PEW FELLOWSHIPS IN THE ARTS
1996 AWARDS SPEECH

Creativity, Spirituality, and the Arts
by The Very Reverend James Parks Morton

Ecology is the study of connections--the basic premise being that everything impacts on everything else. The word "religion" derives from the Latin verb meaning to bring together, to connect, to bind, which translates into the religious purpose--to include, to bring everybody together. And yet, most churches and synagogues often tend to do just the opposite. They're not inclusive, they're very exclusive; if you're not this or that, you may go to hell, or, at least, not be part of the right group. Most people running for office don't give a hoot what you believe so long as you pull the right lever; that's all that matters. They want to get everybody in. And, essentially, that's what religion is all about--to get everybody in.

Native American peoples think of religion as pertaining to everybody in the tribe--everybody who's there. That's the religious reality--the people, together. Basically, religion is the profound integration of everything. For me, religion and ecology are almost flip sides of the same reality. They both begin with the assumption that every particle within the total reality is connected. It's also my basic conviction that both religion and politics are, by themselves, incapable of expressing themselves, of delivering their message, of expressing what they hold most deeply. They simply cannot make their reality come alive without the arts, because the arts are the supreme way of binding people together, of making what is truly important comprehensible--and felt. If you truly believe something, you want to move people. But what means do you have at your disposal to rouse them to feel something deeply? That's what the arts do. The arts are the eyes, the hands, the feet, the genitals--they're the stuff that moves people. And that's why you lucky twelve are indeed apostolic. The whole thing rests upon you in a very profound way.

For me, the worst thing is to hear someone say, "We have an arts program." Right away, I know it's trivial, not fundamental to the operation. At the cathedral, we've used the arts to get the message across--the profound message. I could not be at the cathedral without artists. They are truly vital. Where would Greece be without its sculptors, painters, architects, and playwrights? These are the people who made the polis, who made the institutions that kept the Hellenic mind together--the stadium, the agora, the temples, the theater.

We've had cathedrals from the beginning of the Christian Church--but they were small, half the size of this room. Then, by 400 A.D., the cities had died. For six hundred years, the western world lived in the country in fortified palaces and monasteries, and on farms. But in the twelfth century, trade routes to the East opened up, and where the trade routes intersected, cities arose. The real Renaissance began in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, not in the fifteenth century. With the rebirth of cities, every city had its cathedral, a big monster that could hold the whole town; that was why they were so big. And that's the monster I've been dealing with for the last twenty-five years. Our cathedral was meant to be huge because New York had to get its whole city inside, so its people would know who they are. Which is why artists had to come to make people aware--through their dance, their architecture, their painting, their poetry.

What fascinates me particularly are the places where the arts increasingly will be, the places where real life is lived. In New York, my great friend and godmother, Muriel Rukeyser, started the program of putting poetry in the subway and buses, right alongside the ads for Preparation H. Many concerts and dance and theater productions are now in office buildings. The new Equitable building has a theater, as well as the Thomas Hart Benton murals, and a huge seventy-foot Roy Lichtenstein mural in its atrium. It also has Palio, a glorious restaurant with a most exciting painting in it--Sandro Chia's Palio.

This hadn't happened in New York since the creation of Rockefeller Center in the early thirties, with its incredible Diego Rivera commission. It heralds a great future for art in public places: Philip Johnson and Mary Buckley's wonderful color arrangements in children's hospitals; Jonathan Borofsky's extraordinary work in California prisons alongside Sarah Elgart's prison choreography. Think, too, of airports as places of art. Think of parks. Think of Montreal's street theater. Creativity can be everywhere, in all the institutions of the city, even in synagogues and churches.

There are two very particular ways in which artists can work in the coming years. The first is being an artist in residence in an institution: a church, a prison, a library. You work there. You get to know the people there. You get to know the staff. You do all kinds of things. One thing that we did in my twenty-five years at the cathedral was especially exciting. Institutions are always holding conferences or benefit dinners or other events. We used our artists in residence to make those events come to life. John-Michael Tebelak, who wrote Godspell, was our dramaturge at the cathedral until he died. Whether it was a sermon series or a two-day conference on the environment, he turned it into theater.

But one thing in particular just blew us all away. Do you remember the American hostages in Tehran? They were released after 444 days. When they were being feted in New York, I had what's known in the trade as an immaculate conception--a good idea. Lent was coming up, and I had met all the hostages at a special breakfast. Wouldn't it be interesting, I thought, if I ask the hostages to preach on the Sundays of Lent? At the Mayor's reception, after the ticker-tape parade, I asked them, and they all said yes. So, every Sunday in Lent, we had a different hostage preach. We called the series "The Power of Powerlessness"--because that's who they were--the powerless.

We have a tradition at the cathedral on Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday in Holy Week, when the cathedral is open all night; it's a sort of all-night vigil. Various artists in residence do different things, and it goes from six in the evening straight through until nine the next morning. John-Michael said, "I want to do something with the hostages, with the sermon series." I said, "That would be a great thing." He said, "I want to have a play based on all of their sermons." And I said, "John-Michael, that's a marvelous idea."

As Lent wore on, I asked him how it was coming. "I don't know," he said; "I'm still writing it. We haven't had Palm Sunday yet; we haven't had the last sermon."

Palm Sunday came. That night, I asked, "How's it coming? You've got four days." He said, "I'm working very hard on it." The day before Maundy Thursday, I said, "Are you all ready for tomorrow night?" He said, "Yes, I finished it. God, I finished it. I got the script." I said, "All of the actors know all of their lines?" "No," he said, "they don't. I haven't given it to them yet." And I said, "Well, I'm sure it will be all right."

About three hours later, he came up to me. "I've had the best idea," he said. "I'm going to give all the actors the script so they can read it; they don't have time to learn their lines. And I'm going to blindfold the audience."

This was Maundy Thursday night, and everybody knew that what we were doing was called the Hostages' Passion. From CBS, we got the soundtrack of the screaming crowds in front of the American Embassy in Tehran--just screaming and screaming--and that was playing very loudly as the people came in. They were met very cordially at the entrance to the chapel in which the play was going to take place. We had yellow cloth bands, and they were all blindfolded and led to their seats. The play began and people were incredibly moved. Two people were so terrified, they had to go out, which was all right. But it was amazing to experience that kind of emotional impact blindfolded. Well, that's what artists do. And it got the point across.

Artists in residence are just incredible. We have nineteen artists in residence, as well as five performing ensembles. The African American dance company called Forces of Nature--that's Abdel Salaam's. The Omega Liturgical Dance Company--an Hispanic group. The Thunderbird Singers and Dancers--Native Americans. Paul Winter and the Paul Winter Consort. Frederick Renz and the Ensemble for Early Music, which is very cathedralesque--thirteenth- and fourteenth-century bagpipes and shams and all that wonderful stuff. Alessandra Belloni's Italian commedia dell'arte group, Giullari di Piazza. I think all of you should consider being artists in residence, wherever you are. Go beat on the doors in your towns, your cities. They'll let you in, and they'll make you artists in residence.

The second way for artists to work in the coming years is through exchange programs of artists--international exchanges, especially. One of our big projects is called Homes for the Homeless, in New York. We have a number of family inns for homeless people. We were able to buy a bankrupt Holiday Inn out by JFK Airport, a bankrupt hospital in the Bronx, three bankrupt hotels--so we can take care of a lot of people. Our particular program is for homeless children and their mothers.

In one of our Homes for the Homeless, Sarah Elgart, from Los Angeles, created a dance with the mothers, performed in the cathedral. When you came in, you saw a stage that had as its backdrop huge, black plastic garbage bags stacked eight feet high. On the floor were ten or so garbage bags. This was the scene on which the lights came up. Then, the bags on the floor started to move--and the women came out of them. Each mother had a baby, like a rag doll, pinned on. The performance blew everybody away.

Another exchange that's gone on since 1975 has been with a Shinto community in Japan. Oomoto is one of the great centers in Japan for maintaining the traditional Japanese arts. Every year, two artists come and live with us for three months. They work in the public schools and our cathedral school. In the summer, our people go over there for a monthlong summer school for young people of all nations who wish to learn traditional Japanese arts. My oldest daughter went, and it totally changed her life. Later she learned Japanese and went back to learn Japanese silk weaving. Now, she has her own company and sells her work in New York at Takashima. And that came about through one of these exchanges.

Stonecarving is another important example of what artists have done at the cathedral. We've had three master stonecarvers, two from England and one from France. Simon Verity is the one working at the moment on our portal. He's an incredible man who understands the cathedral tradition of monumental limestone-carving. He's completely modern, yet in sync with the other earlier carving that's there--that's the problem of a cathedral.

Another extraordinary thing is the mix of different artists in residence working together: Giullari di Piazza, the commedia dell'arte group; the Thunderbird Singers and Dancers, which is Native American; and the Forces of Nature, which is African American. These three groups, working together, have put together two different intercultural performances--a mix of dance, theater, and music--and when you see it, you weep. It's as simple as that.

Jonathan Borofsky created an incredible sculpture called Fish with Ruby Eye. It was a forty-foot-long fish made of clear plastic bubble wrap shipping tubes. Inside of each was a fiberoptic element. The work was suspended on a track, and as the tubes revolved, the fiberoptic cords in the center of each one progressed through every color in the spectrum. Because the fish hung in the nave, the cathedral itself turned into the ocean. This forty-foot whale was virtually swimming, because the parts were turning and the colors were changing. It was extraordinary. And that remarkable sculpture hanging in the cathedral became a center of great conversation among both the artistic and the religious communities of New York.

St. Francis Day has become very dear; we've done it for twelve years in a row. And every year, we have a procession lead by an elephant and a camel. Last month, six thousand people came--we had to turn away a thousand--and about two thousand four-legged creatures of various denominations. Everybody there was doing something. Forces of Nature and Omega had people dancing. There was a choir of perhaps four hundred people who came from up and down the eastern seaboard. And then we had this extraordinary celebration with all of the dogs and cats, the roaches, the mice, the snakes and parrots.

It's not bedlam, it's very reverent. You weep because it's so beautiful. At the end of the liturgy, the bronze doors at the front of the cathedral open (usually, they only open for the Bishop on Easter), and the elephant starts down the aisle, followed by about nineteen beasts of various kinds. The largest community represented is a large bowl of blue green algae--about thirteen trillion at last count. A tree comes down, a New York rat comes down on a little red velvet cushion, New York cockroaches come down. It's an extraordinary thing to see.

Paul Winter does that for us. The other great, great thing he has done, for fifteen years now, is called the Winter Solstice. It's the longest night and the shortest day of the year; it's the turning point, the return of the light; it's primordial. Before Christmas, before Chanukah, there was the solstice. For this event, all of the arts conspire to use the cathedral--to use the building so it becomes an expressive space. There are four performances, in early December, and each one draws 2,500 people. It's become a true New York tradition, like the Nutcracker. But this is environmental, and unbelievable.

There are about a dozen artists whose funerals have been held at the cathedral. These funerals turned into some of the most extraordinary performances and celebrations we've ever had. Alan Tung, a Chinese dancer. Audre Lorde, a poet. Jim Henson. Jim had written out what he wanted his funeral to be, and his wishes were very clear: He wanted everyone to be in bright clothes, nothing black. He wanted millions of flowers. He wanted a New Orleans marching band. So we had all of that. It was unbelievable. All of the Muppets were there--even Big Bird. Then there was Jimmy Baldwin's funeral. He was an artist in residence. Romare Bearden's funeral. Duke Ellington's. Alvin Ailey's. Keith Haring's funeral. Dizzy Gillespie's. Talk about weeping. You wept because all the guys who originally played with Dizzy Gillespie--these old birds of sixty-five, seventy-five, eighty-five--came up and jammed together. Unbelievable. All of these artists, all of these celebrations, were just out of sight.

On the first day of January, I will be retiring. What am I doing next? I'm going to start a new institution in New York called the Interfaith Center. It will be like a museum, but instead of going to see a whale or a Vermeer, you'll go to see a Buddhist, or a Jew, or a Shinto, or a Christian. It will be like the Holocaust Museum, with interactive exhibits, and a great gallery for artistic treasures, as well as a performance area, so we can have Shinto drumming and African drumming. We want to have a big program with artists in residence and artist exchanges. We hope to get some of the most interesting African and Israeli and Palestinian artists--all the people who are always fighting. We want to get them together to make peace with each other. Most important, we want to train mullas and rabbis and ministers and nuns and priests to be conflict-resolvers. Most of the fights in the world are interethnic, interracial, interreligious. We have a hunch that instead of egging people on, these folks could de-egg them, and we could have peace, not war.

Artists, you have a job to do. We need you!

The Very Reverend James Parks Morton recently retired from the position of Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, a post he held since 1972. While at the cathedral, he helped shape the national discourse on environmental and urban affairs, and, today, is often cited as one of the nation's most eminent social, spiritual, and intellectual leaders. During Dean Morton's tenure, the world's largest cathedral solidified its reputation as being, perhaps, the most active and embracing house of prayer. It is known around the world as a center for worship, social action, the arts, environmental stewardship, and pastoral care. With broad vision and extraordinary dedication, Dean Morton, once again, made the idea of a Gothic cathedral--an institution radically open and effective in its city and the world--into a living reality.

Dean Morton received an A.B. from Harvard University, where he studied architecture under Walter Gropius. In the early fifties, he entered the priesthood, after receiving his A.B. and M.A. in theology from Trinity College, Cambridge University. He began his work as a pioneer in the urban ministry as associate priest-in-charge at Grace Church, in Jersey City. For a decade, beginning in 1962, he focused on urban issues; first, for the national office of the Episcopal Church, and, later, as director of the ecumenical Urban Training Center, in Chicago, whose graduates include Jesse Jackson.

Under Dean Morton's energetic leadership, the cathedral became a nexus for political and social activism, religious thought, and spiritual celebration. Visiting clergy and honorary colleagues included the Dalai Lama, Rene Dubos, Bishop Desmond Tutu, James Lovelock, Teddy Kollek, and Marian Wright Edelman. Dean Morton established the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a leading and still-influential sweat-equity housing program, and went on to become chairman of Homes for the Homeless, a now-independent organization that creates real residences for homeless families. He is a founding director of the ecologically minded Lindisfarne Association and was instrumental in spearheading a movement to bring parliamentary and religious leaders together on environmental issues.

During his tenure, St. John the Divine became a thriving mecca for creative expression. At present, there are nineteen artists in residence--among them, Paul Winter and Philippe Petit--and six performing companies. The cathedral also houses the Muriel Rukeyser Poetry Wall, priceless treasures both ancient and modern, such as the Keith Haring altarpiece and the Barberini tapestries, and regular art exhibitions. Great sculptors continue to work on the cathedral's own facade.

Listed by Time, in 1975, as one of the Top 100 Young U.S. Leaders, Dean Morton has received honorary doctorates from Barnard College, Pratt Institute, the New Seminary, and General Theological Seminary. He has been honored twice with awards from the American Institute of Architects for the cathedral's building program. In addition to his other activities, he also serves as chaplain for the Big Apple Circus.