The other day I posted a link to brandnewmountainspeeches.com without any explanation, knowing there was not much in the way of content on the site… Hopefully some of you checked it out and were intrigued, and are now waiting in hopeful anticipation for the explanation that follows:
brandnewmountainspeeches.com - an artistic response to matthew five thru seven
For the past few months I have been a fly on the wall at a local church community, not wanting to jump in with both feet, due to my penchant to spend my Sunday mornings fly fishing, bike riding, and/or writing. There were also many Sunday’s I did not attend church, because my explicit motivation to attend the morning services was to meet single, beautiful, godly, women… A motivation I did not think would be beneficial to my situation… namely being [desperately] single. So Easter morning I drug myself out of bed and in defiance to my desire to go write at a local granola coffee shop… I got ready to attend Easter celebration at said church. It was a fine experience, and during the praise and worship session Joel (the worship and arts pastor) invited any artists to join them on Thursday for a night of response to the sermon on the mount, which was the first meeting in preparation for a May 3rd Art Show. It was the “in” I was looking for, a way to get involved to do community with like minded folks.
Thursday night rolled around and I was excited to join the artists at hand to explore what a community response to Jesus’ words actually resembled. After a rather awkward first 30 min (it seems I was the only one no one knew… so all were hugging and catching up and I was standing in the corner sipping on some water, it seems your not as lonely with something in your hand… hence why at parties a beverage-in-hand is always appropriate)… Ok, after the awkwardness, we all sat down to eat a meal together (pizza… always pizza), during this time it was easier to seek into conversations and get to know everyone, with the question, “What do you do?” wanting a artistic response rather than a normal business response, a typical conversation sounded like this:
Sam: Hi, I’m Sam?
Serene: Hi Sam, I’m Serene?
Sam: Oh, that’s nice… did you ever see the Seinfeld episode when George and Kramer kept yelling SERENITY NOW!!!
Serene: No.
Sam: Right… So what do you do?
Serene: I’m a interpretive dancer, who also dabbles in painting and photography… check out my website, www.peacefuldancerchick.com or email me at peacefuldancerchick247@hotmail.com and I’ll send you my newest song I wrote and performed on a bonang.
Sam: umm, cool.
Serene: What do you do?
Sam: I’m a writer.
Serene: huh. that’s nice, when I was in Europe I wrote for the Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, it was fun for a while, then they wanted me to stay and write full-time, but instead I quit moved to Italy and wrote a novella… I wrote everyday at a little quaint coffee shop, and spent the evenings working at a winery in Tuscany.
Sam: neat.
To be honest everyone was very cool and humble and most had normal names. It was a collection of mainly musicians with some writers, photographers and painters scattered throughout. After dinner we all sat down on comfy couches as Joel, et al, read aloud through the Sermon on the Mount. Following the reading Joel opened it up for conversation, collaboration, and thoughts concerning where everyone saw the artistic response leading them. As many shared it became apparent that the driving force behind the May 3rd Art Show would be musical in nature, with a smaller gallery of artists adding comments about wanting to do a triptych and other pieces in response. It was a very laid back night as we then dispersed from the big group and converged into smaller more focused groups. I joined a group wanting to document the entire process and night on film, and this lead to a lively discussion to the format and style of documentary/videomentary, we would like to produce.
And that is where this stands… it is all in-process and not yet defined, hopefully this will take shape and not become something that could have been. I am hopeful and I think it could be a very, very cool collaboration on all fronts. So stay tuned.
No Comments on "the low down…"
Good for you! This sounds really cool. I think it’s amazing how God uses things even when our motivation isn’t always right. I think there’s nothing wrong with doing the “right” thing and letting our hearts follow. Not that going to church is always the “right thing to do” (I think sitting at a coffee shop worshipping and writing can be a “right” decision also) but it’s so good to know that the Lord isn’t dependent on the state of our hearts when He works.
I love that you would open with a “Seinfeld” reference. Classic.