Art (with a Big A)

Wow. This is apparently my 301st post. I'm still amazed that anyone would be interested in anything I have to say. Thanks for reading, everyone. And thank you for making comments -- either here or on FB. Always encouraging.

And speaking of comments, a friend commented on my "Complexity in Unity" post a while back and recommended a book to me: Walking on Water, by Madeleine L'Engle. A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books when I was a kid (the Young 'Un just read it and liked it, too), so I was curious to read more by L'Engle.

Love this book. Love it, love it, love it!! I'm reading a library copy and I'm going to have to buy my own so I can mark it up and absorb it more thoroughly. She's talking about Art and Christianity. About how Art (with a big A, in my mind) is by nature incarnational, a spiritual act. How it feeds our deep hungers. How it helps the meaningful finds its place in our psyche.

Very right-brained stuff. It occurs to me lately how left-brained I have been for most of my life. As much as I've always been into music and drama and dance, those endeavors, if I'm honest, were always about me -- me looking good in front of an audience. It really is only in the last several years that the right side of my brain has woken up and I've really come to appreciate Art (with a big A). I've read of studies that show that almost all of us in the preschool years are right-brained . . creative . . divergent thinkers . . artistic. It only takes a couple years of formal schooling to beat the right side of our brain into meek submission. How very, very sad.

(This also may explain how my very right-brained, artistic eldest child -- the Big 'Un -- relates so well to preschoolers. Hmm.)

I'm so glad that I've woken up. My life is so much richer now, full of metaphor and pattern and narrative and rhythm and symbol. Even God spoke to us in parables and poetry. How can we --who are made in His image, who are to strive to be Christ-like -- settle for half a brain?