Critical Crossroads....

I took the El (public train in Chicago) into the city a few nights ago to an art opening. For those of you who don't live in Chicago, traveling on the El is like being at the United Nations. People from all different backrounds...a true United Nations. It was the end of the day and people were tired. A few passengers were hooked up to their Ipods, a few on cell phones. Mostly, people don't talk or have any eye contact with "the other". My eyes searched for something to focus on...Chicago CTA maps, advertisements, scanning tother passengers. About 1/2 hour into the ride I spotted a man with an Obama for President hat on his head. I immediately felt this strange, warm affinity with him. My face softened and I smiled at him, giving him a thumbs up in recognition of our shared values. I had connected with this "other" CTA passenger in a way I had never imagined.

We are quickly approaching critical crossroads in the history of this country and the world.
The world has never been more fragile. I urge anyone who is reading this blog to dig deep into themselves and do whatever is humanly possible to work for getting Barack Obama elected for President of the United States on November 4th.

If you can, please, please please go to a neighboring swing state and help to register voters before October 4th. If you can, please, please please give of your time and make calls to other voters. This country and the world need us NOW! Volunteer!

Crossroads

How does one reconcile the perfect beauty of a new life with all its purity, innocence and joy with what one reads in the daily newspapers? When an artist thinks about creating a work, do you consider making something beautiful or socially significant, so as to help make the world a better place? (I suppose one can also make socially significant beautiful art but that is another discussion).
So I returned a month or so ago from visiting a new grandchild. What, you might ask, does this have to do with the creative process? Well, it raised a very tough question in my mind which I had difficulty resolving.
Being in the presence of a newborn baby is an awe-inspiring experience. There is something so magnificent and flawless about this little person. It is life in its purist, most uncontaminated form. It is how we all entered this world and is universal to mankind.

And then there is this other world one confronts when reading the news, stories on every conceivable evil that man is capable of… the fundamentalists who feel justified in killing women who do not conform to what they believe is the correct dress, famine, the debates about abortion, the repression of Burmese citizens by one of the most cruel dictatorships in the world today. How does one reconcile these extremes?
This was a question I posed while at a residency at Ragdale. One of the residents, Patty Patterson, (a wonderful writer) left this for me in my mailbox the next day…
“In a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.” Louise Bogan

The following day I found this in my mailbox…
"….what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” Don Pedro Arrupe

Happy Thanksgiving!