Really enjoyed this! Appreciate the language, the themes, and the passing reference to a line of scripture I love: "Is Saul also among the prophets?"
Also thinking about this:
"Art provides proof of concept for the possibility that faith embraces: namely, transcendence can find space within the immanent world. Engagement with art and imagination demonstrates how it happens in real time: through my awakening to what is beyond me, to the dimension of ordinary experience that exceeds itself."
I've been thinking a lot this year about scriptural interpretation. We've got all this great scholarship, but if all you understand about a Biblical passage is its probable meaning in an immediate historical context, it feels like you're missing the soul. For believers, it feels important to look to scripture as an expression that contains or evokes something extra. Packed words, leaking meanings right and left. God's own collaborative art project.
I heartily echo your thought about scripture, James. And thanks for this, Rosalynde. It is beautiful and catalyzing a bunch of exciting thoughts in me.
What a joy to read. Thank you Rosalynde. I will be thinking about this beautifully written essay for a long, long time. It was also fun because you are so like your mother - a wonderful writer!
Thank you for using such a fresh and personal idiom to bring us to this invigorating and positive view of the restoration — affirmative of our ability to be opened to grandeurs even with the broken and ever-failing limits of things mortal.
Really enjoyed this! Appreciate the language, the themes, and the passing reference to a line of scripture I love: "Is Saul also among the prophets?"
Also thinking about this:
"Art provides proof of concept for the possibility that faith embraces: namely, transcendence can find space within the immanent world. Engagement with art and imagination demonstrates how it happens in real time: through my awakening to what is beyond me, to the dimension of ordinary experience that exceeds itself."
I've been thinking a lot this year about scriptural interpretation. We've got all this great scholarship, but if all you understand about a Biblical passage is its probable meaning in an immediate historical context, it feels like you're missing the soul. For believers, it feels important to look to scripture as an expression that contains or evokes something extra. Packed words, leaking meanings right and left. God's own collaborative art project.
I heartily echo your thought about scripture, James. And thanks for this, Rosalynde. It is beautiful and catalyzing a bunch of exciting thoughts in me.
What a joy to read. Thank you Rosalynde. I will be thinking about this beautifully written essay for a long, long time. It was also fun because you are so like your mother - a wonderful writer!
Thank you for using such a fresh and personal idiom to bring us to this invigorating and positive view of the restoration — affirmative of our ability to be opened to grandeurs even with the broken and ever-failing limits of things mortal.