “Why” art should be one of the primary icons of living. The reason these art and craft pieces are effective icons to put at the top of our problem-solving screens is that they represent so much contemplative, inner spiritual work.

The vast depository at the Vatican Museums is not valued primarily for its content: preserving the story of the miracles of Jesus, the Sorrow of Mary, the rape of the Sabines, the pillage of Troy, the brightness of the sun in Tuscany, the radiant fields of golden sunflowers, or the stillness of water lilies painted on paper. I remember one room as big as this sanctuary filled with cut crystal. Certainly the importance of these bowls, vases and candelabra is not in their function as household items. Rather, the importance of all these works, why we must value and preserve them as icons important to the contemporary age, is that they represent an alternative way of living from the artist's perspective. They represent the exploration and development of the inner being. They honor the years and years of contemplative thinking that a man like Picasso endured before he could paint his cubist portraits that so horrified the traditionalists, enraged the religious but yet presented a new salvation to contemporary society. Somehow, Picasso's rendering of man as a fractured, disjointed, sort of multiple personality character makes more sense to us than a realistic portrait. Picasso's Guernica, proves that a 12 by 25-foot painted canvas can in fact portray the horror of war in a far more compelling way than a photograph, equals or exceeds most cinematic attempts. In fact Guernica is often seen as one of the most important art works of the 20 th century. Guernica can out-news the news—it can out-history the history books.

Listen to this quote from Rollo May's Love and Will and think about how prophetic Picasso's work was 30-40 years earlier.

It is not difficult to appreciate how people living in a schizoid age have to protect themselves from tremendous overstimulation—protect themselves from the barrage of words and noise over radio and TV, protect themselves from the assembly line demands of collectivized industry and gigantic factory-modeled multiversities. In a world where numbers inexorably take over as our means of identification, like flowing lava threatening to suffocate and fossilize all breathing life in its path; in a world where “normality” is defined as keeping your cool, where sex is so available that the only way to preserve any inner center is to learn to have intercourse without committing yourself—in such a schizoid world, which young people experience more directly since they have not had time to build up the defenses which dull the senses of their elders, it is not surprising that will and love have become increasingly problematic and even, as some people believe, impossible of achievement.

Spiritual practice invokes us to find new icons—to listen to artists and spiritual sages who challenge the popular culture. Icons like depression, bridge building, patience, going the second mile, integrity, laughter, connections, bonding. The Dalai Lama suggests we put compassion and happiness on our screens. Aristotle asks that we “honor truth above our friends,” while Plato extols that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Jesus suggests that spiritual enlightenment makes war obsolete. Emerson says we “shall have joy or power, but not both.” Mother Theresa suggests we feed the poor while Pope John Paul II pleads for world unity. Bishop Spong asks that we go beyond the simple literal interpretations of the Christian Bible, while Islams offer two important icons: first that woman is not the cause of the fall of man and second, that we are not born into original sin. Pema Chodron teaches us to be at peace with emotional turmoil until it passes us by. The rap artists of the last five years, America's street poets, challenge us to rethink how and why we use the words we do.

Of course when we value art for the fact that it celebrates the contemplative life of the artist, it should make us pause before we censor art. If the greatest value of art were in its content, then censorship might make sense—might be possible. But when we realize that the true significance of these icons is that they lead us in to the deepest spiritual dimensions of the artist, into life turned inside out and painfully examined, we would need God-like powers to judge any art as “valid.”

Can truth be this simple? Can it really be as simple as which icons we keep at the “top of our minds?” I think so. Think for a minute what it means when America promotes the war icon. What does that mean to Ariel Sharon in dealing with the Palestinians? What does it mean for Putin when he deals with the Chechnyans? What does it mean to the Indians and Pakistanis? What does it mean for lawyers in American courts? What does it mean for parents disciplining their children? By maintaining war as a “top of mind” solution, we move all other icons down the screen. Negotiation, peace making, patience, positive communication, art and culture, many of the philosophies we honor most, are all sidetracked when we choose war.

What would have happened if in response to the 9/11 tragedy our nation would have taken the path of the artist or the philosopher—would have chosen to look inward at America's problems, would have brooded with our pain and contemplated about our responsibility in the act?

Imagine if our president asked Spain if we might borrow Guernica to hang in the Halls of Congress during these difficult times. What affect would that have on our leader? One of the most profound art experiences of my lifetime has been visiting and revisiting the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. But moving the war icon to the top of our national desktop means that we have forgotten how that war is now best portrayed as a gaping, black gash in the earth. America can do better. We can do better. Rollo May suggests that apathy, not hate, is the opposite of love. The

We come here to meet each Sunday morning because our Unitarian Universalist tradition asks that we find our own icons. We no longer believe, in the age of the personal computer, that the mainframe metaphor of spiritual life is relevant. In that outdated system of computing, legions of programmers and system's analysts told individual users how, when, why and in what format they could process information. The personal computer reminds us that we are in control of our own destiny. We choose the icons, both on our computer screens and our mind-screens. When we choose icons of art we honor the individual, feeling experience.

What I like about Unitarian Universalism is the emphasis we place on self-revelation. We are not asked to be copies of a prior spiritual experience—we are asked to expand on it, to add our unique person to the paths suggested by previous teachers. As a child, I wanted to be a copy of Jesus—in fact I think I was a little neurotic that way. But the older I grew, I realized it was impossible to copy even 5 minutes of another person's thought train let alone a spiritual teacher of two-thousand years ago with whom I had never communicated directly. The idea that we might feed people into some sort of spiritual processing machine and expect them to come out looking like little Buddhas, Jesus and Mohammeds misses the point. In my Christian teaching much emphasis was put on the visitation of the Holy Spirit on the early Christians and this is a marvelous metaphor because on this day, the collective early church was cast into a frenzy with each person speaking in tongues foreign to the other. Although mimicking this act could serve as a pedagogical tool, it seems pretty obvious that the core message here is that the ultimate human spiritual experience, not unlike that of the artist, is one that is personal and can not be copied.

The artist presents a non-Xeroxed view of life. Recently Phil James delivered some beautiful pottery to me, which I had purchased at our spring auction. I suggested that he might want to keep it to show today so that someone could order similar pottery. Like a true artist, Phil exclaimed, “Oh, I have no interest in making them again.” Or when I listen to Sarah Cheverton's CD I am particularly taken by the line “Depression and Unhappiness are the muses that I use.” This befriending of emotions from which most of us flee, is what gives art its originality. When Shakespeare's observed that we are all, including you and me, only “mere players on the world's stage” thus suggesting we minimize our self-importance, he magically connects with all the greatest spiritual practices and philosophies which suggest we give up our personal ego. Each item of art and craft displayed here today represents an alternative path, a talisman-like token, to defy the numbing monotony of our numbered, mass-produced, hurried, information laden daily lives.

So in summary this is why I value art and craft.

1. Because it honors the contemplative life—an alternative viewpoint.
2. Because it is prophetic
3. Because it heals both the creator and the spectator—this is especially evident in art programs in hospitals, nursing homes and prisons
4. Because it reflects the power of the inner experience, art gives hope in the midst of troubling times—thus mitigating apathy
5. Art, in the form of music, offers salvation to youth
6. Art honors the painful experience along with the pleasurable—a possible solution to our schizoid lives
7. Art transports us through difficult times
8. Many art forms teach us to value a balanced sensory experience without words and thus provide balance between the rational and the abstract.
9. Because it honors the complexity of the emotional experience. Even after 60 some years, art critics can not agree on an interpretation of Guernica
10. Art provides a compelling universal language that bridges the divides in our culture between resident and immigrant; the wealthy and the downtrodden, the emotionally sensitive and the emotionally numbed.

When Carole O'Biso brought the sacred toango treasures of the Maori aborigines out of New Zealand, she stated, “I for one do not need to wait another 50-1000 years to figure out a way to document and measure the energy that transfers from an artist into the art while it is being made . . . as far as I am concerned this is science . . . we just don't know enough about it yet.”

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