ravenzin

From the page: Art is so much more than the production of "artifacts." It is the shaping of a soul....Creativity, like holiness, is the product of self-denial through the cultivation of spiritual disciplines. Whatever it is, it emerges through difficult labor, through the cultivation of judgment and discernment....Superficial notions of creativity tend to affirm superficial notions of religious practice....But all of this talk about creativity, culture, and artistic practices is not just important for those Christians in the arts. It is just as relevant for theologians, philosophers, and pastors who are eager to learn from art or to fold in the aesthetic in their work. Rather than co-opt the popular misperceptions and distortions of pop culture "creativity" and "culture"--”the "look" of creativity--”theologians, philosophers, and pastors must learn from the deep asceticism of authentic artistic practices, from Melville and Dickinson to Pollock and Part.