Psalm 85

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. 

Lord, you were favorable to your land;
    you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
You forgave the iniquity of your people;
    you covered all their sin. Selah
You withdrew all your wrath;
    you turned from your hot anger.

Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
    and put away your indignation toward us!
Will you be angry with us forever?
    Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Will you not revive us again,
    that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,
    and grant us your salvation.

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
    for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints;
    but let them not turn back to folly.
Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,
    that glory may dwell in our land.

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
    righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
    and righteousness looks down from the sky.
Yes, the Lord will give what is good,
    and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him
    and make his footsteps a way.

"Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;/righteousness and peace kiss one another." I dare you to find a more beautiful, poetic description of the Gospel.

Shakespeare 400

I know it's a little cheesy, but this seems like one of the most appropriate of his quotes to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of the Bard:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

(As You Like It 2.7.146-173)

Why I love Shakespeare's comedies

BEATRICE   I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
PRINCE   Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o’ question you were born in a merry hour.
BEATRICE   No, sure, my lord, my mother cried, but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

(Much Ado About Nothing II.i.322-329)

Of the Bard's works, Shakespeare's tragedies are usually the plays that are recognized as his most thoughtful. Nothing like an existential crisis or two to get you thinking about the deep philosophical realities of life.

As much as I love his tragedies, the comedies have always been my favorite. They have  resonated with me more deeply than their melancholy cousins. While the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream seems to be lighter fare than the overt seriousness of Romeo and Juliet, the two plays (like the others they represent) are more similar than they appear. Hermia & Lysander and Helena & Demetrius are just a ruling-from-Theseus away from becoming Juliet & Romeo. Both genres deal with the same issues, but arrive at different conclusions.

I love the quote from Much Ado About Nothing above. In the last sentence, Beatrice hits on the nature of truly good comedy: Joy and despair often walk hand in hand. Peter Leithart (to reference a scandalous author) calls this phenomenon "deep comedy." Throughout the course of the story, the characters must undergo all kinds of loss before they finally reach happiness in the end: Heartbreak, betrayal, and horror are all present in both Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies. From a purely artistic standpoint, this juxtaposition makes the whole piece more effective; the contrast between the two extremes raises the stakes for both of them, rendering their qualities more dramatic.

What sets the comedies apart from the tragedies, however, is their endings. I believe that ultimately, the comedies are most realistic. None of this makes sense at first - we all live in a fallen world, and if you're a good Amillenial (cough), you don't foresee anything improving any time soon. It would appear that our earthly destiny falls rather on the bleak end of the spectrum. But here's the thing: Our story doesn't end with death. The Christian worldview is a hopeful one, because Christ has already conquered death. The happy ending is guaranteed for us. This eschatological reality embodies the tension in the comedies between temporary defeat and permanent victory, present suffering and future peace, earthly chaos and heavenly perfection. The lighthearted tone of the comedies reminds us that our hope in Christ makes the suffering in this world bearable. For the Christian, deep comedy is the truest form of realism.

Every Shakespeare scholar has written about his ability to create relatable, lifelike characters. His comic genius is similar. His characters mirror us in such a way that makes us first laugh, then think. It is when we see ourselves in the struggles of his characters that his plays are successful.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Romans 8.18-25

On galleries

Cole: "The Arcadian or Pastoral State"

Recently, I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum to check out its (AMAZING!!) temporary exhibition "Nature and the American Vision." The collection focuses on the Hudson River School and features several early paintings of Niagara Falls, upstate New York, and - my favorite - Thomas Cole's 5-part series, The Course of an Empire. Highly recommended.

Anyways, since the museum's completed renovation this past November, I've acquired a much deeper appreciation for both gallery-visiting in general and the museum itself. On our breakneck joyride around Europe's greatest galleries, my friends and I often hurried from one famous painting/sculpture/building to another, in a frantic effort to see as many masterpieces as possible. Given the time restraints, I don't necessarily regret such a decision, yet I find myself wistfully remembering what it was like to stand in the presence of such workmanship. I wish I could have taken in more of each piece.

I returned to Milwaukee with a bit of a cynical attitude toward American art collections (and to be fair, it is hard to top the decadent concentration of art in places like the Vatican Museums or the Louvre); however, in the past several months, I've had the happy realization that this mindset wasn't fully justified, especially in Milwaukee. Weaving between the temporary exhibit and the permanent collection, I was struck by an awareness of the richness of every single piece. Of course, you have your mediocre ones, or those that fail to capture your interest; for every one of those, though, there is another that is quite good.

In the end, it actually began to be overwhelming. It made me realize that I have played the tourist even at my own, "home" art museum. Rushing from one painting to another, blazing through entire rooms in 3 minutes, I never stopped to cultivate a meaningful encounter with the pieces.

While I love the diverse gallery opportunities presented by large art museums, the sheer volume of art they offer can be dangerous. Living out one of the classic American stereotypes, we can easily fall into the trap of valuing quantity over quality. In focusing on the whole, we take each particular piece for granted.

The reality is that you could easily spend several hours - a whole visit - on just a room or two. It's an experiment I would like to try the next time I go. Instead of doing what I usually do - make value judgments based on my taste/mood, I want to pay closer attention to what the artist is telling me. To borrow a page from Shakespeare and his strategically-placed plays-within-plays, I'm learning that there needs to be a sense of humility, a willingness for art to change you. It isn't there just to look pretty (well, unless you're fond of Oscar Wilde & co. But I think I'd challenge even that).