Art and the Experience of the Transcendent
Beth Huggins
Hi!
I was overjoyed to discover your website and it moved me to email you. I am a first-year student at Mount Mary College, where I know that you will be speaking in April, but I graduated from Notre Dame High School in Lemay last May. During my junior year there, I was in our required Social Justice religion course and was told to choose a woman who made a difference in a social justice area to research. I guess that Mev’s name was on a list from the teacher, but I don’t really remember how I came to choose her to “research”…….anyway, I found some information, wrote what was necessary, and moved on.
Thoughts about college and future plans were beginning to take over and it was not until the summer after that school year when I was teaching arts and crafts in the poverty of southeastern Missouri that I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to put my love of art and my passion for peace and justice work together. Well, senior year came and that thought was always at the back of my mind, but not central, other than the idea that maybe I could keep doing the same kind of work that I had done over the summer, in southern Missouri, with the same organization, all the same.
Summer 2005 found me back down there teaching art and loving every minute of it, but beginning to really wonder if the major that I had chosen to begin here at Mt. Mary would really fulfill, if art education and art therapy would really give me the opportunities that I was starting to sense somewhere on the edge of my consciousness…so I kept working and wondering, searching the eyes of the children for answers, for the reason for their joy and hope, for where that was leading me.
August and Mt. Mary came…….I went to my first education major class and knew that it was not what I needed. After more searching, praying, consulting, and then not really knowing for sure why, I decided to double major in art therapy and theology. The art therapy part was clear to me as my work had been very much a healing process for the children, but to choose theology over behavioral science or fine arts was not so simple…..it seemed to just happen.
As the months passed and I became more and more involved in social justice activities and was able to travel to the SOA vigil with the sisters that I lived with during the summer (one of whom was a POC for her own crossing of the line), I realized that I was being drawn more and more to the people and culture of Latin America. I have yet to even leave the country and our trip to Guatemala this spring was canceled, but the connection somehow seems to transcend that…….I realized very recently that this is part of why I was drawn to study theology……the religious experience is so central to the lives of Latin American people……..and that could be a part of the healing, also. Art and the experience of the Transcendent are forever entwined………
Where am I going with all of this and why do I tell you my life’s story??!!! Maybe I am crazy, but I feel so connected to Mev’s and your story that it doesn’t seem to matter to me. Maybe no one else can see the same strong connection that I see/feel, but I guess that does not matter either. Mev’s quote, “When I was in my early teens, a thought took hold of me…” has stuck with me and when Mary Beth told me that you are coming and loaned me her copy of The Book of Mev, the true meaning hit me again. I read the first 2 or 3 pages and was struck by how incredibly similar my background is to Mev’s……I grew up off of Ballas Road, between Manchester and Clayton, so maybe 2 minutes from Viz……Catholic grade school in that area, though I had to escape the attitudes that I have seen come with the increase of wealth, at least in our parish, and went elsewhere for high school. A packed schedule has prevented me from reading much more, but all I had known before was that she was from St. Louis, not that close to home!
So…….I have been thinking a lot lately about the similarities and wondering what it all means……Mev’s use of photography and my currently broader vision of using art in some way to tell the stories of those without a voice…..I am definitely being called to learn from her work.
I wanted you to know how Mev’s story continues to touch people. Thank you for sharing the gift of her life. I hope that this means something to you, as Mev’s husband, as a theology professor, as someone involved in peace and justice work (Karen House is an awesome place!). If nothing else, thanks for “listening” to me process all of this!
Peace,
Beth Huggins