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The story is this. Some fifty years ago, artist Doug Bowman chose to study theology and philosophy, rather than follow his mother the artist into the realm of painting. Now, happily retired for the past ten years, Doug takes his place among the many artists here this weekend for, “Art, For Heaven’s Sake!” His work entitled, “The Moon of Falling Leaves,” is displayed up front and the story that inspired it can inspire us as well.
The story is this. During the “Moon of Falling Leaves”—that is the moon cycle that spans October and November—in the year 1864, at a place called Sand Creek, in the state we now know as
Nebraska
, there lived 105 women and children from the
Cheyenne
tribe. They were huddled under and around a
U.S.
flag that had been provided as protection for them by the
U.S.
government. The brilliance of that flag was a symbol of the treaty between the expanding
U.S.
government and their tribe’s chief, Black Kettle. As the second and third panels of this breath-taking painting reveal, the men of the tribe were away on a hunting expedition. Without respect for the flag they had sworn to honor, the troops of Colonel Chivington’s brigade slaughtered these 105
Cheyenne
women and children while they sat horrified, clutching their supposedly protective flag. Four years later, during that same moon cycle in the fall, as the last panel poignantly illustrates, 92 remaining women from the same tribe, along with their old Chief Black Kettle and his wife, were killed by the 7th U.S. Cavalry under the command of George Armstrong Custer. Inside of four years, and, as we are now, in the light of The Moon of Falling Leaves, an entire tribe fell to its death, annihilated while supposedly under a treaty’s protection.
Doug’s inspired painting shows the spirits of the women and children floating above the earth, yet still touching the land…a symbol that the pain of their story continues to affect this earth. The scenes are illuminated by the light of the two full moons shining four years apart. The colors, painted from the storytelling abilities and aesthetic impulses of a compassionate artist seeking justice in the world, call us into the mystery, into the questions, and into the ethic of such abhorrent acts. Without the use of a single word, but through the beauty of art itself, Doug challenges us to contemplate our own ethic as well as that of our country’s historical record.
St. Francis of
Assisi
is oft-quoted, “Preach the gospel at all times…if necessary, use words…” Through color and texture and image, and without the use of a single word, each of the creations of the artists this weekend invite us to see through beauty itself a new and better way of being in the world.
Beauty informs our ethic…this is one of the stories told during this 28th annual “Art, For Heaven’s Sake!” The relationship between beauty and ethics is expanded through the work of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. In his book about Whitehead’s ethic of creativity, Brian Henning writes that creativity is Whitehead’s most basic category. By creativity, Whitehead means the unceasing process of creation whereby all that has happened in the past is integrated and informs the present, which in an instant, joins to become part of that one, whole past, ready to inform yet another new present. To apply this principle of creativity to the beauty of the art in which we are nestled this weekend: our experience of one piece of art is added to our past experiences of beauty and aesthetics, as are each of our experiences while perusing and appreciating this surrounding beauty. Each of these separate experiences join together as one, forming and informing our sense of ethics based on the beauty of this now intense harmonious and inclusive experience.
This weekend, while beauty surrounds us, process theology invites us to affirm that every element of the cosmos is beautiful to some degree in itself and for itself. Whitehead himself affirmed, along with the author of those first words of Genesis, that “…the foundations of the world are in the aesthetic experience, rather than in the cognitive experience.” God looked around at all that was made, and exclaimed, “I think I did a wonderful job, except for that ostrich neck which is unnecessarily long, and avocado pits which are surprisingly large…oh, and the sky…I wonder if it is too blue???” Were God’s comments a cognitive analysis of creation? NO! God looked around, sighed a divinely enormous sigh (I’d like to imagine that there was a loving smile as big as the
Grand Canyon
spreading across God’s face). And God said, not once, but many times…“It is good…It is VERY good.”
Every element of the cosmos—including you and the person sitting next to you and the person who gets on your last nerve—every element of the cosmos is beautiful to some degree in itself and for itself. Sit with this beauty and goodness for a moment, friends, and it will lead you gently to an ethic of caring for others based on their inherent beauty and goodness. You will see that forgiveness is intimately tied to accepting that one seeking forgiveness as inherently good and beautiful. You will see that the hungry one must be fed and the thirsty one given drink and the parolee offered every chance to succeed because they are good and beautiful in and of themselves. If you are really brave, I challenge you to sit with the notion of inherent beauty and goodness, and apply it to yourself…that one seems much more difficult for us…yet that is exactly what both Whitehead and the ancient author of Genesis declare. You are good. You are beautiful. And in your goodness and beauty, you have something uniquely healing to offer as a salve for the world’s pain, something uniquely compassionate to ease the world’s hurt, something uniquely loving to eradicate and replace the world’s hatred. In other words, your beauty, your goodness, leads you to an ethic of caring about others in creation who are also inherently good and beautiful.
Whitehead follows this notion of the inherent beauty and goodness of creation down the same road as does the author of Genesis when he says, “All order is therefore aesthetic order, and the moral order is merely certain aspects of aesthetic order…and the aesthetic order is derived from the immanence of God.” In Genesis, we read of a similar relationship between creation’s beauty, God’s immanence, and humanity’s ethic: “So God created human beings, created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature, male and female; and God blessed them: ‘Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.’” Genesis starts us on the right foot in our ethics by declaring that beauty…the awareness of beauty…the acknowledgement of the inherent goodness and beauty in all creation…both helps form and continues to inform our ethics.
And what of our story from the Christian scriptures? Our story, which forms and informs our ethic is encapsulated in one simple word: love. From our three Christian readings this morning, we see a wonderful commingling of joy, of abundance, of life that is worth living. Weaving itself in and around these desirable characteristics is love. The words of Jesus seem to agree wholeheartedly with the words from John’s second letter: love is the quality, the only quality that will bring joy and abundance to your life. Abundant life will not come through an ethic that condones inflicting pain as did the soldiers in Doug’s painting; nor will abundant life come from putting yourself or others down; abundant life does not follow from an ethic of deceit, but rather from an ethic of creativity that joyfully affirms the beauty and goodness in every component of this amazing cosmos!
Today, through the abundant gifts of these artists, we are urged to make our ethical decisions… looking at beauty through Heaven’s forgiving eyes… hearing the needs through Heaven’s compassionate ears…speaking Heaven’s language of love, always love… Through the beauty that surrounds us this weekend, we are called both to believe and to behave… for Heaven’s sake! Amen and Blessed Be!
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