Writing is Magic.

Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. 

The water is free. 

So drink. 

Drink and be filled up.

 Stephen King, On Writing.

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To paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth giver. In a very real sense the artist should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.'

Madeline l'Engle. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.

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Art gives me life. It is the deepest expression of the human soul. 

I make it because I have no other choice.

T. C. Boyle, author.

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 Sheesh, I'm thinking I have something to add to these voices? They're too brilliant...but, I can observe that these three different authors offer us powerful insights into the creative act. All three seem to see creativity as something that pulls them forward or lifts them up, something bigger than themselves...frankly, is something that transcends reality.

Writing wrongs?

I write because it's right.
I write because I haven't left.
I write because it'd be wrong to not write.

I cannot say, as does my hero Stephen King, that I have to write, that I sneak away to write on evenings and holidays and weekends and on vacation. Hm.

However, I do love the creative process, bringing to life something that has never, ever existed, something unseen, unuttered, utterly unique. A newborn baby, if you will.

I write because the voices in my head tell me they'll...oops, shhhh.



"To write, or not to write...that is the question."

“DEATH WITH DIGNITY”

[Okay, in this post I'm doffing my "creative writer hat" and regressing...to Doctor David--I studied and have taught medical ethics, so I feel qualified to speak on the topic of...]

“DEATH WITH DIGNITY”

Who hasn't heard of the founder of ethical medical practice, Hippocrates, or at least of that oath of his that doctors take? I'd bet hardly anyone reading this would even consider googling his name. But did you know what that oath was really all about?

By pledging to “first do no harm,” and to avoid medicines that were known to cause abortions, Hippocrates reveals to us two profundities:

1. He had a deep sense of the sacredness of life, both living and unborn;
2. He was reacting to a medical culture around him, a culture where one could apparently buy off a doc to have him commit murder-for-hire!

Thus, Hippocrates insisted that his trainees should make a solemn oath to provide unbiased, ethical care for all patients.

Over this last week, the sad case of Brittany Maynard brought to light once again the issue of “death with dignity.”

AKA, suicide.

AKA, a doctor slipped the ethical bounds that should transcend historically-ungrounded state laws. A doctor prescribed for her exactly what Hippocrates pledged to never do.

Why is this case touted as “changing the debate”?* Because our ADHD-addled media refuses to look long enough in the rear-view mirror of history to realize that the only reframing of the topic is that now we have a social media that multiplies the sense of proximity of this sad story. However, the story is as old as Job: “I'm suffering and wish I could die.” Job, you may argue, did not have terminal cancer. True. Neither do many of those who are terminating their lives in the Low Countries...as Belgium and the Netherlands are setting what I regard as unfortunate standards in this pursuit of “death must be better than living.”

No, in the Hippocratic, Hebrew, and Christian philosophies, life has meaning, above and beyond and through suffering. No, suffering is not good—don't trot out that old saw—nobody with any sense is arguing that, and if you insist that's what I'm saying...shut up, you're not listening to me but to your a priori conceptions. [Buh-bye!]

[Alas, there are some out there who might indeed argue or misstate that suffering is good. NO! There may come good fruit, as the Bible asserts, but suffering is not good in and of itself. Period.]

 

*Quote from USA Today, Mon, 11/3/14. “She's changed the debate by changing the audience,” the article continues. Since when do facts change because they're aired in a different setting? Really?

Too Much Media

Even without all the political ads, this is how I often feel about electronic media.

(Mebbe you feel this way about my posts?)

Turn off the tube and pick up a book, we say to kids, but do we model this behavior?

I hope so!

(Thanks for posting this graphic, Paul!)

Chasing the Truth by All Means, Part 3...

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject

or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

Robert Sapolsky, WHY DON'T ZEBRAS GET ULCERS. p xii.

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And...the same false dichotomy is drawn between science and Christianity. YES, one can do both, and, humbly speaking, I think they can both be done well. Case in point, Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project. I did find a reference to a few others, if yer interested.

And, many the scientific mind is captivated by the arts. As I write, there hangs on the wall to my right a vibrant painting in the Chinese ink-and-brush style by my friend, Phil Booth. A metals engineer. Cite your own acquaintances. A college roommate said his dad had to choose twixt pursuing career as concert pianist and surgeon. I started college not knowing whether to study biology or music or Spanish. So, I kept a coupla toes in the water with both other options as I delved and delighted in the mysteries of living creatures.

Okay, my main point here is that there's a lot of stereotyping:
--All Christians are mindless adherents to outdated, cultic belief systems.
--Scientists cannot have any integrity if they adhere to the Christian faith.
--The arts don't really matter, they don't have anything to do with truth, being products of the human imagination.
--add yours below....

Let's drop the stereotypes and try to do as Stephen Covey said, "Let's agree to listen to each other, until we understand each other...you go first."

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(Me, practicing perspective.)