by Sheila Vosen-Shorten
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “You are the light of the world…your light must shine before men so that they may see goodness in your acts and give praise to your heavenly Father.” (Matt 5:15-16) There are times when my mind perceives an image—a glimmer of possibility, when the invisible becomes visible in my heart and I cannot stop the urge to create and manifest the beauty and truth that the Holy Spirit has shown and inspired me to realize. This is the “Aha Moment,” the “I am seeing beyond” experience. It is a bridge into the mystery of Christ’s incarnation as Word made flesh. And then, what follows the “Aha Moment,” is a lot of hard work as I write about, gather, combine and fabricate elements to symbolize that ineffable moment of revelation.
As a Catholic, and an artist, I am profoundly moved whenever I contemplate God as Supreme Creator, the author of all creativity, manifesting beauty and truth, and instilling in us our creative response to the life he has given us. God is, and has always been, The Word. And the Word became flesh—invisible became visible in Christ. The word was created into a visible image as both sign and symbol. Christ is God, is goodness, truth and beauty. Christ is inspiration, stimulating us to become the best creations possible. Christ’s gift of breath to humankind—the Holy Spirit—inspires us, in turn, to create goodness out of his beauty and truth, living out this mystery through our lives.
As human beings, in our earliest development, we experience urges and feelings. We have no words. Our urges—hunger, thirst and the need for touch—combine with feelings such as comfort, satiation and fear. We begin the process of symbolizing by associating these urges and feelings with images. Mother’s breast satisfies hunger and thirst, but also symbolizes comfort and security. At some point we may transfer those feelings to another image, maybe a blanket. Our life is about learning to see and experience God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the ultimate and eternal blanket of love and satiety.
As we grow in relationship with others and ourselves, words take on symbolic meanings associated with feelings and urges, we begin to speak and we develop language. Then out of our language and the words that enter our heart, we begin to realize our feelings and deeper meaning as created images. We create visual art, using innumerable and varied mediums that our world provides. We create through writing, poetry and music.
We have come full circle. The mystery is that creativity always reflects the creator. God created us to imitate Him, and we imitate God as Creator by creating. We realize—make real—God’s beauty and truth, manifesting goodness, creating images that reflect and give insight into God as Word. The Holy Spirit helps us to go beyond, to transcend from word to image. This divine bridge can take form in our art. We engage in the creative act when we put our words, our thoughts into forms than can be seen, touched and heard. We manifest in sign and symbol.
The Holy Spirit helps us to create these images in art: paintings, sculpture, pottery, installations, writing, poetry and music. Through our art the sacred words of Christ take on visible substance. As St. Paul says in Romans 8:19, all of creation “…awaits the revelation of the Children of God.” We are moved by the Creator within us to manifest beauty and truth; we are imitating Christ. And, we could say that by denying the creative life force that animates us to be who we truly are, we separate ourselves from God, and we no longer fully reflect our Creator. Christ’s mercy and his creative and artistic inspiration within us are bridges that can help us to cross the chasm between where we are and where we want to be.
Sheila Vosen-Shorten, St. Raphael Stewardship Council, Liturgical Environment Committee Chairperson; writer and ceramic artist; Director of Valley County Cat Resource Project and sanctuary.
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