READINGS

 

FROM THE BIBLE  [John 14]
9 Jesus answered, "I have been with you a long time now. Do you still not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. So why do you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you don't come from me, but the Father lives in me and does his own work.11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or believe because of the miracles I have done.12 I tell you the truth, whoever believes in me will do the same things that I do. Those who believe will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.13 And if you ask for anything in my name, I will do it for you so that the Father's glory will be shown through the Son. 14 If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.

 

FROM SWEDENBORG

 

 

 

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MESSAGE

THE THEOLOGY OF THE UNFINISHED PROJECT
 

It is early summer in Maine. I walk outside and marvel at the bare ground that so recently had been buried under piles of snow. Yet I can see now all the tasks I left unfinished in the fall, like those leaves to be raked. I see a new set of tasks; it’s time to mow the grass. My enjoyment of spring quickly turns to a heavy weight on my shoulders, as my spring to-do list grows. And I realize that a to-do list is actually a rather hopeless sort of thing, because it can never be finished. As I complete things from the top of the list, more things are added at the bottom. If it is my daily goal to finish that to-do list, I will always feel like a failure.

There is freedom from this despair, however. It is the theology of the unfinished project – which I have learned about this week from the life of a Swedenborgian painter.
I would like to share with you what I am learning from the way this man integrated God, his life, and his art. It is a dramatic demonstration of the theme for this month on developing a closer relationship with the Divine. If anyone has entered into the fullness of ever-changing and never-static relationship with the Divine, it is George Inness. He was born in Newburgh, New York, in 1825; the 5th of 13 children. His father was a successful grocer, who encouraged George in that direction. However, George apprenticed himself to painters and in time became known as one of the Hudson River painters.

Raised in a religious household that included a Baptist, a Methodist, and a Universalist, Inness was converted to the Swedenborgian religion in 1860 at the age of forty by a fellow painter, William Page. From that time forth, his approach to his life and his art came out of Swedenborg’s theology. He developed an approach to painting, which was not to instruct, not to edify, but to awaken an emotion.

There are 3 ways in which the Swedenborgian Inness saw his paintings as unfinished.

AMBIGUITY IN THE CANVAS

The first is by leaving some vagueness in the canvas that requires the person to complete it in their mind.
 

His Evening Landscape is one of his earlier works in which he moves towards incomplete strokes. It shows warm sunlight bathing a country road surrounded by trees. Two farmers return from a day of labor; one with a load of firewood on his back and the other with oxen pulling a cart. You can see the shapes, but there is some fuzziness becoming apparent.

 

Indian summer from Inness's final year shows his approach to an unfinished painting. While showing the basic structure of land, sky, and trees, he dissolves the boundaries that clearly define an object to allow the viewer to complete the painting with their own mind. For example, a dash of vibrant yellow-white just below the center of the painting, suggests a person.

It was not always easy for the owners of his paintings to accept the vagueness. Inness's son, George Inness Jr. (1854-1926), described an occasion on which the owner of an Inness painting of a barn wanted to know what a spot of color was by the barn.


 

"What do you think it looks like?" Inness asked.
"Well, I should say it was a wheelbarrow," the man responded.
"Good, that's just what I thought it was, too," Inness concluded.
Had the inquisitive man suggested that the "spot" resembled a pile of branches or part of a broken fence, Inness might have concurred.

He described this approach in a letter In 1884,

I have changed from the time I commenced [painting] because I had never completed my art and as I do not care about being a cake I shall remain dough subject to any impression which I am satisfied comes from the region of truth.



HE NEVER STOPPED WORK ON A PAINTING

A 2nd way that his work was unfinished is that he was never willing to stop working on it, even if it had been sold.

As his son wrote:
My father had the idea firmly established in his mind that a work of art from his brush always remained his property, and that he had the right to paint it over or change it at will, no matter where he found it or who had bought it, or what money he may have received for it. Wherever he found his pictures after they had left his studio he criticized, and would in most violent language declare the thing was "rot," that the sky was false or the distance out of key, and in a very matter of fact way would say "Just send it around to the studio to-morrow and I'll put it into shape.'

If the owner of the painting objected that he liked it just as it was, Inness would say,

It makes no difference what you like; I say the thing is false.... And I want you to understand, sir that I claim the right to go into any house and change a work of mine when I am not satisfied with it, and see where I can improve it.   And he said,  "Do you think, because you have paid money for a picture of mine, that it belongs to you.

This Is a lovely Swedenborgian approach to the ever-changing nature of life. But it probably was not helpful to earning an income as an artist.


THE DIVINE IS ALWAYS CHANGING

This is the 3rd way his works were always unfinished.

For Inness, the unfinished painting, could guide the viewer into a new form of spiritual consciousness. Resisting  what he described as the desire on the part of "the intellect ... to define everything," Inness admitted that "the paramount difficulty with the artist is to bring his intellect to submit to the fact that there is such a thing as the indefinable," … "God is always hidden, and beauty depends upon the unseen--the visible upon the invisible.

It is in this 3rd sense of being incomplete that he brings his Swedenborgian perspective most deeply into his life and work. Wilson Van Dusen says that the way to become close to the Divine is to accept Divine presence in every moment and every activity. If we seek a clearly-defined God, we may never ind the Divine. It is found only in accepting that the Divine-human relationship is never static, but in constant change. As soon as we’re sure we understand just what it is, it changes. It’s like Inness bursting into your house to add a few touches to the painting you purchased from him. No matter how long the Divine’s work hangs on our wall, we never know when a few new touches might be added.


So we cannot look at the world in this moment, and think we’ve seen it. For in the next moment it is changing through the Divine-human interaction.

So from this I gain the courage to not be obsessed with my incompleted projects.  After all, the moment I cut the grass, it is growing again. We need to look at the world the way Inness wants his viewers to see his paintings – with vague impressions that we can see differently at different times as we grow and change – or as he sneaks in at night and redoes some of the painting.

We can relax and slow down a bit from our ever-present busy lives with their overwhelming schedules. We can take a little more time to stare at that  spot of paint. It is, after all, a wheel barrel, isn’t it... or could it be a plle of wood … or does it always have to be the same thing after all




 

 





Now, blow out the candle and close the word.  May your day be filled with the miracle of the unfinished project.