While I was studying in Northern Ireland we studied an Irish poet called Michael Longley. His poetry was quite moving and devastating at the same time. He wrote about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the Holocaust. He was able to capture beauty and inspiration in the death and hopelessness of desperate times.
I liked several of his poems. I thought one poem in the front of his collected poetry was beautiful in his choice of words and the imagery he painted so simply.
No Continuing City
First dizzy cigarettes,
Tightlipped Kisses,
Friendships, Flying visits,
Birthday, best wishes-
My children and my dead
Coming of age
In the turn of your head
As you turn a page.
-Michael Longley
My Irish Literature class was lucky enough to have met Mr. Longley. He was very inspiring in his lecture. He did say one thing that made me think. He stated,
"There won't be any art in heaven- if there is such a place-because art comes from some disturbance..."
Well, I think most of the class thought differently. Trying to figure out a way to candy coat what he had said. But as I sat there, I began to think maybe he was right. What we know now in the world of art...there does seem to be a disturbance or longing for a beauty that we do not have. Many times art is a mixture of fallenness and redemption. Or the old and new. The overexposed and underexposed. The vintage and classic. The bittersweet taste of things ending much differently than you thought they would. So... if there is a heaven, and every thing's perfect where is art? I completely understand Longley's point. But then again, there seems to be perfection in a butterfly or flower... they seem perfect, but creation is fallen...and love means the most when it isn't deserved... The cross blossoms in the midst of undeserving selfish people.
But then again...
Maybe art is an expression and cry of who we are, who we've been, who we want to be. Art is us being here, trapped in our own humanity reaching out beyond ourselves. Maybe the art we know now, won't be in heaven. But there will be an art that we nothing about. An art that can not be anymore explained then what it will really mean to live where "mercy and truth have kissed each other."
3 comments:
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What an interesting thought that poet brought up. I love it. Thanks for making me think.
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heyo. ok so ya, i was a little uncomfortable with longley's statement at first, too... not because i didn't necessarily agree with 'it' as much, i guess as with its idea of heaven as being the culmination (and subsequently the death) of all of creation's ambitions... but the more i think about it (or anything for that matter, i guess) it seems like this could go two ways...
one way is the notion that 'heaven' itself is just that... a notion. ...and that our purpose in creation is to eternally pursue that notion as we point our cameras to the sky, trying to capture and achieve ultimate communion with our creator. ...the other could be - like you alluded earlier - that maybe there is no heaven, and maybe there will always be that pain and suffering that propels us forward to create art like a carrot on a string or an echo in space.
the way i usually resolve these polarities i guess, is to sort of pretend they don't exist... just like sin no longer exists, hah. okay, that was cheap, but still, no really... maybe it's like a both/and thing rather than an either/or sort of deal. i do think we will achieve heaven. i also believe that we - outside of our own power, of course - already have, and that heaven, as it has been and will be is already here and now in this very moment, and by chasing the light that illuminates this we propel heaven forward rather than heaven merely propelling us. maybe? i don't know. i'm just typing out loud, really.
maybe it's like, where 'revelations' reads that in the end (whenever that is or was) that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and that we will reign with Christ on that new earth in communion with him. but what's to say that communion isn't now, and that old earth wasn't but just a second ago? how can one claim that the redemptive process that makes the separation and completion of our artistic ambitions possible isn't already at work in and through us in every heartbeat and blink?
i guess we'll see...
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