SERMON: Lifeboats: Art in a Time of Science and Religion

Presented by Donna B. Birdwell
Member of Spindletop UU Congregation – January 30, 2005
(Revised.)

The great Sufi poet Hafiz wrote:

Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz’ was a Sufi master, living in Persia in the 14th century (after the conclusion of the infamous Crusades but before the surgence of the Ottoman Empire). In the 1800s, Ralph Waldo Emerson read a German translation of some of Hafiz’ poetry, and was moved to translate several of the poems into English. Emerson remarked of Hafiz: “He fears nothing. He sees too far; he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to … be.” (Ladinsky 1999, Preface).

My title today is about art “in a time of science and religion.” Why do I characterize ours as a time of science and religion? Perhaps first I should explain what I mean by “science” and by “religion.” First I would note that both of them – both science and the Great religions – appear to me to be rather rigid and unbending depictions of the world. And both of them seem focused on what is outside of us – science requires rigorous objectivity; religion (most western religion, anyway) is about a god “out there” and our obedience to rules and judgments imposed from outside ourselves. Let’s explore this a bit more.

We may ask ourselves: What is the essential nature of science? I would answer: To comprehend the workings of the world as it exists through careful and objective examination and analysis. Scientific method is thoroughly rational and thoroughly effective in describing and predicting the operation and functioning of the physical world. Chemical reactions happen the same way, predictably, time after time. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it, or whether you think it’s good or bad. It just is.

The next question is: How does science engage us as human beings? We may answer: Science requires impassive and steadfast observation, careful labeling, critical analysis, impartial distancing from the object of our study. Inquisitiveness, yes, but always tempered by persistent and pervasive skepticism.

What about the nature of religion?
As an anthropologist, I would say that the nature of religion is most importantly to explain to us human beings the workings of the world, humanity’s place in the universe and the right ways of interacting with it and with one another. Religion exists to explain why things are the way they are. There is an overlap between science and religion – they both give us a view of the world. But it is not the business of science to explain WHY something is the way it is or happens the way it does. Science only supplies the “what” and the how. “Why” is a pre-eminently religious question.

How does religion engage us? It engages us through faith, loyalty and obedience. (Here I speak, as Hafiz did, primarily of the “Great Religions”. I suspect that the religion one carries in one’s own heart is more akin to art.)

What is the nature of art, then? And how does it engage us human beings differently from science or religion? Let’s take our time in the answering of these questions, because of these three – science, religion, art – probably the most difficult one to define agreeably is art.

The noun "art" has 4 senses (in WordNet. Dictionary…)
1. art, fine art -- (the products of human creativity; works of art collectively)
2. art, artistic creation, artistic production -- (the creation of beautiful or significant things)
3. art, artistry, prowess -- (a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation; "the art of conversation")
4. artwork, art, graphics, non textual matter -- (photographs or other visual representations in a printed publication)

In the context of our exploration today, we are definitely NOT talking about art in the first or last sense. We are not talking about art as objects or pictures or things only.
The second sense – art as process and creativity – and the third sense – art as practiced skill – come a little closer to our meanings. However, the sense in which we are talking about “art” here this morning is not entirely evoked by any of these definitions. Not surprisingly, I have come to many of my understandings through anthropology, so let me begin with that.

British anthropologist Alfred Gell has written a provocative book called Art and Agency in which he formulates a rather complex theory of art. His goal is to produce a universally applicable understanding of art that will apply equally to the contents of any museum of modern art or symphony hall as well as the works of Australian aborigines or Eskimos or Tibetan yak herders. Gell notes that westerners often define art as “whatever is treated as art by members of the institutionally recognized art world” (based on Danto 1964) – critics, dealers, collectors, theoreticians – the professionals (Gell 1998: 5). Anthropologists have more often focused on the meaning and aesthetics of art objects within the context of the culture in which they are produced. Gell, however, says: “In place of symbolic communication, I place all the emphasis on agency, intention, causation, result, and transformation. I view art as a system of action, intended to change the world rather than encode symbolic propositions about it.” This approach “is preoccupied with the practical mediatory role of art objects in the social process, rather than with the interpretation of objects ‘as if’ they were texts” (Gell 1998: 6). I find this view intriguing. It makes art not just some objects out there whose meaning and aesthetic value we can debate on theoretical grounds, but rather a processual extension of the artist, with which we must interact.

An American anthropologist, J. Stephen Lansing, has made an extensive study of the peoples of the Indonesian island of Bali. The Balinese are one of the most prolifically artistic peoples known to anthropology. They produce sculpture, paintings, flower arrangements, drama, music, shadow puppet performances, poetry… their lives are permeated by art at every turn. And yet, the Balinese have no word for art. There are, however, two words that they use when talking about what we would term “art” – alango and taksu. Alango: “Alango (they say) is present in sounds and letters, but also in the beauty of the mountains and the sea. Alango is a dimension of reality that only becomes available to us through active use of the poetic imagination. … It is described as both the ultimate foundation of all that exists and its real essence, a beauty that is imperceptible to the ordinary senses, because it is of a finer texture than the perceptible world, yet pervades everything…” (Lansing 1995: 53). The second Balinese concept is Taksu: “… (G)reat performances, and great performers, are said to ‘have taksu.’ … Actors, singers, and musicians are encouraged to lose themselves in their performances by giving themselves up to their taksu…” (Lansing 1995: 55). It is something that can, to some extent, be inherited, but is also obtained by diligence and by devoted petitioning at one’s family taksu shrine.

I like contemplating these concepts; thinking about how it is that a society of people can be so consummately artistic and yet feel no need for a general word to categorize “art.” I like the way both alango and taksu are about some kind of experiential linkage of the artist with the work of art and how it is experienced by its “audience”.

What about the origins of art in human history or prehistory? Archaeologist Steven Mithen, in a book titled Prehistory of the Mind has explored this question. He argues that art is a defining characteristic of a watershed period in human evolution when human consciousness finally transcended the workaday categories of tools and resources and social life, bringing what he terms a “cognitive fluidity” to bear on the whole of the life experience. Another of the definitive products of this event, according to Mithen, is religion. I find Mithen’s theory particularly appealing, because our western reverence for science and technology has so often caused us to define the whole of human cultural evolution and “progress” in terms of our advancement in tool making and our so-called mastery of the environment through agriculture, engineering and architecture. Not so, says Mithen. We became fully human – we become fully human – only with the experiencing of cognitive fluidity, which leaves us in awe and leads us into those acts of creativity that we call art.

Daniel Ladinsky, in his commentary on the works of Hafiz, notes: “True art evolves us – opens our arms and weakens our prejudices so that the ever-present seeds of healing and renewal can take root in our soul and sinew, [and] cause joy” (Ladinsky 1999: 3).

Tibetan lama and founder of the western Shambhala tradition Chogyam Trungpa teaches, among other things, what he calls “dharma art.” He writes: “… dharma art refers to art that springs from a certain state of mind on the part of the artist that could be called the meditative state. It is an attitude of directness and unselfconsciousness in one’s creative work. … The basic problem in artistic endeavor,” Chogyam Trungpa explains, “is the tendency to split the artist from the audience and then try to send a message from one to the other. When this happens, art becomes exhibitionism. .. In meditative art, the artist embodies the viewer as well as the creator of the works. Vision is not separate from operation, and there is no fear of being clumsy or failing to achieve his aspiration. He or she simply makes a painting, poem, piece of music, or whatever” (1996: 1). (He does acknowledge also the importance of “skillful means” in the production of art.)

A Mesoamerican poet expressed a very similar view of art:
“The true artist, capable, practicing, skillful,
maintains dialogue with his heart, meets things with his mind.
The true artist draws out all from his heart.”
And:
“The good painter is wise,
God is in his heart.
He puts divinity into things; … .” (both from Fox 2000: 228)

In a 1998 book entitled Beyond Religion, humanistic psychologist David Elkins names “the arts” as one of the 8 alternative “paths to the sacred.”

So: Back to our question: What is the nature of art? I would say that the nature of art is to apprehend the world as it is or might be and realize that vision through some medium that can be accessed through the senses. How does it engage us? Art engages our experience. It calls us to participate in its vision of what is or what might be. Even when art is shocking, it is usually only offending our habitual views and categories, and thus prodding us toward increased wakefulness.

I began my own journey through this life in the realm of religion, under the loving tutelage of my father, a Methodist minister. As I grew up, however, I found this vision too narrow, and – suspecting there could be more to life than this – I took refuge in the world of science. In the realm of science, my doubts were no longer a sign of weakness, but rather a hallmark of my commitment to question, to investigate, to demand evidence and not be deluded by mere pretty argument. Then in my late 30s, I began to find science too narrow as well. I had become convinced that the most important truths about humankind - about life and the universe and experience - could not be expressed in scientific terms nor analyzed objectively and statistically.

I have occasionally sought to express the changing landscapes I have experienced on my journey through the medium of poetry. Poetry has indeed often been my lifeboat. I share these few poems with you now not because I think they are great works of art, but because they tell truly where I was and what I was experiencing at the times I wrote them.

WALLS

There is a time for building walls
And a time to let them fall.

I built my walls many years ago.
I spend time now
Inspecting them
Finding gaps and holes
Peering through
Into a land I once denied.

Whose land it is
I do not know.
Some say it belongs to Jesus
or Mohammed
or the Buddha
or a Goddess of many names.
But when I slip through
My collapsing fence
And walk in that other land
I think it is mine.

It is a place of brightness
To blind the eyes.
I touch ancient trees
Lean upon great stones
Soft with moss.
Through narrowed eyelids
Shapes and colors blur.
In the distance
Water murmurs
And beneath it
A pulse
Of some great ocean.

But I fear I desecrate this place.
Others – They say they speak
for the Owners –
Say I must not go there unescorted.

But what shall I do
With my collapsing walls?

Let them fall.
And if this be trespass
Then trespass I shall.
Perhaps
The wall is theirs
And the land on the other side
Is mine.

TRUTH

Truth is
Butterflies and
Gossamer-winged things
Words pin them down
Rows of objects in
Square paper boxes
Arguments and logic
Pour like glue over
Struggling truth.
Hold still.
Stick to the point.

("Did you see it?
Its beauty made me
Catch my breath...")

Just smile.

3/14/04

The light of scientific knowledge
Shines brightly, illuminating
the intricate details of this marvelous world.
I stand in awe of the vastness and complexity
this light reveals.
But I know it is like a miner’s lamp,
Illuminating the area right in front
of our faces.
Shift slightly to right or left and
darkness follows our inattentiveness,
filling the void where the light
is not.
Straight ahead seems the only way to go.

I think it is possible to see more.
In this very moment,
turn off the light of scientific scrutiny.
Let the contours of the landscape
emerge from the dimness.
The Whole – in front, behind, above, below –
can never be revealed
by science alone.
It is the One
and in its pervasive presence
we are moved
not to science
but to art
and poetry
and worship.
Everything that we need to know
Was already known
Ten thousand years ago.

Let’s conclude with a return to the question of jumping overboard and the need for lifeboats.

Religion – at least in the sense of the “great religions” – may come to feel too confining, constricted. We feel imprisoned in a view of the world that is simply not big enough to contain our experience. Or maybe we just sense that the ship is sinking… Science, too, becomes too small. The day comes when we feel the need to abandon both – to break the rules, cut through the walls, to jump overboard. And the poets are there to catch us as we fall. Or the painters or storytellers. Or perhaps we discover our own poems or pictures or stories and built our own lifeboats. Art - whether created by ourselves or another - holds open a window for us to experience the wholeness of life and to drink in a vision of a world beyond time and space. We know at last that true sanity lies not in the conformity to the static views of the great religions or of science, but in the experience of cognitive fluidity that we share with every sane person from the last 40,000 years of human history.

The Mevlevi Dervishes (also of the great Islamic Sufi tradition), offer the following advice:
“Each beautiful thing, a flower, the song of a bird,
awakens in our soul the memory of our origin.
Learn how to listen to the voice of beautiful things ….” (Fox 2000: 299)

SO MAY IT BE.

NOTES

1.There are actually two more lines to this poem. In totality, it reads:

These final lines are very characteristic of Hafiz’ tendency to address himself in his poems, as well as indicative of his slightly sarcastic humor. Ladinsky writes that “an interesting trait of Hafiz that should be noted is that he occasionally ‘sells’ himself, as it were. I have come to feel that this is his response to the spiritual marketplace’s sometimes becoming filled with sham teachers who lace their bread with harmful additives. He knows that a lot of what is sold with God’s name on it isn’t organic.” (Ladinsky’s emphasis 1999: 5)

REFERENCES

Fox, Matthew
     2000 One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths.
              New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/ Putnam.

Gell, Alfred
     1998 Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon
              Press.

Ladinsky, Daniel (translator and editor)
     1999 The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master. New York:
              Penguin.

Lansing, J. Stephen
     1995 The Balinese. Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace.

Mithen, Steven
     1996 The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art,
              Religion and Science. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Trungpa, Chogyam (Rinpoche)
     1996 Dharma Art. Edited by Judith L. Lief. Boston: Shambhala
              Publishing.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES USED in the January 30 Service

A poem of Hafiz (from the Ladinsky volume) was our Call to Worship:

“We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply to Freedom and Joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
…
We have a duty to befriend those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
‘O please, O please,
Come out and play.’
For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,
But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and
Light!”

A prayer from Matthew Fox’s volume (p. 431) preceded the sermon. This prayer is an alternative translation from the Aramaic of the Lord’s Prayer which acknowledges the broader usage of many of the original Aramaic words and phrases.

“O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos
You create all that moves in light.
Hear the one Sound that created all others,
In this way the Name is hallowed
In silence.
Your rule springs into existence
As our arms reach out to embrace all creation.
Let all wills move together
In your vortex, as stars and planets
Swirl through the sky.

Grant what we need each day in bread and insight:
Subsistence for the call of
Growing life.
Lighten our load of secret debts as
We relieve others of their
Need to repay.
Keep us from hoarding false wealth,
And from the inner shame of
Help not given in time.” AMEN.