Transcript
0:12 good morning I am grateful for this honor to be with you graduates for many years of hard labor for you and I'm sure many more labor yeah years of sacrifice for your parents thank you Dr parrot and thank you to the board of directors Bel Haven
0:42 University for this incredible honor I I am still Inc that I am standing here before you as an artist in a Christian Institution you are making a statement that the Arts are fundamental to the core of Christian higher education or maybe even
1:13 higher education in general the Arts are not a peripheral luxury for the elite few but it is a cultural necessity of how a civilization is to be defined and how our Humanity used to be restored the Arts like the spring flowers that we take the Aromas in this morning the
1:46 Arts bring the aroma of the new I have just returned from Japan where I saw firsthand enormous Devastation from 311 the massive earthquake the tsunami and the ongoing nuclear disaster I visited a small fishing Village of ishinomaki in Northern Japan
2:17 a beautiful coastal town simply Swept Away by the series of tsunamis my friend em who grew up in ishinomaki now finds her home that she grew up in gone her parents business gone though they themselves were spared having been in Tokyo at the time as I walked about the aroma the
2:51 stench of death F the air as I try to take in the devastation I saw the rice fields inundated with salt waterer now fishing vessels in the middle of streets trucks still floating in the rivers even after a month as volunteers with masks and orange overalls are still
3:23 trying to help residents Salvage what they can helping one house at a time one 17-year-old girl whose parents and her grandparents were Swept Away by the tsunamis returned home to find nothing there nothing worth salvaging she came to the house of prayer that I was visiting it was a place where a team of
3:54 missionaries had been giving out basic necessities and they had just set up shower stalls this was a supreme act of kindness to the Japanese stricken in This Disaster they need cleanliness this is part of their culture but they have not been able to take a bath or shower for about a month I could not imagine what she felt
4:26 this 17year old girl felt as the hot water washed over her for the first time in a month I wondered if she could feel the waters at all or what these Waters meant and signify to her as I was being driven back by my friend who's a missionary we went through the Fukushima
4:56 prefecture staying of course Far West W as possible from the nuclear power plants in Fukushima you can see the mountain range of Z and Z mountains appeared beyond the clouds and you could see that the cherry blossoms were in full blossom in between at enchanting The
5:28 Villages tucked away in the crevices between the mountains it was so hard to reconcile between the reality of this disaster reality of this Devastation eted fresh in my mind and knowing that still thousands was still unaccounted for my heart felt numb and the beauty of those Mountain ranges and the
6:00 cherry blossoms seemed even cruel to me April is the cruelest month breathing light ax out of the dead dead ground Dead Land mixing memory and desire stirring dull roots with spring rain so Begins the Wasteland by THS ediot which he wrote in 192 too April is the crest month April is
6:34 cruel with LX or right now in Japan with cherry blossoms at the highest realm of beauty Beauty invades our memory and desire of our war and tsunami ravaged Hearts we are awakened to Horrors and Terrors but nature natur does not wait until we stop grieving it moves on as does the world
7:06 as does the media without empathy or knowledge of what really happened my visit to Japan echoed this lament that TS ediot spoke of where Beauty and drama are forced to dwell together today as you begin a New Journey and for you this is a bright April morning full of Hope but we must also remember that for many April indeed has been a cruess
7:38 month we must learn to engage with such intractable realities to engage our creativity within the harsh confines of our broken world and the wide spaces of possibili there of creating the world that ought to be my paintings have become over these many years a lament weaving in and out of our Ground
8:10 Zero conditions into what ediot called the steel point of the Turning world I use traditional Japanese materials of nihonga to paint with pulverized minerals Precious Minerals Gold Silver Platinum these extravagant materials themselves have to be pulverized have to be pounded to become
8:42 beautiful it seems that the refiner fire continues to burn and we have no choice but to go through the process and in such a journey every ideology is tested and found one wanting our faith in God too is tested Zigman Balman a sociologist noted that we live in a liquid modern
9:13 time postmodernity he notes is not solid but liquid and constantly shifting the old allegiances to solidify that things that we assume the modernity are now replaced with uncertainties our foundations are shifting under us literally we have seen in recent times the solidity of our economic system collapse in front of
9:45 us we are now facing new questions in the security behind those nuclear power facilities we're finding that in every sphere in the Arts Sciences businesses and politics there also has been this tsunami of sorts Paradigm shifts taking place how many times have we heard the word unprecedented used in the media headlines today Balman writes
10:19 this it would be imprudent to deny or even to play Down the profound change in which the Advent of fluid modernity has has brought to the Human Condition the remoteness and the unreachability of systematic systemic structure coupled with the unstructured fluid state of immediate set setting of Life politics change that condition in a radical way and call for rethinking of
10:49 old Concepts that used to frame its narratives like zombies such concepts are totally simultaneously dead and alive the Practical question is whether they are their Resurrection albate a new shape or Incarnation is feasible or if it is not how to arrange for their decent and effective burial because of this uncertainty
11:20 because of this insecurity that we face and lack of safety now in this liquid modern times we will have to confront increased cynicism and despair in the days to come the path of Despair is what I'm afraid many Japanese will choose in the days next years to give up hope to embe in this Despair and choose to end their
11:51 lives if we did not teach our children and ourselves that what we imagine and hope for if we do not seek to Define The elusive world that ought to be and then the culture of cynicism is going to Define it for us we are washed in apathy and Terror thus to create in these times in these Waters we must have more than an optimist escapism
12:23 today to create is to have hope today create is to live you see true art does not chase after novelty it is not a it is instead a sensory Quest toward the New Order of what God is creating toward this fully realized Humanity using our senses art poses
12:53 deeper questions rather than giving easy answers to be fully human in this liquid reality we must redefine what cultural fear and cynicism will Define their world that ought to be it is the world that ought to be is not an Utopia it is instead created out of sacrificial love to love is to
13:25 Quest for this world to come to love is to endure and to use all of our senses love is generative and will create a stage for the new to appear the role of an artist today in this liquid reality is to waken all of our senses through creativity and love Mary of Bethany the quintessential artist brought the extravagant KN to anoint
13:58 Jesus in John John 11 she transgressed against the cultural Norm Norm Norms of our day she her wedding perfume that she poured Upon Jesus was the only Earthly possession that Jesus brought to Calvary that Aroma anticipated what is to come a sacrifice of love co-mingled
14:28 with the aroma of the new Aroma created a liquid reality that transcended the chaos the darkness of Jesus journey to Calvary the aroma anticipated a wedding just like we saw yesterday a royal coronation a royal wedding a cosmic wedding the best of the Arts Prov through our senses
14:59 to the memory and desire and it redefined the world to come causing us to rise up like Lazarus Mary's brother from the darkg tomb of cynicism and despair my wife and I recently went to see a production of our town by Thon Wilder at Barrow Street Theater in New York City David Cromer the founder of the theater was the
15:31 producer and he played the narrator famous role magnificently in this small theater on a spare dark stage the famed story of a small New England town was brought to life one scene in particular stood out to me it it was when young Emily who died giving birth Earth is caught somewhere between life and death
16:03 fighting to recover her memory she is given the opportunity to move back in time to her 12th birthday at this point the stock colors of the small stage begin to change and faintly we and the audience begin to detect an a Roma at first we think that it's a nearby restaurant cooking their
16:35 dinner but this Aroma is not of dinner but it's of breakfast it's the aroma of bacon and eggs and we're looking around and we realized that the producers had this surprise in store for us the entire backstage open up opens up to reveal yet another stage filed with color and light real
17:09 bacon and eggs are being cooked by Emily's mother Emily's memory though fading away is depicted as far more real than the reality of the main stage or even the great site in which the other character characters so stoically sit before Emily returns to her place of death she is given perhaps for the first time a full
17:41 experience of reality with a capital R fully engaging our senses in the process what if there is a reality behind the real reality that we know what if there is a stage behind the stage of Our Lives what if our memory and desire
18:13 points to a greater reality what if Emily's Lial State can be reversed from Death to life at least in our audience's experience the smell of the bacon is real and poses powerful questions about the nature reality and nature of art of course the effect on the audience is that we W witness Emily's memories
18:45 fading away disappearing and we're made to feel the coldness of Earth she settles comfortably into the graveyard with the others losing herself in the process there is this play is a lament as well of what is lost what is being washed away it is a comment on the modern condition that even before death we are senseless only half
19:18 alive for me for Emily the memory Fades but for the audience her memory has become a new reality full of the aroma of the new that is the power of the Arts the Arts can remain a fresh experience even though the memory and desires fade so in our liquid time art needs to become the aroma of bacon and eggs it is not the art of the novel but
19:49 the art of the familiar that awakens our memory to the Core Essence of Our Lives to the morning of our 12th birthdays with solid Notions being washed away as new fears of our day creep into our Consciousness every day we must insist on reminding people that there is a stage behind the stage a reality behind the reality but instead of reminding people
20:20 of the cold Earth we need to awaken the deposit of what is to come there is is a banquet waiting for us Beyond a veil if all is in a flux our task is to touch the fragile Earth with the promise of Heaven the Gospel of Jesus makes this possible think of John chapter 21 in his post-resurrection glory Jesus is cooking
20:53 his post Resurrection breakfast think of the fish that he is cooking where did he get this fish did he simply create the fish at will or cause it to jump right out of the lake onto his lab and he's eating in his post-resurrection body so was the fish resurrected as
21:27 well the aroma you see this invites this incredulous disciples to partake not only in a conversation but to a meal the aroma invites us to a New Kingdom this is the aroma of the new what the producers of our town touched perhaps unconsciously was this cord of realization a hunger that points to what is come
21:59 the world may call this the world that ought to be CS Lewis called it zanz a German word that can be translated as a longing he stated in his essay the weight of his glow weight of Glory for they art and music are not the thing in itself they are only the scent of a flower we have not heard the echo of a tune we have not the the FL Center of FL that we have not found the echo of a
22:30 tune that we have not heard news from a country we have never yet visited I'm going to go a bit further than louw here his friend Jr toin would have I am convinced that art and music while not the thing itself contain the aroma the actual Aroma of the new artists where the cognizant of Christ or
23:01 not detect this Aroma bacon and eggs point to that reality therefore graduates of B Haven you have already tasted the aroma of the new when you dance when you play your violin when you sing when you draw what you see and what you hear and what you smell and touch our senses invites us into the aroma of
23:32 the new the Two Worlds the old and the new are connected in yarts typically we stop and think about such idealistic realities enchantments and say we want to dismiss it by saying something like well that performance that singing was glorious but we must now return to reality and do something useful pragmatism will revert us like emity in our town back to cold Earth and deaden
24:08 sensus the world that ought to be is that is already embedded in your senses God's hand touches us even through the cold Earth of death and despair even though we are being Swept Away washed away in the sea of liquid modernity the gospel is an aroma the aroma of the new and the aroma will reach us even in the darkest despair token wrote of such a world in
24:41 The Lord of the Rings how dear says this the world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places but still there is much that is fair and though in all all lands L love is mingled with grief it grows perhaps the greater love my friends is today mingled with grief and yet love grows greater
25:13 create in and through that love calm the seeds of your anxiety and Infuse New Life deep into the poisoned well of culture come and dance play and paint upon your ground zero conditions that is how we must love the world step into the receding Waters filled with poison but do it in faith then the stenches of death will be
25:45 replaced by the aroma of the new the stage behind the stage will open up and instead of being forced to surrender to the cold Earth we will dance upon the waters hear new sounds and create new colors thank you very much