An Inkling
It’s the most important
spiritual gift for youth ministers:
whacky! Check the New Testament
lists, and I’ll bet you find it somewhere.
I know you’ll find a good example of one so gifted in Mark
Oestreicher. He both ministers to youth
and enables others to do the same. He
has that most important gift in spades.
Thus his annual list of "the 50 worst and weirdest nativity sets." Check it out. You’ll find
laughers, groaners, head slappers, and jaw droppers.
One man’s kitsch is another’s
high art. So it’s well not to be
snobbish in one’s artistic judgments. In
fact, there’s something about a Messiah born in a stable that somehow seems closer to
kitsch sensibilities than to those of elite art.
But…. some of these are so
kitschy that it got me to thinking. What
cultural forms can serve as platforms to display the gospel’s beauty? And which (intentionally or not) are mere
caricatures?
And more to the point for a
non-artist like me, which cultural forms in my life and church serve well as
platforms for the gospel’s beauty? And
which are mere caricatures?
May the Lord’s own beauty,
borne by our plainness, point all the more to him!
Ho! Hol!
Ho!
Keith
