Allison and Michael unpack the hopelessness of existentialism, and they discuss why despair concerning merely human attempts at meaning provide fruitful ground for the Gospel.
Stay tuned at the end for a John Cage piece performed on the classical guitar by Phil Hodges.
“The Walking Man I”
Alberto Giacometti
1961
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Despair, sorrow, mourning, is an inescapable quality of being human. Jesus, even as the perfect human, wrestled with all of that—in Gethsemane, at the grave of a close friend, on the cross as he cried to a God that he says deserted him.
Our hope is not just what is to come. Our hope is here and now. We do not face these things alone. That’s why we are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. We have a shared experience that can support each other along the journey. We are not alone. Not only spiritually, but materially.
Art is another way to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. The relational nature of art is something I have long attempted to articulate. One cannot come to a consistent understanding of art without confronting its relational nature. I can look at a Giacometti (one of my favorites, too) and say “I know what it means to be like this, I am not alone in this experience”. Art is another way to love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t always have or have to have the answer. Sometimes it is enough to know we are not alone.
Art does not have to mean other than this. That’s meaning enough. That is one of the two greatest truths that all other truths are built on.
Joe