Release Date: April 2007
Published by Jossey-Bass
Release Date: April 2007
From the introduction…
My hope with this book is to have a conversation about what it might mean to follow the way of Jesus—not as an advertisement for an unattainable ideal, but as a messy, fertile experiment we can live into, that acknowledges the depths of our varied experiences and the complexities of contemporary society. I would like to explore how the generative life of the Creator can take root in the soil of our humanity.
Every day we are bombarded with corporate advertisements trying to get us to buy things. This one-way communication is often slick and salacious. In urban areas, such as where I live, people have tangibly resisted the messages on billboards and bus shelters. With spray paint they scrawl their own names or tags across the advertisements or leave comments that question assumptions, turning one-way communication into public discourse. With wheat paste they hang homemade posters or artwork over corporate advertisements to subvert the dominance of the mass market, in an attempt to restore the voice of local people.
Tagging, the most primitive form of graffiti, is often seen as a way of marking territory or an attempt to claim personal space in the crowded metropolis. Writing tags on buses, trucks, or trains is like sending a message in a bottle, a cry to be known that will travel through the neighborhood and out into the wider world. Many underground artists tag or poster obsessively, addicted to expanding their names or causes at the risk of prosecution. Graffiti artists often leave messages for one another in their work, signatures that serve as a sign of respect or connection.
No matter our aesthetics, there is something in the motivation of the graffiti artist that we can identify with, a guttural yelp to be heard and understood, to talk back to the universe or to God when we feel helpless, abandoned, or overwhelmed. It may be that impulse we feel to find our place and of significance in the wider world, or to initiate conversation with the our Maker.
Not all graffiti is illegal or self-aggrandizing. Muralists and other underground artists eschew the pretentious nature of the gallery scene in order to bring beauty to the streets, where people live and work and die and love. Most people will never see the artwork that hangs on gallery walls unless the galleries are sidewalks, fences, and telephone poles. An artist I met named Dave hangs hundreds of simple, brightly colored paintings throughout the city, bringing smiles to the faces of people as they walk to the store or subway. Stenciled on the sidewalk at my feet I see proclamations left by neighbors: “Your existence gives me hope”; “Sluts against rape”; “Stop oil wars!” or, from a now deceased friend, simply the word “Grace” written with flowing cursive letters. One artist even fills the gaps in the concrete with rows of glass jewels. In our heavily pedestrian neighborhood, we have learned to look for the messages scrawled in chalk or stuck in the cracks of the sidewalk and to find beauty in small and hidden places. I am drawn to this kind of communication, because it speaks words of hope and life at the level where people actually live. And there the words don’t sound like spin.
“Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God” (Mark 1:14). I like to think that the message and method of Jesus was a lot like graffiti—immediate, street level, and personal. Jesus spoke as one who knew the struggles and joys of the people in his region. He spoke in words that connected with their longings. And he spoke as one who also suffered. I’m convinced that the good news Jesus proclaimed is relevant for our day if the real issues of our lives, the places where we feel pain, loneliness, failure, and abandon are acknowledged as part of the story. The “good news of God” must speak to the whole person: our bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our relationships with people and the planet we call home. And like graffiti at its best, the message becomes a two-way conversation of intimacy and respect.
One of my favorite graffiti artists weaves designs into wire fences using fallen leaves from local neighboring trees. Often people who live in cities, perhaps due to limited open space, have an acute awareness of our responsibility to care for the natural world. My friend Andrew Jones, a Kiwi gypsy, speculates that current interest in organic produce and concern for the environment is related to our deeper quest for connection with the Creator. “I like to speak of spiritual realities in terms of organic symbols,” he says, “beginning with the tree of life in the garden of Eden.” Mountains and trees have often been places where humans waited to hear the voice of God. Ancient peoples wandered in the hills and wilderness seeking the will of the Creator. Prophets heard the voice of God in the silence of the desert. Devout Hebrews, such as Deborah the Judge, sat under trees to pray for wisdom, guidance, and just decisions. Trees symbolically represented the synchronicity between humans and the divine—a connection point stretching between Earth and eternity. After Jesus’ death, Peter the disciple began speaking of Jesus being hung on a tree rather than a cross—alluding to the Nazarene as a bridge between Earth and eternity.
Today we are still being invited to wander in the wilderness, in mountains and among trees, and on the streets of cities to discover the connection between the eternal life of the Creator and the particulars of our lives in the here and now.
I wonder, if Jesus were present in our time, what he might write on the sidewalks and walls. We know that he shouted along the Sea of Galilee, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh” (Luke 6:20–21). Jesus came offering the propaganda of hope. To people longing for purpose and wholeness he declared, “You are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world!” (Matthew 5:13–14).
