As I've already mentioned, the words of the prophet Isaiah play a big role in Christian readngs for Advent. And in an entry last week I ruminated about how neither the Old Testament prophets, whom I am studying these days, nor Michaelangelo, who just happened to come to mind as having had an analagous experience, understood their work as something they wanted to do.
This morning in my class on the prophets, our professor started talking about how Amos did not want to be a prophet, did not want to identify himself as a prophet, insisted that he was only a prophet because God had called him into that role - much, he said, as Michaelangelo did not want to be a painter, identified himself as a sculptor, and painted only because the Pope demanded that he do so. And of course the reluctant and unhappy Amos was a prophet par excellence, and the reluctant and unhappy Michaelangelo was a painter of the same caliber.
And where, I thought, have I heard this before?
1 comment:
Indeed!
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