This Strange, Impractical, Unpracticed Gift

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 10 October 2014.

Wu-Tang Clan will release one copy of its secret album

I have a few moments now and I wanted to try to articulate some of my thoughts about the project vis-à-vis Matthew 10, comedy, etc.

Long story short, I think this has consequences for how we do things.

The best way to be a Christian hero is to be a comic hero, not a tragic or epic hero. Christ is a one-of-a-kind hero, not a comic hero, but a Christian should strive to be a comic hero. And by comic hero, I'm thinking about everything from The Lives of the Saints to La Divina Commedia to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give" (Mt. 10:8).

I agree with Wu-Tang Clan's RZA when he laments music's devaluation--that great works of visual art, owned by museums and private collectors, receive greater reverence. At the same time, music is a different art form. It is right that the more plastic arts would demand and evoke those kinds of reverence and respect. These, as well as the more classical forms of music, are the more Olympian/Apollonian genres, whereas the kind of music we make stems from the Chthonic/Dionysian tradition. The former commands reverence, individuation, and rationality; the latter evokes ecstasy, union, and chaos.

In former days, people ascribed this enthusiasm or frenzy to the influence of chthonic gods. In our own day, it is the joy that comes from knowing that Christ has embraced us in our lowliness, that we can trust in his ongoing presence so long as we "do not grieve the holy Spirit of God" (Eph. 4:30), mostly through our own misguided attempts to save ourselves.

I think many young musicians have intuited the message of Matthew 10:8.

If you want to partake in that ecstatic union, you cannot hold onto attitudes of individuation and ownership. Don Henley cannot simultaneously sue younger musicians and write great music. Halvard Solness cannot simultaneously stifle young architects and build "castles in the sky."

So what implications am I drawing from these observations?

In short, I think we need to let go of everything, more and more, until God lets us know what He wants to do with us. This gift that we've been given...this strange, impractical, unpracticed gift...this gift that we've tried to rationalize, monetize, capitalize on...we need to give it back, in whatever ways we can.

And then some wind of the Spirit may come to the aid of our weakness and intercede for us with inexpressible groanings (Rm. 8:26). And maybe the Spirit will take it from us so that it is no longer ours. But at least at that point we are no longer living in this labyrinth, this counterfeit of the hero's journey, having imprisoned our creative spirit.

Let it go to some distant land and benefit someone else.