This is the Hour of Change

The Prodigal Father
Chuck Hoffman + Peg Carlson-Hoffman
2012 Acrylic on canvas
76.2cm x 274.3cm (30in x 108in)
© Genesis+Art

Holden Village, Washington  

Article For Holden Village Voice, Written While The Executive Directors

Addressing the issues that face us as an earth community, including anti-racism, immigration and the climate emergency is terribly difficult to do. These pressing issues will require the rethinking and re-imagining of almost all aspects of how our culture, its relationship with other cultures, and with the earth works. It will require an enormous amount of collaboration and reconciliation between many entities. The borders that separate and divide are going to have to come down or, more accurately, not continue to go up. We must look anew at everything around us. If we are prepared to accept what needs to be done, we will have to embark on a new path and find our common ground.  We forge ahead together or we perish. Either way, it is probable that our entire way of living will be turned inside out. Fear will, no doubt, try to creep in and deceptively tell us, it’s all-OK, it will work its way out.

Our awareness and consciousness will be turned toward unfamiliar ground. In many ways the climate crisis is a spiritual one because the faith, imagination, trust, and resolve that we need to address it require a much greater sensitivity of community and a heightened understanding of global communities, outside of what we find comfortable. No doubt this new way of being will generate unprecedented social and political conflict and an increase in violence and aggression. Old ways of doing things can no longer be taken for granted. We may begin to question our own beliefs once we are faced with beliefs different from our own. We’ll be challenged to look at ourselves in different ways and explore new ideas or be left in the past by clinging steadfastly to the false perceived glory of the old ones. With the rise in population and a more diverse mixing of cultures, we will be exposed to new realities of life like social injustice, greed, exploitation of our earth, and the suffering of the poor and the marginalized. As people of faith we will need a new, more inclusive story that overcomes the toxic theologies that have brought us to this place.

Loosening our grip on how we have lived will require us to let go of parts of our identity. But letting go of the fear that might rise will also let us imagine something new together. What would happen when borders are crossed and the walls of prejudice and entitlement come down? What might be found by the disciplined pursuit of less? What new stories and life might we create together? Stories that need to be retold and the myths not glorified of violence. The posture of fear that builds walls and prevents dialogue will need to give way to creativity in order to re-imagine our collective story. We do that by embracing the reality of the crisis we face in the world around us. We will need to wrestle with our own complicity and find a more true and honest story.

Creativity is a way of life, not just a painting or a drawing. Imagination can help us re-form our stories and a way of being. Beauty and art, in all forms, engage the more holistic, emotional and sensory dimensions of experience and memory. The arts can help us articulate this creativity and imagination. The arts can capture multi-layered experiences of imagination, feeling, and thinking. Through the arts, the aesthetic, emotion, sensory, and intellectual dimensions of life can come together and be mixed in new and fresh ways. Whether creating art or being touched by it, creative expression can open our imaginations and can help open the world to new revelations and sustainable living.

It’s no accident that the founders of the spiritual life have been storytellers. Jesus had his parables, Mohammad had his teaching of tales and the Buddha had his Jataka Tales. In the world of the early followers of Jesus, people understood things through the lens of visual literacy. For them it wasn’t doctrines but through visual art, and poetic and narrative stories. They found meaning in prayers, psalms, drawings, and music that shaped and sustained their lives.

We may not like the ways that we will be forced to change. We may be impatient with the speed at which change will come. But this is an hour of change.

This is an hour of change.

Within it we stand uncertain on the border of light.

Shall we draw back or cross over?

Where shall our hearts turn?

Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,

or cross over?

This is the hour of change, and within it,

we stand quietly

on the border of light.

What lies before us?

Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,

or cross over?

– From the Jewish Prayer Book Mishkan T’Filah: A Reform Siddur

See more conversations in EARTH; SPIRIT; ART; Luther Seminary / Jerry Evenrud Prodigal Son Art Collection