tools for actions

 

A Los Angeles law makes all fruit and vegetables growing over sidewalks “public,” so that even trees rooted in private yards may bear public fruit. The collective Fallen Fruit leads walks and makes maps of public fruit trees in the Los Angeles urban area. Image from Fallen Fruit

“Actions: What You Can Do With the City documents and presents specific projects by a large and diverse group of activists whose personal involvement has triggered radical change in today’s cities. These human motors of change include architects, engineers, university professors, students, children, pastors, artists, skateboarders, cyclists, root eaters, pedestrians, municipal employees, and many others who answer the question of what can be done to improve the urban experience with surprising and often playful actions.”

It’s hard not to have a soft spot for any public art project which includes mention of “pastors” (before “artists”), though alongside all other potential activists such as root eaters. 

mr brown might like Illicit Stencil Saves Cyclists, by Toronto’s Urban Repair Squad which spray painted roads with bicycle stencils, in response to inadequate bike lanes on the roads.

forum culturel protestant

 

Raison et Révélation Les films de Woody Allen avec Chad Deakyne

The year I’d spent in France was one of the hardest, spiritually. Its religious foundations appeared to be kept in memory, in paintings in the museums.  There was, however, a tiny group of people I met, who reminded me of what a living faith is over the few months that I was acquainted with them.

I recently found out that one of them currently leads the Protestant Cultural Forum, which organizes public discussions on cultural issues since 2006. One of the objectives of the Forum is to build bridges between Christians and culture, through cultural observation, analysis and appreciation, given the situation of many Christians in France thriving only in their Christian sub-cultures, in the company of their friends from church. A second objective is to contribute the perspective of the world, through the lens of the Christian faith. 

Their archives page has posters of previous events, on subjects as universal as “Entertainment & Boredom”, to country-specific concerns such as the spiritual consequences of the 1968 revolution. 

Here’s a link to the website through Yahoo babel fish.

powers of ten

We had a short screening of Charles and Ray Eames‘ “Powers of Ten” at our recent Christmas dinner. 

Produced in 1977, “Powers of Ten” is one of the best known films done by the Eames, known largely for their contribution to furniture design. Inspired by Kees Boeke’s “Cosmic View” (which was written to demonstrate to school children a wide and connected view of the world), the Eames created the film to make science and technology interesting and accessible.

From the perspective of a camera zooming out of, then into a person on a lawn, in powers of ten, the viewer’s consciousness of space, the universe, and the microscopic structures of our bodies heightens dramatically.

So, are we mere atomic structures, and inconsequential particles in the great expanse? It sometimes feels that way. But, the inter-connectedness of the universe, the structure of human existence, and the sustaining of human life within this universe all speak of deliberation and purpose.

…and it was good

good/world (好/界)

click on image to view the other illustrations

UNION’s practice sits within the previous Trinity Theological College, on Mount Sophia. For the large glass surfaces of the office, ampulets created three illustrations, inspired by Genesis and ideas of creation and creativity, for the large glass surfaces. Read their story.

stranger than the cosmos-novas

toward a christian aesthetic

“…it is true that the religion of the artist often occupies a central position in the world behind the work; and where the artist lacks a religion, then often the artist’s particular version of secularism occupies a central position in the world…”  (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Art In Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic)

A reaction against the arts in Christian circles seems to arise because of sentiments that the arts are often led by artists who challenge Christian beliefs. We had a discussion in September, spurred on by a question we had on an approach towards viewing art which though sometimes confrontational, had qualities which we respected. 

The discussion was informed largely by Nicholas Wolterstorff’s writings on art, in his book “Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic“, and a summary of the discussion can be found here.

train song

Train Song, from Josh Garrel’s Over Oceans album. 

Lyrics can be found here. 

A little story about music and coffee…

In 2004, Indy Alliance, affiliated to Muncie Alliance Church, began in 2004 as a Bible Study that met at a coffee house. Muncie Alliance Church, which embraces business and ministry, offers an internship program where people spend half of the day studying the Bilble and exploring missions, and the other half of the day either working with Alliance World Coffees or at another job. These ‘interns’ are given free housing and live relatively communally in Muncie, IN.

Josh Garrels was one of those interns who eventually moved to Indianapolis and took on the role as a bi-vocational pastor. He spent half of his time making music and touring and the other half involved with Indy Alliance. In 2007, Josh was becoming more strained trying to balance music and his role in the church and made the decision to step down. Just this year, he has released his fourth album, Jacaranda.

what if the earth used up its shadows?

shadows

by Zach Kincaid
What if the earth used up its shadows? Gone would be these empty selves that follow us in ones, twos, and threes. Buildings could stand straight up with no morning and afternoon penitence. 

Imagine it. It would be like moonless nights which cast an arrogance, wrapped up in no reminders of any ground below us. It would mean freedom. No need to ask Wendy for help if our shadow becomes dislodged and needs mending.

We would not have to account for any shortcomings. God is light and in him is no darkness. Our shadow tells us who we are: dark holes and on the verge of falling into our own abysses. 

Artificial light creates shadows that we turn off or on, but the heavenly bodies cast these subtle reminders that dance across earth’s creation without our doing. It suggests that we are not our own.

But aren’t we the instigator of our actions? Doesn’t our shadow follow us; we do not follow it?

In some respect, our shadow mimics our behavior. If we end here this analysis is drunk and stumbling. But… 

Can we rid ourselves of our shadow? Must we attempt to keep it stuck to us?

Of course we’re glued to it. And we often echo Pan’s cockiness – “How clever I am… oh the cleverness of me,” forgetting that we are knit together by God and cast into the makings and trappings of his world. 

Follow Solomon’s lead: everything under the sun is meaningless for, “God made humanity upright, but we have gone in search of many schemes.” In the valley of the shadow of death, the mountain is transfigured to something accessible to us, we think, with no upward climb and without the irritant of Moses’s gleam. 

We never really wander far from our own thinned-out selves. We are shifting shadows, without the contours of faith and love, with no scars that speak devotion and no mass that knells to the unknown saga of an escaping soul. We become general and easily adapted into a tolerant world that expects no judgment and asks for no definition. 

The escape into substance revolves around admission of emptiness and then falling into it. Where do we land? Nothing lasts except the grace of God by which we stand. That’s not solid ground the way we know it. But the confidence is that there is no shadow of turning with Jesus. Heaven has nothing lingering and our soul will finally outrun our earthly baggage – including its shadowy tail. 

(Perhaps the Apostle Peter holds an exception to our discussion since his magic shadow healed the desperately sick when they hopped into it.)

- From The Matthew’s House Project

Since 1999, The Matthew’s House Project has sought to develop places in which faith and culture can be explored. We seek to promote a different sort of listening. This sort of listening fosters active participation in the public square, inspiring criticism, reflection, and creative expression.

The Word made radiant flesh…or belonging to a mensa club

In his essay at ChristianityToday on beauty, David Taylor writes that

“There is also, preeminently, the beauty of God’s self-sacrificing love—of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At the cross the beauty of God is mangled, smelly, dirty, misunderstood, “banged with terror,” to quote one modern poet. It makes us weep. And it is good. And how it makes us yearn to be loved and love like such a God.

What we see in this Trinitarian God is his ability to make beauty shine forth from all kinds of lovely and messy, magnificent and broken things—things from which we expect beauty to be absent. The doubt-filled book of Job? That freakish quartet of singing beasts cruising around the eternal throne? These are beautiful? Yes, these things, directed by the hand of God, are beautiful.

I submit, then, that when we present a gospel that ignores or devalues beauty, we not only present a small gospel, but also a distorted gospel, because it misrepresents our God.

The God whom we preach can end up not looking like the Word made radiant flesh, but like the Word who belongs to a Mensa club. He has the answers, all of which are true, but no real presence.”

In addressing this “hard-to-define” essence of beauty, David Taylor puts forth an expanded view of what beauty is, and emphasizes that it draws people to the gospel and is a state which we will seek and rest in for eternity. Drawing on Psalm 27:4, David Taylor writes,

“Psalm 27:4 states, “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek … all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to seek him in his temple.”

All the days of my life. That’s a long time and quite an exceptional desire. But I don’t think the psalm-ist intends to exaggerate. He has encountered the Source of all beauties. How can he not want this beauty forever? God has redeemed us so that we may worship him never-endingly as the glorious, tri-personal Source of beauty.”

In addition to the article, check out his blog post which contains further thoughts on beauty and resources if you’d like to investigate further. 

the curator – launched 29 aug 08

“The Curator is a web publication of International Arts Movement (IAM), which announces the signs of a “world that ought to be” as we find it in our midst, and seeks to inspire people to engage deeply with culture that enriches life and broadens experience.

In keeping with IAM’s belief that artistic excellence, as a model of “what ought to be”, paves the way for lasting, enduring humanity, The Curator seeks to encourage, promote, and uncover those artifacts of culture – those things which humans create – that inspire and embody truth, goodness, and beauty.”

- From http://www.curatormagazine.com/about/

Incidentally, the contributing editor, Kevin Gosa, writes that he and his wife “love travelling (especially to Singapore)”!