To me, this week’s news has been fodder for just about full-on depression. Reports of uncertainty and confusion surrounding Syria alternate with images of Miley Cyrus’s antics at the Video Music Awards, messing with my head a little bit — each situation making me wonder if there will ever be hope for the other.
Remembrances of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech filled the air here in Washington and all I could think about was his hope that one day people would be judged by their character rather than the color of their skin, and I wonder if anyone is judged on the criteria of character anymore. How do you live up to a dream when the basis of the dream has eroded so completely in a society? As I said, I’m feeling a little cynical.
Lisa Cole Smith
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So, I’m looking for something to inspire me and I find comfort and a thread of direction to hold onto in reflecting on the life and work of Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who died this week at the age of 74.
An editorial in The Observer online wrote about him:
“Great poets, supposedly, should be mad and bad: tormented, tempestuous and at least a little demented. Seamus Heaney was none of these things. He exuded sanity, on the page and in person. He was calm, restrained, centered. He knew that quiet decency and careful, meticulous words posed a more profound challenge to his times than any wildness ever could. His gift, as an artist and as a public figure, was an immense, unwavering, implacable civility.”
Living in Ireland, he experienced the tragedy and conflict of its internal struggles and violence brought about by intolerance and fear. He was certainly no stranger to strife, division and danger. In such situations bitterness naturally grows and the response to it is often as hateful and harsh as the circumstances themselves. Yet, Heaney chose a different way with his work. His prophetic voice was soft and lilting like his Irish accent.
The Observer continues:
“Indeed, part of Heaney's immense achievement was to use and expand that 'awfulness' and its relation to the creative spirit and artistic commitment, using implication rather than assertion. Heaney knew very well that poems were no shield against bullets and bombs. Yet he persisted in tolerance and subtlety — each poem was an act of faith in the ultimate efficacy of those civilized values.”
How difficult to use “implication rather than assertion.” If assertion is a hammer, implication is a feather tickling at first and then irritating the sensibilities as it reaches in down under the skin causing us to twitch with a devious discomfort called “conviction.”
How tempting it is to use the hammer, though. It fits so nicely in the hand and makes such a great cracking sound leaving a satisfying feeling when it hits the nail just so on the head. The feather gives no guarantees.
I hope I can learn these lessons of restraint — of faith in the efficacy of prayer, of quiet contemplation, of speaking softly and every day. Of carrying on even when no one seems to listen, believing that justice will ultimately reign. Of allowing art to speak in its own generous way and not forcing it to be an instrument for clubbing others over the head.
I hope I can also learn to rest in and trust the lesson of knowing that what I have to contribute as an artist and as a pastor may not be a “shield against the bullets and bombs” of life, but it is what I have to offer. And only by mining and giving complete attention to the beauties and intricacies of these art forms can I offer anything — through these arts filled with prayer, perspective, presence, history, seeing and listening and listening and listening, asking questions, allowing others the humanity to ask hard questions, and perhaps — hopefully — prompting others to ask hard questions through a story, a thought, an image or a feeling. Within these arts we practitioners hope to help others live with the “complexity and contradiction” of their own lives and encourage the value of character and the cultivation of civility and tolerance.
Oh, please God, let my art have this kind of impact. Not of fame or celebrity, not of book deals and speaking tours, not of million-member churches but of what matters. Help me to go to sleep every night knowing that I have cultivated habits that breed action that matters and with faith that you will work all these things to your will and to your good.
May God bless the poets, the preachers and the prophets.
Lisa Cole Smith ([email protected]) is pastor of Convergence: A Creative Community of Faith, in Alexandria, Va.