“The Weight of Being Human” with Scott Erickson
Shownotes:
Somewhere in the rhythm of spiritual practices and religious traditions, American Christians have lost the sense of beauty, awe, and wonder that permeates through familiar stories of the Bible. Conversely, Western Christian culture sanitizes the reality of darkness throughout the Biblical narrative. Our culture brings more attention to the glory of Easter than the brokenness of Good Friday, and we celebrate Mary bringing Jesus into the world while glossing over her grief from losing her Son. As we draw nearer to the holiday season, colorful decorations place a blanket of comfort over the harsh realities we live in, covering up the vulnerabilities of our human nature.
This was the inspiration behind Scott Erickson’s new book Honest Advent: Awakening to the Wonder of God-with-Us Then, Here, and Now. A painter, performance speaker, and writer, Scott offers familiar symbols steeped in what he describes as an “honest and robust spirituality.” Scott understands that we must experience an awakening within ourselves in order to connect to God with the level of depth our faith requires.
He joins Eddie and Chris to speak about the nature of prayer as a portal that is already inside of us, the aspects of communal worship and life together, and the ways we can expand our view of the Christian faith. Scott speaks to the transformation that comes when we fully embrace our brokenness, engage in life together, and search for our own stories in the symbols all around us.
Resources:
Follow Scott Erickson on the web:
https://www.scottericksonart.com
Order Honest Advent: Awakening to the Wonder of God-with-Us Then, Here, and Now here
Order Scott’s art here:
https://scottericksonartshop.com
Check out Scott’s books here:
https://www.scottericksonart.com/books
Follow Scott Erickson on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/scottericksonart
https://www.instagram.com/scottthepainter/
https://twitter.com/scottthepainter
Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 0:00
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 0:01
And I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly 0:02
Welcome to The Weight podcast. We're talking today to Scott Erickson, not the baseball player.
Eddie Rester 0:08
Not the baseball player.
Chris McAlilly 0:08
The painter.
Eddie Rester 0:09
But the painter. And so you can find his artwork, in fact, I would encourage you as, if you can, and you can do this safely, go ahead and open up his Instagram account, which is scottthepainter so you can see some of his art while you listen to the podcast, because we're going to refer to some of it
Chris McAlilly 0:27
Well, how would you describe his art?
Eddie Rester 0:31
You know, because most of it is done almost like just black ink on paper, it's, you want to say it's dark, but it's not really dark. It's, um, evocative, maybe? It just, it forces you to stop and look to see what he's trying to communicate.
Chris McAlilly 0:51
He's pulling some images from Christian history or tradition, but he's also digging into some very basic, primal human images, to try to give you new ways to experience your spirituality or, you know, religion. And he defines both of those words in interesting ways. You want to listen to that.
Eddie Rester 1:15
You'll want to listen to that. You also want to listen to the end where he begins to talk about this image that repeats in a lot of his art, when he draws the human heart and why that's important to him and what that helps him understand in his own spiritual life.
Chris McAlilly 1:32
He's a visual artist and a performance artist and a spiritual director. And he's very thoughtful, both about how the Christian story gets told and shown, and how he's thinking about his work in the past and moving forward. I just, I love this.
Eddie Rester 1:52
There's a great, great depth to this conversation. It's not just about his art. It's about his understanding of how God is alive and at work in the world with intentionality.
Chris McAlilly 2:01
And what it means to be human, I think. You know, I feel like being a human being is hard. There moments of pain and brokenness and injustice and vulnerability. And what Scott is trying to help us to see, I think, is that God not only embraces those dimensions of our humanity, the full weight of that, but also that God would dare to enter into it. And I think that's a beauty of...
Eddie Rester 2:33
If you're listening this far, you're going to enjoy the podcast. So listen to it. Afterwards, share it with a friend. Make sure they subscribe. Like it, leave us a... Did we ever figure out what that's called?
Chris McAlilly 2:42
It's a review, I think.
Eddie Rester 2:43
A review. Leave us a review.
Eddie Rester 2:44
A review would help us.
Chris McAlilly 2:45
Yes. That's the right word.
Eddie Rester 2:46
Leave us a review,
Chris McAlilly 2:47
If you leave a review, we would be happy.
Eddie Rester 2:48
We would be very happy. Thank you.
Eddie Rester 2:52
[INTRO] Let's be honest, there are some topics that are too heavy for 20 minute sermon. There are issues that need conversation, not just explanation.
Chris McAlilly 2:59
We believe that the church is called to engage in a way that honors the weightiness and importance of these topics for how we live faithfully today. We'll cover everything from art to mental health, social injustice to the future of the church.
Eddie Rester 3:11
If it's something that culture talks about, we need to be talking about it, too. [END INTRO]
Eddie Rester 3:17
We're here today with Scott Erickson. Scott, thank you for being with us today.
Scott Erickson 3:22
Yeah, great to be with you guys.
Eddie Rester 3:23
So I understand you play baseball right?
Chris McAlilly 3:26
That's terrible, man. I told him not to do that.
Eddie Rester 3:29
I googled your name. That's all they came up.
Chris McAlilly 3:32
That's a terrible way to start the podcast!
Scott Erickson 3:35
No, he is. I am in my studio, and in front of me is my computer but on the wall, I have a Scott Erickson baseball card in a frame and underneath it, it says "Internet Arch Nemesis." [LAUGHTER] Because you Google my name and it's like three pages of him. And he married a model. So like, that doesn't help either. It's just like double... Yeah, it's funny.
Eddie Rester 4:05
Yeah, Chris told me not to start that way, but I thought I'd go for it, so. So but really: artist and writer and speaker and spiritual director. You do a lot of amazing, amazing things. So before we get into all that, just tell us a little bit of your story. How did you end up answering the call to kind of do all of those amazing things?
Scott Erickson 4:30
Yeah, I mean, it is, you know, 15 years of falling down some stairs into my present life every day. I was trained, my college training was in teaching and in art. So I was a high school art teacher for a bit. And then I found myself in my late 20s, I was teaching high school, waiting tables part time because I didn't make enough teaching high school. And I was, like, painting in an attic in a church, just trying to figure out this practice that I knew I needed to do. I was also at another church. They kept inviting me to come and first it started with chalk drawings, like, create during the services. And then eventually I started doing painting and stuff.
Scott Erickson 5:20
When I was 27, I just I had this moment, in my prep period at my school, I was writing on the board, and I just stopped and I was like, "I just know there's something... I'm being invited to do something else. I don't know what it is. But I just can sense it." And that began this long conversation of... Where I ended up was like, if I don't try to be an artist, whatever that means--because I didn't really know what it meant--I will always regret it. I need to try. And so I quit teaching, kept a job that was flexible, like waiting tables, and started pursuing art making, which also looked like doing performance art: making paintings alongside events, church gatherings, conferences, and that stuff.
Scott Erickson 6:08
I mean, I got married right at the beginning of that, and my wife has was my sugar mama for a good number of years. She still is. Like right now she's my sugar mama. We've gone back and forth on that. And then, yeah, things started slowly taking off for me. I started getting involved with conferences and other churches and got a lot of exposure by doing big events. And then that led to kind of this live painting career that I did for a long time. In that time, I became friends with a pastor in Houston, Chris Seay. And he eventually was like, "I want to hire you to come and be an artist at our church by bing a creative spiritual leader."
Scott Erickson 6:52
And so when somebody wants to pay you to make art, you say, "Yes." So I did. My wife and I moved to Houston, Texas for three years, and I worked on staff at a church there, being the artist in residence, leading the church through spiritual formation through creative expression. And then after that, I got really burned out in that, and I worked for World Vision for a bit, worked for a design agency for a bit, but found myself in my late 30s getting laid off from a design agency and really going, "Am I still called to be an artist, not just as a person, but as a vocation?" And through discerning and silence and prayer, I heard the answer was "yes." And that I wasn't in a very successful spot. In fact, my wife and I were on food stamps, in a lot of obscurity. But it's in obscurity that you really find the footing to find your voice.
Scott Erickson 7:47
And I had to ask some questions. My friends gave me the studio space in their church basement. It was like no windows. They kept the trash down there one day a week. So it's got, like, garbage every now and then. And I just found myself in this no-windowed studio space that smelled like garbage going, "What do you want to talk about? What do you want to talk about?" And I was like, I hate how we talk about God in this culture. I think it just doesn't make any sense anymore. And so I was like, I want to talk about God differently. I want to... the imagery in the tradition I grew up with, which is pretty much nothing in Protestantism, but I was like, the spiritual imagery in my tradition is non-existent. And the depictions of all of this feels not very honest or human. They feel like fanciful stories from some other kind of reality.
Scott Erickson 8:47
And I wanted to make a symbol set that felt like it had to do with God in our midst now. And I was like, also, I started to understand I was less of a studio artist and more of a performing artist. That I had been doing this performing expression for a long time and often placed with different speakers, some of which were not great. I realized, I was like, I want to curate that conversation. And so I just wanted to pursue a career that involves communicating, but communicating in the way that I understood communicating, which involves visuals and music and settings. And so a bit more theatrical, which I found out it totally exists in the African American tradition. I just grew up with white Norwegians who were stoic and emotionless. When I got to know some Black communities, I was like, "Oh! It is totally normal to play music in the background while you're preaching!"
Eddie Rester 9:54
While you're doing everything, yeah.
Scott Erickson 9:56
I hoped it was. That's because I was like, "Man, if I was a pastor at a church, I'd have a DJ on stage with me the whole time." And then I found out, like, oh, that's actually a thing. I just was in the wrong tradition.
Chris McAlilly 10:09
I had a similar experience, not in becoming an artist as a vocation, but in discovering in my early 20s, that I've only been given--I grew up in the church. My dad is a pastor, mainline Methodist. And so it was very much the aesthetics of Christian art that I grew up with really came through the hymns only, exclusively. And when I found myself discovering Catholic cathedrals, and this whole history of Christian art, it blew me away. And I felt like something had been deprived of me. And I think what's interesting is that experience for you of discovering, or becoming a culture maker, an art maker within the context of the church, at a particular moment, when the church has become more... In American Christianity today, it's very much marketed and, you know, produced in a particular kind of way. It seems like you wanted to push back against that. I mean, I can see that in your Instagram feed as well. Can you talk a little bit about that, kind of the way Christianity gets presented in the broader culture and kind of some of your frustration with that?
Scott Erickson 11:37
Yeah, it's really hard to explain this. But like, I constantly giggle at the fact that all of this invented. Like, church, religion, it's all made up, not meaning it's not true. But like, for me, the definitions I have for spirituality and religion: Spirituality is the process of making what's invisible, visible. And then religion is the rituals, rhythms, practices we develop around that visibility to help us participate with it and keep it in our midst.
Scott Erickson 12:22
I was on the teaching team at my last church. And we develop these kind of liturgies for our own community. And one of the ways that we started talking about liturgies was like, "Look, we don't have to do anything. If what was spiritually forming was pinatas and a DJ, that's what every Sunday would look like." And then one Sunday, we had a pinata and we had a DJ. It was great. But a pinata, yeah. Like, you could have whatever. But we are part of this long tradition of women and men who know when you get together, that if somebody stood up and tells a bit of their story, that's transformational. But, like, if somebody said, "Can we sing a song together?" we sing a song together, it does something to us.
Scott Erickson 13:11
If somebody is like, "Hey, I got somebody I know in need, could we pool our resources and help them?" that transforms them. Like, it's the same stuff. It's always funny when people are like, "We're gonna leave this church, and then we're gonna go do it differently." And you're like, "Okay, what are you doing?" You get together, like, "We're gonna do this differently." And then people are sitting around, they're like, "What should we do?" It's like, "Oh, Tom, you want to share something?" And somebody's like, "Can we sing a song together?" Like, yeah, that's a good idea. And it becomes the same thing, right? It becomes the same thing. Because those elements have always been transformational. Storytelling, witnessing to what you're seeing, singing together, giving together, living life together. It's always the same thing, embodying this thing.
Chris McAlilly 13:56
It's got to be hard. It's got to be hard for that draw to performance in the live, embodied experience in the room with a group of people, I think is something that, particularly now six, eight months into a pandemic, a lot of people are... Some of the basic elements have kind of been stripped away. It's been really interesting. I think I've had conversations around the country and, you know, I think, a lot of people have felt the difference between engaging through a computer screen and engaging in a live, embodied room. Have you experienced that, you know, in your own life? Or I guess, how are you thinking about that as someone who is more drawn to performance art, rather than kind of studio art?
Scott Erickson 14:47
Yeah, I mean, I think one of my laments, for my friends who are professional clergy, is like my friend Sarah Heath. She's in Costa Mesa.
Eddie Rester 14:58
She grew up at my church in Hattiesburg.
Scott Erickson 15:02
Get out of here!
Eddie Rester 15:02
Yeah.
Scott Erickson 15:03
That's so fun. Sarah is a tremendous host. Like, if you go to one of their gatherings, she is, like, she's a great pastor. But the way that I would describe it, it's like she is this hospitable host. She has this wonderful air of, like, people gather, she gives space for people to express what's going on in their lives. She reorients and reframe some of the despair and will go, "Well, let's take that to God. Let's not sugarcoat it, let's take that exact thing." And like she's a great host for the lives of her congregation. And I remember texting her. We were, I think we were on the phone. We were on the phone together. And I was just like, "One of my griefs about COVID is, like, you don't get to host. Your such a great host, you know."
Scott Erickson 15:47
And so I think there's this aspect. And I very much think of myself the same way when I do my performances, I'm like, I'm trying to be a good host. I'm trying to host the conversation that you're having with God, which is a bit of my spiritual direction training. It's like, I'm not here to tell you. I'm here to host that conversation and bring it forth. So, yeah, I think what's sad about these gatherings is a lot of the ways that we were hosted are going away for a while, for a season. And that is sad. I think what it does point us to is that we have to learn to listen and pay attention and begin to trust the portal that is already inside of us, that connects us to God.
Scott Erickson 16:29
I think there's a lot of people who, in their spiritual journeys, have have gotten to the spot where they've ignored or began to mistrust that own doorway inside of them. And at least one of my roles as a spiritual director is just to be alongside somebody and to constantly point them back to that God is already speaking in their lives.
Scott Erickson 16:52
Like my friend, Justin McRoberts and I made a couple prayer books. And the premise of those books was to say, prayer is not getting God's attention. That's like Voodoo, you know. Prayer is awakening to the voice and work of God already in your life. This is where the practice of the examen is very helpful. The examen isn't going, "How did you get God's attention?" The examen is to go, "Where did you see God at work in your life today?" and giving attention to that small working already happening.
Scott Erickson 17:24
And so I think at least one of the ways that I've been trying to pivot or encourage people is to go, "I miss gathering, and that will come back again, in some capacity, but until then, let's not ignore the chance that we have to begin to trust our own connection to God." And let's bring back, let's bring that with us when we come back together. Because that is, like, my friend, Kevin, he's a pastor up in Canada. And he's like, "I think the real question now is like, what kind of table are we offering people?" Like, what's the table you're inviting them to? And I think what we're being invited to corporately, even though we're separate, is like a potluck, which is like what's the thing you're going to be cooking and bringing to this table. Instead of maybe what we're used to, which is like I went to a nice place, and they gave me a fancy meal. Not saying one is better than the other. Sometimes a nice, fancy meal is great. But we're getting way lost in the metaphor. Going and sitting in a chair during a really well-done service is a great experience. And those can be transformational. There's another aspect of communal church and life together, which could be you get to offer and bring something to the table as well. And I wonder if that's maybe a time that we can get back in touch with what we can bring.
Chris McAlilly 18:46
It seems like one of the threads that I hear, and that I see running through your work is that trying to break open that place within us that can connect to God and then there's so many things about the regular rhythm and routine of normal life, or normal interaction with the regular and routine images of American pop culture, or the regular rhythms of going to church if you do that, or whatever that kind of dulls you to what it means to be human, to feel pain or joy or whatever. And it seems like part of what I see you doing in your art or in some of the performances that you're hosting... and I want to dig into the spiritual direction a little bit more, but I guess would you say that's kind of a thread running through your work?
Scott Erickson 19:45
Is the spiritual direction a thread running through my work?
Chris McAlilly 19:49
Yeah, like trying to break something open in somebody. If you're kind of dulled by the routine and normal rhythms of your life or normal images that you've seen that you just can't connect any more to God. It seems like what you're trying to do is to provoke that and people, perhaps. I don't know. I mean, I would love to hear you talk a little bit about how you think about it.
Scott Erickson 20:14
Yeah, and maybe when I was talking about the stuff about church, like, everything's invented, what I started to understand is that, like, all the imagery of Christianity is all also all invented. Like we, I guess, archaeologically, we know people wore robes and stuff like that. But every picture you've ever seen of Jesus and the disciples, they didn't look like that. You know, it's just an interpretation. But they didn't look like that. And yet, there's this kind of like... Have you seen that archaeological exercise they did? They took a skull from that time and place of Jesus. And they like, put it together. And they're like, this is probably what Jesus looks like. You see it, you're like, "Oh. That doesn't look like... that doesn't look like Jesus."
Eddie Rester 21:01
Yeah.
Scott Erickson 21:02
Right. And that's funny, cuz you're like, "Why doesn't that look like Jesus? Oh, it's because I've been given this idea of what it's supposed to look like." And I think what I'm trying to not push against, but maybe sidestep and go, that's just one avenue of what it's supposed to look like. And I'm trying to offer a different symbol set that offers not an alternative, but just goes, "here's a more expansive way of defining or looking at these things." Because what is the symbol for grace, forgiveness, trust, doubt, all of those? You know, I know, a cross can fit in some of those. But is there more? And so I'm trying to figure out the symbols for that.
Scott Erickson 21:49
So then, what I've come to learn, what one of the functions of imagery is, is that imagery is an excavation tool. And really, like music and poetry have the same function. But like, a great question to ask artists: "What does that mean?" But a more dynamic question and conversation is: "What is this pulling out of you? What is this drawing out of you?" Because when you offer an image, it begins to excavate your own story or your own life. You find yourself in it.
Scott Erickson 22:24
And so yeah, why my friend Justin and I did these prayer books that had images and words is because we were like the content of prayer is not these words and images. The content of prayer is inside of you. We're gonna use words and images to excavate that content, which is, "How do I think about the world I find myself in, the life I find myself in? What I think about God? Do I trust God?" All of that hidden interior conversation, and these help bring that out. And so I'm trying, like, my goal, with my imagery is for one, for it to not suck and look good, but two also to offer its excavating qualities in your own life. So it might have my personal take, but hopefully you could take it in and kind of draw out your... it would draw something out of you. You would find your own story in it as well.
Chris McAlilly 23:16
When I was in college, I came across TS Eliot's The Wasteland, which is a poem. It's a long poem. I didn't understand most of it. There was one or two lines that really struck me. One was the "Son of Man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images, where the sun beats, and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, and the dry stone, no sound of water." And at that point in my life, when I looked at Christian imagery, all I could think of, looking back, I had this, like, it was a moment of recognition that it felt like a heap of broken images to me. I didn't, I couldn't connect to it. I couldn't figure out my way into it. And I really needed to discover, you know, new sources of art. And I think when I look at some of the stuff that you're offering, one of the first things I saw that you did was the image of Eve, reaching out and caressing...
Scott Erickson 24:18
Oh, Mary.
Chris McAlilly 24:19
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Erickson 24:19
Grabbing Eve's hands.
Chris McAlilly 24:20
Yeah.
Scott Erickson 24:21
and putting it on her belly.
Chris McAlilly 24:22
Yeah, exactly. I was so moved by that, because I'd seen the ancient image and saw kind of your renewed take on it.
Scott Erickson 24:32
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 24:33
And it gave me, I mean, I can see you taking like old images or images that are there in the Christian tradition and kind of reworking them, but then you do a lot of... So talk a little bit about that. Kind of how you're trying to reimagine old Christian images and give them new life.
Scott Erickson 24:53
Yeah, I wasn't aware of, I think one of you had spoke to like, becoming aware of this other version of your Christian tradition, this very expansive and global thing. And I started, I mean, it started really with me, like, my parents were involved in this international mission. And that happened in Europe. So I got to go to Europe a few times. And I met very dynamic believers and stuff, and then also got to witness the cathedrals and all the art and stuff like that and had a deep, deep effect on me.
Scott Erickson 25:25
In fact, after college, I lived in France and I lived three blocks from the cathedral, the Strasbourg Cathedral, and I went there every day. It was actually, I was actually on a walk this morning, and I was like, "I should get that tattooed on me." Because I've actually been thinking a lot about that cathedral, like what a dramatic effect it had on my life, which was really paying, like bearing witness to that other women and men have been wrestling and translating these stories and these truths throughout centuries. And I'm just a part of that tradition. But like... I kind of lost my train of thought.
Eddie Rester 26:09
I was just sitting here thinking for a few minutes now just that really in American Christianity more so than in other places, art, particularly, not music, but visual art really lost its place in American Christianity. We went away from stained glass windows. We went away from churches commissioning art, for a long time. We became, even before we began to build boxes for churches, even I think about a lot of the churches in my hometown, a small town, they had this muddled window, but no art whatsoever other than the light shining on the face of blue-eyed, blonde-haired Jesus, looking up into wherever Jesus was looking.
Eddie Rester 26:58
And so I wonder. I just find it amazing that now, art seems to be--visual art--seems to be finally finding its footing again in American Christianity. What's been the response to the art that you offered, which really does--and people can check out your Instagram account; I think it's scotttheartist? scottthepainter,
Scott Erickson 27:21
No, scottthepainter.
Eddie Rester 27:22
scottthepainter. I was close. So what's been people's reaction to your shows or to your art?
Scott Erickson 27:30
Yeah, I mean, I have a concise way to say what happened architecturally is--and this is my moneymaker, this is gonna get me retired. But we, we stopped making buildings as teachers, and we made our buildings for teachers. And that, that's been the biggest move architecturally, is that the space was actually a teacher. You didn't need to have a human being in there for it to form you. But then we started building our buildings for teachers. So the space stop being a teacher, even though it is teaching us in some ways.
Chris McAlilly 28:05
I remember walking into the cathedral in St. Louis, the Cathedral Basilica, and the whole Christian story.
Scott Erickson 28:11
Oh, yeah. I've been to that one.
Chris McAlilly 28:12
Oh my gosh, it's so amazing. That one is so amazing. You've got this very intricate, beautiful, very colorful, mosaic, Byzantine mosaic, created by these two, this German father and son that came over, and it was their whole life's work. And at the center of it, you have this carerra marble white, just popping, crucifix of Christ. And I mean, the first time I walked in there, I was just, I was stunned by that.
Chris McAlilly 28:41
I'd never thought of it in that way, though, as buildings, the building itself was teaching the Christian story. And it was nice to have a guide, right? There was somebody there to host that and to kind of guide me through so that I could see the story. But it wasn't a preacher. It wasn't just a room that was there for a sage on the stage that was up there, you know, speaking. It was, yeah, it was just beautiful. It was just this beautiful and all-encompassing and immersive experience in a way that I, you know, just, Mississippi Protestant boy down here had never, I just never come across anything like that. It completely blew me away.
Eddie Rester 29:21
We lost a sense of beauty along the way. And I think that's one of the tragedies of, and that I get Protestantism trying to step out of what was, but I think...
Scott Erickson 29:32
Yeah, it was, pushing back on this kind of bloated Catholic empire that started selling indulgences. You know, it was the Reformation was pushing against a lot of...
Eddie Rester 29:46
Excesses.
Scott Erickson 29:46
you know, excesses and stuff like that. But yeah, it lost a lot of traditional spiritual forming, you know, because you think about it, like, the church didn't have a Bible for the people for 1500 years. I mean, the priest had it in Latin. But people didn't have their own Bibles. Like, this space and the gathering, it was an integral part of their community. It was part of the teacher. And then there was this kind of like, "Well, we printed it up, and we have it ourselves. And we don't need all that stuff anymore."
Scott Erickson 30:02
And I do think, though, there is this kind of loss and bringing it back. And the response for me from my stuff has been really good. I mean, every now and then I get, like, a stickler who's more like, "That looks offensive!" And that's more about like, again, it's like, well because all the Bible stories did not have swearing and they did not have blood and they did not have anything offensive. They were family friendly. Just like a radio station. You know, things like it's kind of this whole culture of, like, don't be offended.
Chris McAlilly 30:50
Yeah. sanitize. Sanitize.
Scott Erickson 30:52
Sanitize.
Chris McAlilly 30:53
Yeah. And I see...
Scott Erickson 30:53
I just had to...
Chris McAlilly 30:54
Go for it.
Scott Erickson 30:55
I just had to write, well, this gets into "Honest Advent" a little bit, but redoing the Incarnation stories, I was asked, like, "what are your favorite images?" And I said, one is the Mary and Eve image, which is a cover of Sister Grace Remington's original. But I was like, why it's so poignant to me is because when I saw it, I was like, "Oh, here are two moms who both lost their kids too early." You know, the two parents who, like, saw their kids die before them. And that's a real particular pain in parenting. That when two... it was like I imagined them meeting at a cosmic party, where they're just like, "Oh, cool, you know so-and-so?" "You know so-and-so? That's cool." "Isn't it fun being in the Bible?" "Yeah, it's great." And then they finally get to like, "Oh, you lost a son." "Yeah, I lost a son." Like, that's where the real conversation happens.
Chris McAlilly 31:45
And I think that
Scott Erickson 31:46
And then my other...
Chris McAlilly 31:47
I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just think that it's the humanity of it, that it pushes through just being Christian imagery. It's that what's powerful about your remaking of that painting, but then also some of the other stuff is that it pushes beyond just, you know, Christian imagery for the sake of kind of bringing a tradition forward. It's allowing those images, and then beyond that, to bring us into a deeper awareness of what it means to be human and particularly the hard parts, right, not just like the good and joyful moments. It's the losing a parent, losing a child or bearing the weight of grief or pain or depression or loss.
Scott Erickson 32:30
Yeah, when I started learning about the Stations of the Cross, and I got to go to Jerusalem after a friend of mine had died. And I went with her husband and some other friends and I walked the Via Dolorosa for three days. And for me, I was like, if Easter is about the power of God to resurrect death, Good Friday is about God partaking in some of the worst parts of being a human being, like being convicted in an unjust system, being betrayed by friends, being given physical pain, mockery, broken family dynamics, the fear of death, actually dying. You know, like, all of these awful things. And it's just like, this is the... I just think that there's this, I don't know, I just was like, one of my teaching muses is, the only reason we keep telling any of these stories is because they're not just stories that happened back then. They're happening right now. They're still happening now. And where we find God in our midst, why we use these stories is it illuminates that God is still participating in human life.
Scott Erickson 33:53
And so these artistic structures like the Stations of the Cross or Lent or Advent, these are structures to help us go, "God is still in our midst." These aren't just stories that happened back then. It's still unfolding today. And so I wanted to create imagery that looked like it fit into today, you know. Like what's the art you would make after a pop revolution and Andy Warhol and graffiti art and Shepard Fairey and, you know, all these great art movements. It's like, it doesn't look like... because I think the church maybe traditionally is like, "We like Michelangelo, and Caravaggio is maybe a little racy for us, but that's, you know, it's realism. So it works." And I just... and you know, there are other, I think now you can go to some cathedrals and Marc Chagall has done some paintings and stuff like that. But like I'm more like, "What is design and street art and graffiti? Can those things be translated into spiritual forming pieces?"
Eddie Rester 34:55
Let's talk
Scott Erickson 34:56
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 34:56
we've got a little more time, and I want us to get to your book "Honest Advent." You mentioned it just a second ago. In the middle of pandemic, in the middle of a time where it feels like we're pulling each other apart, you are offering this book called "Honest Advent." So tell us a little bit about it, about the motivation behind it, and kind of what your hopes for it are.
Scott Erickson 35:19
Well, it incepted at a time that isn't too far removed from what it now feels like. It was four years ago. So it was after a divisive and exhausting election. We had, we were seeing all these images of Syria and mass destruction and mass displacement. We have Zika. We have Flint water crisis. We had multiple mass shootings that year. And then it was like mid-November, I think, I was going into a Target or CVS. And it just like, oh, the blanket of holiday decorations had, you know, fallen on everything. And on Western society, everything had Christmas decorations. It was like, "Oh, yeah." I love, I love Christmas. I'm the nerd who puts the 24-hour Christmas music radio station on their speed dial on their car stereo, you know, like, I love it. I love all the pageantry and everything.
Scott Erickson 36:11
But just four years ago, I was like, man, the way we celebrate Christmas feels completely irrelevant to the world I find myself in. It just feels shallow and meaningless. Not even just like the shallow Santa story, which I'm fine with the Santa story. I do think like, when I go on Netflix, I'm like, there seems to be too many Santa stories, like, how technologically advanced is Santa and the North Pole? But like, even my own Christian tradition stuff just was... it felt sanitized and just removed from the human experience. And that's because I'm a dad, and I'm married. And I've witnessed three pregnancies and three births up close. And I'm like, pregnancy is not easy. It's very painful. It's uncomfortable. It's risky, it's vulnerable, and it has a lot of bodily fluids in it. I didn't see any of that depicted in the art.
Scott Erickson 37:07
And from what I legitimately was, like, in my prayer, was just like "God, Christmas feels completely void of any meaning, into the world I'm in. Is it? Is it meaningless? Like, where are you in the midst of this?" And I felt like the Spirit led me to look. My wife was pregnant with our third kid. I felt the Spirit led me to look deeply at the biology of pregnancy, which then led me to understand that like, God incarnated through human biology, through human vulnerability, and where we find Jesus still in our midst is exactly the same way, is through human vulnerability. It's through weakness. It's through not knowing. It's through, like, unexpected surprises. And that it's through our lack and our wanting that He's still coming in our midst. And it feels more poignant than ever.
Scott Erickson 38:12
Like, just even on the back of the book, it just says, "You will discover the wonder of God with us is still happening today, in your unexpected change of plans, your unaccomplished dreams, your humble new beginnings." And that is a perfect description of where we find ourselves in this global pandemic, right. Just, like, my calendar emptied in the spring. My plans and dreams disappeared. And I've had to start over in some ways or reconsider things, you know. And yet--and a lot of us have--and yet, like, that's exactly where we hear the Spirit speaking about our identity and about hope and about a God participating in our world. That's our real question. It's not just... Our real question is not "Does God exist?" Our real question is, "Is God participating in the world we exist in?" That's what we really want to know.
Eddie Rester 39:14
And so often when we talk about, not we, when people talk about the war on Christmas, they are fighting for CVS and Target and Walgreens and Best Buy to define the story of Christmas for us.
Scott Erickson 39:30
Yeah. Yeah.
Eddie Rester 39:31
And really, we need what you just described over and over, year after. I think the reason Advent, the early church said we need, we're gonna do Advent every year. We just, we needed to be hit upside the head with the story, the vulnerability of God over and over again.
Chris McAlilly 39:50
I wonder when you, for the person that's out there that hears those words that maybe even sees your art or is just desperately trying to find a way and just keeps kind of bumping up against either broken images or ways or churches or church experiences or whatever, that they just can't find their way into that question. You know, how is God participating in this world or in my world as I live it? I guess, could you talk a little bit more about when you came to the kind of confidence that you have, that God actually is engaged in vulnerability and brokenness and want and lack?
Scott Erickson 40:41
Yeah, well, if I'm honest, I have my moments of doubt, too. I mean, I have my prayers of like, 'What are you doing? Do you have any plans for any of this?" And I would say an honest and robust spirituality is not devoid of doubt or doubtful conversations. So we can find, we can give ourselves grace and kindness to that. Because that's part of it. It's part of a human experience. It doesn't mean we're unfaithful. It actually means that we deeply care because we're really, we really believe it.
Scott Erickson 41:21
I think the real switch happened for me, and I, I'm hesitant to ever critique the faith tradition I grew up in because I met a lot of delightful people. I was loved really well by many people. And I'm really grateful for the community I grew up in. Like, I loved youth group. I love dc Talk, all that stuff, okay. But like, the type of Christianity...
Eddie Rester 41:52
Now I've got dc Talk lyrics just going through my head. Thanks.
Scott Erickson 41:56
That's okay. As long as it's from Jesus Freak. Yeah, great. Oh, yeah. Charlie Peacock, wrote that. That made him some money. Yeah, the real... Okay. I think the real pivot happened for me was, was what I alluded to before, which was like, spirituality isn't necessarily about getting God into your life. It's about learning to see how God is already alongside your life. And that, that changes everything. Because I mean, it for one gives God the sovereignty it deserves. He deserves. It gives, um, it alludes to this intentionality that will fill you with wonder when you've seen it. Like I say, "I don't understand how God's sovereignty works. I really don't. I just know that He's really, really, really, really, really, really intentional." And whenever I've seen that intentionality, it completely fills me with wonder.
Scott Erickson 43:07
Um, and it also just lets us know that grace is a real thing. That it's not about what we're doing, but it's about how God is moving towards us. I think that's, like, I hadn't quite figured out and formulated the way to say it, but what's really been hitting me and transforming me of late is to go, "to be a believer is to..." My words are gonna fall short... To be a believer is to trust receiving. To be a believer is to trust that grace is enough. To be a believer is to trust that Jesus did it all, you know.
Scott Erickson 43:48
But even those statements are built into a structure that said Jesus did it all, *but* you gotta stop being a dirty, dirty sinner. Like, it was built in this shame narrative about like, "we know your secret lives. You should come up to the altar again this weekend." And I get that there's a necessity for confession and release. But it's not, it's not, like, okay, now you're not dirty anymore. It's about releasing the shame that keeps you from knowing God. And as I've started to let my vulnerability be the place that that I let God see and I know God gives grace to, then I don't have to be any other way except, like, my own kind of vulnerable self. And that has been what I'm, I think if I, like if I was more concise, I would say, like, I gave up. I, it's been a long journey of giving up feeling like I had to do it all myself. And, like, my spiritual director asked me one time, he's like, "Who is the author and perfecter of your faith? Is it you?" Scripture says Jesus, and he's like, "So do you let Jesus author in perfecting your faith? Or is that your responsibility?" That's a great question.
Eddie Rester 45:10
Yeah, that's, that's funny, because we are taught along the way: Jesus loves you. Yes, you should know that. However, it'd be really great if you could fix all this stuff.
Scott Erickson 45:21
Yeah, you'd be a lot more presentable.
Eddie Rester 45:24
Yeah.
Scott Erickson 45:26
Yeah. Because we have a brand to save.
Chris McAlilly 45:29
We could talk to you all day, man. I've got like, several more questions. But we're kind of wrapping up the time. I think, you know, one of the things I want to ask you about, I see you coming back again and again, in some of your art to the image of the human heart. And you present it in a number of different ways. Why do you do that? Why is the heart so important to you as an image or a new way in for folks?
Scott Erickson 46:02
Yeah, that's a great question. One is maybe I need to work a little bit harder on my metaphors, so I need to find some other metaphors. But the heart is fascinating. At least in the Hebrew or ancient understanding, like, there wasn't, people didn't really understand that all of our stuff comes from our brains. They chose to use the word heart. So our heart is, like, kind of the core of, like, all of us. Like, it's just like the center of our being is this heart. It's like where all the things live. So there's that kind of inference of like, our heart holds all of our deepest desires and wishes and dreams and hurts, and it holds our lives in it.
Scott Erickson 46:48
And then a meditation that I do often is--and I invite people to do--is to find your heartbeat. If you can, you find it in your chest, you find it in your neck, or your wrist, and if you can't find your heartbeat, well, you might be a zombie. But, like, if you find your heartbeat, and if you just spend time with your heartbeat, you realize that, like, you're not in charge of it, that you never asked for it. It was given to you by just you existing. And there's this thing inside of you, that keeps you alive that you're not in charge of.
Scott Erickson 47:27
And really, like, that's, that's a grace. A grace is something that's given to you that you didn't deserve and didn't ask for. And so, like, this thing that keeps you alive--your life, what keeps it going is something you're not in charge of. And that is a deep inroad to so many aspects of a life with God, which is to move from believing you're all on your own to understanding that you're invited to be a co-creator with God in this world. That you think you're, like, hidden in the dark, and then realize, actually, you've always been in the light. So just allow yourself to be in that light.
Scott Erickson 48:12
And then like that, like, where does my help come from? My help comes from the grace that I can get in touch with, by a heart that's beating inside of me that I'm not in charge of. Like, that presence. I think actually, when Paul is like, "Nothing can separate us from the love of God," the way that I embody that is I just find my heartbeat. And that is my embodied understanding of what that passage means. It's like nothing can take you away from that. It's already there inside of you, beating away. Yeah, that's kind of where the heart stuff comes from.
Eddie Rester 48:46
Well, that's an amazing spot for us to close out. Thank you for your gift of time, your gift of art. For folks who are listening, "Honest Advent" is out and you can grab it wherever you grab books. And the Instagram account is actually not what I said earlier, but it's scottthepainter.
Scott Erickson 49:06
scottthepainter.
Eddie Rester 49:07
scottthepainter, so go check him out. Thank you so much for your time today.
Scott Erickson 49:11
You're welcome. It's been great.
Eddie Rester 49:13
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening today. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And go ahead and hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts.
Chris McAlilly 49:24
This wouldn't be possible without our partner General Board of Higher Education in Ministry. We want to thank also our producer, Cody Hickman. Follow us next week. We'll be back with another episode of The Weight. [END OUTRO]