“Lower Still” by My Epic
Look, he’s covered in dirt
The blood of his mother has mixed with the Earth
and she’s just a child who’s throbbing in pain
from the terror of birth by the light of a cave
now they’ve laid that small baby
where creatures come eat
like a meal for the swine who have no clue that he
is still holding together the world that they see
they don’t know just how low he has to go
Lower still
Set Us Free
Paradise,
polluted and poisoned.
Our resounding plea:
“Set us free.”
We are writhing and reeling from the Fall.
Our affections wander and wane,
our struggles remain.
O’ Lord set us free.
We fettered our shackles,
we tossed the key.
But O’ Messiah, set us free.
Heaven’s Hope
Bound by sins darkened glow
In this world of pain and woe
Helpless, hopeless to us He came
And in the midst was slain
Darkest night, the Light extinguished
Will we forever captives be?
Messiah’s mission ends in death?
Where’s the hope of life and peace?
But by power He awaketh
All of death He did breakth
By His death, deaths defeated
Sins depleted of its power
Thus the hour of unrest
Has become our hope, our joy, our rest
For in Christ’s death,
Deaths defeated!
Yes, He burst the bonds that bound Him
And leads many captives in His wake
Yes, from the cross He is victorious
And all of heaven hails He’s glorious!
The Psalms and Our Songs
The Psalms are important for a number of reasons. For one, they take up a fairly large portion of Scripture and they have been a comfort for many. Spurgeon, known as the “prince of preachers,” struggled with depression and he found comfort and solace in the Psalms. He spent some twenty years writing his three-volume commentary on the Psalms.
The Psalms are also important because we are exhorted to sing Psalms. The Psalms are important because they give powerful truths poetic expression. This is helpful because it not only helps us remember the truths but helps us feel the truth. The Psalms are beautiful and will have a very practical impact on us when we soak in them.
Interestingly, Scripture has laments in it and so does our surrounding culture. Most Christian circles, however, do not have laments. Why is this? Is it because Christians are always happy? And always live victoriously? I don’t think so.
The War of Art
I appreciate this from Steven Pressfield in The War of Art:
“The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities that most commonly elicit Resistance:
1) The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.
2) The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.
3) Any diet or health regimen.
4) Any program of spiritual advancement.
5) Any activity who aim is tighter abdominals.
6) Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.
7) Education of every kind.
8) Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves.
9) The Undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.
10) Any act that entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.
11) The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity.
In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.”
What is Art?
So, what is art? That is a difficult question. Let’s look at some examples I’ve gathered. Art is…
…according to a dictionary:
The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance
~dictionary.com
…indefinable
You cannot define electricity. The same can be said of art. It is a kind of inner current in a human being, or something which needs no definition.
~Marcel Duchamp , French painter and sculptor
…imitation or creation
Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers – and never succeeding.
~Marc Chagall, Russian-French artist
…creating beauty or harmony
Filling a space in a beautiful way. That’s what art means to me.
~Georgia O’Keefe, American painter
Art is harmony.
~Georges Seurat, French painter
…an expression of our innate desire to decorate
The intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated. It is one of humankinds deep-rooted primordial urges. Primitive people decorated their implements and cult objects with a desire to beautify and enhance… it is a sense emanating from the urge for perfection and creative accomplishment.
~Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Swiss multi-media, applied arts, performance artist, and textile designer
…something that reveals the essential or hidden truth
Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.
~Paul Klee, Swiss painter
…a blessed mistake, a misfiring
Art is like the feathers of a peacock; there is no ultimate reason for it. It is nothing more than a leftover impulse from our distant ancestors. It is a mere signal to potential mates that we have enough time, resources, and leisure to be able to waste time on extravagance.
~This seems to be the Darwinian view (cf. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 253)
…thought expressed
To give a body and a perfect form to one’s thought, this—and only this—is to be an artist.
~Jacques-Louis David, French painter
…a source of calm in a chaotic world
What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.
~Henri Matisse, French artist
Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos.
~Saul Bellow, American novelist
…self-expression or autobiography
What is art? Art grows out of grief and joy, but mainly grief. It is born of people’s lives.
~Edvard Munch, Norwegian artist
All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.
~Federico Fellini, Italian film director
…communication of feelings
To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced, and…then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling—this is the activity of art.
~Leo Tolstoy, Russian author
Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus.
~David Hockney, British artist
…labor
Art begins with resistance — at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.
~André Gide in Poétique
…philosophy
Above all, artists must not be only in art galleries or museums — they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in whatever endeavor people take on, at every level.
~ Michelangelo Pistoletto in Art’s Responsibility
…according to my favorite definition:
“One individual personality has definite or special talent for expressing, in some medium, what other personalities can hear, see, smell, feel, taste, understand, enjoy, be stimulated by, be involved in, find refreshment in, find satisfaction in, find fulfillment in, experience reality in, be agonized by, be pleased by, enter into, but which they could not produce themselves…
Art in various forms expresses and gives opportunity to others to share in, and respond to, things which would otherwise remain vague, empty yearnings. Art satisfies and fulfills something in the person creating and in those responding…
One person’s expression of art stimulates another person and brings about growth in understanding, sensitivity and appreciation.
~ Edith Schaeffer in The Hidden Art of Homemaking
