CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

“The Christian hope that is “not seen” is a communion in the agony of Christ. It is the identification of our own agonia with the agonia of the God Who emptied himself and became obedient unto death. It is the acceptance of life in the midst of death, not because we have courage, or light, or wisdom to accept, but because by some miracle the God of Life Himself accepts to live in us, at the very moment we descend into death.”

–Thomas Merton

Painting by Chrissy Angliker

“The Christian hope that is “not seen” is a communion in the agony of Christ. It is the identification of our own agonia with the agonia of the God Who emptied himself and became obedient unto death. It is the acceptance of life in the midst of death, not because we have courage, or light, or wisdom to accept, but because by some miracle the God of Life Himself accepts to live in us, at the very moment we descend into death.”

If you perceive the universe as being a universe of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be. And I never thought of the universe as one of scarcity. I always thought that there was enough of everything to go around–that there are enough ideas in the universe and enough nourishment. A lot of people I know think the universe is one of scarcity, and if they don’t get enough money or enough fame, it’s because there isn’t enough to go around. I think there is more than enough of everything to go around. If the world could shift this consciousness, the sense of abundance would be overwhelming. It’s like the old story of primitive societies: When these groups are living at the edge of survival, everyone eats, and there is enough food for everyone. As soon as there is a surplus–this is absolutely characteristic of primitive tribes and everything else–people start starving. Because as soon as there is a surplus, people begin to horde. It is a simple proposition, but almost universally true from an anthropological point of view–with surplus, comes starvation.

–Paul Rand

Poster by Paul Rand

We thought that we overcame racism in the 60’s; we thought the church overcame triumphalism at Vatican II, and now forty  years later we are right back into this regressive and dualistic thinking all over again.  This is the nature of the ego if we have not formed a contemplative mind, a big mind, that sees everything together, with the eyes of God.  I predict, with some historical certainty, this judgmental thinking will continue to happen in every group, in every denomination if we see everything with a dualistic mind.  No new emerging church will emerge very far.

The judgmental mind is not looking for truth; it is looking for control and righteousness.  For some reason when we split and refuse to receive the moment as it is, we end creating and even reveling in those splits as our very identities.  These are the culture wars and the identity politics we suffer from today.  They will not get us very far spiritually, because they are largely ego-based.

From Emerging Christianity: the conference recordings by Richard Rohr

Painting by Linda Kim

Not that love dispenses with knowing or requires some sacrifice of intelligibility, but love becomes, instead of and in the place of intuitus, the keeper of evidence, the royal road to knowledge: “When speaking of things human, we say that we should know them before loving them—a saying which has become proverbial. Yet the saints, on the contrary, when speaking of things divine, say that we should love them in order to know them, and that we enter into truth only through charity.

—Jean-Luc Marion

Mixed Media Painting by Mari Bland

I am at an interesting place right now in regard to thinking about the subject of sin. After hearing sermon after sermon on the subject, reading book after book, having conversation after conversation, I’m convinced of pretty much one thing: For me, the biggest problem that human beings have with sin, is that we try understand it and define it.

I doubt anyone would argue that it is evident how focusing too much on defining what “sin” is, has lead people—specifically the church—down a very dangerous road.

What I mean is this: I personally can’t deny that I know sin exists, that is, I know that I do things that I hate. To quote Paul:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

For me (and most people of the book), all of this sin business can be traced back to Genesis 3. As I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago, I would agree that the biggest issue here is that we tend to look at the world in contractual terms as opposed to Agape Love covenantal terms—what is the name of the forbidden tree in the garden? I’m sure the argument could be made that knowing and being aware of good and evil existing in the world is perhaps the heaviest burden imaginable.

Think about it. What happens when we start thinking about sin (or right vs. wrong for you non-spiritual people)? Well, we start to talk about it. Then, since we’re talking about it, we need to define it in order to get a better handle on it. Before you know it, words like “sanctification,” “purification,” “holiness,” and my favorite one “ransom,” start getting thrown around. Maybe in non-religious circles, words like “virtue,” “ethics,” and “morality” might be mentioned. Since we have a nice neat definition to work with, we naturally become obsessed with evaluating, assessing, measuring and judging.

Instead of lovers, we’ve become law makers and punishers, therefore, so have our Gods.

It is no wonder that the term “Christian” has become synonymous with the word “hypocrite.” The church should never have been portrayed or conceived of as a place where perfect “sinless” and “saved” people congregate.  It should instead look more like an AA meeting. A place where people confess their shortcomings and addictions and recount their stories to each other in a hopeful attempt to find true healing.

Since I’m convinced that I recognize sin when I do it, see it or experience it, and that I do have the uncontrollable need to define it and point it out (to say I can’t or shouldn’t would be disingenuous), I have found some solace in more traditional Hebraic understandings of sin. Rabbi Eliezer Finkelman explains:

The Hebrew word “hatat,” however, has a clear concrete meaning to go with its abstract one. In the Book of Judges we read about a band of sharpshooters, so trained and talented that every one of them can sling a stone at a hair and not miss (Judges 20:16). The word in this verse that means “miss,” yehetu in Hebrew, clearly has the same root as “hatat.” “Sin,” in Hebrew, means something like “missing the target.”

This notion of sin along with sophisticated Christologies (like those found in process thought, which posit that the uniqueness of Christ is seen in the way he actualized the divine aim for his life), have helped me immensely in attempting to deal with and overcome this problem of sin. For me Sin is the “deviation of aim”; humans in their subjective aim distort or deviate from God’s initial, beautiful and harmonious aim for their lives. In his subjective aims Christ actualized the ideal aim of God (as the cosmic Lover) with such intensity that Christ became the supreme human embodiment of “love-in-action.”

On an interesting side note, this sense that we all have which constantly pulls at us, telling us that there is ‘something more’ that we are meant to do in this world, was examined on a recent NPR piece. I thought it was fantastic!

Moving forward, perhaps an interesting question to ponder would be to ask if in Garden of Eve story, did Adam and Eve sin before they ate from the tree? Or is it possible that they were just unaware of their sin? Did they just live in blissful ignorance, unconditionally loving the way God does? I would like to think so. Does it matter all that much what I think? Probably not.

Drawing by Matt Shlian

I am at an interesting place right now in regard to thinking about the subject of sin. After hearing sermon after sermon on the subject, reading book after book, having conversation after conversation, I’m convinced of pretty much one thing: For me, the biggest problem that human beings have with sin, is that we try understand it and define it.

I doubt anyone would argue that it is evident how focusing too much on defining what “sin” is, has lead people—specifically the church—down a very dangerous road.

What I mean is this: I personally can’t deny that I know sin exists, that is, I know that I do things that I hate. To quote Paul:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

For me (and most people of the book), all of this sin business can be traced back to Genesis 3. As I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago, I would agree that the biggest issue here is that we tend to look at the world in contractual terms as opposed to Agape Love covenantal terms—what is the name of the forbidden tree in the garden? I’m sure the argument could be made that knowing and being aware of good and evil existing in the world is perhaps the heaviest burden imaginable.

Think about it. What happens when we start thinking about sin (or right vs. wrong for you non-spiritual people)? Well, we start to talk about it. Then, since we’re talking about it, we need to define it in order to get a better handle on it. Before you know it, words like “sanctification,” “purification,” “holiness,” and my favorite one “ransom,” start getting thrown around. Maybe in non-religious circles, words like “virtue,” “ethics,” and “morality” might be mentioned. Since we have a nice neat definition to work with, we naturally become obsessed with evaluating, assessing, measuring and judging.

Instead of lovers, we’ve become law makers and punishers, therefore, so have our Gods.

It is no wonder that the term “Christian” has become synonymous with the word “hypocrite.” The church should never have been portrayed or conceived of as a place where perfect “sinless” and “saved” people congregate.  It should instead look more like an AA meeting. A place where people confess their shortcomings and addictions and recount their stories to each other in a hopeful attempt to find true healing.

Since I’m convinced that I recognize sin when I do it, see it or experience it, and that I do have the uncontrollable need to define it and point it out (to say I can’t or shouldn’t would be disingenuous), I have found some solace in more traditional Hebraic understandings of sin. Rabbi Eliezer Finkelman explains:

The Hebrew word “hatat,” however, has a clear concrete meaning to go with its abstract one. In the Book of Judges we read about a band of sharpshooters, so trained and talented that every one of them can sling a stone at a hair and not miss (Judges 20:16). The word in this verse that means “miss,” yehetu in Hebrew, clearly has the same root as “hatat.” “Sin,” in Hebrew, means something like “missing the target.”

This notion of sin along with sophisticated Christologies (like those found in process thought, which posit that the uniqueness of Christ is seen in the way he actualized the divine aim for his life), have helped me immensely in attempting to deal with and overcome this problem of sin. For me Sin is the “deviation of aim”; humans in their subjective aim distort or deviate from God’s initial, beautiful and harmonious aim for their lives. In his subjective aims Christ actualized the ideal aim of God (as the cosmic Lover) with such intensity that Christ became the supreme human embodiment of “love-in-action.”

On an interesting side note, this sense that we all have which constantly pulls at us, telling us that there is ‘something more’ that we are meant to do in this world, was examined on a recent NPR piece. I thought it was fantastic!

Moving forward, perhaps an interesting question to ponder would be to ask if in Garden of Eve story, did Adam and Eve sin before they ate from the tree? Or is it possible that they were just unaware of their sin? Did they just live in blissful ignorance, unconditionally loving the way God does? I would like to think so. Does it matter all that much what I think? Probably not.

Drawing by Matt Shlian

This is a developing thought that has influences which are vast. It’s the kind of idea that rattles around with no place to go. So I thought I’d share it, no matter how incoherent it may be. The idea is simple: I’m not afraid to be a hypocrite.

It’s true that traditionally, being hypocritical is more or less frowned upon. I would agree that hypocrisy can be (and is) devastating. It has the potential to lead to obfuscation, apprehension and a general uneasiness toward whoever is behaving in this insincere manner. I know from my own experience that so often if I detect even the slightest hint of hypocrisy coming from someone who is opposed to something that I affirm, their point of view or idea quickly loses value in my eyes. This is what hypocrisy can do to us, it makes us bitter and can lessen our appreciation for the one who is before us. Since we’ve obviously found a flaw or a chink in the armor of our enemy, we’re excused and duly justified in pointing out this contradiction in our foe’s life. This inevitably enables us move past them while we shake our heads in disgust.

“What a hypocrite,” we may think to ourselves as this person standing in front of us, who heats their home with natural gas, preaches to us about the dangerous effects gas drilling could have on the environment.

Hypocrisy makes us angry, as well it should. I mean, Jesus got angry at hypocrites right? He surely did, especially when it involved some sort of oppression, mistreatment, manipulation or intentional deception of people(s). There is a great sense of justice that accompanies the pointing out of hypocrisy, but this isn’t the kind of hypocrisy I’m speaking about. I’m not speaking about the kind of hypocrisy found in the Pharisees whom Jesus accuses. The hypocrisy found there is more or less a disguise that covers a pathetic, feeble and sorrowful nature, one that I’m sure is bound up with issues of power and greed (among many other things).

No, the hypocrisy I’m speaking of, and the one that I’m not afraid of, is one that is often misunderstood. This kind of hypocrisy has less to do with intentionally lying, cheating and deceiving others, and more to do with striving to create a new, better reality. It’s not about deceiving ourselves in regard to how things are, or trying to fool others into thinking or doing something. This kind kind of prophetic hypocrisy is more about honestly assessing the ways things really are in the world, perhaps noticing that some things are not quite right, and then submitting an alternative. Many times this involves having to honestly admit that the justifications for this assertion may fall just a bit short.

Peter Rollins says it better than I ever could:

Take the example of activists who protest against the building of a motorway through a forest. It is perfectly possible to find many, if not most, of the protesters acknowledging both the futility of their mission and even questioning its justification. The protesters may know that, on purely rational grounds, the motorway is needed. They may know that, were they to engage in a public debate, their position would be exposed as lacking the rational framework that would justify their actions. Why? Because, the hegemonic ideological matrix that we exist within dictates the scope and limitations of the rational framework itself. So why do they act? Because the activists are affirming now a reality that does not yet exist, a reality that would, if it was instantiated, justify the actions that they are presently engaged in. They are fighting without justification for a world that would offer that justification.

I’m pretty sure that the Pharisees had mutual feelings toward Jesus. After all, he claimed to follow the Torah yet healed and forgave on the Sabbath. Jesus was indeed a hypocrite. He professed that a new way of life (or Kingdom) was at hand, but did not say that we should do away with the law. He preached this new way of life (and also lived it which is important). He proved that we’re all hypocrites in one way or another, and at the same time, showed that hypocrisy may not be such a bad thing all of the time.

Painting by Russel Leng

What theology needs is more copulation. And postmodern theopoetics may well provide it. The word copulation, of course, denotes coupling: the bringing together and/or union of two things. The related words “copula” and “copulative” are grammatical terms, used to describe the linking of elements in a sentence. How unfortunate, then, that the fertile term copulation has been reduced in meaning, often with the limited connotation of animal(istic) sex. In the sixteenth century, however, copulation was still robust, the word used not only for sex and grammar, but also for theology. The OED exemplifies the word’s breadth with an illustration from 1548: “The wonderful copulation of the sayed nature vnto ours by his incarnation.” The dictionary’s example from 1623 implies that the copulation of divine and human in the Christ-event elicits copulation on the part of Christ’s followers: “The copulation of a living faith and obedience together.”

Abstract from Theopoetics: Si(g)ns of Copulation, an essay by Crystal Downing

Mixed Media piece by Matthew Cusick

The husband wants to be taken back
into the family after behaving terribly,
but nothing can be taken back,
not the leaves by the trees, the rain
by the clouds. You want to take back
the ugly thing you said, but some shrapnel
remains in the wound, some mud.
Night after night Tybalt’s stabbed
so the lovers are ground in mechanical
aftermath. Think of the gunk that never
comes off the roasting pan, the goofs
of a diamond cutter. But wasn’t it
electricity’s blunder into inert clay
that started this whole mess, the I-
echo in the head, a marriage begun
with a fender bender, a sneeze,
a mutation, a raid, an irrevocable
fuckup. So in the meantime: epoxy,
the dog barking at who knows what,
signals mixed up like a dumped-out tray
of printer’s type. Some piece of you
stays in me and I’ll never give it back.
The heart hoards its thorns
just as the rose profligates.
Just because you’ve had enough
doesn’t mean you wanted too much.

Poem by Dean Young

Mixed Media Collage by Danny Phillips

“Papists”, wrote English Protestant Nicholas Lesse in 1550, “although they were right nought for the soul, yet were they good and profitable for the body for civil commonwealths, for the maintenance of civil justice, and all good politic orders. But as for these [Anabaptists] they are neither good for the body nor for the soul: yea, they are most mortal enemies and cruel murderers to both.”‘

Lesse spoke for a good many. It was almost as if he, a “magisterial” Protestant supporting a compulsory state church, found Roman Catholics (the supposed arch-enemy) a good deal less frightening than Anabaptists, whom he called a “corrupt sort of heretics”. Lesse is perfectly frank that the reasons for his preference are political. Both Catholicism and Protestantism maintained “civil commonwealths” and sound political order. Anabaptism led to disorder.

Stumbled across this old essay from Meic Pearse originally published in Anabaptism Today.

Painting: stefan krikl

The king had to share his power with the feudal aristocracy, but all alike expected to be allowed occasional outbursts of passion in the form of war, murder, pillage, or rape. Monarchs might repent, for they were sincerely pious, and, after all, repentance itself was a form of passion. But the church could never produce in them the quiet regularity of good behavior which a modern employer demands, and usually obtains, of his employees. What was the use of conquering the world if they could not drink and murder and love as the spirit  moved them? And why should they, with their armies of proud knights, submit to the orders of bookish men, vowed to celibacy and destitute of armed force? In spite of ecclesiastical disapproval, they preserved the duel and trial by battle, and they developed tournaments and courtly love. Occasionally, in a fit of rage, they would even murder eminent churchmen.

The History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russel

Painting by Kaja Þrastardóttir

My beloved waits. She fills her days with humble tasks.
When I look at her I see myself–my eyes, my thoughts, my cry, my laugh.
Before I knew her I was but half, yet convinced that I was whole. “Now that I know you,
I realize it’s you I’ve longed to hold.”
Together we will be, forever, in the “silent memory of God.”
My beloved waits. She sees me in her dreams.
When we embrace we are alive.
Yet it’s when we’re apart that we become aware of life,
suspended in a temporal cessation, frozen in eternal frost,
until love’s warmth returns to melt our lonely hearts.
My beloved waits. She wakes me and helps me to the door.
Our love is like the water on a lake, splashing on the shores.
With stunted remorse it threatens to devour our hope,
less we loosen our grip on what keeps us afloat.
“To live is to die and to die is to live,” we whisper, and finally succumb.
My beloved waits. She sings to me a song of love.
The love we share is like no other. It’s love we’ve known all our lives!
This love shines from deep within, so bright in fact, it burns our eyes.
Yet when it appears we inhale the mist, allowing it to tempt our hearts.
This fantastic love, it lures us! Beckoning us to come forth.
Then with reprieve it kindly stoops, an utterance from its mouth:
That our love, if it is truly love, will be love that has no bounds.

Poem and Illustration by Jesse Turri for my love Natalie.

“Creativity” is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively.
It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity. “Creativity” is the principle of novelty.

–Alfred North Whitehead

Drawing by Unica Zürn

Truth and trust are closely related words, as displayed in the archaic form of the word for truth, “troth,” as in “to pledge your troth.” “Truth” at its root signifies a covenant of trustworthiness, in a marriage contract. To be true to another means to be trusty! This root meaning is not peculiar to European etymologies. Indeed, the Hebrew concepts that used to be translated in the Old Testament as “truth”–emet, emunah–actually mean “faithfulness” or “trustworthiness.” To see the shift, consider, for instance, the King James translation of Psalm 33:4: “For the word of the Lord is right; and all his works are done in truth.” The translation is not exactly wrong; but it reinforces a conventional European notion of truth as cognitive correctness.

On they Mystery, C. Keller, pg. 37

Painting by Mequitta Ahuja

I Agape Love Greg Boyd, the pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Minnesota. I’ve been listening to his series on Divine love and was so delighted by one of his teachings about contracts vs. covenants that I transcribed a bunch of the sermon to post here.

Here is Boyd speaking about the difference between contracts and covenants.

They look similar, but in fact, there is a world of difference between a contract and a covenant. The Bible talks a lot about covenants, you hardly hear anything about contracts.

He goes on to make some distinctions between the two, pointing out characteristics of each and contrasting them:

1. Contracts are associated with agreements, like what you find in employment or home ownership. Covenants are associated with things like marriages. Unlike contractual agreements, marriage covenants are meant to be unbreakable. They are not 50/50 deals. Marriages are 100/100 deals–you’re very being is to be invested in a marriage.
2. Contracts are essentially deals that are made between two parties. Covenants have to do not with making deals, but with making pledges between two people. A deal is between us, and a marriage is us. In this case, a contract is about law, a pledge is about love.
3. Lastly, contracts are associated with law, they are always conditional and evaluative. Agape Love covenants on the other hand, are always unconditional. While contracts may be obsessed with evaluating, assessing, measuring and judging, Agape Love Covenants are about accepting the other as they are.

Boyd goes on to say this:

Our problem–our core problem I believe–is that we look at everything in the world in contract terms rather than Agape love convenant terms. We look at and interpret everything in the world through the categories of law and deal making, rather than through the categories of love and pledge making.

…I submit to you that the story in Genesis 3 is a story about how we as a race have fallen from an Agape love, covenantal worldview to a contractual worldview.

What follows is a beautiful interpretation of Genesis 3.

In the beginning, the Bible says Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day–so in the late afternoon, when it wasn’t hot. And this is just the Bible’s way of communicating that they had this relationship with God that was innocent. They hung out with God, and God hung out with them, and they enjoyed one another and that is what life is supposed to be about.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil wasn’t there as a test, like a cookie in front of a child. It was God’s loving ‘no trespassing’ sign. Life revolved around these two trees in the middle of the garden. God is saying, trust me for my provision of life, but also honor my prohibition.

God is saying, ‘be like me, in terms of your character. Expand my love. Be like me in terms of how you treat one another, how you treat the animals and how you treat the Earth. But don’t try to be like me in terms of your wisdom. Don’t be like me in thinking you know and can define good and evil. Or that you are supposed to police good and evil and be the judges of good and evil. No, leave that to me. I’ll be the judge. You be lovers, in my image.’

This interpretation isn’t new, In fact, it’s an interpretation I’ve probably heard before somewhere. But I think what made it so special for me is hearing Boyd’s passion and sincerity come through in communicating his message. I really do sense his love for God and love people come through in his teaching, and to me, this is what makes a good teacher a good teacher. Boyd is not only a master at blending ethos, pathos and logos, but it seems like he genuinely seeks to inspire and act as a catalyst for others. I’m really excited for his new book to come out which deals with reconciling the violent God of the Old Testament with the non-violent Jesus of the New Testement. Good stuff.

Painting: Mark Lawrence

Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.

— Paul Rand

Design by Förster

Richard Rohr writes:

Our usual definitions of God depict him as omnipotent, infinite, perfect in every way.  Yet if the suffering Jesus is the image and revelation of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), this is totally at odds with all the other philosophical and theological definitions of a supreme being.

Jesus doesn’t fit.  Even after two thousand years, it is hard to realize what a revolutionary symbol Jesus is.  He basically turned theology upside down.  He said, in effect: “Who you think God is, God isn’t.”  You can’t know this merely by study or theology or religion, but only through painful encounters with the living God where you feel like you are dying and yet you do not die.  Then you experience another kind of life, another kind of freedom.

Christians call this new home the shared life of the risen Christ.  It is a different “morphogenetic field,” and only those who live there are equipped to talk about Jesus or the Gospel.

Adapted from Job and the Mystery of Suffering, pp. 25-26

Painting by Frank McCauley

One of my favorite hybrid philosopher/theologians, John Caputo, has been on my mind lately. Mostly because he has been making the rounds on some of my favorite podcasts and has been the subject on some frequently read blogs. One case in point is this profound interview courtesy of Callid Keefe-Perry and HBC.

After I listened to the interview I was reminded of how passionately Caputo talks about Derrida, and how he would describe Derrida as “rightly passing for an atheist.” Caputo’s fascination with Derrida is infectious, and I love this idea. Here is a passage from Caputo’s book Philosophy and Theology is which he discusses this concept:

Why not simply say “I am an atheist”? Because that would be to arrest the play; it would have the self-assured ring of reductionism, the bluntness of nineteenth-century positivism, representing what Derrida once called “atheistic theology,” by which he meant dogmatic atheism (he was using “theology” as a bad word, as a name for dogmatism). On the contrary, he thinks, what we call the “I” is implicated in a kind of conflict, of competing voices that give each other no rest, so that there is always an atheist within me who contests my professions of belief, just as there is always a believer within me who contests my professions of unbelief. That is why he says the name of God is the name of a secret that is withheld form him. Still, he “rightly passes” for an atheist–by the standards of the local pastor or rabbi. That is what others say about him, and that is right enough. But do not let saying that harden over into a dogma (not letting our beliefs and practices harden over into pure presence is a lot of what “deconstruction” means). Notice the Socratic ring to what Derrida is saying here and its similarity to Kierkegaard, when Kierkegaard says that he would never pretend to be a Christian, but at most professes trying to become one. Might it be that the best formula available to believers who are sensitive to the complex and multiple forces that are astir within us, as we all should be, is to claim that tat most they “rightly pass” for a believer? Is this not an excellent formula for whatever we believe or do not believe?

Poster design by Jan Lenica

The designer is a visually literate person, just as an editor is expected by training and inclination to be versed in language and literature, but to call the former an artist by occupation is as absurd as to refer to the latter as a poet.

— Douglas Martin

This quote really does get to the heart of why I do not think of myself as an artist. I suppose you could say that I have such a high regard for artists, that to call myself one would be disingenuous. It’s similar to the way I think about my musical ability. I play guitar, but I would never call myself a musician. I mean, I don’t read music, I don’t know much music theory and I’ve never had any formal musical training. So to call myself a musician, in my opinion, would be to denigrate the noble title.

It’s true that, as the quote states, designers need to be visually literate, and I would also say creative. But Design differs from Art because Art always rings, to me at least, as being fundamentally personal. True, other people may enjoy and experience the Art, become moved or changed by it, but it usually starts as a personal expression. Design on the other hand, is not personal, it’s communal. Colin Wright on this point:

Art is like masturbation. It is selfish and introverted and done for you and you alone. Design is like sex. There is someone else involved, their needs are just as important as your own, and if everything goes right, both parties are happy in the end.

Wright’s humorous point rings true for me. Design can be Art, I won’t disagree that the lines are perpetually being blurred. But what I will say, and the reason I will maintain the distinction, is mostly because of my love and appreciation for what art and design can be, need to be, and what they will continue to be.

Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann

Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all. Everyone makes design decisions all the time without realizing it—like Moliere’s M. Jourdain who discovered he had been speaking prose all his life—and good design is simply the result of making these decisions consciously, at the right stage, and in consultation with others as the need arises.

—Douglas Martin

Design by Matthew Leibowitz