In this post I want to suggest that Goldsworthy's art might also be a way of thinking about how God exercises "power" and influence in the world.
The idea I have is that God acts in the world in a way that is non-coercive but ordering and creative. I'm thinking here of the Spirit of God hovering over the deep in Genesis and bringing order out of the chaos. God is creator here in an artistic sense, working on rough, disordered raw material. God is that creative, artistic Spirit at work bringing beauty into existence. Goldsworthy's art seems to be a perfect metaphor for this.
The idea I have in mind is that God's power and activity in the world is this creative, ordering, nourishing force that swims against the tides of entropy, death, decay and disorder.
And because the force is loving, non-coercive, non-rivalrous, non-competitive, and non-violent it is ever vulnerable to the dark tides of life. Consequently, this loving, creative force is fragile, episodic and transient.
But this force is always present, always working, always inserting itself, always interrupting, always haunting, always calling, always healing, always whispering, always nourishing, always mending, always enchanting, always singing, always knitting, always soothing, always caressing, always weeping, always laughing, always composing, always painting, always nursing, always creating.
It is that Divine Spirit hovering over the face of the chaotic deep calling life and goodness into existence.
