Drugs, alcohol, spinning around in circles till we get dizzy, the feeling of connection with fellow humans at an exciting concert, sports event or religious service are all ways that we go beyond the arid dayliness of much of our lives and into a different rhelm. Sure, people tell us all the time that getting high is unhealthy, wrong, sinful, unenlightened, etc. etc., but we still do it. We break laws if we have to, create toxic relationships for the high of forbidden,illegal, even violent love, all for the excitement of that high. Why?
I was listening to a radio program where folks were bemoaning the rash of binge drinking among high school and college students. They talked on and on about how bad it was for their bodies and minds, and how they were wasting the best years of their lives loaded on alchohol, and wondered what could be done about it and what was being done. No one in the whole program asked why students did the deed to such excess.
I remember when I was in high school. Ah, it seems like a paradise now compared to what kids experience in public schools this day and age, and the reason is that we had so many creative programs. Band, chorus, P.E., art, shop, and home economics were all offered. (I know, how is P.E. creative? we'll because if you're good at a sport, you make it an art. Think of Magic Johnson and you'll see what I mean. And in my public school in the age of the dinosaur we were taught gymnastics and dance as well as team sports in P.E.)
In today's schools, the culture is so worried about "getting ahead" that the focus, and the budget, only take core curriculum subjects seriously. The arts are a frill. A FRILL!
I heard today on Carolyn Casey's program the author John Burdett say something like the arts are food for the soul. They take what's toxic in a culture and transform it into spiritual nourishment.
Spiritual nourishment is what we're all yearning for. Without any kind of introduction to the transformative power of art, how can young people, or any of us, discover their/our own power to create? How can they and we nourish our souls, enrich our lives, and see the world with new eyes?
Well, we can get high.
We can also tap into the undying creative spirit of us all. Let that spirit go. We need it, all of it, to show the way to a brighter, happier, and more fulfilling future. Save the World. Do your ART!
Love, Kristine
Finding Method in the Madness:
