Transcript
Speaker: Hey friends, real quick before the podcast started, I wanted to let you guys know that auditions for Godspell are coming up in just over a month, March 23rd and March 25th.
Speaker: That's a Saturday morning and a Monday evening.
Speaker: Me and my production crew are so excited to get started on this project.
Speaker: It's so exciting.
Speaker: God has been so faithful to provide everything that we need.
Speaker: He's not ever failing to come through.
Speaker: It's been remarkable.
Speaker: But if you're interested in being involved or know anybody who would be interested, our auditions are again March 23rd through 25th.
Speaker: We're looking for a diverse cast, all ethnicities, all genders, all ages.
Speaker: So whoever you are, if you've wanted to try theater, if you want to do another musical, you're missing it.
Speaker: Or if you just think this project sounds exciting, we would love to have you come out and audition.
Speaker: You can find all the information on our website, artistsoftheway.com.
Speaker: Just go to the Godspell page and click on the auditions tab.
Speaker: You can find everything there and sign up for auditions there.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Hope to see you guys at auditions.
Speaker: Hey friends, welcome back to Artists of the Way.
Speaker: I'm John the host.
Speaker: Today we're gonna welcome back my wife Shay for her second time on the podcast.
Speaker: Shay and I are gonna talk today about the art that heals us.
Speaker: How do we use art in our pain?
Speaker: How does God use art in our pain?
Speaker: What are some things that for Shay and for myself have helped lift us up?
Speaker: And why do those do that?
Speaker: What is it about the things that are beautiful and true and resonant?
Speaker: that somehow minister to us in our pain.
Speaker: It's a really beautiful discussion.
Speaker: I had a great time talking to her.
Speaker: A lot of fun, a lot of silliness, but a really rich conversation.
Speaker: So I think you guys are going to enjoy it.
Speaker: I'm glad that you guys are here.
Speaker: Thanks for joining us on this episode.
Speaker: How you doing, Shane?
Speaker: I'm alright.
Speaker: I just brewed up some Nightly Calm, which is a blend of several different teas.
Speaker: I think it's got like chamomile and mint and lemongrass and whatnot.
Speaker: Are you going to fall asleep on the podcast because you're drinking Nightly Calm?
Speaker: No, that would be Sleepy Time.
Speaker: This is not Sleepy Time.
Speaker: I think Sleepy Time is probably trademarked by Twinings or whoever owns it.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: this brand made Nightly Calm.
Speaker: Or maybe this is Twinings and I'm confused.
Speaker: I don't really pay attention.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: I didn't bring you on to talk about tees, so.
Speaker: So stop talking about teas.
Speaker: What's wrong with you?
Speaker: It's the hot leaf juice.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Anyways.
Speaker: So I'm okay.
Speaker: I have this nightly calm.
Speaker: You have your hot tea juice.
Speaker: I have my hot leaf juice.
Speaker: Hot leaf juice.
Speaker: Hot leaf juice.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's what tea is.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Tea juice.
Speaker: Can you get juice from your tea?
Speaker: No, that's the answer.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We're going to leave it with today.
Speaker: How about you?
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: I'm good.
Speaker: What are you drinking?
Speaker: I'm drinking some water hot cocoa, which my brother would be appalled to hear that I was drinking.
Speaker: I feel like all your opinions on this podcast are ones that your brother would be appalled by.
Speaker: You know, he doesn't listen, so this is the perfect place to happen.
Speaker: Yeah, come on, Sam.
Speaker: What's the deal?
Speaker: You can't even see my nice new studio, which I have a nice new studio, and that's fun.
Speaker: Makes me happy.
Speaker: But can you edit my snorts out of our conversation?
Speaker: Not when it's on video.
Speaker: Not with the way it has to be consistent.
Speaker: Anyways.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: First, like, what arts things have you been doing?
Speaker: I don't even remember what you were doing in your artistic life when I had you on the podcast last.
Speaker: Well, last time I was on, I think I was working on my novel, which I, surprise, I'm still working on.
Speaker: I have made some progress, and
Speaker: Thanks to the support and encouragement of you and of my friends and of my writers group.
Speaker: So I've made a little bit of progress in that.
Speaker: I did just enter kind of at the last second a poetry competition.
Speaker: So we'll see if that goes anywhere.
Speaker: I have entered them before and have been so far rejected.
Speaker: But, you know, that's how the writing life be.
Speaker: That's how it be.
Speaker: Can you talk about your writing group a little bit?
Speaker: I think that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't know what it was about.
Speaker: a year ago I think, I think it was during Hamlet, I was struck by this idea, desire, I don't know.
Speaker: Everybody always talks about the Inklings, you know, and like how they had this great squad and they meet up at the pub and then like all these famous authors came with that.
Speaker: And I don't know, I just, I was really missing the community of women in my life, I guess.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: I really wanted to be around women artists, you know, to be able to connect with.
Speaker: And so I reached out to a couple of my friends who are writers and then a couple people who have since become much closer friends, but I was just kind of getting to know a little bit at the time.
Speaker: And I was like, hey, would you be interested in starting this local women's Christian ladies writers group together?
Speaker: And everybody I asked said yes, which was awesome.
Speaker: And so now we have been meeting once a month.
Speaker: I think the only exception was January because there were some shows going on and a lot of us are in theater.
Speaker: And so we've been meeting once a month for almost a year.
Speaker: Well, not like half a year.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know the anniversary, but we've been meeting and we just get together and talk about what we're working on and we can support each other in that.
Speaker: And we just kind of talk about what's going on in our lives and we pray for each other.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: cool i've really come to enjoy it actually what's been cool about it being women in particular well a few things first of all it has helped me really get closer to a few people that i had just been wanting to get to know which i guess isn't women specific but um you only want to get to know women
Speaker: I am the only man in her life, gentlemen.
Speaker: Only women.
Speaker: You know what I said about Sam earlier?
Speaker: Forget him.
Speaker: He's not my brother.
Speaker: That guy doesn't even listen to the podcast.
Speaker: What are we doing with him?
Speaker: Get out of here.
Speaker: Anyway, it's... I don't know.
Speaker: I feel that I had been really surrounded...
Speaker: Like since in my coming to my own as an artist, I guess, in my adulthood and in recent years, I'd really been.
Speaker: surrounded by male artists, I guess.
Speaker: And I felt that in the art I was consuming and I felt that in the art that I was doing.
Speaker: And I felt like a lot of times there would be these artistic conversations happening with all these men in my life and they didn't really involve me very much.
Speaker: And it was like, oh, well, this is the men talking about manly art that we're doing because we're men, which isn't at all how it was.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Very macho art over here.
Speaker: No women allowed.
Speaker: Just playing Hamlet and crying about his feelings for three and a half hours.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: I was missing that sense of community that you get when you're with people who get you.
Speaker: And so I just wanted to spend more time with those people and
Speaker: remind myself that I can do this.
Speaker: You know, I can do this who I am.
Speaker: I don't have to be anything else.
Speaker: And that was, that's just been really encouraging and nice.
Speaker: And we all have kind of similar struggles in one way or other.
Speaker: And that's always nice to be able to lift each other up and
Speaker: be reminded that hey you can do this even if like not all of us are planning on publishing some of us just write for fun some of us are published authors so it's really nice to just be able to support each other as women and as writers yeah yeah nice i love that
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Speaking of struggles, you mentioned that word.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Struggles.
Speaker: So now I'm going to transition to the topic for today.
Speaker: Struggles.
Speaker: Struggles.
Speaker: Struggle bussing, man.
Speaker: Those buses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've just, we've been unpacking, I guess, like, way, or I've been unpacking at least ways that we cope with pain.
Speaker: um in our life i'm doing lent and i realized that i cut out most of my coping mechanisms which is good because some of them were unhealthy um but i'm like oh jesus help but so jesus take the wheel jesus take the wheel because all my coping mechanisms went to sleep in the trunk so that got violent um
Speaker: I've just been thinking about the... Like, my pain is brimming to the surface as I'm now not squashing it down with doom scrolling and video games.
Speaker: Not that those things... Well, doom scrolling is inherently bad.
Speaker: Social media is of the devil.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Strong statements made on this podcast today.
Speaker: Social media is of the devil.
Speaker: And the podcast exists largely on social media.
Speaker: So what does that say about me?
Speaker: Don't tell them that part.
Speaker: But so, like, I feel like pain has just been a thing I've been pondering and grief and things like that.
Speaker: And so I thought it would be cool to talk about art in that.
Speaker: I know for me, like, one of the things like clockwork that you can depend on is that if I get sick or I'm really struggling, that I'm going to immediately...
Speaker: Well, not immediately, but within like 24 hours of like the worst period of whatever I'm struggling with, I'm going to be like, well, I got to put on Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: So, you know, I had strep recently.
Speaker: So I was there was a point where I was like, I got to put on Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: And I just watched it like six months ago.
Speaker: And I was like, maybe I shouldn't because I don't want to overwatch Lord of the Rings because it would be sad.
Speaker: I love it too much.
Speaker: But I was like, okay, I always put on Lord of the Rings to cope.
Speaker: Like, that's my coping art is Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: I read through the books.
Speaker: Well, listen through the books because I'm a bad reader.
Speaker: And I'm like, ah, the peace of Middle Earth.
Speaker: Or I like watch the movies and I'm like, ah, the peace of Middle Earth or the awesomeness of the action scenes.
Speaker: I was going to say, I feel like Middle Earth is in the least peaceful period of its existence.
Speaker: during Lord of the Rings, or one of them at least.
Speaker: One of them, yeah.
Speaker: It's pretty much a huge war for the majority of it.
Speaker: But Hobbiton is peaceful.
Speaker: And there's the Houses of Healing.
Speaker: And I feel like, at least in the books, it's paced really well where you've got action and then you've got rest.
Speaker: I'm just giving you crap.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: So anyways, I feel like that's my rhythm of art.
Speaker: that heals me, you know?
Speaker: So, and I just, I wanted to talk to you about that.
Speaker: So there's a lot of different kinds of art.
Speaker: Obviously I'm talking about movies and books with Lord of the Rings, but there's painting, there's sculpture, sculpt, sculptures.
Speaker: I was trying to say sculpting and sculptures at the same time and it made my brain implode.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: There's sculptures.
Speaker: Jeez, I'm really harping on sculptures today.
Speaker: There's sculptures.
Speaker: What else is there?
Speaker: Smithing.
Speaker: I'm just looking at my sword now.
Speaker: So I'm like, that's an art form, right?
Speaker: Music.
Speaker: Music.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Dance.
Speaker: Get me stuck out of that.
Speaker: Or unstuck.
Speaker: Dance.
Speaker: My words today.
Speaker: Theater.
Speaker: That's a big one.
Speaker: What are the forms of art?
Speaker: Anyways, that is kind of my question.
Speaker: I guess...
Speaker: So there's a lot of forms of art.
Speaker: What are the forms of art that you feel like you are really drawn to when you're hurting?
Speaker: What are things that you think, this is something I can go to and I can rest in, something I can go to to heal me?
Speaker: Are there forms that you tend to go towards more than others?
Speaker: Well, I would say that, first of all, it kind of depends on what it is you're looking for.
Speaker: Like you said, what is it that you go to
Speaker: where you can rest and you can heal and I would say sometimes the art that I go to when I'm struggling is not necessarily art that is comforting because sometimes something art does when you're in pain or when you're walking through something that's hard or just when you're upset about something isn't
Speaker: Oh, make it feel better.
Speaker: A lot of times it's let's actually feel that and let's process it.
Speaker: And it can either be like the processing thing or it can be not feeling alone because you see that someone else has felt that way too.
Speaker: I would say music is a big one.
Speaker: I think it is for a lot of people.
Speaker: And I know that you've talked about music on the podcast before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because of what it is, it isn't words.
Speaker: It isn't something you can see.
Speaker: It is something like deeper than that, I guess.
Speaker: It gets to something deeper.
Speaker: So I feel that a lot of times when I'm having a powerful emotion of any kind or when I'm struggling with something specifically, like I will turn to that
Speaker: music whether that be taylor swift's folklore album or reliant case forget not slow down or my ophelia playlist or whatever that matches the vibe sometimes it's breakup songs you know because they're just so raw a lot of times i think music is a big one if i am looking for comfort
Speaker: I would say, you know, people talk about comfort shows.
Speaker: I think the...
Speaker: structure of a TV show, especially like, you know, like a sitcom or a sitcom or something like that where it's like there are stakes, but they're very low and you know everything's gonna be okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that can be very soothing.
Speaker: You know in 20 minutes this will be resolved.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: You're like in 20 minutes this is gonna be resolved and then if I still want to languish on the couch I can watch for another 20 minutes or a hundred minutes, you know, it'll just keep going.
Speaker: Which is the great thing about streaming services.
Speaker: That's also the downfall of a lot of our weekends.
Speaker: I was going to say, I was like, ah.
Speaker: Great thing and sometimes bad for us.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So, you know, everything in moderation, right?
Speaker: I just saw a video about, it was actually Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: And it was comparing Lord of the Rings to, I can't remember, one of the new, like, out this last year.
Speaker: fantasy novels and was going through like i think it was or it must not have been lord of the rings because they don't talk about the creation in that right it's is that so it was like going on about how like the god person made the angels and there was the music and all that it was that whole bit and then it like was a smash cut to like a smut scene oh gosh one of the new ones and they were like when
Speaker: Your bookstagram friends tell you to check out the latest fantasy novel because you like Lord of the Rings or something.
Speaker: And I thought it was really funny because I was like, what a juxtaposition of these two very different things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then I was looking at the comments because if you ever want to just fall down a rabbit hole, that's what you do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: People were taught, like someone had commented, you know, sometimes I want like a medium rare porterhouse steak with sauteed onions and mushrooms.
Speaker: And sometimes I want to shovel handfuls of shredded cheese into my mouth by the fridge late at night.
Speaker: And I think that that's a really good analogy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sometimes you need this thing and sometimes you need this thing, you know.
Speaker: And I'm not necessarily saying you ever need fantasy smut in your life.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I prefer to avoid it personally, and that's my recommendation.
Speaker: You know, fair recommendation.
Speaker: But there's different needs for each feeling or season or whatever you're in.
Speaker: Like right now, and leading up to recently, I've had a really hard time watching new movies, and you know this.
Speaker: But we just watched Barbenheimer.
Speaker: We finally did it.
Speaker: We did it.
Speaker: We're like six months late and we did it over two days, but we made it, folks.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I'm counting it.
Speaker: I count it.
Speaker: Because it was just too much to do it in the theater.
Speaker: But Oppenheimer...
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: We don't need to get into that right now.
Speaker: Really good movie.
Speaker: It was really good.
Speaker: A little bit of sex, be warned.
Speaker: But really good movie.
Speaker: I think most people know that at this point.
Speaker: I just wanted to make sure.
Speaker: There's a bomb.
Speaker: That's what I'm warning you about.
Speaker: And... So if that's triggering for you... Like a bomb trigger.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: So we watched that.
Speaker: And then we watched Barbie.
Speaker: And of the two...
Speaker: I think after my preliminary watch, I would say Oppenheimer was my favorite movie.
Speaker: But I don't think I cried when I watched Oppenheimer.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: It was three hours long and there was a lot of emotion, but I don't think I cried.
Speaker: But when I watched Barbie, and spoiler alert if you haven't seen it, but like John said, it's been six months now, there's this scene where
Speaker: what is she, stereotypical Barbie?
Speaker: Is that what she's called?
Speaker: She's talking about how she doesn't know what she was made for, you know, and that's what the Billie Eilish song is about, too.
Speaker: And it was, and she's like, well, we have a Barbie who's president, and we have a Barbie who is a veterinarian, and we have a Barbie who, like, goes to space and does the space shuttle thing, and Ken has beach, you know?
Speaker: And Barbie's like, what am I?
Speaker: I can't just go on like this.
Speaker: And I feel that, you know?
Speaker: Greta Gerwig, she did it again.
Speaker: I looked at that as, you know, a woman in her mid-20s who is kind of lost in life.
Speaker: And I see that and I'm like, wow, that's me.
Speaker: And I immediately just started waterworks, you know?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And it didn't fix anything.
Speaker: You know, it didn't tell me here is your plan for moving forward.
Speaker: Not that I would necessarily trust what a blockbuster movie told me my plan for my life was anyway, but it didn't do that.
Speaker: And it didn't even do that for Barbie.
Speaker: It just said, well, you can move forward, you know, and
Speaker: that was enough for me to say like, okay, you know, people feel this way.
Speaker: I'm not losing my mind over here.
Speaker: And that was really healing in a way.
Speaker: I think that that's interesting because I think a lot of times we think we have to answer the question.
Speaker: Like I've been thinking about this today where I'm like trying to
Speaker: tone back my like the way that I help people, I suppose, and relationships and things.
Speaker: But I think a lot of times we're like, Oh, somebody has a problem, at least as a guy.
Speaker: Maybe that's stereotypical.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But I'm like, I got to fix it.
Speaker: Or I get you know, I have to answer the question.
Speaker: I have to solve the thing.
Speaker: And then I've been thinking about Job, because I'm going to read through Job with a friend soon, which I'm excited.
Speaker: I haven't done that in a few years, and Job's great.
Speaker: But spoiler alert for the end of Job, which has been out for like 4,000 years, so deal with it.
Speaker: But Job.
Speaker: Tell me.
Speaker: Tell me the juicy details.
Speaker: Job doesn't really get an answer at the end.
Speaker: All he gets is God showing up and saying, I'm God.
Speaker: And you didn't sin.
Speaker: That's all that he gets.
Speaker: And it's not, I mean, it's an answer to Job's questions, but it's not the answer Job like wanted.
Speaker: You know, it's not the solve the issue answer.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I think that that's interesting that you can watch art and just by the nature of it resonating, that the resonance heals something and it doesn't have to be an answer.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I thought that was cool.
Speaker: Do you think God was in that in some way for you personally?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, I think maybe there's been a lot of things lately in my life where I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker: And I think the older I get, the more I hear that.
Speaker: So I don't think that it's necessarily just a young woman in her mid-20s, you know, thing.
Speaker: But that movie was about women, you know, for the most part.
Speaker: So I was primed to hear the message, you know.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: And I had had a hard day and I had kind of not even wanted to watch the movie.
Speaker: Again, you know, that new movie thing.
Speaker: I was like, oh, the uncertainty.
Speaker: I don't know what will happen, even though I was pretty sure everything would be fine.
Speaker: It's Barbie.
Speaker: It will obviously be a tragedy.
Speaker: I mean, it kind of was for a couple people.
Speaker: Rip.
Speaker: But I think so.
Speaker: That's always something that I have a hard time telling, I guess.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, was God in this?
Speaker: I have a harder time with that, me personally.
Speaker: You know, if it's me and God having a moment, then it's me and God having a moment.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: If it's something with a lot more people, then it's more tangible.
Speaker: I can be like, oh no, something's happening here.
Speaker: And then I feel more comfortable saying, okay, I think that was something God was doing.
Speaker: Whereas if it's just me, I don't know, maybe it's just that I'm so emotional.
Speaker: Sometimes I'm like, that could have been God.
Speaker: It could have just been me crying for the 15th time today.
Speaker: Who can say?
Speaker: But no, I think...
Speaker: he was and has through a lot of different things in my life.
Speaker: I'm sensing a question there, so I'm just going to expound on that before you can even ask me.
Speaker: I think over my life, it's been different things.
Speaker: Like considering coming on this podcast, I was thinking about different times that, you know, art has been in my life and has been like
Speaker: maybe a tool that God has used in that.
Speaker: There was a time between high school and now, I'll say, where I didn't, again, really didn't have a direction and was spinning my wheels faith-wise a lot of times.
Speaker: And I don't think that if I had gone and just listened to a bunch of hymns, I don't think I would have listened.
Speaker: Really, you know, I don't think that I would have accepted any love or truth out of that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Now, what I did listen a lot to is Imagine Dragons and 21 Pilots and Neon Trees and a lot of other basic rock groups that I truly enjoy.
Speaker: And I think have an artistry to them, too, even though many people disagree with me.
Speaker: But the ways that I found even in this art that was not made in many cases with the intention of bringing people closer to God or even mentioning God at all in a couple instances or in some instances kind of Jesus-focused but really on the down low.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I had a lot of profound experiences and felt less alone.
Speaker: And that music got me through.
Speaker: And I feel that that's something you hear a lot from people is, oh, this is the music that got me through high school.
Speaker: And usually that's pop music, which isn't necessarily the most artistically...
Speaker: you know, imbued with meaning, but it's what you hear and it's what is there for the time that it's there and it gets you through, you know?
Speaker: And I think that there's A, a lot of value in that popular art and B, God can use that.
Speaker: Like we were just talking about that a few days ago.
Speaker: The...
Speaker: What the masses are taking in is a lot of times written off because it's what the masses are taking in.
Speaker: But a lot of times there is actual artistry and richness.
Speaker: And then, of course, God's common grace applies to that as well.
Speaker: And he can use it to reach us.
Speaker: Like Taylor Swift.
Speaker: Or the movie Logan.
Speaker: Yes, indeed.
Speaker: Good movie.
Speaker: Or Silver Linings Playbook.
Speaker: One of my favorite movies there.
Speaker: Just movies about people who don't want to dance, learning to dance, or who aren't supposed to learn how to dance, learning to dance, are like my favorite movies.
Speaker: Are you just trying to connect that in Footloose?
Speaker: And Enchanted.
Speaker: Is Dancing in Enchanted?
Speaker: Well, I mean like... Well, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because when Giselle is all like going off, she's all like, ah, singing her whole song.
Speaker: And Robert's like, you're singing.
Speaker: You can't be singing.
Speaker: He's like, what are you doing?
Speaker: And he's so embarrassed.
Speaker: And then by the end, he's singing to her.
Speaker: And I guess this is singing in this example.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But they're also dancing because everybody's dancing, you know.
Speaker: Because it's a musical.
Speaker: Why wouldn't you?
Speaker: Because it's a musical.
Speaker: And they're all going through Central Park doing their huge number, which is amazing.
Speaker: And then at the end...
Speaker: He asks her, well, he doesn't even ask her to dance.
Speaker: They end up dancing at the ball at the end.
Speaker: Watch the movie.
Speaker: It's really good.
Speaker: Spoilers for Enchanted.
Speaker: I still haven't seen the second one, though, so I can only spoil so far.
Speaker: We've talked a lot about, like, music and movies.
Speaker: Do you feel like...
Speaker: prescriptively there are different benefits is the wrong word would you go to a different medium of art for a different thing so if you were feeling a certain thing or felt that there was a need you needed met need need you needed a need that
Speaker: Required to be met.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Would you be like, ah, this thing I want to find a good painting for, or this is really something where that poetry needs to address, or this I just need to snuggle up and watch a movie and cry.
Speaker: Or not cry.
Speaker: Whatever emotion.
Speaker: For paintings specifically, you mentioned that.
Speaker: I definitely believe that paintings can be very powerful, emotional, cathartic tools.
Speaker: And they have been so in my life.
Speaker: But I... You can't consume paintings the same way that you can consume music or movies or a TV show.
Speaker: At least in our current state of being.
Speaker: If I...
Speaker: And I have art on my walls, but I don't feel, oh, you know, I really feel down.
Speaker: I'm going to look at my happy painting.
Speaker: I just, I have them because I really like them and because I enjoy looking at them, but they don't necessarily satisfy an emotional desire, I guess.
Speaker: That happens by accident, I think, with paintings or not by my purpose.
Speaker: Anyway, I have to go to like a museum or something and
Speaker: be looking at the paintings, and then I will find one that spoke to something I didn't know needed speaking to, is usually how it will work with paintings, specifically.
Speaker: Because that one just struck me as odd for some reason, so I had to elaborate.
Speaker: Well, and that makes sense because...
Speaker: paintings are sort of timeless, whereas stories and music all very much inhabit time.
Speaker: I think music especially.
Speaker: If you ever want to be trippy, think about music and time because it's constantly moving.
Speaker: But it also, the music cannot exist without the melody that happened before and the melody that happened after, but you're always only at the beat that the music is happening.
Speaker: It's very trippy.
Speaker: I think music is one of the most time-inhabiting things we do.
Speaker: But painting, like if I'm looking at the painting you got me for Christmas on this wall that's beautiful.
Speaker: That no one can see on the video.
Speaker: That no one can see.
Speaker: You should post a picture of it.
Speaker: I shall.
Speaker: Alexis, who was on the podcast, painted it.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: But if I look at that, it's this beautiful still image that kind of just time suspends.
Speaker: It's just there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like, I think of the sort of visual Lectio Divina thing that we did at church.
Speaker: So I'll explain for the audience.
Speaker: You should know this too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it was for Advent.
Speaker: Our church had a morning where they had a bunch of different activities.
Speaker: And one of them was we could go in and look at a painting and just have some spiritual reflection and see what the painting, what stood out from the painting for us.
Speaker: And we did that, I think, paired with a passage of scripture.
Speaker: But
Speaker: There is a sort of strange timelessness of just staring at this thing and watching new things pop up and strike you and hit you.
Speaker: And like those have their own movements to them, but it's also timeless and sort of its own stasis world.
Speaker: Yeah, because it's frozen.
Speaker: It doesn't move.
Speaker: It doesn't carry you along with it.
Speaker: It forces you to be still like it is.
Speaker: Which then would hit something else in you.
Speaker: Because going through the emotional journey of a story or a song that is, again, bound to time in some sense has... And it carried on the wave.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That has its sort of trajectory and point.
Speaker: Whereas painting...
Speaker: It's like those are more like a microcosm of our daily life and experience.
Speaker: Whereas paintings and the experience of paintings, which I think these experiences can cross over.
Speaker: But the general vibe I'm explaining, I feel like taps us more into the calm rhythm of rest, of like Sabbath and like rest in God, in a sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm probably over...
Speaker: Examining this, but it is kind of just this.
Speaker: That's why we're here.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: Why would we talk for an hour if we're not going to over examine?
Speaker: But I mean, you do just sit for.
Speaker: I could probably sit for a half an hour staring at a beautiful painting, which, you know, you could do in nature as well, which is God's art and creation.
Speaker: But and that's one of the ways that we can rest with him.
Speaker: But it is just sort of that still.
Speaker: Restful.
Speaker: thing with God.
Speaker: Contemplative.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Contemplative.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're going to say it the fancy way.
Speaker: I can read, but I can't speak.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: That's why you write.
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: No, I think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: And I'm trying to think about the other forms of art.
Speaker: There's dance.
Speaker: I feel like dance...
Speaker: Dance definitely can be.
Speaker: It's less of a, I am seeking this out, so I'm going to do this thing.
Speaker: I feel like dance, because you do it with your body, like it isn't something that you, well, you do all art with your body in some way.
Speaker: But with dance, the expression of your body is the art.
Speaker: And it isn't like theater where it's part of it.
Speaker: It is the art.
Speaker: Like that's it.
Speaker: You know, it's so...
Speaker: When you have emotions, sometimes you just got to do something with them physically.
Speaker: And so I feel like that is an outpouring of emotion in that way.
Speaker: It's like, okay, this is going to be a physical thing that's happening because of what I'm feeling inside and it's going to reflect.
Speaker: Do you feel like there's something that we get that's different as an audience watching a dance versus watching a play or a concert?
Speaker: Or do you just think it's down to the specifics of the story?
Speaker: Because I don't know if there's a difference necessarily in what the experience of watching like a ballet is compared to watching a show.
Speaker: I would say that for me, watching ballet is closer to watching music being performed than watching a play.
Speaker: Because with a play or a musical, you're focused on the story, I would say.
Speaker: Or at least I am.
Speaker: I guess I don't know about everyone.
Speaker: And I'll ask you this in a second, I guess, because I'm curious now what you're focused on.
Speaker: But when I'm going to see a show, I'm focused on the story, first of all, because I'm all about the story.
Speaker: I'm focused on the characters, what their characters are doing.
Speaker: And I'm focused on the actors.
Speaker: As an actor, watching other actors do their thing has become really interesting to me.
Speaker: So I enjoy watching the person do their thing, being like,
Speaker: that's that decision they're making or huh they left their prep on the other side of the stage and they need to figure that out now you know i think that seeing theater for me in either you know a straight play or a musical because i've done it enough now half of me is watching it half of me is analyzing it and it has to like reach a certain level of quality in order for me to like get swept away you know
Speaker: Dance.
Speaker: I do dance.
Speaker: I love to dance, actually.
Speaker: I don't know that I would say I am a dancer.
Speaker: Like I've been to see friends perform in the ballet.
Speaker: I've seen the Grand Rapids Ballet.
Speaker: Watching ballet.
Speaker: And I think that I would say that's the dance besides swing dancing, which I haven't seen as a performance.
Speaker: It's just been like a social event.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Ballet is the only dance I've seen performed.
Speaker: And if you've been to see the ballet or if you've been to see the orchestra, I think they're very similar in the way that what you're watching connects to your brain differently than what you're watching when you're watching a play.
Speaker: Because with...
Speaker: Because they don't have words they're saying.
Speaker: In most ballets, there are no words at all.
Speaker: Not even in the music.
Speaker: I've seen some contemporary ballet done to current music with lyrics.
Speaker: And that's a little bit different thing.
Speaker: But it's all in the artist's expression.
Speaker: Of their body, of their arms, of their hands.
Speaker: Of being lifted through the air.
Speaker: And you just kind of get swept away along with it.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I wouldn't say it necessarily captures any emotion better than anything else because I don't know that it does and I don't think that it would probably hold true across the board for everyone but I do think it connects to your heart and brain a little differently.
Speaker: Like we were saying with paintings being very still and movies and TV shows and songs being very active.
Speaker: I feel that
Speaker: like watching music being performed or watching a ballet is again kind of another different thing you're part of it but you're not part of it you're experiencing it without doing it you know yeah it's it's it's weird but i like it yeah that's cool um
Speaker: I don't know if that answered your question, but it was words that I said.
Speaker: You chatted about different forms of words.
Speaker: You said words, and at the end of the day, isn't that all that podcasts are about?
Speaker: I did it.
Speaker: Just saying words.
Speaker: Good job, me.
Speaker: That had, like, Ken energy.
Speaker: Sublime!
Speaker: Sublime!
Speaker: Not gonna lie, I relate to Ken pretty much as much as I relate to Barbie.
Speaker: Same Ken.
Speaker: Unrequited love, same Ken.
Speaker: I requite your love.
Speaker: You heard that.
Speaker: Everybody here heard that.
Speaker: Are there particular works of art?
Speaker: I know we've mentioned a couple with 21 Pilots and Imagine Dragons and Silver Linings Playbook.
Speaker: Are there pieces of art that you find yourself returning to or that stick out in your mind as pillars of art?
Speaker: things that have helped you heal in your pain or in your grief?
Speaker: Well, one, and I know we haven't really talked about creating art at all.
Speaker: But that can minister to you.
Speaker: I think I'm thinking in general, I'm focused more on when you're receiving, but creating definitely is part of that.
Speaker: I, well, we've already talked about it on the podcast.
Speaker: So I'm just going to say, go watch the other episode or listen.
Speaker: if you listen only, which is usually what I do, so I'm not judging you.
Speaker: But go listen to the episode that was on before, where I talked about my book, because that was definitely a huge thing and continues to be to this day.
Speaker: Very cathartic experience of working on it.
Speaker: As far, even though I created it, I can still receive it, which is really unique and beautiful.
Speaker: I would say as far as like a comfort show goes.
Speaker: Okay, I have a couple.
Speaker: So when I was graduating high school, my parents got divorced and
Speaker: Through that, we've talked about the different ways art can minister to you.
Speaker: I really, I didn't want art that was going to help me cathart at that point, you know, because I was in the thick of it.
Speaker: I didn't need to process what was going on.
Speaker: I needed to survive what was going on.
Speaker: And that was the time in my life I discovered Parks and Recreation, which is a beautiful TV show.
Speaker: And it kept me laughing.
Speaker: You know, through a really hard time in my life.
Speaker: So that's one.
Speaker: And remains to this day probably my favorite sitcom because it's just so good.
Speaker: Another TV show.
Speaker: Which I don't think necessarily came to me at a specific time, but I see myself returning to over and over again is the Netflix limited series Haunting of Hill House.
Speaker: which is a spooky one, as the title implies.
Speaker: And John couldn't get through it, but that's okay.
Speaker: He will one day.
Speaker: It'll be okay.
Speaker: And it is a ghost story, but it's also this really deep and complicated exploration of grief and what the brokenness of a family can do to impact your life.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I just find it really beautiful.
Speaker: Every time I get to the end of it, I always forget how scary it is, first of all.
Speaker: So like as they get progressively spookier.
Speaker: It's really scary.
Speaker: As time goes, it's not that.
Speaker: Things are scarier.
Speaker: It's medium.
Speaker: It depends on what scares you.
Speaker: Some people will be like, and some people.
Speaker: I get scared by the Borg and Star Trek and skeleton pirates.
Speaker: So I'm easy to get.
Speaker: Those skeleton pirates, persistent problem those.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: They're in like every pirate thing.
Speaker: You're like, ah, it's another skeleton pirate.
Speaker: Are they really?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: There's a lot of skeleton pirates.
Speaker: That's like a thing.
Speaker: Anyways, I'm interrupting our discussion of beauty and art, so we keep going.
Speaker: Skeleton man.
Speaker: Skeleton man.
Speaker: Skeleton pirate.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: That's a beautiful piece of art.
Speaker: Everybody, after this, go look up Skeleton Man.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: I mean... You will be moved.
Speaker: You will be moved to tears of despair is probably what you'll be moved to.
Speaker: If you want to laugh, just like Shay, laughter is important.
Speaker: God loves laughter.
Speaker: Beautiful and moving.
Speaker: Skeleton Man.
Speaker: Speaking of beautiful and moving, Haunting of Hill House.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I just find it really emotional.
Speaker: And there are...
Speaker: Each episode is an exploration of each different character and each character has their own crap that they're working through in different ways.
Speaker: Some healthier than others.
Speaker: Most of them mostly unhealthy.
Speaker: And you see like this family come together around this tragedy and it's really just, it's just, it's, it's a lot, but it's great.
Speaker: I really like it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: You know, I'm trying to think of a painting, and I know that there is one.
Speaker: I can't think.
Speaker: Nighthawks by, gosh, Edward Hopper.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I forgot his name first.
Speaker: Who is it, Hooper?
Speaker: I think it's Hopper.
Speaker: One of us is wrong.
Speaker: I could Google it, but I don't have my phone, and neither do you.
Speaker: So we're just going to have to hope that one of us is right.
Speaker: Edward Hoppooper.
Speaker: That sounded bad.
Speaker: Let's just call him Ed.
Speaker: Good old Eddie.
Speaker: Good old Eddie painted this painting.
Speaker: You know it.
Speaker: I'm sure you do.
Speaker: Of like some people sitting in a diner.
Speaker: It always gives me a sense of, I don't know, bittersweet peacefulness.
Speaker: I enjoy it.
Speaker: It's a really nice one.
Speaker: It's really nice.
Speaker: I like that one a lot, too.
Speaker: When I was going to direct Our Town, that was one of my mood board paintings.
Speaker: I had a lot of classic Americana and really simple hard-line modern painting, but I felt like it had a good vibe for the weird thing going on in Our Town.
Speaker: honestly yeah yeah because it is a little surreal if you look closely enough you start to see how weird the painting is which is something that i appreciate about it because it doesn't it isn't like a creepy way but it's just like that's weird uh taylor swift which i know again i'm gonna defend her do it to all of you defend i almost said prudes yeah to the prudes too
Speaker: We're not leaving you prudes out.
Speaker: You know who you are.
Speaker: Sam, who doesn't even listen to this, you prude.
Speaker: Leave Sam alone.
Speaker: He doesn't listen.
Speaker: I can call him a prude.
Speaker: Stop being mean.
Speaker: Defend Taylor Swift.
Speaker: I'm going to defend Sam next.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Dragging him through the mud on this episode.
Speaker: Sam is lovely.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: And a prude.
Speaker: Okay, you need to shut up.
Speaker: gonna do it tell the podcast i was to be quiet for a second so taylor swift i you know she's a lady she gets it she has a lot of things to say and i think she says them well and folklore and oh dear i just forgot folklore is there's like a sister album
Speaker: That goes with it.
Speaker: And I just forgot what it's called.
Speaker: Midnight's is it?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Midnight's is later.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I don't like Midnight's as much.
Speaker: I don't know my Taylor Swift well.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: Evermore is a song on it.
Speaker: I want to say it's Evermore, but I also can't 100% remember.
Speaker: So don't come after me, T-Swift.
Speaker: It's your sister album.
Speaker: You know, those ones, as you do.
Speaker: Sorry, Taylor.
Speaker: I know you listen to this podcast.
Speaker: You're really sad.
Speaker: Then she doesn't remember your album name, but...
Speaker: Everything's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those ones have been really good.
Speaker: I would say, honestly, I think the ones that are coming to mind are ones that I've been a part of creating.
Speaker: Hamlet was one, which I know you've talked about on the podcast before.
Speaker: That was really...
Speaker: really good one.
Speaker: I got to process through, I feel like you process through things in the creation of art more so, or in a different way.
Speaker: I wouldn't say more so, because not everyone creates art.
Speaker: It's almost more active.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's more like therapy as opposed to just figuring something out, I feel, because you're working it out.
Speaker: You're teasing it out yourself as opposed to just letting it wash over you.
Speaker: makes sense i wouldn't say it's necessarily always like that no something that was nice about hamlet for me was just being able to be a part of this like heritage piece you know like so many people have done this show and getting to experience that i don't know it gave me confidence i
Speaker: I went crazy.
Speaker: It gave me lots of confidence.
Speaker: Who else?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think those are the big ones that are coming to mind.
Speaker: I know that there are many more that I can speak to, but those are the ones that are coming up right now.
Speaker: What is it about those that, like, started my question poorly.
Speaker: You mentioned the beauty of those, pretty much every one of those.
Speaker: I think beauty is a really core part of art.
Speaker: I think beauty is something that God values, that God baked into creation, and I think that art helps highlight everything.
Speaker: different aspects of beauty and I think beauty can come in all shapes and sizes in the world.
Speaker: What are, are there common commonalities that you feel are present in those amongst the beautiful or painful?
Speaker: Like what's transcendent about those that connects and reaches out beyond the art?
Speaker: Man, I don't know.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm just trying to think of what things they have in common even are.
Speaker: And they maybe don't necessarily have to be in common, I suppose.
Speaker: I just am curious...
Speaker: What is it about those that lives on beyond the art that's transcendent, that makes the beauty ring real and outside of the world that they created on screen or in the music or in the painting?
Speaker: Well, I think it's the human connection, I think, is what it is.
Speaker: Or... You know...
Speaker: Just being able to connect with someone over something that they made.
Speaker: Or that they did.
Speaker: Or that you're seeing.
Speaker: And you have you on one end and the artist on the other end.
Speaker: And then the art in the middle.
Speaker: And it's like you're sharing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: And depending on what the art is, usually there's...
Speaker: The art is like a third party and it's like going back and forth.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker: I wasn't thinking about it beforehand.
Speaker: No, that's good.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: Because like in Hill House, right.
Speaker: Even though it's about ghosts.
Speaker: And this haunted house and this terrible tragedy, two terrible tragedies that befall a family and their grief and their pain.
Speaker: The characters are so real.
Speaker: They're just this messed up family trying to get through this horrible thing that happens.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: seeing them do that and being there for their whole lives because you follow the kids like when they're kids in the house and then as adults later you're there with them you know you work through whatever it is you're working through while they work through whatever it is they're working through and you do that together even though they're not real people and the person who wrote
Speaker: the show wrote it that way for a reason and then the actors who deliver those performances did so for a reason and it's like it's just this chain reaction and I think you feel that when you're doing something on stage is you have your script and then you bring your own thing to that and then the director pulls something else out of you and then there's whatever it is the audience takes away and those can all be different things but there's this through line and
Speaker: And maybe that's where God is, you know, in all of it.
Speaker: He can take something on one end of the creative process and he can pull it all the way through to the other end.
Speaker: Even if you do a terrible job, you know.
Speaker: And then you aren't alone anymore.
Speaker: You're there with...
Speaker: all of the people who are involved in that and the transcendence of it and the beauty of it and the pain of it and the or the joy of it you know whatever it is that's in that piece of art that you're taking in you're just you're just feeling it you know I think that's why
Speaker: Sometimes if I really want to get hyped up, if I'm nervous about something, I'll put on some really hyped up song.
Speaker: You know, I'll put on This Is Me from Greatest Showman or I'll put on 3090 from Tick Tick Boom, which I guess isn't necessarily delivering a super hype message, but it makes me feel super hype, you know.
Speaker: And so.
Speaker: It's like you pull everything in.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: And then you can take that with you and it doesn't, it isn't necessarily even about the art anymore.
Speaker: It's just the thing that you have.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: If that makes sense.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: I feel like that.
Speaker: There's something in that that I feel reflects how we walk through life with God too.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And I don't, part of that might be God in the art, but part of that I think just connects to it as well.
Speaker: Like, I'm still forming my whole thought, but
Speaker: God is with us, but we don't know that because I see him standing there.
Speaker: We know that because of everything else that we carry with us from what he's done and from what we know about him through scripture and what we know about him through the people that he's used and the art that he's used.
Speaker: So art forms us, resonates with us,
Speaker: We walk a journey with art, whether that be abstract or concrete, timeless or bound to time, and then we carry that.
Speaker: I'm always going to carry Hamlet with me.
Speaker: I'm always going to be thinking about Lord of the Rings when I think about heaven.
Speaker: And then, likewise, the presence of that, I think, can help us think about the presence of God always being with us, except...
Speaker: unlike art, which dies at a certain point and then just kind of hovers there.
Speaker: God is still living and active, just as powerful and resonant as real, way more powerful and resonant and real than that art.
Speaker: He used and made that art in some sense.
Speaker: So I think that's, I don't know, I think that's cool.
Speaker: And that's just, I feel like that's where it connects to God.
Speaker: I think he's present in much the same way.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, thanks for joining me on this episode.
Speaker: It's been really nice to talk to you again about this.
Speaker: It's always nice to talk to you.
Speaker: Aw.
Speaker: Aw.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: You heard it here, folks.
