| March 30, 2008 | The Unnamed Justice and the Reenchantment of Art Farrell Boyce |
Opening Words
“The impossibly pure vision acts as some sort of magnet drawing reality in it’s direction.” Annie Gottlieb, photographer, as quoted by Suzi Gablik in The Re-enchantment of Art
Early this year, Richard Bocking spoke from this pulpit on indices of the quality of life. He pointed out that the most commonly used figure of merit for industrial societies, the Gross National Product (GNP) might bear on the quality of life insofar as an increased GNP might correlate with increasing employment but otherwise Bocking makes the assumption that the quality of life correlates most directly with the consumption of goods and services or military preparedness.
Sermon
The environmental crisis we are currently facing is of course strongly associated with the dubious figure of merit, the GNP. Although we need to be technically savvy in order to deal with this crisis, I am sceptical of the notion that rapid switching to green technology alone can solve the crisis and thereby keep the GNP Juggernaut rolling. My personal assessment is that the loss of social cohesion as a result of the social and economic stresses of “scarcity” is a more immediate danger in both rich and poor countries than environmental collapse. We need to do everything we can to continue living and acting in just and purposeful community while we deal with the longer-term problems.
We make sense of the complicated social interactions among our associates by virtue of a set of learned and shared behaviours and expectations. So do social animals such as baboons, chimps and wolves. In aggregate, such shared patterns of human behaviour can be considered as a worldview or a culture. We humans owe some of our cultures to our genetic inheritance and to our landscapes, but a lot of it we make up as we go along. I like to think of our collection of learned images and behaviours as a set of maps by which we orient ourselves to the terrain of actual experiences. We would be adrift without such a map but, as we know, it is a serious error to mistake the map for the terrain. Because it can be painful to alter a familiar map to fit new data, because we have learned to read and exploit the old map so successfully, we are tempted to ignore evidence that the old map is no longer adequate.
Critics of our Western Industrial Culture, and I am one, will tell you that our current map is the wrong one for today. It is a map attuned to the dominator, patriarchal mode, to the egocentric Cartesian separation of the self from the rest of the world. It may have brought us material wealth but at the cost of progressive despoiling the sources of that wealth. This is the disconnect so eloquently expressed by Richard Bocking.
I was going to read you a very dark poem that might reflect the confusion and fear of someone to whom the map no longer made sense but who lacked the skill or courage to navigate on his or her own. Instead I will read a more hopeful poem based on a suggestion by Terry Czyz in which everybody in the poem abandons their inadequate maps, returns to the community and begins to navigate by direct observation.
The Road to Enlightenment Is Not Paved
The Road to Enlightenment is not paved
And good intentions melted on the Road to Hell.
That's why this world is so darn cluttered
With nasty types who vent their mean frustrations,
Denied apprenticeships below.
And if that weren't bad enough,
There's all these bodies, wordless,
Propped on pillows, staring at candles,
Waiting for the urge to work it out.
The other night I dreamed both routes were open,
Asbestos asphalt and fresh-Zambonied ice.
Heck, there were free roller-blades and skates at the
neon-lighted portals
And folks were whizzing off in both directions.
Soon there was just me,
Alone here on Innisfree,
With my bean patch and my honey bees,
And the trout in the lake,
And no one tugging at my soul.
So I poured myself a cool one
And was settling back to watch the puffy clouds
Perambulating through the blue
When disappointed skaters burst into the clearing,
Chucking their roller-blades and skates
Into the nearest bushes and the lake,
Having learned that the freaking roads were circular.
And I was disappointed, too,
But glad in the end to have the company.
So here we all are again, our dreams unravelling,
I never was much for travelling.
Critics of the Western Industrial Map will tell you that the new map will recognize that our individuality and autonomy are not absolute, that there are important parts of the body outside the skin, that ego-centrism will be replaced by eco-centrism. The map will indicate that we are embedded in relationships that have always been in a state of flux, that the map will require frequent updating. Happiness will have less to do with the GNP and a lot more to do with fully belonging to and enjoying the web of life, the gorgeous array of the elements of earth and the panoply of the stars.
At the Hamilton Unitarian Church I once presented a sermon entitled “Living With Bad News”. My quest was how to come to grips with the disheartening knowledge that as participants in the prevailing industrial culture, we all went to bed each night having made more mess than we cleaned up. What I learned from researching this theme was that theologians have long recognized that the human condition (possibly as a the result of a primitive ego-centred version of consciousness) is fundamentally one of spiritual brokenness or separation. However, even in a broken condition it is possible to find grace (read, for example, the famous sermon on grace by Paul Tillich). Without the possibility of grace in a broken world, the bad news of which I speak can lead to a paralysis of denial, self-loathing and despair. Environmental brokenness can be seen as a special case of spiritual brokenness and it is good to know that this view, reflected in our UU principles is widely accepted by many spiritual leaders today.
Activism as a response to brokenness/separation carries it’s own dangers of separation as when a person becomes discouraged and overcome by feelings of inadequacy; or when that person becomes contemptuous of those who will not hear the message; or when the activist becomes motivated by egotism. Activism too, needs to find its state of grace.
But every one here may take comfort. We are in the right place. In the Unitarian Church we can find the validation we need to pursue our contributions to activism. This is not a church of despair; this is a Church that acknowledges many paths to a state of grace. This is a Church whose principles are right for the times, principles that ask only to be studied, embraced and lived, principles that require no painful oaths or other rituals of initiation. But this Church is not a restaurant - it is a kitchen where everyone contributes ingredients and helps to prepare the feast. We all have the responsibility to act and the more difficult the task; the more we need the support of an intentional value-based community. The Unitarian Church points in the direction of the new map.
Although a prime concern today is the environmental consequence of human-induced global warming, we should know from long experience that environmental justice (applied across nature but now controlled by humans) cannot be achieved in the absence of social and economic justice in human societies. People that struggle to meet basic needs for sustenance and dignity for today cannot be expected to make sacrifices for a better environment tomorrow. I use the word justice advisedly because to me it signifies not perfection but a state of fairness in the present circumstances, a state of sufficiency for the moment.
But what should guide or mediate the tensions among environmental, economic and social justice? Enlightened self-interest has been proposed in the past. Our great-grandfathers’ settled Aboriginal people on small tracts of land and suggested that they learn to farm. Our culture has induced the non-industrialized countries to adopt market economies so that they may benefit from such things as economies of scale, foreign investment and become more like us lest by sheer numbers and the desperation of their misery they threaten us. In the end it seems that self-interest, enlightened or not, is simply that.
So I am drawn to a concept I cannot yet fully define, a kind of justice not yet perfect but roughly functioning that I will call for the time being “Spiritual Justice”. Spiritual Justice is the integrated “merit” of combinations of the other three justices, a dependent variable of economic, social and environmental justices. You might suggest other names for “Spiritual Justice” such as “Moral Justice”, compassion, mindfulness, etc. Robert Pirsig in his book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” referred to “quality” as a desirable characteristic of both machines and human transactions. He claimed that one did not have to waste time on rigorous definitions of quality - people recognized it when they encountered it. I believe that “Spiritual Justice” might have a similar aura. If Spiritual Justice could be considered as a function of economic, social and environmental justice, then it would be zero wherever any of the other justices were absent and the optimum adjustments from the present state to the future should be in the direction that produces the greatest increase in Spiritual Justice.
Inevitably, when one proposes such a concept as Spiritual Justice and the flash of real or imagined insight fades, one is left with the task of getting down to cases. Starting with the simple, we might look for Spiritual Justice at the scale of the individual or of small groups working in direct encounter with one another. I think that Spiritual Justice could be present during the deliberations of the Social Responsibility Initiative of the Unitarian Church. Participants may feel they are drawn to one of the driving justices or another but together they confront all of them and must choose to act on the basis of some notion of balance or optimum direction not based on self-interest but because collectively the choice feels right and in the end something needs to be done if only to bear witness to shortfall. Because the actions of the SRC are small in comparison with the scales of the problems addressed, the actions must be offered in a spirit of humility and hope. This I believe is an example of Spiritual Justice in play.
Working as an intentional community of activists, guided by an innate sense of spiritual justice avoids some of the pitfalls of single-minded activism mentioned earlier, discouragement, contempt, ego. The Ragged Raven Initiative with which I am involved outside the Church has many similarities with the Unitarian Social Responsibility Committee.
As we consciously seek the path of Spiritual Justice, individually or in community, our seven Unitarian Universalist principles are not commands but questions.
Coming back to intentional, value-based communities such as the Social Responsibility Committee or the Ragged Raven Initiative, I am wanting to include one more group of people not always associated with on-the-ground activism, artists of all kinds, poets, painters, musicians, writers. Why? Because the special gifts possessed by these people allow them to be, if they are open to it, the shamans of today, capable of entering a spirit world less accessible to the rest of us and returning with ideas, glimpses of connections, insights, flashes of beauty that can energize and affirm those who work in more prosaic fashion”on the ground”. The participation of artists could heighten the ceremonial and symbolic aspects of the collective initiative. In a broken world where our efforts seem inadequate to the task, the ceremonial and symbolic dimensions of the work remind us of its deep meaning. The work and its meaning together form the magnet drawing reality in its direction.
My caveat requiring that participating artists be “open to it” is not offhand but very deliberate because in order to work within the tent of spiritual justice, artists must be willing to put aside the ego-driven, affirmation seeking attributes of the self-directed professional and embrace a more collective, eco-centric way of working.
Suzi Gablik’s book, “The Re-enchantment of Art”, has inspired much of this presentation. Some brief readings from this book were presented earlier in the service. Gablik calls for an art attuned to the eco-centric relational worldview that she believes must replace the current dominator model and its Cartesian separations. Here are some excerpts from “the Re-enchantment of Art”:
“Exalted individualism, for example, is hardly a creative response to the needs of the planet at this time, which demand complex and sensitive forms of interaction and linking... To highly individualistic artists,... the idea that creative activity might be directed towards answering a collective cultural need rather than a personal desire for self-expression is likely to appear irrelevant or even presumptuous...”
“We are in transitional times, an undefined period between detachment from the old and attachment to the new. It is a good moment to attend to the delineation of goals, as more and more people now imagine that our present system can be replaced by something better: closeness, instead of distancing; the cultivation of ecocentric values; whole systems thinking; a developed discipline of caring; an individualism that is not purely individual but is grounded in social relationships and also promotes community and the welfare of the whole; and expanded vision of art as a social practice and not just a disembodied eye. I have tried to show that none of these intentions is irrelevant to a value-based art, and all of them are crucial to its re-enchantment. the sacredness of both life and art does not have to mean something cosmic or otherworldly - it emerges quite naturally when we cultivate compassionate, responsive modes of relating to the world and to each other. Of course the exasperation over idealism keeps cropping up; but as the photographer Annie Gottlieb once put it, ‘The impossibly pure vision acts as some sort of magnet drawing reality in its direction.’ "
Gablik describes the project of Dominique Mazeaud, an artist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Rio Grande River runs through the city and the riverbanks become littered with trash. Once a month, ritually on the same day each month Dominique and a few friends who sometimes accompany her meet to clean the trash out of the river. Dominique keeps a diary of these encounters; here is an excerpt:
“Whom can I really talk to about what I see? I feel the pain quietly, knowing that I too, must have been unconscious at one time. I have also noticed that I stopped collecting the so-called treasures of the river. It was OK at the beginning, but today I feel it was buying into the present system of art that’s so much objet-oriented. Is it because I am saying that what I am doing is art that I need to produce something?”
Mazeaud isn’t competing in the patriarchal system at all, but stands true to her own feminine nature. By returning to the river every month on the same date to resume her task, she makes the ritual process into a redemptive act of healing. Could she achieve more by organizing a noisy public campaign to clean up the river? Possibly, but maybe that is beyond her, maybe that would lead to the brokenness of impatient activism. Other people are free to quietly take up the task with her. Dominique’s pure vision acts as the magnet pulling reality in its direction. Call it art.
Early this summer, volunteers organized by the Saanich Inlet protection Society will “count the clams” and other biota on several beaches on the west side of the Saanich Peninsula as they have done for almost a decade as part of a “Shorekeeper Program” designed by the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The program is intended to track long-term changes in the intertidal zone as revealed by the presence or absence of species and their abundance. The beaches are beautiful; the critters are interesting, including the scattered groups of observers digging in the wet sand. I am hoping that, through the Ragged Raven Initiative, we can persuade artists to take part in the program, to photograph, sketch, paint what interests them in the scene, interview the observers, participate themselves and out of these field observations, possibly working alone but encouraged also to work collectively, to produce art that speaks to the beauty of the scene and the care and interest of the observers. By exhibiting this art in public spaces people may learn not only something of what the Shorekeepers program is revealing but also something of its deeper meaning as an expression of care and concern.
Although I am calling on “recognized” artists to add value to actions such as the work of the SRC or the Shorekeepers Program, when we take on a task, alone or with others, quietly, in the open, but with no need to involve the ego because we feel Spiritual Justice moving in the air, we are artists, too.
And there is at least one more way we can be artists and that is through the energizing shock of beauty. If we are open to the world, living in the moment, beauty will touch us fleetingly but often. The touch of beauty will remind us that grace is possible even in a broken world and its spark can rekindle the flame of hope. When we share the touch of beauty as we have experienced it with others, when we draw attention to beauty, we are also artists.
When I read over this sermon, I realized that it still bears many of the traces of the search. I’ve covered a lot of ground, noted but passed by many ideas that are worth more thorough exploring. I’ve learned from this project and I thank you for that opportunity as I thank you for your patience in hearing me out. Let me recapitulate briefly.
Richard Bocking’s January sermon pointed out some of the disconnects of our culture, among them the GNP as an index of “happiness”. The disconnects point to a deeper problem, the inadequacy of the “dominator” Western Industrial cultural map and the environmental crisis it has provoked. Proponents of the “dominator” map say that green technology is the fix. While not discounting the importance of technology, I am not alone in saying that a new map, less egocentric, more eco-centric is needed. In this period of crisis and transition, happiness and grace no longer correlate with the old measures but rather with a deepening commitment to community, the community of all life and intentional, value-based human communities such as our Unitarian Universalist Church, acknowledgements of concepts such as “spiritual justice”, re-enchanted art, and the energizing shock of beauty.
I’ll close with a blessing poem by Tony O’Malley from the book “Beauty, the Invisible Embrace” by John O’Donohue, Irish poet and mystic.
Swanlight.
If it could say itself January
Might brighten its syllables on the frost
Of these first New Year days whose cold is blue.
Meanwhile in this corner of its silence
A weak winter sun lowers down behind
The moor that rises away from the lake.
Beyond reach of light, the shadowed water
Succumbs to this darkening of spirit
That would deny the bog today’s twilight.
All of a sudden something else breaks through
To appear at the far end of the lake
In two diagrams of white, uneven light.
I have never seen white so absolute
And alone, glistening in awkward form
Dreaming across the water a bright path.
As it stirs and changes and I see what it is:
Two swans have found the mirror in the lake
Where a V of horizon lets light through
To make them light-source and light-shape in one.
Now they swim and fade through windows of reed
And disrobe the lake of apparition.
I look and look into their vanishing
See nothing. Departing that perfect ground
I knew I had been hungry for blessing.
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