It Was Good: On Glory

We get a leaf. But only together as artists are we going to see the whole incredible tree. We all have to “do our own leaf.” Every one of us has something to contribute.

–Tim Keller, Glory chapter from It Was Good

Keller, in is chapter on glory, describes why we have artists and why we need them. The image of individuals being a leaf, having a singular purpose, and then all artists coming together to create a whole tree is perfect. Every person has an individual purpose. Some may be similar but it is necessary to see that each and every one of us has meaning and something to contribute to a bigger picture.

Another example Keller described in the text is a funeral. Funerals are something physical to represent the unphysical, a way of coping with the inanimate. He relates funerals to art work in the way that people need something physical to work through the human condition. Everything is a part of some bigger reality and it is an artist’s responsibility to concentrate on that. “A good artist will reveal something about the greater reality in an indefinable by inescapable way” (120).

I find that last quote interesting because artists have a capability to portray a portion of reality and then can come together and create the entirety of it all.

I think that to say that artists are the only ones capable of doing this is wrong though. Generalizing it to be all people having a purpose, being an individual leaf, and then coming together to gain understanding and have a full view, seems like a better way to think about it. I think looking at it from that perspective also begins building community. If we feel we need others to have a full understanding of purpose, then we will start to rely on others and come together. Purpose is also defined as glory in Keller’s chapter because the meaning of life is the glory of God and if there was no God, there would be no purpose or meaning.

Interested in this concept, I decided to Google “what is the meaning of life” just to see if anything similar would be a result. To my surprise, I found this video explaining how there must be a God because if there wasn’t, we as humans would be on earth with literally no purpose and no intention.

Overall, I think the concept of why we have artists and why we need them is an important one, I just think it needs to be more broad and cover all humans because we all have such different lenses through which we see the world.