Alternatearts

Molten lava flows by; fireballs hurl hundreds of feet through the air.

Resting on a rock, awaiting the inevitable, Frodo says, “I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things.” (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)

Time collapses; the world fades.

Suddenly the eagles arrive. They are unheralded, unexpected. They pick up Frodo and Sam and carry them home to safety.

This is not unlike what artists feel when they are struggling. Everything around them seems to be falling apart and it all looks so hopeless.

The Christian artist has two tricks tucked away. Two truths to hold on to.

The first is that it is never, ever, really hopeless. They are on a rock and the rock is Jesus. They may experience bitter disappointment, pain, rejection… all the things common to man. But there is something steady underneath them. Ultimately that rock desires their good and is powerful enough to accomplish it, even if the accomplishment is totally unexpected.

Secondly, through the mists of faded space and lost time, eagles arrive: those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31, NIV)

At the seeming end of all things, be comforted by the reality that, even though you can’t make the eagles come… they will be sent.

 
To the artist…
If you’re lucky you’ll live long enough to see the seed of your work planted. You may even see it die. Truly fortunate, and you’ll see it raised.

 
“The task of the artist is to sense more keenly than others the harmony of the world, the beauty and the outrage of what man has done to it, and poignantly, to let people know. Art warms even an icy and depressed heart, opening it to lofty, personal experience. By means of art we are sometimes sent dimly, briefly, revelations unattainable by reason, like that little mirror in the fairy tales. Look into it and you will see not yourself but for a moment, that which passes understanding, a realm to which no man can ride or fly and for which the soul begins to ache.”

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, quoted by Malcolm Muggeridge in The End of Christendom