I have spent much time in those mountains. I have traveled the old county roads and seen the graves of my pioneering ancestors. I have swam an area of rapids and delta affectionately known as the Shoals. I have fished the Mountaintown, the Cartecay, and Coosawattee. I have camped at Bear Creek with friends countless times in an area near the Cohutta Wilderness where there’s no phone reception for miles. It is called Bear Creek for a reason; the woods are bustling with wildlife, and that wildlife will let you know in no uncertain terms that you are the foreign creatures. When you’re out there on a summer’s night, the woods are a symphony of frogs and crickets. A good campfire will add some pops and crackles to the orchestration, as well as a lot of jokes and perhaps a ghost story or two. Those stories take on new life in the weird shadows cast by the firelight. Step away from the fire and the sky will, if you have vision beyond the trees, become a canopy of a million lights. We can’t see these lights in the city. They are there, but our own man-made replicas send a glow into the atmosphere that blocks our vision of their heavenly splendor.

Yes, there are many things I love about Ellijay. In fact, I had to think quite a bit when explaining to my grandmother last year that I would rather not move back, at least not right now. The answer is simple, however: I simply don’t fit in.

It is an exaggeration to say that there is no one my age in Ellijay. That isn’t true. However, being a single Christian guy in his late 20s with an artistic leaning and a master’s degree in theology pulls me towards conversations I simply wouldn’t have as often there. I would literally have to change my ministry style. I work best in one-on-one conversations with people who are, for lack of better terms, bookish or artistic. There are many places like Louisville where I can thrive and disciple many believers because of these natural traits. In Louisville, it is easy for me to have close friends. Ellijay doesn’t lend itself to this. The one bookstore in town closed last year, the only higher education opportunities in the city are extension centers for nearby tech schools, and the sadly most entertaining thing to do on a typical day is to go to Walmart and people-watch. If Ellijay were a college town, there might be hope for me. There would be more personally stimulating conversations to be had. But the economy rests on apples and chickens, which doesn’t fertilize a soil for such conversations to grow.

I realize I might be called an intellectual or cultural snob. I don’t look down on Ellijay, though. I very much value the environment that bred me, and occasionally some things make me want to move back. However, there is simply little for me to grasp onto there. I have few ways to minister to the people in a manner natural to me. Our common language is now too weak, and I know I would be fighting a loneliness that would become a large obstacle. All that to say, I love my Ellijay… and I must continue to love it from far away.

(Cover image: a portion of Amicalola Falls, a natural attraction in the mountains east of Ellijay, photographed by me.)

The Ragamuffin Gospel

Abba’s Child

The Divine Conspiracy

Celebration of Discipline

At first glance, Brennan Manning and Dallas Willard might seem quite opposite. Manning emphasized that there are no good deeds in the world that can earn us God’s love, but he loves us in fatherly abundance. Willard, on the other hand, emphasized that the disciplines of our lives should reflect the work of God within us. The novice could see the two as grace versus works. Yet these two men, though being from different church backgrounds and seeming to err on oposite ends of the Bible’s message, were very much on the same page. They understood the radical message of the gospel and that it was a radically transforming message. They emphasized their points to the extend that both were accused several times of heresy by particular breeds of evangelicals, yet both, whatever their potentially real theological discrepancies, showed a belief in the work of Christ and its outpouring into our lives.

Both Manning and Willard showed me early on that there is much to learn from Christians outside of our particular traditions. Being taught deep truths of the faith by these humble Christian men opened me up to believe in the “mere Christianity” emphasized by C.S. Lewis, that core message that has wound itself down through the broad Church throughout the last two millennia.  It taught me never to assume less of those believers who were outside my Reformed, Baptist Evangelicalism, but who nonetheless showed real substantive evidence of God’s grace in their lives and words.

I thank God for using these two men to speak of God’s grace into my life and the lives of many others, and I look forward to the day when I can meet them in the New Creation, with our human failures banished, our broken bodies healed, and the scales of misunderstanding wiped from our eyes. All our failures and the brokenness of this world will be no more.

(Cover image: detail from the cover of The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Friday night I took part in one of my favorite free activities in Louisville, the Frankfort Avenue Trolley Hop. A friend and I spent most of the evening riding a trolley to the Mellwood Art Center, an old meat processing plant that has now become 40+ studios and galleries, and then we stopped by one of my favorite local bookstores before capping the evening off with fish n’ chips at the Irish Rover. Louisville is a truly remarkable city. Neither extremely Southern nor extremely Northern, either geographically or culturally, it is a melting pot of so many elements that should not go together. There is an odd religiosity, yet this is meshed with a bohemian creativity and independence. Sure, this is true of many cities, but it comes together in a uniquely stimulating way here and has produced some fantastic fruit.

Louisville is known as one of the must-visit foodie cities in the country, with world-class inventive restaurants like Ramsi’s, international award-winning pizzas like Boombozz, and even amazing grass-fed beef burgers like those at Bluegrass Burgers. Louisville is an amazing city for the arts. Because of the free Frankfort Avenue and downtown trolley hops, galleries along those routes stay open late once a month and have live bands, wine tastings, and other events to attract attention. In Old Louisville, the St. James Art Fair in Central Park creates a wonderland of local arts and artists, while one can see free high-quality productions of Shakespearean plays in the same park all summer long, the oldest Shakespeare in the Park festival in the country. Louisville has produced some amazing musical acts, and nationally-recognized bands such as My Morning Jacket got their start in our thriving indie music scene. Being an aspiring writer and artist in my own right, the creative electricity of Louisville keeps me inspired and brings along muses and collaborators from time to time to keep the magic moving. Finally, of course, all this eclecticism has produced Sojourn, a biblically-committed, gospel-centered church that is truly engaged in its community, promotes the arts, and whose talented songwriters have produced worship music now sung around the globe.

At the end of the day, however, what could most likely keep me in Louisville simply makes the above icing on the cake. The friendships I have formed here (largely, though not exclusively, through Sojourn) have given me more roots in this city than anything else ever could. Saturday night I spent the evening hanging out with close friends. Long after everyone else left and my roommate went to bed, my best friend and I kept rambling on. We were sitting on my balcony still talking away when we suddenly began hearing birds chirp in the trees. We looked at each other in wide-eyed astonishment that we had actually talked all night. The next day, I spent an hour at a coffee shop with two great friends from my community group, followed by a birthday party for a Sojourn friend of many years. There is such a unique bond in my Sojourn family. I call it a family because that is what it feels like. I have experienced no greater human love outside of my immediate family than in the friendships God has blessed me with here. These, above all things, would be difficult to leave.

All this said, I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know what possibilities are out there, or whatever else may be in store for me. I don’t know if I’ll be married in five years, whether I will be in vocational ministry, or whether I will be in Louisville. However, I’ve gained an even greater appreciation for this city as of late, and for all the surrogate family God has given me in it. So, have I ever considered what it would look like to stay here? Absolutely.

(Cover image: a photograph by C.B. Oliver of me in the Mellwood Art Center last year.)

This is actually a key element of the Church’s calling, whether we realize it or not. Remember this: God is the source of all beauty, and is the perfection of beauty. We have broken the beauty that once was in the world, however there is still a remnant of beauty left, a shadow that still points to God’s greatness. Furthermore, our command to tend and subdue the earth was not revoked by the Fall. Lastly, Jesus himself began to turn back the Fall during his incarnation on earth, shown in miracles and other undoings of the curse (climaxing in his triumph over death), and left the Church to carry forth that effort with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was at hand and proceeded to break that world into this one, so we are commissioned to keep spreading this gospel, both in word and action, until he returns. Part of that is keeping up our task of creating, cultivating, preserving, and experiencing beauty in the world. Indeed, it moves us towards the day when Christ and his Church will reign triumphant in the world.

It is unfortunate, then, when we within Christianity (particularly Protestant Christianity) oftentimes treat beauty as unimportant and the arts as a non-profession. However, art and beauty have a key place within our historic existence. All one needs to do is look at everything from the cathedrals of Europe to works from Rembrandt to Rouault to see that Christians have, in fact, produced some of the most remarkable art ever assembled. And that is just speaking of visual art! If one moves on into things like music, compositions from Bach to Pärt come to mind. Not only are these examples great art, but they are profoundly moving in a spiritual sense. They were created, by and large, by artists and composers who had a firm grasp on their faith, and they rooted much of their work in reflections on their beliefs.

Some within the Church still see the importance, thought they have often lost something of the source message in the meantime. Certain rare evangelical churches like Sojourn aside, the majority of the modern artistic voice comes from Mainline Protestantism. I went to a gallery show and concert a few nights ago with friends, hosted by an Episcopal Church in Louisville and focused around the theme Lux Aeterna (eternal light). There were a handful of pieces of artwork loosely related to the subject matter and mostly mediocre, but the concert was more successful, featuring a wide range of Christian choral pieces in various styles from across the centuries. These were, with the exception of a lyrically bizzarre introductory piece by a German mystic, sound and sometimes inspiring reflections on the gospel. Performed by a choir, soprano soloist, and small chamber ensemble, the evening refreshed me with a small bit of beauty and with a bit of hope that one day the Church’s appreciation of the arts might be more widespread.

The experience of beauty is something worth seeking out and fighting for. The implications of this aesthetic doctrine stretch into everything from the arts to ecology, acknowledging both the creative gift that God has given us to produce beauty and also the fact that God is the ultimate source of beauty, which he has shown us in the natural world. N.D. Wilson states, ”Ultimately, Christians should have a philosophy of artists and art-appreciators. That’s our philosophy. And it’s a philosophy that we can continue to apply through the end and never exhaust it because the art is never exhausted, because the Artist is never exhausted.”  We have a great task before us. Liberated by the work of Christ, we are carrying his message forth and working against the curse in the world in preparation for his second coming. One of the ways we can do that is to reflect the beauty of God in the world through the wonderful creativity he has given us, breaking more and more of it in by the day.

Let’s change the world.

(Cover image: George Rouault, Christ and Fishermen)

I used to be a good Reformed, Baptist, Evangelical Christian. Period. Those were my boxes. In some ways, I still fit there, at least on my “good days.” However, the more I study, the more I ponder, the more I question which ones I really fit into. Now, before anyone starts calling me a heretic, a mystic, a theological liberal, or something else, I want to be clear. There are certain things I will totally affirm:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended into hades.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father,
from which he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

Beyond that, try as I might, I often have a hard time. I reckon with it all. I wrestle with it all. I’m not entirely certain. I have my more established beliefs, but the level of charity I’ve gained for others has grown by leaps and bounds the more I pour over the texts and traditions of the Church and the more I’ve interacted with other committed Christians wrestling with the Scriptures.

I had a few close friends over this past weekend. I love these friends dearly, and I was happy that several who had never met before were able to finally interact. I think it was a pretty magical time, honestly. My friends are diverse. They fall into different theological categories (different political categories, too, for that matter), though each has a nicely ecumenical appreciation of other traditions. They could, and did, have disagreements on certain points of theology, yet there was an air of respect and unity, indeed humility, in the room that electrified the conversation. It is something you hopefully have at a certain point in your walk, something these guys share, when you realize that theology, and life in general, is messy… really, really messy… and there’s no honest way of getting past that fact.

It’s funny that it takes a while to learn this (some folks never do), but when and if you do it changes your entire interaction with others. It humbles you. If the gospel of Jesus Christ were not humbling enough in its very message, it is given to us across two millennia of church tradition and in 66 ancient (albeit divinely inspired) books of various contexts and genres. The overarching message of the Bible may be simple enough, but to triumph over all its intricacies and implications is an insurmountable feat. The questions only bring greater questions. We get confused. We misread. We argue. We rebel against what we see. If that were not enough, our circumstances and weaknesses often cause our hearts to falter under the weight of uncertainty we carry with us.

We see the world. We see societies, nations, crumbling under the weight of the fall. We see mass shootings, genocides, epidemics, and tyranny. We loose loved ones and lie awake asking questions that won’t be answered right now, resting only in one solitary hope. Vincent van Gogh said, “There is much evil in the world and in ourselves, terrible things, and one does not need to be far advanced in life to be in fear of much and to feel the need of a firm faith in life hereafter and to know that without faith in God one cannot live, one cannot bear it. But with that faith one can go on for a long time.”

Thank God for the faith to which we only by a miracle cling. We are human. We are fallen. Even blessed with the Spirit guiding us, we will make mistakes in this life, both in our actions and in our ideas. Truly, only in the cross of Christ can we boast. It shows us who we are, it takes away our lordship over each other. It exposes in the light what little we would be without God’s grace.

I know my friends. I know their great talents and their great weaknesses. I know their crap and they know mine. When you go into a conversation with your doubts and your frustrations laid out before each other, a true dialog can begin. You are able to listen, to learn, to love, and to even enjoy the company of those others on the journey. You can wrestle with your deep questions and speak into each others lives. You may never figured it all out. Some stuff you will never figure out. You may change your mind a thousand times or go through a thousand dark nights of the soul, and I guarantee that we will all be amazed at how foggy our picture was when we reach glory. Until then, we should live in great grace and charity toward one anther as the struggling pilgrims we are on the way to that city.

(cover image courtesy FreeBigPictures.com)

It is really a cultural irony. We who are supposed to be the most graceful, the most merciful, the most giving are, in fact, the biggest cheapskates. Anyone working in the restaurant business will tell you so. I can only hope that maybe this is because we are not educated in the practice of restaurant gratuity. Your gratuity is your server’s livelihood. It is what ensures they can afford their basic life expenses. By not tipping appropriately, you jeopardize that. For those who are unaware, the standard practice is (generally speaking) to tip 15-20 percent minimum per check, with 15 being as low as you can go without being insulting, 20 being a good number to shoot for, and anything above that complementing your server. Why? Here’s a fact: the servers of your restaurant may get paid less than minimum wage. In fact, it is likely. How can this be, you ask? It is because your tip is expected to be the server’s primary compensation. You don’t tip, they don’t get paid. You just wasted about 40 minutes of their time (God help you if you lingered long after your meal was finished with no additional tippage) for which they will received practically no compensation. If you cannot afford the tip on top of your meal’s price, you should have bought a less costly item or, better yet, stayed home.

I’m sorry, your service didn’t live up to your expectations? Okay. That doesn’t justify you not paying for services rendered, even if they weren’t rendered the best. Oftentimes, the circumstances of your food’s arrival are beyond your server’s control. Your steak was over/under-cooked? That was most likely the kitchen’s fault, not your server’s. Don’t dock your server’s pay because of it. The food was a bit slow in arriving? The fact that you had to wait a few minutes to get a table should have indicated that the restaurant was either very busy or short-staffed (or both). Again, don’t make the server pay (literally) for something out of his or her control. There are numerous circumstance that can happen in a restaurant setting, but just as you would not refuse to pay for an oil change if it took longer than expected, you should also not refuse to pay the ladies and gentlemen who took care of you during your meal.

Christian, be aware that the manner in which you go about your patronage to the stores and restaurants you choose reflects not just upon you, but the One to whom you belong. Your attitude and your generosity should reflect the heart that Christ himself has for these men and women who serve you. You have the ability to make someone’s day great or terrible by your interaction. I have seen young ladies with tears in their eyes because they were left zero or astoundingly small tips. I have, on numerous occasions, tried to “make up” the difference for someone else’s disregard for the server, because the impact of that loss cuts deep. Remember, Christian, we are called to be more. As your waiter or waitress serves you, serve them as Christ.

First, the glory, of which there is plenty. First, and most importantly, the redemptive story of Jean Valjean’s life, salvation, and love for his adopted daughter is fully intact. I can fully admit getting a lump in my throat at several points because of the sheer beauty and impact of the story. Bringing this to life is a talented ensemble. The cast is filled with standout performances. Hugh Jackman is solid as Jean Valjean, the paroled convict who finds grace and love. Anne Hathaway is amazing as Fantine, the poor single mother driven to prostitution before her untimely death. The surprise winner of the best performed role may be Samantha Barks in her breakthrough role as Eponine. Special recognition must also go to Colm Wilkinson, the original performer of Jean Valjean in London and New York, who is given the small but important role of the Bishop of Digne and carries it with gravity and grace. Besides the cast, there is, of course, the powerful music from one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. The songs carry the weight of the story very well, and are pretty much all represented from the stage version (if slightly tweaked at points). The strong performances and music are enhanced by the fact that the vocal were recorded live rather than tracked beforehand, a first for a film musical. Because of this, they are imperfect, but emotionally raw and moving. A special heart-rending moment is the conclusion fo the film which, despite the films shortcomings, perhaps makes it all worth it. A perfect moment of resolution to the life of Jean Valjean, including a surprise performance inclusion, makes the final scene powerful on multiple levels.

Now for the unfortunate shortcomings. Without a doubt, Tom Hooper was ultimately not the perfect director for this film. Hooper has a fascination with close-ups, as seen in his previous work. He works better in small rooms than large expanses. The problem with this for Les Misérables rests in two aspects. First, this historical drama is set in a Second Revolution-period France, particularly Paris, yet we rarely get beyond close and medium-shots of the stars. It is like Hooper will not let us out of the misery of the lead characters. They are truly singing face-to-face with us for two and a half hours. The intensity of this is unrelenting and can make the audience quite miserable themselves. Hooper misses the chance to show off many of his terrific locations. He also misses the possibility of some powerful visual imagery. When Valjean is converted after he is extended grace by the bishop, he paces the floor of a chapel for three minutes, with no visual attention being paid to the obvious salvific/redemptive images that can be found in such a sanctuary. We are too focused on Valjean for his entire soliloquy. The same is true of Fantine’s “I Dreamed a Dream.” It was certainly a powerful rendition, and the final performance is captured in one take. Almost parading this non-composited accomplishment, we are stuck in a single-camera shot of Hathaway as Fantine, an unfortunate waste when her visually colorful lyrics beg for a flashback, an escape from the harshness of the moment. If we could get beyond these close-ups, we could perhaps have a more enjoyable film. However, this is hard, and it is hard for the entire length of the very long film.

Yes, the film is very long. While the order of a couple of songs is moved around a bit, the essential whole of the stage show is preserved. However, with so little happening on screen (due, again, to the agoraphobic camera), one constantly wishes the plot were tightened up. A good 20 minutes could be lost without being missed at all. Yet, at the same time, there are plot holes that the film exposes. Perhaps these are in the stage version, too, but the realism of the film makes them more glaring. For instance, after Valjean sees Marius once, he sings about his daughter’s young love being “the son I might have known” and is willing to do anything to “bring him home.” The same lapse in plot is apparent when Marius asks forgiveness of they dying Valjean when the two had previously parted on very warm terms. One wishes, with the length of the film, that more attention could have been given to these confounding moments.

While there are a few other shortcomings, such as Russell Crowe’s serviceable yet weak singing abilities, they are not ones that ultimately kill the picture. Overall, the ensemble performances and the timeless story make the film is worth seeing. While perhaps not living up to its full potential, there is enough of the Victor Hugo novel and stage musical present to make the film still a beautiful picture of grace and redemption.

Christmas is not merely about the birth of Jesus Christ. That is only half the story. Christmas not only celebrates Christ’s first coming, but his second coming as well. To forget that is to forget that he is doing an ongoing work in our world. When Christ returns to us, he will return fully triumphant and as a king establishing a new order in the world:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries of distress, no more sorrow; those old things have passed away. And he who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. (Rev. 21:4-5, Knox)

Christ’s own birth brought about violence. Herod had all of the babies in Bethlehem killed in his attempt to eradicate the young messiah. There is truly nothing new under the sun. When we forget that the child born in a lowly manger is our triumphant king who undoes this present darkness, we can easily be overwhelmed by the depth of the darkness. The artist Vincent van Gogh wrote, “There is much evil in the world and in ourselves, terrible things, and one does not need to be far advanced in life to be in fear of much and to feel the need of a firm faith in life hereafter and to know that without faith in God one cannot live, one cannot bear it. But with that faith one can go on for a long time.”

The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knew very well the darkness of the world. He penned a poem in December 1861 following the death of his wife and the departure of his son to fight in the War Between the States. Lamenting the terrible condition of the world while the Christmas chimes rang merrily on, he expressed reassurance by their ultimate message:

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The message of Christmas is ultimately eschatological. It looks forward. It offers a promise. There will be peace on earth, and the one who is bringing it has secured it with his very own blood.

(Cover image: detail of The Massacre of the Innocents, Francois-Joseph Navez)

The sun doesn’t shine as bright this time of year, but the malls absolutely glisten. We are entering what is known in our contemporary culture as the “Christmas season.” The next four weeks will be paraded by both the religious and the secular as a time of upbeat songs, brightly colored lights, tinsel, and presents, presents, presents. We will run ourselves silly buying up gifts, gorging ourselves on rich food, and inducing an all-around giddy madness. Then, on December 26th, we inevitably crash. It’s so routine, we might be tempted to think that this is the way December has always been. In the ancient traditions of the Church, however, this time of year has a completely different vibe.

The time traditionally known as Christmas begins on Christmas Day and lasts twelve days. Christmas is the celebration of Christ’s coming, both his first coming in Bethlehem a little over two thousand years ago and his second coming, though the latter sadly tends to slip into the background. However, the period leading up to Christmas, starting on the fourth Sunday prior and ending Christmas Eve, is called Advent. Advent anticipates Christmas; it commemorates the fact that God’s people were longingly awaiting their coming Messiah in darkness. They were awaiting a Messiah to come rescue them. We, too, await our Messiah. We don’t await his first coming but his return. We live in a world “between the times.” Our salvation is accomplished by our Messiah, but the world is still that broken beauty waiting to be made whole once again.

A pastor friend once commented to me that Halloween is really very similar to Advent. It was a fresh and almost astounding thought for me at the time, but I realized that he was exactly right. Halloween, reflecting on the fact that evil exists in the world, prepares us for the celebration of God’s good work through, and preservation of, the saints (the Church) the next day, the Feast of All Saints. Likewise, Advent reflects on the longing for a savior in a broken state, waiting for the One who will bring restoration.

All this is not to say that we do not need to speak of the Nativity nor the Second Coming during Advent. Anything but that! It would be like commemorating Lent without looking toward Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. However, Advent rightly sees these events in light of our current state: longing. As Bobby Gilles and Sojourn Pastor Daniel Montgomery recently wrote, “While ‘Christmas season’ is often marked by greed, gluttony, and (if you’re lucky) a few warm fuzzy feelings as you stand under the mistletoe or drink hot cocoa by the fire, Advent stirs our hearts for the return of the king.” Christ came once into the dark world as a light, and he will return to the world as a light that expels the darkness, something we can remember each time we light the Advent candles.

For these reasons, many of my favorite songs of the season are darker in tone than those played most often. They reflect the very real darkness that Jesus Christ was born into that night in that lowly creche. Pieces like “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Veiled in Darkness” whisper the longing for a savior in a fearsome world.

A few projects in later years have sought to bring some of the more Advent-toned songs into the light. Bifrost Arts’ 2009 album Salvation Is Created is one of my favorite examples of this. As I described in my initial review of the project,

This is a dark album, no question. A haunting melancholy permeates the entire piece. This is not an upbeat album glistening with chimes, warm strings, and sleigh bells. A large percentage of these songs are in a minor key.  The overall atmosphere has a certain loneliness about it.  Perhaps this is a Christmas album like the first Christmas night was, cold and lonesome, but filled with hope. These song emit a radiant hopefulness in the mist of darkness. Not unlike our state here on earth. We are awaiting Christ’s return. The “already/not yet” tension is in full force. We are in a fallen world, but living with the hope of the New Creation coming with our Lord.

This, along with a handful of other projects, has really brought back the focus of Advent that I think has been lost, especially in Evangelical Protestantism, for years. To get a full picture of Advent and the true meaning of Christmas, our art, our music, our commemoration, needs to acknowledge the world Christ was born into… and why he came to save it.

Here is the traditional melody of one of my favorite Advent hymns, the one I think most perfectly expresses both the longing for Christ that the ancient Jews felt and the longing for his return that we can echo today.

Veiled in darkness Judah lay,
Waiting for the promised day,
While across the shadowy night
Streamed a flood of glorious light,
Heav’nly voices chanting then,
“Peace on earth, good will to men.”

Still the earth in darkness lies.
Up from death’s dark vale arise
Voices of a world in grief,
Prayers of men who seek relief:
Now our darkness pierce again,
“Peace on earth, good will to men.”

Light of light, we humbly pray,
Shine upon Thy world today;
Break the gloom of our dark night,
Fill our souls with love and light,
Send Thy blessèd Word again,
“Peace on earth, good will to men.”

– “Veiled in Darkness Judah Lay,” Lyrics by Douglas Rights, 1915; Traditional melody by Jo­hann G. Eb­e­ling, 1666.

(Cover photo: Advent Candles, © Jacob A. Davis, 2012)

I have always been an artist. Since the age of four I have had a knack for drawing well, something that has improved as my skills have been honed through various lessons and lots of practice. The only thing I may have been longer than an artist is a storyteller. From the age of three onward I would sit with my great aunt who babysat me, and we would make up stories together about the adventures of a little brown bear who encountered all sorts of circumstances and fairy tale characters. I continued onward, constructing elaborate narratives when playing with action figure toys and desiring, at various alternating times of my childhood, to be an actor, writer, or cartoonist. My mind has always been captivated by things I can’t see in reality, but exist vividly in my imagination. Leave me alone and I will picture new worlds with new people and new creatures, sometimes wondrous and sometimes horrifying. I was intent on this being my life’s end until something happened: I felt called into “ministry.”

I can’t really speak to the validity of this calling alone. It certainly seemed very real at the time, and I believe God has used me in ways beyond myself to indwell his scriptural truths into the minds and hearts around me. From my time as a Baptist Student Union president to a youth pastor and then, in later years, as a church intern, I have felt greatly used by the Lord in various circumstances. At the same time, the creative desire has always been within me. It hasn’t ceased. It hasn’t subsided at all. It has swelled up, even in the times I have tried to push it aside. As I have talked with other friends who have the same artistic tendencies (be they music, theater, visual art, etc.) and yet the same desire to be in vocational ministry, I find that they all experience the same tension I do. For many years I thought that I had to suppress one or the other. Something changed recently, though. I have decided to live in the tension.

I think we need pastors who are artists. We need pastors who have a heightened sense of beauty, of imagination, and of story. Beauty does, after all, point directly to the glory of God. Dr. N.T. Wright builds upon this in his book Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense:

The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete. Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) it is there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole. Beauty, in other words, is another echo of a voice–a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call “beautiful.”

I believe he’s correct and I believe, like Wright, that we have a special calling to point our fellow Christian (and non-Christian) to the greatness of the beauty around us. In recognizing beauty, we recognize the goodness from which God created the world. Likewise, in recognizing our inherent creativity, we recognize the Image of God (the ultimate creator) that still dwells within us. Thomas Merton writes:

Unless man fulfills his vocation as artist, technology will tend to blind him to the things of God. By artistic and creative insight, man rises above the material elements and outer appearance of things and sees into their nature. By the disciplined exercise of his art he is enabled to draw forth the glory of God that is hidden in created beauty and make it manifest in the world.

To all those artists out there who find yourself in a position of vocational ministry or pursuing that call, I encourage you to never lose the side of your personality that aspires for and recognizes beauty, do not let go of that trait that gives you a unique creativity. These will always be part of you, and they are a blessing from God. Use these gifts, along with your many others, to point toward the God who is the source of all beauty and is the great creator. We, as ones who know the Scripture and have a love of the arts, can point people to an appreciation of the arts and, through them, a greater appreciation of their ultimate source. Teach them that these are more than just frivolities and wastes of time and resources. No, artist-pastor, you don’t have to choose between being an artist and being a minister of the Gospel. Live in the tension.

(Cover image: Cross Icon, Jacob Davis, 2009)