nature and grace

God’s Handiwork Inspires Ours
Stones found on a northern Lake Michigan beach

Labor Day is around the corner and some of us may receive and enjoy a day off from work. What we call retirement, a stage in life I am presently enjoying, tends to represent leaving work behind. Yet these and related ideas rest upon a common assumption, that work is different from, and in some ways inimical to, enjoying fulfillment in life.

I find a biblically based theological insight helpful when thinking about work. As with many matters that can be looked at from the perspective of Christian moral theology, our view of work can be enhanced by making reference to four specific reference points. These are, first, what we have learned about God’s purposes in Creation for this or that aspect of our lives; then, what impact sin associated with our Fall has had upon what we are thinking about; third, how God’s ongoing work of Redemption has restored and or transformed the matter presently under consideration; and fourth, to ask what future – if any – does this aspect of our lives have in Christ. 

Work provides a wonderful topic for engaging in this fourfold inquiry. Based on our common way of thinking about work, it may be hard for us to consider the meaning of work from any other vantage point than of attributing its role in our lives to the Fall and to the ongoing effects of human sin. Yet, we can also learn from many who have come before us who have distinguished work from toil. This can help us see how forms of labor, and pejorative associations the word may have for us, are surely due to our proclivity to link such activity with burdensome unpleasant duties.

For what we may overlook is the biblical view of how God has shared stewardship responsibility for aspects of Creation with us, as beings created in God’s image and likeness. This was symbolized by the way that our mythic forebears (Adam and Eve) were given their ‘work’ of naming the animals as a path toward fulfillment. It was not until their expulsion from the Garden that the first human beings are described as prone to acts characteristic of sin. Thereupon, in biblical theology, our heavenly ‘work’ of praise, and of divinely-invited participation in God’s Creation stewardship, ceased to be pleasingly ready pathways toward human fulfillment, and became energy draining and spirit-diminishing activities – such as we tend to find them to be now.

A growing segment of the wider Christian community shows signs of acknowledging how God’s work of Redemption is ongoing, quite aside from its ‘once and for all time’ episodic saving events. The pattern and purpose remains the same – nothing fundamentally new is added, nothing old of lasting value taken away. Preeminent remains God’s abiding purpose for us to become and be God-like in God-intended ways. For, as Athanasius taught us, the Son of God became the Son of Man, so that the children of men and women could become the children of God. Work – not toil nor burdensome labor but creative and fulfilling work – remains a vital part of our holy path toward wholeness.

And to remind us of this abiding truth, the loving Creator has spread around us an uncountable abundance. These are the signs of outpoured and participatory grace, some of them very small, like stepped-upon seashore pebbles and tiny blossoms among hurried-by roadside weeds.

Too quickly we dismiss the significance of our our small acts of selfless giving, not to be counted by us, but adding up to so much more than we imagine in the life-growth of others. This is our holy ‘work,’ overlooked but important stepping stones on our path toward living into the godly fullness with which Christ fills us.

If on our daily course our mind

Be set, to hallow all we find,

New treasures still, of countless price,

God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,

As more of heaven in each we see:

Some softening gleam of love and prayer

Shall dawn on every cross and care.

[John Keble, “Morning,” from The Christian Year]

Our Doorway Into God’s Trinitarian Being
William Holman Hunt, The Shadow of Death (1870-73)

When we as Christians pray, we don’t simply pray to God. With faithful assurance, we pray with and through God! As Paul tells us, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit…” This is because, when we pray “to the Father,” we also pray with and through the Son. We are enabled to pray with and through the Son following our Baptism. For after Baptism, we are assured that we pray in the Holy Spirit. We therefore pray to God not ‘from the outside,’ but ‘from the inside’ of God’s own being and nature!

Well, how can this be? As we can easily discover, every Eucharistic Prayer in The Book of Common Prayer has a common shape. For all of our Eucharistic Prayers are prayed to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. This is not an accident. Jesus modeled this in his own life, and particularly at the Last Supper.

When we repeat Jesus’ pattern, offered at that supper, we stand with him around the same table. And by his graceful invitation, we join his prayer to the One he called, ‘Our Father.’ Our prayer with him, to the Father, is in the power of the Spirit, the same Spirit he spoke about at that table. He modeled at that supper what grace means in practice.

Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, Jesus shares with us his own particular intimacy with the Father. Inviting us to stand with him as he prays, he offers the whole world back to the Father-Creator. By this, Jesus – and us with him – fulfills the divinely intended-but-failed stewardship vocation of the mythical Adam and Eve. And so, this is also our vocation, to offer up to our Father all that truly belongs to the Creator. Sharing with Jesus the grace of the Holy Spirit allows us to join him, the Son, in his ongoing Eucharistic vocation.

A good way we can live into the saving implications of God’s Trinitarian nature, is to engage in some creative imagining. Imagine that, in this moment, Jesus reaches out his hands to us. In reaching out his hands, he does not simply extend his greeting. Extending his embrace, he invites us to join him by standing with him, closely at his side. By his invitation, and our acceptance of it, he shares with us his own intimate and particular relationship with our Father.

And with this invitation, he gives us the power of the Spirit, making it a reality in our lives. Because the invitation comes from him, the power of the Spirit he shares with us is God’s grace-filled power. Jesus makes all this actual and true, whether we feel it or not.

This Trinitarian shape of prayer is different from how we usually imagine prayer. Commonly, we think of prayer as our communication to God. When we feel aware of God and close to God, we speak to God of what is good and well and of that for which we feel thankful. And we often ask for help. But, when there seems to be a veil between us and God, we speak to God with lament or we complain, sometimes in anger. This concept and experience of prayer is ‘subjective,’ and therefore narrow. That is, it is a concept of prayer based primarily upon our personal, interior, experience. It reflects our experience of being the subjects of perception and action. Yet, as the Prayer Book Catechism teaches us, prayer is first of all responding to God.

As we learn from Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit, true prayer is not something we do, which we somehow manage to achieve through our faithfulness, devotion, or energy. True prayer is something we allow God to do within us. True prayer is the kind of praying that we find God already making real within us through the indwelling Grace of the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are constantly engaged with one another, in what the Eastern Christian tradition calls ‘a dance,’ a perichoresis. Prayer involves being drawn into this dance. Prayer is sharing in the Trinitarian relational being of God. Prayer is participation in the community of fellowship that exists within God’s own being.

The Trinitarian pattern of our lives rests upon the Trinitarian shape of our prayers. We can accept Jesus’ invitation to stand with him. We then experience his own fellowship with the Father, in the grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit. This enables us to live truly. To live truly, is to live to the Father. It is to live with and through the Son. And true prayer is to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so, we seek to live in the way that we pray: to the Father, with and through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

Note: This post is based on the Western Church’s observance of Trinity Sunday, on June 15, 2025. My title is based on a well-known metaphor found in John’s Gospel. The text here is based on my homily for that occasion, which may be accessed by clicking here.

My goal is to commend the assurance of hope that lies within the Gospel. And while being aware of concerns about the so-called ’scandal of particularity’ associated with Christianity and Judaism, we should be aware that God is free to offer a similarly positive spiritual experience to those of other religious traditions, or of no particular tradition with which they may identify. I hope to address Hunt’s evocative painting, featured above, in a subsequent post.

A Tao of Seeing: Reflections Inspired by Feng Shui
Michael Pollan’s writer’s hut, intentionally situated by a boulder on the brow of a hill

Recently, I observed my middle son moving a black plastic pond module around in a small space in his New Orleans courtyard. As he moved the container that would soon have fish in it, he tried situating the vessel in various ways, in relation to a tree, a fence, some potted plants, and an existing low stone wall. He is not a student or practitioner of feng shui, but I believe I was seeing some of those principles at work in his decision-making.

Western readers may have heard of feng shui, the Asian philosophical approach to discerning the unseen forces that affect objects and their balance in nature. It gives attention to the metaphysical or non-material energies thought to be at work upon or within the world around us. We might say that this approach provides a Tao of seeing, or a natural way of perceiving within and around surface phenomena to the underlying dynamisms that are believed to affect what happens in nature.

This notion that there are unseen forces at work in the world is an idea that is receiving something of a revival in Western Christian spirituality. This is noticeable when people refer to a concept attributable to the Celtic tradition, in which it has become common to refer to “thin places. “ These are places where the veil between the material and the ethereal or the heavenly seems temporarily dissolved. Another parallel here between East and West may lie in the quest within Christian spirituality for the goal of harmony and balance between people and the created world.

However, my reflections here constitute an aesthetic rather than a philosophical or historical inquiry. I am interested in the dynamics of movement we perceive in the circumstances that we encounter, and less in the metaphysical forces or energies that may be present within them. At the outset, however, I want acknowledge how a nuanced Asian approach can be an authentic route toward a culturally-informed appreciation of the phenomena we encounter, especially from a historically Asian perspective.

As we look at paintings in the context of Western culture, one factor we discern assesses composition and attends to the way our seeing is drawn from one part of a larger image to another. This dynamic is often an artist-intended aspect of an overall composition. Sight lines in garden design and arrangement provide another example, as does the architectural arrangement of space in buildings.

Attention given by Western designers to feng shui is sometimes criticized as being a superficial application of historically and philosophically nuanced ideas. But I want to give credit to ways in which our sensitivity toward perceiving movement and direction is a genuine factor that is available for analysis and articulation. We notice this when we encounter both two dimensional compositions as well as three dimensional spaces and the objects we find in them. We can always come to know more about what we see.  Because what we see is something that is there, not simply what we believe, or are disposed or inclined to see.

An Asian garden said to be designed according to feng shui principles

Motion, balance between forces, spatial arrangement of objects, and the dynamic relationships that are visible because they exist between and among these variables, continue to grab my interest. Contrasts between colors and textures, as well as between sizes and shapes, play a significant role.  Additionally, the perceived difference between what is natural and things that are humanly fashioned is equally significant, as is our perception of the criteria for what constitutes that which we consider to be natural. These are among the factors that help account for our sensitivity towards and interest in these many observable variables, and our common quest for purpose and meaning in the contexts where we find ourselves.

Motions and balance as we find these factors in Wassily Kandinsky’s painting, Several Circles

Painters, sculptors, and architects, seriously consider these factors within visual and spatial compositions. The painter, Wassily Kandinsky, and the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, provide two examples of those who also perceived a spiritual dimension within their creative work.

If so, we –  as caring lay observers of the world and of the things and places among which we find ourselves – should give deference to this evident fact. For we can all be thoughtful, as people often are inclined to be, about what we see, touch, and experience when we interact with visual phenomena.

I find myself increasingly sensitive to these aspects of our appreciation for Beauty, and endeavor to be more mindful about them. I am intrigued by possible parallels that may exist between Eastern metaphysical interpretations of visual phenomena and more familiar approaches to what we see that are shaped by Western aesthetics. Especially as these familiar approaches are described and developed within our artistic and architectural best practices.

Leo XIV: The Beauty of Possibility

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Pope Leo XIV, upon his election

As an Anglican, I join other non-Roman Catholics in hoping and praying that the new Bishop of Rome will live fully into the beautiful opportunity he has been given. His new office brings with it a symbolic role for all Christians, to be a principled unifier and peacemaker. In this era, that will surely be a challenge.

People of good will seek truth where it is to be found. We want all persons to live in harmony with one another, and with the beautiful world in which we find ourselves. We see this spirit of inquiry and discernment exemplified in many Christian leaders, as well as in non-Christian leaders like the Dalai Lama.

At heart, we seek and desire to serve what Christians and Jews hold to be true regarding all human beings. For we believe that all persons were and are created in the image of God, and that despite the woeful effects of our sin, we all still bear that image, however much we may have lost likeness with God. This was the central insight that some Roman Catholic Christian thinkers, along with fellow spiritual travelers from other traditions, brought to the creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Principal documents from the Second Vatican Council display this theme in abundance. These texts continue to inform and guide wise souls who are genuinely concerned about the numerous lingering and emerging problems within the worldwide Church, and in the many societies and cultures where Christians seek to serve Christ in all persons, and respect the dignity of every human being.

Pope Leo has in large measure the same opportunity that we all have. May he have grace to live and serve well, and may we remember the importance of our own often overlooked roles in seeking to do the same. Every day brings new opportunities to seek and serve what is true, especially as we come to know the source of all Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, in Christ.

As St. Richard, the 13th century pre-Reformation Bishop of Chichester (England), taught us to pray: “Dear Lord, of thee three things [we] pray: to see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, and to follow thee more nearly, day by day.” (text from The Hymnal 1982, yet familiar to many from the musical, Godspell)

We find the same words as part of a prayer found in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church:

MOST merciful Redeemer,
who gavest to thy Bishop Richard a love of learning,
a zeal for souls, and a devotion to the poor:
grant that, encouraged by his example,
and aided by his prayers,
we may know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
and follow thee more nearly,
day by day;
who livest and reignest with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God,
world without end. Amen.

A stained glass window commemorating St. Richard of Chichester, found in the church of St. Saviour, Eastbourne, East Sussex, England

Laetitia Jacquetton and the Art of Both-And

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Not so long ago, my friend James brought to my attention the striking glass-based sculptural work of Laetitia Jacquetton. Born in France, Jacquetton has a background in fashion design and a longterm interest in the minimalist qualities present within much of Japanese art and its Mingei (or folk art) tradition.

When I consider what I find compelling about her sculpture, I am reminded of the art of photography. A decisive factor in effective photography, especially black and white photography, is that of contrast. This is a predominant feature in Jacquetton’s work. Though this may seem obvious, perhaps too obvious for comment, I would like briefly to explore the significance of this element of contrast, and what her work might help us to appreciate regarding other spheres within our life experience. For the sculpture of Laetitia Jacquetton may alert us to an expansive question: can dissimilar and even contrasting things – as well as ideas – be brought together into beautiful harmony? And, what might asking this tell us about our concepts of nature and grace?

Photos of Jacquetton’s sculptures help acquaint us with how contrast functions in her sculptures. For example, the photo at the top displays an intentional contrast between light and dark, as well as between shiny and matte materials.

Here, we see a contrast between translucent and opaque materials.

We also see in these photos a further contrast, between smooth and textured materials. This feature, along with those previously noted, stems from the way a fluid and malleable material has been brought into relation with a static and unyielding one. Observing this allows us to infer something about the creative process involved in the production of Jacquetton’s sculptures. The artist has taken a humanly-fashioned form and adapted it to a naturally shaped object, bringing something crafted in the studio to bear upon something found in nature.

Empirically observed contrasts like these may also have a bearing upon our ideas, and how we think about concepts like nature and grace. We may have been taught to view such ideas in terms of a perceived contrast between them, even an antithetical one. Here, when thinking about objects found in relation to others that are crafted, or about nature in relation to our view of grace, we may gain insight by considering some apposite words that Eucharistic celebrants may say before consecrating the bread: “Fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the Bread of Life.”

Several contrasts already noted are also evident in photos of Jacquetton’s other works:

Reflecting on these photos that feature contrasts allows us to articulate what is most significant within Jacquetton’s work, her intentional juxtaposition of contrasting elements.

Jacquetton as an artisan, a human agent gifted with a creative vision and developed skills, has juxtaposed dissimilar materials, achieving aesthetically pleasing results. A singular focus upon one or more of the contrasting materials (or the qualities associated with their appearance), could lead us to highlight one aspect of the artwork at the expense of another, in an either/or way. Yet, it is the dynamic conjunction between dissimilar materials that Jacquetton prioritizes in her work. Evident contrast is accompanied by intentional conjunction, leading us to appreciate the interplay of the differences in a both-and manner.

Noticing this, I think once again of the Eucharist, which – like the Incarnation – is another and relatable example of what I am referring to as a ‘dynamic conjunction.’ For the Eucharist makes present together both the natural physical properties of bread, and the supernaturally graced properties of the sacrament.

Nevertheless, we tend to view many aspects of our world, and of our lives within it, in a simplistic and reductionist manner. For me, comparative reference to the influence of Plato and Aristotle helps limit this tendency toward reductionism.

For example, I credit Plato’s influence with an implicit encouragement to view things, and especially their moral value, in relation to a single reference point. According to this approach, something either possesses or manifests this or that quality – let us say beauty, or goodness – or it does not.

I credit to Aristotle’s influence a more nuanced approach, which nurtures a willingness to consider what we see and come to know in relation to several reference points. We are then better able to say (in a both-and way) how this or that object of attention has a particular quality, while also possessing something of a second quality, and how it can be aptly described by referring to other qualities or attributes.

In all this, I do not attribute my reflections to Laetitia Jacquetton, though her compelling sculptures have clearly inspired them.

 

Additional notes: Thanks to my friend, James Ruiz, for introducing me to Laetitia Jacquetton and her evocative sculptural work. / Regarding my references to Plato and Aristotle, I do not presume to have accurately summarized aspects of their thought, but rather cite what I think are aspects of their dual influences.

I hope readers might perceive how my reflective observations above are related to the paradoxical conjunctions of ideas upon which I reflected in my prior post, regarding how repentance may display beauty, and how painful grief may be accompanied by joyful reassurance.

The Epiphany: Human Power Encounters Divine Authority

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James Tissot, The Magi Journeying (detail)

 

Instinctively, there is something we all seem to seek. We want to find purpose and meaning, and organizing principles for our lives. This desire is anchored in a larger one: we seek to discern what is real, and true.

But where does our common impulse come from? In what does this impulse consist? I think the best answer to these questions is found at the heart of the Feast of the Epiphany. On Epiphany, we celebrate how God has revealed to the world the real and true meaning and purpose for our lives. Epiphany is all about God revealing to us the divine center of everything. Epiphany highlights God’s self-revealing in the natural world, and preeminently in God’s Incarnation, which the Magi came to discover and then worship.

We are able to recognize that it is in the nature of a Creator to order reality, imbue it with purpose and meaning, and hence to bring order, purpose, and meaning to our lives. A perhaps-unexpected word that captures this broad idea is authority, in that God possesses the authorizing power to create things, and guide them. Specifically, we discern this authorizing power in God’s creation of the universe and in the divine agency shaping ongoing history. For God is the author of all that is real and true.

In human life, authority and power are not always neatly aligned, and we experience trouble when the two are at odds with one another. We see this dialectic between the two at work in the events of Holy Week, in the confrontation between divine authority (in the vocation of Jesus), and worldly power (as exemplified by Pontius Pilate). Less obvious is the way this dialectic is manifest in the events that are commemorated in our celebration of Christmas and the Epiphany of our Lord, especially in connection with the visit of the Magi from the East.

James Tissot, The Magi in the House of Herod

The Magi, also called ‘wise men,’ or ‘kings’ from the East, arrive in Israel having been guided by an authoritative power greater than themselves. Because of their witness to this higher authority and its implied power, the visitors pose a threat to Herod and his courtiers, who exercise earthly authority and its attendant power. This emerges in the interaction between people who are witnesses to divine authority and its power, and others who are possessors of worldly authority and power. The emerging conflict, later seen in the events of Holy Week, arises amidst the challenges surrounding the beauty revealed in what we call the Epiphany, the revealing of divine light to the whole world rather than to just a particular nation or the people of a particular religious tradition.

The Magi from the East, by explaining their quest, prompt Herod to act. He acts viciously and violently through orders given to soldiers under his command. The result is the series of murders we acknowledge every year on December 28, in the ‘red letter day’ we call the Massacre of the Innocents.

James Tissot, the Adoration of the Magi

What are we to make of the Epiphany of God in human form, and the tragic circumstances to which it led? At the heart of Christian belief is the conviction that God became present to us through a human birth. He revealed himself in a human person who embodied two natures, one fully divine, and one fully human, whose natures are distinguishable yet inseparable. Such a person, regardless of appearances, was and is the transcending center or heart of all that is, manifest in human form. He is, therefore, the One who truly possesses divine authority and divine power. Einstein – who was not in any sense a traditional believer – said this: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” The divine center of reality, manifest and revealed in a human being, is the most mysterious beautiful thing that we can experience.

Here is the wonder of it: in God’s mysterious Providence, the birth of the Messiah would bring death to many (in the Massacre of the Innocents). And – years later – the death of the Messiah would bring the possibility of new birth to all, through the redemption of human being from the power of sin and death.

Yet, it would be some decades later before those who proclaimed Jesus as Messiah, and the embodiment of God, could understand the connection between his birth along with those soon-resulting deaths of the Innocents, and his later death, along with its soon-resulting new births for those who came to believe in him.

Our proper response to all this — indeed our only response to all this can and should be to praise the Holy One of Israel, the one whose death brought new life to all who receive him. He has come to us. Come let us adore him. And let us receive him with renewed hope and joyful hospitality, in all his light-filled glory.

A blessed Epiphanytide to you and your loved ones.

 

An Advent Magnificat

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Jim Janknegt, Joyful Mystery 1

 

Neither the Bible nor history tell us the precise details about the Annunciation to Mary, such as on what day the Angel appeared, or when Jesus was later born. The Angel’s wondrous appearance could have happened on a drab winter’s day. Yet, by virtue of the Angel’s message, it was also like spring. Our Church calendar and holy tradition reckon that the Annunciation was in March. If it was in the spring, the average high temperature in northern Israel would have been in the 60’s. So it could easily have been a season colored by the appearance of emerging flowers and foliage.

Faithful to the pattern of Scripture, Jim Janknegt seeks to portray something beyond literal circumstances. He has more than flowering plants, trees, and shrubs in mind. The decorated edge of the painting is a border of roses, which evoke the mysteries named in the Rosary, of which this scene is only the first. Inside that border are more flowers, and these also play a symbolic role. For we find lilies on Mary’s dress, suggestive of a later-to-be-revealed Easter, and calla lilies in a vase on the table, traditionally associated with the Annunciation to Mary.

Even more dramatically, flowers cover a large part of the angel, which suggest something transcendent and other-worldly. The Angel has come to speak the Word: the Word of Life, which is also a Word of blessing (look at the Angel’s hand-gesture!). Central in the painting, but depicted in a very subtle background way, is a great tree. Surely, it is the Tree of Life, from Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books of the Bible. Surely, the tree also prefigures that toward which everything in this moment is heading ~ the dead wood of the Cross, which paradoxically became a life-giving tree. Yes, it is springtime! But, this is springtime in salvation history.

So this is what we begin to see in Jim Jangknegt’s painting: his portrayal of the Angel’s Annunciation to Mary is not so much about springtime in the world. Instead, it is about springtime for the world.

 

Jim Janknegt’s painting, featured here, is used by permission of the artist. The text of this post is based on my homily for Sunday, Advent IV, of this year, which may be accessed by clicking here.

Allan West: Japanese Culture and Art

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In more than one way, Allan West is an unusual artist. His life and work have been deeply imbued by the spiritual aesthetics of Japanese culture and its traditional art of painting. For over forty years, he has dedicated himself to Nihonga, the less and less practiced method of painting using minerals for pigments, mixed with the liquid medium of a glue made from deer protein. This approach to painting has been practiced consistently in Japan, where luminous paintings from the 11th century can still be appreciated for their original beauty. The closest parallel in Western art is egg tempera painting, in which painters in earlier centuries mixed pigment with egg yolks instead of the modern practice of mixing pigments with oil or an acrylic medium.

Allan West was born and grew up in Washington, D.C., and his sojourn in Japan began in a period of mission work there as a member of the Latter Day Saints. Two factors transformed the vector of his life. He came to realize that he had an affinity with Japanese culture, especially with its artistic tradition, and he was struck by the Japanese sensitivity to living in harmony as much as is possible with the natural world.

More particularly, with his memory of pursuing painting from the time of his childhood, he recalls his own experiments with mixing pigments with various liquids to achieve a more fluid paint medium. This predisposed him to accept an observation offered by a viewer of his early work, who told him that his preferred approach to painting had a long tradition in Japan. As a result, West moved to Japan in 1987, with his wife and children, to learn from that tradition. He has lived and worked in Tokyo, ever since.

In a short video introduction to the artist, released by the Prime Minister’s Office in Japan, Allan West shares the following about his life’s work (screenshot above, and link below):

I use the Japanese painting technique to express the beauty and essence of the natural seasons. It has been 40 years since I moved to Japan, attracted by the traditional pigments and techniques of Japanese painting. Japanese natural materials can retain their clear vibrancy for more than a thousand years. I’m proud to inherit the tradition of Japanese painting and its wisdom that cherishes nature’s beauty and harmony with humankind. Through my art I’d like to convey the appeal of Japanese culture to the world.

With these few words, spoken in a soft and nuanced voice in the video, Allan West is saying much. Having returned to Japan with the intent of learning a method or a technique, he had the sensitivity to realize that he needed to learn the Japanese language and let its culture become ingrained within him in order for him to be able to practice Nihonga painting with some degree of integrity. The photo below contains a number of important cues concerning what West has received and learned from the tradition of which he describes himself as an inheritor.

Allan West paints sitting on the floor in a Japanese way, on mats woven from rice-straw. As has been noted, the paints he uses are made up of ground minerals mixed with a glue-like medium of deer protein, paints which he values for their fluid quality. Hence, the surfaces that are to be painted need also to rest upon the floor, to avoid the paint running. Many of the surfaces upon which West works are large in size, like the sometimes wall-sized decorative folding screens for which he has become known. To be able to paint such expansive surfaces in their totality, instead of panel by panel, the artist designed a narrow rolling platform, allowing him to reach any area of a full-sized screen (as in the image above). This photo also displays West’s use of vibrant mineral-based colors as well as metalic foils and powders, such as gold leaf, some of which are found in the glass containers on the shelves behind him.

Allan West’s present Yanaka, Tokyo, studio

Unlike some artists, both Western and Asian, Allan West welcomes visitors to his studio, and actively encourages those who are curious not only to view his art, but to witness his creative process. To this end, his present studio, much modified into a traditional Japanese-looking structure from its prior use as an automotive maintenance facility, has large and welcoming sliding panels and windows, through which those walking by can view him painting. Through providing this access to his creative work, he hopes to promote a sustainable future for Nihonga, and to persuade Japanese visitors in particular that even an American immigrant can appreciate, learn, and become proficient in an ancient Japanese art form.

The following images provide examples of Allan West’s beautiful work:

The following image displays the interior of Allan West’s attractive and welcoming studio and gallery building:

 

Readers who wish to become more acquainted with Allan West and his work might view the YouTube video mentioned above (the link is here). Allan West’s studio and gallery can also be visited in a virtual way by clicking this link.

Encountered Beauty: Nighthawks in a Dark Sky

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I have clear memories of a particular time of day in a town where I lived for two short periods of time, Northfield, Minnesota. In middle school, and then during college, I would frequently walk over the Water Street bridge spanning the Cannon River, by the old dam and historic Malt-O-Meal mill. On summer evenings and nights, I remember almost always hearing the distinctive nasal or buzzing be-zeet, be-zeet sound of birds calling to one another in the sky above. When I first observed them, I wondered what kind of birds these were, and about their surprising nocturnal behavior as compared with other birds more familiar to me. Based on the white patches on the underside of their wings, visible from the reflected glow of the lights in the town center below, I was able to identify them as Common Nighthawks, based on Roger Tory Peterson’s well-known book, Field Guide to the Birds.

Seeming to fly far above me, I was curious about their size, imagining them to be rather large. I then learned that their size and weight puts them somewhere between a common robin and a crow, suggesting that they do not fly as high as I had first imagined. Nighthawks are insect-eaters, which accounts for why they are so evident on summer nights, amidst the target rich environment of flying bugs swarming over city lights.

With their long wings, these birds engage in bat-like flapping as well as in gliding, and I remember them flying closely together as they went about their nocturnal feeding. The American Bird Conservancy website describes them in this way: “the Common Nighthawk’s erratic, acrobatic flight style gives the bird its folk name, ‘bullbat’.” Memorable in this regard is the way that they make occasional dives toward the ground. Some observers report that these dives cause the wind under their wings to make a booming or a whooshing sound, though I don’t remember hearing it.

I was intrigued to learn that, given their relative size, these birds will roost and nest on such apparently vulnerable locations as the ground, elevated tree limbs, ledges, and even gravel rooftops. Among things I appreciate about Nighthawks is how their mottled coloring, with blends of light and dark feathers, has adapted them well to survive in a variety of environments, and helps to protect them from predators like hawks and falcons. Of course, there are those incongruous white wing patches, which may be an evolutionary bow to some needs parallel to survival, both the attraction of a mate and the procreation of offspring.

The shape and size of Nighthawks’ comparatively long wings aid not only their feeding activity while flying, but also the extraordinarily long annual migration they make between their breeding grounds in North America to their winter habitats in South America. In fact, they are believed to have one of the longest migration patterns of all North American birds.

To me, Nighthawks are an unexpected kind of bird to find in a town center or in a city, given their dimensions and surprising willingness to live and reproduce in proximity to the commercial activity we associate with such areas. I am always delighted when I recognize their sounds above me on a summer evening, as I look up to see them wheeling about in the darkness, with their white wing patches flashing here and there.

In the natural world around us, with all its dynamic interrelationships, these amazing birds are our fellow creatures. In relation to them, as well as to other examples of what traditionally have been termed flora and fauna, we are called to engage in God-like stewardship. We all seem to have our favorite species in nature that we want to protect and care for. Needless to say, Nighthawks are high on my list.

 

The Nighthawk page from my grandfather’s copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds

 

Finding Beauty in the Most Unexpected Places

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Actor Koji Yakusho portraying Hirayama looking upwards, in the film Perfect Days

 

An improbable premise underlies the remarkable film, Perfect Days, and it is displayed in two principal ways. A Tokyo public toilet cleaner has a positive attitude, even a cheerful spirit, as he approaches his daily routine of attending to places where other people leave their waste. And yet, the primary places where this man is lucky to work are the architecturally significant public toilets commissioned and built for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The film portrays these places well. Some have suggested that the architectural features of these structures may have inspired the movie’s production. Nevertheless, the film is centered upon one man’s approach to how he lives every day.

He is a man about whom we know only his surname, and we learn more about his daily routine than we do about his inner life. The latter, his interests and perhaps aspirations, are suggested by the books he reads and the music to which he listens while driving. Many scenes depict him at his work. But the film does this in ways that do not romanticize his occupation, while he is shown cleaning and polishing toilet bowls and seats, as well as sinks and other aspects of plumbing. The film skillfully negotiates the ambiguous terrain lying between a heroic portrayal of an apparently righteous man, and a sentimental celebration of an unreal figure.

A montage of some of the public toilets featured in Perfect Days

The approach to life epitomized by Hirayama in the film is one of contentment. He models someone who accepts the limitations presented by the contexts in which many of us live, and he displays an openness to unexpected moments of discovered and quiet beauty. The film is not overtly spiritual. Yet, these qualities may represent – to some Western viewers like me – compelling reflections of Japanese culture as it has been shaped by Buddhism.

Hirayama at work on a hobby, Bonsai

In addition to the overt paradoxes at the heart of the film – a happy toilet cleaner and beautiful public toilets – the film subtly presents other aspects of Japanese society that Western visitors might notice. In what may surprise many who are not of Japanese heritage, regarding a very private culture where people typically meet one another in commercial establishments rather than in personal dwelling places, public baths with full nudity are common. I experienced occasional visits to public baths in my youth, growing up in Japan.

Hirayama in the neighborhood bath house

And within the context of this very private culture, some Tokyo public restrooms were created with transparent glass walls, appearing to risk users to full disclosure (the glass walls magically become opaque when the doors are locked).

Three motifs or tropes in the film are memorable. Hirayama is portrayed as always looking up to the sky when emerging from his home in the morning on his way to work, and is also seen gazing upwards (as in the photo at the top of this post). This suggests that he unconsciously senses a connection with something bigger than himself, and this may be the source of his frequently displayed habit of smiling at others.

Another motif, surely related to the first, is the employment of black and white sequences that portray flickering images, usually of dappled sunlight glimpsed through tree limbs, which Hirayama captures with his old-fashioned film camera. Most often, he seems to take these photos during his lunch breaks in a local park. In relation to these images, the movie highlights the Japanese word, and concept, of komorebi, which in a single word expresses the idea of sunshine filtering through the leaves of trees overhead.

The third is the employment by the movie makers of the Sumida River in Tokyo, long celebrated in Japanese art, over which we see Hirayama cross while walking, driving, or biking. The river appears to symbolize a form of divide between the part of the city where his small apartment is located, and the more elegant commercial district where he usually works.

My favorite image of Tokyo’s Sumida River in art, a woodblock print by Kobayashi, Kiyochika ({1847-1915} name in traditional Japanese order)

These juxtapositions in Perfect Days of contrasting details, color versus black and white, and interior privacy and public life, along with the harmony in which they are presented, distinguish this film. To me, it is remarkable that this movie was made by a Western filmmaker, regardless of the assistance provided by Japanese colleagues. A studied sensitivity to what I know about Japanese culture is evident in the film’s portrayal of this fictional character in improbable circumstances, as it invites us to discover – along with Hirayama – beauty in the most unexpected places.

Hirayama, gazing upwards, holding his old-fashioned film camera