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Springtime for Art
March 22, 2005 - 5:10 p.m.

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Despite vigorous denials from certain quarters, specifically a pretty Canadian I know, Spring is flexing its muscles. Everything is dripping and soggy and lovely. Mountains of snow have become molehills of slush, and the field behind Trinity is a marsh.

As soon as the sun goes down, of course, the world freezes up again. All our heat is still coming from direct sunlight - there's no ambient warmth out there.


We had a lovely conversation in Old Testament today. We looked at artwork as a testament, a witness, to God.

Like any professional, artists tend to get so close to art that they stop seeing it...really seeing it. As an actor I couldn't really enjoy going to the theatre - I'd spend the evening critiquing the acting, musing over how obnoxious the tech work must be, etc. I lost the ability to just enjoy a play.

Artists can be a lot like that...they spend a load of time dissecting a painting, looking at the painter's technique and background, etc., and in the end they present one with a dissected piece. But dissection is a violent, destructive act. What's left when you've described away every line and colour and shape? You end up seeing only the parts and none of the whole.

Biblical criticism is like that. We tend to pull scripture apart, to peek behind the pages looking for the author. Is this Q? Is it J or P? What was Mark's community going through to inspire this redaction? This is to be taken as literal fact. This is to be understood metaphorically.

In the end, do we still have scripture? Or do we have a pile of shredded paper, scraps that barely resemble a cohesive whole, let alone the very Word of God?

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