Why It Matters : Part 1
Sara Groves recently gave a free concert at Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee. It quickly became apparent that she has spent a lot of time thinking about the Gospel* and the arts, and why Christians should care about it.
The most remarkable thing she said was in introduction to her song Why It Matters. Actually, Chris Rice has described it better than I ever could:
“Sara continued to introduce the song with the story of Vedran Smailovic, a cellist with the Sarajevo String Quartet. In 1992, in the middle of the war in that country, Smailovic witnessed a bomb attack that took the lives of 22 of his neighbors standing in a breadline at a bakery. In protest of the chaos, hatred, killing, and stupidity of war, the cellist immediately brought out his cello, sat in a chair in the middle of the crater, and filled the air with beautiful music for 22 days (one day for each person killed on that spot).
As Sara told this story every night, she emphasized the importance of BEAUTY as a protest in the face of all that is wrong in the world. While bombs were still exploding and sniper fire rang through the street, a lone cellist risked his own life, and protested the ugliness by holding up beauty in its face.The ideal still matters, even when reality does not reflect it. Love conquers hate. Light pushes back dark. Beauty matters
…Beauty reminds us in the midst of the ugliness, that there is something more. Something higher. Something better. That the world wasn’t meant to be this way. That there is hope.
Beauty matters.”
So, one of the things that Beauty does is remind us of hope in the middle of despair and brokenness. I know that every time I think of this story, tears well up in my eyes and a ball forms in my throat. This isn’t just a result of Endorphins. Though we live in a cursed world, God, out of his grace, allows us to experience moments of beauty to experience a taste of the way things used to be… and will one day be again.
This poses a question in my mind. On the unfounded assumption that Smailovic isn’t a Christian, I wonder if this “Pushing back the darkness” is limited to the work that Christians do, or if unbelievers are part of this too. More on this soon!
Until then, download Why It Matters by Sara Groves, or just read the lyrics (She said that “Statue in the Park” fit better than “Cellist in the middle of the Bomb Crater”):
Sit with me and tell me once again
Of the story that’s been told us
Of the power that will hold us
Of the beauty, of the beauty
Why it matters
Speak to me until I understand
Why our thinking and creating
Why our efforts of narrating
About the beauty, of the beauty
And why it matters
Like the statue in the park
Of this war torn town
And it’s protest of the darkness
And the chaos all around
With its beauty, how it matters
How it matters
Show me the love that never fails
The compassion and attention
Midst confusion and dissention
Like small ramparts for the soul
How it matters
Like a single cup of water
How it matters
*As many of the readers of this blog may be confused by the use of this word, an explanation is order. What the Gospel is: The good news that though perfectly holy, God made a way to save unholy people. He actually died in order to secure relationship with his people and to one day make everything broken become untrue. What it isn’t: Good people looking down on people who aren’t. The truth is, if you believe in the Gospel, you believe that you’re so wicked that God had to die. But you’re so loved and valued by him, that he did!
*Painting by Cy Twombly, his 2008 work, “The Rose (IV),” from his current exhibition The Rose at the Gagosian Gallery in London.
