This visual poem was my final project for the Christian Imagination class at Regent College in the winter semester of 2011. The ideas are the expressions and evolutions of the themes that were dealt with in the course. The basic idea of the video is that we, (the created images of God in his temple), are the breath of God in the world. The visual poem makes use of the concept of Tibetan Prayer flags: as the wind blows over them they release blessing into the world. However it takes the idea and subverts it. In terms of being God's Image in the world, we are both the flags and the wind. We take the breath of God with us as we live in creation. As Tolkien said, we create in the same way in which we were made. We were made from dust and breath. God took something that existed and he breathed himself into it. That is what we do, as we create, we take that which exists and we add something of ourselves to it. God made us in his image, we make things in our own image too. We add ourselves to things. I have done that with this video. I have taken the idea of the prayer flags and subverted it to fit my idea. I have also taken the old hymn and slightly changed the words to fit my concept. Lastly, I have done the entire soundtrack using my own breath, for the wind, for the poem and for the song.

My hope is that all of us would realise that we are God's way of making creation sacred. We voice creation's praise (Jeremy Begbie) as we take it and add ourselves to it and offer it back up to God.

I hope you enjoy.

Theran Knighton-Fitt

This was the creative project for a class on the book of John in the New Testament "John: the Life of God to the World" In the Summer Term of 2011 at Regent College in Vancouver Canada. The class was taught by Rikk E. Watts. Of the various project options I chose the one that included an academic paper and a creative project.

For my paper I looked at the idea of how water is used in John as a polyvalent symbol and how it interacts with other symbols - specifically wine and blood.

Here is the first paragraph of the paper

"In this paper I will show that John’s unique use of polyvalent symbolism effectively communicates Christ’s mysterious, all-encompassing invitation to partake of his life. I will argue that Johannine symbolism invites us into a higher story, a mystery that normal words cannot express. I will show specifically that the nature of John’s symbolic use of water shifts throughout his gospel in such a way that it becomes more inclusive and invitational as it progresses. I will also outline how the all-encompassing invitation in his water symbolism plays itself out: as its meaning shifts, as it interacts with other symbols, as it speaks to Jewish tradition, and, ultimately what the invitation means for us as we are included into the life of Christ. In Christ all things hold together and in John’s water motif we see God bringing together many things in Christ."

As you can imagine not everything was able to be included into this visual poem that tries to express these themes. Also, being art, it takes on its own identity too and as such it is not just the video demonstration of the academic paper. However the themes all intersect and my choice to do a creative project instead of a longer paper was specifically related to the idea that I believe John's use of symbolism and imagery more effectively communicates truth than mere academic argument. So to do justice to John, one needs to think and communicate creatively, as indeed I believe we need to do if want to do justice to truth at all.