Omer Redden

Creativity (Bob Dylan)

Back in August of last year, I wrote a post on Bob Dylan. I talked about his lyrical genius and his ability to pack so much thought into a single song. Today, I want to talk about Dylan more broadly. I want to look at his creative ability, both in music and beyond.

First, for the music. As you might know, he started out as a folk singer. After gaining some popularity in the early 60s, Dylan went electric and began to inspire the rock artists of his day. From there, he turned a bit to pop, then to a borderline country sound, then to blues, never fully letting his fans or critics define him. As for his musical output–according to his website, he has released 56 albums. And since 1960, Dylan has toured most every year, putting on show after show for his fans. It’s not the output that makes Dylan great though, it’s his lyrical quality and his continued creativity. In fact, for his creativity, he was awarded the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence, the “Kennedy Center Honors” in 1997, becoming the first rock artist to ever earn the award. And over the course of his career, he has won multiple Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award.

But his artistic genius doesn’t end there. Dylan has also dabbled in the “finer arts,” recently releasing some of his drawings and paintings to museums in Europe. “The Drawn Blank Series” has also made it over to Tokyo, and I’m sure it will reach other continents in the near future. In 2011, the University of Mainz, the University of Vienna, and the University of Bristol, all held symposiums for literary critics and cultural historians to discuss the life and work of Dylan.

Aside from music, drawing, and painting, Dylan has also written a New York Times Bestseller, Chronicles: Volume One. This is titled “…Volume 1” because he plans to release his autobiography in three parts. I am still anxiously awaiting parts 2 and 3, but in the meantime, I will highly recommend part 1.

I think it’s safe to say if you’ve played a song for the Pope, you must be a pretty good musician. And if museums in Europe are displaying your work, you must be a decent artist. And if universities are holding symposiums to study your work while you’re still alive, you must be something special. So with that, I conclude my first blog exploring creativity within the work of Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan.

You can find more information on Dylan at:

bobdylanart.com and bobdylan.com

Public Service Announcement #2

Just recently, I noticed that the blog started to get a mind of its own. It was tending toward theology, heavily.

So, I went back a year, checked my old posts, and realized I used to write about other things–things that were still worthwhile. In fact, at this time last year, I was writing a series of posts on Beauty. (You can find these posts by scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking Jan. and Feb. 2011.) When I first introduced the Beauty posts, I pointed out that there were different types of beauty, and I said that beauty was universally recognizable.

Now, at this time, I would like to introduce two new series of posts. First, creativity. Second, passion. In the coming weeks, I’ll focus on these two concepts, trying to describe how I see them manifest in people around me. With that, good day.

The Enigma Called Time

In the beginning, God created…lots of stuff. But implied in this opening phrase is this thing called time. Time was created by Him. But time doesn’t necessarily have to be measured by a clock. In fact, in the beginning, God didn’t create a clock. He created the sun, moon, and stars to help us determine the times and seasons. But you already know all of that and so do I. So what do we not know?

Well, I’m wondering how timelessness works. I mean, Christians talk about eternal life and eternity all the time. But when I ask most of them about it, they don’t know what the word means. They say it’s like when we’re in heaven and we sing songs for days and months and we keep doing this year after year after year. But I don’t know if that’s true. For one, I think we’ll be doing more than singing. For two, I don’t think we’ll measure time like that (days, months, years). I think heaven is outside of time. I think eternity has to do with timelessness.

Like when you’re first falling in love and the hours fly by as you spend time together. You started hanging out at 5 or 6 in the evening and all of the sudden it’s 1 or 2 in the morning. Or when you’re doing that activity that you absolutely love doing. You sit down and start at 10 in the morning and before you know it, it’s time for dinner. (For me that’s writing, reading, or teaching.) Or when you and your baby are laying on the couch watching television. You both feel at peace and you fall into a deep, relaxed state. You know what I’m talking about? Timelessness.

Musicians allude to this at times in their songs. Eminem has a lyric about how he “rewound the future to the present, paused it, don’t ask how.” Isn’t that crazy? The future…rewound…to the present…paused it. In the chorus of that song, he says that music is his time machine. And another musician, Bob Dylan, talks about how “the present now will later be past.” The present…now…will later be…past.

So what is time? I don’t know. But whatever it is, I don’t like it. I’d rather live without it. Until then, I’ll wait and I’ll prepare. For soon it will be now.

The Good Ol’ Emergents (2)

Defining the emergent church is like trying to nail Jell-0 on a wall. Thus, it would be better for me to tell you why I studied it, what I studied, and what I learned, both positive and negative.

I began my study in 2007 because I was beginning to hear how bad the emergents were. At the time, I was in Bible college, and teacher after teacher was telling me to watch out for the emergents. They were terrible, so-called Christians, with trashy theology and really great coffee. Some said they were wolves in sheep’s clothing. They might even be false prophets. So I, being the curious intellectual, grew interested. For my mind and my heart’s sake, I needed to look into these matters and see if my teachers were right.

I began my study by searching for places called The Emergent Church. Oddly enough, I couldn’t find a single church with that name. This intrigued me. My teachers were talking about the emergents like they were a new denomination, or one church in a big city somewhere; but from day one, I realized this was not a single, cohesive group, with a big sign and a big building. It was more like a movement–like a bunch of Christians from all denominations who just began talking and realized they had things in common. At that point, I had to determine who the leaders were, or rather, who was associated with this whole emergent…movement. I made a list of names and began gathering all the information I could on them. I visited their websites, I bought their books, I downloaded their podcasts. And I didn’t want to hear just one sermon or read one book and make my conclusions. I wanted to hear the people’s sermons over the course of a few months. I wanted to see what they taught and who they let teach while they were gone. I wanted to read every book they had written, and I even read some articles from different journals and magazines. Not only that, but I wanted to hear what others said about them. I began to gather that “the emergents” were somewhere on the left, and my teachers and people like them were on the right. So I listened to people on the right to hear what they had to say. I even called a guy who was a pastor near the place where one of the “emergent” pastors taught, just to see what he thought of that dirty “emergent.”

After doing all that, I eventually came to some conclusions. I had 5 things to applaud and 5 things that were concerns. I applauded:

The emergent leaders were making people think. They were challenging the status quo.
They were attune to culture. That is, they knew what was going on in the front lines of government, business, education, etc.
(Tying in with 1 &2) They were well-educated, both formally and informally.
They cared for people.
They were passionate about social justice.

I was concerned because:

They seemed to be losing the centrality and importance of Jesus in their efforts to affirm the good in other religions.
They sometimes digressed into arguments over words and missed the big picture in the process.
They went too far left in their effort to correct the things wrong in the right (although I feel this has become more balanced in the past couple years).
Sometimes they wouldn’t stand for anything, which reminded me of the quote, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
Some of them were trying too hard to be trendy and/or relevant.

With that, I finished, and we honored a moment of silence.

The Good Ol’ Emergents (1)

A few days ago, a friend asked me what I thought about the emergent church. I paused for a long time before answering. And during that pause, two things crossed my mind:

Aren’t we over this yet?
What does he need to know?

I thought the first because, well, the Emergent Village was created in 2001. And the emergent church didn’t become a popular topic until about 2006 or 2007. I thought the second because I researched the emergent church for about a year and a half. And after studying something for a year and a half, you have a lot to say. Lord knows, people don’t want to hear all of it.

So, I countered my friend’s question with a question. Then another. Then another. Finally, I got the drift of where he was coming from, so I began my little soliloquy. It went something like this…(to be continued)

God as Artist

Often I hear people talk about God as Creator.

I agree. God is Creator. But when I hear people mention this, they immediately say God is all-powerful, all-knowing, sovereign. He spoke and the world came into existence.

Again, I don’t disagree. I just think this is an incomplete picture, because if God is Creator, God is Artist. I mean, on the human level, when I say a person created something, I don’t talk about their authority or power. I talk about their creativity. I talk about their skill, their craftsmanship. So when someone says God created the earth, I want to hear about His creativity, His skill, His craftsmanship. I want to hear how awesome God is as an artist.

For example, if you go into a forest sometime and begin to study the trees, you’ll notice that no two trees are exactly the same. Even if they are the same type of tree (elm, maple, sycamore, etc.), no two trees will be exactly the same. They will vary in height, in girth, in branch location, in leaf quantity, etc. Think about that in the forest you’re in and your brain might get overwhelmed. Then think about that for every forest throughout the state. Then consider that for the nation, then for the world. People at NASA have done some calculations to estimate there are perhaps 400 billion trees in the world. Let your mind wrap around that for a minute. 400 billion, all different.

Then consider the facts about snowflakes. Based on microscopic examinations, scientists have confirmed that, as far as they have observed, no two snowflakes are the same. Those of you living in the Midwest, did you think about that just a few days ago? I know I didn’t when I was shoveling that snow. No two snowflakes are the same. Amazing. Consider that for the people living in Canada and Alaska, or down there at the South Pole. You’d think one of the flakes would have to be a repeat. But God just keeps coming up with zillions of designs.

Another thing I was thinking about when I was considering the Great Artist was the shape of His creations. I was thinking about this in contrast with the shapes of our creations. I mean, when you drive into the downtown of a large city, you see tall rectangle after tall rectangle after tall rectangle. The art museum and maybe a couple places will be different shapes, but for the most part we love our rectangles in the city. And it’s the same in the country. You have rectangular pole barn after rectangular pole barn after…I think you get the idea. We build squares or rectangles. Now, consider with me, how many things are square or rectangular in the great outdoors? How many things have an easily identifiable geometric shape (square, triangle, trapezoid, etc.)? Isn’t that wild? I can’t think of a single thing.

And last, but certainly not least, consider human beings. There are 7 billion of us in the world now. 7 BILLION. And although we all have the same basic parts (eyes, nose, lips, ears, etc.), not a single one of us is a repeat. None of us look exactly the same. The closest thing we have to exact replicas are identical twins, but even so, they have minute differences. And ask any set of identical twins and they will be sure to set you straight–they are not the same as their twin.

I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of God’s creativity, and that, only on earth. What about His creativity with the other planets? Stars? Galaxies?

My friends, God is an Artist. The Artist.

Bible Heroes?

Sometimes, we idealize people in the Bible…like Abraham or Moses or Paul, for example.

I mean, think of Abraham. The guy lied to a king about the identity of his wife. Twice! Did he forget you’re not supposed to lie? Especially to those in authority? I think that’s called perjury.

And what about Moses? Some people call him the greatest leader in the Bible, save Jesus. But when was the last time you called a murderer a great national leader? Okay Bible buff, I guess that was before his great leadership days, wasn’t it? Ah, yes, but what about making his followers wander through a wasteland for 40 years? 40 years! This trip should have only taken 2-3 weeks by foot. And let’s say with all the caravans involved it takes a month or so to make the trip. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, the point is, this trip took 40 years. Now-a-days if a pastor takes a few extra minutes of our Sunday mornings, we’re ready to kick him to the curb. Or if a leader doesn’t have a 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year vision, we’re calling for mutiny. We don’t want leaders to waste our precious time, let alone our entire lives. Forgive me for going on so long about this one, but we don’t usually follow anyone for 40 years, no matter how good they are. So there’s a more human perspective on Moses.

Now for the last guy, Paul. What about good ol’ Paul? Once again, involved in murders and persecutions. Okay, again, those were his B.C. days. But would you have hired this guy for a pastor’s position? First, I don’t think he looked the part. Tradition says he was kind of hunched over, with a gnarly nose, and watering eyes, aka not exactly someone who will draw the crowds while teaching on stage. Maybe you’d hire him as a staff member? But he would have failed the background check with his prison record. Would you have sent him out of your church as a missionary to another country…when he used to be the enemy of the church and a persecutor of Christians? I don’t think we would have given this guy a chance. I know I probably wouldn’t have. He didn’t even know where to put a period when he wrote his letters. 😉

I’m not saying we need to go out and rack up a bad record like these guys did. We don’t need to fail in the same ways. I’m simply saying that God works in crazy and mysterious ways. He chooses unlikely candidates as well as likely candidates. He chooses common folk and privileged folk. Above all, He works miracles in and through imperfect people.