The power of story
The Body of Christ is also called to stand with those who have suffered. The
arts are able to communicate in empathetic ways. Compassion is the capacity
to identify with the suffering of others, and a refusal to be compassionate
keeps people powerless and fails to give value or meaning to their experience.
We must not sell short the value of the arts to reach into the heart and soul
of any who experience the struggles of life.
While we again remind ourselves that art itself cannot transform—transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit—the arts, the imagination and creative process can facilitate and promote personal wellbeing, emotional and mental health and other therapeutic modalities. This is clearly demonstrated in the ability of David’s music to calm the troubled spirit of king Saul. We suggest this inherent ability found within the arts, is a part of God’s original intention for creative expression.
Metaphor can be a significant resource in the process of healing. Symbols and gestures help us to tell our stories and enable greater cross-cultural and multi-generational understanding than words alone. A poem, a dance, a dramatic piece, a musical composition or improvisation is often capable of communicating more deeply than ordinary speech.
• A missionary to Latvia for eleven years wrote and choreographed a modern ballet called "Voices from the Ground" that was dedicated to the victims of the Jewish Holocaust in WWII Europe. She took the words and poems of victims and survivors and told their stories. The universal themes of love and family were woven into the production by using symbols such as the Tallit, Shofar, hair being shaved in the gas chamber, a wedding, a marketplace, and a train platform. The Modern Ballet was abstract, but the symbols spoke very clearly, especially to the Jews. Following one of the dress rehearsals, the theatre manager, an older Jewish man, Israel Zach, came up to the missionary weeping and kissing her hand, thanking her over and over. He began to tell his story of escape from Latvia at age four, and how his entire family was murdered in the Holocaust.
Alternative reality
In the wedding feast of Cana, Jesus turned the water into wine. He used a
cultural practice of the people—water from the ceremonial jars for cleansing—and
He transformed that water into wine for the enjoyment of the wedding guests.
The wine points to the wine of the new covenant in Christ’s blood. He
takes the existing practice and turns it on its head without explanation.
The water can no longer cleanse as before, but the wine, his blood, cleanses
from deep within. The imaginative work of the arts can facilitate a fresh
awareness of the possibility of a new reality centred on Jesus.
• “Jay” had been coming to the drop-in centre for years. He wore his navy jacket even on hot summer days, along with heavy boots, and a hat that covered his eyes. He walked hunched over and his sadness followed him like a cloud. One day we brought art materials and invited several youth to create pieces that reflected their ideas of health. Jay surprised us by joining in. Watching him choose materials was like watching a composer listen to some strange inner voice about to put his thoughts on paper. He chose a canvas board and mostly blue paints. He’d never painted before.
He stared at the empty canvas a long time and swirled the paint with his brush on the palette for an hour. In the next weeks we witnessed a transformation. He worked with commitment and vigour on his picture of a landscape of mountains, space, water and birds on a background of beautiful blue sky. Throughout his painting, people who had never felt comfortable with jay approached him, asked him about his ideas and shared memories that his piece evoked. Gradually as he worked, we watched as his shoelaces were untied, as he took off his jacket revealing his well-worn undershirt, and as his hat came off unleashing mounds of beautiful black matted hair and brown eyes.
Participation in the arts allows the people involved to set their own agenda and pace for healing. They make the decisions about the tools to use, the medium to work in, colours, music, words or movements. They determine the outcome and its presentation. These decisions are important for those who have felt powerless to change their circumstances or who have felt their self worth diminished by violence, hunger, loss or shame.
Healing emotional wounds
The arts are able to make links between the inner life of the imagination
and our day-to- day living. They give forms that allow us to integrate the
head, heart, and hands. They nurture self-understanding and in that way they
are therapeutic. For people who have experienced loss or brokenness from abuse,
war or illness, the arts are a non-threatening way to bring recovery that
may have seemed impossible.
• Raised in a dysfunctional and abusive home in north Africa, Yousef learned how to sharpen a pencil and make basic drawings from a stranger passing through his city. He had the desire to continue drawing and painting, and did so as he lived and worked in different parts of his country. After becoming a Christian in 2002, he had contact with an artist who taught him more of the basics of drawing and painting and helped him discover his gifts. He realized that through his art he could share things that were hidden in his heart, and freely express his emotions.
A transformed imagination
We have often emphasized concrete, literal expressions to the neglect of the
intuitive, nonverbal, and poetic. This is an imbalance that needs to be corrected.
There is a need to recover our appreciation for beauty so that it can include
the beauty we find in brokenness. The arts allow us to look into human brokenness
in a way that is manageable rather than overwhelming, and can challenge us
to bring change. An invigorated imagination sees new possibilities and potential.
Problems become opportunities when hope is reborn and energy is renewed. A
renewed mind is necessary for a renewed walk.
• As a young girl, “Mia” loved music and dance. When she was old enough, she auditioned and was accepted into a State school to receive training in the arts. However, when the authorities found out her family were Christians, the offer of a place was withdrawn. As the little girl grew up she would make up dances and dance on her own whenever she could. Many years later she was arrested and put into prison for her faith. The guards would often make her change position and threaten her with beatings if she moved in any way. During this prolonged period of detention and cruelty, Mia survived by choreographing dances in her mind and then dancing them out in her imagination. While the guards observed her motionless body, inside she was leaping, whirling and jumping as her whole body praised God.
OBSTACLES
The involvement of the church in social issues can be hindered by;
• Failure to recognize ministry to the poor and needy as service to
Christ
• Resistance to a “social gospel” as over against the pure
gospel (evangelism)
• A limited view of the scope of the gospel
• A sacred-secular division of reality that relegates social issues
to secondary importance
• Lack of imagination to envision change
• Overwhelming need
• Lack of training in arts therapy and allied fields
• Limited resources
STRATEGIES
The following arts-related strategies can move people toward healing and
wholeness:
1. Embrace an approach to evangelism and mission that speaks to the whole
person
2. Collaborate with community leaders to creatively solve individual and social
issues
3. Give people a creative way to tell their stories
4. Offer people new ways of seeing themselves and their situations through
the arts
5. Train artists in art therapy and allied fields
6. Work to aid the healing and restoration process through a variety of art
therapies
7. Bring beauty and humanity through the arts in refugee camps, orphanages,
etc.
TO: Scene 3 Act 4