Kate’s Reviews > Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith > Status Update

“Someday soon… Jesus will stand and say to widows and thieves alike, “Peace! Be still!” His words will be followed by an unprecedented, eternal calm. Knowing this helps us now. Whatever we suffer, we will not grieve as those who have no hope. So we learn to hope in a coming kingdom. But we do so, knowing that in this one, at least for now, Rembrandt is in the wind.”

Caravaggio‘s life reminds us that we who embody the sacred and the profane have an enormous capacity to hurt each other. Caravaggio lived a destructive life. But his art shouts into that chaos…as Christ could call the tax collector to follow him or draw from the hardest heart the beauty & wonder that poured out… our Lord‘s capacity to extend grace is greater still…Grace transforms even the hardest hearts.

“Mercy as a costly endeavor, something that cannot be done without fully entering into the misery and need of another…”

“Our best attempt at achieving perfection this side of glory come from an innate awareness that it not only exists, but that we were made for it.”

“Living with limits is one of the ways we enter into beauty we would not have otherwise seen, good work we would not have chosen, relationships we would not have treasured. For the Christian, accepting our limits is one of the ways we are shaped to fit together as living stones into the body of Christ. As much as our strengths are a gift to the church. So are our limitations.”

“Story is a Trojan horse for truth. It can sneak truth, pass the gates of our defenses and prepare our hearts to hear things we might have resisted if they had come as mere declaration. Jesus relied on storytelling as his primary method of teaching…to persuade the Jews to empathize with Samaritans, wealthy people to care for the poor, and religious people to have compassion on societies fringe”

“Beauty takes place in the particular, and if there are no particulars, the chances of seeing it go down.”

“Beauty inspires creativity, and creativity is a path to more beauty.”

“This is the gift of beauty from an artist to their community— to awaken our senses to the world as God made it and to awaken our senses to God himself.”

“Those who are in Christ will one day be “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Psalm 149 describes this beauty as the glory of being “adorned with salvation“. These verses are meant to draw from us a responsive praise. We should engage with beauty deliberately and regularly because these are the clothes we will walk around in for all eternity.”

“Beauty takes the pursuit of goodness past mere, personal ethical conduct to the work of intentionally doing good to and for others. Beauty takes the pursuit of truth past the accumulation of knowledge to the proclamation and application of truth in the name of caring for others. Beauty draws us deeper into community.”