Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon<\/p>\n
Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness.<\/span> Another brush stroke about contemporary art and the future of liberal thought.\u00a0 Given Mark Rothko as the exemplar of the link between liberal thought’s future and the radical rethinking of Western art he represents for me I will extend the metaphor one large leap further.\u00a0 The future of liberal thought has a cathedral.\u00a0 It is in Houston, Texas and the photo at right is of its exterior.\u00a0 I’ve not visited it, but it is on my list and it stays in my imagination as a sacred place of the always contemporary spirit.<\/p>\n The interior is a quiet space, reserved as the website says, “as an intimate sanctuary available to people of every belief.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Funded by Houston philanthropists its interior contains multiple canvases painted by Mark Rothko, hence its designation, the Rothko Chapel<\/a>.\u00a0 It is not its dedication to people of every belief that makes it a cathedral to the future of liberal, rather it is Rothko’s commitment to seeking truth through a leveling of old forms and the bravery to rethink and rexperience something so fundamental as art.\u00a0 This chapel gives form to a new way of finding the future, a way, a tao, that does not flinch at change, takes nothing for granted, perceives no one, no institution, no book as a final authority save the open and always unfolding book of our universe.<\/p>\n Imagine your inner cathedral lined with the somber, blue paintings.\u00a0 Imagine a small black tiled floor and a simple leather cushion set on a metal plate.\u00a0 Now go and sit upon the cushion, clear your mind and your heart and allow your Self to speak to you through the painting.\u00a0 Whatever it says to you is the path you need to follow.<\/p>\n Here’s another way of thinking about this.\u00a0 Each progenitor of a new faith tradition, from the Buddha to Lao Tse, Jesus to Mohammed, each had a liberal approach to the questions of human spiritual longing.\u00a0 Each one.\u00a0 They were in their historical moment, raised in a particular faith tradition, taught its comprehensiveness, its completeness, its sufficiency.\u00a0 They each went deep into their faith tradition and found it wanting.\u00a0 They did not step back and say, no, these are thoughts that must not be; they did not say, no, our tradition will reveal itself to me if I only wait longer.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 They did not leave on their shoulders a cloak that no longer fit, a cloak that had, in fact, come to chafe.\u00a0 Each of them, from Abraham to Zoroaster, stepped out from beneath the overhang of the past and dared commit themselves to an alternative, an uncertain future.<\/p>\n This is our responsibility, the great possibility that lies before as liberals approaching the holy wells of human understanding.\u00a0 We, too, can throw off the cloak of former beliefs that has come to chafe and replace it with a walking staff for the way is long.\u00a0 In the old Celtic Christian faith, the Christianity that preceded Rome in the British Isles, the monks had a form of spirituality called peregrenatio<\/em>, literally wandering around.\u00a0 The walking staff of personal responsibility will keep you company as you wander on the way, traveling from hut to hut, open to the hospitality available where ever you come to rest.\u00a0 This is the future of liberal thought and it may be your future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness. Mark Rothko Another brush stroke about contemporary art and the future of liberal thought.\u00a0 Given Mark Rothko as the exemplar of the link between liberal thought’s future … Continue reading The Tao of Liberal Thought<\/span>
\n Mark Rothko<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n