Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Art as Liturgy with Timothy Van Bruggen
26 Plays2 years ago
In this episode Jon speaks with his friend Timothy Van Bruggen about their experience with liturgy, the importance of a rhythm of life to an artist, and how liturgy and art connect to each other in our life and faith.
Timothy is the Executive Director of Master Arts Theatre, and is an accomplished actor and director. He has had his hands in many artistic pursuits including writing, design, lighting, and served as a worship pastor for nearly two decades.
Sign up for our newsletter: https://www.artistsoftheway.com/contact.html
Find out more about Godspell: https://www.artistsoftheway.com/godspell.html
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Fundraising Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey friends, so today I'm going to put my little ad at the front end of the podcast instead of in the middle of the podcast because I didn't really want to interrupt the flow of the conversation because the conversation was just flowing and I don't need to interrupt it.
00:00:12
Speaker
So if you've already heard my Godspell spiel and don't want to hear it again, just skip like a minute or so and you'll be into the podcast.
00:00:19
Speaker
But I just wanted to kind of take a second, share with you guys about Godspell.
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm really excited because we officially have enough money where we can afford the rights.
00:00:28
Speaker
So that's fantastic.
00:00:29
Speaker
The show is absolutely going to happen.
00:00:31
Speaker
Our goal is to get us up to $4,500 by the end of the year, which is about a third of our cost to put on the show.
00:00:39
Speaker
So if you would like to donate and help us reach that goal, you can do so on our website.
00:00:45
Speaker
I'd really love to reach that goal by the end of the year.
00:00:47
Speaker
So if you haven't given and would like to give, or if you know people that might be interested in giving, go ahead and share that with them.
00:00:53
Speaker
If you want to know more about the show, maybe want to be involved next year when we're doing that.
00:00:58
Speaker
All the information's on our website.
00:01:00
Speaker
We're going to be doing it in July.
00:01:01
Speaker
I'm so incredibly excited with everything that God's doing in it already.
00:01:06
Speaker
Um,
00:01:07
Speaker
I've said this a million times, but I have such a phenomenal production crew.
00:01:11
Speaker
God is just lining everything up perfectly for it.
00:01:14
Speaker
I am, I'm, I'm in awe when I sit down and think of it and take myself out of the, the, the running of trying to get it funded.
00:01:21
Speaker
When I, when I zoom out and look at it, it's, it's incredible.
00:01:24
Speaker
The blessings that God is providing with it.
00:01:27
Speaker
So I am super excited about that.
00:01:29
Speaker
If you want to know more again about supporting it,
00:01:32
Speaker
Visit our website.
00:01:33
Speaker
Everything's right there on the Godspell page.
00:01:35
Speaker
Share it with your friends.
00:01:36
Speaker
Share it with your family.
00:01:37
Speaker
Anybody you think might be interested in being involved or supporting it.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:42
Speaker
Thank you, guys.
00:01:43
Speaker
Enjoy this episode.
Art as Liturgy: Personal Meaning and Reflection
00:01:48
Speaker
Like this week, I've been...
00:01:52
Speaker
I think it's the Collective Purity where it says, there's this one line I've been really dwelling on in my devotional time.
00:01:58
Speaker
It's like, God to you all hearts are open.
00:02:04
Speaker
And that phrase has been just stuck with me.
00:02:07
Speaker
And I think what I've loved about the liturgy and what I love as an actor is, you get to imbue these beautiful words that were created by someone else.
00:02:23
Speaker
And in a way, in the act of imbuing those words, those words then turn around and become part of you.
00:02:30
Speaker
Mm.
00:02:33
Speaker
Hello friends, welcome back to Artists of the Way.
00:02:35
Speaker
I'm John the host.
00:02:36
Speaker
Today I'm joined by my good friend Tim, who's our first repeat guest, which was very thought out by me.
00:02:42
Speaker
I didn't message him last minute being like, Tim, I don't have an episode this week.
00:02:46
Speaker
I need a guest.
00:02:49
Speaker
But I'm excited today.
00:02:50
Speaker
We're going to talk about the topic of art as a liturgy, which is kind of something I've been kind of
00:02:58
Speaker
Oh, what's the word?
00:02:59
Speaker
I'm trying to say spewing, and that's not the word.
00:03:02
Speaker
Percolating.
00:03:02
Speaker
That's a word.
00:03:04
Speaker
It's not quite the word I was thinking of, but the specific word doesn't matter.
00:03:08
Speaker
It's been kind of percolating in my subconscious, something I've been mulling on.
00:03:12
Speaker
There it is.
00:03:12
Speaker
Mulling.
00:03:14
Speaker
Mulling over, especially with the show that I'm in right now, which I haven't mentioned to anybody.
00:03:19
Speaker
I probably should, or like on the podcast.
00:03:22
Speaker
But Tim is currently directing a show at Master Art, Seeking the Child, which I am in.
00:03:28
Speaker
And there's just some things about that show that are kind of paralleling just some different aspects and different people in my own life.
00:03:36
Speaker
And so I feel like there's some ways God's using that as formation in my life.
00:03:41
Speaker
And so I've been kind of mulling over this idea of art as liturgy.
00:03:46
Speaker
And I've mentioned it to Tim before.
00:03:49
Speaker
I've mentioned it to a couple other good artistic friends and
00:03:52
Speaker
chatted through the idea a little bit, but not a lot.
00:03:56
Speaker
And Tim has had some thoughts on this same topic.
00:03:58
Speaker
So we're going to chat with him about that today and maybe a little bit about Seeking the Child.
00:04:03
Speaker
But how are you doing this morning?
00:04:05
Speaker
I'm doing good.
00:04:06
Speaker
I'm still recovering from Thanksgiving, which was yesterday.
00:04:11
Speaker
Lots of food.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:13
Speaker
I'm still trying to find my equilibrium after eating more than I normally do.
00:04:18
Speaker
But I'm doing well.
00:04:19
Speaker
Doing well.
00:04:20
Speaker
Awesome.
00:04:21
Speaker
Cool.
00:04:21
Speaker
So liturgy is kind of like a very, it's a very old church term.
00:04:29
Speaker
I think a lot of people in modern mainstream evangelical Christianity may not be super familiar with liturgy and what exactly it is, even if there may be elements of it in their worship.
00:04:44
Speaker
So do you want to kind of just give us a little explanation on what is liturgy?
00:04:49
Speaker
Sure, I'll do my best.
00:04:50
Speaker
I mean, it really depends a lot on the religious tradition that you've practiced.
00:04:56
Speaker
But at its most basic, liturgy is a method of public worship.
00:05:06
Speaker
and this has been an interesting topic all through my life because being someone who started Reformed and then went Pentecostal, and now I'm moving toward Anglican, I've had very different thoughts about liturgy through the years because there's...
00:05:23
Speaker
just the basic idea that liturgy is the way that you do public worship.
00:05:30
Speaker
But then there's also, like some people will say, well, this is a liturgical church and this is a non-liturgical church.
00:05:38
Speaker
And what they mean is that there's a very set form of corporate worship.
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:45
Speaker
Catholic services, Anglican services, the more Orthodox traditional services usually have a very set form.
00:05:53
Speaker
They follow the they follow the Christian year, the different festivals and the different they work through the scripture like Anglicanism, which we're in now does goes through the entire scripture in two years.
00:06:09
Speaker
And there's very set ways they do it.
00:06:11
Speaker
A lot of it when you talk about liturgy from its word origins is really more about the Eucharist and the inclusion of the Eucharist in a service.
00:06:24
Speaker
Which for those who don't know, because Eucharist can be a more high church term is just communion.
00:06:30
Speaker
Right.
00:06:30
Speaker
It's a high church term for communion.
00:06:33
Speaker
Exactly.
00:06:33
Speaker
Exactly.
00:06:34
Speaker
Um, so I think when we're approaching the topic of art as liturgy, you really have to go back to the very simple definition of it's a form of worship that tends to be ritualistic, uh, which is, that's certainly where I've been coming at it as a, as an artist and a creator is like, okay, when we think about, um,
00:07:04
Speaker
offering what we're giving to the Lord in a way that is worshipful.
00:07:09
Speaker
I think you almost have to get to that point, even if you don't use the word liturgy, you have to get to that point where it's like, well, how do I do that in a very conscious way?
00:07:19
Speaker
So, but that might be going a little too far, far, but so that's where, I mean, my little overview of liturgy and you could probably poke holes in a bunch of that, but yeah.
00:07:29
Speaker
No, that's good.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, so it's been interesting, I guess, for those who don't know, because not all our listeners are intimately familiar with my church life or your church life.
00:07:41
Speaker
So Tim and I have been attending an Anglican church for years.
00:07:47
Speaker
My wife and I have been attending it for about the last year now, maybe just a little over a year.
00:07:53
Speaker
Seven, eight months, I think.
00:07:55
Speaker
It's just been an interesting journey.
00:07:58
Speaker
That's a whole story in and of itself.
00:08:00
Speaker
But for both of us, that's been an interesting journey to kind of, I guess, claim liturgy as our own form of worship.
00:08:10
Speaker
Because, you know, and we'll probably chat a little bit more about this.
00:08:13
Speaker
You've had different...
Liturgy and Worship: Unity Across Time and Space
00:08:15
Speaker
elements or draws towards aspects of liturgy throughout your spiritual life.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:21
Speaker
My wife was raised Catholic, so I had, I think, a really beautiful introduction to liturgy as we were attending each other's churches, and I got to kind of observe and then dip in and out of the liturgy of the Catholic Church during the Mass during that.
00:08:37
Speaker
But now, as we've been attending this Anglican Church, and it has
00:08:41
Speaker
its own liturgy, which is similar to and also different from the Catholic liturgy.
00:08:48
Speaker
It's been one that has, I've kind of claimed that script, which is a pretty common way to refer to the liturgy.
00:08:56
Speaker
And that's been a very interesting parallel to my work in theater, which you and I have talked about before, where theater, you have a script and you have to
00:09:08
Speaker
I wouldn't say you have to imbue it with emotion.
00:09:10
Speaker
I think it has emotion in and of itself, but you have to let that emotion
00:09:14
Speaker
be imbued into you and then come out as truth, which I think is a very—this is more of the theological side of just liturgy in general and something I've appreciated.
00:09:25
Speaker
But that's been a great virtue of liturgy to me as I've been attending Mass and doing some morning and evening prayer that comes along with Anglicanism, where there's days where it's like I may not be feeling—I don't know—
00:09:44
Speaker
I can't think of the prayers.
00:09:45
Speaker
There's a lot of prayers.
00:09:46
Speaker
There's a lot of prayers in the church.
00:09:51
Speaker
I don't know.
00:09:51
Speaker
I might not be feeling one of the prayers on a particular day, but by virtue of saying it and letting it imbue that truth and emotion in me and me committing to that,
00:10:04
Speaker
Saying, I am going to profess this and I'm going to mean it even if I don't necessarily feel like I believe it.
00:10:12
Speaker
That's a very theatrical thing.
00:10:14
Speaker
And I think has been a cool parallel form of worship for me as an actor.
00:10:19
Speaker
Oh, definitely.
00:10:21
Speaker
I think, too, there's something about actors, especially if you're playing a role for a long time.
00:10:33
Speaker
Now we're community theater actors.
00:10:34
Speaker
So usually it's around three, four weeks, five, if it's really popular, there's only ever been once in my life where I've actually played a, a, a role for over a year.
00:10:46
Speaker
It was like a year and a half.
00:10:48
Speaker
Um,
00:10:49
Speaker
But when you're in that, even in the short term, there's going to be days where you're like really on and you feel like you're really connecting with the words and the script and the character.
00:10:59
Speaker
And then there's going to be days where you're not.
00:11:02
Speaker
And as an actor, your kind of job is to find whatever that is inside yourself to kind of still portray that truthfully.
00:11:11
Speaker
And...
00:11:14
Speaker
I think for me, that's part of the love that I've come to have.
00:11:18
Speaker
Well, first of all, it's like liturgy kind of both has been there, but snuck up on me at the same time.
00:11:24
Speaker
I realized as I've gotten into the liturgy more that I've kind of been longing for it ever since I was a first believer, which is more years ago than I'm going to talk about.
00:11:39
Speaker
Because there's been these elements of classical worship.
00:11:44
Speaker
that I have been drawn to.
Personal Enrichment Through Liturgical Practices
00:11:46
Speaker
And as I've entered into a liturgical life, in a daily devotion and the repetition of prayers, I've come to realize that a lot of the things that I've been drawn to in music and poetry and art, specifically Christian oriented, stem from the church liturgy throughout the ages.
00:12:16
Speaker
But the thing I find interesting, and for someone who's been a lifelong Christian, it's like I have, and I've said this to my friends before, it's like I have absolutely no problem praying for other people.
00:12:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:12:32
Speaker
I struggle with daily prayer just between myself and God.
00:12:39
Speaker
And I think that's one of the reasons that I've been drawn to the liturgy is because the liturgy provides you with prayer when you don't really know how to verbalize it.
00:12:58
Speaker
Like this week I've been, um,
00:13:02
Speaker
I think it's the Collective Purity where it says there's this one line I've been really dwelling on in my devotional time.
00:13:09
Speaker
It's like, God to you all hearts are open.
00:13:14
Speaker
And that phrase has been just stuck with me.
00:13:17
Speaker
And I think what I've loved about the liturgy and what I love as an actor is, um, you get to imbue these beautiful words that were created by someone else.
00:13:33
Speaker
And in a way, in the act of imbuing those words, those words then turn around and become part of you.
00:13:42
Speaker
And I'm not sure there's other art forms that have the same experience, but I hope we're going to try and delve into that a little bit today.
00:13:50
Speaker
I think there can be for sure, and we'll chat about that in a second.
00:13:53
Speaker
One more little geeky thing about the liturgy, and then we'll move on to art, I guess.
00:13:57
Speaker
People are like, when did this become a liturgy podcast?
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
Liturgists of the way.
00:14:02
Speaker
That's not what I signed up for.
00:14:04
Speaker
That's a really interesting concept, though.
00:14:06
Speaker
Maybe you can start an alternate podcast.
00:14:07
Speaker
There we go.
00:14:07
Speaker
I'll have a little spin-off.
00:14:08
Speaker
Liturgists of the way.
00:14:11
Speaker
But there's... It's... The words... There's this element of liturgy that I think is really cool that I've not experienced a whole lot as an evangelical Protestant Christian.
00:14:29
Speaker
which is that it's a work of the church in a sense.
00:14:34
Speaker
Like the liturgy is the wisdom of the churches of the church, not churches.
00:14:40
Speaker
There's one global church that is the church of Christ, not the denomination, right?
00:14:47
Speaker
The actual church of Christ.
00:14:51
Speaker
And you know, all the liturgies,
00:14:54
Speaker
the goal is let's distill all this wisdom.
00:14:57
Speaker
Let's take these prayers from these wonderful saints and church fathers who studied scripture and, and, and did so faithfully and, and beautifully.
00:15:08
Speaker
And a lot of the liturgy is Psalms and prayers and pieces of scripture.
00:15:12
Speaker
And it's like, let's just take the work of the church and,
00:15:16
Speaker
the best of it, which aligns with scripture, you know, scripture is still supreme and authoritative and the liturgy submitted to that.
00:15:24
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
I mean, most of it is from scripture.
00:15:26
Speaker
Right.
00:15:27
Speaker
But then we get to kind of, it's, it's a connection point to the history of the church.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:15:34
Speaker
Like we pray in the morning prayer.
00:15:38
Speaker
There's a prayer from St.
00:15:40
Speaker
John.
00:15:40
Speaker
Oh gosh, I'm going to mess up his name.
00:15:42
Speaker
St.
00:15:42
Speaker
John Chrysostom.
00:15:44
Speaker
Um,
00:15:46
Speaker
who is one of the ancient first two or three centuries fathers.
00:15:50
Speaker
There's a hymn that's been sang since the first or second century of the church that's in there.
00:15:56
Speaker
We get to echo these words that the church has used to worship forever.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:01
Speaker
We get to sing the Sanctus, which is mentioned on another podcast here, the Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of power and might.
00:16:09
Speaker
We get to use those exact, well, not the exact words, but the English version of those exact words.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:14
Speaker
And I think it's a really beautiful way for us to be able to, A, partake in the whole legacy of the church because we're all brothers and sisters in Christ, even stretching back to the first and second century.
00:16:29
Speaker
But then also, like, we get to receive that from the church, and God gets to use the church as a ministry to us throughout all ages.
00:16:37
Speaker
And I think that that's super cool and something I didn't get a lot of in my...
00:16:45
Speaker
upbringing, I guess, in the church from my denomination, because church history kind of stopped at the Reformation and then jumped back to the New Testament.
00:16:55
Speaker
But it's been really cool to kind of be able to receive things from all of church history, from the best of the wisdom that the church has to offer on its insight into God and the truth of Scripture.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:09
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:17:10
Speaker
And I think, you know, cause we were having a conversation a little while ago about, you know, for the past, gosh, 20 some years, I've been a Pentecostal.
00:17:20
Speaker
Um, and I haven't, if you ask me, I'm going to say, well, yeah, there's still, that's still part of my spiritual DNA and who I am.
00:17:31
Speaker
And cause I do believe that the spirit is very living and active here in our present today.
00:17:40
Speaker
But I think the thing that both has most attracted me to liturgy is the very thing you talked about.
00:17:48
Speaker
It's like when I'm praying the prayers, when I'm going through the Eucharist, when I'm practicing with that, first of all,
00:17:57
Speaker
In our little local body, I'm connecting with
Timelessness of Liturgy: Connecting Past and Future Generations
00:18:00
Speaker
everybody.
00:18:00
Speaker
We're all unified.
00:18:02
Speaker
Which just being unified in the culture we're in today that is so filled with divisiveness, just being unified in attitude and action, in worshiping the Lord through the words that we're saying together, that we're saying as a group,
00:18:22
Speaker
enacting those things, just coming to a place of unity is a beautiful thing.
00:18:29
Speaker
But then when you think of the timelessness of God, I'm walking through and saying words
00:18:38
Speaker
that are beyond time and space.
00:18:42
Speaker
There's people 20 miles to my east in Holland at a denomination, they're saying those words.
00:18:49
Speaker
There's someone in South Africa saying those words.
00:18:52
Speaker
There's someone in Asia.
00:18:53
Speaker
There are people
00:18:56
Speaker
all over who use the prayer book, who are all doing this.
00:19:00
Speaker
And we're connecting with those people regardless of space.
00:19:04
Speaker
But then you take that next dimension.
00:19:06
Speaker
And as a sci-fi fantasy geek, this really blows my mind.
00:19:10
Speaker
You take that next dimension and now we're
00:19:13
Speaker
We're connecting with people throughout time.
00:19:16
Speaker
People who have used these same words and these same actions for almost 2,000 years.
00:19:23
Speaker
And then you think about we're also connecting with those people in the future who are going to use the same words.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:34
Speaker
And just to kind of bring it back to art, unless you're doing a very original piece, every time you imbue a character, you're in a way connecting with every other actor that has played that character.
00:19:47
Speaker
And that was something really interesting with Hamlet, especially.
00:19:51
Speaker
Hamlet is another thing that's...
00:19:53
Speaker
Kind of ancient.
00:19:54
Speaker
I mean, it's much less ancient than the church and the words of the scripture.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:58
Speaker
But still like, what, five, six hundred years, something like that, that Hamlet has existed.
00:20:03
Speaker
And I know that was for me and Shane, I think for you as well, as we were approaching these characters in Hamlet.
00:20:10
Speaker
was crazy because they were characters imbued with so much legacy.
00:20:14
Speaker
And yes, we were a small community theater production.
00:20:17
Speaker
So I don't think you could look at it 100%.
00:20:20
Speaker
Well, you could.
00:20:22
Speaker
It's not like I was... There's like this famous little script of Hamlet that's passed on to like the next Hamlet, quote unquote, by whoever received it last.
00:20:29
Speaker
So it's not like I was receiving that book.
00:20:31
Speaker
But in a way, I was like carrying on this torch from...
00:20:34
Speaker
Laurence Olivier and Derek Jacoby and David Tennant and Benedict Cumberbatch and all these amazing actors whom I probably didn't meet their level of because they're professional and all of that.
00:20:46
Speaker
But I got to partake in some of that legacy.
00:20:49
Speaker
Exactly.
00:20:49
Speaker
Carry that on.
00:20:50
Speaker
But also...
00:20:52
Speaker
it was still like John's Hamlet.
00:20:55
Speaker
And then liturgy, like those words, the way I inflect the collect for purity or the prayer of humble access before we take the Eucharist, like that's still John's, that, that is John's prayer.
00:21:10
Speaker
I own that, but it's also the prayer of the church.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:21:14
Speaker
Awesome.
00:21:14
Speaker
And it's the prayer of every individual Christian who has prayed that prayer.
00:21:20
Speaker
Um,
00:21:21
Speaker
And kind of like in a way, we're going through that with the play that we're in too, because this is only the third time this play is put on.
00:21:30
Speaker
And you're playing the lead and I've played the lead in the past.
00:21:35
Speaker
So as a director, it's really fascinating for me to...
00:21:39
Speaker
To watch you do these words that I've done in the past.
00:21:44
Speaker
But you're imbuing them with your own character.
00:21:47
Speaker
And there's elements of John's personality that are coming out in Artaban that weren't there before.
00:21:55
Speaker
But then I also... What's been cool is I've been able to connect and see you make discoveries.
00:22:04
Speaker
That I've made.
00:22:05
Speaker
And it's like...
00:22:08
Speaker
I see your eyes light up and I'm like, my eyes light up and I'm like, oh, that's really cool.
00:22:12
Speaker
But then I also, what's really been fascinating is you'll find things in words that I've written and performed that I didn't find, even though I was the author and have played that character.
00:22:26
Speaker
And that's been just as fascinating for me.
00:22:30
Speaker
And I think in a way that reflects what the, what entering into a liturgical church has been for me is in, you know, I've been a huge student of church history, particularly the Western church for a long, long time and
Life Rhythms and Spiritual Practices: Parallels and Integration
00:22:50
Speaker
entering into this church.
00:22:52
Speaker
And now I'm doing these words that I've actually been aware of for a while, but I'm like, wow.
00:22:58
Speaker
Um,
00:22:59
Speaker
I'm able to discover things almost on a weekly basis that I'm like, oh, wow, this is now affecting me in a very strong and personal way.
00:23:10
Speaker
These words that I may have been familiar with.
00:23:14
Speaker
But then next week, I'll go through and we'll read the different scripture passages and we'll do some of the same prayers that we do every week.
00:23:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:23:24
Speaker
But something in that prayer, if my heart's open to what God wants to do in those words, different words will come more alive to me every week.
00:23:34
Speaker
And I think that's both...
00:23:38
Speaker
What I love about theater is discovering in the script, in the characters, in the things that we're playing, discovering that truth.
00:23:48
Speaker
And then, you know, that's very much paralleling what we do at church and what we do in theater for sure.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:59
Speaker
So let me ask you about then life formation in both of these things, like how our life is formed by liturgy and by art and the way that that parallels.
00:24:10
Speaker
Have you pondered that idea at all?
00:24:13
Speaker
Kind of.
00:24:14
Speaker
Well, I'm going to back up a second.
00:24:16
Speaker
Because John's going too fast.
00:24:18
Speaker
You've got to pump the brakes.
00:24:20
Speaker
No, I'm actually going to like back up and take a little side road.
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:24
Speaker
Because, and this is something that when I was a Pentecostal, this is like, I was on a soapbox about this.
00:24:34
Speaker
Every church is liturgical.
00:24:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:24:38
Speaker
Even the churches that say we're spirit led.
00:24:41
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:24:42
Speaker
You have a form of worship.
00:24:44
Speaker
You have a ritual that you go through.
00:24:46
Speaker
And so if you go back to that basic meaning that we talked about is like every every single time you come to public worship, there is a liturgy.
00:24:57
Speaker
Now, what that liturgy looks like may be different.
00:25:01
Speaker
And I think when we're calling it a liturgical church, we're calling it that because that's a time-honored traditional.
00:25:10
Speaker
That's one that's been used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
00:25:16
Speaker
Where if you go to like a contemporary service or a Pentecostal service...
00:25:22
Speaker
If you go to any church for more than three or four weeks, you kind of discover that they have a way they do things.
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah, they have their rhythm and patterns.
00:25:30
Speaker
Exactly.
00:25:31
Speaker
Where the worship is, where the sermon is, how they do that.
00:25:35
Speaker
Well, and even the calendar, too, just by nature of...
00:25:38
Speaker
Being American, we have Father's Day, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween.
00:25:47
Speaker
Exactly.
00:25:47
Speaker
Or a drunk retreat if you're going to avoid Halloween.
00:25:50
Speaker
Right.
00:25:51
Speaker
There's still that rhythm as well where it's the special feast days.
00:25:55
Speaker
Exactly.
00:25:58
Speaker
in the churches that we label as liturgical, they're just kind of looking a little further back and saying, okay, we're going to adopt these things that either were in many ways outlined by God in scripture or out of the tradition of the early church.
00:26:21
Speaker
So life formation, I think all of us,
00:26:29
Speaker
Unless you're completely random and chaotic in your approach to life.
00:26:37
Speaker
All of us have habits and rituals that we fall into on a daily basis.
00:26:43
Speaker
So in a way, we all are liturgical in nature.
00:26:48
Speaker
I think that's not just human nature.
00:26:52
Speaker
I think that's kind of imbued in creation.
00:26:55
Speaker
Like when you look at animals, like geese who fly south and fly north, and they have...
00:27:02
Speaker
They sense the times and seasons and know when they need to do these different things in their life.
00:27:09
Speaker
It's very instinctual.
00:27:10
Speaker
And I think in a way, life rhythm is a very instinctual God-given gift to who we are.
00:27:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:24
Speaker
So I think it's kind of natural for us to kind of all fall into a rhythm of life, which is really what...
00:27:33
Speaker
you know, liturgy, when we talk about liturgy in the church sense, it's a rhythm of worship.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:39
Speaker
Um, and I think the more you take that rhythm of worship and say, okay, I live my life every day.
00:27:49
Speaker
There are things I have to do every day.
00:27:52
Speaker
Um, like when you, when you go into like the book of Colossians where it talks about, um, do all things as unto the Lord.
00:28:01
Speaker
And, um,
00:28:03
Speaker
And that our very lives are an act of worship.
00:28:07
Speaker
So if we take that to heart and we really think, okay, my life and how I live my life is an act of worship as unto the Lord.
00:28:16
Speaker
And we all have these kind of daily rhythms.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I think the difference between, and this is kind of like going back to the church thing, is like liturgical churches recognize, embrace, and say, oh, we are going to be, this is our rhythm.
00:28:31
Speaker
Churches that are non-liturgical, and it's funny because in like Pentecostal, it's like, we don't use the liturgy.
00:28:36
Speaker
We follow the leading of the spirit.
00:28:38
Speaker
Like, yeah, you do.
00:28:42
Speaker
But at the same time, it's like we're sitting here making an order of service every week.
00:28:48
Speaker
You know?
00:28:49
Speaker
So I'm like, but isn't that liturgy?
00:28:54
Speaker
So I think all of us, I don't want to get too...
00:29:02
Speaker
I think all of us have, who do we serve?
00:29:07
Speaker
And are we going to be conscious about how, about molding our rhythm of life to the one that we serve?
00:29:19
Speaker
And I think that's, what's been really cool about me as I've entered into life.
00:29:25
Speaker
liturgy as my form of worship in a communal sense, it's also started to make me think about liturgy as worship in a personal sense.
00:29:39
Speaker
And as an artist, it's also especially approaching the show that we're in, which is, you know,
00:29:47
Speaker
very much a show about living your life surrendered to God and his leading.
00:29:55
Speaker
So when you think about, all right, if I'm going to live my life, surrender to God, what does the rhythm of my life look like as someone who submitted to that?
00:30:07
Speaker
And I think that's an interesting question for an artist too.
00:30:11
Speaker
And I even talked to when I was,
00:30:13
Speaker
chatting with John Van Dusen last episode about that a little bit too.
00:30:17
Speaker
Like artists have a tendency to try and throw rhythm out the window and do as much art as we can and be as productive as we can and just load it all up.
00:30:28
Speaker
I have that tendency very much.
00:30:30
Speaker
So it's very, I have to be really intentional and oftentimes fail to say, no, today prayer is more important than me creating a thing or moving towards this, uh,
00:30:43
Speaker
So if I can take a little more time to pray and give that project less time, and that's fine, I have to pick when it's a healthy time to do a show or not.
00:30:56
Speaker
I have to pick when it's a good season of life to write something or not.
00:31:02
Speaker
And I think it's just a human nature thing to struggle with rhythm.
00:31:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker
But...
00:31:12
Speaker
I do think it's important for artists.
00:31:14
Speaker
What is that rhythm in seasons of life?
00:31:17
Speaker
Like what is your seasonal rhythm?
00:31:19
Speaker
Like big picture, what's your small picture rhythm day in and day out?
00:31:24
Speaker
What's your rhythm of creating and what's your rhythm of receiving from God so that you can create?
00:31:29
Speaker
Cause we can't create if we aren't receiving from God.
00:31:32
Speaker
Well, I mean, we can, but I don't think it's as good.
00:31:35
Speaker
Um,
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:39
Speaker
I'm curious on like the seasonal, unless you had other thoughts on that, I guess I don't have to.
00:31:45
Speaker
Well, no, I think, I think if we're going to jump into seasonal there, I thought, I think there's ways that those connect.
00:31:49
Speaker
So yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker
Cause I'm, I'm thinking about, so seeking the child is the show that we're in right now.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:56
Speaker
So,
00:31:57
Speaker
And as I've said a couple times on this, God very much frequently aligns the show that I'm in with things going on in my life.
00:32:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:32:07
Speaker
So much so.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:07
Speaker
And Seeking the Child has been kind of, in a sense, profound, but also in another sense, just another show, which has been kind of strange.
00:32:17
Speaker
But I think it's because God has been stretching my perspective in that show, whereas I don't think he's necessarily been...
00:32:24
Speaker
That's not true.
00:32:25
Speaker
This last week or so, he's hit me with a couple things to think about and I think some healing things.
00:32:34
Speaker
But in general, what's been really healthy about this show and unique about this show for me in this season is it's helped me to get into the perspective of somebody who doesn't experience God the same way that I do.
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, which you and I have talked about.
00:32:52
Speaker
But there are several people in my life that don't experience or relate to God in the same way that I do.
00:33:02
Speaker
Plus, I'm going into chaplaincy eventually, God willing, unless he leads me a different direction.
00:33:06
Speaker
And that's one where.
00:33:08
Speaker
many people are going to experience God very differently depending on where their walk with him is at and like just their tendencies as Christians because we all relate to God differently.
00:33:19
Speaker
And I've always been aware of, like I've never been the kind of person, well, that's not maybe true.
00:33:25
Speaker
Maybe I have at some, in some times.
00:33:28
Speaker
I try not to be the person that's like, you're not hearing a word from God or this or that or this thing that is,
00:33:34
Speaker
Applying the way that I relate to God onto other people and assuming that if they don't match or meet that that that's bad spirituality on their part, right?
00:33:44
Speaker
I try not to do that, but then it can be difficult to empathize or relate When you don't experience it when it's something outside of your experience There's a lot of times where I'm like I'm trying but I don't get it and I think playing the character that I am I've been able to explore
00:34:06
Speaker
Because I don't think this character relates to God in the way that I do and the way that he relates to God and his experience of God throughout his life is his whole thing.
00:34:14
Speaker
I don't think that his experience of engaging with God is my experience of engaging with God.
00:34:18
Speaker
So getting to do that has been a good kind of broadening, beautiful thing for me.
00:34:26
Speaker
So all that to say, that is a way in which God is using this show in my seasonal rhythm as a sort of liturgy where I'm repeating this story.
00:34:38
Speaker
I'm repeating these words.
00:34:40
Speaker
I'm repeating this theme in my head over and over and over.
00:34:43
Speaker
And he's just using that to gently and kindly stretch me and grow me in the way that he wants.
00:34:51
Speaker
So I'm curious...
00:34:53
Speaker
What, I don't know, I'm curious on your thoughts on that idea.
00:34:59
Speaker
I think in some way, I think actors may be a little more hardwired to be able to accept liturgical worship.
00:35:14
Speaker
Because we go through it.
00:35:16
Speaker
I mean, every time we're in a show, there's,
00:35:21
Speaker
And I was thinking about this just this past week as I'm like directing the show, you have to kind of put the schedule together.
00:35:27
Speaker
And I've directed a number of different shows and there's a routine, there's a rhythm, there's a method where you start out and you always have the read through when you first cast the show and you have the read through where everybody gets together and goes through the script.
00:35:45
Speaker
And then you kind of go through your blocking rehearsals and you go through your character work and you get and then you get into sort of the scene work time.
00:35:54
Speaker
So every show, even though shows are radically different, casts are radically different, how how we approach a show.
00:36:06
Speaker
has a rhythm to it and has a certain way that you approach it.
00:36:13
Speaker
And then I think of like when I'm working on a writing project or people that I've talked to who are artists, one of the important things that writers will tell you and artists will tell you is you have to set aside specific time, schedule time to work on your art.
00:36:34
Speaker
And
00:36:35
Speaker
in a way, even in personal, individual art, I feel like you've almost, yes, there's inspiration and there's finding that motivation to work on it, but if you talk to our friend Susie, she has deadlines and she has to schedule that time.
00:36:59
Speaker
to work on her creative projects.
00:37:01
Speaker
And, you know, you and I both know if you don't schedule time to work on a creative project, you'll have a great idea and it will never be realized.
00:37:08
Speaker
Like this very episode of the podcast.
00:37:11
Speaker
Exactly.
00:37:11
Speaker
I was like, I should work on this or I want to have an episode.
00:37:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:15
Speaker
So I think theater is probably even closer to liturgical worship because it's communal, it's collaborative.
00:37:25
Speaker
It may only be a director and one actor in a one-man show, but it also could be like in our case, we've got director and artists working by the scenes and we've got a cast of like 19 people.
00:37:38
Speaker
And we're all kind of walking through this rhythm communally.
00:37:43
Speaker
to approach this goal of offering this piece of worship.
00:37:49
Speaker
An interesting parallel to what you're talking about with art there and with liturgy that I hear people say about both those things is I feel like I think a lot of artists have a concern about like
00:38:04
Speaker
over making the art too mundane, doing it too mundane.
00:38:08
Speaker
By scheduling it, you're going to take the joy out of it, or it's going to become your job, or it's going to become work, you know?
00:38:13
Speaker
And then I think, on the other hand, with liturgy, I have people and friends who are concerned about the idea of a liturgy or a written-out form of worship because it's like, oh, I'm not free to worship then.
00:38:28
Speaker
Like, I want to just...
00:38:30
Speaker
worship, but there's these words that I have to use to worship that's going to make it too mundane or too rote.
00:38:39
Speaker
And I'm not going to really be able to embrace it.
00:38:41
Speaker
But I think there's... Oh crap, I can't remember who said this quote.
00:38:49
Speaker
Darn, that's going to frustrate me.
00:38:50
Speaker
There's this beautiful quote that I feel like is either by Chesterton or Lewis, but it might be by somebody completely different.
00:38:57
Speaker
Um...
00:39:00
Speaker
where I think it's Chesterton, where it's like we serve a God that makes the sun rise every single morning and takes so much joy in the sun rising every morning.
00:39:12
Speaker
And that is the exact same thing over and over again.
00:39:16
Speaker
But he has this childlike joy where he says, again, he wants it to happen again and again and again.
00:39:22
Speaker
And we have the tendency of being like, well, that's mundane, you know?
00:39:26
Speaker
I love watching the sunrise, but probably three quarters of the time that I get up for work and the sun's out, I'm like, that's too bright and I want to sleep more.
00:39:37
Speaker
You know?
00:39:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:38
Speaker
But then there's beautiful times where I slow down and I see the sunrise and I'm like, oh, that's right.
00:39:42
Speaker
You know?
00:39:43
Speaker
And the mundane rhythm has beauty to it again.
00:39:50
Speaker
So, I don't know, I don't have a full answer, but I'm like, that's an interesting parallel.
00:39:54
Speaker
Well, and it kind of goes back to what you were talking about in your exploration of Artaban, realizing that people experience God in different ways.
00:40:02
Speaker
And that can be a seasonal thing as well.
00:40:08
Speaker
Like I know right now I'm very deeply affected by the words of the liturgy and the words of the daily prayers.
00:40:16
Speaker
And that's really, really helping me because I feel like I've gone through this dry season where I'm not, I haven't been able to find the words to communicate with God.
00:40:27
Speaker
So being able to lean back on people who've prayed these prayers.
00:40:35
Speaker
And in many ways, I'm like, those prayers are the...
00:40:42
Speaker
result of years of people trying to find exactly the right words or using the words that God gave us to begin with to find the right words.
00:40:52
Speaker
So this is a season for me where that's very, very alive and active.
00:41:00
Speaker
But there's other seasons where, you know, I am much more, it's much more about my own Psalms that I offer up.
00:41:12
Speaker
And I think we limit ourselves if we,
00:41:22
Speaker
And I guess this is one of the wonderful things about all the denominations that have kind of come out of the splintering of the church after the Reformation.
00:41:34
Speaker
For me, the liturgy is very important right now.
00:41:37
Speaker
And this is a season of my life where it's filled with life.
00:41:42
Speaker
Right.
00:41:43
Speaker
There was another season of my life where being spirit led and Pentecostal was very, very life giving to me.
00:41:51
Speaker
And I really needed that for that particular season of my life.
00:41:55
Speaker
Um, and I think those are like larger seasons, but I think we all, you know, kind of going back to when you look at characters in scripture, when you look at characters in the show that we're doing, um,
00:42:10
Speaker
And kind of going back to Henry Van Dyke's short story, it's like there's so many different characters in this book.
00:42:18
Speaker
And same can be said of scripture.
00:42:22
Speaker
They're all experiencing God.
00:42:25
Speaker
but they're all experiencing them in very deeply personal and seasonal ways.
00:42:31
Speaker
Um, just giving one example, like one of the characters Arban runs into is John the Baptist.
00:42:39
Speaker
Now, if you look at John the Baptist's journey in scripture,
00:42:44
Speaker
He experienced God probably earlier than any of us.
00:42:49
Speaker
I mean, he had the spirit on him in the womb, and we see his reaction before he's even born.
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:58
Speaker
That's a very present, radical, amazing thing.
00:43:04
Speaker
Then we go and we see John the Baptist in the wilderness where he's walking out the mission that he's been given in life.
00:43:11
Speaker
He's very, very... Almost ascetic.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:17
Speaker
And he's passing that along in ways that are very ritualistic, that are very repetitive to every person that he comes along.
00:43:27
Speaker
He's saying the same words, doing the same actions.
00:43:31
Speaker
He's got a liturgy in being someone who's going, I mean, his liturgy is baptism.
00:43:38
Speaker
And that, well, the cool thing is like, and we just experienced this at church a couple weeks ago, that baptism is
00:43:46
Speaker
It's still a part of church life, but that was a season
Spiritual Seasons and Doubt: Lessons from John the Baptist
00:43:50
Speaker
in John's life And then we hear like I just read this in the Gospels, you know where Jesus's disciples are starting to baptize and some of John's disciples goes aren't you mad because they're like taking your thing and he's like No, we're not we're not in competition You know Jesus is the one who is the one to come
00:44:14
Speaker
But then eventually we're gonna see John at a very different place where he's in prison and he actually sends that message to Jesus and his disciples saying, are you the Messiah?
00:44:27
Speaker
I'm like, whoa, what happened?
00:44:30
Speaker
Because he was the one who was proclaiming Christ as Messiah, saw the dove of hand of heaven come down on him, hear the word of the Lord, and now he's at this place
00:44:42
Speaker
And Jesus even says no one is like John.
00:44:46
Speaker
And John gets to this season of his life where he's not experiencing God, where he doesn't have that surety of seeing and hearing.
00:44:57
Speaker
So he's at this place of doubt.
00:45:00
Speaker
And Jesus sends a messenger back to him saying, no, the lame walk, the blind see, the good news is being preached to the poor.
00:45:09
Speaker
So, which has a slight theological sidebar, like John walks through a season that many Christians I'm aware of would say, oh, look at John being a bad Christian there.
00:45:23
Speaker
Which... That drives me crazy.
00:45:25
Speaker
I know.
00:45:25
Speaker
Sorry.
00:45:26
Speaker
Just an interesting thing.
00:45:28
Speaker
I'm like, that's a depressed season that I feel like we've all probably gone through at some point and are at least aware of people, if not have had people say, oh, you just got to have some more faith, man.
00:45:39
Speaker
You're not praying hard enough.
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:41
Speaker
But if John the Baptist...
00:45:43
Speaker
Possibly one of the greatest Christians, quote-unquote, to ever live could go through that.
00:45:48
Speaker
Exactly.
00:45:49
Speaker
And I think we're too quick.
00:45:52
Speaker
We're too quick to say, oh, if things aren't going perfectly in your life, you're not doing it right.
00:45:58
Speaker
I'm like, well...
00:46:01
Speaker
That's not biblical, you know?
00:46:03
Speaker
And I think that's part of the beauty of just, like, accepting the season you're in.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:08
Speaker
And being able to fall back on, okay, maybe I'm, again, going back to what I originally was saying I found beautiful about the liturgy, maybe I'm not feeling it today.
00:46:18
Speaker
As an artist, maybe I'm not feeling...
00:46:22
Speaker
working on this piece of art.
00:46:24
Speaker
Maybe I'm not feeling writing.
00:46:25
Speaker
Maybe I'm not feeling playing my instrument.
00:46:28
Speaker
Maybe I'm not feeling recording a podcast because it's the holiday season, you know?
00:46:33
Speaker
No, I am enjoying this.
00:46:34
Speaker
Not to say, oh, I have to talk to Tim.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's so hard.
00:46:38
Speaker
I know.
00:46:38
Speaker
But like, maybe we're not feeling it.
00:46:41
Speaker
Or maybe somebody is...
00:46:44
Speaker
feeling it and writing like a thousand, 2000 words a day, you know, um, that doesn't mean that one is doing it better than the other.
00:46:52
Speaker
That just means you're in a season and it's okay as both an artist and a Christian, if you're in a season where the art's not flowing or you feel like God isn't saying a word to you every other day, um,
00:47:07
Speaker
But it seems much more like a season where God is just kind of quietly there and you don't necessarily even feel like he's there.
00:47:14
Speaker
You just know he's supposed to be there because the Bible says he's supposed to be there.
00:47:20
Speaker
you can walk through that season and that doesn't mean you're failing as a Christian.
00:47:24
Speaker
And the parallel as an artist does not mean you're failing as an artist because you're having a hard time doing the art.
00:47:30
Speaker
That might just be the season that you're in.
00:47:33
Speaker
Maybe it's the season of receiving.
00:47:34
Speaker
And I think...
00:47:39
Speaker
We're too quick because we've grown up with this idea of productivity and needing to be... And in some ways, we've kind of absconded with the biblical idea of fruitfulness, where we feel like we need to be producing fruit.
00:47:58
Speaker
We need to have fruit in our lives in order to be good Christians.
00:48:01
Speaker
And I'm like, well, that, yes.
00:48:04
Speaker
But trees need to grow.
00:48:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:48:07
Speaker
And the seed doesn't have any fruit.
00:48:10
Speaker
The sapling doesn't have any fruit.
00:48:12
Speaker
Sometimes it's years before a plant will start to produce fruit from when it first starts to grow.
00:48:19
Speaker
And you might be in a season of germinating.
00:48:21
Speaker
And trees die every year.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:24
Speaker
They die and then come back to life every year.
00:48:26
Speaker
Which, another side note, resurrection is literally like baked into trees.
00:48:29
Speaker
I love it.
00:48:30
Speaker
Anyways.
00:48:31
Speaker
Which is so cool.
00:48:32
Speaker
So cool.
00:48:32
Speaker
But they, even once they're a fruitful tree...
00:48:37
Speaker
There's like a certain few months where they're bearing fruit.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:41
Speaker
You know, you don't want to eat an apple when it's not apple season.
00:48:45
Speaker
Exactly.
00:48:46
Speaker
As much as our like food productivity line tries to let us have all the fruits all the time.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:54
Speaker
So it goes back to that rhythms.
00:48:56
Speaker
And I think one of the lost, it's a lost thing on us to discover.
00:49:01
Speaker
And I think you were actually talking about this with John Ben-Dusen as well.
00:49:05
Speaker
Um,
00:49:06
Speaker
There are seasons where we need to, you know, because I think he was talking about it in reference to the Sabbath and about his family trying to take, you know, practice the idea of Sabbath.
00:49:17
Speaker
Sabbath was created.
00:49:20
Speaker
I mean, and Jesus says this so many times because when he gets accused of doing stuff on the Sabbath, he goes, look.
00:49:26
Speaker
The Sabbath was not created for God.
00:49:29
Speaker
The Sabbath was created for man.
00:49:31
Speaker
It's part of the rhythm that you have in your life that you need rest.
00:49:37
Speaker
You can't be doing the good works that God has called you to do if you're not resting.
00:49:46
Speaker
Resting both physically, resting spiritually, resting your soul and mind.
00:49:53
Speaker
to receive what God has for you.
00:49:56
Speaker
And I think as artists, we need to be very careful that we don't fall into the trap of producing, where we forget that we're not gonna
Art as Divine Act: Connecting with God
00:50:10
Speaker
produce something honest and truthful and beautiful if we haven't received honesty and truth and beauty.
00:50:19
Speaker
One of my favorite things in the last few years that I've discovered that's been helpful for that for me, which I think I even shared with you because it was in that book that I lent you, the leadership book, which comes from Benedictine monks, which is the Benedictine rule of life.
00:50:35
Speaker
And the way that they—I don't know exactly how they put it together in the original Benedictine way.
00:50:42
Speaker
It might be just the same thing, but the way this author took that and put it together—
00:50:47
Speaker
for us today was he has like four boxes and two of them are ones where you're giving out things and then the other two are receiving so it's I think it's prayer work play and something else I don't know but the idea is that there's one that you're like
00:51:05
Speaker
Oh, relationships.
00:51:06
Speaker
So one is like, you know, what are you pouring into in work?
00:51:11
Speaker
What are you pouring into in other people?
00:51:14
Speaker
And what are you doing for God?
00:51:16
Speaker
And then what are you receiving from God?
00:51:17
Speaker
And what are you receiving from other people?
00:51:19
Speaker
And the idea is in these four quadrants, there should be a roughly equal amount of what you're receiving and what you're giving.
00:51:27
Speaker
Because if you're giving more than you're receiving, you get depleted.
00:51:31
Speaker
Right.
00:51:33
Speaker
And if you're receiving more than you're giving, you end up being selfish and greedy.
00:51:38
Speaker
So you have to make sure that that generosity is part of your daily rhythm.
00:51:46
Speaker
And I think that is something that... And here's the interesting thing.
00:51:51
Speaker
I think fruit and the idea of art and beauty...
00:51:57
Speaker
is the thing that creation element of it.
00:52:01
Speaker
I think that's what takes us a step further because you could say a lot of this is, is very life, you know, um, animals, trees, creation itself has to have that receiving and giving.
00:52:15
Speaker
It's kind of the part of, um, who we are.
00:52:19
Speaker
But I also think that when we're starting to talk about art, we're talking about that, that one thing that,
00:52:26
Speaker
that connects us more to God than it does to the creation that God has created.
00:52:35
Speaker
Now in all its forms, like even engineering and very left science, chemistry.
00:52:40
Speaker
Now we're talking about art on a larger scale.
00:52:43
Speaker
Like creative act.
00:52:44
Speaker
Skilled, yes.
00:52:45
Speaker
Yeah, the creative act, yeah.
00:52:47
Speaker
Which I think that's the thing that separates the beauty of art from the beauty of the created.
00:52:58
Speaker
So for example,
00:53:01
Speaker
I love to go walk in the parks.
00:53:04
Speaker
I did that this morning.
00:53:07
Speaker
And there are still some birds around, even though it's starting to get cold.
00:53:11
Speaker
And they're singing.
00:53:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:14
Speaker
And it is absolutely natural and good to go out in God's creation and observe the beauty that is there.
00:53:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:23
Speaker
the difference between the song that the bird sings and a song like that Stuart Jones or John Van Dusen or, I don't know, any musician you can think of is the bird is not doing it as a creative act.
00:53:41
Speaker
The bird is doing it out of instinct and that's how they were created to communicate.
00:53:46
Speaker
And you could say the same thing for any person
00:53:53
Speaker
Insects, birds, animals, creation, even plants, trees, they have a way that they, you know, communicate, receive, give into the environment that they're in.
00:54:04
Speaker
What separates us is that we can willingly step into a creative act that is outside of instinct, which then I think if you're doing it the way we're designed to do, it becomes an act of worship.
00:54:20
Speaker
in and of itself.
00:54:21
Speaker
When we take the rhythm of life and we actually apply the rhythm of life to creativity, now we've gone and taken the liturgy of life and it's become worship.
00:54:36
Speaker
It's become art.
00:54:37
Speaker
It's become intentional rather than just instinctual.
00:54:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:46
Speaker
Now, some humanists would say that, like, well, creating art is kind of instinctual in humanity.
00:54:52
Speaker
I'm like, not... I would say that it isn't because it doesn't fundamentally feed a need.
00:55:03
Speaker
I mean, artists will say it does.
00:55:05
Speaker
Right.
00:55:06
Speaker
But I would say that's the difference between...
00:55:09
Speaker
instinctual physical need and God given spiritual emotional need.
00:55:16
Speaker
Um, and then we're talking about God has designed us to be creators, to connect with our creator in an act that, that transcends our just physical material mammal-ness.
00:55:35
Speaker
Um,
00:55:37
Speaker
And it's one of the ways that God has specifically wants us to be intimate with him as our God, whose greatest desire is to be intimate with his people and have his presence be recognized and acknowledged in our lives.
00:55:57
Speaker
And I think it's applying that sort of rhythm of life that God gives us both
00:56:07
Speaker
in a large sense, season of life-wise, but also in a smaller sense, like the time of year, like we kind of, we walk through the biblical year.
00:56:17
Speaker
But those are, like you were talking about earlier, those rhythms of life are there whether you follow the church calendar or whether you don't.
00:56:24
Speaker
It's kind of like, because that's how creation is designed.
00:56:29
Speaker
And then we also have those daily rhythms, like when the sun goes down, we get tired.
00:56:33
Speaker
When the sun comes up, we wake up.
00:56:36
Speaker
sometimes whether we like it or not.
00:56:37
Speaker
And, you know, we have those rhythm of our days.
00:56:41
Speaker
We need to work.
00:56:42
Speaker
We need to get food.
00:56:43
Speaker
We need to sustain ourselves.
00:56:45
Speaker
We need rest.
00:56:46
Speaker
We need cleanliness.
00:56:47
Speaker
You know, all those things that every mammal, every creature has their rhythms that God has set up in their lives.
00:56:58
Speaker
But we have the privilege of being able to surrender that rhythm to
00:57:07
Speaker
in a way that's worship.
00:57:09
Speaker
And that's something that is very unique to humanity.
00:57:15
Speaker
And then when we take it that one step further and say, okay, God has created us with these minds and skills and abilities and emotions that we want to express in theater, in art, in music,
00:57:33
Speaker
then we have an opportunity to join with his spirit in a creative act that is beyond what most other creatures are enabled to do.
00:57:44
Speaker
We actually get to be creators ourselves in a very small way compared to the enormity of the creation God has given us.
00:57:56
Speaker
But even
00:57:59
Speaker
I wrote a simple little prayer that I sent out for Thanksgiving for Master Arts Theater yesterday.
00:58:04
Speaker
And I was looking at it and I'm like, and I saw the influence of a lot of artists and poets through the years in how I approached it.
00:58:14
Speaker
And I'm like, even this simple act of just writing out this very simple prayer that I wanted to offer up to all the people who make Master Arts what it is.
00:58:22
Speaker
Like, wow, in that little moment, I actually stepped outside of the rhythm of my day,
Resources and Recommendations for Exploring Liturgy
00:58:30
Speaker
joined into the rhythm of worship and prayer that God has offered.
00:58:36
Speaker
And I was able to just create something.
00:58:39
Speaker
And I
00:58:41
Speaker
I think the beauty of that surrendering our rhythms, whether it be in a moment as an artist, in a creative process, in your daily routine, in your seasonal life, I think that's the beauty of liturgy really at its very core.
00:59:03
Speaker
The rhythms are there.
00:59:05
Speaker
rhythms are kind of embaked into us as creative beings, into God's creation as a whole.
00:59:14
Speaker
And I think it's surrendering the rhythm that already exists in a way that acknowledges that God is behind it and above it and below it and beside it and all around it.
00:59:27
Speaker
And then we can say,
00:59:31
Speaker
God, I'm going to enter into this act with you.
00:59:35
Speaker
And it may be, you know, if you think of like Brother Lawrence, the monk who wrote the practice of the presence of the Lord, he was not, he couldn't, because of some of his injuries, he couldn't do some of like the illuminated script and he couldn't perform music.
00:59:52
Speaker
So he worked in the kitchen.
00:59:54
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:59:56
Speaker
But he found creativity and worship in the rhythms of working in the kitchen.
01:00:01
Speaker
And I think that's a rule.
01:00:05
Speaker
That's guidance for all of us, not just artists.
01:00:08
Speaker
But anyway, I could talk forever about that.
01:00:13
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
01:00:14
Speaker
Awesome.
01:00:14
Speaker
Well, this has been lovely.
01:00:15
Speaker
We are zooming to the end here.
01:00:17
Speaker
Wow.
01:00:18
Speaker
I know.
01:00:19
Speaker
It flew by.
01:00:19
Speaker
That was amazing.
01:00:22
Speaker
What...
01:00:23
Speaker
Do you have any resources you would recommend people check out if they are interested in, I guess, thinking through the idea of rhythms and their rhythm of life, or if they are interested in liturgy as a concept for worship?
01:00:40
Speaker
Well, I mean, the obvious one is the Book of Common Prayer, which is used by a couple of different mainstream denominations, but that would certainly be a really good place to start.
01:00:54
Speaker
I know I also use, and this might be a little controversial,
01:00:59
Speaker
But I use a Celtic spirituality book of prayer from the North Umbrian community in Scotland that I've been kind of referring to for many, many years.
01:01:12
Speaker
I would also say look to some of the prayer poetry.
01:01:16
Speaker
Start with the Psalms.
01:01:19
Speaker
The Psalms have a certain rhythm to them, but they're also very much responses out of different seasons of life.
01:01:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:30
Speaker
And then I would say, look to some poetry, especially prayer-focused poetry.
01:01:38
Speaker
Some of the Celtic prayers of David Adam have been, they're very, very simple.
01:01:47
Speaker
But very, very much an echo of liturgical prayer.
01:01:52
Speaker
So I could go on, but I think those are some great places to start.
01:01:56
Speaker
Definitely the Book of Common Prayer.
01:01:58
Speaker
It will give you an understanding of what the liturgy is, and it will immerse you in daily devotional rhythms.
01:02:09
Speaker
And there are some other ones.
01:02:10
Speaker
You don't necessarily have to go to the Book of Common Prayer, but I've found that one immensely useful.
01:02:17
Speaker
Um, then I would say, get into scripture and start to look at just how scripture works in seasons.
01:02:27
Speaker
Um, the festivals, Passover, uh, Sabbath, there's scripture talks about rhythms of life and seasons all through it.
01:02:42
Speaker
Um, so those would be some great places to start.
01:02:46
Speaker
I think.
01:02:46
Speaker
Cool.
01:02:47
Speaker
Awesome.
01:02:48
Speaker
Sweet.
01:02:48
Speaker
Well, thanks for coming on again, Tim.
01:02:50
Speaker
Thanks for having me back, John.
01:02:51
Speaker
I always love talking with you about stuff like this.
01:02:54
Speaker
So that's great.
01:02:55
Speaker
That's been great.