The last two days I have had the chance to see a lot of art as well as landscapes, and ponder on the meaning of it. Yesterday a dear friend of mine served as the guide to a local river and the murals of a nearby small town whose art I have had the chance to look at through photos, but never in person. Today, of course, I had the chance to go with some other people to see the Japanese Gardens as well as the Portland Art Museum, and both trips led me to ponder on the relationship between art, worldview, and experience. This is not to say that the thoughts and the art were necessarily pleasant, but in many cases it was quite worthwhile and intriguing to draw the connections anyway, enough to make it worth talking about at least.

By nature, I tend to be a person that imbues acts and deeds with great symbolic meaning. Sometimes this tendency works out extremely well, and other times very poorly, as there are occasions where working hard to figure out deeper meanings can be counterproductive and induce hostility and suspicion, or waste effort where no deeper meaning can profitably be found. That said, in all three of the art and landscape trips, the quest for deeper meaning was well-rewarded, at least for me, and as that is not something I can always say about my efforts at passing the time pleasantly and thoughtfully with good company, it is a pleasure to enjoy life when it is possible, especially if I can better understand others (and myself) while also enjoying the experience simultaneously.

At the Japanese garden, I was pleased to find a great deal of the sort of water and greenery that I associate with calm and home. Being a child of the Piedmont area of northern Appalachia in Western Pennsylvania, green hills, pleasant and lazy streams, and plenty of peace and quiet are the sorts of places I associate with calm and peace and reflection and home. Perhaps not coincidentally, those same features are often found in authentic Japanese gardens, which is perhaps one of the draws of such areas to me as a person of reflection and hopefully of peace (although, to be honest, some people would not ever think of peace in connection to me).

One aspect of the Japanese Garden as a whole that I found particularly striking about the Japanese Garden was the way in which the garden itself seemed to symbolize a deep desire to return back to the garden, as well as to encourage among those traveling in the garden a sense of peace and tranquility and acceptance of the world (perhaps too much so), as well as understanding that the path of life is uneven and full of risk. This is true of the path in a Japanese Garden as well, which cost one member of our party a nasty trip and a skinned knee at the beginning of our walk beyond the entrance gate. This longing for Eden, whether a look back to the original garden or a look forward to the restored Garden where no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil threatens mankind with death, may not be recognized in Christian terms by the Japanese, but it struck me particularly forcefully.

After walking through the five and a half acre gardens, which included a tea garden, a sculpture garden, a natural garden, and at least two other types of garden, as well as a haiku on a rock that was hard to find, there was a small pavilion that included the art of a New York-based Japanese sculptor who framed his art around the theme “we are the landscape of all we know,” which provided a useful way to look at the art I have seen, and my own observations of the mostly friendly and pleasant company I have enjoyed a great deal of over the past week, putting both the good and the bad of what I have seen and experienced into a bit more of a context that looked back over generations and looked to the way that how we act towards others depends on what we know, or what we think we know, about them. To the extent that we view others as the actual or potential children of God, our actions will be of friendliness and kindness and love. To the extent that we view others as vicious and threatening and hypocritical and evil, we will feel ourselves justified in acting harshly and wickedly towards them. Our knowledge, whether real or supposed, shapes our conduct, and our conduct determines who we are, as our deeds and words shape our characters.

This particular reality helped to bracket the difference between the mostly friendly and welcoming murals of a nearby small town with the often harsh and disturbing contemporary art shown in the Portland Art Museum. The murals appear to have been mostly painted by folk artists who have a deep love for the country and the history of their hometown and the people and experiences they have had in that town and its surrounding area. A sense of warmth and a desire to connect with their past lead to art that shows a welcoming and friendly picture of their area that is welcoming even to those who do not share a close tie to the area. On the other hand, much contemporary art (and this is true of literature as well) tends to focus on the dark and disturbing and unpleasant. To the extent my own writing has often dwelt unpleasantly on such matters, I too have been influenced by the alienation and lack of innocence and cynicism of my own time, as well as the darkness I have witnessed and experienced over the course of my own difficult life. But as someone who knows good as well as evil, light as well as darkness, love as well as hatred and cold and brutal indifference, so to some measure of good has remained in my life and worldview and my own works. Hopefully, with time, the good will continue to grow and outweigh and overcome the evil that one must continually struggle against to be a decent and honorable person whose actions reflect the loving nature of our heavenly Father Himself rather than the broken and fallen world from which we come.