Spencer
6/30/2017
Updated: Jul 26, 2020
I want to live and make sculpture about the ways of God, about goodness and mystery.
Don't do that. If you want to be an artist, leave Him out of it. He is nowhere to be seen here. There is no success to be found in Him. Not an ounce of recognition will come to you if you do. Besides, it has already been done hundreds of years ago, but that's not the way it is now. To be a good artist you have to define the times of today.
There is a new world now - one where you look inward instead of outward for understanding. Don't you see? All the answers are found in the questioning itself.
Can this be true?
What's true is that you will never be respected if you follow your way. Your work will be put into a category of religious art and its personal identity will be lost in the sea of dogma and exclusivity - one the world has grown tired of. The goodness you want to point to has already been congealed with hypocrisy and falsehood. There is no way to filter it out again. You will be lost to the world, having never been found. Don't you want the world to knwo who you are? You will be shouldered out of the way, pushed to the back, where you stand no chance to catch the bouquet of notoriety.
But, God will still know me.
You live in a world with people, not God. All you need to do is strip the idea of a God and only keep His banner of love, which is agreeable to all people. This is the type of thing you have always done - so make this the theme of your work. This way you may still be able to promote some fluid form of good that other people can congratulate you for. There's certainly no harm in taking this strategy.
How can you separate love from its source?
You can't, but you can alter it. The kind of love to promote is one that never confronts you but only affirms you, even if you are destroying yourself. In this kind of love there is no "wrong" or "evil" within a person inherently, it's always blamed on external sources. This love tells us that we are all victims rather than offenders. Perhaps even victims of a God who says we are all offenders. What this accomplishes is ultimately what everyone wants - their kingdom to plagiarize, where guilt is a distant memory.
What can I say to you?
There is something ancient that whispers the truth within me. It's faint, but too powerful to deny. I must keep going on my way.