In the early evening we see the stars begin to appear as the sun disappears over the horizon. The light of day gives way to the darkness of night. A stillness, a healing quiet comes over the landscape. It's a moment when some other world makes itself known, a numinous presence beyond human understanding. We experience the vast realms of space overwhelming the limitations of our human minds. As the sky turns golden and the clouds reflect the blazing colors of evening, we participate for a moment in the forgiveness, the peace, the intimacy of things with each other.
~ from "The Great Community of Earth" by Thomas Berry in "Earth Letter" -- September 2001
The recovery of faith in our creativity and in the artist within each of us and the artists among all of us is no small thing. It has to do with the rekindling of the spark of hope and vision, of adventure and blessing, that a tired civilization needs...
The recovery of faith in our creativity
and in the artist within each of us and
the artists among all of us is no small
thing. It has to do with the rekindling of
the spark of hope and vision, of
adventure and blessing, that a tired
civilization needs...
If it is true, as Paul says, that "we are
God's work of art," then everything we
have said about art as meditation applies
to the delight, wonder, admiration,
surprise that God takes at our birth and
continual unfolding.
One hundred years ago the painter and poet William Blake lamented the ever-increasing violence of industrial society with these words: "Art degraded, Imagination Denied, War Govern'd the Nations." The dominance of war and war mentalities... all this is the price we have paid in the West for denying imagination, repressing or forgetting it, and thereby degrading art… To create is always to learn, to begin over, to begin at zero... With art as meditation we truly listen to the cosmos within us and around us and give birth to the ongoing cosmogenesis of our world...
