Be an icon, not an idol.
Humans cannot live without art and so we will always have icons and idols. Not all art will be venerated, lifting our hearts to Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. Thankfully, most art will not become an idol, twisting our worship to stuff. Instead, most of our art will convey a message, lift our hearts, and inspire us to think.
A flag can be an icon, pointing us to love of neighbor, or a flag can be an icon, twisting us into jingoism.
We cannot live without art, because if we create anything, we are likely to give it special meaning. Our effort has gone into that representation and so we care and if we care, then we can care too little (hatred) or too much (idolatry). Just getting up in the morning, deciding what to wear, and cleaning up is a decision to create an image. This is not to be a false image.
Our best is as truly who we are as our worst. The “real you” is not the you without makeup or in your sloppy clothes. That is one choice, just as your dressed up self is not your true self. Our creations are our creations and unless we are asleep or unconscious, we are always creating. A dear friend painted Hope after we lost a baby. The picture is profoundly Hope, but so is the “glam” shot I have from a romantic cruise. The first is high art and the second is more than a bit cheesy, but both say something about aspects of Hope and of our relationship. (I introduced the cheesiness!) We need many “images” to capture the complexity of even simple old us. Imagine the great women and men of history! Imagine an image of God!
The last is impossible if we mean imaging God’s essence: a task like writing the greatest American novel . . . Of all time. He is beyond all our art and we cannot make a graven image of Him.
Jesus came. He is God and human. We could see the human and so deeply whole was Jesus as a God-man that seeing one thing (the man) could point us to God. All people are in image of God, but Jesus became the perfect icon of God. Look at Him long enough, as He is, and we see very God.
Why does this matter?
Seeing very God is very different from seeing “the God I wish was.” Very God deserves worship, “the God I wish was” deserves destruction. Idols are gods confused with God: a damnable category error.
Bad art is art that wants money. This is not because free markets are bad, but because freedom allows a plethora of bad and not just one bad. The tyrant has this advantage. He can cut off all evils, but his own. The free state has this problem: no evil is impossible, though the market eliminates the bad . . . Slowly.
Evil cannot win in the end. History has many twists and turns and the providence of God is impossible to see in the details due to the free will that interelates to the master plan. In the end, however, the history of humanity will be an icon of the justice, goodness, truth, and beauty. We will marvel for eternity at how even the pain we created was taken into the goodness of God, not ignored, forgotten, but given healing and a hopeful meaning.
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