column :: music
Posted by Paul | Filed under columns
In his book, 31 Songs, Nick Hornby starts one chapter with this sentence: “I try not to believe in God, of course, but sometimes things happen in music, in songs, that bring me up short, make me do a double take. … see and feel things I can’t normally see and feel.” Interestingly, theologian Tom Wright says something very similar: “When you hear a great piece of music, you realize your mind and imagination have been enlarged, and you can think thoughts that you couldn’t have thought other how.” For both, something can happen in music that opens us up to new possibilities, to the possibility of God.
No one is saying, of course, that music suddenly makes people believe, but sometimes it can create room to think about things differently. And maybe, in our culture, that is what people need most of all. Before they can face up to God himself, perhaps what they need is space to believe, space to believe that maybe He is there. And perhaps music is one way that they can be given that.
It’s not just music, of course; we can create space for people in many ways. So, maybe we need to consider how our music, our art, our building, our infrastructure, our lives can give people room; consider how we can help them to see things that they can’t normally see.
column :: stories
Posted by Paul | Filed under columns
In my opinion, ‘Spellbound’ is the most exciting film about spelling ever. But, then, I’m not a big fan of ‘Countdown’, so take that as you will. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a documentary about the U.S. National Spelling Bee. It follows some of the contestants and their parents up to the high-tension denouement. (Note the use of a big word in the spirit of event.)
Anyway, there is one part that I find fascinating. One of the girls, who comes from a poor background, says this: I’ve overcome great odds to come this far, so I know I’m going to succeed, because that is what happens in the movies. Look away now if you don’t want to know the result, but she isn’t the eventual winner. The film-makers interview her again after she is eliminated. Her response is this: I’ve overcome great odds to come this far, so I still know I’m going to succeed, because that is what happens in the movies. Even after facing reality, the movies — the stories that she lives by — continue be her reference point.
I don’t think she is unique. Stories make up a big part of our view of the world. Maybe we are all have movies or books or songs that, without knowing it, guide our choices and our hopes. So, then the question I have to ask myself is: what are the stories that motivate me?
creativity and submission
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve been looking at Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft recently. A very interesting read, essentially looking at the value of work that engages with creation directly and in a committed way (though that isn’t quite the way he would say it, I’m sure).
Here is one fascinating quote:
[According to the common view creativity] is what happens when people are liberated from the constraints pf conventionality.
…
The truth … is that creativity is a by-product of mastery of the sort that is cultivated through long practice. It seems to be built up through submission (think a musician practicing scales, or Einstein learning tensor algebra). Identifying creativity with freedom harmonizes quite well with the culture of the new capitalism, in which the imperative of flexibility precludes dwelling in any task long enough to develop real competence. Such competence is the condition … for genuine creativity…
Tags: art, creativity, culture, work
Siedell on culture, Christianity and devotion
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve just got around to reading Daniel Siedell’s post Great Culture (orginally an address to CIVA) Brilliant. Stop reading my blog and go and read his now. If you need some convincing, try this…
Let me suggest that neither “Christianity” nor “culture” per se make modern society uncomfortable. It is the self-sacrificial and uncompromising pursuit of greatness and quality in these practices, a life singularly devoted to them, which condemns the virtues of contemporary professional and personal life: compromise, mediocrity, and personal comfort that makes modern society uncomfortable.
…
Are we now too sophisticated, too enlightened, too iconoclastic to believe in the myths of great art, great culture, even the possibility of a great life devoted to Christ? We’re not humble. We’re cowards.
markets and morality
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
A few months ago I went to the Veritas event in Cambridge (UK): Can Capital Markets be Moral?. It was a ’round table’ discussion with a diverse set of speakers — with some coming from the city, some from theology and some from a social entrepreneur angle. All interesting, but perhaps a little frustrating at times as the issues they addressed were so wide ranging there was no clear debate and I’m not sure the question really got address head on.
One view put forward by a couple of speakers was (roughly) ‘markets are structures and structures cannot be moral or amoral — only people.’ (I’m not sure how consistently this was held — the line between market and the people in the market seemed to blur places. Speakers also said things like ‘regulation is no use, the market gets around regulation’. But leaving that aside…)
All this raised a question for me: if we changed the subject to something like Can Brothels be Moral? would the speakers have taken a similar approach? It seems to me that that is a structure that has some moral content.
Perhaps we need to say that when people develop structures those structures tend to embody their values. So, a structure will end up encouraging or discouraging certain values, certain moral stances.
Interestingly, the first Reith Lecture this year was also on Markets and Morals. The lecturer — the excellent Michael Sandel — noted this:
…markets are not mere mechanisms. They embody certain norms. They presuppose, and also promote, certain ways of valuing the goods being exchanged. Economists often assume that markets are inert, that they do not touch or taint the goods they regulate. But this is a mistake. Markets leave their mark. Often market incentives erode or crowd out non-market incentives.
The whole lecture is worth a listen/read. His view is that we need to have a proper debate about the morals and what areas of life should be market-free, rather than allow market-creep to distort our lives.
Grace and ambiguity
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
There’s a great article on Tim Keller at Christianity Today.
Here’s one particularly interesting paragraph
The gospel DNA of grace is crucial to Redeemer’s embrace of center-city culture. It gives people permission to try and fail, to mix freely with those of other faiths and morals, and to tolerate ambiguity. Someone who works in advertising or theater may have to serve for many years at projects he or she finds morally ambivalent. Even those who rise to positions of responsibility will find no clearly marked path. Without a grasp of grace, there will be no Christians working in such areas. Keller likes to describe Redeemer’s stance as “cultural presence,” which enhances flavor but doesn’t take over.
This crystalises something that has been floating in the back of my mind. One reason grace is so important (apart from the obvious) is because we live and work in a compromised world — a world in which we may come across situations in which there is no good answer, or we find ourselves in institutions with inherent moral ambiguity. Grace gives us space to act faithfully in a complex world.
Tags: culture, Tim Keller
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...