Art as a force of change: a bishop who said that playing the piano made him a better person was one of the many artists at a special Caux session.

A bishop who said that playing the piano made him a better person was one of many artists at a special Caux session. Kenneth Noble attended an enriching week.

A group from Yorkshire, UK, demonstrating break dancing and body popping; a Church of England bishop who is also a concert pianist; the internationally renowned Fitzwilliam String Quartet; a New York cast performing Gogol's Marriage; the Cotton Pickers from West Virginia; a leading Dutch contemporary silversmith and his family; artists and art-lovers of many patterns and shades. Whatever the one-week Caux session on `the arts in perspective' would hold, it would certainly never be dull.

As well as being fed in mind and soul by a feast of high calibre performances and works of art, participants found themselves grappling with some of the most profound questions about art, life and faith.

In his `Caux lecture', the Assistant Bishop of London, Michael Marshall, spoke about the role of the artist in ending the conflict between science and religion, matter and spirit, which had plagued Western thought since the Enlightenment. `Truth' had been seen as something that could only be determined by science, while beauty and goodness were packaged with religion and had been regarded as matters of purely personal opinion. For him, the Platonic trio of `beauty, goodness and truth' were a package deal, a threefold witness to a single reality. `Information and inspiration belong together,' he pleaded. `No one discipline can claim superiority.'

Marshall quoted from the Hungarian-born chemist Michael Polanyi: `Once men have been made to realize the crippling mutilations imposed by an objectivist framework and a purely mechanistic view of the universe, many fresh minds will turn to the task of reinterpreting the world as it is, and as it then once more will be seen to be.'

Marshall commented, `The artist has a leading role to play in this process of rediscovery and re-interpretation.' But, he pleaded, this should not be by way of art as propaganda but by seeing art as parable or myth in the same way as Jesus taught by parables in the New Testament.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the Bishop added that for him `Christian art' was a nonsense. `I don't want a Christian plumber or a Christian architect. I want a good architect or a good plumber. Christians certainly do not necessarily have a monopoly of goodness, beauty or truth.'

In a panel discussion on `faith and the arts', Bishop Marshall spoke of his `double life' as priest and musician. When he first became a Christian he had felt a conflict between his passion for music and his desire to serve God--he is, as he demonstrated, a highly gifted pianist. So on being ordained a priest he had `cut out all the music'. But he found himself in a parish where most of the 18 pubs had pianos and he was in demand to play `pub routines'. His gifts became more widely known and, though he modestly describes himself as an amateur, today he plays with some of the world's great orchestras. `It's a case of seek you first the Kingdom of God and all these other things will be given back to you.'

`God the Creator has made us in his image,' he said. `If we don't express this urge to be godlike and become creative, we become frustrated and destructive. When I play the piano I become a better person.'

Professor David Allbrook from Perth, Australia, took part in the same panel discussion. Before retirement, his specialty was anatomy, but he has since been working as a lay chaplain in a hospice for people with advanced cancer. He spoke of `the therapeutic role of art'. Giving patients drawing materials sometimes enabled them to express their fears, joys, `barriers' and emotions from `the right side of the brain'.

On one occasion Allbrook had an inner prompting during a time of prayer to give drawing materials to a 43-year-old organist who had terminal cancer. He had been moved when the man's widow later showed him three of the drawings. `They were of the man's children, and they were beautiful, beautiful.'

A panel discussion on `the arts and education' prompted a Swedish teacher of drama to question what he called the `top mark hunting' approach to education. Nik Dahlstrom, who is also an actor, saw art as `a tool for training our creativity'. `Do we provide time for creativity, using art as a tool?' he asked. This would allow people to explore religious or abstract issues, enrich their ways of communication and find their identity or unity within their own culture.

Play and creativity came into kindergarten and primary school education naturally, he went on. But for children aged over 11 art is often held back in favour of academic subjects. `We start our education with a holistic approach, then during the time when we mature into adults and decide on our values and beliefs, art and creativity is often absent from our education,' he said. However the Rudolf Steiner and similar schools were changing this, he added.

Karen Grace, a music student at Durham University, added: `Art is not about fulfilling criteria, such as getting good marks, but reaching people.' Education could not be separated from the rest of life. `If you're dried up in one area of life, creativity will dry up. I've experienced that.'

Gunnar Soederlund from Sweden, one of the convenors of the conference, said that in a world where time was the most precious commodity, the arts represented service. He pointed to the large number of man hours taken to prepare a comparatively short concert. `People have given irreplaceable time to give something to the world.' That was why art reached people's hearts.

Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that many people left Caux moved and inspired by the outpourings of artists of many disciplines, and by the honesty and humility with which many had spoken about their struggles to find and follow their calling.