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Art as a Universal Language |
Bonjour, Guten Tag, Buenos Dias, Buon Giorno, Hello! I've often wished that God would give me the spiritual gift of tongues in the sense
of what the disciples experienced at Pentecost. How I would love to be able to immediately
speak and understand any language that I encountered - or at least to have a universal
translator like the ones on Star Trek!
As I've met more and more people in this life, I've realized that even among fellow
English speakers, there is often a language barrier. Our cultures can be so different
from one another that we can even use the same words and mean completely different
things. Worst of all, we humans have a tendency to fear things and people that are
different, leading to categorizing and "othering" people made in the image of God. As
James says in the Bible, "my brothers, this should not be!"
But have you ever noticed that music and art can be appreciated by everyone, regardless
of culture, background, politics, language, and all the things that divide us? Someone
can draw a picture of a woman with someone's hand over her mouth and we all feel that
pain of voicelessness. There is something in the human soul that recognizes itself in
the art of another and discovers empathy. This can take the form of words in poetry or
song lyrics that give us language for something we know experientially but had no
ability to verbalize. It can take the form of splashes of color that evoke anger, ecstasy,
sorrow, or nostalgia. It can take the form of dance or baking or drama, or sculpture, or
architecture, or gardening, or story.
Have you noticed that the same elements of story - heroes, villains, crises,
resolutions, character growth - are evident in the tales of every people group
throughout time and around the world. Fred Rogers once said, "Frankly, there isn't anyone
you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story." I think that is so very true!
If only we could get to know the people behind the lables - liberal, conservative,
gay, straight, neurodivergent, neurotypical, man, woman, professional, amateur - we might
just find that we have much more in common than we ever guessed.
Even more than that, all of our stories carry echoes of God's story. He is the true
author of all of them. And we encounter more and more facets of God's character through every
new story we hear, learn, and experience. We need each other's stories to better
understand who God is. In meeting another human being and recognizing him as such,
we truly see God in the "least of these."
The discipline of art therapy is finding that the arts even have the ability to
articulate and clarify ourselves to ourselves. It can break through mental and
emotional barriers that we didn't even know were there. Understanding often opens
the door to forgiveness, healing, and discovering true God-given identity.
I've seen it happen and I've
experienced it in myself.
I once had a friend who was strongly encouraging me to ask God for a "tongue" in the
sense of having a prayer language. I did not want to close the door on any gift he
might have for me, but praying in tongues was not something in my conservative
Lutheran background. At one point she gave me a book to read in which the author
described what it felt like when he spoke in tongues - and I realized that I knew
that feeling exactly. It was what it felt like to play my violin, improvising in
worship. My violin is my tongue - my prayer language - and in many ways all of the
arts in their many forms fills that same role.
The arts truly are a universal language - a language of prayer connecting us with God
and a language of communication connecting us with others. I invite you to join us
at one of our I.D.E.A.S. events where we can explore that language together.
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