nevermind the bricolage

Hindu Times

USC has appointed a Hindu as Dean of Religious Life, the first time a major US campus has nominated a leader from this particular faith to be the chief spiritual leader. Soni follows Rabbi Susan Laemmle who was the first non-Christian to lead the religious life of a major university in America. I don't know whether this reflects a sense that spirituality is moving in a particular direction or simply that he is the best person for the job, I would imagine that it is perhaps a combination of the two. It does, I think, make a small, though important, comment about the state of change in the US religious landscape--pluralism is not something that happens 'out there' but here at home in our daily lives. Spiritual leadership in the 21st century will come from a variety of sources and influences and each faith will have to learn how to navigate through the tricky waters of difference. This will involve moving beyond ecumenism and universalism I believe, which are options from a different time and space.

Butterfly+Skull

This is a good one.

Space Between Art And Life

Robert Raushenberg died today at age 82. One critic said that he mined the space between art and life, which I thought was a great space to put oneself. He mined pop culture, but in very different ways than his contemporaries like Warhol and Lichtenstein--he brought things together from the various trajectories of life, creating three-dimensional pieces that were at once timeless and immediate. I liked his stuff immensely and his works helped me to see the value in the everyday and the ways in which the spaces between disparate things can be mined to great effect.

May 13, 1968

Caroline de Benden, a model and member of an arotstocratic British family, was snapped riding on the shoulders of a protester waving a Vietnamese FNL flag, during the Paris student protests of 1968. Upon seeing this picutre in Life magazine, her grandfather disinherited her. The '68 protests were one of the socio-cultural events of that year that prompted some major transitions in Western cultural life. The lack of repsonse to these student uprisings by the communist party contributed to Jean-Francois Lyotard's loss of beilef in ideology. Lyotard, one of the architects of postmodern thinking was just one person shaped by these moments in time.

This image may well have influenced Jaime Reid

Back To The Grind

Had a fantastic, but way too short, time in England and am now back into the routine. Classes at Fuller and the beginning of a new term at Art Center. Will say more about the trip when I have caught up on life.

Pangea Day

One of the TED Prize winners from 2006 had the idea of bringing the world together through film. Pangea Day is the result, and today is Pangea Day. Check out what's happening around the world today.

London Calling!!!!

 

 

I am off to London, well, mostly Manchester and Coventry, but will spend any and all extra time in the big city. Haven't been home in almost two years, way too long, so I am excited to get back. Will be spending a week with a bunch of Dmin students from here. I don't know what the blogging will be like but will make an effort. Back in a week or so.

Simple Living

Apparently Louis Vuitton is none too happy with Nadia Plesner's Simple Living T-shirt, created in order to raise awareness about the plight of children in Darfur. 100% the profits from the sale goes to the cause, but LV doesn't like it when someone uses their logo/design without their approval. But I'm sure they really care about the crisis in Darfur as much as they care about protecting their 'image.'--yeah for conscious consumerism!! You can buy a poster here.

Colours and Blessings

There is not much better in life than the company of friends. We had a visit from a good one today. Dr. G came calling with his true love. We had dinner and a good old chinwag about the stuff of life. When he left he prayed a blessing over our home--from John O'Donohue (beannacht)..."may a flock of colours/indigo, red, green/
and azure blue/come to awaken in you/a meadow of delight."

Thomas Tallis

One of the great things in life for me is discovering music. I have spent the last year or so working in a church where music plays a seminal role in the life of the community. Classic liturgical music is what they trade in mostly, not my cup of tea most of the time to be honest, but there have been some sublime musical moments and I have been introduced to a couple of seminal musicians who have really opened my eyes, Thomas Tallis being one of them. Tallis was a court musician for Henry VIII and Elizabeth I I believe, and has written some truly beautiful sacred music--a piece they did today, based on a portion of the Gospel of John, was simply incredible, such a lovely melody and tender feel to the piece.  Tallis was one of the first to set anthems to English words, and developed a style that made much of the meanings he derived from the relationships between words and music. A couplet from his epitaph perhaps best sums up the man,
   As he did live, so also did he die, In mild and quiet Sort (O! happy Man).

God Went Surfing

Two guys decide to go surfing in the Middle East and they take some great photos and tell some stories to those of us who stayed home...God went surfing with the Devil.

The New Symbolism

I went to my local gallery to see the works of Anselm Kiefer that are currently on display. Kiefer, is a provocative painter/sculpture who mines the taboo issues of recent history--particularly German history and the Holocaust in particular. The floor of the gallery was filled with some huge book-like pieces with massive sunflower stalks attached that stretched up into the ceiling and massive triptychs hung from the walls, all of them featuring Kiefer's usual materials--mud, clay, paint, photographs, glass and lots and lots of dead trees and branches. While Kiefer seems to address German near-history, his works has a much broader impact because they ultimately seem to address the damage that is wrought on nature when humans wreak havoc and commit murder upon each other. I went to see the exhibit on Earth Day and it seemed quite apropos---the symbolism of these pieces--the decay, the brokenness (everything the artist uses is broken it seems), the desolation caused by our inhumanity--all creation groans.

Liberacion!

Fernando Lugo, an ex-Bishop in the Catholic Church, and a Liberation theologian, has just won the election in Paraguay, ending the 61-year reign of the ruling Colorado Party. That party was the longest ruling party in the world--longer than the Chinese Communists, the North Koreans, Castro...He has campaigned with promises to help the poor--the 'preferential option' of the poor that characterizes much of Latin American Liberation theology has found a  decidedly political advocate in Lugo. Unlike other liberationists who practice their theology within the boundaries of the church, Lugo, has taken a different path, essentially taking his theology out of the church and into the public and political spheres. Maybe there is a model here, for another way of doing theology--completely in the marketplace-where the people are?

Round Two

They're at it again! Fighting broke about between Armenian and Greek Christians in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem this past weekend--this after the bust-up just after Christmas at a Bethlehem Church in December. You have got to love this lot--way to go in showing the world what true Christian love is all about! All it really does is affirm the madness of religion in the minds of many--arguing over geographic space, bricks and mortar, yeah, that's really important! I know that space is important to people and that, in many ways, it is always more than bricks and mortar that is at stake, but is it really necessary to let things dissolve into scuffles and fisticuffs?! We've just been in the middle of Pope-mania. Benedict has been here and the press has been tripping over itself, fawning  over his every comment and move--I don't really get it, but then again, I am a cynical git, so why would I?!

Earth Day