{"id":658,"date":"2021-04-20T08:34:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T12:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=658"},"modified":"2021-04-20T08:34:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T12:34:55","slug":"the-scream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/20\/the-scream\/","title":{"rendered":"The Scream"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Journalist Arthur Lubow called it \u201can icon of modern art, a Mona Lisa for our time.\u201d

If The Scream<\/em> is representative of the spirit of our age, then we live in a deeply unsettling period of history.    

The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch never concealed his insecurities.  His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five.  His favorite sister Sophie died of the same disease less than a decade later.  Terrified that he would not be able to survive his own childhood, fearful that he would be overtaken by the mental illness that seemed to stalk his family, he transformed his anxieties into some of the most memorable artistic creations of the early 20th<\/sup> century. 

A number of Munch\u2019s paintings pack the emotional punch of bad dreams.  He made use of vivid colors, distorted images, and sinister figures to convey a sense of dread. 

The Scream<\/em> was inspired by a walk at sunset in the city of Kristiania sometime around 1893.  He later wrote, \u201cI felt tired and ill.  I stopped and looked out over the fiord.  The sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red\u2026 I stood there trembling with anxiety \u2013 and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature\u2026 It seemed to me that I heard the scream\u2026 The color shrieked.\u201d 

At least one historian has speculated that the blood-red skies represented the remnants of the powerful explosion of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa, which erupted in 1883 and impacted our planet\u2019s meteorology for the next decade. 

Others have noted that from the vantage point of Munch\u2019s painting he could see both a slaughterhouse and the asylum where one of his younger sisters was being treated for psychosis \u2013 features that may have heightened his angst.   

The image got under his skin to such a degree that he created four versions of The Scream<\/em> between 1893 and 1910 \u2013 two in oils and two in pastels.  One of the pastels was recently auctioned for the fourth highest price ever paid for a work of art.   

The shriek of the agonized figure seems to have anticipated the horrors of the coming century, with its trench warfare, blitzkriegs, genocides, and nuclear weapons. 

Some years ago, art experts examining the version that hangs in the National Museum of Norway discovered a message scrawled in pencil in small letters in the upper left hand corner.  It said, \u201cCould only have been painted by a madman.\u201d  At first they assumed it was the work of a critic or a vandal.  But analysis has proved that Munch himself \u2013 terrified of going insane \u2013 defaced his own painting.

The image has become an indelible part of American pop culture.  Think of Kevin screaming in the bathroom in Home Alone<\/em> (with his hands on the sides of his head), and the slasher movie Scream<\/em> and its three sequels, each of which features a killer who wears a Munch-inspired white mask.  Scream 5<\/em>, which no one seems to have asked for, is currently in post-production. 

The Scream<\/em> presents itself as Reality.  This is what life is like for modern people living in an angst-ridden world.

The Bible, by comparison, appears to be a collection of happy thoughts for people who probably need to get out more often. 

Think about it.  Many of those \u201cyou-can-be-rich-and-successful\u201d seminars trot out positive-thinking scripture verses to motivate their participants.  Uplifting Bible texts routinely appear in the inspiring books we present to high school and college graduates every spring.  People who have never actually read the Bible may be forgiven for thinking it\u2019s about as edgy as a Hallmark greeting card. 

Don\u2019t you believe it. 

The 150 psalms of the Old Testament are the record of the emotional life of God\u2019s Chosen People.  At least half of them are \u201claments\u201d \u2013 cries of the heart in the face of physical suffering, betrayal, bereavement, and deep personal loss.  Some of the psalmists shake their fists at God.  They get angry.  They weep.  They scream<\/em>.   

The darkest of the dark is Psalm 88, whose author was clearly in a very bad place:

\u201cI am overwhelmed with troubles, and my life draws near to death.\u201d (verse 3)  \u201cYou have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.\u201d (verse 6)  \u201cI am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief.\u201d (vs. 8-9)  \u201cWhy, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?\u201d (verse 14) \u201cYour wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me.\u201d (verse 16)

The psalmist saves the worst for last.  \u201cYou have taken from me friend and neighbor \u2013 darkness is my closest friend.\u201d (verse 18) 

That has to qualify as the most depressing finale to any chapter in the Bible. 

But it\u2019s real.  It\u2019s raw.  It\u2019s honest.  And many of us have felt exactly the same way.  God doesn\u2019t pretend that his own people will somehow be immune from shrieking. 

So where\u2019s the hope in Psalm 88?

It\u2019s found in only one place \u2013 in the very first verse:  \u201cLord, you are the God who saves me\u2026\u201d  Whenever we pray, whenever we cry out, we are presenting ourselves to the only One who can rescue us.  Perhaps all we can offer after that are sobs, tears, and complaints.  But God can handle it<\/em>. 

In fact, he moves toward us, not farther away.  \u201cThe Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.\u201d  (Psalm 34:18)

Life can make us scream.

But God can turn our most anguished moments into our most important opportunities to cling to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Journalist Arthur Lubow called it \u201can icon of modern art, a Mona Lisa for our time.\u201d If The Scream is representative of the spirit of our age, then we live in a deeply unsettling period of history.     The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch never concealed his insecurities.  His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five.  His favorite sister Sophie… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[215,112],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-psalms","tag-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}