Cry Out!

The Scream, Edvard Munch

Psalm 66.

Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth!
Sing out the honor of His name;
Make His praise glorious.
Say to God,
How awesome are Your works!
Through the greatness of Your power
Your enemies shall submit themselves to You.
All the earth shall worship You
And sing praises to You;
They shall sing praises to Your name.” Selah

Come and see the works of God;
He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men.
He turned the sea into dry land;
They went through the river on foot.
There we will rejoice in Him.
He rules by His power forever;
His eyes observe the nations;
Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah

Oh, bless our God, you peoples!
And make the voice of His praise to be heard,
Who keeps our soul among the living,
And does not allow our feet to be moved.
For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.
You brought us into the net;
You laid affliction on our backs.
You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
But You brought us out to rich fulfillment.

I will go into Your house with burnt offerings;
I will pay You my vows,
Which my lips have uttered
And my mouth has spoken when I was in trouble.
I will offer You burnt sacrifices of fat animals,
With the sweet aroma of rams;
I will offer bulls with goats. Selah

Come and hear, all you who fear God,
And I will declare what He has done for my soul.
I cried to Him with my mouth,
And He was extolled with my tongue.
If I regard iniquity in my heart,
The Lord will not hear.
But certainly God has heard me;
He has attended to the voice of my prayer.

 Blessed be God,
Who has not turned away my prayer,
Nor His mercy from me!

Sometimes good art deserves an emotional response. Sometimes it hits at your core and you understand what the creator had in mind while fashioning his work. Sometimes it makes you want to cry or even shout. And there is that rare occasion when it does both.

"I can't see 'em comin' down my eyes
So I gotta make the song cry"
-Jay Z

No doubt you've had an emotion driven experience when dealing with the art of music. Music seems its most powerful and intimate when the song deals with heartbreak. Yes music makes us fall in love, swell with patriotism or even vent rage... but when it come to the given us the blues, music hits a home run at every pitch. We all have that song that drove us wipe the corners of our eyes, even if we weren't personally dealing with a break up. This phenomenon is not even confined to the actual genre of Blues but encompasses all musical styles. It can be Jay Z's "Song Cry" or Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." And if you want to sink even lower in the depths of despair then turn on Lauryn Hill's "Ex Factor" and top it off with Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me." If you are not air punching while whipping away nose-tears by this point then you may not have a soul.

To the more nuanced art aficionado of art (read "art snob") even visual art can evoke a visceral response. I've had art professors tell me of near-spiritual responses that they have had from viewing Mark Rothko paintings... to which my response is usually something like "Really Dog?" That may seem silly to some (or just me) but their are paintings that the majority of people relate to and feel as if they understand the emotional state of the painting's creator. The most popular of these is probably "The Scream" by the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch. In it they see a soul that has been tormented by the toils of society and urban living scream out in anguish. They read into the swirled background the history of mental sickness in his family. It becomes another tragic playing out of the "troubled artist." However, this is what viewers see. It is not necessarily what the creator Edvard Munch saw in his picture. Though he did suffer with mental illness, Edvard Munch's painting was not necessarily about his own crying out, it was about nature crying out. The unusual colors that he observed in a sunset one evening led him to personify the perceived emotion on canvas.

"One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream."
-Edvard Munch

Just like Edvard Munch, the unnamed Psalmist of Psalm 66 imagined nature crying out. He even implored the entire Earth to shout out to the Lord. But this emotional response was different from Munch's painting's scream or even Jay Z's song's cry. The difference was that the Psalmist's Earth cried out with joy and shouted a praise. This song was not about the blues of a broken heart but the truth of a mended heart and renewed spirit. This artwork was crafted to comfort those in mental anguish with the peace of God that passes all understanding. This cry is a victorious warriors call. It is the hymn for those who though weak are strengthened by God. To borrow a few lines from the last prophet Isaiah (that we covered in the last post) It is for those who have received "beauty for ashes" and traded joy in exchange for their shame. It is for those like me who know what it is to suffer through depression and loneliness but have never been forsaken by a patient and comforting God. This Psalm cries out tears of joy.

"To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
-Isaiah 61:3

Sometimes good art deserves an emotional response. Sometimes it hits at your core and you understand what the Creator had in mind while fashioning His work. Sometimes it makes you want to cry or even shout. And there is that rare occasion when it does both. God is not only the Creator but is a creative artist. His greatest masterpieces are created when He takes tears of sorrow and uses them as a medium to paint tears of joy.