I expect a post later to the new Sacramento Clergy Write blog (from someone other than me) from our session today.  But I will post this, from me, here on my blog.  The prompt was from George MacDonald’s Phantastes:  “Art rescues nature from the weary and sated regards of our senses.”

Been there.

Done that.

Seen that before.

There is a sense in which this is true – for adults anyway.  Maybe not a child.  For adults, as we generalize our experience, there really may be “nothing new under the sun.”

Except, of coursethat each particular instance or occurrence, like each flake of snow, is always unique to itself.

Frankly, we have to generalize.  Or the world will overwhelm us with detail.  We couldn’t function.  Our senses are, in MacDonald’s words, “weary” and “sated.”  It cannot be otherwise if you want to function at all.

So it probably is the job of the artist to actually notice, and see, and interpret for us – to call our attention to what we no longer see.

And that is work.  Hard work.  To cast off our training – I think we are trained from childhood not to see, but to categorize and generalize and use – to cast off our training, and take time, and notice, and appreciate, and interpret and share.

To rescue us from a weary and sated adult world.  To bring us the childish joy of discovery and apprecciation.

Does Jesus talk about seeing with new eyes?  If not, he should.  God is an artist, inviting us into the beauty.  Into holiness, certainly.  But into beauty and wonder and appreciation and care.

We are asked to care.  To take care.  To serve.

Whoever does not enter the kingdom of God as a child …