Walter Martin’s 2022 album The Bear slows the world down, turning the listener’s consideration to little issues like “the holes the place blind moles blink” or mixing paints or a baseball’s circuit between pitcher and catcher. This fixation on little issues mixed with Martin’s voice (under no circumstances “accomplished up”) provides the album its allure. And listeners will discover that Martin routinely stumbles upon the profound; little issues, in any case, add as much as massive issues.
That is particularly so in “The Track Is By no means Completed” the place Martin sings of wanting to write down the “excellent track.” However, he factors out (tongue-in-cheek), “it’s not this one, it’s one other one.” This different track might be his masterpiece, delivering like none different as a result of in it Martin sings (in what feels like a hurried, rambling footnote to the track), that he’ll
[E]xplain so completely what it’s prefer to be and what’s so horrifying
And what my life actually means and the way I discover which means in what I see
And what I perceive about eternity and the best way I need my youngsters to recollect me
And I wish to say all of it so eloquently and make all of the rhymes good and tight.
When Martin lastly finishes the track, he hopes it can make him “totally identified” and “not so rattling alone.” Admittedly, his masterpiece in progress is “quite a lot of work, man, nevertheless it’s coming alongside.”
Martin’s longing to go away a mark on the planet is harking back to J. R. R. Tolkien’s character Niggle from the quick story, “Leaf by Niggle.” Niggle is a mediocre painter who works tediously on what he believes to be his masterpiece. Like Martin, Niggle focuses on little issues, largely portray leaves. However what begins as a single leaf retains rising into extra exquisitely detailed leaves. Niggle struggles to see “the tree for the leaves.” On high of Niggle’s obsessive consideration to element, his venture is regularly interrupted by the exigencies of life, particularly the bodily wants of his neighbor, wants which in the end put an finish to Niggle’s life and his beloved portray in progress. The portray isn’t accomplished.
For these concerned in artistic labors, I consider Martin strikes us in the suitable path however doesn’t go far sufficient. The actual hope lay not within the daybreak of a brand new day however the daybreak of a New Age—the brand new heaven and new earth.
On the opposite facet of demise, although, Niggle is astonished to see his tree gloriously full and reworked from artwork to actuality. Tolkien writes, “All of the leaves he had ever laboured at have been there, as he had imagined them fairly than as he had made them; and there have been others that had solely budded in his thoughts, and lots of that may have budded, if solely he had had time.” The leaves’ host branches, Tolkien writes, have been “rising and bending within the wind that Niggle had so typically felt or guessed, and had so typically did not catch.” Niggle, seeing his tree alive and beautifying the panorama, can’t assist however exclaim: “It’s a present!”
Tolkien’s story and Martin’s track faucet into one thing that accompanies artistic endeavors: the need to make one thing of lasting worth, to go away a mark on the planet. These artistic works typically get caught or slowed someplace between our imaginings and real-world limits (of time, means, or well being). Niggle’s tedious portray was frequently interrupted. That Martin was singing a completely different track than his masterpiece in course of underscores the purpose that our artistic imaginings typically reside extra comfortably in our creativeness than in actuality. Pushing one’s artistic aspiration out of 1’s head and into the true world is commonly the work of Sisyphus.
There’s a stress, then, that Martin and Niggle (and Tolkien?) face of their artistic work: what resides as a masterpiece within the artistic’s thoughts has a means of getting dinged, nicked, torn, even mangled because it makes its means into the world.
Tolkien resolves this stress for Niggle within the subsequent life or “the Past,” as Martin calls it.
Tolkien’s intuition, it appears to me, squares with the broad, eschatological hope of the Scriptures. Think about, for instance, the scars of our Lord. The troopers who pinned Jesus to the cross have been doing their job. They wakened that day, maybe considerably conscious {that a} extra controversial job lay forward, maybe not. In any case, they’d work to do and it was not a artistic (that’s, creating) work however a harmful one. But as Darrell Cosden factors out, the results of this work is “assured to hold over into God’s in addition to our personal future and everlasting actuality.” The hymn places it this fashion: “Behold his fingers and facet, / wealthy wounds, but seen above, / in magnificence glorified.” The harmful work of the troopers carries on into eternity, albeit superbly glorified.
If the soldier’s harmful labor endures past this life what concerning the artistic energies of numerous people over the course of human historical past? Would possibly Jesus’s little scars (not more than an inch or so in measurement) sign potentialities for larger issues? I consider so. Jesus is described because the “firstfruits” of the resurrected world order, which means that his scars do certainly converse to broader resurrection realities. Little issues add as much as massive issues.
The arc of the biblical story strikes from a backyard to a garden-city, the New Jerusalem which means that the cumulative, artistic labors of humanity will someway spill over (albeit gloriously reworked) into the New Creation. Revelation hints at this when it describes the glory of the kings of earth being ushered into the brand new creation (Revelation 21:24).
Martin’s track concludes with a recognition that “the track isn’t accomplished.” He sings, “the tune desires a solution however I don’t bought one.” But the track ends on a observe of hope: “However the gentle coming into my studio from the morning solar / fills the room and a brand new day has begun.” In different phrases, Martin, whereas recognizing the continuing issue of making the right track, takes solace within the Creator’s work evident round him, granting not only a new day however a gloriously radiant one. For these concerned in artistic labors, I consider Martin strikes us in the suitable path however doesn’t go far sufficient. The actual hope lay not within the daybreak of a brand new day however the daybreak of a New Age—the brand new heaven and new earth. If the harmful work of Roman troopers is beautified within the New Creation, simply think about what he who makes all issues new can do with humanity’s humble artistic labors.
