My dad has this painting that I think perfectly sums up our angry little world we live in. Everybody's a preacher of the "truth" but since there are no absolutes, no one needs to listen to anyone else.
Post-modernism is the culmination of the confusion started way back with the unfinished Tower of Babel. At least back in the days of Babel, people worked together to make one foolish thing, but since then, everyone has their own little tower they're building.
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said "imagine world peace" and the cynic in me thought "I'm imagining it and it only lasted two seconds before someone messed it up again."
But then I thought longer and really world peace will come in two phases. The first already came when the disciples were praying and suddenly they were fluent in all the languages spoken by the people in Jerusalem. Everyone thought they were drunk. (Can you really be eloquent in a foreign language when you're drunk?)
This was a temporary restoration of the folly of Babel, but at the end of the age, Christ will return and restore all things to the way they were in Eden. That will be world peace.
Until that time we live in this paradox of Babel and Pentecost. There are still people with their bullhorns, but if we listen carefully, we can hear the still small voice telling us how to love in an unlovely world. Yesterday's song said
"Its so hard but I'm listening to hear your song above the din."and that is what's tough about living in the paradox of Babel and Pentecost- its so hard to hear the Spirit sometimes. Our thoughts crowd it out. Our iPods drown it out. The TV is on constantly.
The Tower of Babel has played a pretty prominent role in the imagery in my stories and songs. In my song, "When We Come Home", I have a line that goes something like this:
"We keep building our towers to the skyIn that line I was addressing the folly and futility of empire building and hoarding wealth.
just to see them crash around our ears
Towers made of Gold and Silver
but one day we'll all speak the same words again."
In "A Week in September" the World Trade Center towers literally became the Tower of Babel. In the aftermath of their destruction, people babbled about why it happened and the meaning of it all. Some said it was God's judgment against our country for our sins of the past. Others used it as an excuse to party. Still others tried to use it as a rallying point for the country. (Beyond the scope of the story, you can see how Babel crept into definition of "patriotism"- some said it meant there should be no criticism of the administration and some used it as an excuse to criticize everything.)
Maybe you are reading this and you think I'm babbling and making no sense.
Thus is the way of the world after the Tower of Babel. People can say the same words and mean two different things.
I've made a lot of art and music about this confusion and babel, but now I struggle to make it about Pentecost when all is restored. For in making art and music about Babel, I was actually longing Pentecost. Longing for the babel to stop and for us all to "speak the same words again".
And I need to be listening better.
pentecost babel 9/11 four+track+wonderland postmodernism
1 comments:
Perhaps another of my paintings could be used to show a positive Pentacost-type image. My favorite painting of the Music Maker, which you posed for has a similar theme. There is a diversity of songbirds, each with different plumage and songs. But they are all unified in directing their songs the the Author of the Music. Their focus is united toward the center. You can fill in the rest.
Thanks for sharing my art work with others and linking it to my site. I might even give you a watermark-free version of them.
Dad
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