Gray

Colin and I live in a strange gray area when it comes to our relationship. Really, it boils down to the fact that we’re not “normal” according to anyone’s standards. Some people wonder why we’re not married yet, after 2 1/2 years; others wonder why we’re not at least living together, after 2 1/2 years.

We’re not single. Our decisions are made together, and in all of those ways, we think like a married couple, even though we’re not yet. We’re completely financially interdependent, and have been for most of our relationship (our first major purchase together was a car at 5 months). We’ve known since 6 weeks into our relationship that we were going to get married, and our major life decisions since then have all been made jointly, including everything to do with my schooling.

And yet, we’re not married, either (in fact, we’re not even engaged, since we don’t like the idea of being engaged indefinitely, so we’re waiting for the ring until we know we can set the date). We don’t pretend to be, and we don’t try to get around it or “play house” with our lives. We believe in not having sex before marriage, and we’re waiting until we’re married to build a household and a home together. The “gray area” in which we live is a different kind of gray than the morally ambiguous gray areas of couples who are living together or sleeping together before marriage. We’re in a gray area that still falls into obedience to God’s call on our lives and his plan for marriage. We use the label “betrothed,” but that doesn’t even begin to cover the nuances within a one-word description.

There are people who have a difficult time understanding this sometimes. We’ve had many conversations trying to explain this state of being together but not married; not married but also not single; and in all of it, not being disobedient to God’s will.

I think that sometimes there’s that same sort of confusion as it relates to the arts within the church — or work done by Christians outside of a specifically “church” setting. Either the work is “Christian” or it’s not. Either the artist is proclaiming the Gospel (clearly and without ambiguity), or he’s not. People sometimes have a hard time understanding — and accepting — the fact that not all work that glorifies God is specifically about the cross or the manger.

In fact, sometimes work that glorifies God has swear words in it. Sometimes, it portrays blatant, unrepentant immorality. Sometimes, Jesus is never mentioned. Often, it’s messy, hard to explain, contradictory, and asks more questions than it answers. And that’s okay.

(Hmm. That last bit kind of sounds like the Christian walk as a whole to me.)

We like neat packages, though. We like tidy stories and happy endings and clear-cut good guys and bad guys. We like to be given a step-by-step guide of what to do after leaving the theatre, hearing the music, watching the movie, seeing the painting. We want our dances to be story-telling mimes, and abstractions scare us. We don’t like to be reminded that we don’t know how all the pieces fit together.

I’ve read several books lately that have reminded me that art isn’t about the result, though. We don’t create in order to fill a quota of audience members coming to see the church Christmas play (although audiences are nice). We don’t create in order to have an altar-call that has a bigger response than last year’s. We don’t create in order to explain theology. We don’t even create for the express purpose of changing other people’s lives — that’s not our job.

We create because we have to. We make art — we make culture — because this is worship. We do it because God gave us the talents and the gifts, and honing them and using them to their absolute fullest potential is the way we honor Him. We do it because this is our way of taking the world around us and giving it back. It’s our way of interpreting what we see, with all its questions and scars, and trying to make something of it, one piece at a time.

The way I see it, there are a few ways to react.

When Colin and I are faced with misunderstandings by people who don’t get our choices, we can do one of several things. We can explain it all meticulously, laying everything out in detail and trying to verbalize our rationale for the path our relationship has taken. We can get defensive and work overtime to clear up every single misunderstanding with fervent conviction. We can ignore everyone else, not hearing anything that is said to us. We can just live our lives, saying what needs to be said when it needs to be said; being quiet when that would just stir up more trouble; and choosing our words and actions to do what we know is right and honorable, whether or not others see that.

Sometimes, there’s a place for all of that. Sometimes, we need to sit down and explain it all in detail, and that has its time and place. Sometimes, we need to realize that we can’t listen to everyone, and not all opinions hold equal weight. More often than not, though, we just need to live transparently and honestly. We listen as hard as we can, and we obey as thoroughly as we can, and we mess up somehow every single day, but at the end of the day, we can’t second-guess ourselves.

Making art is like that, too. Sometimes, what we have to do as artists is illogical and unreasonable. We’re compelled to do some pretty strange stuff sometimes, and we’re influenced by and even enjoy some things that would never stand up in a church. And, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if my work is “Christian” or not. What matters is the way I listen and the choices I make in getting there.

Yes, sometimes we choose to be constricted by the expectations of a church, company, artistic director, lifestyle, family… and the list goes on. When I’m involved in the church’s arts ministry, I know that at least some of the shows we do are going to be centered around the manger and the cross, because we do Christmas and Easter shows. When Colin puts together a Christmas cantata, it tells a story and the music is chosen, in part, because of the way it tells that story. Those are, by definition, limiting parameters, but in context, they’re not a bad thing. They just can’t be the whole thing. I think that theatre within the church is incredibly important, but for my own sanity, it can’t and won’t ever be the only place where I’m active.

However, if working within those limits tells the story at the expense of artistic integrity and quality, I believe it’s no more honorable and worshipful than something with no “Christian” content at all. If my act of worship — creating art — is diluted, then what do the results matter? Oh, they matter for some. For the people whose lives are changed, they matter quite a bit. But if I’m compromising my act of worship for results, I can’t help but believe that God is saddened by the fact that he’s using less than my best to do his work in people’s lives.

And here’s the thing: My best work doesn’t have to tell the story of the Cross in an explicit, explanatory way, because my life tells the story of the Cross every single day, and that comes through in my work. I am a Christian and I am an artist. I am not necessarily a “Christian artist.” I can no more separate my faith from my art than I can separate art from my faith, but sometimes, one is seen more vividly than the other, even though they are intertwined and impact each other in every way.

We live in a place that’s hard to explain, hard to understand, hard to rationalize. And you know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing.