Religious inspiration in unlikely places

Piss Christ by Andres Serrano
Public-domain image from Wikipedia

A plastic crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. Back in 1987 this photograph spawned vigorous and vitriolic condemnations, and resulted in calls for funding cuts for the National Endowment for the Arts that echo to this day.

As a Roman Catholic and regular churchgoer I was fairly repulsed by the descriptions of this image. How could anyone even think to do such a thing? But when I eventually saw it, my reaction was something completely different.

I don't know what Serrano's intent was in creating this image. Frankly, I don't think you can trust artists to speak the truth when they discuss intentions and inspirations.* Art is meant to be seen, or heard, or smelled, or tasted, or felt; a work of art does not have meaning in and of itself but acquires meaning through the perceptions and interpretations of those who relate to it. And those people may not necessarily have the creator's notes to work from.

When I was in, I think, fourth grade, the teacher - the nun, as we would say, because that's what she was - left my class alone at the end of the day to go on some nunnish business. Maybe for an hour, maybe two. She gave us reading assignments to do, and other assorted busywork. We behaved ourselves - for a few minutes.

The discipline we imposed on ourselves began to unravel fairly quickly. First furtive whispering, then open talking, then a cacophony of voices that made it impossible for anyone who wanted to obey the rules - like, say, me - to do so. Then the class clown, George G., took it upon himself to see how much havoc he could create. He scooted from desk to desk, cracking jokes. It's possible a full fledged eraser fight broke out. The class had dissolved into shouts and laughter.

After a good long while, another nun entered the room and stared at us sternly.

We were caught. Nailed. Had she not entered, we could have created the illusion that we had been behaving ourselves and had done our work. But our noise was so tremendous that it had disrupted her class, several rooms away. And now she would report us to our nun. And who could contradict her?

The next day we took our seats quietly, sheepishly. We were in for it, we knew, and we knew she had something special planned for us.

She walked to the girl sitting in the front right of the class and handed her a small card. "Take this. Look at it. Pass it on. And no talking."

I don't remember if she got around to describing what was being passed around before it got to me. Eventually it did. It was an image of the scourged Christ. Jesus stood, weeping, his clothes bloody tatters, a crown of thorns on his head, his body covered with thousands of cuts and tears, skin peeling off in ragged strips, blood leaking from every wound. It was an image of pain and suffering like nothing I had ever seen before.

"Jesus suffered and died for your sins," she said. "What you did yesterday, what all of you did yesterday, made his suffering that much worse."

I don't remember if she assigned us any other punishment. It really didn't matter, after seeing that image.

That same sense of suffering, of being bathed in the sins of all humanity, all sins, past, present, and future, every sin that has been committed and is being committed and will be commited, of taking on all of that and dying because of it and dying for it and dying to redeem those sins and open the Gates of Heaven for the first time in all of human history to permit admission of souls into the divine presence for all eternity - that's the feeling I get when I look at Andres Serrano's plastic crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. That's what Piss Christ means to me. That is the feeling I draw from it, instantly, to the core of my being, every time I see it. Other people may see only blasphemy, only deliberate insult. But if I can draw inspiration from it, then it has meaning and value.

*Just try to reconcile the various stories told by Lennon and McCartney on the origin of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds." It's about L.S.D. No, it's based on a dream. No, it's based on a drawing by one of Lennon's kids. Wait, it's about L.S.D. after all.