"The unhappy person is one who is possessed by some idea which he cannot convert into action." --Goethe

the rising music in me finds no outlet;
it cannot wrench itself from
the pragmatism of survival
of the body that carries it.
this world favors toil over joy!
what can I say about the curse
that is not evident?
that which can only be expressed
through melodies
drowning.

God:
show me what is true.
place in the hold
of my timid fingers
the cut feather

I wish to sign
with my own blood,
and have been trying!

but I cannot bleed enough;
I am always a letter short.

the flesh of Christ
cured and braided into rope,
is noosed
gently around my neck.
I believe my soul
will sling out through my feet
the moment my neck
splits.

I see my reflection peering up at me
from the pool at the foot of the gallows.
I look the same,
not like a man about to die.
perhaps the vulgar red of the pool
overwhelms the joy
and terror in my eyes.

if you are a christian, you are on welfare.
you live in the subsidized ghetto earth
you pursue your selfish desires, believing they are not selfish
you judge other people for being on welfare
then you accept the welfare check of grace
believing that you did something
to earn it.

"Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason—a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world." --Oswald Chambers

oh God, where is your power?
prayer does not make a warrior
and there is little sense in love.
brokenness is the way of life
for the kingdom of blessed men.
should failure be an embrace?
the questions jump and pop from
fickle believing hearts
like sparks from a campfire.
the wood is stacked high
and there are plenty of trees to cut down.
but even vast landscapes of campfires
cannot light the sky,
and we can discern no smoke
through the darkness.
looking down from heaven,
angels name constellations of the
yellow and orange specks.
I am part of the constellation that has
for centuries been attempting letters.
we wish to spell a reminder:
at the core of embers is coal.
but we too are jinxed by
the cult of success and stability;
how we prefer
its sensible lies.

There is a fine line between finding inspiration and indulging compulsion. Frequently in my notes, written on scraps of paper, in notebooks, and in computer text files, I have written "find inspiration." Inspiration to write, inspiration to play music, inspiration to love. But I compulsively indulge distractions to plug the haunting emptiness of life. These distractions often masquerade as things in which I find inspiration: poems, music, the word of God, people, and nature. I listen to the same song over and over, read the same verse over and over, but I feed on it as escape and do not search its subtleties for the muse.

Is it inspiration I really look for? If I became inspired, would that lead to truth or more self-indulgence? Even now, I sit here at my desk, drinking beer and having completed no work today, after just coming back from an hour-long midnight walk around my neighborhood which I took to get away from the computer addiction. Lord God, have mercy on me, a compulsive man who indulges counterfeit grace. My generation has a fetish for media. We are addicted to online social networking, cell phones, and television. It is our compulsive perpetual search for meaning, or distraction from the reality that we lack meaning. May we see you, Lord Jesus, and know you as the one who gives life. May we not feel guilty for our failures and boast only in your grace.

oh God, show me how
you redeem this world.
let me walk the dark streets of
its decaying cities
and see unfulfiled grace,
may I speak prayers of compassion
in my mercenary heart.

"We cannot attain to a vision, we must live in the inspiration of it until it accomplishes itself." --Oswald Chambers

many leaks in my spirit:
the impatience of passion
breeding superficial hope.
the darkness knows me.
it is a well of uncountable
beating lies

the commercialism of my abandonment
to a life of vision:
what I want is so consuming!
what strength do I have
to recall with tenacity
the vision of redemption?

oh, to be there!
in that moment of repentance
to draw up an unfeigned cry
that fearlessly sings
among the dead.
I sense His call,
a misunderstood tickling
like a tiny point of light
holding back the fusion of a billion stars.
the laughing suspicion of my heart,
it is from the great deep
but from it I can take no esteem
if it is the Spirit
that claims me

the white figure!
calm, poised at his center.
the patrons around her
are draped in shadows, disfigured.
they have scraps of indulgence
to leave for her.
she is a ghost
carved of smoke to flatter the gods.
she is wonder,
a jealousy of the painter's heart.
she serves the pride of wine,
and a fierce sorrow
frames her beauty.
the awning offers no protection,
it is on fire!
but the flames cannot illuminate the faces
of the bourgeois
can they burn like coals?
they do not see
her,
holy sister of
the deep French night

link to the painting

At last year's IAM conference, I asked Dana Gioia, the chairman for the National Endowment of the Arts, about his recommendations for arts in the public schools. I was working with Young Audiences at the time as a visiting performer for kids in various schools. He said, "Let me be very clear about this. Public school teachers have the most important job in the country." He went on to describe the increasing need for arts in our schools in the 21st century and the importance of having teachers who believe in the arts as a means to communicate redemption, truth, and beauty to younger generations. His words convicted me. That was the most influential moment in my decision to attend Eastman for music education. Even though Eastman is the most elite school in the country for graduate work in music, it was the only school I applied to; there was no backup plan. I felt called by God and followed Him not knowing how it would all work out.

My experience at IAM this year was equally as moving. As our culture becomes increasingly fragmented and media-centric, artists will play a crucial role in providing a message of hope. The utilitarian, deterministic philosophies that plague our society have more trouble convincing us of their universal relevance despite their objective stability. People are haunted by the suspicion that science, despite its power to explain the laws that govern our universe, cannot explain me. Reason alone cannot provide humanity with the mystifying, fundamental needs of beauty, love, and truth. What is truth? The enlightenment, for all it's service to the human condition, has failed the human soul.

Unfortunately, the church has been infected by these utilitarian values. The logical four-point plan for salvation seems just as dry and lifeless as deterministic science. The Bible as a life instruction manual discredits the longings of the human heart. Art has the power to communicate the longings of the human heart. Art can articulate the brokenness of the world and the hope of redemption. The truth and beauty we cannot explain with reasoned arguments, artists are called by God to breath into their colors, sounds, movements, characters, poetry, and lives. IAM is a movement of artists whose passion for art is yolked with with a passion for humanity. God has privileged us to join our work with His work, the redemption of His creation.

"I cannot miss that art is about humanity - faces. After all is said and done, the simplicity of coming face to face will be what matters. Could it be that art - creation - all of our labor - all of our work - is so that we as human being can come face to face and know at the deepest level each other? And by that, know God? We create, I think because we want to know and be known beyond expression - though expression is the necessary road by which we must travel." --Alex Scott

We are surrounded by so much media--how can we tell the difference between the message and the noise? The purpose of modern media is to distract you and lead you astray, to impregnate you with ideas for commercial purpose. A very small number of people controls the vast majority of media in this country--who are these people and what are their values? We are like Pavlov's dog with media; we salivate to these powerful images regardless if they lead to any truth. American culture is America's biggest export. The rest of the world sees us through the denigrating messages of our media. Are we amusing and distracting ourselves to death? Artists will play a crucial role in the developing post-information age. Artists communicate ideas with precision and meaning. It will be a challenge for artists to communicate redemption powerfully without falling in love with that power.

E pluribus unum: out of many, one, written on our money. But isn't our society increasingly fractured? Isn't it more like the many becoming even more?

The mission field is no longer geographic, it is a cultural one. Artists are the trailblazers of culture.

Artists specialize in excess, like God's love, grace, and creation is excessive. The arts are excessive, yet they are vital.

Art can be so beautiful that it makes you nostalgic. It makes you homesick. It is longing for God.

Before the fall, God had Adam name the animals. In doing so, Adam discovered that he lacked. God used man's creativity to help him discover his his need for Eve.

In this declining age of information, we know more about everything, but less about everything.

Artists must create with the belief in the liberation of all people.

This world is world is 95% catastrphe, 100% grace.

Artists live with monsters. We cannot separate ourselves from the twisted, broken, and lost realities of life. Artists often suffer from depression. For this reason, the church has exorcized us if we are monsters ourselves. We artists must learn how to live in the critical zone, living with both Jesus and monsters, and challenge the church to do the same. Only by embracing the brokenness of the world, as Jesus did, can we draw out the beauty of redemption. An example: this sculpture of a tree made completely out of decommissioned guns.

"The artist queries the last privelages of our existence and tells us to change our life." --George Steiner

If you desire influence as an artist, what you really want is responsibility. Artists who wield irresponsible influence afforded them by their gift betray humanity. As Jesus took responsibility for us, so artists are called by God to take responsibility for others and be servants to a broken world. Artists can be the good samaritans of a culture that has been highjacked by utilitarianism and greed.

For art to be authentic, it must maintain the posture of art the the world is both beautiful and broken. For art to produce hope, the artist must have a vision of the world that ought to be, the world as God wants to re-make it.

“We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so... The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” --C.S. Lewis

Jesus' parables used simplicity that a child could understand, yet depth that wise men cannot fully understand. God drew from the same toolbox that artists use: metaphor, imagery, cadence, and story.

Every finished work must be redrawn several times, re-written, re-discovered. Find a doorway into the story, into my deep self.

From Daniel Libeskind interview: In business, there is a very specific goal that is to be attained. You live your life for this or that. But artists don't live like this. We wander this very narrow path, discovering each step along the way.

How can we, as Christians, be dangerous as Christ is dangerous?