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Empathic Imagination with Mary McCampbell
213 Plays6 months ago
"I feel like Christians should be the most creative and should have the most profound understanding of the complexity of the human condition."
The "P" word (prophetic) gets thrown around in this episode of the Be. Make. Do. Podcast. Mary McCampell, author of Imagining our Neighbors as Ourselves, joins Dan and Lisa for a conversation on the impact of creative work in shaping our lives and our culture.
Read Mary's book: Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves https://www.amazon.com/Imagining-Our-Neighbors-Ourselves-Empathy/dp/1506473903
Check out Mary's Substack: https://substack.com/@marymccampbell
Mary's Website: https://marywmccampbell.com/
Subscribe to the Be. Make. Do. newsletter and download the Wise-Hearted Ones Study Guide: www.soulmakers.org/bemakedo
Get your FREE Wise-Hearted Ones Study Guide for practical tools and thought provoking guidance on your artist's quest: https://www.soulmakers.org/podcast-study-discussion-guide
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Transcript
Introduction to Wise Hearted One and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey Lisa. Hey Dan. This Wise Heart at One series is awesome. It is. Having such a good time with it. I want to spend a little bit more time with it. Maybe we should create something. That's a great idea. Maybe something like a study guide. A study guide? Yes. That sounds awesome. Where would I get that at? Well, actually, if you go over to soulmakers dot.org backslash BMakeDo, you can download a free Wise Hearted One study guide right now. It's got lots of great questions, some word studies and a little bit of commentary for you and maybe a group of people to go through together.
00:00:37
Speaker
That's awesome. That's what I'm going to do right now. What are you going to do? I'm going to go to soul makers dot org backslash be make do and download your free study guide.
00:00:59
Speaker
Hello, welcome to Be Make Do, a Soul Makers podcast where we explore what it takes to live out your call in the arts with spiritual wholeness and creative freedom. I'm your host, Lisa Smith, here with my producer, Dan ABH. Hello, everyone. And it's our passion to encourage you to become who you were created to be, make what you were created to make, and do what you were created to do. So this summer on the podcast, we're exploring some of the questions that came out of the Wise Hearted series about the artist's call of Bezalel and Exodus.
00:01:32
Speaker
and the discussion guide that's available on our website if you'd like to dig a little bit dig deeper. ah But today we are joined by Mary McCamble and I have been looking forward to this conversation for a really long time, right, Dan? Yeah. She talks about you all the time, Mary. Oh, thank you so much. i I love the work you're doing and I'm so happy to be here. Oh, well, thank you for taking the time.
The Purpose of Art in Christianity
00:01:58
Speaker
So here's kind of where we are. In this Wise Hearted One series that we were looking at, we spent a lot of time making the case that art making matters and that God gave us the capacity for art making with intention and purpose because it has power. And that as Christians, we need to be aware and respectful of that.
Art and Empathy with Mary McCampbell
00:02:18
Speaker
So today we want to talk um a little bit with you about the power of art, specifically ah the way you talk about that narrative art forms and can increase our capacity for empathy and learning to love our neighbors as ourselves. So welcome, Mary. We're just so glad you're here. i i'm It really is an honor, and i like I said, I think we connect so much on our thinking about the prophetic aspect of the arts, and so i'm I'm excited to dig in with that.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's like the little magic code word. When a person uses that word, they're like, oh, okay, let's talk. How do you define that? Yeah, yeah. Well, let me share with our audience a little bit about you. Dr. Mary McCamble is an author. She's an educator and speaker whose publications span the worlds of literature, film, and popular music. her Interdisciplinary focus is also present in her book imagining our neighbors as ourselves how art shapes empathy which will be a big part of our conversation and i highly highly recommend this book whether you're an artist or working in a church or just a person this is an amazing amazing wonderful book.
00:03:31
Speaker
And you can find other pieces of her writing in outlets such as Image Journal, The Curator, ah the other journal Relevant Christianity Today, and ah her weekly sub-stack newsletter, The Empathic Imagination, as well as she's been speaking all over the world this year. You've been everywhere this this year speaking and i lie it's great. So hopefully you can catch up
Struggles and Inspiration for Artists
00:03:56
Speaker
with her. um But yeah, we're we're I'm excited to kind of just dive deeper into um this conversation. And the way I want to frame it is thinking about how artists often struggle with questions around the impact
00:04:11
Speaker
of our work. Like it can actually really be paralyzing to feel like nobody's reading your book or no one's seen your film or listening to your, I mean, I talk with writer friends all the time. We have the paralysis conversation about like, does anybody really care what I have to say? You know, and and it does become paralyzing this doubting the impact of your work. Is that something? I mean, have you let's make it personal. Have you ever struggled with that? How do you deal with that? Absolutely. I mean, and of course, you know, I've been teaching as a professor for over 20 years, and there's a there is a little bit of an ego boost, you know, or a feel a good feeling when you're in the classroom and you have students kind of invested, but then you step back and remember, wait a minute, they have to do that to get a grade. So it's like, Oh, I'm saying these profound things and like, Oh, really?
00:05:06
Speaker
So, yeah you know, I mean, and that kind of imposter syndome syndrome is almost like a, you know, calling card for academia. I feel like I'm, um you know, i'm I'm playing a part. um Yeah, so so much of my audience has been students, you know, which is complex in its own ways. But then I think a wider audience um and also but Because for so many years, I'd see myself you know as a cultural critic. I wouldn't i don't even didn't even feel comfortable using the term writer you know because I'm like, I'm not the one producing the things. right so that That's a real insecurity. But more recently, um something that was really interesting and helpful to me
00:05:56
Speaker
um Because I've become more interested now in in writing ah Creative writing like creative nonfiction and fiction and although I've published quite a bit Nonfiction either as an academic or just a cultural critic. I Haven't ever published anything in that realm And again, it's that idea of, will this mean anything to anyone else? Or is this just me almost being kind of narcissistic, just delving into my my own interests? right Forgive me, i don't I don't want to go off a little bit of the topic of what you're asking, but something that I found really helpful. The author, Douglas Copeland, that I did my PhD on, the Canadian novelist who wrote Generation X. And he's also, he's written many books
The Artist's Unique Perspective
00:06:42
Speaker
and he's a visual artist.
00:06:44
Speaker
But I read something from him that was really helpful, where he was talking about how any real artist is curious all the time. like That is the main focus of you know being an artist. um and And there's a humility that goes with that. And he says, you know any artist that acts as if they have it all together and figured out and kind of has this air, he's like, that person is a hack. but of curiosity. And i actually reading some of his nonfiction work is what made me think, you know, I've kind of been doing that this even in my cultural criticism. And, you know, maybe I want to venture into that. But I love that idea of, you know, the curiosity and the humility and that
00:07:32
Speaker
We each do have such a unique set of experiences and ways of seeing the world. And that I think if it's underlined with humility and curiosity, hopefully this will be interesting to others. Yeah. um But yeah, so that's kind of going all over the place. But yes, I've definitely felt that insecurity both in my academic work and even maybe even more so into what I want to call myself an artist, what I call myself a writer. yeah you know I love that the curiosity and humility piece because so much of what um I think I was reading
00:08:13
Speaker
somewhere else. I can't pull it up right now in my head, but about the importance of the way that we connect is through the specificity of somebody else's story. Like
Storytelling and Universality
00:08:22
Speaker
if oftentimes the universal becomes clear in the specificity of somebody's unique particular story and I think it was like I was privileged to be in a little writers group with you at um the habit conference and got to hear some of your writing and it is very good and I'm excited for when you do publish because your story your ability to tell stories and um to kind of flesh out ah experience and the colors of of who the people are and and what's going on are is really powerful and I think it's a great example
00:08:57
Speaker
of exactly what you're, what you write about and what you care about and how that, I felt a connection to you and to that story and wanting to know more just by hearing this little piece of what you'd written. think That's encouraging. but's Well, I love that. And I love the way Copeland in in that interview, he was actually talking about Steven Spielberg because Steven Spielberg had brought him in to consult with him when he was designing. He was thinking about the future and what the future would look like. And i think maybe a movie like AI or Minority Report.
00:09:31
Speaker
And Copeland is always thinking in the future. and And they asked him, and the interviewer said, what was it like to work with Steven Spielberg? And Copeland said, well, he's just really curious. He just asks questions all the time. He just feels like he's always wanting to to learn. And that's when he went into And in my conversations with the author, you know Douglas Copeland, I feel like he's asking me as many questions as I ask him. Isn't that interesting? It feels like genuine curiosity. And so that's where we get into that empathy piece.
Art as Conversation and Empathy Training
00:10:07
Speaker
There's a sense of
00:10:10
Speaker
I don't know, I like thinking about ah you know art. I got this from spending time at Labrie and Labrie lectures, and I think Ellis Potter was the first one who said this, that you know art is not a commodity, it's a conversation. And that wrote and that reflexive, you know going back and forth, um rather than look at this amazing thing that I've done, it creates space for a relationship. yeah And, but sometimes it's easy to lose sight of that. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I mean, clearly we're living in a moment or more than one moment where the need for empathy is so important. And we, we all seem to be really struggling with that. And as
00:11:01
Speaker
So i put that on one side of the page and then on the other side of the the page. um Is this like we're talking about you know it's difficult if you if you're somebody who wants to make a difference in the world or you have something to say as an artist it can be difficult to measure the effectiveness. and the impact of your work. And I feel like this talking about your your work, your work kind of speaks to this on a deeper level bit by highlighting what art making actually does and the kind of impact it makes, which is different from that commodity um piece, this this idea of the arts as a prophetic means to grow empathy as you as you write.
00:11:42
Speaker
um Yeah, tell tell us about your work and the book and about about empathy and art making and the value of it. I guess the idea of this book, I realized i didn't I didn't have words for it necessarily, but just how much I've been sort of shaped by the art I've spent time with and that there's there's a huge spiritual formation piece yeah in there. um but also I think what was really profound to me is just years of teaching and seeing the way um the impact of many different types of art. It could be visual, it could be a painting, a song, or a novel, but the kind of
00:12:32
Speaker
life-changing encounters I've seen when students interact with a piece of art. And you're I like the way you focus on the idea of specificity. I think that's where really they recognize, I mean, I will never forget, you know, teaching um Samuel Taylor Coleridge or Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry about dealing with ah their own experience of clinical depression and students saying, oh my gosh, I've never heard from someone
00:13:07
Speaker
that They put into words what I'm experiencing, but it's not this sort of selfish, you know, I'm consuming this it's Wow, I mean in the specificity even though this was someone ah well ah Coleridge was the first I think to write on this really and you know early 19th century completely different context yet there's that recognition of humanity and the other. yeah And so when I teach that, I like to tell students, um you know, you might recognize yourself in this, but then again, you might not, but this gives you a doorway or into empathizing, maybe understanding a friend or family member who who struggles with depression on this level. yeah And um
00:13:55
Speaker
So it's just there's so many times when we don't know what we don't know. And then the the arts in many different ways presents this opportunity. We have to be careful. I talk some in the book about um kind of voyeurism, you know, and and ah are even, like I say, trauma tourism or voyeurism. um Is it just, wow, this is so strange and different and we're just spectators. But I think the way good art transcends that is because it really shows the reality of the complexity of the human condition. yeah know that that what I talk a lot about how Blaise Pascal says, you know we're both wretched and great, and there's this pendulum swing. And so art that's really
00:14:44
Speaker
filled out um and ah giving an honest picture of what it means to be human presents that opportunity for us to um I don't know, be generous in our reading and and really see the experience of the quote, other, but also see the sameness and the likeness. ah And yeah, I mean, I feel like that can help us to flex those empathy growing muscles, you know, and that would hopefully then transition into real life encounters. Yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, but you know, I think that taking time to really slow down and be attentive um with a piece of art Is an act of love, you know, there's a bit of submission there. Yeah and practicing that I would hope would help us to, yeah, which are those conversations in many different ways. So, so you asked about my work. I mean, so that's a lot of what I'm very interested in. And as a Christian, I like to think, you know, how, how, what difference does it make when we look at artists and the, as someone made in God's image um who has something important to say that they're inviting us into a conversation as opposed to what I like and what I don't like.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Dan, you are going. of What were you going to say? I have so many, so many things, but I just I'll stay on topic here. Well, first of all, I love this way of looking at ARP and how it shapes our empathy. And I, you know, not to be Debbie Downer, but I feel like our world is sort of lacking in empathy. Oh, yeah. And i I just love that this has been your focus. Could you tell us a little bit of what led you for this to be your focus? Like what did something happen? Was it a ah quick thing or like God told you like, I don't know, you just tell us. I'm really i' really um interested on how this all came about because it it is lacking in our culture right now.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it is. I do feel like it's lacking. The thing that to me is the saddest is how many sort of Christian circles seem to be lacking in empathy. It's like, i've got to i've got to I've got to win the argument. you know I've got to be a gatekeeper for the gospel, whereas isn't a large part of the gospel also loving your neighbor as yourself. And and again, it's very easy to ah to slip into that just Well, I guess I'm trying to think of when I first, I mean, I've long been talking in my classroom about how so much of our default tendency is to slip into that sort of us and them thinking and to, if if and to when someone is very different than you or someone annoys you, um to really kind of just slap a label on them, label them and then dismiss them.
00:17:56
Speaker
Um, and maybe, I mean, this is something important to me because I've struggled with it so much myself. And, um, but I, again, to go back to the classroom, I just feel like, like I said, I've seen it, I think in the most profound ways I've seen it in dealing with topics of race. Um, and every fall I, I, for years I've taught Othello by Shakespeare. And every spring I've taught um Frederick Douglass' you know narrative, the narrative life of an American slave, Frederick Douglass. And ah it's quite amazing to see students
00:18:43
Speaker
I was teaching at a predominantly white institution um with many people in Appalachia, many people who come from small towns where they've never interacted with anybody who is black. But what happens is you know when we're looking very closely at the words of this text and being really attentive, I have students in the class share things from their lives, which then is very transformative to the community of the classroom. um But even if they don't, that doesn't always happen. ah There's something about, you know yeah, this this these they these kind of straw figures that maybe some of the readers in my class had in their head were transformed into an actual human being. And then with Frederick Douglass, his firsthand experience of being enslaved,
00:19:38
Speaker
So I have had so many into the semester are so many things that have been written Saying I didn't know I was a racist until I read this book or I grew up in a family where the use of the n-word was Frequent. I never realized it was wrong. I grew up and I was taught um ah That it's to be afraid of black people. And just just all the, yeah, and my parents were against interracial marriage. And of course that's another big theme in Othello. And so there's several layers to that. There's that, I think it's a huge spiritual formation thing. It's like seeing, it's like a work of art when you're interacting with a work of art, sometimes being it' a sense of almost being like, to put it into spiritual terms, convicted. You see yourself, you see this ugliness.
00:20:35
Speaker
Um, and it's corrective, you know in that sense But also humanizing the very person or the kind of person that you labeled and dismissed Uh, and so that just happened a lot in particular with that topic. Yeah, and I just thought man this is This is beyond just, oh, I'm moved. I'm, this is like, I need to change the way I look at the reality and the way I look at other human beings. And so this, these works of art were just entryways and it helps them to be more empathetic towards others, but it also is helping. It's like a kind of soul care, soul changing for them.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah. And so those two together, sorry that was a very long example, but but. No, it's great. No, thank you. You write about like, I think this is a quote from your book, recognizing both the imago de and our sinfulness and ourselves allows us to connect and empathize with these things and others.
Imagination's Role in Empathy
00:21:41
Speaker
And I mean, I think that's, that's the, like you you quote, Graham, Graham Greene, hate is a failure of imagination. I love that. that ah everything that um you're talking about is so important for Christians, you know, to be a Christian, to be able to have a well-formed imagination in order to be able to think like another quote but from your book, Christian empathy moves
00:22:11
Speaker
beyond both instinctual emotions and prescriptions for how to be a good person. Like we have to go deep, really, really deep. And part of those tools to be able to understand even how to do that, I think stem from from the arts. but what What happens there when our imaginations are are poorly formed? you know Yeah, that's a ah great question. I think, well, a constricted imagination. you know i just I don't know. there are Many times I'll read comments on posts on Facebook that will just... There's no sense of thinking of the other person as a human being when it's like someone who's in prison or something, and I think...
00:22:55
Speaker
These people need to be in more humanities classes and because there's a sense of it. It really, it challenges you outside of of that. But I think, again, I want to go back to, I think that oftentimes we don't even really know we're lacking because we are on some level you know very much formed by our culture you know about you know the most important things are efficiency, the most important things are you know um being the top of the pack, survival of the fittest. I mean, so much of the rhetoric, even sadly sometimes in Christian circles, is is very the it's the opposite of
00:23:40
Speaker
um being slow and attentive and gracious and practicing empathy and so it's it's But I feel like then your imagination gets smaller and smaller Yeah, it's smaller. I mean there's a constriction In a sense your your imagination can lead you in ah in the in the movement against love um And there's a really great um Again, I keep talking about Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It's not even my area. But he has this poem, this lime tree bower, my prison, where he's he's really mad because his friends were going to come visit him. He's going to show them around the Lake District. And he hurt his leg. He broke his leg or injured his leg. And so he's sitting there. And the friends come and they still want to go hiking.
00:24:26
Speaker
And he's mad, you know really mad. And really, he's hilarious when I teach it. I'm so emo. you know He's just really like dramatic. And then he's using his imagination to sit and think, what they're doing and how much, you know it's it's like when you know someone is doing something that you don't like, you can use it and just imagine the narrative can get bigger and bigger. But then all of a sudden, um He remembers that his dear friend who was visiting him has been pent up in the city in London and loves nature and nature is life-giving for that friend. And so then all of a sudden he says, oh, it's as if I was there with him because he starts to being able to imagine through his love for the friend, he is able to think, oh,
00:25:20
Speaker
Imagine their wonderful time and then the whole time he thought he was he said he was in a prison when actually he's in a beautiful lime tree bower and he looks around and that um the love that's come in in his heart that's helped him empathize has also helped him to see the beauty in his surroundings and Yeah, so it changed. And one of my favorite films I talk about in the book is The Tree of Life, which is also very much about this, you know, you have one character who's very much a Nietzschean survival of the fittest, you know, I've got to get ahead. And in the end of the film, he laments
00:25:57
Speaker
I haven't seen the glory all around me. you know i've i've Now I have new eyes to see. yeah And so I think there's a real deprivation if the the imagination is constricted. It's almost like you need imagination to see reality. No, I mean, you need react you need imagination to love your neighbor as yourself. And that love of neighbor as self is also a way for you to see the glory and beauty of everything around you. I love your kind of just stating that imagination is essential in order to speak reality. Like people don't, we don't think about it in that way, but it's true. And this kind of then leads to this idea of, you know, you use, you use the key word, you use the prophet word.
00:26:45
Speaker
you know When we're talking about prophetic narrative art, what let's let's talk about that a little. let's from Looking at the artist side of things, what do you mean by the prophetic when you when you're using that word? I think prophetic, well, as you know, I'm a big fan of Walter Brueggemann's prophetic imagination. And I i like the way he talks about the prophetic as two-fold.
Prophetic and Honest Art
00:27:12
Speaker
And one is um ah one hand is
00:27:17
Speaker
There's a recognition that the way things are is not right. yeah um and And the way you you recognize and grapple with that is through either lament through lament or critique. you Both of those things are saying the way things are, what he calls the empire mentality, it's not right. um And I feel like there's so much great art that does that, um that critiques and shows us, but Brueggemann also says, well, there's another part. It's not just the one, he's coming from, of course, a theological, a Christian perspective, that there's also hope.
00:28:00
Speaker
and energizing. And he says, hope based on doxology, um which is why I love talking about like African-American spirituals because you have those two things together. You have there you have lament, you have critique, but you also have hope. yeah you know um So I think the prophetic and We see it in many different forms, but I would say i would say it's it's it's pointing us towards reality. It's peeling back the false layers of what we've been conditioned to think. So the prophetic goes together with empathy, the empathy enhancing qualities of art, because I think a work of art is prophetic when it really helps us to see
00:28:50
Speaker
the complexity of what it means to be human. And he maybe even takes someone that we think of as a quote, enemy figure and forces us into a space of ah loving them, you know, seeing their humanity. I can think of so many good television series that do that, and it's but not coming from a Christian perspective at all. so yeah So prophetic really I would say is is recognizing that something is wrong and pointing us towards the truth on the most simple level. you know That's the way I would approach it. Yeah, that's a great way to put it.
00:29:32
Speaker
Well, and so I want to kind of talk a little bit about words for Christians working in the arts, because I feel like I see two pretty well-worn paths at this point. There's Christians who pursue art, but don't really feel a sense that it needs to or maybe even that it can be there a part of the narrative. Like I just make music. I happen to be a Christian, but i I'm in a band. I make music that I don't really I'm not going to tell Christian stories through my music. And then on the other side is those who are overtly and explicitly make, you know that's the the narrative in a devotional or evangelical or apologetic way. But I wonder if you have any thoughts on, mean is there a third way? like as you you kind of What you were talking about just now and in your book, you write the words like resisting romanticism or cynicism, yeah you know being able to tell the truth. People like Flannery O'Connor. Yes.
00:30:29
Speaker
how How do even these filmmakers or authors, you know who maybe even not Christians that you're you're studying who are, they're saying something powerful, but it's not propaganda. it's not um it It's okay to have a point of view and to you know be prophetic or and bringing that hope and seeing things in the real way. like
00:30:54
Speaker
What is what's a third? Is there a third way? What how do they see what they do? And how do you see what they do? Is there a way we could think about it? It's a little more complex. Really? Because it sounds really kind of cock like I'm a prophetic artist, you know, know right? but I mean, I think yeah, third way. Yeah, because I'm I feel very uncomfortable with the label of Christian artists for Christian art, because if if god if if if the If the capital R reality of life is God and his creation, then I would think moving into that and moving towards the truth and moving towards the idea of revealing truth, I wouldn't even feel the need to put a label on that. It's just art that is honest and good and is going to
00:31:52
Speaker
work against death and toward life. there's Another LaBrie guy, Marsh Moyle, I like the way he talks about that, talks about that a lot. about it's it's about is it Is it affirming life or death? um And ah when something is, something is affirming death oftentimes can can be very tricky in the way it's disguised. It can look really glitzy and glamorous and it can hand us a sort of beautiful and easy narrative when really it's just, it's it's dishonest. So I would say, you know maybe the third way is just honest art that is,
00:32:34
Speaker
Holding together is is not trying to sugarcoat reality or you know create this Disney world. And O'Connor, I love the way she talks about that. She's so offended by things being overly sentimental because she says, we need to start with what we know. And what we know is the the natural world and the experience of being humans. um And she thinks that when you feel the need, which I see sometimes in, quote, Christian art, a need to wrap to to really not show things that are too disturbing or to wrap things up you know in a nice little bow after two hours with a nice, easy solution.
00:33:21
Speaker
she basically says that you know our work as Christians is participating in the Christ's death and resurrection, like the cross of Christ. And if we are kind of creating our own little enclaves of what we see as heaven on earth, But without showing what we need to be saved from and to, I mean, she feels like it's almost like that Bonhoeffer cheap grace
Spiritual Formation and Creative Leadership
00:33:50
Speaker
idea. yeah um And so there's something about yeah art that tells the truth. On the other hand,
00:33:59
Speaker
if you have art that just focuses on the ugliness and destruction and sadness, which we know is there, then you can get into real despair and cynicism. yeah So it's like you've got, I think both are very dangerous. So I think the real tough part Is being in the middle is the the tension and paradox is the big word. right and paradoxical It's The human experience is paradoxical. There's always this tugging back and forth between um between darkness and light.
00:34:37
Speaker
Well, and I think understanding that, being okay with that and understanding the power of what what happens when you are real with it. like ah Understanding that if you're not telling the truth about something, you're not really going to be able to affect somebody else because it's not it doesn't carry the same weight as when you're vulnerable and real really telling the truth. yeah So if we feel like we and we are called to make the culture in which we live, you know that's part of what we're called to do as Christians, um but we're not doing it from a genuine and authentic and real place, then we're not able to do anything that's really meaningful. Like we're talking about this art making stuff has real power. And so if we're we're either choosing to engage that or choosing to not engage that.
00:35:30
Speaker
I feel like Christians should be the most creative and should have the most profound understanding of the complexity of the human condition. Yeah, and where are we seeing that I will say that I think I know people probably Tired of talking about this, but I do think the chosen does a really good job with them It really surprised me because I was like right I was like, I don't know about I didn't want I was nervous watching it, you know because of what I expected But I think the reason it works and is attracted an audience um
00:36:05
Speaker
you know, and including a family member of mine who is formerly Buddhist, but now just kind of all religions, pagan sort of thing, who who told me, you know, how much he loved that series. And he's a very brilliant guy. And he said, if I really, if someone like that Jesus came and said, follow me, I would. Wow. You know, I think, whoa. Yeah. so and Just, but but I think it's because of the reality of humanity depicted in that series with the disciples and also, of course, Jesus himself. Yeah. Yeah. See, I think this is why it's so important to talk about these kinds of things and for your book to be out there and you to be talking because I really hope that artists who are Christians come across this kind of these thoughts and resources and start to understand, like, I just don't think that now is a time to be waiting around to get permission
00:37:05
Speaker
from ah Christians any who are not artists, especially because what we're talking about is there's a fundamental, I think there's a fundamental deficit of imagination within institutional Christianity. And I think that that has had a direct effect on where we are now. And so the practitioners of imagination are the people who have studied and developed and expanded their capacity for that and their capacity to communicate about that and tell stories, which are the artists of all disciplines and all shapes and forms. They really are the experts. And i I think that we're in a time where God is calling those people to lead and to lead the Christian church back to a an expanded imagination so that they can, like you said, see reality. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:00
Speaker
I mean, it's huge. It's huge. I mean, and it's so sad that in so many contexts, I mean, Francis Schaeffer writes about how in so many, and then he was writing a course like in the sixties when there was, but I mean, in some some some ways that's gotten a lot better, but in some ways it hasn't, yeah but that that so many in the church just think of the arts as like window dressing or the curtains. But it's you know you talk about it as spiritual formation. I mean, this is all, and and that imagination can go way over here, it can go way over there. It's just like anything else that this is a, it is a spiritual formation. it's a discern It is a discernment tool. It's something that we have to cultivate and practice and bring within that realm of our relationship with Christ and our kind of that dying to self
00:38:55
Speaker
Absolutely. it's There's a lot of unlearning, false, like our imagination that has been falsely formed. Yeah. um And then, so unlearning but also getting new, you know feeding it with the truth. Yeah, yeah. um But it's, yeah, I just feel like reality is so, I mean, it's I feel like the ah the the they the traditional kind of sacred secular split and my pastor gave me a list of these are the movies you can watch, these aren't, you know, are that kind of thing. It's so much easier.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yes, and we like our rules and our our boundary lines and yeah. Legalism is easy. Well, it's not easy, but you know what I mean. It's too, I mean, reality is messy. The human condition is messy. Yeah, so it's good to make messy art and our art that reflects messiness. Yeah, yeah. With that with that hint of the hope leading towards life, like you said. Well, Mary, thank you so much. This has been such a rich conversation and I could sit here and talk with you for another couple of hours. I would love that. But ah where if people are interested in connecting with you or getting to be a part of one of your film discussion groups, which are really fabulous, where where can people find you?
00:40:20
Speaker
Thanks. um yes so my I have a sub-stack that's called the Empathetic Imagination. so You can just look that up. Look at my name, Mary McCamble. I have a website. um Mary, is it Mary W. McCamble? I can't remember the name. We'll put it in the show notes. We'll put all the info in the show notes so people can find you. You can go towards it if you want to read some of the articles I've written and of course my book, Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves, How Art Shapes Empathy. Yes. So any of those things, just look up my name. But yeah, the sub-stack I'm really excited about right now and I'm going to start a new series.
00:40:59
Speaker
Actually, I'm gonna start a new series in the fall called The Christian Imagination. But we're really delving into this very specifically with Christians in the arts and looking examples of that. So, so yeah. Great. i Well, I can't wait. I'm already signed up. And I can concur that it is Mary W. McCampbell. Okay. here you go We will put in the show notes though, but just so you, you, you know, so you know maybe I can find my way to my own. Great. Thanks again, Mary. It was great talking. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.
00:41:38
Speaker
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