Archives For Embodiment

Ever since high school, I’ve had a rocky relationship with art. Every year or two, I’d find myself at an art museum, paying the entrance fee. Then, I’d speed through the exhibits, dodging clocks that melted into puddles and giant canvases covered in orange. I’d search for something safe, something familiar.

 

Finding a Rembrandt, I’d take refuge for a couple minutes—five if I was feeling artsy. Then, I’d sneak back to my car, hoping the docent at the exit wouldn’t recognize me. 

Photo 1423742774270 6884aac775faPhoto courtesy of Eric Terrade via unsplash.com 

A couple months ago, I found myself in a similar situation–this time sipping on green tea and insecurity in a friend’s apartment. I’d been riveted by a photo of Kylee’s latest painting, The Pure Look of the Bishop, and had asked (on impulse) to see it in person.


Now that the three of us, The Bishop included, were face to face, I wasn’t sure what to say:

“So…what’s the story behind it?” I ask. The Bishop’s blue and green eyes lock in on me from his chair against the wall Continue Reading…

“How much?” the pastor jolted upright in his leather chair.

“Forty-thousand dollars,” she said.

“But…” he readjusted his glasses, “…why would…that many wouldn’t even fit in the church.”

“You might be surprised how much it costs to ship the best orchids, gazanias, and cherry blossoms from Brazil, South Africa, and Japan. Specialty flowers, you know, are my business.”

“But…” the pastor’s hand, having left his glasses, hung in mid air, “why not donate that money somewhere else…the building fund…some missionaries…the homeless shelter?” 

“I want to give God something beautiful.” 

“But, they’ll just die.”

“I know.” 

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He closed it again. “It just seems…” He faltered.

“…like a waste?” she said. 

He cleared his throat and looked away. 

*    *    *    *    * 

Photo 1447279506476 3faec8071eeePhoto courtesy of Jorge Zapata via unsplash.com 

As American Christians, we’re likely to sympathize with the pastor—unless, we find the same story in Matthew 26. There we find ointment instead of flowers, disciples instead of a pastor, and a woman wanting to do something beautiful for Jesus. 


Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt, but when it comes to Bible, familiarity makes us numb to the shock of the story. A year’s wages for five minutes of worship. Hundreds of poor people that could have been fed for months. Religious onlookers who thought they knew better. How would Jesus respond Continue Reading…

 

The last couple years, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday has made me squirm. While I love listening to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, it’s the other dream that bothers me, God’s dream, the one in Revelation 5, that salad bowl in heaven where people of every skin tone are tossed in together and worshipping side by side. It unsettles me, because my life and church look more like a bowl of Breyer’s Cookies and Cream, light on the cookies. 

 

Photo 1452693051753 f0acd4cfe723Photo courtesy of Pumpkins via unsplash.com

 

When I listen to King’s dream, I can feel good about the fact that two of my best friends have been an African American and Korean American. I can feel proud of my great grandmother from Canada who told me how her town, one of the final stops on the underground railway, helped runaway slaves integrate into society. 

 

When I listen to God’s dream, though, I find myself asking some hard questions, like whether my mostly white church should be mostly white. Or, whether it’s enough to enjoy diversity without taking any steps to heal the racial issues in my country Continue Reading…

I clicked delete thinking, “The bookstore is hosting an event to promote a new Bible? That sounds boring.” That’s right, I used the words “Bible” and “boring” in the same sentence. 

 

A week later, I shuffled my feet inside that same bookstore, waiting for an author to sign my book. My eyes wandered from one shelf to the next until something caught my eye on the wall. It was the painting below: 

 

Screen Shot 2015 12 05 at 6 05 06 PM Genesis 1, The St. John’s Bible, used with permission

 

Just then a clerk walked by. 

 

“What is that?” I asked, gasping for breath Continue Reading…

The Space to Love You

smgianotti@me.com  —  November 24, 2015

 

Unpack my heart

      and give me room to breathe

      your true self,

for I could never

     wrap my arms around

     your whole self

or hold my breath

     and reach the bottom of

     your deep self. 

But, I can wade this moment

     in your shallows,

then spend forever venturing

     from shore.

 

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Photo courtesy of Rob Bye via StockSnap.io 

 

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I dump the  powder into the pot and slip into the past…back to fifth grade and Miss Vanderlaan’s turtleneck sweaters in that same yellow-grey shade. A pungent smell—maybe garlic, maybe cumin—calls me back to the present and I shove the empty ziplock into the bear barrel.

 

Something black plummets into the pot. I bend forward through the smoky darkness and try to scoop it out, but the sparks fend me off. Probably a twig. Maybe a spider? Just then a freight train rumbles through my intestines, obliterating all traces of arachnophobia, and I stir the stew, intruder and all, at double speed.

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Photo courtesy of Angela Domini via flickr.com

 

Mugs loaded, I maneuver my backside between the branches of a fallen tree. I juggle the hot mug between city-sensitive fingers, pausing at intervals to land a spoonful of stew in my mouth. Steam billows out as I pant off the heat. The nerves in my fingers and tongue yelp in protest, but my empty stomach runs the show Continue Reading…

This post first ran in January as a guest blog on www.aspire2.com.

 

It shocks me how many people haven’t heard about one of the epicurean gems in Dallas. So, for the good of my neighbors and delight of their tastebuds, I propose that everyone make a pilgrimage to the corner of Bryan Street and North Fitzhugh to visit Jimmy’s Food Store—twice—and that’s not a suggestion.  

 

Because, whether you work like Emeril in the kitchen or get by on Kraft dinners, your pasta skills can use the help. Jimmy’s Fine Italian Food and Wine works magic on the palate. Try adding a pound of sweet italian sausage to that no-name marinara sauce you bought for $1.98 and your spouse may worry that he forgot your anniversary. Or, if you live on a higher culinary plain, sauté the spicy variety with garlic-seared mushrooms before simmering in 28 ounces of imported San Marzano tomatoes. Your friends will wonder when Julia Child took possession of your body. 

 

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True, you’ll pay for it. But, what else can you expect after settling for that boring porker at the corner grocery store? And true, you’ll have to travel all that way for just one ingredient.  But that only bothers people who haven’t gone to Jimmy’s.  

 

Inside the store, teetering aisles crammed with imported cans lure the adventurer. Foreign labels flirt with language lovers. But Continue Reading…

I sat on the rocky shore and gripped a small book in my hands, consuming its pages like a hungry teenager devouring pizza. A few days later I would return to Dallas changed—and not just from the mineral waters at Ouachita State Park.

 

Madeline L’Engle and her book, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, gave voice to the questions simmering in my subconscious. Does art matter to God? What do our bodies have to do with faith? Does God care about physical things too, or just spiritual stuff? L’Engle’s book catapulted me into these questions and I began a journey that became this blog. 

 

Today, I want to introduce you to some of my traveling companions, in case you’re interested in a similar journey—an artist, an audio journal, a short-film series, a prayer idea, and the two books I’m so glad I read. You might not agree with everything they say, and that’s ok—I didn’t either—but, the way they think about faith and the other five senses is just so good that I had to share. 

 

1. Makoto Fujimura

 

Makoto Fujimura’s abstract art calls viewers home—home to life as it was meant to be when God created the world, home as it will be in the new Heaven and New Earth. Fujimura’s integration of art and faith earned him the “2014 Religion and the Arts” award from the American Academy for Religion.

 

  • Get it: Stroll through his online gallery, read some of his essays, or watch “Golden Sea,” a six-minute documentary about one of his recent paintings. 

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Walking on Water – Azurite by Makoto Fujimura

 

 

2. Mars Hill Audio Journal—Ken Myers

 

I met Ken Myers in 2013 during Arts Week at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS). His lectures on “Creation and the Ordered Imagination” planted the seeds for my blog. In his audio journal (Mars Hill Audio Journal), he interviews artists, philosophers, and sociologists (just to name a few) who are exploring the connection between Christianity and culture.

 

I flitted through Hope Coffee dipping in and out of each photograph. I had promised myself to leave by 8:30 p.m. and it was already 8:45. In less than 12 hours, the men from church would be knocking on my door, ready to load up the U-Haul, and I still had packing to do. 

 

Attending the art show, which featured my classmate’s work, let me check two boxes off my to-do list. It fulfilled the “cultural engagement” assignment due Monday for my Theology of Art & Worship class, and it let me wave goodbye to the world before the tsunami of cardboard and packing tape pushed me under.  

 

Reflections on light and darkness. Each piece nodded to the name of the exhibit—light flickering off a child’s face, sun slicing through the distant clouds, a cobblestone street basking in the morning light. All of them saluted to the theme, except one.

 

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In The Mist by Paul Singleton, used with permission.

 

It stopped me as I buzzed around the corner and pulled me onto the cement jetty, past twenty-five seagulls, maybe thirty. It was hard to tell that far into the fog. Still. Peaceful. Stark. I felt those foggy mornings back up north on the dock, when the mist refused to say goodbye to the lake Continue Reading…

A 23-year-old Sunday school teacher converts to Islam after hours online with Faisal, a Bangeldashi man living in England. He tells her, “I know someone who will marry you but hes not good looking, 45 bald but nice muslim,” and Alex plans to fly to Austria to meet her future husband. 

 

What makes a church girl in rural Washington willing to gamble everything on the advice of a man she’s only ever met on Skype? According to an article in The New York Times, Alex longed for community and a more robust faith, and Faisal spent hours answering her questions. This approach, according to an expert, matches the advice given in an Al Qaeda recruiting manual: “Listen to his conversation carefully…share his joys and sadness.”  

 

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Photo courtesy of Brandon Doran via flickr.com

 

I can’t believe I’m saying this; but, maybe we can learn something from Al Qaeda.

 

Listening deeply, entering into a person’s joys and sadness, investing hours and months—this almost sounds like love. Unfortunately, though, it’s not always how we introduce people to Jesus Continue Reading…