Blue Note Preaching Assignment

Blue Note preaching assignment completed a unit in Preaching During Crisis and Trauma

Introduction

Artists are doing more self-portraits during the pandemic. It makes sense: what else can you do when you're stuck at home with nothing to look at but yourself, day after day? COVID-19 restrictions have made it difficult to hire models to paint, or to wander neighborhoods in search of human inspiration--and then get close enough to those faces to photograph them. The self-portrait, like the Ars Poetica, is a classic art form that most artists experiment with eventually; now, self-portraits have become a way to document our life in this pandemic. Here are some examples that the Washingtonian collected, from a call for submissions:  

https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/05/15/check-out-these-dramatic-quarantine-self-portraits-taken-by-professional-photographers/

Preachers don't do self-portraits so much as we do portraits. (We could debate that statement, but let's hear it in broad strokes for the purposes of this assignment.) Preachers observe people, Scripture, our communities, our world. We pay attention to detail. We attend to context. We know accuracy matters: how will we tell the truth about what we see? We know arrangement matters: how will we pose the figures to capture the essence of this moment? We know the subject of the portrait may be pleased with the finished product or not: Winston Churchill is said to have burned his official retirement portrait when he didn't like how it portrayed the effects of age (he was in his eighties...). As preachers, we might say each sermon is a portrait of the grace of God, alive and moving in the lives of people. And word/Word--spoken and unspoken--are the preacher's medium.

• Assignment: This week, pick one of the self-portrait photographs you see in the Washingtonian article above. Imagine you are the artist/photographer who made it, and write a 5-8 minute sermon/testimony, a "Blue Note Portrait," speaking in the first person  as if you were the artist, and were interpreting your self-portrait for us. We want to know, for instance: 
• What are you trying to show us about your life, in this self-portrait? 
• Why did you choose to take the photograph like this, with these details? (How you're standing, where you're sitting, what you're doing, who or what is around you, etc.)  
• What are you wanting us to see about our life -- during this pandemic, and after it's over? 
• We know truth is central to everything you do, as an artist, but so is grace: as a person of faith (let's imagine this, for our artist), you believe that God's grace is real and visible in our present moment. Where did you put signs of that grace for us to find, in this self-portrait?

This is an imaginative exercise, so speak freely, with your imagination; we won't mistake you-the-student for you-the-artist!

Manuscript:

Captured by the Light

Hey, I’m David, you can call me Dave, that’s cool.

I’m a photographer by trade but what I really do is chase light.  Good light is everything. I love all its dimensions. The highs, the lows, the in-betweens.  Yeah!

I’ve been chasing the light now for some 50 years. I wouldn’t trade it for the nothing.  Seen a lotta of stuff.  Been all over the world. Awe man and the textures and hues of light are unimaginable.

Look, my favorite is in Santorini in the fall.  Ooooo that orange light is amazing!  Thought I was going to get that way again this fall but its not looking like that’s gonna happen.

I’m here now.   Been here since March.  Like I said, I’ve been fortunate to have been traveling for years. That ought a let you know I’m in the “susceptible” group.  

For the first time in some fifty years I am forced to slow down, and some instances stop when previously I would have been on a plane right now on my way to the next hot spot.  

Seriously, I’m not doing that great.  I’ve gotta get back out there.  Its been almost eight months since I’ve been able to do my thing.  I mean I get to take pictures every now and again but really get out there… I can’t.  I’ve gotta play it safe.  I get a few shots of my dog and my surroundings a bit.  I’ve even been taking pics of myself.

Look, look check this one out.  This is me.  My eyes are looking heavy and glassy.  Age is coming for me.  I never noticed before because I was so busy.  I only had time between shots to grab another camera bag and head out again but look.  Look at the stretch on my skin.  And the spots from the sun.  Grey is tryna take over my hair.  

What if I’m not able to get out of there?

Awe, nah, nah.  Man I’m sorry you didn’t come for this.  I know, I know, but can I say one last thing?

Man look at the light.  Look how it shines down on my head, trickles down and sparkles like diamonds on my neck and embraces my shoulders with its warmth.

The light has really captured me.