the face in hebraic theology

Last week I did a little word study in my Hebrew class on ~ynIP'. (panim or "face"). It was fascinating to begin to unpack the theology of this concept in the Old Testament. One commentator noted that to have a face is to be in relationship. The face, as the portal to the total person, is loaded with nuances as we turn towards or away from one another. Something that caught my attention was the connection between the ideas of "face" and "presence." To seek the face of YHWH is to go to the temple, the place of his presence. To "face" someone is to offer total presence. Abraham Heschel has written about the absence of presence in panim in his book God in Search of Man. His way of understanding the holocaust and other atrocities is to name the "eclipse of the face of the Divine" (hester panim). This takes me to a christology of "face"- just as sin has to do with a breaking between faces (fractured relationship), so the hope of the Messiah is really YHWH taking on a face of flesh and blood- Christ is the embodiment of panim, restoring the hope of full presence in the interpersonal realm. A Christian theology of relationship will always look like two people painting each other's faces back on- just as they ought to be- restored to glory.

Christians and Kitsch

Some have said that there is high art, low art and Christian art. The amazing and disturbing images in this book are only complemented by the profoundly thoughtful text. If you have any interest in how the Christian church has chosen to engage the world of art... pick up this text, it's fantastic.



“On the other hand, images can be so good that they are bad. Thomas Kinkade’s paintings fall into this category, rather too gently treated by Spakman who says she ‘has no reason to doubt the artist’s sincerity.’ Kinkade’s original workds and all the reproduction and miniatures he produces as their prolific offspring are promoted in a high-volume shopping galleria near you . . . His ’sweetness and light’ renderings have all the ingredients of good paintings — luminous paint handling, luscious colors, carefully rendered flowers, cottages and lighthouses, well-learned art techniques to show off skies and cloud forms — but the accumulation of all this goodness collapses into a lie, a fake world that is ultimately as lacking in mind and soul nourishment as a diet of sugar cubes." -from Lynn Aldrich's review of Betty Spackman’s book.

current soundtrack

will beauty transcend?

last september i did a little post about how we often miss beauty around us because we are not looking for it. for a long time i've been fascinated with how much goes unnoticed simply because we lack the fundamental curiosity to pay attention to the world around us. this is compounded by our busyness, drivenness and cultural value of "focusing on the task at hand." curiosity will always decrease "productivity." anyways, a friend recently pointed me to this brilliant experiment in which "one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made" stood performing in the metro station in washington during the morning commute. the question was "In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?" the experts predicted it would. he would play for 45 minutes and about 1,077 people would walk by. the prediction was he would draw a crowd of at least 75 people and make about $150 in his hat. the result? "seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. that leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look."
the only group who always had the capacity to notice beauty out of context were the little ones. "every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. and every single time, a parent scooted the kid away."
so, will beauty transcend? will you notice? probably not... unless you have the eyes of a child.

L'Chaim

Viernes Santa

We veil our faces before your glory,
O Holy and Immortal One,
and bow before the cross of your wounded Christ
With angels and archangels,
we praise you, our Mercy,
and we bless you, our Compassion,
for in our brokenness
you have not abandoned us.
Hear us as we pray through Jesus, our high priest:
heal all division,
reconcile the estranged,
console the suffering,
and raise up to new life
all that is bound by death. Amen.

Prayer for Good Friday
from Common Lectionary Prayers, p. 100
Cross: "Sins of the People"- a community art project by Witt's End Church

i am an incomplete gesture

"Beauty is in the brokenness, not in what we can conceive as the perfections, not in the 'finished' images but in the incomplete gestures." -MAKOTO FUJIMURA, "BEAUTY WITHOUT REGRET"