Contributors: Makoto Fujimura & E. Lily Yu
Heading image: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Star of the Kings: A Night Piece, c. 1651. Etching on paper, 9.5 x 14.3 cm. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Public Domain.
A Note from IAMCultureCare
Happy New Year from IAMCultureCare!
The past week I’ve been reflecting on Epiphany, the day in the Christian liturgical calendar celebrating either the visit of the Magi (in the western church) or the baptism of Christ (in the east). Both instances mark the end of the Christmas season and reflect on a particular way that Christ was revealed to the world.
“Epiphany” is an unusual word, both in how it’s used today and etymologically. While the word itself has a specific theological meaning, it has also entered common, secular use to refer to a moment of sudden inspiration or revelation generally. Etymologically it is an old word, older than much of our English lexicon. It is an almost-exact transliteration from the koine Greek epiphainein (“to manifest, display; come suddenly into view”, virtually unchanged through Late Latin and Old French), but ultimately originates in the Greek prefix epi- (“on”) + the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European root word bhā- (“to shine, glitter”).
These connotations of sudden light and sight are appropriate on multiple levels. An epiphany is a moment of searing clarity where a truth, hitherto obscured or overlooked, is suddenly revealed in sharp focus. Like a shaft of sunlight suddenly breaking through clouds after a storm, lighting upon some drenched and now scintillating tree trunk, epiphanies shine. There is a luminosity that changes everything else in the field of view. There is a naturalness to it, an “aha” moment where you know deep down that it simply must be so and ask, “How did I ever see it differently?”.
And like the ray of sunlight, an epiphany seems to come from something external. It is an inexplicable, un-ignorable bursting of Reality into the human consciousness from without the bounds of our normal experience. To be human is to be constrained by the limits of time. The present is the only medium in which we have agency and contact with reality. The past, while it is remembered, can be an interpretive lens that gives meaning to our present reality, but it isn’t as fully present as — well — the present. The future too is an unreality until we live it, no matter how well we succeed in “predicting” it. An epiphany breaks the otherwise-fixed lens of time. Or, to borrow language from Jared Stacy’s essay series in this newsletter a year ago, an epiphany is a kairic moment that reframes our chronic existence. It transcends the past, present, and future, allowing us to ‘see’ reality in a more expansive way than we could before. Great writing, great art, great music, have this epiphanic quality. Our perception shifts, not only of and through the medium at hand — the novel, painting, particular bit of the natural world, breakthrough, or human being — but also of our understanding of reality and our place in it.
Of course, this sounds very grand and theoretical. But I think it rings true, especially for those of us in this community who have experienced the epiphanies of making and participating in the arts. I’ll risk sounding like a broken record with another reference to T.S. Eliot. His poem “Journey of the Magi” is an apt seasonal example of (the) epiphany: the speaker — one of the Christmas magi — recounts his journey to Bethlehem as an old man. But rather than the sanitized sentimentality we’ve come to expect of the Christmas story, his telling betrays an explicit unease. At the end of the journey is an epiphany, a mysterious insight into the nature of life and death that the speaker cannot escape from, even years later. The speaker’s vision of reality has expanded, leaving the speaker haunted but fuller for it. I won’t spoil the poem further. Go, read the three brief stanzas on your own this week (or better yet, with a friend, as Makoto Fujimura encourages in his action steps below).
Perhaps not all epiphanies are a matter of life and death, but they all reveal truths of significance that once seen cannot be shaken off. That’s how I feel about E. Lily Yu’s recent book, Break, Blow, Burn, and Make, which is a brilliant reflection in part on what makes a work of writing great (and therefore epiphanic). I must confess that I started reading it far too long ago (I am haunted by a perpetually growing stack of books half-read), but I am picking it back up and loving it. Mako and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a book to start the new year. It is ripe with Culture Care themes. Yu does not waste a word, which isn’t to say that her style is terse, but like the best prose each sentence is poetic in its craft and clarity. And curious about her title? It comes from the fourteenth of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets poems, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God”, which has just been set to music by Joanna Marsh. Give the song a listen, and whether you like or dislike it, it’s fun to compare to Benjamin Britten’s phrenetic setting of the same text.
Jacob Beaird, Editor
A Note from Makoto Fujimura, Founder of IAMCultureCare
The Hammer and the Fire: Creativity as Calling
“A hammer in the hand of a carpenter is fulfilling the purpose for which it was made.”
– E. Lily Yu, Break, Blow, Burn, and Make: A Writer’s Thoughts on Creation
In our recent Forum on Life & Faith at All Saints Church, Princeton, I had the privilege of interviewing author E. Lily Yu, whose work brims with the tension, beauty, and mystery of creating in a fractured world (read the full interview on my Substack page). Her books, On Fragile Waves and Break, Blow, Burn, and Make, reflect not only her formidable talent but her willingness to face the suffering, doubt, and holy stubbornness that mark the path of an artist of faith.
Lily’s journey resonates deeply with the calling of Culture Care. I identified with her solitary, meandering journey of faith as an artist. She spoke of the years-long process, starting as a Princeton student doing physics research in Australia, of writing On Fragile Waves, her novel about asylum seekers journeying from Kabul to Australia. It was a project, she admitted, that told her she wasn’t yet good enough to write it — but one that transformed her as she persisted. “[Y]ou’re being revised, you’re being written into, even while you’re writing,” she reflected.
This paradox — the fire that breaks and remakes — lies at the heart of art and faith alike. As Lily reminded us, creation is not an escape from suffering, but a response to it, a way of honoring the beauty and dignity of every soul beloved by God. As Culture Care advocates, we know this calling too. Whether through painting, writing, or simply supporting the work of others, our creativity is a way of saying, “You are loved. You matter. Your story belongs here.”
Lily described this as a process of “striking each blow with satisfaction,” echoing the hammer in the carpenter’s hand. The hammer does not question its purpose; it trusts the hand that wields it. So, too, do we trust that the work we do — however small or unseen — is part of a greater building.
Lily’s story reminds us that creativity is rarely born from ease. Her upbringing was marked by tensions in identities: the daughter of devout immigrant parents who discouraged her artistic aspirations, she had to then fight for her calling, having committed to becoming a physicist. Later, she faced rejection after rejection as publishers deemed her work too uncategorizable, too risky. But she persisted.
Her perseverance was not fueled by certainty but by honest, fragile faith that allowed her to embrace the brokenness of the process. “It came together, and it worked, and it was alive, by the grace of God,” she said, reflecting on her fourth draft of On Fragile Waves.
At IAMCultureCare, we often speak of resisting the fear-driven narratives of our age with acts of creative hope. E. Lily Yu’s work embodies this resistance. Her writing acknowledges the bleakness of the world — “It’s devastating and perfect,” a New York Times reviewer wrote of her novel — but it does not leave us there. There is humor, too, and an unwavering belief in the capacity of love to redeem even in the darkest of tales.
As Lily shared her journey, she pointed to a larger discovery. She is not just writing or making as a self-expression; she, herself, is being built into something larger. This is the heart of Culture Care: creating not in isolation but in community, knowing that our work contributes to a greater whole, a kingdom not of this world but breaking into it.
As we enter this new year, let us take Lily’s words as both a challenge and a comfort: to create with the compassion touched by eternity, to press on through the breaking and remaking, and to trust that the hand guiding our hammer has a vision far beyond what we can see.
Grace and peace,
Mako
Recommended Action Step for 2025: If you don’t have one already, start a Culture Care Group of your own! Gather a few friends and meet regularly to discuss some shared cultural experience and consider how it might inform your faith and creative practice. Some ideas: visit a local exhibit, watch a film, or read a good book, such as Break, Blow, Burn, and Make. You can also check out my books Art+Faith: A Theology of Making (and the free Reader’s Guide) and Culture Care to get more ideas. Then, consider sharing your progress and upcoming events with our community here. We’d love to hear from you and feature your efforts.
Stay tuned for more resources on our Substack (the paid subscription benefits IAMCultureCare directly) and updates here for IAMCultureCare’s 2025 initiatives.
Culture Care Events & Announcements
- Beauty & Justice Lecture Series and Exhibit — Philadelphia, PA, 2024 – 2025. Makoto and Haejin Shim Fujimura selected as University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Social Equity & Community’s Equity in Action Visiting Scholars for the 2024 – 25 academic year, presenting lectures on the topic of“Beauty+Justice”. The final two lectures will occur on February 11 and March 7, with an exhibition of Mako Fujimura’s works from March 14-April 13, 2025. RSVP here for the upcoming events.
- Windrider Summit—Park City, UT, Jan 26—31. It’s not too late to register! Join the Windrider Institute at the Sundance Film Festival.
- “Of the Earth” Exhibit—Charlottesville, VA, Now – Jan 16. IAMCC community member Christen Yates has paintings on view at the Welcome Gallery in Charlottesville.
- Fujimura Exhibit at the ARC Conference—London, UK, Feb 17 – 19. The conference will include an exhibition of Makoto Fujimura’s major paintings, including the historic Four Holy Gospels frontispieces and other larger works.
- Missio Alliance Awakenings Conference—Washington D.C., Mar 6 – 8. Makoto and Haejin Fujimura to speak on wholeness and beauty.
- Leaders Like Us Global Summit—Wheaton, IL, Mar 23 – 25. Makoto and Haejin Fujimura to speak to the conference topic of “Owning Our Calling with Confidence”.
Do you have a news item or upcoming culture care event? Consider sharing it with us for a possible feature here in the newsletter! Email jacob@internationalartsmovement.org.
Web Links
- December Belonging Conversation from Makoto Fujimura and Julia Hendrickson.
- Plough Magazine combines regenerative farming and magazine editing in their summer internship for university students.
- Makoto Fujimura interviews the brilliant E. Lily Yu.
- How do we store the records of our existence for the long haul in a digitally-mediated age? Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab gives a compelling warning and call toward preservation.
- An answer to this archival warning, the Public Domain Review just published its sister site Public Domain Image Archive, searchable by category or a scrolling “infinite view”.
- Also from the PDR, a collection of 19th- and early 20th-century eerie photographs of snowmen.
- The Ashmolean Museum’s art Advent calendar is delightful.
- If you can make it, don’t miss the MET’s “Siena: The Rise of Painting” exhibit, which closes Jan 26.
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