One of the significant things about the arts (music, dance, theatre, visual arts, poetry) is that they provide a way to express and/or communicate concepts and ideas that might be more difficult to express and/or communicate in prose words. Story is an additional artform that can communicate concepts, ideas and messages of a spiritual or sacred nature. The arts can be used to express perspectives on the sacred for oneself, as a means of communicating with the sacred or as a means of communicating perspective to other people. But they’re all a personal expression.
So, it should come as no surprise that these arts are often featured in Interfaith settings, helping develop an understanding of one another that goes deeper than might be accomplished by dialogue alone.
Exploring Our Relationship to Sacred Objects and Art: Art and Interfaith Conversation
https://www.theinterfaithobserver.org/journal-articles/2019/3/12/art-and-interfaith-conversation
Interfaith sculpture park
https://imosfoundation.org/hope-all-saints
Faiths in tune Interfaith Music festival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go-avr80sWc
There is a very long history of using the arts to express the sacred, be that visual arts cave paintings and the Uffington horse, music using ancient bone flutes, drums and depictions of stringed instruments, depictions of dance as far back as cave paintings, and the origin of modern theatre in the ancient Greek Dionysia- a festival to the god Dionysus, and that’s just western arts history.
Different tastes in arts, but also spiritual arts are personal expressions and will be diverse, even within traditions. Gaining an understanding of the basics of different religious traditions is a useful foundation to begin our relationships with people from other faiths and beliefs. But we build upon that by getting to know people from those faiths and beliefs, by glimpsing into how their worldview, of which their spiritual beliefs are a part, finds form and expression in their lives. Including the arts as part of that process can, not only give us greater insights, but can also reveal more points of connection and insights into our differences with the spiritual ‘other’.
The arts don’t have to be professionally perfect to be a personal expression of something that holds deeper meaning for you. It could be that you prefer to be the only audience for your artistic creation. You could write a poem, paint a picture or compose a photograph, sing a song, dance, perform some ritual theatre of your own design, write and tell stories that express your beliefs and worldview and/or any other of the arts. If you choose to share with others, be they Pagan, of another faith or belief or of no spiritual affiliation, it could be that you help them reflect both upon that deeper meaning you have found and on some deeper meaning they realise within their own worldview. Let’s celebrate our creative expression of our beliefs and share.
Mike Stygal
Belief and Education Officer
Contact Mike here