Sally from the RevGalBlogPals offers the following challenge this week:
I have spent the week at Summer School studying the Gospel and Western culture, we have looked at art, literature, music, film and popular culture in their myriad expressions. With that in mind I bring you the cultural Friday 5.
Name a
1. Book
2. Piece of music
3. Work of art
4. Film
5. Unusual engagement with popular culture
That have helped/challenged you on your spiritual journey.
Bonus: Is engagement essential to your Christian faith, how and why?
Wow...having just gotten back from my commuter retreat with a case of major fatigue/brain fry, it is going to be difficult to be very thoughtful here...but I will make the attempt:
Book. Robert Farrar Capon's Supper of the Lamb is a delightful book that explores the connection between spirituality and food. Even though it's been around awhile, I recently noticed it featured in a cookbook-of-the-month club; it made me happy to think of it reaching a wider audience in this way. As I've noted in other blog entries, I've never thought of myself as much of a hostess-with-the-mostess, but offering hospitality has become a greater part of life over the past year and a half; and I'm interested in approaching this from a spiritual perspective.
Piece of music. The Godspell soundtrack was a formative influence on me when I was still a fluffy young LutheranChik.
Work of art. I love the artwork of Carl Larsson, which celebrates home life and a simple but aesthetically mindful lifestyle. To me his paintings of his home and farm and neighborhood represent a kind of ideal of an integrated life.
Film. I'm so tired I can't answer this one. Casablanca. That's always a good answer; right? Virtue exhibited by a flawed individual?
Unusual engagement with popular culture. I think that having circles of friends and acquaintances well outside the circle of "church people" -- a neighborhood where many of us folks of faith would, in our heart of hearts, prefer to dwell -- has done nothing but benefit my faith walk. Spending a significant number of years on a Christianity vacation has also provided me with a kind of outsider's perspective that I now find most helpful in engaging with the wider world. And I'd truly rather be here on the margins than anywhere else. I think it's where God has called me to be.
4 comments:
"And I'd truly rather be here on the margins than anywhere else. I think it's where God has called me to be." Wow. That's a very interesting observation. I'd never heard it put like that before. Thanks for sharing.
There is something deeply wrong with me! I keep checking back to see what you wore to the installation! ;-)
I wound up wearing a very conservative brown/black outfit...I toyed with the idea of wearing red, to match the paraments and vestments all around, but it seemed a little...blingy, even for a liturgical nerd like myself.
Lol. Don't know why I was curious, but glad to hear it was such a positive experience.
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