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| © Chuck Hoffman / Genesis + Art Studio |
I spent a contemplative day with word, art, meal and friends while exploring Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. I tend to think that art and theology are cousins of the same spirit and are drawing back to each other. I also wonder if bringing them together on Holy ground can offer us insights to creativity and our Creator. Sister Joan Chittister, OSB takes this further to compare the artist and monk as one. Monasticism, in fact, cultivates the artistic spirit. The qualities that are basic to art are the qualities demanded of the monastic: immersion, single–mindedness, beauty, praise and creativity. “It is in silence that the artist hears the call to raise to the heights of human consciousness those qualities no definitions can capture. Ecstasies, pain, fluid truth, pass by so quickly or surround us so constantly that the eyes fail to see and the heart ceases to respond. Only by seeing the unseen within can the artist dredge it out of nothingness so that we can touch it, too. Finally, it is humility that enables an artist to risk rejection and failure, disdain and derogation to bring to the heart of the world what the world too easily, too randomly, too callously overlooks.”[1] The making of art, like monasticism, invites us into the sacred realm of contemplation where we listen in silence and await the divine presence in our lives, where the darkness and emptiness becomes the intersection between the outer and inner worlds, where the darkness is transformed into light, revealing the divine.
[1] Sister Joan Chittister: The Artist and Monk Are One://www.huffingtonpost.com/sister-joan-chittister-osb/the-artist-and-monk-are-o_b_691331.html
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