Glimpses of Grace ~ All Too Transitory...

“Every individual is representative of the whole, a symptom, and should be intimately understood.”
~ Anaïs Nin

 “As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to.”

~  Andres Serrano












“I wanted to meet God ~ you sold me religion. ...”

~ Bono



(Video: Chris Fletcher -- Musc: U2 ~ Grace -- Images: Chris Fletcher and Internet Sourced)

Two things I read today struck my imagination so I have integrated the thoughts here and add U2 song, Grace to the mix. The three things viewed together I believe will give some insight to the culture wars the U.S. perpetually finds itself embroiled in and no more so than during an election year.

The first piece is a revisiting the Andres Serrano's, Piss Christ art exhibit, the second one is Anaïs Nin speaking to how understanding the individual is crucial to understanding mass movements. So many connections between these: Andres Serrano, Anaïs Nin and U2 – all artists with much to say about the world we find ourselves in.

Perhaps it is the artists, poets, writers and muscians

who's insights are to be valued in speaking to humanity.

From a piece in Patheos: Cultivare Daniel A. Siedell writes:

Grace is God’s final word to humanity in desperate need of being forgiven. Grace is what is preached in Word and Sacrament. It is grace that characterizes the witness of the Church to the nations. I am convinced that the chief responsibility of the cultural theologian is to discern the operation of grace in the world, an operation of an alien presence that is in the process of overturning the regime of law, of tit-for-tat, karma, and quid pro quo. And it is often found, I suggest, in the world, through art, literature, and music—precisely those endeavors that can undermine the legal framework of the world.

Read the complete piece here: Piss Christ, Revisited

In Brain Pickings Maria Popova writes:

From the The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 3: 1939-1944 (public library) — which gave us Nin’s illustrated insights on life, this poignant mediation on Paris vs. New York, and Henry Miller’s wisdom on giving vs. receiving — comes this thoughtful reflection on why understanding the masses, in sociology and in politics, must be preceded by understanding the triumphs and tragedies of the individual:

Popova then quotes Nin:

The general obsession with observing only historical or sociological movements, and not a particular human being (which is considered such righteousness here [in America]) is as mistaken as a doctor who does not take an interest in a particular case. Every particular case is an experience that can be valuable to the understanding of the illness.

There is an opacity in individual relationships, and an insistence that the writer make the relation of the particular to the whole which makes for a kind of farsightedness. I believe in just the opposite. Every individual is representative of the whole, a symptom, and should be intimately understood, and this would give a far greater understanding of mass movements and sociology.

Also, this indifference to the individual, total lack of interest in intimate knowledge of the isolated, unique human being, atrophies human reactions and humanism. Too much social consciousness and not a bit of insight into human beings.

As soon as you speak in psychological terms (applying understanding of one to the many is not the task of the novelist but of the historian) people act as if you had a lack of interest in the wider currents of the history of man. In other words, they feel able to study masses and consider this more virtuous, assign of a vaster concept than relating to one person. This makes them …. inadequate in relationships, in friendships, in psychological understanding.

The full piece can be found here: Anais Nin on Why Understanding the Individual is the Key to Understanding Mass Movements