Inexpensive, all-you-can-eat buffets aren’t typically places for great inspiration, but if anything is true of the Holy Spirit, it’s that you should never be surprised when she shows up and makes you think. She can make you see the world with new eyes.

Recently, at one of those buffets, my friend remarked about how terrible the woodwork looked. As I turned to look at what he was talking about, I thought, “Well of course, it’s not like this is a fancy place, why on earth would you expect the woodwork to be nice?” Thankfully before I could open my mouth to share that thought out loud, he continued, “This is really nice oak. The woodworker just did a terribly poor job of cutting it.”

Great Uncle Olaf
My friend’s comment made me think of my great-uncle Olaf, a lover of woodworking. His appreciation of the raw materials shone through each project he completed. The cedar chest he made me over 20 years ago is still one of my most cherished possessions. My cedar chest, like my friend’s comment, reminded me of how wonderful wood can look when it is cared for properly. And that got me thinking about all the forms of art: the gift we can appreciate when an artist takes what already exists, and molds it through her or his own eyes and experiences in order to create something new.

Stopping to see the sunset

I think we can all agree that we have been given some awesome (awe-inspiring) material to work with. My worship professor in seminary recently posted pictures of a trip to Cancun. Our mutual friend Stephanie, commented on one of his pictures, “God does good work!”

So true. Whether it is the natural world or the beauty in a child’s face, God has given us vibrant colors and rich contours and landscapes from which to gather inspiration.

Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian minister and author, offers this insight about art: “Literature, painting, music—the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper and more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot.”

Why do we seem caught off-guard when a sunset makes us pull our car to the side of the road? We stare until we can no longer see any traces of the fiery-orange ball of light that seems to slip away, leaving traces of pink and purple across the horizon. And why do so many people rave about the beauty of deep-blue ocean waters and white, sandy beaches and majestic snow-capped mountaintops?

It's as if we get numb to the everyday natural beauty around us so that we need something to be big, bold and “in our face” before we take the time to stop and pay attention. Maybe that’s why we take time to visit art galleries and walk cities with amazing architecture and attend the symphony and musicals on Broadway. We are longing for a chance to step out of our own crazy lives for a moment and be reminded that we are a part of something bigger.

I always thought that, if I asked folks to share with me the way that art has most impacted their lives, their answers would be about those big experiences in their lives: the time they saw the statue of "David" by Michelangelo in Florence, Italy, or the moment they stood on the Great Wall of China, or the first time they saw the musical, "Wicked."

It’s true that we recognize God’s awesomeness in the world around us. We recognize the beauty in the masterpieces in the art world. But when it comes right down to it, the art that affects our lives each day isn’t always well-known. The art that touches us is very easy to get our hands on. That art is found in the words of our favorite author, in the raw honesty of "The Serenity Prayer," in the lyrics to the song that was playing on the radio as we got into our vehicle to drive away from the deathbed of a loved one.

When songwriters capture what our souls desire to express and what we know to be true in such profound ways, the power of words can overwhelm us. And when those words are added to music, most of us are at a loss to figure out how someone can understand just what we are feeling, and then put those feelings into words in such a powerful way.

The art that affects us most is that which we hear on the radio or on our iPod while we are in the midst of living our daily lives. And it’s during those busy times, with music providing a soundtrack to our very real lives, that a lyric stands out and makes us stop and truly listen to the words. It’s those moments that remind us of the bigger truths that we are part of.

And it is the core of those very moments that remind us that art isn’t so much about seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, as it is about being reminded of the eyes God uses to see us. We think we stop to stand in awe of God’s beauty, but really, God stops us, to remind us that we are works of art ourselves, called to be something more than just who we think we are.

The Rev. Kathryn Zurcher is an ordained pastor in the ELCA. She currently serves as associate director of admissions at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minn. Her art form of choice is Broadway musicals.

by Mary Button

I painted this particular piece after returning from Kenya—using photos from a poster-making session at a youth peace summit in Nairobi in 2009. The pattern found in the painting is from one of the kangas I bought while in Kenya. Kangas are large swaths of cloth that women use as skirts and are printed with Swahili sayings on them. The one in this painting says, "Peace for every region of Kenya."

The youth peace summit was organized by the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church and supported by the ELCA. Its goal was to bring young people from across East Africa to discuss the post-election violence that devastated Kenya in late 2007. On one of our first nights together, we broke up into small groups and drew depictions of daily life. With paper and markers, these amazing young people told their stories of triumph and tragedy. In artwork, they transformed their lives into paths that twisted and turned through homes and churches and the political landscape of their countries and ours. That night we hung the posters up in the meeting hall. Surrounded by these stories, we were reminded that art begins and ends with the stories we tell.

The summit concluded with a peace march, but before we marched we gathered again with stacks of paper, scissors, to make banners. We made little paper doves and painted “Peace For Kenya” across them. We cut out the shape of Africa on green paper and painted prayers for the environment. When I took out my camera, I was mobbed with requests for photographs. Everyone wanted to record their commitment to peace.

I have returned again and again to these photographs. The pride and joy of young people bearing witness to their experience and the resilience of their hope for Kenya is a constant inspiration. I tried to capture that feeling in a series of paintings that combine drawings from the photographs with the bright colors, patterns, and Swahili sayings on Kenyan textiles.

Mary Button is a graduate of New York University and currently a Masters of Theological Studies student, Chandler School of Theology at Emory University. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Biblical Art, Church Center for the United Nations, Festival of the Photograph, and ABC No Rio.