Experiencing God through the hands
Experiencing God through the hands
Is it possible to experience God through the hands, fingertips, and eyes? Japanese/American painter Makoto Fujimura believes so. He discovered God through artistic activities and wrote an inspiring book about it.
“ When people become creative, something sacred happens: we invite the abundance of God's world into the reality of scarcity around us. ”
In " Art + Faith ," with a foreword by British theologian N.T. Wright, Fujimura offers a "theology of creation." He became a Christian later in life, but explains that even as a child, painting made him feel like "honoring the source of beauty and poetry in this world." In creating art, he discovered the Creator.
Fujimura's art is characterized by vibrant, deep colors, an abundance of gold, and abstraction. It leaves room for interpretation, intuition, and mysticism. He uses Japanese techniques, precious mineral pigments, and handmade paper. He mixes the pigments with a special binder and water: a slow, liturgical process. "My work has a life of its own," he explains, "and I listen to the voice of my Creator through my creation. When people create, something sacred happens: We invite the abundance of God's world into the reality of scarcity around us."
The Bible is a book in which much is created. Fujimura believes that "in the process of creation, we can learn the depth of God's nature and His grace that permeates our lives and creation." One of the insights is that God doesn't "fix" us. This "plumbing theology," as Fujimura calls it, is far too limited. "God doesn't just improve, repair, and restore: God renews and raises us from the dead, He exceeds our expectations and desires beyond what we dare to ask or imagine."
His example is Kintsugi , the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold bonds. The Kintsugi technique doesn't just repair pottery: it makes the object more beautiful and unique than the original. A bowl repaired with Kintsugi is no longer a functional object, but is elevated by the Kintsugi master to the "realm of beauty."
Left: kintsugi. Right: yobi-tsugi. Images: ZVG
When Fujimura visited a Kintsugi master in Tokyo, he was introduced to Yobi-tsugi: a kind of Kintsugi 2.0. In Yobi-tsugi, not only are the shards reassembled with glue and gold, but lost or misplaced pieces are also repaired with new ceramics, creating a kind of collage: an entirely new work of art made up of old and new components. Kintsugi master Mr. Nakamura, for example, combined ceramics from two rival countries: North and South Korea, creating Yobi-tsugi, a miniature version of peace.
These shards, which the Kintsugi master carefully collects to create something new, are an important metaphor, explains Fujimura. "After Jesus rose from the grave with a new body, his wounds were still visible. Our own brokenness can also be visible. The shards in our lives—in light of Christ's visible wounds—can be a necessary part of the world to come through creation. For just as the Kintsugi master carefully collects and nurtures all the shards, so God also collects our joy, our loss, and our pain to ultimately create something new."
The beauty of Fujimura's book is that it teaches us to look at God in a different way. The artist experiences God with his fingertips, his hands, and his eyes. He calls Christians to create and to make our imagination and creativity an essential part of our faith journey. So that "our art, what we create, will be multiplied in God's new world."
Links
• Makoto Fujimara's homepage
• Video in which Makoto Fujimura explains his message
Source: Makoto Fujimura, Marieta van Driel
with kind permission ofJoel News
