It happened one afternoon while I was working out in my basement.  I was listening to the song “Answered” from the group Thrice’s album Beggars, a song I had probably heard a half-dozen times before, when I suddenly realized that songwriter Dustin Kensrue was alluding to both the Biblical book of Job and C.S. Lewis’s story Till We Have Faces. An already powerful song opened up to me in new ways, both intellectually and emotionally. It was a revelation I hadn’t discovered on my third or even fifth hearing of the song. My experience of the song’s artistry was actually enhanced with repeated indulgence.

I could say the same for many other experiences I have had with art – good art. Most of the films in my DVD collection moved me profoundly on my first viewing and almost immediately drove me to watch them again. I am still entranced by the slow beauty of The Village, and still trying to figure out the symbolic significance of the rocking chair that recurs throughout the film.

Good art bears up and even flourishes under repeated indulgence.  I am afraid that today the practice of indulging in and creating good art – art that can be returned to repeatedly – is being buried under the wave of commercialized pop culture.  Teenage girls may put Justin Bieber on repeat on their iPods, but will anyone remember his songs in fifteen or twenty years as anything more than a humorously nostalgic memory? Are they rich enough to reveal new facets over time?

This isn’t to say that art must always strive for transcendence all the time. And certainly I enjoy music, films, and books that will most likely fade into history and be forgotten. Perhaps I am more concerned about our culture’s preoccupation with the next best thing. To return to the Bieber example (sorry Justin), the young R&B heartthrob is perhaps about to be upstaged by a new YouTube phenomenon Greyson Chance, who is already being labeled “the new Justin Bieber” for his performance of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi.”  Chance is already getting tracked down by the music industry for a record deal. Is this decision in the interest of producing great music? Not really – it’s more in the interest of emptying the pockets of tween girls.

This same lust for the new spreads out into other areas of pop culture. Let down by Clash of the Titans? Just wait for Iron Man 2. Did it not live up to your expectations? Robin Hood is coming out. Was that a downer? Well there’s always Prince of Persia. And so many moviegoers will proceed throughout the summer. In our clamor for the new and spectacular, is there any place left for quiet revelations? Do we have the patience for art that may not explode, but will sneak up on us and take hold of us unexpectedly?

That said, even explosions may contain substance behind them at times.  It was, after all, on my fourth or fifth viewing of Iron Man that I began to finally see some profound themes and symbolism underlying the story. And that is something most critics observed about that film – what made it such a great superhero movie was not primarily the action, but the personal journey of Tony Stark underlying all the action. And that really is the definition of all art that is worthy of our time: a central core that deserves meditative reflection.

This is why the “classics” are exactly that: classic. They have proven themselves worthy of our attention because they have lasted through time, withstood the repeated inquiry of mankind, and been found useful and enriching again and again. They are precious, because, as Aldous Huxley said, “they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.” Cultures change, but they continue to explore and illuminate to us the great issues of life.

This is why frequent returns to good art are so important. Time and again, we are distracted from these great issues in the details of ordinary life. But as Anne Lamott observed, “art has to point somewhere,” and if it is doing a good job, that is usually beyond our immediate circumstances to something greater – a higher order of things.  Much of pop culture’s art is simply on our level, pointing us to nowhere but our own surroundings and thus to nothing with perspective.

I enjoy summer blockbusters.  I read books and view art that I may not spend time with again.  But there are books, and films, and poems, and paintings to which I will return over and over again, because they are capable of revealing fresh richness, fresh perspective, and fresh direction within the changing contexts of my own personal journey. It’s something to help balance a culture that ever hungers after the next best thing.