A terrific quote on why we need artists, and why we need to listen hard to what the artists of our time are saying, and the questions they are asking-
it's a good antidote to living in the Land of Already-Having-All-The-Answers that is the Christian experience today.
"Art can warm even a chilled and sunless soul to an exalted spiritual experience. Through art we occasionally receive- indistinctly, briefly- revelations the likes of which cannot be achieved by rational thought.
It is like the small mirror of legend: you look into it but instead of yourself you glimpse for a moment the Inaccessible, a realm forever beyond reach. And your soul begins to ache... "
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from "the Nobel Lecture on Literature"
Also, I remember reading a review of that Christian movie starring Kirk Cameron, Fireproof. the reviewer said that it was a solid movie, as far as moving making goes, but that it wasn't a great movie, and that no Christian movie could be, because this religion does not allow for the kind of honesty that real Art requires. Hmmm.
Showing posts with label listening to the artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label listening to the artist. Show all posts
Monday, July 6, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Questions Begin...
I was giving my son a bath one night two weeks ago
and, for the first time,
wondered:
What if this is all there is?
no eternity, no heaven, no going on forever and ever,
no "everything is just going to be okay because God is there."
just my son and I.
Looking at my beautiful boy,
alone together in this shabby bathroom
late at night,
the bubbles cracking in the silence.
looking at him.
two tiny human beings,
alone in the great wide world,
alone in this moment.
Fragile, temporal, vulnerable.
Tiny.
It was exhilarating.
I felt Alive- maybe for the first time.
like a lifelong anesthetic was wearing off my mind-
A Great Dullness was fading away.
I had been living in a world without questions.
I need to start asking, wondering and imagining.
No question is off limits, and all answers are viable options.
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine...
and, for the first time,
wondered:
What if this is all there is?
no eternity, no heaven, no going on forever and ever,
no "everything is just going to be okay because God is there."
just my son and I.
Looking at my beautiful boy,
alone together in this shabby bathroom
late at night,
the bubbles cracking in the silence.
looking at him.
two tiny human beings,
alone in the great wide world,
alone in this moment.
Fragile, temporal, vulnerable.
Tiny.
It was exhilarating.
I felt Alive- maybe for the first time.
like a lifelong anesthetic was wearing off my mind-
A Great Dullness was fading away.
I had been living in a world without questions.
I need to start asking, wondering and imagining.
No question is off limits, and all answers are viable options.
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
