On Creative Work by Ira Glass
Here’s some good advice and things to remember from Ira Glass, the host of This American Life.
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Must Art Teach a Lesson?
I have read many theological discussions and defenses of the arts, and I am always torn in my response to them. For one thing, it saddens me when we feel the need to justify art by making it serve some other non-artistic purpose like teaching morality. But also, many of these defenses of art (think of Christian justifications for fantasy) seem to be afflicted with excessive seriousness, even self-importance. Do I believe that art can be a catalyst for social change, a commentator on the human condition, a conveyer of truth, a powerful agent of transformation in people’s lives? Yes! But to have to go about our business as artists while wearing that heavy mantle of responsibility seems crippling to me.
- Jennifer Trafton in the very fine essay, “The Art of Play.”
Read MoreWriting is Easy
While this is not necessarily inspirational, it does remind me that it is normal if the process of composing is often difficult, tiring, and taxing. It also made me chuckle. Here is a reflection on writing from Gene Fowler:
Read MoreWriting is easy: all you have to do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.”
An Eternal Appetite for Infancy
At a recent conference, Betty Todd Smith, a wonderful conference presenter said, “Children never tire of repetition. It is we adults who hate the monotony of repetition.” That sentence really struck a chord with me as a piano teacher. I am also trying to think of ways to make the repetition more interesting to the student, but perhaps I am the one that gets bored.
A few days later, my husband reminded me of this beautiful and even more life-altering quote about repetition given by G. K. Chesterton:
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity to make all daisies appear alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never grown tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite for infancy: for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
I think my perspective cannot help but be different tomorrow.
[Photo by seemsartless.com]
Read MoreSpiritus Mundi
Here is a poem by Kansan Amy Fleury that I am currently mulling over and is this weeks’ featured Inspiration Point.
Spiritus Mundi
Listen around to the long sentence the land is saying,
to the wind rumoring through the aggregate of grasses.
Hear the soft explosions of all that is tilled under,
a scumble of clods cleaved by the blade, the sheared leavings
of wheat, and memory, memory, a root system still
drilling down, searching out moisture, anything that’s useful,
anything dear. Do you recognize your own shy gestures
in the weft of the fields? Oh sisters and brothers,
let the gentle tether of our longing keep us here
among the undulant, amber barley and russet oats.
And if all flesh is grass, then let us live humbly, as grasses do.
In sympathy, we shall shiver and bend, pressing our knees
into the earth, turning our faces to the quavering sun
– Amy Fleury
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What I Gave…[Inspiration Point]
Image credit: http://hoocher.com/George_Frederick_Watts/George_Frederick_Watts.htm
Read MoreThe Latin phrase sic transit gloria mundi means ‘thus passes the glory of the world’. Watts shortened it because his subject ‘was not so much the passing of the glory of the world but rather the end of all human existence’.
The foreground objects symbolize the futility of material wealth. The ermine, used on robes of state, denotes power; the lute and book refer to the Arts; the laurel crown and goblet to fame and luxury; the armor and weaponry to military victory. The inscription reads ‘What I spent, I had, What I saved, I lost, What I gave, I have’.
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