nature and grace

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

 

Fully Alive: The Beauty of Human Nature

A photo of a print given to us years ago

 

Those familiar with my writing and ministry may not be surprised by how I choose to address the theme of beauty in relation to the human nature we all share.

My response is captured in a quote with words I have long loved and have frequently cited. The quote is from the second century Christian theologian and Bishop of Lyons (in present-day France), Irenaeus. “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” To which he added, “and to be alive consists in beholding God.”

What an audacious statement! I believe that the fundamental insight here, latent within Irenaeus’s words, stems from the Gospel of John, with whose author Irenaeus likely had a personal connection. That would have been through Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (presently, Izmir, Turkey), the city where Ireaneaus was born. One writer has described Irenaeus as the spiritual grandson of the apostle John.

Another calligraphy print, this one featured on the website of Holy Cross Monastery

What does it mean for any one of us to be ‘fully alive’? I believe that the Gospel writer, John, would respond by echoing words from Paul, whose letters frequently employ the phrase, “in Christ.” Through Baptism, we come to be in Christ. Through Baptism, we are re-born in Christ; we live in Christ – and he in us – and we will leave this mortal life in Christ. Indeed, in John’s  compelling witness to Jesus’ teaching, we are told that those who believe in Jesus have already died, and now, will never die! All of the Gospel readings appointed for funerals in The Book of Common Prayer are from John. This is the Gospel that is so centered upon the themes of God’s incarnation within our shared human nature, giving us God-given light, and eternal life.

Words found in the daily pattern for Morning and Evening Prayer, as well as in the Eucharistic pattern used on most Sundays in Episcopal Churches, help amplify this point but in a subtle way. These several patterns for corporate and individual prayer include forms for confession. Using these forms, and after we acknowledge our sin, we pray that we may delight in God’s will , and walk in God’s ways. In the absolution that follows, we hear these remarkable words:

Almighty God, have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.

In words that may be easy to overlook, we pray that by Holy Spirit power, God will “keep us in eternal life”! Being fully alive involves delighting in God’s will, walking in God’s ways, and being kept by God in eternal life.

Christians believe that the beauty of our human nature was and is found in the Gospel Jesus, and as the Risen Christ comes to be found in us. Our human nature, created in the image and likeness of God, and transformed to become an icon of Christ, is therefore all about the fulfillment of our divinely-given and imbued potential. When by grace we see it happen in people’s lives, it is a beautiful thing to behold.

Yet, human nature, being still what it is, prompts us to look for beauty in outward terms when we view others, as well as ourselves. Jesus, as the Gospels imply, always looked for beauty within – the kind of beauty it was his vocation to share and re-enable in us. This is what we should be looking for, both within ourselves and in others.

The archetypal biblical example of the glory of God beautifully manifest in human nature is found in the Gospel Transfiguration stories. James Tissot, one of my favorite painters, offers us glimpses of Jesus manifesting this same glory on several occasions, a glory that was otherwise often hidden within him.

James Tissot, Jesus Goes Up Onto A Mountain to Pray

Tissot, Jesus Being Ministered to by the Angels

Paul’s remarkable words to the Corinthians bring these themes together nicely. For we want to be among those who are:

seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God… For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

And, by God’s generous grace, the same may be seen in our faces, as well.

 

Note: Kenneth Kirk, the esteemed 20th century Bishop of Oxford, and former Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the historic university in that city, titled one of his still-used books (The Vision of God) based on the Irenaeus quote, featured above. Kirk presents Irenaeus’ words in this (now dated) way: “The glory of God is a living man, and the life of man is the vision of God.”

Geoffrey Jellicoe: Finding and Creating Beauty in the World

Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe at his London home shortly before his 90th birthday

 

Discerning beauty always presents an opportunity to experience joy. As many find, though, creating representations of beauty, as a chosen task, can be difficult.

Alive in my memory are images of areas of New York City and decaying areas of urban New England, during my high school years in the early 1970’s. I remember asking myself, as an aspiring architect and artist, how might I meet the challenge of creating examples of beauty in the world as we presently find it? Well, after some years, I discovered the life and work of Geoffrey Jellicoe, which provide an example of one way of answering questions that stay with me.

Late in his life, at a time when many seek the solace of retirement from actively pursuing such questions, Geoffrey Jellicoe took on a significant challenge. How might 150 acres of a seemingly forlorn stretch of a barrier island, adjacent to an urban area that has long surrendered to the declining effects of industrialization, be redeemed and transformed into a place for renewal by a humanistic vision of what might yet be?

Jellicoe, at the age of 80, and to the surprise of some, accepted the opportunity to submit a proposal for what might become the Moody Gardens. In the process, he embraced the idea of working with a hundred-plus acres of neglected sea marsh and dune land on Galveston Island. This site even included a need to take into account an existing but under-used local airport. Nevertheless, the esteemed landscape architect, Jellicoe, envisioned a large facility centered on the nurture of human flourishing by designing what he hoped would become a significant botanical garden. Its plan would be dedicated to re-creating documented historic human efforts to re-shape areas of the world through the practices of horticulture and landscape architecture.

The Texas-based Moody Foundation, a philanthropic organization committed to education, health, and community development, found in Jellicoe the person they believed was best equipped to provide a master plan for what might become Moody Gardens, in the vicinity of Houston. And he brought to this challenge a lifetime of learning and accomplished work, which fitted him well to address this auspicious opportunity.

Encountering Moody Gardens as it has come to be, a vibrant, attractive, and an apparently successful facility, we may be mislead about Jellicoe’s orginal concept for the project. In presenting itself now as a tourist destination with resort-like amenities, Jellicoe’s early proposals for the Gardens seem fanciful if not also highly visionary. Yet, there may be significant things we can learn from his initial plans, and the concepts he sought to embody in his hoped-for realization of the project.

I can suggest a few of these potential learnings by posing some rhetorical questions – questions that I hope to address in future posts.

  • What is ‘our human nature,’ that we hope or believe we all share? What environments are most suited for nurturing the flourishing of our human nature?
  • What is Nature, and what humanly-created environments are most true to Nature? What things or places do we consider to be ‘natural’?
  • Why does it require human effort, financial capital, and institutional resources to facilitate, maintain, and preserve ‘natural’ environments? (Consider here the scope of the funding for the National Park Service, and the United States Forest Service.)
  • And, why is concern about the natural world- the ‘environment’ – properly a matter for serious theological reflection, and one especially related to our regard for Beauty? Why do our concerns about the natural world have theological significance?

Geoffrey Jellicoe at work in his garden

Beauty, Transcendence, and Personal Transparency

 

In preparing to offer an autumn class through an LSU seniors learning forum, I have been reflecting on the general themes that animate this blog website — art, beauty, and transcendence. The link between art and transcendence is intriguing, and for many of us, it is something we experience. Yet, the alluring and knowable significance of beauty – linked here with art and transcendence – is harder for us to get at. Relying upon a famous historical quote that some will recognize, I will paraphrase the matter this way: I can’t define Beauty; but I know it when I see it!

Readers of this blog will have noticed my prior exploration of what may be a common sequence or pattern in life experience. Through it, we move from encounters with Beauty, on to reflection about what may be Good. This then can lead to a search for, and reflection upon, what is True. These three facets of this transitional sequence, Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, are also referred to as the “Three Transcendentals.” They have  been portrayed in art history as the Three Graces, in the form of three young women appearing together as in a dance.

We may infer something from this common association between Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, in relation to the further category of that which is transcendent. The three so-called ‘Transcendentals’ at least verbally have something to do with our human interest in the compelling category of transcendence. [Note: transcendental and transcendence obviously come from the same root word.] For our experiential encounter with some objects and or events can lead us to describe them as having been memorably beautiful, very good, and or compellingly true. Why? Because when remembering these encounters as occasions in which we glimpsed, sensed, and or apprehended something real and beyond sense experience, we have had an engagement with what we may best describe as having a ‘transcendental’ quality.

One way to help account for the above is to recognize that we are ‘spiritual’ beings, and not merely animate beings whose significance can be explained solely in terms of bio-physical data and analysis. To help get at the questions we are exploring, we can refer to the long-recognized brain-mind question. Does human conscious experience terminate with brain function? That is the blunt way to put a matter that can be so much more suggestive and evocative. Our human experience – here and now, in our conscious awareness – clearly depends upon brain function. But what if it also transcends brain function?

Here, we can fall back upon a basic principle of received Christian doctrine: we are embodied. In life beyond, if it is granted to us, the New Testament tells us that we will remain ‘embodied,’ though not in the same form as we are now. So, if brain function demonstrably ceases upon physical death, and if consciousness may transcend the cessation of brain function, what might we make of this?

My reflections on these ideas have led me to a further perception, which may call for additional consideration. When we have encounters with objects, experiences, and or events, that we describe as highly beautiful, movingly good, and or compellingly true, we have experiences of not only what is here and now, but also of what may be transcendent. In having such experiences, we often feel more true to our selves, to who we are, and to whom we hope to become. And the world feels more real and true in an expanded way. In the process, we may become more transparent to ourselves.

Stemming from such experiences, I find that I am also more open to being transparent with others. How? Sensing I have encountered something truly beautiful, genuinely good, and or fundamentally true, I feel more alive, and more in touch with the way the world really is. These experiences leave me more sure about my perceptions of what I have sensed. I then find I am more confident about these experiences, and more willing to share them – and myself – with others.

Experiencing Beauty, apprehending Goodness, and discerning Truth, may therefore open the doors of communication we yearn to have with others.

 

My thanks to a longtime friend, Chip Prehn, and to my brother, Greg, for the above photos. The first three come from Sassafras Farm, during haying season in Virginia, and the latter photo was taken while my brother was recently completing his fourth Camino de Santiago.

A Beautiful Place Where I Went to School
A view from the campus farm across the Connecticut River valley

 

In the fall of 1971, I was truly fortunate to be able to head off to Northfield Mt. Hermon School for my sophomore year of high school. After growing up mostly in Japan, and returning to the States for a couple of years, I was ready for a new challenge. I was yearning for an educational opportunity that would build upon my earlier experience at the Yokohama International School. When I arrived at Northfield Mt. Hermon (NMH) as a scholarship student, this inviting place opened the world for me, and changed my life.

Rooflines of a dorm, faculty house, and the student center in early evening light

Recently, I attended the 50th reunion of my NMH high school graduation class, which numbered about 365 in May of 1974. After graduating from this wonderful place for learning and formation, many of us at our reunion had not seen one another in fifty years! Anticipating being with school friends after such a length of time was a bit unsettling for me, given my awareness that – like others, as I came to see – I was not the same person I was when we last saw each other. I soon felt more at ease when greeted graciously by fellow members of my class and by our school hosts.

Two of the remodeled “Cottages” that serve as dorms

A theme periodically voiced during our weekend together was how troubling were the years in which we were students at NMH. The Vietnam War was still a concern; our President was in political if not legal trouble; the society around us was deeply divided and appeared to be coming apart; and large numbers of our fellow citizens seemed either unaware of or uncaring about the precarious state of the air, water, and food supply in the world around us. [In some ways, the world has not changed!]

Being the largest class in NMH’s history, at such a time, provided another challenge. Could we – from our multiple and differing backgrounds – find or make a community built of more than passing relationships upon arriving at a place that was – for some of us – far from home? To my astonishment, my first roommate was a former Yokohama classmate with whom I had last attended 7th grade, halfway around the world. And yet, I also remember my surprise at how I felt when observing the sudden absence of everyone from campus on graduation afternoon, many of whom I would not see again until our recent weekend together.

A wonderfully large green space at the center of campus

Here are a few things that distinguished my (and our) experience at NMH during those years, which are strong features of our school. The legacy of our founder, the 19th century evangelist, D.L. Moody, continues to be manifest in a strong emphasis upon spiritual and ethical values that have the power to transform both individuals and the world in which we live. Moody’s own commitment, to address not only the spiritual needs but also the social and educational needs of marginalized youth, remains central to our school’s mission. For we as alumni are rightly proud that among the first NMH students after our 1879 founding were 16 Indigenous Americans and a freed African-American from a formerly enslaved family.

The new science building

These themes are evident in our school’s mission statement, in words regarding an education that seeks to form the head, the heart, and the hands, of all those who share life together in the beautiful surroundings of the Connecticut River Valley. Fundamental to this commitment is the requirement for every student to have a work job, 3 – 5 hours per week, participating in dish crew, cleaning dorms or classrooms, or working on the school farm. These work jobs save the school a considerable amount of money that is directed toward the substantial scholarship funds that enable many students from a modest financial background to be at NMH.

Again and again during our reunion weekend I found myself saying to Martha, “I was so lucky to go here!”

Our Head of School, Brian Hargrove, speaking to us at the Alumni Convocation, in the chapel also featured in the recent film, The Holdovers

A welcome sign in the nearby historic town of Northfield, Massachusetts

 

Note: NMH provided a fitting setting for the movie, The Holdovers, and for many of its memorable scenes. The film was set in the time period when my fellow classmates and I were in attendance at NMH. One fellow alumnus at the Reunion was celebrating the 75th anniversary of his graduation!

Memorial Day: Finding Beauty in Remembering

For this Memorial Day, I am re-posting part of a piece first published in January.

The grave of Hamilton Sawyer, U.S.C.T. (a Civil War casualty)

 

A few months ago, I found an unanticipated beauty in a wintry place a short drive from my home. Port Hudson National Cemetery is easy to overlook, though one of many created by the Federal government during the Civil War to provide for proper burial of the Union dead. It helps us remember those who lost their lives during a prolonged siege along the Mississippi River in 1863.

Among several thousand headstones, some include the initials, U.S.C.T. Wondering about them, I discovered they signify membership in a former United States Colored Troops regiment. Hamilton Sawyer (died 2 Feb 1864), and Samuel Daniels (died 19 Jan 1864), were two of many young men about whom history seems to have preserved only these bare facts. And yet, as a nation we remember them. Away from home and family at the time of their deaths, they surrendered their lives to help secure freedoms already declared, yet far from actualized in the lives of so many. Obviously, no contemporary visitor to the cemetery could have known either of these men. But we can – if we choose to – remember their names, and for what they died. The beauty of remembering lies in how we make present what we value.

Not everyone appreciates the beauty we find in a National Cemetery. Though these burial grounds were created and are maintained to honor those who have served in our nation’s military, these settings do not celebrate armed conflict. Instead, they venerate the commitment of many fellow Americans to serve our country and its founding principles, and commemorate their willingness to put the interests of the wider community before those of self. Most of us can recognize this commitment and willingness, even if we are not all moved to prioritize these things among our choices.

Praiseworthy themes often characterize eulogies offered at funerals. On such occasions, people usually identify and highlight the admirable traits of those who have died, whose lives we seek to honor through acts of remembrance. When done well, eulogies provide portraits of people’s lives conveying an appreciation for ways that certain moral principles and spiritual values have been lived out by them. These occasions would be drab and shallow if they merely recalled how a person consistently obeyed civil laws or always observed proper manners and social etiquette. By contrast, we touch upon beauty as we seek to remember people when they were at their best. For as Irenaeus put it, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” This is how we desire to be remembered.

Here is something to notice. There is a discernible symmetry between the way different baptismal candidates wear similar white robes, the way that variously styled caskets are covered at separate events by the same pall, and the way our burial liturgies – sacred and secular – ‘clothe’ our departed with the same words, on occasion after occasion. We find a pattern similar to these examples at our National Cemeteries, in how formerly high ranking officers and the lowest ranking enlisted men and women all have essentially the same headstones. In life and in death, we are – in the end – all one. Remembering the people whom the stones commemorate, even those we did not know, makes bigger our appreciation for the beauty of God’s world, and our own place within it.

To remember, and be remembered, can be holy acts. In remembering – even with regret-tinged memories – we reflect our desire for things to become whole, and brought to their fulfillment by God.

 

Historical note regarding Port Hudson:

From the above information plaque: “In May 1963, Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks landed 30,000 soldiers at Bayou Sara north of Port Hudson {at St. Francisville}. A force of 7,500 men commanded by Confederate Gen. Franklin Gardner held the Mississippi River stronghold. General Banks’ May 27 assault on Port Hudson failed and nearly 2,000 soldiers died. Among them were 600 men from two black regiments–the 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guards.* The Port Hudson engagement was among the first opportunities for black soldiers to fight in the Civil War. Their determination proved to the North that they could and would ably serve the Union Cause.”

“Among those buried {at Port Hudson} are 256 men who served in the United States Colored Troops (USCT).”

*Additional note from an informative Wikipedia article: “The 1st Louisiana Native Guard was one of the first all-black regiments in the Union Army. Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, it played a prominent role in the Siege of Port Hudson. Its members included a minority of free men of color from New Orleans; most were African-American former slaves who had escaped to join the Union cause and gain freedom.”

Port Hudson National Cemetery on a summer day

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Justice Embodies Beauty

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Among the over-used and under-defined words prevalent in everyday conversation is that of ‘justice.’

There are at least three facets of justice long recognized in the western ethical tradition. The formal names for them are distributive, commutative, and social justice. It is important to distinguish them because the word justice is often used as if its meaning is confined to merely one or another of what are at least three of its facets.

Distributive justice can be simply defined as fairness in terms of results or outcomes. In a game of Monopoly, but also in processes or in policies of a more serious kind, the winner is generally determined by who has the most at the end of play. In current conversations where the concept of “equity” is invoked, distributive justice is often the reference point for evaluations of fairness as to social outcomes.

A second aspect of a Monopoly game then comes into consideration. In the way the game was played, did all players follow the same rules, especially in achieving the results they attained? This is what is meant by commutative justice.

The third commonly recognized facet of justice is social justice. With a game of Monopoly, the concept can be expressed in the form of a further question. Were all those who wanted to play the game provided a fair opportunity to participate?

As may be apparent here, these three facets of justice can be, and often are, interrelated. Indeed, the beauty that can be found in the idea of justice often appears when these several facets, among possible others, receive appropriate attention.

Clearly, beauty is never a merely visual phenomenon, recognizing that we find it in ideas expressed in poems, and in observations made by philosophers. The beauty I find in the concept of justice lies in the multifaceted nature of the idea, and in how it can bring enrichment to human relationships and communities.

One example can help make the point. In terms of the relationship between communities and individuals, justice is often expressed in terms of what communities owe to individuals, especially so that the needs of the latter are not overlooked or denied by the former. Yet defined merely in this mono-directional way diminishes the concept of justice when what individuals may owe to communities does not receive comparable consideration. There is beauty to be found in a two-way symmetry of respect and positive regard between individuals and their communities.

Justice along with beauty are significant aspects of human flourishing, given how both contribute to our wellbeing as people made in the image and likeness of God. We find beauty when we discern what appears to be a ‘right relation’ between or among parts or aspects of a work of art or architecture, as well as among members of a community. Thinking carefully about such perceptions of right relation can enhance our comprehension of beauty in daily life and work, and our practice of the virtue of justice in our social affiliations.

The Eastertide “vine and the branches” Gospel reading can deepen our appreciation for this fundamental dimension of justice conceived of as right relation. The ‘right relation’ of the branches to the vine is predicated on the revealed, and literally embodied, right relation between the True Vine and its branches, and their living connection in him.

James Tissot, What Our Lord Saw from the Cross

We should not overlook how metaphors based on justice play a significant role in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, regarding our relationship with God. Self-justification often forms an unattractive feature of our relationship with others. Yet, it has no appropriate role in our relationship with God. We may try to secure right relation with others through self-justification, but only God makes us right with God. Since our practice of the virtue of justice has no role in securing our standing before God, we can only seek in humility to reflect our gratitude for God’s generous and unmerited favor.

Paraphrasing Paul, we have been made ambassadors of the one who embodied the beauty of reconciliation, or of graced right relation.

Pointing Toward Perception

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We live in a world filled with “data.” Disconnected bits of information, especially in great quantity, overwhelm our ability to see and to think. Accumulating additional data or more information does not produce knowledge. Knowledge has to do with seeing the connections between bits of information. When we see the connections, we begin to see a picture, we begin to hear a story, and we gain understanding as well as wisdom.

The unrecognized fellow traveler on the road to Emmaus asks the two disciples, ‘what are all these things you are talking about?’ The answer he receives from them amounts to information. But his question is pointed toward understanding, especially in relation to ‘the big picture. He is challenging them to discover something bigger. He is really asking something like this: ‘All these things’ that have happened… What do they have to do with what God has been up to, all along?”

Here is a basic Christian truth that we find in the Emmaus Road story: Things take on meaning in relation to the risen Jesus. It happens when we see events in our lives in relation to him. It happens also with things like bread and wine as we gather at table. And it happens with people like you and me as we gather in community.

Jesus helps our perception on the road to Emmaus, and reveals something even more profound at the inn. This ‘inn,’ unlike the one where he was born, has many rooms, many mansions. When we see things like past events and the bread in relation to him, we discern more about what they were or are, and what they yet can become. When we see ourselves in relation to him, we better discern who we really are, and who we are called to be.

Prayerfully, we can look around, between things, and within. We can look for the connections. When we do, we see and discern. We see more because we see more wholly. Then we see the holy.

 

The above painting, Supper at Emmaus (1958), is by Ceri Richards, and is used by permission from the Trustees of the Methodist Modern Art Collection (UK). The penciled notation at the base of this guache painting on paper suggests that it was intended as a study for an altarpiece painting for the chapel of St. Edmund Hall (or College), at Oxford, England. The Emmaus story can be found in Luke 24:13-35, and it is a traditional Eastertide Gospel reading.

This post is adapted from one first published in 2014.