Artist Brian Dettmer carves old books. When happens when an old book carves us?
Brian Dettmer approaches a book like a surgeon. Now, you might think that’s a metaphor for the way he dissects and exegetes the text but in his case it’s actually quite literal. See, Brian approaches every book with an actual scalpel and does some actual textual surgery, carving old books into masterpieces.
Dettmer is an artist and his three-dimensional book carvings are truly stunning. He cuts out certain parts and pages of old encyclopedias, medical journals, dictionaries, or illustration books with exacting precision and leaves behind a deep visual feast of words and images that bring the book back to life in a new way. Where editing is a chore for most of us, he has turned it into an art form.
Dettmer’s work is a painstaking process done one page at a time with the scalpel, tweezers, and a knife. He also bends and manipulates the spines and covers of the books, rolls back pages, and puts together stacks of books to create these original literary sculptures. Nothing inside the books are relocated or implanted — only removed. “My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception,” says Dettmer. “The richness and depth of the book is universally respected yet often undiscovered as the monopoly of the form and relevance of the information fades over time. The book’s intended function has decreased and the form remains linear in a non-linear world. By altering physical forms of information and shifting preconceived functions, new and unexpected roles emerge.”
Sounds like a guy who not only carves books but reads them, too.
In a world where most words are now processed on computers, Dettmer’s work reveals that sometimes the penknife is mightier than the pixel. Those old books, with their yellowed pages and aged covers, reveal a depth of character and wisdom that is somehow less aesthetically pleasing than the instant gratification of an e-book or a quick Google search. While we can download information instantly these days, an old book requires time and patience, but it’s the things we spend time and patience on that tend to stick with us. Dettmer’s careful and surgical precision with each page seems to be a kind of homage to the timelessness of words and their ability to bring beauty and wonder not only intellectually but aesthetically. Cutting the words somehow makes them whole again.
But what would happen if, say, the words themselves were doing the cutting? What if the words were themselves a surgical instrument wielded by a Great Artist to create a very different kind of masterpiece? The writer of Hebrews offers that kind of artistic vision—a word that is cutting, active and transformative.
Hebrews 4:12-16
“The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). While some might think of the Bible as one of those thick and dusty old books of the kind that Dettmer likes to carve, the writer of Hebrews sees the word of God contained within the Scriptures as a scalpel that cuts to the core of the human heart, exposing both its beauty and its brokenness, and removing whatever doesn’t belong.
Indeed, the “word” that the writer is talking about here is actually much more than just the words on the page. The ink and paper are vitally important, but the word comes in many other ways as the Holy Spirit brings the Scripture to life and as we meditate on the application of that word to our own lives. The word of God is always multi-dimensional and, like a great piece of art, it invites us to always look deeper to find the greater meaning.
The writer of Hebrews demonstrates how this works in the context of the letter. The letter was written by an unknown author to a community of believers that has been the target of abuse and persecution (10:32-34) and now they face the danger of “drifting away” from faith in the gospel (2:1). The writer’s purpose is to assure them that the promises of God that were given to their Hebrew ancestors were still in effect and had culminated in the person of Jesus, the great high priest (4:14), who has initiated a “better covenant” (7:22; 8:6) and led them to a new promised land—a “lasting city” of God (13:14). The writer thus weaves biblical imagery all the way through the epistle as a reminder that the word of God came not only in the form of the Torah and the prophets, but in the person of Jesus Christ. The word on the page always points to the Word made flesh.
It’s this multi-dimensional word that acts like a “two-edged sword” that surgically exposes our innermost lives (4:12). Granted, a sword isn’t exactly a scalpel. One is designed for the precise excision of flesh with the aim of healing and the other for piercing and slicing the body in battle. The writer here no doubt has in mind the “gladius” or short sword that was carried by your average Roman infantryman. The gladius was designed for close combat in tight spaces where a small movement either way could cut the enemy. In the Hebrews metaphor, however, like the old Pogo cartoon, the enemy is us. The word of God moves to and fro in the midst of humanity to cut and pierce through our defenses. The irony is that the application of this sword isn’t designed for our defeat but, rather, for our victory and a return of our allegiance to God.
Studying Scripture isn’t just about information, it’s about transformation.
Notice here, too, that the writer isn’t primarily interested in making the case that the Scripture is the word of God, or that it contains the word of God, or that it becomes the word of God. That’s the case that Paul makes for Scripture in our other reading from 2 Timothy 3:16—that all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful—and we certainly believe that Scripture is God’s word. The writer of Hebrews, however, is more interested in what the word of God does to us — it cuts and edits our lives in multi-dimensional ways that are “laid bare” to the eye of the Great Artist (Hebrews 4:13).
The purpose of studying the Bible isn’t just for information, it’s for transformation. When we study Scripture, it alters and shapes us. When we take it not only into our intellect but into our hearts, it reminds us in the depths of our being who we are and to whom we belong.
Dr. Fred Craddock, one of the deans of preaching in the 20th century, tells the story that when he was teaching at Emory University in Atlanta he encountered a student who stumbled into his office disheveled and looking for help. She told Dr. Craddock that the night before she had resolved to end her life by jumping off a train trestle into a nearby river. She got up on the railing to jump when she heard a voice inside her say, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Frightened, she backed off the railing and went back to her dorm room. After telling her story, Dr. Craddock began asking her some questions: “Are you a Christian?” No, she said. “Have you read the Bible?” No again. But then she stopped and said, “Well, when I was a little girl my grandmother took me to some special summer church thing—vacation something school.” Craddock asked her what she remembered about it. “Well, I remember cutting out little strips of paper and writing words on them and then getting up in front of the group and reciting the words. “Aha!” said Dr. Craddock. “Those words were surely Bible verses and one them lodged in your heart and just saved your life!”
What a powerful illustration of our Old Testament reading today from Psalm 119: “I treasure your word in my heart” or as the NIV puts it, “I have hidden your word in my heart” so that I might not sin against you.” It’s the hidden word that speaks to us, the words that we have remembered, meditated on, chewed over, even recited as children that can speak to us at the critical time. I remember all that time I spent memorizing Scripture as a boy—and to this day God uses those Scriptural truths to speak to my inmost being. In that way, us reading Scripture eventually transforms into Scripture reading us, and the Holy Spirit uses it to speak into our hearts.
In order for the word to do that kind of speaking to us, however, we have to be willing to be patient and prayerful in our own delving into the text and see it as a daily discipline—reading, studying, meditating, even memorizing. Brian Dettmer spends hours, days, and weeks with a particular book in order to determine its contours as well as its content. Those who are people of the word must be willing to spend even more time allowing the text and the Spirit to have their way with us and shape us into the people we’ve been called to be. Too often we’ve been guilty of doing quite the opposite—cutting out the parts of Scripture that are most convicting and painful in favor of the texts that make us comfortable.
You might recall the example of Thomas Jefferson, who took a knife to the Scriptures and cut out all the parts about Jesus’ divinity, his miracles and signs, and his resurrection. He didn’t cut those pieces out to be artistic, but to fit his Enlightenment era sense of reason. The result was a word of God edited to suit Jefferson, rather than Jefferson being edited to fit the word. Lest we chastise one of our Founding Fathers too much, we need to realize that often we do the same thing. We need to be a people who are constantly and daily being shaped by the word of God in the Scriptures rather than shaping and molding it to ourselves and our worldviews. We need to learn to read and study the Bible on its own terms and with its own agenda—the agenda of shaping us as disciples of Jesus Christ suited for the work of the kingdom
We don’t confine the artistry of the Scriptures to just the printed word, however. We view it through the lens of the Word made flesh. In verses 14-16 of chapter 4, the writer of Hebrews points out that the sword of the living and active word is wielded by Jesus, God’s own great “high priest.” This is a Word that knows our weaknesses and temptations and yet overcame them both (v. 15). Because of him, we who need editing can come to him to be marked and shaped by his grace and mercy (v. 16). Like a master artist and a gifted surgeon, he knows just where to cut to make us beautiful and whole.
Brian Dettmer’s art is beautiful and a wonder to behold, but the books he transforms are no longer in circulation as readable and useable. Lots of people have Bibles in their homes that sit in a prominent place like a great piece of art — a wonder to behold but not used. The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon once said to his congregation that “there is enough dust on some of your Bibles to write ‘damnation’ with your fingers.” The word of God cannot shape us into God’s image without us reading it and taking it into our lives. As Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16, all Scripture is useful for teaching, for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Scripture is useful, but only if we use it for its intended purpose—to shape and equip us for the work of the kingdom.
What we need is to take that word down from the shelf and let it carve us up every day, shaping us into the people God intends us to be. It is, after all, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, a scalpel for the soul.
We put a lot of emphasis on study here at TLUMC. We’re always focusing on Scripture and on books that help us understand Scripture. Some might agree with the writer of Ecclesiastes 12:12 when he writes, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body”—a verse quoted often by seminary students! Study for the sake of study is wearying for the body and soul. Studying for the sake of changing our lives, on the other hand, is energizing and hopeful.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, once wrote that if Scripture reveals the way of Christ and his kingdom, then, “O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God. I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unis libre: a man of one book.”
We are a people of the book—the scalpel of Spirit working on the heart of the faithful. Reading, studying, memorizing—these are the ways we get to know the truth about Jesus and his kingdom. The word “disciple” (mathetes) means “learner” in Greek. To follow Jesus means to be always learning about Jesus so that we can reflect his love and grace to the world. The Scriptures contain everything we need to know about God’s redemptive plan for the whole creation and for us. We have much to learn!
You know, every Sunday we put the words of the Scripture texts up on the screen. That’s good because it gets the word up there for everyone to see. But there’s something missing in that experience. We miss opening the book—seeing, touching, feeling the words as they are read—looking around the text for the day to see its context, to jot down notes for future reference, to seek the marks of familiar verses. We can open a book or an e-book or look at in on an iPhone—it doesn’t really matter. What matters is always having the Word in front of us.
I sometimes get asked which version of the Bible is best. The best version is the one you will read! Translations differ slightly, notes may come from different perspectives. But it’s not the words within that are most important—it’s the Word it contains: the living, active, Word of God that is sharper than any sword of scalpel and will carve us up every time we read it.
I want to encourage you to read your Bible every day and bring your Bible to worship each week. I think something powerful happens when we open the word together. The Bible you carry is a tool that God can use on you and on us collectively. We give Bibles to new members as a sign that everything we do here is grounded in God’s Word. May we not keep those Bibles on the shelf, but put them to work on our lives and on each other every day and every time we gather to hear the Word read, preached, and sung.
The church is to be a people shaped by the Word until that day we stand before the Word made flesh. When that day comes, may we present ourselves as works of art, crafted by the hand of the Master.
Sources:
Craddock, Fred. “The Letter to the Hebrews.” The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. XII. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998. p. 56.
“Insane Art Formed by Carving Books with Surgical Tools.” Karan Arora S Posterous Web Site. http://karanarora.posterous.com/insane-art-formed-by-carving-books-with-surgi. Viewed April 12, 2012.
