Hello there,
This week I had the distinct displeasure of scraping off a popcorn ceiling in yet another room of my home. Every time I do this task, I think three thoughts:
Who is the inventor of popcorn ceiling, and how can I Have Some Words with him/her?
I would like to never do this again.
I would like to keep doing this and finish it all right now, so that I can never do this again.
You should know, this newsletter was lovingly typed with heavy arms.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Borrowed Light
This summer I’ve enjoyed reading Russ Ramsey’s book Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith. If you’ve never read or heard Russ talking about art, he has a way of breaking down a piece of artwork, or a story of the artist, in a way that he can rebuild it into a monument to the grace of God. Russ has devoted a good part of his life to appreciating fine art, and it shows in the way that he is able to tell stories about it.
If you’d like a sample of this unique ability of Russ’, I recommend you listen to his Hutchmoot talk about the David by Michaelangelo.
The chapter that I’m putting in my pocket for now was about Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. Ramsey entitled the chapter “Borrowed Light,” and in it, he explains how Vermeer stood on the shoulders of others to become the celebrated artist that he was.
Not only was Vermeer influenced by other artists around him, but he was helped by a young man who lived in the same city: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. You may recognize that name from your high school biology class; van Leeuwenhoek was the father of microbiology and the first to observe many single-celled organisms. He was an expert at grinding perfect lenses.
As the study of Vermeer’s paintings has grown, many art historians speculate that van Leeuwenhoek supplied him with a few of these excellent lenses. Vermeer’s technique is such that he seemed to have used a projection device of some sort. Who else would he use as a supplier of lenses, but his contemporary who made a living in this way?1
And here’s where Russ departs into an examination of “borrowed light,” the ways in which artists profit from the work of others around them, be they other artists, scientists, or others. None of us are free from this happy and humbling reality: we stand on others’ shoulders. No one is self-made.
This brief glance at one artist’s life made me pause and think about the ways in which my life has borrowed light:
Borrowed light from my family, whose love for a good story and esteem for laughter are forged in my heart.
Borrowed light from churches East and West, who showed me different ways of loving and serving and being family.
Borrowed light from a small community of artists and storytellers in Nashville, who assured me that no, it’s not unusual to see the Gospel in “secular” things.
Borrowed light from a long line of Protestants who wanted to read the Bible for themselves.
Borrowed light from my in-laws, who raised their son to understand that marriage is worth it.
Borrowed light from educators, writers, and poets, who jotted things down and left them for us.
Borrowed light from many mothers of many along the path, who told me to keep going.
From whom have you borrowed light?
For the Anglophiles
This week we have a story from the village of Cockington (Devon), which a unique mayor governs: a pony named Patrick. “Patrick, a 4-year-old Shetland pony with well-combed bangs, had been meeting with constituents at an ‘interaction pen’ in the garden of a pub, which he regularly frequents for a few slurps of Guinness. But that has been dismantled, after a single complaint lodged to local authorities.”
Reads & Listens of the Week
Truly Humbled to be the Author of this Article: David Brooks discusses fraught attempts at online humility. This is very funny.
If you haven’t caught on by now, I’m just going to keep shoving interviews with Andy Crouch at you. Here’s one from Listening In.
I was really helped by this conversation between Russell Moore and Scott Sauls. Sauls’ new book is called Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen: How God Redeems Regret, Hurt, and Fear in the Making of Better Humans.
Grab a tissue:
"What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?" CS Lewis, A Grief Observed
It’s also known that the two knew each other; van Leeuwenhoek was the executor of Vermeer’s will.