Paths to Contemplation - 15

The Arts as inspiration for contemplation

    If Nature is God’s creation might contain seeds for contemplation, so too might human creations, especially those that are devoted to the glory of God.  Art can point the mind toward God and help it enter a quiet resting in God.

    Some theologians say that humans are co-creators with God.  This means that God allows humans  to complete and extend the work of creation that God began.  Through the exercise of their free will and the talents they possess, humans make new objects that would have not have otherwise existed.  Therefore, human creativity also is a reflection of God’s creativity, and may thereby serve as the inspiration for active contemplation.

    Humans also can sense beauty and experience awe.  The ability to appreciate beauty and to be awe-struck by the power and grandeur of nature are  probably  uniquely human traits.  Indeed, it is through observation of the splendor of nature that humans that formed the foundation for their belief in gods, and they then attempted to express this splendor through the arts.

    The transcendent, by definition, lies beyond our natural abilities.  If we can understand an object or idea, it is not transcendent, nor is it mysterious.  Some suggest that we must go within ourselves to our “center” to find our “true selves,” and even to encounter God.  Perhaps, in some sense, this is true, but if anything is transcendent, it is God.  God is supremely and absolutely beyond the reach of our natural capabilities, be they sensory, emotional or intellectual.  To encounter God, I must go outside myself because God cannot be transcendent and be fully contained within my own narrow limits.  By seeking God outside myself, I let God draw me where I could not otherwise go.  It is only in this way that I  truly come, through the power of God, to the knowledge of God.

    Great art should enable us to go beyond ourselves into realms we would not otherwise enter.  Great art, like parables and myths and nature, enables our senses, our emotions and our minds to reach out to, and come in contact with, however feebly, the transcendent reality of God.  We may not see God in a painting or hear God in a symphony, but we may indeed be led to recognize that some transcendent power underlies such works, a power that is not merely human but that is supernatural, literally beyond nature.

    The Eastern Orthodox use icons for religious inspiration.  Icons, in Orthodoxy, are more than art.  They are more than symbols of what the icons portray.  They are windows to the realities that underlie the icons.   When one gazes at an icon of Christ, one is drawn through the icon into the reality of Christ.  The icon is a window through which one can look to see Christ with the eyes of faith.  To gaze on an icon of Christ is to bring oneself in contact with Christ, not the Christ of the icon, but the Christ, the Son of God.

    Like icons, art should enable us to pass beyond what the art portrays into the reality, the truth, that underlies the art.   This is not to say that when we see a picture of a can of tomato soup, we think of tomato soup and somehow come in contact with the “reality” of tomato soup.  In a sense, the more “real” art is, the less it is helpful to us in transcending our natural limits, just as we might say that newspaper articles are not as useful as  myth in aiding us to come into contact with transcendent truth.

    Art of whatever kind can point our minds toward God and help us to come to a quiet resting in God.  And we might also use art as an aid in forms of prayer other than active contemplation.  Creating the art itself can be a powerful form of prayer, as is the case, for example, with the painting of icons.  Or the art may lead us to verbal prayer or cause us to sing in adoration, but this is not contemplative prayer, though it may still be a holy and useful form of prayer.  Once we have entered a state of active contemplation, we may shut our eyes or our ears and rest quietly in God for the art has then finished its role in leading us into a contemplative state. 

    But one might argue that by continuing to gaze at a painting or to listen to inspiring music may be the best way to keep us focused and enable us better to avoid distractions that would disturb our quiet resting.  Can we not use our senses to keep our mind from wandering by continued attention to a painting or music to that the mind is better directed toward God alone?