I See Dead People

When I was studying abroad in Austria, a couple of my friends and I got together one night to watch the 1999 Night Shyamalan film The Sixth Sense. The film tells the story of a successful child psychiatrist named Malcolm Crowe who takes on the task of helping a traumatized little boy named Cole who appears to be plagued by visions of ghosts. However, as Malcolm's relationship with the boy develops, he realizes that the boy's fantasies are far more disturbing than he imagined.

It is a highly suspenseful and rather gritty film, and one of the key moments in the story goes like this: (SPOILER ALERT)

Cole: "I see dead people."
Malcolm: "In your dreams?"
[Cole shakes his head no]
Malcolm: "While you're awake?"
[Cole nods]
Malcolm: "Dead people like, in graves? In coffins?"
Cole: "Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead."
Malcolm: "How often do you see them?"
Cole: "All the time. They're everywhere."

Later on, a theology professor at my undergraduate school used this scene to help us come to grips with the reality of those who live without the sacraments -- that is, without the life of grace -- either through ignorance, or worse, neglect and/or mortal sin. Whether they know it or not, these people have killed the spiritual life within them and they have become, in a manner of speaking, walking dead people. What's worse is that, more often than not, "They don't know that they're dead."

Problem: Dead people who don't realize that they're dead.

Solution? First of all, how do you make them realize they're dead? Secondly, how do you awaken them, or more accurately, how do you resurrect them? The second question is not so complicated, as that is the purpose of the sacraments of Penance and Anointing of the Sick -- sacraments of healing. But first you must make them realize they are dead. You have to move them to want to awaken.

Let's turn to another rather disturbing story, Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find. The story follows an unfortunate encounter between a family and a band of criminals who are lead by a man known as the Misfit. The main character is a grandmother, a self-proclaimed "lady" who appears to be a religious woman. As the story progresses it becomes apparent that she is not only weak but deeply flawed. However, towards the end of the story, the Misfit experiences a moment of vulnerability and, moved with compassion, the grandmother suddenly cries, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!"  Although she is being held at gunpoint, she foregoes the moral high ground she's staunchly kept and embraces her and the Misfit’s common humanity. The Misfit later realizes her change of heart and observes, "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." He recognizes that it is in facing death that the grandmother realizes her capacity to be a good woman. If she had lived her whole life at gunpoint, the grandmother might have gained the self-awareness and compassion which she lacked.

In other words, the grandmother was spiritually dead without knowing it until she witnessed the Misfit's moment of vulnerability and she was awakened by recognition of the beauty of the human person.

Beauty. (You knew it was going to be my favorite B-word). Beauty has the capacity to awaken the dead. I'm sure most of us have experienced this at least once in our lives: an unexpected moment in which your breath is taken away by something like the view of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the lush colors of a forest in autumn, walking into a gothic cathedral, holding a baby in your arms, witnessing/receiving an act of kindness. It's a feeling of awe, yearning, vulnerability, as if one has been the recipient of an immense unexpected gift. It's a feeling that inspires one person to say, "I have to ask her to marry me," and another person to say, "I have to beg your forgiveness."

Sunrise over the Alps in Gaming, Austria.

Now we know of plenty of amazing vistas around the world through which the Creator's unmediated voice speaks to us: Niagara Falls, the Alps, the Cliffs of Moher, autumn in Vermont, the Grand Tetons, etc. However, there are plenty of us (myself included) who don't live next door to these natural wonders. How can we give them this sense of the beautiful?

Art. (On to my second favorite, the A-word...) As people become less connected to the unmediated Creator (a.k.a. natural wonders which present the majesty and beauty of the Creator without us having to do anything except stand there and experience it), they are going to need to encounter art that gives them the sense of the beautiful.

We need art that awakens -- not violates, but awakens.

We need art that shoots people every day of their life.
And it is our responsibility as believers to create this kind of art.

But that begs the question, how is this kind of art created? What makes art so beautiful that, as Rainer Maria Rilke writes in her poem Archaic Torso of Apollo, it compels them to change their life?

Most of the smart guys (Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine to name a few) seemed to agree that beauty consists of three things: wholeness + harmony + radiance (and you don't have to take my word for it).

These three factors automatically cancel out qualities such as cute, pretty, facile, puerile, and banal. In other words, if it's easy/cheap, it's not beautiful.  Beauty takes effort, blood, sweat,  tears, money, and generous benefactors. Artists pour themselves into their work and they deserve to be paid for what they create.

If art has an agenda -- political, egalitarian or other -- it's not beautiful. Beauty does not bash people over the head. It simply presents the truth in the hope that people's hearts will respond. Exhibit A, B, C:

Altarpiece of Veit Stoss, St. Mary's Basilica, Krakow, Poland.

An Easter Liturgy at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Remsen, Iowa

"Like Great Drops of Blood" by Mary Sullivan

I see dead people... and it's time we helped them wake up.

How to Bring Beauty Back into the Church

This post is inspired by a lecture recently given by Barbara Nicolosi titled "Why Hollywood Matters" in which she discusses the problems in modern Christian and Catholic art, especially film, and ways to counteract these problems. To put it plainly, if one takes a look at the art, storytelling, and music that is in use in most Christian and Catholic churches and subcultures today, in the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, "We have to conclude that the people of God are afflicted with the cult of the banal." (quote is taken from P. Benedict XVI's The Spirit of the Liturgy)

The Catholic Church used to be known as one of the chief patrons of the arts, leading to the creation of some of the most beautiful art and music that the world has ever seen. Nowadays, Catholic/Christian art is something pagans sneer at, and with good reason. Say what you want about Hollywood and the atheists and the pagans, but they appreciate the beautiful and they know it when they see it (and when they don't). Why else is it that beautiful stories like Brideshead Revisited, Anna Karenina, The Lord of the Rings, and Crime and Punishment are just as admired by pagans as they are by Catholics? Why does the majesty of St. Peter's Basilica continue to take people's breath away, regardless of their nationality or belief?

Maybe Catholics have the message right (hopefully), but if we take a look at the craftsmanship of the majority of recent Catholic/Christian stories, films, music, and art, and compare it to that being produced by the pagans, it's little wonder that people don't take us seriously when it comes to art and storytelling.

So how do we fix this? According to Barbara Nicolosi, here are a few ways to bring beauty back into our lives and into our churches:

1. Learn about art -- learn how to do it. Learn how to evaluate it.

Take a class in sculpting or painting. Go to a poetry workshop. Read books on creative writing. Read the Church documents on sacred music and sacred art, e.g. Pope Pius XII's encyclical Musica Sacra or St. John Paul II's Letter to Artists. Take lessons in piano or voice. Read about art history or music history. If you find a composer, writer, or artist that you especially like, find out more about that person! You don't have to become a pro -- unless you discover you do have a talent for something, and with that talent may come responsibility to hone that talent and become an artist!

2. Say "No" to banal art and music. No more lame, cheap, ugly, embarrassing art. 

Entrance to the Village of Vetheuil in Winter, Monet. 1879

Night Before Christmas, Thomas Kinkade

This comes from learning how to evaluate art: learning how to distinguish between beauty and cheapness, politics, or propaganda : learning what makes Monet better than Thomas Kinkade, why Maurice Duruflé's Ubi Caritas is more compelling than David Haas' You Are Mine; why Michelangelo's Pietà is more beautiful than the political-agenda-inspired multiracial/multicultural/unisex Our Lady of the Angels' statue outside the Los Angeles Cathedral. Beauty doesn't have an agenda. It is just there; it tells the truth without trying. It isn't forced down your throat. It awakens but it does not violate.

 Saying "No" to bad art also means acknowledging that just because something is labelled Catholic/Christian or is made by Catholics/Christians does not necessarily make it good. There are many books, movies, and songs written by Christian artists that circulate with ease in our little subcultures but are an embarrassment in public/pagan circles. We are not going to gain converts by circulating poorly crafted, cheap novels and films in our own churches and friend groups -- this is just talking amongst ourselves. We win converts by going out into the world and infusing our art with our faith, not as propaganda but as truth and beauty that is meant for all people.


3. Figure out whether you are an artist or a praiser, and then do that with commitment.

Being an artist requires two things: talent and hard work. Not everyone has a talent for music or for painting, and that's okay. Just because someone doesn't have a talent for art, it doesn't mean he/she can't appreciate it, or do it for his/her own enjoyment. Does that mean that we should let them decorate our churches or make music for our liturgies? No. Sacred art is not for everyone to make. It requires a lot of talent, and it requires a lot more hard work and dedication.
But the good news is that artists need support just as much as the rest of the world needs artists. Artists need us to employ them, to challenge them, and to give them commissions. Not only do they need help financially, but they also need moral/spiritual support, someone to appreciate their efforts -- their hours of isolation, painting or practicing or both; their obsession with perfecting their art, often resulting in being emotionally and/or pyschologically unstable. They need us to remind them what it means to be human beings that need to eat, sleep, have friends, take care of themselves physically and emotionally, and get outside of their isolation just as much as we need them to remind us what beauty is. Why do we (humanity) need artists? To misquote John Keating from The Dead Poets' Society, "We make art because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering -- these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, movies, stories, music, art, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
So if you are an artist, make great art. Work hard at honing your craft. Practice, practice, practice, read, study, eat, sleep, make friends, have a life outside of your art, and so forth.
If you are a praiser, learn about art and what distinguishes good art from bad art (not everything is subjective), and then find the good artists and commission them to make something beautiful. Artists need to be embraced by a loving Church that supports them through their issues of borderline addiction, insanity, depression, to name a few. Find these people and support them!