Reclaimed Art

For our family vacation this year, we went to St. Louis to visit family. While there, we were able to hook up with some friends from college who just happened to be in town as well- the Bellomy's. When looking for something to do, we kept getting the response of "You should try the City Museum." Occasionally, it wasn't so much a suggestion as a command. Not really sure what to expect, we took the bait.

As we walked in, we knew right off, this A) wasn't a typical museum, and B)we still weren't sure what to expect. Inside the doors, it was chaos. Not organized chaos, just plain, good old fashioned chaos. Kids screaming and running around, bewildered adults walking about open-mouthed and wide eyed. We passed one poor kid being carried by a worker with a bloody spot on his head. Nope, not like any museum I'd been to before.

Once we got a second to catch our breath and size things up, it became clear just what we in the midst of. It was art, of a sort. But it was also recycling. Everything there was some sort of reclaimed metal or old kitschy stuff you might have found in a 50's carnival. Part of an old House of Mirrors, a bumper car, skateboarding ramps used as slides, an old firetruck, a bus perched perilously over the edge of the roof, a wall of metal cafeteria trays stuck together, two gutted jets held up by wrought iron stairs and heavy metal spring type shapes- which you could crawl through to access the jets and other suspended attractions.

All this was not just to look at- it was to be explored, to be tested, to be tried out. Things once used in one manner, were now finding a second life as something more...full of life. In some ways, it was maybe beautiful in a scary sort of way, but it was definitely a place of life. Some parts of the museum were dark and ominous, others well lit and shiny, and all of it a part of maze of reclaimed art. Old junk given new life.

Sound familiar?

What if the church were more like the City Museum? After all, those who make it up are supposed to be reclaimed junk made into art. Constantly polished and refined and made new. But we the church are meant to also be tried, tested, and explored- our lives are meant to be open books of trial and error. More often, we treat our lives like the art and exhibits of a more traditional museum- look, but don't touch. We fear our lives will be contaminated by those outside of us who come to see the 'reclaimed art,' so we put up velvet ropes and thick glass frames to keep them from getting to close to us. But we are remade to be the kind of art that people engage- like climbing through a giant metal spring- as people explore our lives to see what it was that saved us from an eternity on the junk heap.

The City Museum doesn't just allow itself to be crawled over, jumped on, gotten lost in- it encourages it. It's as if the creators of it wanted you to stand atop a forty foot high bridge, staring back at the shell of a fighter jet you just crawled through and wonder how they got that there. And moreover- why did they put that there? The overwhelming question myself and Dave Bellomy- who went with me and my kids to check out the outdoor stuff- was: What kind of mind thinks to do this?

The answer is a mind that sees value in what others have thrown out. Not just value, but creative value, restorative value: they see a chance for reclaimed art.

Our Creator is on the look out for objects to be reclaimed, to be salvaged and made into something new and different. We are His reclaimed art. We are, like the exhibits at the City Museum, meant to open to others to explore us. See our faults as well as our strengths. They are meant to test us, to see not if we ourselves are all that good, but to see if the Creator has done something great yet again.

And because words don't do it justice- here is the link to the City Museum of St. Louis:
http://www.citymuseum.org/