Sufjan Stevens on Bringing New Life into The World

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." –James Baldwin

This is the 13th installment in my series, The Art of Wisdom, a study of art from the world’s wisdom traditions.

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My drawing this week for MCDT Week #215: Cozy, inspired by Scandinavian cozy textile designs.

I’m a big Sufjan Stevens fan, but until recently I somehow missed his 2020 album, The Ascension. The album was written alone in his apartment at the height of the pandemic and was a project of wrestling with his spirituality and faith. Many of his songs over the years have had clear religious themes: From the Mouth of Gabriel, The Transfiguration, and of course his 100+ Christmas songs.

But this album is different.

In an interview, Sufjan said this about the album:

“I think at some point, I realized that my problems were no longer personal, or my personal problems were no longer at the forefront of my mind and my experience. And I started to see my problems are universal. It's really not about me. I am just the messenger.”

Which reminds me of what the writer James Baldwin once said: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

Sufjan continues:

“The Ascension and the transformation from the physical to the spiritual, for me, is [the] process of sublimation of consciousness. And I kind of wanted to use that process to disassociate and ascend away from myself and the world, the corruption and crisis and chaos around me to make better sense of it. To get out of my head and get out of my mind and get out of my fear.

“I started to ask myself, ‘What if our problems aren't natural or actual, but metaphysical?’ Or what if, at least, the solution to the problems were better understood on a spiritual level? I think that the songs [on The Ascension] are asking bigger questions, like, why are we here? What is it all for? What is our purpose? What is our function? Are we doing the work that we're called to do? I guess in some ways I'm trying to take into task all the things around me that I started to distress, including myself.”

So what is the work that Sufjan believes we are called to do?

“Feed your soul and speak new life into those around you. Give each other love, respect and sacrifice. Relinquish all the old habits, all the old ways of thinking and doing, all former practices—‘business as usual’—and bring new life to the world. This is our calling.”

But how can art bring new life to the world? I think of it similarly to James Baldwin again:

“…it is almost our only hope — because only an artist can tell, and only artists have told since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone who gets to this planet to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die; what it is like to be glad.” –James Baldwin

Artists don’t show us how to live—they show us what it’s like to live. They show us what it’s like to struggle, wrestle, and grieve, to fail and fall down. They don’t show us how to struggle best or most effectively or even how to get out of it. Instead, artists reveal a more important truth: that suffering is an unavoidable part of living. That stress, sorrow, grief, and heartache are universal problems.

But through the act of creating and sharing their art, they also show us the nature of hope. They remind us that even in the dark, sparks of light can be found created.

So what about those of us who consider ourselves artists? Why would we do that? Why would we confront our suffering even more deeply? Why do we spill our guts out into the world for all to see?

It’s definitely not because we know how to do these things (unless you’re talking about failing, and then, yes, I do know how to do that). Certainly, when we’ve fallen down to the bottom of the well, we do not feel we know how to get back up.

I think we make our art because we’re the ones who need to hear these messages the most. We are not writing instructions for others, doling out advice on how to overcome difficulties. We are drawing/painting/singing/making/writing to ourselves. We are writing what we need to hear.

And then, in an act of maybe-courage and maybe-desperation, we send that art out into the world, hoping there just might could be someone out there in the universe who feels the same way we do, and that, through our art, for just one brief moment, we can be two connected humans, hand-in-hand, pulling each other back up again.

Thanks for reading, y’all.

I’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off to be with family for Christmas and will be back writing the first week of January.

We are still drawing weekly over in MightCouldDrawToday, which will continue throughout December. There were some BEAUTIFUL stained glass drawings last week, and this week’s theme is Cozy. Come draw with us!

Hope you have a lovely holiday and thank you all for being here!

<3,
Christine