Mark and Brenda Whiten live just outside of Phoenix, AZ tonight.  They hosted a houseshow in their back yard… I guess that makes it a “behind-the-house” show… as they have done for Jeremy Casella, Alli Rogers and now me. Mark is one of the parties behind the Habanero Hour, a periodic music and interview podcast dedicated to exploring and challenging the idea of “Christian” music. Between the podcast and the “BehindTheHouse-HouseShow” serie, I found their desire to see art celebrated in the church (and music in particular) to be so refreshing.  Too often, music in christian settings is viewed as a tool to set up something else; whether it be the “actual” content or the “real” message rather than knowing art as a comprehensive expression of truth and beauty in and of itself.

I am currently reading “Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves” and growing in a renewed sense of art’s spiritual/cultural importance.  I believe art is as essential as medicine and architecture. It is as important as the fight against global poverty.  Art redefines our understanding of worth and gives our souls language and shape so that we can see more clearly who we are.

There is much more to be said about this topic, but suffice to say for now that it is energizing to find common ground with like-minded others.  Hooray for art in the desert!

In 1979 Mel Gibson starred in “Mad Max”; a post-apocalyptic vision of the future in which gasoline is used as currency due to its scarcity.  Driving through GA the past two days, and now into my third, has me concerned that I might need to start welding heavy metals to the frame of my rental for protection against gas raiders.  I also might need to get a really mangy looking dog to take with me, just to fit the profile of a post-apocalyptic wanderer a bit more closely.

Mile after mile, gas stations have taped bags to their pumps or pulled numbers off their signs.  One station attendant said very clearly that “there weren’t no gas up yonder way” pointing north up the highway “and ain’t no gas up yonder way neither” turning and pointing south down the same highway… It seems that any direction from this spot in Georgia is “yonder..” but that is neither here nor… yonder.

This morning we heard rumor that the gas shortage had extended all the way through East Tenn and almost to Nashville.  At least that’s not the way I’m driving after the show in Franklin Springs tonight…

oh, wait…

I was recently told a fascinating story about a conversation between the Pope and Michelangelo.  This is not that conversation:

The actual conversation I am referencing was one in which the Pope, after seeing Michelangelo’s David asked Michelangelo “How do you know what to cut away?” The artist replied, “I cut away everything that is not David.” This is the heart of the song “Deconstruction.”

Deconstruction is not a function of a lack of faith. Nor is deconstruction a function of a mind with a disregard for (or even mistrust of) truth. It is, in fact a necessary and responsible activity of a vibrant and living faith; faith that if I shake it all down and tear away what is superfluous, I will be left with what is essential, true and beautiful. Faith that I cannot evade the truth and that, should I sincerely seek Truth, I will either find it or be found by It.

Tearing away the superfluous can be, and often is, extremely nerve-racking. I would imagine that Michelangelo’s work near the ankles of the David, which is nearly 14 feet of solid marble, was somewhat daunting as well. Without belittling the skill and magic of one of history’s greatest artists, one might imagine that he was extremely cautious when determining what of the marble to remove in order to shape ankles that would support David’s body while remaining proportionate in relation to the rest of the piece. He cared about the piece first and foremost; believed that there was an image to be discovered.

When it comes to American culture and it’s relationship to Jesus, I believe that, similarly, there is much that is superfluous: Allegiance to a particular political platform; an extremely limited notion of the role of art; an unhealthy suspicion of science overall; assumptions about the nature of human sexuality; an assumed agreement on the preferred method of dealing with abortion; an assumed agreement with market principles or even an assumed agreement regarding the superiority of a particular economic theory; a narrowing understanding of the goal of education; the assumption that our nation is inherently “good” or at least on the side of “good”… Etc..

(As a kind of side note, the intimate relationship Christianity has with America and her ways is particularly disturbing. A christian’s questioning US foreign or domestic policy ought not be met with questions and suspicions about his allegiance to Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. The fact that this happens is evidence to me that, for too many of us, they Way of Jesus and the way of America are either one and the same or so closely related that we cannot separate the two. Love for my country should not look the same as love for my God.. but that’s another blog.)

Yet just as with Michelangelo’s great piece, deconstruction of the superfluous in American culture and religious life means removing at least some that is difficult to remove in fear that the whole structure of what we have determined as Truth may collapse. But if we believe in truth as Truth there need be no fear. This is the major difference between the philosophical reality of the christian journey and the creation of Michelangelo’s David; there was a legitimate cause to be concerned that the artist’s beautiful creation could be toppled by either a mistake of his own hand or the violence of others. If I ‘believe’ in God as God and not as an Idea, I should suffer no such fear. My fear shouldn’t be that I may topple the image of Christ but instead that, in an effort to support that Image, I might bury it beneath those very ’supports.’

Deconstruction is a necessary element in the effort to discover, from beneath the ruined and rotten corpse of cultural consumer religion, a political energy that is rooted in a desire for redemptive justice rather than party affiliation and the defeat of ‘the opposition’; to discover or rediscover the power of the teachings of Jesus; to rediscover what it in fact means to ‘be saved’, to be a ‘christian” or to even have or be a ’soul’ at all.

The song Deconstruction is the heart of an album that I hope inspires its listeners towards a healthy re-examination of established religious, consumer and scientific world-views.

I was recently in Kenya and Uganda with Compassion International and am still processing through much of what I saw, experienced etc… Now, I am not one of those bloggers who likes to communicate things that are still in process, but I just don’t see how I am going to avoid that this time around; there is too much to process. I have been familiar with the stories of (and many of the realities) of poverty before this trip to Africa, but something about the nature of the problem there struck me at an angle that has had me off balance since. Over the next few months or so, along with normal blogging activity, I will attempt to post some of these “in process” thoughts… Snapshots, if you will. It may be the only way I am going to get by head around what is going on inside it.

A snapshot from Masaka, Uganda. This is the area where the first cases of HIV/AIDS were diagnosed and reported.

We visited a man’s home this afternoon whose name is Peter. I would guess that he’s in his early 40’s but am quickly learning that Africans can look much older OR much younger than their age… So guessing at it is something of a futility.

Peter’s first wife passed away years ago and his second wife left sometime more recently. That said, he does not live alone. His home is built of mud-bricks gathered from the local red dirt and is roofed by plywood and tin. In this home, Peter cares for seven children. Of these seven children, none of them are biologically his. Three of them are HIV positive. Several of these children he cares for have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Others have simply been “abandoned” by their parents. Mercifully, four of the children he cares for are sponsored by Compassion Sponsors in the US. He was deeply thankful for the support of those sponsors to provide health, education, food and a knowledge of the Love of God through the Compassion program in Masaka.

Before we left his home, we asked if we could pray for him and, if so, what we could specifically pray for. Peter glanced around the room and then said something to the translator (Peter speaks only the local dialect (of which there are nearly 50 in Uganda, each according to ones tribe and geography). The translator paused for a moment before telling us that Peter had just asked if we would pray to God that he could live long enough to care for the children God had given him. Peter himself is HIV positive.

This is not a story; this is a life. I met this man and shook his hand. We met his children and prayed for him that he would live long enough to care for the little ones God had given him… children he called his children… Though, as I reflect on the story more, I can’t help but wonder if he is caring for my children… our children.

If you do not yet sponsor a child through Compassion International, please consider doing so by following this link.