Thanks

(This is an excerpt from our upcoming zine, which will include several poems, drawings, painting, woodcuts, and short stories compiled by Commoner as a literary companion to our album!)

I had a friend who kept a notebook she coined her “Happy list.” She’d write in numeric order anything she could think of that brought her joy. The items in her Happy List weren’t necessarily listed in order of importance or happiness level, but just as she experienced them or as they came to mind. I eventually started my own Happy List. #215: Morning Fog.

As time went on, I realized that these items in my list were so much more than autonomous fragments with the association of temporary happiness. #37: The First Sip of Coffee. These were pieces of a unified portrait of joy, crafted by a glorious Creator. This Creator, who knit me together as a tapestry and reached into the vacuum of my chest to pump-start my spirit, knows every single corner of my life. He knew the things on this list before they were written and He knows the ones that won’t be written for years. #93: The Crunch of Leaves. He made me so that these things would bring me the joy that bids me record every note. This realization turned my happy list into a register of Thanks, and that became much more important. #147: Bubble Wrap

So I went and bought a Moleskine® notebook that would fit neatly into my back pocket, and a Micron® pen that I could carry on me at all times. This record of thanksgiving must not be something I do, but someone I am. It is to be a part of me, and a part of my life. #224: Pomegranate. I carry it with me everywhere to combat the poison of entitlement with joy and gratitude, and it is having a profound effect on my life. When thanksgiving becomes a language that we speak, rather than a ritual that we infrequently practice, we begin to wear it. It becomes a lense through which we see the world and in doing so the world becomes infinitely more beautiful. #94 Watercolored Sunsets. Introspection is a disease that leaves us empty, but when we fix our eyes outwardly upon the joy that is set before us, our short life on earth becomes a theater of God. Each twist and turn on our journey calls us to notice the details, for it is in the details that we see God’s character. #126: Folk Music. It’s the first day of spring, when you look out upon the dreary, snow covered ground but then hear a bird singing from atop your chimney. It’s when you find the solitude within the chaos. #12 Coffee Shops. Friends, don’t miss out on what’s in store for you.

And when the sadness seems a sickness endlessly, I hope you find your bird in the chimney.

On Beauty and Good Coffee (Part 1)

Sometimes, good answers aren't as valuable as good questions. I've been searching for some of those lately.

What is beauty? (Not in a super melodramatic sense... just as it relates to the evangelical Christian artist stuck in between the massively secular, over sexualized world of fine art and the nearly art-illiterate modern church of the American culture)

Why is North Judson, Indiana (or insert your hometown/neighborhood here) the perfect place to reconstruct a cultural ideology of beauty and how it is directly related to the Creator?

Why do we make good coffee?

How can we practice the pleasure of God through enjoying a cup of coffee?

How can we, as the church, use a learned appreciation of life to draw people in to a heart of thanksgiving and praise for our Father, which in turn leads us to an overarching enjoyment of Him?

If you'd like, you can stop reading, close your computer, find a quiet place, and ask the Father to reveal the answers to these questions yourself rather than reading my thoughts. I can promise you that the questions themselves will be better than my answers, but if you'd like to hear my thoughts, you may continue reading.... maybe some of it will be from Jesus (if all of it was from Jesus, it'd be much better!) And due to the magnanimity of the questions, I'll probably split them up into multiple posts.

   On beauty: I recently had a conversation with a friend about the latest Wes Anderson film. Let it be known that I absolutely adore Wes Anderson films and that they have had a very tangible impact on my appreciation of art. In fact, since I was 15 years old, my answer to the occasional favorite movie question has only varied among the films in the Wes Anderson cannon... still to this day Moonrise Kingdom would be my response. However, all but 2 of his movies feature sexually inappropriate scenes that typically involve nudity (enough to earn it an R rating). The aforementioned conversation concerning these films stemmed from a conclusion that my friend had come to which was that nudity and sexual vulgarity will eventually have to be excused in the name of art. 

   The world of fine art is run by a largely Jesus-less society. Granted, the majority of the world in general is run by a largely Jesus-less society, but I'm not sure if we've yet found a method of coping with this reality in the realm of art apart from the disassociation of the church from it. That is to say, how is the church to rightly appreciate and create fine art without compromise of either beauty, design, creativity, originality, or our relationship with Jesus? I know we're getting better, but I think there's still more to come. If we are indeed created in the image of THE CREATOR, are we not living according to our very design when we create? Creativity is at the very core of human existence in light of the fact that our Creator is at the very core of human existence. 

   I don't think that means that we should make more Christian art to take it back as we did in the Middle Ages. If you want to paint a picture of Mary holding baby Jesus with a halo over their heads, go for it, but I don't think that in itself will usher in a modern renaissance of Christian thought concerning art and beauty. In the Middle Ages, Byzantine era, and early Renaissance, the majority of art created involved strictly Biblical content. That was not because the artists creating them were strong Christians, but because the highest paying patron was the Roman Catholic Church! 

   I think we love Jesus and make good art. Don't compromise anything with what you enjoy or what you create. If we have the Holy Spirit inside of us then, unless we are distracted, everything we create reflects His character despite the content! If we have the Holy Spirit inside of us then everything we enjoy is enjoying Him despite the creator! Art is based on truth perceived by the artist, but even if that artist does not have a foundation of truth in scripture all of Creation will sing His Praise (Psalm 148)

   All of this is not to say that we shouldn't appreciate fine art, though it be tainted by the immorality of non-believers. After all, of what purpose is morality if we don't have Jesus? Moral and immoral people are no different if Jesus has no place in their life. I say enjoy art. Enjoy all art, as long as your not compromising your relationship with the Father. Sexual immorality conveyed in media or art is notorious for distracting believers in our society from their relationship with Jesus. That doesn't mean some haven't figured it out yet, but it does mean that we should ask Jesus what He thinks. But with that said, please go watch a Wes Anderson film. This one is good to start with:

Art portrays beauty, beauty portrays truth, and truth portrays the character of God.

-Trey