Design, Theology, and Writing

When I run my finger over the pulse of my life on a macro-level, I consistently discern three expressions of my identity that play out wherever I am and whatever I am doing. I don't have to think about these things. These things pulse in my system unconsciously. They are a definitive part of who I am. I can trace these particular expressions backwards into my childhood and see how they have developed and unfolded over time, but I haven't always been able to own or express them like I can now. It takes time and help to be able to discern the patterns of our lives with any level of clarity.

I love design and to design. It doesn't matter what kind of design: interior, graphic, architectural, community, ideas. I don't get to do all these kinds of design, obviously, but I am always thinking about design solutions to problems/opportunties I encounter. I am also passionate about theology. I love to do theology, to talk theology, to live theologically. In fact, everything is theological for me. The search for God in all things animates my life - though that sounds more serious and pretentious/presumptuous than I mean it to. For what it is worth I think that statement is true for most people - it is simply a question of our consciousness and intention. And I love writing and everything that accompanies what it means for me to create and shape and communicate ideas with words. There has never been a time when I haven't been writing something. Everything else I do - preaching, teaching, painting, conversing, etc. - flows out of the writing sensibility. Getting to focus on any one of those three elements of my identity always feels like a privilege. But when all three of those things come together at once, then I am alive in a way that seems too good to be true.

So everything I do comes from a core that is shaped by these elements. But in addition to that, I love space - shaping environments in a way that allows for possibility. And space defined broadly: intellectual space, emotional space, relational space, spiritual space, aesthetic space. That is why I often talk about leaders as environmentalists - people who create and shape and host environments that allow for some kind of encounter or engagement or exchange: with God, ourselves, one another, our context...

Why all this?

A couple of days ago I found a video about a space designed by an architect for a writer and it was all I could do to stay in my seat. Not just the explicit architectural solution to the problem, though that would be enough to post about. It is extraordinary and I would love to create/write in such a place. Beyond that I am captivated by the way this designer has integrated so many seemingly disparate elements into a unified whole that communicates with one voice: this is a space to write. It has an integrity of purpose, concept, and execution that connects it to its environment in an unassuming yet profound way. Such creative harmony is rare in my experience and yet it is integral to the kind of engaged living/creating/impacting I believe we long for, whatever our context: church, home, work, or school. In that sense, the integrity of this building is manifested in its simplicty, its beauty, and its functionality. And we know it because it speaks to us through those things. Those characteristics are its apologetic.

I think we all look for this kind of integrity in the expression of our lives, whatever the three (or two, or four, or seven) elements of identity we discover at work in our lives. I think we all knowingly and unknowingly seek to integrate the seemingly disparate elements of our lives/identities into a unified whole that communicates with one voice: this is who I am, this is what I do.

What do you think?

Private Library from A Space In Time on Vimeo.

Comments

[john chandler]

I love this space...and your thoughts on it. Thanks for posting it.

[Bob]

Wow! Just watching the video relaxed me.

[Eric Kieb]

Wow. What an amazing space within which to capture conscience and creativity, clarity and continuity, to dream, behold and be held.

Thanks for sharing Tim.

Have a Happy Christmas!

Eric

[gary]

as one who was in full-time ministry, who was responsible for shaping and cultivating worship environments, but who is now just working a job to get by... i feel so envious of that space. all of it.

kind of a holy envy, though. i'm searching and searching for the place where we'll land, where we'll plug in and rejoin the creative and confusing life of a faith community, and i believe i'll get back to that kind of a space... but it is hard to wait.

thanks for sharing and for just a breath, a whisper of what might be again...