Dear Phil and other friends,

I wish to introduce another topic on this forum.
It seems to me a very interesting topic, at least in my experience. Faith and imagination! Imagination at the same time has been cursed as a danger for Christian faith and exalted as a

necessary element of faith. I wish to explore the implications of this relation with you on this thread. I am (apart from my job) a painter myself. My favourites are Giotto, Fra Angelico, della Francesca, Rembrandt, Vermeer, van Gogh, C�zanne, de Kooning, Kline, Kirkeby, Morandi, Rothko.I have also read very vastly on theology, spirituality,literature (more poetry than prose)and arts in general. I like the work of Shakespeare,Dante,Donne, Hopkins, Dostojevski,Rilke,Kafka,Proust,Woolf,Bernanos, T.S. Eliot and many others.

As to movies,I have seen a lot of them. I have loved Bergman,the Italians like Fellini,Passolini,Antonioni,the brothers Taviani...,and many other present film makers on spirituality ('Into the silence', 'Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring'and so forth...).

But I wish to have it before all about the relation of imagination, creativity and Christianity. I love Thomas Merton, Chesterton,C.S. Lewis, because they were in some way mystics but also great artists and much more...

Recently, I have been enchanted by a book by Esther de Waal: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Won...veness/dp/081462992X and by a DVD-interview with her I have bought. She combines Benedictan spirituality with the rich, skilful Celtic spirituality (she is in fact a specialist on Celtic Christianity.

This list of books that I myself didn't read yet, seems to be very appealing:

Esther de Waal 'The Celtic Way of Prayer'
James Finley 'Merton's Palace of Nowhere'
Mark Oakley 'The Collage of God'
Ann & Barry Ulanov 'The Healing Imagination'
William Countryman 'The Poetic Imagination'
Ralph Harper 'On Presence: Variations and Reflections'
Leland Ryken 'The Christian Imagination'
Madeleine L'Engle 'A circle of Quiet' & 'Walking on Water (and much more)
Thomas Traherne 'Centuries of Meditations'
Luci Shaw (works)
Marcus J. Borg 'The God We Never Knew'
Mary Margaret Funk 'Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life'
Philip Toynbee 'Part of a Journey'& 'End of a Journey'
Flannery (works)
...
Did someone over there read one or more of these books? Any suggestion for other books?
Please some reply...

Fred (Ostend/Belgium)
freddy.delameilleure@wvg.vlaanderen.be

Dear,

I have forgotten another art, which is very dear to me, music. I adore Bach, H�ndel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, P�rt, Nymann, Tavener. But I wish to broaden my field of interest towards other disciplines as well!

Fred

Fred,

You may want to check out early minimalist composers like Steve Reich (particularly Music for 18 Musicians) and Philip Glass. Or even Terry Reilly. Glass and Reilly have connections with eastern spiritual systems, Reilly trained under the great Indian classical singer Pran Nath; while Reich has a very strong Jewish connection (see Different Trains).

To me its all about pushing the limits of the imagination in order to create, and spiritual practise certainly opens doors for this to happen.

I'm not so much interested in "classics" anymore, especially in literature. I want newness, freshness, experiment. This means that forms have to broken down or remade. So that prose poetry, minimalist poetry and concrete poetry interest me more than conventional verse because they fuse forms and build new structures creating a new means of expression.

Great poets I like include Maxine Chernoff, James Tate, Ian Hamilton Finlay, d.a levy, bp nicol, Frank Samperi. I also love Chinese and Japanese poetry.

A guy like Don van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart also interests me because he works both as a painter and a musician. His painting does something new with abstract expressionism; while his music fuses different American styles with dadaist lyrics creating something totally unique.

A lot of these folks don't have an overtly religious or spiritual subect matter but the energies they use to create and the energy they impart to their audience are to me deeply spiritual.

Also check out these websites:

http://www.logolalia.com/minimalistconcretepoetry/
http://webdelsol.com/Double_Room/
http://www.beefheart.com/

(I've got a piece coming out on Double Room later in the summer probably, so I'm kinda biased, although there is some great prose poetry on the site despite that).

P.S. Fred - could be the name is spelt Terry Riley.

Best,

Stephen.

Dear Stephen,

Thanks for the suggestions! You seem to be quite an expert on this topic! I understand there is a lot going on and old forms are being broken in our postmodern (still?) society. In Belgium we have a lot of young creative writers, but somehow I tend to hold to classical things, that are timeless and universal (Tolstoy, Dostojevski, Tsjechow, Gogol, Proust, James,...), but I know what you mean. I'll try to expand my view. I didn't know 'concrete poetry'. Do you know: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/a...orandi_giorgio.html? Simple, spiritual and timeless!

Greetings,
Fred

Dear Sephen,

Of course I know Glass, Andriessen, Reich, Riley and Beefheart! I love 'Echo and the Bunnymen.

Greetings,
Fred

Expert? Mmm, don't know about that, Fred. I like the Morandi paintings. Hadn't heard of him. Craigie Aitchison is a guy I like - also simple, charming, and spiritual.

www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1999P37
www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/online_az/4:322/result/0/383?artistId=2646&artistName=Craigie%20Aitchison&initial=A&submit=1
www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?submit-button=search&search-form=artist_record.html&_IXARTIST_=5495

I love post impressionist painting - Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin. And Picasso's a bit of a hero.