In the fall of 2004, four friends met for lunch (Donald McGilchrist, Eddie Broussard, Jim Petersen and Gary Bradley) to consider the connection between God’s beauty and the unfolding, ever-attracting, narrative of Jesus in contemporary culture.

As the conversation turned towards perhaps the most well-known creation story on the planet—the Genesis account—three questions began to emerge. Genesis 3:6 describes three important observations of humanity that link this ancient story with ongoing contemporary quests: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it…” In other words, one might say that she longed for what are now known as the three transcendental desires: goodness, beauty and truth.

Still today we ask: ‘What is Beauty?’, ‘What is Goodness?’, and ‘What is Truth?’ We long for these answers and for experiences of beauty, goodness and truth. As we all know, according to this Hebraic creation story, Adam and Eve mistakenly attempt to find beauty, goodness and truth by crossing, not trusting, their rather intimate relationship with God—a decision with destructive consequences. So, even more questions arise: How do we creatively explore beauty, truth and goodness in collaboration with a faith, a trust rather than distrust, in God?

These storied events form a narrative of human and divine creativity which burst forth in the recorded life of Jesus—a creative and redemptive life which liberates new directions for human imagination to envision interaction with God while living in an exasperating world. Further reflections over the past few years have led Via Affirmativa to conclude that unleashing others to likewise live a creative and redemptive life is essential to participating in this ever-developing narrative. In his newsletter, Refractions 22, Makoto Fujimura says “…our lives are to be lived for others. Arts should let ‘the other ones’ loose from the bondage of decay, apathy and loss.”

In the summer of 2005 an expanded and diversified group of eleven met for a weekend to dialog on the beauty of God. That gathering led Via Affirmativa to invite 80 creative and artistic friends for a retreat in the summer of 2006. The goal: to pursue personal transformation and the liberation that comes from discovering the powerful connection between the Arts, the narrative of Jesus, and the Beauty of God.

This exploration of the creative, redemptive life—of our longings for beauty, goodness and truth—is usually a rather ‘messy’ journey. After all, beauty is often not found in what is deemed to be ‘pretty,’ but beauty frequently resides in a tragic pairing with what is ugly. Living in these ‘grey’ areas of life often isolates artists from others. As such, Via Affirmativa seeks to affirm, or legitimize, artists in their question asking, cultural exegesis, and questing for (and expressing of) that which is beautiful, good and true.

We believe that artists play an instrumental role in shaping culture by encouraging us to reflect upon our forming narratives and by asking the question: “How then should we live?” Some do this by deconstructing and others by simply pursuing what they find to be beautiful; but together, Via Affirmativa hopes that artists can affirm and inspire one another to embrace a creative calling to re-imagine what it might look like to live a creative and redemptive life.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 11:49 pm and is filed under VA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.