20 April, 2005

Regarding beauty..

I'll leave a real post soon but for now I'm crazy crunched for time. Have there ever been times in your life where you feel like your days are constantly filled, but you half-wonder what it is you're doing? Yeah...

So I was working on a paper I'm turning into my Advanced Expository Writing class regarding Christians and art. I'm tackling a number of issues regarding the thing, but mainly I am discussing how Christian artists should gauge their art: with excellence, humility and purpose. Anyway, when I was searching for good sources yesterday I came across a couple of soul-stirring quotes in "Walking On Water" a memoir by Madeleine L'Engle (also author of "A Wrinkle in Time."

Regarding worrying about the art you're producing:

"You must once and for all give up being worried about successes and failures. Don't let that concern you. It's your duty to go on working steadily day by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes, which are inevitable, and for failures." --Chekov

Regarding the beauty that blossoms from the pain:

"It is interesting to note how many artists have had physical problems to overcome, deformities, lameness, terrible loneliness…It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.

We are hurt; we are lonely; and we turn to music or words, and as compensation beyond all price we are given glimpses of the world on the other side of time and space."

So in essence, perhaps music and art are but a mere taste of Heaven...I like that...

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