Centennial Year Closes With a Celebration of Religion and the Arts
We do not think of God without the arts. Perhaps we
cannot. Every religion and every spirituality uses the arts not just to
express our spirituality, but to conceive it and continually revive it. Our
vision of being a congregation that is "Spiritually Alive" leads us to this
month of reflecting on how the arts can help us grow in our faith.
I am delighted by this. I took a big leap forward in
my spiritual development when I took a class with Henri Nouwen called, "The
Ministry of Vincent Van Gogh." We spent three months immersing ourselves in
Van Gogh’s paintings and letters.
Van Gogh’s father was a minister, and Vincent tried to
follow in his footsteps, but could not handle learning Greek and ebrew. So
he threw himself into a lay ministry among a bunch of coal miners, and he
started painting them. From these paintings, you see an emerging spiritual
awareness in which the arts helped Van Gogh to see, to experience and to
express the Light in the darkness. Van Gogh’s work still shapes me in my
spiritual awareness.
This month is an exciting reclaiming of the importance
of the arts in our faith expression. The diversity of what is planned is
marvelous. We have world renowned experts coming in for the Sunday arts
seminars. It includes a seminar on a time when lay people were banned from
singing hymns in church! The Reformed tradition saved us from that, so we
can enter the joy of music together.
We will have moving choral and chamber music as well
as the delight of dance in worship. Our arts show festival could be termed,
"The Folk Art of the Westminsterites." It will be a time to share our
own members delight in a wide variety of artistic expression. Come see how
your friends express themselves in a great variety of artistic endeavors.
This month will heighten our awareness of how the arts
can help us grow in our Christian spirituality. My hope is that this
awareness will continue in the months that follow. Then a year from now,
Westminster will host Nicholas Woltersdorf from Yale University, widely
regarded as the world expert on the subject of religion and the arts.
It all reminds me of the words of that delightful
hymn:
"Open my eyes that I may see, glimpses of truth thou
has for me."
May our eyes be opened to see more and more the
wonder of God’s grace.
Sincerely,
Andrew L. McDonald, Pastor
|
