Trust Issues

Domenique de Menil writes, in her foreword to Sacred Art, a collection of essays and reflections by M.A. Courturier, O.P. : “For Père Couturier, to be sure, straightforwardness, which begets clarity, was the simple and immediate principle of his personal moral stance.”

How do I feel about that, in light of all that I’ve written about nuance and being misunderstood? I guess I want to use it as a guide in evaluating art, especially any that gets labelled “sacred,” but I cannot simply accept Couturier’s clarity barometer. I know too much and not enough. Words and images are slippery things. Georges Roualt is the artist who had worked in stained glass and with his paintbrush brought the heavy, black boundaries of windows to the later works he painted on canvas, as if to say, perhaps, “This stuff here is solid, immoveable. Believe in it.”

I wish I could, but is no longer that easy for me. The trees in my backyard are solid. The rocks that make up the wall on the other side of the road have mass and don’t move much. Words and created images, though? I’m sorry; I can no longer trust them. All I can do now is live with them, converse with them, keep my eye on them, and see where they lead.