Papering Sidebar

Thoughts while papering. Totally unrelated (to the paper). Except that papering happens in the midst of real life and sometimes the two compete for mainstage brain action. 

Today I realized, while reflecting on some things that hit me at a funeral yesterday. That the labels we use for each other just are (a blessing and a curse, just are). And this is the end of the musing, but there are threads of thought which lead here. 

I can say that a few weeks ago I was at church and heard this sermon. Amazing, and so much truth (I want to stick a link in here right to the sermon but their website is not responding right now so...no direct link...so hey. Go look for James Robertson in Eucharist's sermon archive).

And last week I saw the Marc Chagall exhibit at the AGO (SO GOOD. Go and see, if you haven't yet) and then on the same day I went off to see Feist at Massey Hall (ALSO good! what a day!). And it struck me that day that it's funny how people can have these talents and skills. Talents, skills with which they can make images and sounds and make meaning. The meaning does not come just from the colours on the canvas, but instead from the artist's choice to put this shade beside that other shade on this particular piece of canvas portraying this particular huge piece of his own personal history. The meaning comes from the mixture of Leslie's story, her own attitude toward her story, the way she chooses to sing about that story and about the story of humanity... The meaning layers itself when we know that Chagall was a Jew in Russia, and that he was not actually allowed to be a painter because of certain religious observances and political restrictions and that he went off to Paris to study anyway (uumm Art History major should know more about this. Woops). And then it layers itself even more when we can see through his (he)art and read in his own words how homesick he was for Vitebsk. And meaning heaps on itself when we see a musician get lost in the music they're so joyfully sharing with a roomful of not-so-strangers, so much more than what we know from simply hearing that same song through those tiny little earbuds on a GO train full of disconnected souls.

OK there's a thought, and then there's more. What makes the work particular and amazing is the fact that THIS PERSON made it. A beautiful piece is beautiful because of the story behind it. Because of the truth with which it wrestles. Because of the viewer/listener's story and how it's enhanced by the artist's story, and the interaction itself, and the piece of canvas hanging on the wall is just a piece of canvas...with some pigment.

And then. The story with which anyone approaches anything contains labels and definitions (back to the Eucharist sermon). We get more out of Chagall's work when we hear labels like Jew, Russia, early 1900's, hometown. These might come with built-in connotations, but the work, and how we know the person, is enhanced by these very nuances. The label is sometimes the point of interaction. But of course there's a real person behind all of that, and how do you separate the real person from the ways you know that same person!? I know Chagall as a painter and a stained-glass artist. As someone who has inspired my own love for colour and the lump in my own throat when I think of any kind of homesickness. I know Feist as a musician, and a lovely performer. As someone who can make beautiful, adventurous music, and capture the hearts of a Massey Hall audience. I don't know either of them personally beyond those points of interaction, and yet we know each other.

I have to get back to a paper. About imagination and faith. And Eucharist (the original...see Luke 22). 

But I'm distracted by the idea that the Jars of Clay Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 4 are kind of like labels. We've all come across interpretations that draw the analogies of clay/dust/common use, etc... But we, as jars, are filled with something (a treasure!!!) that just needs to be contained. The outer contours touch each other on the shelf and interact. From one jar to another the contents can be poured. Without the jar, whatever's filling us would be on the floor in a puddle. 

Without the labels, we would be forced to mix up with each other, irrevocably, in that puddle on the floor. They provide distinction, and they allow discrimination. They define that treasure, and they define how that treasure is shared and enjoyed. We can hide reality behind the label, and we kind of have to, so much as we are defined by the label. We can hide the reality of the treasure that we are behind a big clay wall. But the clay label isn't what's important. It's the treasure that's key.

Colin was a treasure. You are a treasure. You are of Christ, and Christ is of God.