Nature and Creation

Beauty in Parallel Revisited

golden_gate_bridge_pillar-smaller-copy

Perhaps the only thing more memorable than driving over the Golden Gate Bridge may be to pass under it on an ocean-going ship. I was lucky enough to have that experience five times before I was a teenager.

Many of us assume the name for this bridge is related to its warm color. But the name comes from the ocean straight over which it stands, and not from the Gold Rush. Rather than mimicking gold, the bridge’s official color—“International Orange”—was chosen to contrast with fog. A story is told about when that color was first applied. Painters dabbed splotches of it on the heads of curious seagulls. Pretty soon, Bay Area birdwatchers reported a new bird species, which was called the California Red-Headed seagull!

Until 1964, the Golden Gate Bridge had the longest main span in the world. Yet, its basic design isn’t unique. We know this from other suspension bridges, which are found all over the world. Bridges of this kind have two main towers, steadied in place by their suspension cables, which are anchored in the ground. From their anchor points, these substantial cables ascend to the top of the towers, and then gently descend again to the center of the bridge. From that low point, they again soar up, to the top of the opposite tower. The slightly arched roadway across is literally suspended from these main cables, by small support cables that hang from them. Here, in the beauty of this simple design, we find a helpful spiritual and liturgical metaphor.

Reflect for a moment about two significant Sundays in the church year. One is the last Sunday after Epiphany, or Transfiguration Sunday, which we observed 10 days ago. The other is Easter Day, which lies ahead. Transfiguration Sunday is the last Sunday before this season of Lent, and Easter Day is the first Sunday after Lent. Both Sundays are as important with regard to our identity as they are to that of Jesus. For in his Transfiguration and in his Resurrection, Jesus does not simply reveal who he really is. He also reveals the fulfillment of our vocation to be fully human, in him.

Imagine these two Sundays on the Church calendar as being like the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. Transfiguration Sunday, coming just before Lent, is like the south tower of the Golden Gate bridge, on the busy urban, San Francisco, side of the straight. And, Easter Sunday is like the north tower of that bridge, on the less familiar and historically rural side of that navigational channel. The season of Lent stretches between these two Sundays like the main span of that bridge, taking us from what we think we know to that which may yet to be disclosed to us.

Here is the crucial part ~ every year we need to make this liturgical crossing, from our sharing in the vision of the Transfiguration, to our participation in the joy of Easter Resurrection. And like the great towers of a suspension bridge, Transfiguration Sunday and Easter Sunday uphold us all the way across our Lenten journey over what sometimes may seem like dark, cold, and turbulent waters around us.

 

This posting is a revised version of a post I first published in 2017, and is based on my recent homily for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, which explores the parallel between the revelation of glory that we see in the Transfiguration, and the glory we see in the Resurrection (click here for a link to it).

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Landscape Artists with Vision

Surrounded Islands in Biscayne Bay, ‘wrapped,’ 1983

 

Having in prior posts featured an introduction to three landscape artists beginning with Andres Amador, today I would like to focus on the earlier work by a couple who gained recognition through the unexpected character of their joint projects.

“Christo and Jeanne-Claude described the myriad elements that brought the projects to fruition as integral to the artwork itself, and said their projects contained no deeper meaning than their immediate aesthetic impact; their purpose being simply for joy, beauty, and new ways of seeing the familiar.” [Wikipedia]

I am grateful for Wikipedia’s succinct summary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s shared-aim for their joint work, and especially for that phrase, “their projects contained no deeper meaning than their immediate aesthetic impact…” Modern art in its many forms has been subject to much misunderstanding, as viewers have often looked within it for ‘meaning’ and ‘a higher purpose’ where none has been intended. I have previously featured the work of Alexander Calder and look forward to presenting the work of other 20th century (and later) artists, who have offered us the sheer beauty of non-representative paintings and sculptures.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s collaborative work has long struck me as epitomizing this approach to the exploration of beauty. They risked appearing to have trivialized their engagement with the natural world as well as with well-known works of architecture. But they also helped us see familiar and unfamiliar things in different ways, and with new appreciation.

Most significant was their consistent effort to make their projects not only self-funded, but as ecologically sensitive as possible, with their subsequent donation or recycled use of art installation materials. In my view, they did not seek to alter the landscapes or structures with which they worked in more than a very temporary way. And certainly not in any way that would compromise those beautiful places, but instead to enhance our regard for them.

I offer the photos below with appreciation for the simple joy that these prior installations may have brought to those who were able to be present at them, and for the beauty of the preserved digital images we still have of them. I wish I could have seen one myself, in context!

Valley Curtain, Colorado, 1972

Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, CA, reported as 24 miles long, 1976

Christo on Floating Piers, Lake Iseo, Italy, 2016, after Jeanne-Claude’s death in 2009

Hundreds if not thousands walked on the floating causeway to the island

Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris, ‘wrapped,’ 1985

The Arc-de-Triomphe in Paris, ‘wrapped,’ 2021

Andres Amador: Earthscape Artist

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Above we see a drone-based digital image of a pattern that a contemporary artist has inscribed upon the sand of a beach. He is also an academically trained scientist, who has employed his gifts in a particularly sensitive way.

Now, why are some or all of those details important? Because we see here the abilities of Andres Amador, someone whose public art work may lead us to wonder about how this artist could have accomplished all this. Not only in the image above, those presented below, as well as those widely available now on the internet.

Well, what would it take for you or me to be able physically to produce such an image upon the sand on a seaside beach? To my surprise, it is only geological timing (the tides); an appropriate location in relation to that matter of the tides; and then only a couple of simple tools. These would include some common and small garden rakes, and perhaps also – in relation to the circular-based patterns – a metal or wooden spike, a long rope, and some kind of carving or scraping tool at the end of that rope. The invention of the small drone with a camera has also been of help.

But, clearly, it takes more than physical circumstances, geography, and available tools. It also takes a scientifically trained sensibility as well as a developed intuitive creativity. What Andres Amador has accomplished and still produces is not in any way simple. And yet, he provides frequent teaching sessions, open to all, inviting others to do what he does. Insight about this is provided by a short but compelling video produced some years ago by KQED San Francisco (see link below). I think that one way to summarize a principal theme in his work is that he seeks to see things “whole,” which for some folks is related to seeing what is “holy.”

In that video, Amador describes two reference points, or two sorts of impulses within him, as sources for his earthscape art. “The two main directions that I go with, in the art, are the geometric, which is very precise… So, it’s all about perfection.” Pattern can be imposed upon the ‘blank canvas’ of nature.

“The other side of it,” he says, “is the organic art, the art the feels like it is emerging from the location… the art that is telling me what to do next.” Pattern may therefore be in some sense received.

I find these two insights to be spiritually and theologically significant. We are able to impose pattern upon our lives, and often attempt to do this within the social world around us. At the same time, we may discern and receive pattern for our lives from within, whether from a divine or from a natural source, or through the gifts of others. Impose, and receive; both are important for our search to become whole.

God bless your continuing work, Andres, and especially for helping us perceive beauty in a fuller way.

 

Here is a link to the compelling KQED Andres Amador short video : https://www.kqed.org/arts/10134941/andres-amadors-earthscapes-art-that-goes-out-with-the-tide

 

Epiphany-Sensitive Landscape Artists

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Andres Amador

Christo, after the death of his wife, Jeanne-Claude

On the Sundays following the feast of the Epiphany (January 6), the western Church historically has focussed on God’s self-disclosure through nature. We find this theme expressed in the Epiphany Day Gospel featuring the visit of the Magi, or Wise Men, from the East. They followed the appearance of a star in the sky to find our Savior at his birthplace. Note how this contrasts with stories about guidance provided by the messages of angels, whether in dreams or as on occasions of personal divine revelation.

One of my favorite examples of this theme can be found in some verses by the Anglican priest, theologian, and poet, John Keble, for a Sunday in this Epiphany-tide:

When souls of highest birth
Waste their impassioned might on dreams of earth,
He opens Nature’s book,
And on His glorious Gospel bids them look,
Till, by such chords as rule the choirs above,
Their lawless cries are tuned to hymns of perfect love.

In my next two posts on this blog I will feature the landscape-based artwork of Andres Amador, as well as that of Christo and his late wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude. Amador is known for his ephemeral raked sand projects, and Christo with Jeanne-Claude are remembered mainly for their draped or wrapped fabric installations. Though the work of these three has taken very different forms, they have demonstrated a common and notable commitment to environmental sensitivity despite the fact that their projects have involved only temporary alterations of various landscapes or structures.

Among agnostic, secular, and even atheistic artists, many seem to recognize the power of the sublime in Nature. But also notice how even the pious John Keble – with his high sense of the authority of Scripture – was willing to describe the natural world around us as God’s “Glorious Gospel,” and as “Nature’s book,” written by the divine Author of Creation.

I have no basis for evaluating whether there is any theological grounding for Amador’s, or Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s world-views. Partly because such is not suggested nor asked for. Yet, I find the work of these three artists not only aesthetically pleasing, but also as theologically significant.

Why? Because God is either everywhere present in reality, however we conceive of it, and whether we are conscious of it, or God is not. I am convinced of the ‘yes’ answer. And so, for me, God is surely the source of the Beauty everywhere present in the cosmos. For traditional believers, there is no place where God is not.

Beauty can be found in this observation itself. There may be a transcendent source for the abundant beauty we enjoy in the world, and in people around us. But if there is, it does not require us to acknowledge it. The beauty we find everywhere – God’s beauty, I say – stands for itself. Remarkable!

 

Once again, I wish to credit my friend and former colleague, the Rev. Ralph McMichael, Ph.D., for his succinct and helpful delineation of ways of understanding the relation between nature and grace, in his teaching and writing. In this regard, his essay, significant to me within the book he edited, Creation and Liturgy: Studies in Honor of H. Boone Porter, continues to be very helpful. He is also the author of The Eucharistic Faith, a first volume of a new Eucharist-based systematic theology.

Beauty in Potential

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This week I take the risk of sharing with you some things that are more personal. I try to do that regularly, but not often in the form of sharing my own visual work.

While as an art student in college I became fascinated with the shapes and colors of various seashells, largely through the help of a coffee table book containing high quality photos of them. The above is an example of a colored pencil study of one that I did a few years later.

More recently I became familiar with the paintings of William Dunlap of the Delta region of northwest Mississippi. To Dunlap I attribute the phrase, ‘hypothetical realism,’ words which I think well describe many of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. I understand Dunlap’s phrase as referring to a desire to capture seen and known objects in a realistic way, but in imagined settings. I think the influence of Georgia O’Keeffe is evident above in my own willingness to superimpose the beautiful form and color of a shell upon an imagined seascape setting, without any shadows cast by the former upon the latter.

Notice, also above, how I am by temperament a water colorist… meaning that I am inclined to start with light tones before the dark, not only with traditional water colors and colored pencils, but even with with oils and acrylics (heresy admitted!).

Then, in 2021 and after about 35 years of neglect, I made what felt like a brave decision to attend an artist’s retreat at a nearby Benedictine Abbey, which has an art studio. I share below my effort to revisit an earlier love, expressing by it something of an unfulfilled potential. The painting is still unfinished, and this time I have approached the subject with acrylics.

Perhaps these days following the Epiphany, and our observance of the Baptism of our Lord, can be for us a time to appreciate gifts we have been given, whether of the physical and material kind we tend to associate with Christmas, or of the more spiritual kinds we may associate with the Epiphany. Both call for appreciation. But the form that appreciation takes in each case, as well as the timing with which it occurs, may well differ.

 

The Challenge of Black Elk’s Visions

Black Elk on Harney Peak late in life

I first learned about Black Elk when asked to read the book, Black Elk Speaks, in a high school religion class. The book is the now well-known account of Black Elk’s spiritual experience as a Lakota youth, when at the age of nine he encountered life-changing visions while dangerously ill. It was written by John G. Neihardt, and it has been influential for many, but not without critical commentary regarding its historical accuracy. In my high school religion class we were asked to write an essay comparing Black Elk’s visions with those of the biblical prophet Ezekiel. To compare the two, given their significantly different temporal and cultural backgrounds, was and is a serious but also a notable challenge, and one still worth considering.

Here is the paradox that lies at the center of the question about Nicholas Black Elk (Nicholas being his baptismal name) and his identity, and one of the most beautiful persons about whom I have come to know through a book. He was present at and had vivid memories of both the battle of Little Bighorn as well as of what is rightly termed the massacre at Wounded Knee. In adult life, he was recognized and affirmed as what Anglo’s call a ‘medicine man’ among his own people. Yet, he was also received into the Roman Catholic Church and served in a distinguished way as a Catechist for that faith.

Here is a further paradox. Years ago, I met a former Episcopal Bishop of South Dakota, also a Lakota community member, who told me this. There were many baptized Episcopalians at the battle of Little Bighorn. And most of them were on the Native American side! To appreciate this comment may take some study, and perhaps deserves some reserve regarding the possibility of hyperbole. Yet, with due consideration of the history of Episcopal Church missions in Lakota territory, his view may well have some merit.

But, as the photo at the top suggests, near the end of his life, Black Elk still practiced the religion in which he had been nurtured as a child and youth. To me, this is part of the mysterious beauty of Black Elk. Perhaps it may also illustrate a documented propensity of some Native Americans to preserve an intense privacy about their culture while also realistically engaging with emerging external circumstances in a sincere way. Black Elk’s willingness to retain the spiritual world view of his childhood while accepting the Christian world view of his adult faith, in a both-and way, has not been without criticism. Yet, and maybe because I grew up in Japan, his example of ‘cultural engagement’ positively affects me.

Nicholas Black Elk serving as a catechist of the Roman Catholic Church

For Anglo and other non-Native Americans who wish to become more knowledgeable about the history of many of the peoples who populated this land before our arrival, Black Elk’s story is both informative and yet also challenging. Here is someone who engaged his spiritual life in a deeply serious and experiential way, and who was willing to reflect on its significance from more than one point of view. Whether we might identify with his personal commitments or not, many find Black Elk to be a compelling example of someone who takes his or her faith to be at the core of one’s life.

I continue to find him and his life story, while not easily understood, to be very moving. What I have come to learn about Black Elk has certainly impacted me. May God bless the memory of Nicholas Black Elk.

In addition to the books by Jackson and Neihardt, I warmly commend Peter Cozzen’s book, The Earth is Weeping.

Black Elk (on the left) photographed as a young man

 

I want to thank Martha, who is my editor. For anyone interested in the questions raised by the life and commitments of Black Elk, I recommend the following books: Black Elk: The Life of of an American Visionary, by Joe Jackson; Black Elk Speaks, by John G. Neighardt; and Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary Mystic, by Michael F. Steltenkamp. Joe Jackson’s book provides a particularly compelling portrait of Black Elk. Peter Cozzen’s book, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, provides the best overall historical background for a proper appreciation for Black Elk and his community’s story.

The Beauty of Stone

Beautiful stones imported to south Louisiana

 

Here in southeastern Louisiana there is virtually no natural local stone. Geologists may differ about when and how it occurred, but generally agree that the original Gulf coast lay somewhere north of where I now live, between Baton Rouge and Memphis. What we do have here, as a setting for verdant plant and tree growth, is a lot of red clay and or sand, as well as the significant contribution of alluvial (river borne) soil. On this, our eastern and only slightly elevated side of the Mississippi River, they tell us we also have ‘loess’ soil, wind-blown from the west. In other words, where I live rests upon a legacy of materials brought here over the course of millennia – by mud-flow from the north, and dust storms from west.

Stone, as my earlier posts about our patio project suggested, therefore comes here from elsewhere, mostly I suspect by river barge. When visiting a local landscape stone vendor recently I was reminded of something I used to take for granted when living in the midwest or traveling in the far west. It is the beauty of natural stone, whether found on a Great Lakes seashore or on the banks of a Colorado river. What on childhood visits I appreciated seeing in abundance upon the north shore of Lake Superior, I now find to be an almost exotic discovery at a commercial location in Baton Rouge.

And, among the wonders of the handiwork of our Creator is the splendor of variously colored and multi-shaped stones

An unfinished stone border featuring ‘river rock’ from Colorado

Some years ago a teaching colleague shared a story from his work assignment in Saudi Arabia. On a free day, a local guide drove him for several hours through the desert toward the sea. Upon viewing the welcome sight of the water, he noted a large cargo ship discharging material into barges. He asked his guide what they were unloading, to which the response was, sand! “You’re kidding me,” he said. And then my friend learned to his surprise that the sand that has been blowing back and forth forever across the Saudi desert is apparently reckoned by many as worthless for construction, having rounded particles. Sand essential for concrete foundations and buildings needs to have edges, and come from Europe and elsewhere, to provide a proper binding material while the cement cures.

I am mindful of this story when I view the beautifully rounded and smooth rock that comes to us from far away rivers and lakeshores, after perhaps long eons of geological friction. I also rejoice in the variety of color in a material that might otherwise be as uniform as the sand in an Arabian desert, or on the banks of the great river just a few miles from our home.

Random Colorado river stone pieces

I am therefore thankful for the shaping and molding effect of God’s Providence upon me – even after what may seem like an unimaginably long time. Our experience through the rough and tumble of life can sometimes leave us feeling awkward and with uncomfortable or raw ‘edges.’ At other times, we may feel we have been smoothed and shaped in ways more attractive to others and to ourselves. The beauty here may lie in the wisdom latent in one of my favorite, but still-not-fully understood, verses from the Psalms: “You have showed me great troubles and adversities, but you will restore my life… (Ps 71:20)” For why would God show me adversity other than as an act of positive love? And, why would God not to seek to bring us together into a beautiful fellowship within God’s own being? Especially when it may be ambiguous as to whether we have jagged and or smooth edges!

 

One big ‘stone’ in my life has been Robert (Bob) Hansel, my former CREDO Institute colleague, to whom I owe much. When I first encountered him, he played a decisive role in helping me to discern that I was being called away from a tenured seminary teaching position back to parish ministry. His prior CREDO faculty role as a team leader changed many of our lives – not by persuasion, but by encouraging our personal discernment. Here, I want to acknowledge his wonderful story about his experience in Saudi Arabia (that he tells so much better than I can).

The Beauty of a Homing Pigeon

A stunning Belgian racing pigeon, sold for $1.9 million

 

My title for this post may appear ironic or implausible. Yet, there is a long history of careful stewardship of homing pigeons by pigeon fliers and ‘fanciers.’ They breed beautiful, graceful, and powerful birds. Some racing birds are capable of flying a thousand miles, mysteriously finding their way back to their nests at speeds between 60 and 100 miles an hour! Most homing pigeons are not quite in that league.

I first became intrigued with the idea of having a small flock of homing pigeons when I was a Boy Scout in middle school, in Japan. A fellow troop member had a flock of some 20 to 30 birds. I went over to his house after school and watched him release them from his roof-edge loft. Then he would scatter bird seed on the roof and enter the loft, a signal to the birds that ‘dinner time’ had arrived.

Multicolored homing or racing pigeons in a Texas loft

His loft, as my later and smaller ground-level pigeon coop would be, was constructed of parts of old wooden shipping crates, then quite common in port cities like Yokohama. Those crates provided solid structural starting points, generally weather resistant, and adaptable to various pigeon loft configurations. What was left to be found was some mesh screen, some wood with which to fashion a simple door, and a set of dangling vertical rods (the formal name for which I have forgotten) which, resting against a wooden ledge, would allow the pigeons to return to the coop while passing through them, but not able to exit again.

A homing pigeon resembling one of the first in my small flock (note the leg band)

My first two birds, received from my friend, had distinct colorings different from common city pigeons. The female had a tan color and the male’s feathers were an overall charcoal gray and black. With them, I raised several more pigeons having beautiful darker brown feathers with white stripes. This was while the adult birds acclimated themselves to their new circumstances, and gained a new homing point for their flights. If I recall correctly, it takes at least a few months for this to happen.

It seems significant that the Gospels record the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus at his baptism, as being like a dove (a pigeon relative) rather than – as some might have imagined or hoped – like a falcon or an eagle. Doves and pigeons, the latter offered on the occasion of the infant Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, are symbols of peace, while avian raptors more often figure in war and or civil power-related imagery.

Over the couple of years I kept pigeons, I may have had as many as 8 or 10 in my small coop, some of which I purchased from local Japanese fanciers. I particularly prized the white birds, and saved up paper-route money to buy them. Once, I bought a beautiful one without having a proper transport case with me, and carried it home through the Yokohama streets. After my journey of a mile or two, almost near home, the pigeon in my hands and held in the proper way suddenly startled me and flew off to its former home!

I never raced my pigeons, though that is a common hobby for those who raise homing pigeons. Transporting the pigeons by vehicle (in vented carry boxes) to an assigned location, they are then released at a particular time, and clocked regarding the speed of their return to their home lofts. How homing pigeons are able to do this is not yet fully understood, though it is thought to involve magnetoreception, a sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic field.

My time with my pigeons came to both a happy and a sad end. I was examined and proud to receive the pigeon raising merit badge from the Boy Scouts.

And then one morning, some months after this, I went to check on my pigeons before school. I was devastated to find that a cat had gotten in during the night, and I had lost my beloved birds.

As you might imagine, from time to time I muse about having a small flock of these amazing and faithful birds once again.

The Beauty of the Night Sky

The milky way over an arch in Joshua Tree National Monument. © by CC Lockwood/ used with permission

 

Recently, a photographer friend, CC Lockwood, offered a welcome suggestion. Had I thought about doing a blog post on the beauty of the night sky? Not only did his idea inspire this new post, he was willing to let me include here two of his copyrighted photographs. They display well his masterful skill with a camera, especially in challenging circumstances. Following his lead, I will focus on the night sky theme here, and anticipate a proper focus on CC’s photography and books in a future posting.

Milky Way rising over the Davis Mountains. © by CC Lockwood/ used with permission

The allure of the night sky was recently and surprisingly brought home to me in, of all places, downtown New Orleans. For there, because of bright city lights, on a clear night you will see few or no stars at all from just about any location in the Central Business District or the French Quarter. Yet, sitting in New Orleans’ historic Saenger Theater for a concert, I was delighted and distracted by the ceiling overhead, mimicking the enchanting night sky, with subtle bulb-lights effectively representing sparkling stars and recognizable constellations. If you have been there, you will know what I mean.

One of my earliest memories of having a sense of wonder in response to the night sky goes back to our first house in a suburban area of Yokohama, Japan. My room had a built-in bunkbed. At the top of the ladder, at the foot-end of the bed, was a framed clear window. I remember moving my pillow near it, looking out on a dark and clear night, and marveling at the view of the stars above.

from Nepali Times

I also remember a late summer night in south central Minnesota, about ten years later. Some friends and I had decided to sleep out at a place at the edge of town. We not only had the benefit of a clear sky on a dark night, we saw a partial eclipse of the moon as well as some aurora borealis. It was an astonishing and memorable experience.

That we are still touched by such sights, especially when we get away from urban areas, tells us something. We are not so different from people who lived 2,000+ years ago in the Near East, whose words record a similar sense of marvel. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth his handiwork” (Psalm 19) These words spoke especially to me when I was camping on a then-somewhat-remote part of the south coast of Crete, preparing for Baptism, between terms at Oxford.

The image below, of the night sky over Zion National Park, reminds me of a more recent experience while camping on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It not only brought home to me those words from Psalm 19, but also the story about God summoning Abram out of his tent to view the abundant stars in the night sky as a sign of God’s promises (Genesis 15; in an image much repeated in the following chapters and books of the Hebrew Bible). I cannot think of a more evocative place than the Canyon rim to say one’s morning prayers at sunrise, and especially one’s night prayers under the canopy of light above.

It is encouraging to learn how in recent years managers of a number of geographical locations have sought to establish no-light zones, precisely so that we might appreciate the glory of the night sky. The website, https://idahodarksky.org, has some very beautiful images of what may be seen at such a location.

 

To see more of CC Lockwood’s evocative photography, as well as to learn about his numerous books, you can visit his website here: https://cclockwood.com/