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#10

WHEN WE PLAY WITH A PRO

All true art is evocative. It invites us to see and arouses in us a response. When we stop before a great piece of art and give it its due attention, what answers back from our side is our own attempt to articulate the same Principle that the piece of art is expressing.

Likewise with genuine Scripture. It is evocative. And it, too, arouses in us a deeply, personal response whenever we give it its due attention.

Who of us would dare to nonchalantly rush past a Van Gogh, a Rembrandt or a work of daVinci with a “yeah, uh-uh, gotta’ run” attitude? And yet this is how we often rush past God’s dialogue with us all day long. When we stop and actually look at what is before us—even for a moment--we are stopping before the ultimate work of art. Life speaks to us out of its deep place and invites us to respond out of ours.

When we respond to something, we are in dialogue with it. In fact, the reason Art and Spirit are evocative is because Art and Spirit are dialogues not monologues. A monologue can happen without listening—and usually does. Most of us live our life as a monologue. But in a dialogue each party must listen as much as speak. Perhaps the reason we see so much in great art--and see so much about so much about truth, beauty, existence, struggle, and ourselves –is because Art itself is listening. That is what Art is all about: listening and seeing.

Certainly that is what artists do when painting or sculpting or whatever—they struggle to listen and see. More than fighting to render they fight to see. They are trying to see what is not yet seen. That struggle remains etched in the piece of art itself after the artist has stopped struggling with it. The piece continues to listen and invites us to do so with it.

When a beginner tennis player plays with a pro, she or he plays so much better. But get that same player with a fellow hit n’ miss amateur and their true, undeveloped level is seen.

Who we are when we engage a great piece of art--just like who we are when we engage a verse of genuine Scripture-- is much better than who we are with our fellow amateurs, because we are “playing”—in dialogue with--a pro. We play better, or in this case we see better, because we are “seeing” with an expert seer. Most of us are silent before a great work of art. Most of us are saints when alone in our room with the Bible.

But to become the genuine saint—the genuine artist—demands that we become wholly responsive to the unseen. This, as any artist will tell you, is a struggle. It demands a dedicated stopping and a deep, surrendered listening. The greatest art of all is to become wholly responsive to—in dialogue with—Spirit. In this case we would be playing with the greatest pro of all. But the demand on the amateur when playing with a pro is utterly exhausting. And all too often, instead of building up our strength to do so, we simply content ourselves with playing at the amateur level.

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 Susan Dane
547-49 E. 12th Street
Suite 3D
New York, NY 10009

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