The Artist at the Crux of Community by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

One dies forward. It is not a dying and then coming back. It is a dying forward, one direction into resurrection.

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A CONFEDERATION OF SMALL GROUPS

Bro. David:    From my limited experience, the one thing that seems to work best and seems most promising is to have what you might call a confederation of very small groups. The smaller the group is, the easier things are, but if each small group is alone, they are too vulnerable, too bogged down by administrative tasks. So the ideal seems to be confederation of as many small groups as possible. All the decisions that can be made by the small groups for the small groups should be made there. Only the things that cannot be made on that grass roots’ level would have to be taken care of by the larger group. The larger the better. The smaller group almost cannot be small enough — again within limits — to fulfill its potential. But the two are not either/or solutions. They have to belong together.

Sister Galen:    That is the tough part, that when you begin to talk about large groups you fall into the either/or: the large group people see it as a threat that the small group forms, and the small group feels it is a threat that the large group is forcing them somehow back to it. That comes back to the idea of the artist, too. If the artist is saying anything she is saying that variableness is best, not one way, and that which is — is best, and that which is — is many-ness.

Bro. David:    If there is anything the artist or a true work of art teaches us, it is that variety and complexity really increase the unity, and that to achieve unity within a great variety of complexity is a greater achievement and more satisfying piece of art than to achieve unity with just a few elements, which is relatively easily achieved. The artist ought to have a feeling for this kind of thing.

A PROPHETIC MISSION

Bro. David: I think that the artist today, especially in religious communities, has a really prophetic mission. What it means to be a prophet within a community is that one has to hold onto both, almost as if one were nailed to two beams of the cross. The prophet must be within the community, because that is the only place a prophet can be. But while being within the community, the prophet must speak out against the community or against some aspect of the community, and speak out truly. That is what creates the tension between these two. It would be relatively easy to speak out and speak the truth outside the community, but you would no longer be a prophet. You would be a critic. It would also be rather easy to be within the community, but not to speak out. But to put these two together—that is the point. Therefore, an artist who leaves the monastic community under such pressure may be just giving in, and is giving up his or her prophetic calling. And that is a very serious thing.

Sister Galen:    Even though we know that Christ’s message is talked about as “the sign of contradiction” still we feel wrong when we feel two ways. So we decide for one of the two ways. But that is to lose that center between the two things, and to lose the prophetic role. You are saying the ambivalent pulls are signaling the artist that she is right at the crux.

Bro. David:    That’s it. Crux. Crux is a beautiful expression. When you feel yourself at the crux that means you are on the cross, and that means you are going to die. But if you die with the grain, if you accept this, if you refuse to go one way or the other, if you accept the paradox, accept the tension as a creative tension rather than a destructive polarity between two extremes, you will die not into death but into greater life. One dies forward. It is not a dying and then coming back. It is a dying forward, one direction into resurrection. We know that this is not just because the book tells us that, but we have experienced it. Again the artist ought to be the one that knows it from a thousand painful deaths that always lead into greater life. On that score the artist could first of all appreciate it more and then be a teacher, not so much by words, but by living this within religious community. It is part of the basic artistic gesture of receiving and responding.

Reprinted from Sisters Today, May, 1977.