What one finds illuminating another will experience as merely puzzling. Where people may come close to agreement, however, is their assessment that the experience of art in a church setting is a bit chaotic, a little out of control. Much as I prefer order to chaos, I have to admit that a little loosening of controls seems necessary for the spirit to move freely. I am convinced, however, that the early followers of Jesus understood spirit more clearly than many contemporary Christians as something that cannot be channeled, harnessed, or controlled. In this earlier understanding of spirit, a community can be so tightly organized that the spirit has no room to maneuver.
Artists have a way a loosening up a congregation to create room for the spirit to operate.
If we can trust the early Christian writings, we should know that whenever the spirit is allowed to move freely, a certain amount of upset will be the likely result. The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other.