Tapestries, loose threads, and loose screws.

We here are on the wrong side of the tapestry. The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else.

--Chesterton, GK. Father Brown Mystery Stories.

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I wonder how often a writer, thru creative art, actually manages to crane their neck around to get a glimpse of "the other side of the tapestry"? And, is that the result of a bold and stunning imagination? Divine gift? Or both?

Does a writer lend meaning to the meaningless? Discover patterns that are truly present or merely imagined?

This, I think, is the delight and dilemma for the writer...am I seeing something real and making it more clear for my readers? Or, is this just, as Solomon said, a "vanity," the product of a fertile imagination?

To answer this question...well, I'm going to point in the direction where I think answers await...I suggest Narnia and Middle Earth. Whattaya think?

Did Lewis and Tolkien see something new? Or the old in new and exciting and memorable ways?

That's my question for the day...

PS: whilst I used the term "writer," perhaps better would be, "honest seeker of truth via the creative arts."

PPS: Tapestry--NOT the place to go tugging at loose threads. Art and littyature--oh yeah. Sometimes I think it's fun to go looking for a thread that, while not exactly loose, isn't quite aligned with its neighbors. Tug and run, what fun!

PPPS: Some creative pursuits may look like the loose thread isn't loose at all--it's the artist's screws that are a little loose! I think creativity and eccentricity and loosey-goosey-ness are pretty close together on a continuum that ends with --van Gogh? Jack Kerouac? Your candidate(s)?

PPPPS: I think sometimes "the other side of the tapestry" is hiding in plain sight, and we try to make things too complicated, look for "the big answers" when meaning and purpose and value is right in front of us...in the little things. Such as? Children and their absolute joy in discovering something new to them. A dog at play--is there a more clear and direct demonstration of joy than that? Sunsets, sugar maple trees bedecked in their regimental colors in September, a mountain range, chocolate, Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms! Ahhhhhhh.


There is no element of genius without some form of madness.
--Leonardo DiCaprio (I hated attributing it to him. Even though I found the quote attached to his name, I had a hard time giving a Hollywood feller credit...so I looked it up...shure 'nuff, also attrib to Seneca and Aristotle!)