Spirituality Theatre Philosophy Theology
I was sent this a day after seeing ‘The Social Network’. I believe this to be true, in my experience.
To add this to ‘An Idea!’ posts I’d suggest that ‘the spaces that have historically led to unusual rates of creativity and innovation’ is the place, whether spatial or emotional, named ‘exile’.
We’ll start by beginning to gather the five questions we finished with and making some possible links between them.
I think the first question, ‘who are ‘artists’?’, is a key question.
At the heart of this is who is creative? What makes some people creative and others not? The research that showed that the same act of recalling our episodic memory is similar to the act of imagining future episodes and creating a construct in our ‘mind’s eye’ show some correlation between the act of remembrance and creativity. In remembering an incident or episode we are involved in a creative act. Our brains are being creative. As human beings, therefore, in any act of remembering, recalling past events, we are being creative. I would suggest we are all, naturally, creative. There is, of course, some extreme cases of damage to this part of our brain where people can’t remember but, on the whole, we are creative.
In Genesis we read that God made us in His image. What this means is a massive concept but I want to draw on the creativity of God. I believe God created everything, He constructed it in His mind (if He had one) and constructed it in reality… wow the complexity is frightening! As humans we have been given the faculty, from God, to do likewise. His first command to us is to go forth and multiply…create. Now, creation of a child does not take any brain activity. When most people approach sex they don’t imagine the future child! God, however, seems to give humanity a special task of managing and subduing creation, this is a creative act. God asks us to be creative with His world to adapt it and grow it. The term ‘bara’ used in the creation narrative is the verb ‘to create’ and it is only used with God as the subject. Only God can ‘create’. As humans we are able to re-create. The research seems to suggest that we have an innate creativity in all of us.
For some this is easier than for others but I don’t think we can divide up humanity into those who are creative and those who aren’t. All of us are creative and all of us are able to be part of a creative act.
This may answer the second question, ‘how is the act of remembrance connected with creativity?’, and goes on to connect with this understanding of exile as ‘fertile ground’.
When we go into exile we are forced to participate in an act of collective recollection. This is an act of creativity. A group of people are forced to be creative and, therefore, participate in an act of humanity ‘made in the image of God’ and, therefore, are imitating God.
This may then answer the question, ‘Why does God seem to turn up in the time of exile?’ God turns up in exile when we start to, by recalling and being creative, etc., act in a way that is God-like.
This all has massive implications in the original question, ‘how does the church connect with ‘displacement deniers’?’.
I have for some time felt called to ‘artists’ and in particular theatre artists. This category has been extended as my understanding seems to be that all people are creative and therefore artists. This is un-helpful for me. My definition needs to be addressed. Artists must be restricted to describe a person who engages in art, a certain type of creative act. Everyone is able to engage with art but some choose not to and others do. Artists (those who choose to engage with art) tend to be more spiritually aware than those who do not choose to engage with art. Is art, therefore, key to spiritual awareness?
I’d like to suggest that it is and if we take this on board, with the body of evidence given previously, then to engage those people who deny their spiritual side we need to engage them in artistic endeavour for a
period of time.
Why is it some people don’t like art? There must be a hundred and one reasons why some people don’t but I’d like to be naive and suggest there is a fear or confusion as to how one engages in art. I need to look into this area!
What if the way we, as the church, connect with ‘displacement deniers’ is to put them into exile? Put them into a place where they are forced to recall the past, ache for home, emotionally engage with episodic recollection? Exile is the place where stories are told. Story-telling the basic creative act; it’s the act where we consciously recall episodes. When we do this we are also able then to imagine future constructions and be ‘creative’ and produce art; painting, theatre, music, etc. It is in this act of creativity that in some mysterious way God appears and/or we become aware of our spiritual life.
In my placement I’m excited by what we are discovering together about how we are creative, the correlation between nostalgia, exile and community… Thank you God for beginning this journey and thank you for bringing me such creative people to explore with.
I’d like to start by apologising for my absence from this blog site. This is due to a whole load of issues culminating in a very busy period at college. Thankfully that season has gone and I head into a winding down for the Christmas break.
During my short break from writing there have been a lot of reflections buzzing around my head that, in some way, connect together and I’ve been struggling (without the blog to help) to connect them up. Yesterday, however, I had a moment where several hunches collided together and I started to travel on journey of creativity… and creativity sits at the heart of the idea.
Before I begin the story I want to add a preface: This is still incomplete and, as usual, would be open to engagement from you, the reader.
Where do I begin?
I have two starting points for the same proposal; one is from the initial spark of the idea, the other is from the point where all the little hunches have come together into this idea…or I could go from the middle and allow everything to network onto that… that’s three… I’ll choose the third!
Ian Mobsby, the ordained leader of the Moot community (see ‘Sacramental Theatre (part IV)‘ post), visited our college on Tuesday to speak on New Monasticism and how those researching this form of missional church is connecting with ‘unchurched’ people in this hybrid context of pre-modern, modern and post-secular culture. What do all those terms mean? Unchurched defines those who have never had any contact with church. Pre modern describes those aspects of culture that pre-date the printing press, e.g. the sense of self and purpose often expressed via a faith in a deity or deities, a lack of emphasis on the individual preferring the understanding of communal. Modern are those aspects of culture that have come in after the invention of the printing press, e.g. scientific objectivity, the need or desire for evidence to prove arguments, a disregard of that which cannot be quantified or set. Mike King defines post-secular as
• a renewed interest in the spiritual life
• a relaxation off the secular suspicion towards spiritual questions
• a recognition that secular rights and freedoms of expression are a prerequisite to the renewal of spiritual enquiry
• a spiritual and intellectual pluralism, East and West
• a cherishing of the best in all spiritual traditions, East and West, while recognising the repression sometimes inflicted on individuals or societies in the name of ‘religion’
Mobsby sub categorised the ‘unchurched’ category into groups of differing spiritual awareness all of which are, in some way, being connected with by the church through different relationships. One, however, has been overlooked; ‘displacement deniers’.
This category is for those in our society who deny their need for spirituality or God and displaces that hunger with activity. This describes, to greater and lesser extents, the majority of people I come in contact with. Are artists in this category? I’d say “generally no”. Artists, as I have said before, are spiritual people, aware of that aspect of their life but I have begun to notice that ‘artists’ although aware of their spirituality can also be sub categorised into two parts; ‘engagers’ and ‘deniers’. That seems to be saying that artists are like everyone else and they are! What a surprise!!! But to say all artists are spiritual does not fully describe the group, in fact by dividing this group in this way I begin to see that the grouping ‘artist’ is unclear and complex…
Michael Sadgrove, Dean of Durham Cathedral, came to speak at college a couple of weeks ago on the topic of ‘Laments in the Psalms’ but focussed on the themes of remembrance, memory and exile. I’ll start with the theme of exile. I’ve been interested in this idea for some time now, since reading ‘Exiles’ by Michael Frost and hearing Rob Bell preach on the first chapters of Ezekiel (which have had a big impact on my call to ministry!) Frost argues that the church finds itself in exile; a group in an alien culture like Israel in Babylon. Some could argue that, in this multi-cultural, facetted, predominantly secular society of the UK, most people could describe themselves as exiles. Sadgrove discussed his observations of Rememberance Day; an act of collective remembering, a time when we deliberately reflect on the past. This day, Sadgrove observed, has become increasingly popular in recent years and he could not explain why. I’d like to suggest that it is this has something to do with the sense of exile most people, both inside and outside the church, connect with…
What is exile? I’d define exile as a place or mindset of unsettledness, a place where you do not feel ‘at home’. It is also a place where we are forced to look and reflect on where we have come from, home. To think about what ‘home’ means to us. Exile is, Sadgrove said, ‘fertile ground’. There is something in this place of exile that causes creative growth and powerful transformation. Biblically, also, exile has always been a place where God has moved. We think of the wilderness in Egypt, Babylon, post-exilic Jerusalem for Israel. It is in these places (particularly the latter) where ‘God turns up’. Let me take Ezekiel as an example. His home, both spiritual and physical, is destroyed and he is dragged out from there. He is forced, in Babylon, to reflect on his home. It is while he is reflecting, remembering, that God comes in a powerful vision and Ezekiel falls face down and worships…
In the group that I’m a part of for placement, we’ve been discussing the topic of ‘home’. We’ve been telling stories of ‘home’ and common themes have been appearing; family, comfort and shared history. This final idea has struck me as important.
Sadgrove spoke on the idea of ‘nostalgia’ and defined it as ‘an aching for home’ which is an interesting definition compared with the accepted understanding as ‘a yearning for the past, often idealised.’ Is there something in that comparison between ‘home’ and ‘the idealised past’?
As the group has discussed ‘home’ and shared history there will inevitably be a glossing of the facts, an idealising, an interpretation of the past. Rowan Williams, in his book ‘Why Study the Past?’, suggests that the past can never be seen objectively, historians cannot remain aloof from the telling of history. One member of the group said they’d been present at a lecture on memory and heard the suggestion that the act of remembering occurs when the brain recalls a sensation, previously experienced and then attempts to paint the individual sensations that made up that experience, i.e. the visual, the audible, the tangible, etc. Memory is a complex thing and research is still being done on how the brain ‘remembers’ but what most psychologists do agree on is that the act of remembering a specific episode is deeply interrelated to the act of future episodic construction in the brain (see ‘Using Imagination to Understand the Neural Basis of Episodic Memory’ article)…
We currently have five major questions; how does the church begin to connect with ‘displacement deniers’? who are ‘artists’? how is the act of remembrance connected with creativity? Why does God seem to turn up in the time of exile?
I’ll pause there so you can gather your thoughts.
I’d usually publish the next part tomorrow but I’ve published the two parts together so, if you are up for it, you can continue to read today and not lose your flow of thoughts and ideas.
I’m sat in Sanctuary 21 after another introductory meeting for my placement. Two people came tonight but instead of being disappointed I am overjoyed. Why?
I have come to realise that this small ‘drip-drip’ approach to the start of this group is more in keeping with the ‘organic’ nature I felt was needed. The big flashy, explosion onto the scene was never going to work. As I approached tonight I was struck by how Jesus started his ministry; by gathering one or two and focussing on getting to know them and building them up and the rest followed suit. I was particularly drawn to John’s account where the first two went and invited others to come.
I’ve been thinking about the way in which people begin to belong. I’ve returned to my months of deep listening that I’ve done since a year ago. It’s important for me to note the changing understanding of what this group may look like. My vision is not perfect and to look back over the common themes and points of interest is important to see clearly what is developing. Throughout my journal I have written a need to model community, natural, raw and organic. One of my notes has the quote from ‘Organic Community’,
We need to bear in mind that the most accurate word to describe the process of forcing intimate connection is rape.
This may sound harsh and ‘over the top’ but to force people to be community is never pastoral and is not godly. This connects with one of the things I noticed about the DST. I want to clarify, before I note the things that I have become important in the last week, what I really think and feel about DST as an organisation with the people involved. I love the DST. I love the work they’re producing. It is full of talented, passionate and intelligent people who are very successful, both here in Durham and across the country. I want to lift them up as a great example of student theatre and the potential is really exciting. What follows are three things that I felt was lacking in the DST and ‘gaps in the market’ where I feel the new group developing here at Sanctuary 21 will fill.
The first thing I noticed and have re-read in my journal, marking my deep listening, is a sense of how many auditions there are each week.
Most of the people I have come to know, and admire, will go from audition to audition, some successful and some not. This cannot be healthy for a person’s sense of self. I have seen this in professional theatre as well. An individual will just travel round and put themselves on the line so often that sooner or later they will forget who ‘themself’ is. As a defense mechanism an actor will quickly begin to perform and say what they think a director wants to hear or see. I experienced many people come to auditions for my theatre company and they will be performing the whole time. I wanted to know who people were, what they were about but all I got was a walking CV with what they have done or what they can do (juggling, acrobatics, accents,etc.). Auditions force artists to say and do things that may not fully describe what they are about and soon they will lose sight of what they have to truly offer.
I must remember that auditions must never play a part in this group. I want to truly discover what each individual has to offer and to honour their unique creative voice. I want to encourage everyone to know they are a part of the group not because of their aptitude to perform but because they are uniquely made. Any conversation where I am welcoming someone into the group must be clearly a welcome to the community rather than a test/interview/audition. I have begun to tell the people who are now becoming this group to voice this in any conversation; “We don’t audition, you are welcome if you want to join.”
The second thing I have noticed in my journal is my interest in the speed at which shows are produced. The usual rehearsal period is three weeks, at times its two. This has its benefits; it means people get lots of experience of a wide range of plays and meeting lots of people. I will not deny that it does get people mixing and it means people get a packed CV for future careers. Again I see an unhealthy aspect to this approach. If you were an actor and you were digging into your emotional memory to perform a character and then the show just finished and you moved straight onto the next thing without giving that emotional journey closure and you repeated this again and again then what does this create in you. There’s a pastoral issue here of managing your emotions. Relationships are never given enough time to grow deep and so, although your meeting lots of people, you’re not investing fully into them as you know you’ll be finishing the show in two or three weeks. Due to funding cuts the professional theatre has adapted this model of work where an individual actor may move from one company to another without developing long term relationships.
This has been a big drive to the creation of this group. At this time we have no need for funding and so we can be extravagant and explore what happens when a real ‘company’ is created and those relationships are as much a part of the creative process as the individual. The group, therefore, must be committed long-term with each other. Any ‘product’ does not mark the end of the relationship but a shared experience from which we can grow together.
The final thing that I have been reminded of this week is what I’ve witnessed in terms leadership. In individual companies there’s a sense of hierarchical power play. There is a producer and a director who drive the rehearsals and the actors who follow that vision. Due to the shortness of the rehearsal period an actor just turns up and does what the director wants and the choice of story/script is down to the director. Obviously an actor will choose if they want to be a part of that play but, from my observations, most people don’t actually care about the play they just want to do anything. This puts a lot of pressure on directors and also builds for them a pedestal on which some love and others hate. Directors and producers become the ‘gods’ of this community. People talk to them because they have something to offer (a part) and this makes it a lonely existence. I’m not saying that it’s this extreme but I’m painting a picture.
This image mirrors what is happening in churches and something that I don’t want to model… but that’s another issue!
This group must have, in its DNA, a flat leadership or rotational leadership. The group is the responsibility of each member not just me who suggested its inception. The existence is based around each giving themselves and steering it. This allows the potential for sustainability and flexibility in future.
I want to finish by stating one final thing. I’m still fairly open to see where God will fit into this. I know He will be present but I don’t want to cut out His role, I’d prefer He just took His place. Does this require all of them to be Christian? No. Would God exist even if all His creation denied Him? That’s a big question to leave you with!