Jesse Childress, fellow traveler, shares reflections on neighborly love & the arts from his time at Swiss L’Abri:
I sat in a dimly lit study, a hot cup of tea in one hand and a plate of Swiss biscuits (known as cookies to us Americans) by my other hand. Out the window at my back the sun set behind the Alps, creating a view unlike any I’d seen elsewhere.
I joined my tutor here for one hour each week during my time at L’Abri Fellowship in Huemóz, Switzerland. Here, my tutor practiced a noble and difficult art: listening. In a cozy, centuries-old chalet, I was listened to, and that is no small thing.
Listening seems simple, but it is laborious and sometimes even unpleasant because it requires that we pay attention to someone. Simone Weil wrote, “There is something in our soul which has a far more violent repugnance for true attention than the flesh has for bodily fatigue. This something is much more closely connected with evil than is the flesh.” Yet we must listen. We must listen to each other because in order to truly love someone, we must first listen to him, and as Christians we are called to love one another. Again, Weil states, “Not only does the love of God have attention for its substance; the love of our neighbor, which we know to be the same love, is made of this same substance.” If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must listen to them, as difficult as it may be.
While at L’Abri, I was introduced to the Dutch art scholar Hans Rookmaaker. Rookmaaker applies the concept of loving one’s neighbor to the way we view art. As Christians we are called to love our neighbors. Since the artist is also our neighbor, we are called to love the artist when we view or critique his art. Because we are to love the artist, we are to listen to the artist. Even when we dislike or are offended by what we see or hear, we must pay the respect of listening to the other, for the substance of love for another is listening. Think of viewing a piece of art as sitting down to have a conversation with a good friend. How will you want to speak to them? To listen? Though the artist is not the same as her art, when we treat a piece in a particular way, we also treat the artist in the same way. If we dismiss the art out of hand, we dismiss the artist out of hand. If we callously ridicule the art, we do the same to the artist.
This does not mean we must like all art, or never criticize, or refrain from finding some art repulsive or even wicked. We must be honest, as we must be when speaking to others. At times honesty will mean disapproval or dislike of art, but it will also mean striving to uphold not only what is beautiful, but what is good and true.
Rookmaaker prompts us to ask, “How do I love the artist when viewing his art?” So too the Christian artist must ask, “How do I love my neighbor when I create art?” Creating art that causes harm (which is wholly different than causing discomfort) to those around you is not loving. The Christian artist must be grounded in the reality of the persons around him, not eccentrically disconnected from others. “Eccentric,” as in quirky and different, we should welcome in artists. We embrace the eccentricities of artists in this sense, even bending our preferences or letting go of our assumptions for their sakes. But for an artist to be “eccentric” in the sense of being accountable to no one is not good. Against the prevailing opinion, all freedom is not good freedom, but there must be, as G.K. Chesterton wrote, “rule and order” to “give room for good things to run wild.” For the same reason that we should be careful about the words we choose in conversation, the artist should be careful in how he expresses ideas through art.
When applied to art, the notion that we need rules for “good things to run wild” will cause some to balk. It is a restriction on artistic expression, and nothing should restrict the artist. Not all art is for the common man, the philistine; we cannot aim to please all our “neighbors.” Yet Christ does not call us to love only the culturally astute. To love thy neighbor in creating art does not mean only creating art which can be understood by everyone; there is still room to create art that only some will appreciate. But perhaps the artist fulfills Christ’s command to “take up your cross” in part by choosing to create art that is an expression of love.
Jesse Childress studied at Swiss L’Abri, teaches ESL, and has a deep appreciation for good food, philosophy, theology, and literature.
Read More from the Centric Genius series
The modern romantic ideal of the artist is the eccentric genius; a loner, an outcast, different from everyone else. But no Christian exempted from the call to love his neighbor. This series explores the ingredients and avenues with which artist Christian can be a thriving part of the Body of Christ. View the whole series.
