Art n Soul

I love hanging around with creatives.  The energy exchange in a room full of people who openly create is amazing.  I joined in on July's Art & Soul meeting.  It is kind of hard to describe this group.  The organizers Mark and Wendy DeRaud have a mission statement.  Still I felt like I didn't know what I was walking into.  Typical for me when approaching any new group specifically religious ones, I went with a friend and I was ready to run at the first sign of trouble.  I got no trouble.  What I got was a lesson in listening, observing, and sharing.  Things can get uncomfortable when talking about art and religion.  The two were completely intertwined until recent history, but somehow along with the separation of church and state came the separation of church and art, and art and the state.  Art, once the high point and pride of a society has become bastardized by its former supporters.  It's as if in the divorce between church and state, art was the child that ended up surrendered by both.

It was not a gathering of "Christian artists" but rather a gathering of Christians who are artists. The idea being that all art does not have to be topically Christian in order to be valid or celebrate God.  The climax of the meeting was all of us together, sitting, listening to music while we were being open to whatever came to us.  We sat and wrote and sketched.  Praying or crying or just waiting.  Afterward some of us shared what had come to us.  There were many themes, some cliché and obviously inspired by the story of the music, others seem to have no connection to the evening's conversation, music or even what you might think of as traditionally Christian iconography.

The timing of the invitation was perfect.  I have been actively learning to listen and hear over that past year.  I will go back again next month if I can.  I plan to start keeping a journal.  Not of my daily activities or thoughts, but of what I hear.  My goal is to hear so many things that I must write them all down in order to keep track of them.