ART: Standing in the Gap, part 1

Teach me work that honors Thy work,

the true economies of goods and words,

to make my arts compatible

with the songs of the local birds.

Teach me patience beyond work

and, beyond patience, the blest

Sabbath of Thy unresting love

which lights all things and gives rest.

Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 2002, no. X

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This morning Jason, Abbye, Jeff, Katie and I talked for a few hours about living together here in the city of Memphis, about the generations that came before us, about the call in our hearts to create. All of life is a creative opportunity. 

"Moral acts are art forms for arranging and giving expression to resurrection." 

 Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection (pg 194)

I've spent much of the last ten years fighting to believe in the legitimacy of my calling to create. Whether it be songs, visual arts, food, or stories, I've struggled to persevere as an artist and follower of Jesus. I keep coming back to the description in Genesis of the Spirit of God brooding over the depths like a lamp waiting to be lit with wings of dawn-fire: 

1:2 Now the earth was without shape and empty, 

and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, 

but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. 

1:3 God said, “Let there be light.” 

Here at the Malcomb House we're asking the question: "Since the Holy Spirit's creativity gave birth to such a cosmos in the beginning, how is the same Spirit of God calling out our creative gifts to speak light and re-creation into hearts, neighborhoods, and a world unmade by the Fall?"