On Art & Faith
“Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”
-Pope John Paul II, “Letter to Artists”
Besides Perry the Platypus, most animals do not wear hats. They don’t wear bowties (except my roommate’s dog), and they don’t write poetry or books or pass down legends from generation to generation. They don’t paint Mona Lisas or Monets to collect them in museums or make Shutterfly scrapbooks. They also don’t like it when you put Halloween costumes on them.
Unlike the animals, we are designed to express ourselves and make homes and collect stories and build libraries and artistic havens of otherworldliness. We are designed to craft, to write, to feel.
God is our creator, and we are the craftsmen. As Pope John Paul II writes in his “Letter to Artists,” “The one who creates bestows being itself, he brings something out of nothing—ex nihilo sui et subiecti,” and this is reserved for the Almighty alone - to create something from nothing. A craftsman, by contrast, “uses something that already exists, to which he gives form and meaning.” God gives us the paint and the paintbrush. It’s our responsibility to pick it up.
But art and beauty don’t stop at Picasso paintings or gothic cathedral architecture. It doesn’t stop at Mozart or Emily Dickinson. It’s also cultivating a home and a place of love for your family. It’s the way you present yourself and wear your fun hats and snazzy shoes. The way you make people laugh or feel loved or your lopsided smile or your big nose you hate but your mother loves. It’s dancing and screaming the lyrics of your favorite song in the car and the guy in the truck next to you sees and cracks up laughing before you even notice him. We create moments and make up dances and laugh so hard our bellies hurt. And we do it so naturally. It’s never something we have to learn.
Even if you aren’t a renowned artist, you still enjoy drawing with sidewalk chalk with your kids in the driveway. You may not be a professional dancer, but it’s still heartwarming to dance with the one you love barefoot in the kitchen with spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove. We don’t have to be good at things to enjoy them, because the worth of creation isn’t based on the response of other people.
But even when we create, time and decomposition eventually get the best of it. We see ruins of empires who believed they were eternal. We see paintings get tossed or vandalized or books burned or lyrics to songs forgotten. It’s not in the art that remains that means something; it’s the passion of crafting it in the first place that can connect us to God.
The ripples of the art and moments we’ve felt and the love we’ve shared will live on in the endless song of life here on earth and in heaven, too. So pick up a paintbrush. Dance freely. Speak love into others, and paint a Christlike picture of your life. Craft your own life as a masterpiece in the light of Christ, to know, love, and serve Him.