Creative integrity

Sometimes there are articles about issues facing Christians that are just so twee! Like an article I read this morning about facing challenges which basically said to lie back, don't think about the problems and let God do all of the work without getting involved yourself.

*insert appropriate puzzled lost for words look*

Ever heard of being proactive? We have to help ourselves as well, you know! We can't just expect God to miraculously do everything for us, even though He could. We've got to get out there and help things along, as well as realising that often God's answer isn't, "Yes, right away!" to everything we ask for.

But there was an interesting article on Relevant.com called Confessions of an Elitist.

Some people ripped into it a bit, but I think there are some important points happening. Why should we like some well-marketed thing if it's crummy? Why is everything homogenised, processed, pressed down and packed into one mould when it comes to what's popular?? From books to clothes to music to movies to words even!

Good art of any variety is good regardless of its popularity. There are a lot of "no-name" artists out there who produce truly fantastic and inspiring work, while there are Sydney Nolan paintings hanging in galleries that look like he's painted them with the brush up his rear end. The current peasant/hippy thing happening with fashion has some perks but mostly it's not all that fantastic. Most movies that are being made are bollocks - think of Stealth for one and you wonder just what producers, writers and directors are thinking.

Mass-produced music where lots of the artists sound exactly the same, have no real meaning in their songs and don't have a whole lot to say because they're too busy lip-synching is another thing! Okay, I'm a music snob at times, but that doesn't mean that I think that other people shouldn't be allowed to listen to whatever they want. Just don't expect me to want to listen to it voluntarily. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer after all!

Balanced critiques are important (but that's not something I go into with TeleVixen because there are some shows that simply do not deserve balanced views because they themselves don't present any) (which reminds me, Australian Princess is on again tonight and the Etiquette B*tch looks to be in full flight if the ads are to be believed, which is starting to cement my belief that it doesn't matter how well you know how to fold the towels in the bathroom, if you are a savage old witch it simply doesn't matter - your personality truly is the thing that "shines" through).

Creative integrity is equally important. People should be trying to produce things that come from something inside them that inspires them, moves them, challenges them - something that has a meaning. And not just a meaning that's slapped on like, "This fork stuck on a banana represents the struggle and pain of the masses who feel like they are trapped beneath the iron dictatorship of the ruling classes and are crying out for freedom." Works of beauty should also be appreciated. If we couldn't admire works like Circe Invidiosa by JW Waterhouse (my favourite painting in the whole world and the one up in the above left-hand corner) or The Priestess at Delphi by John Collier or The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Divinci or Poplars along the River Epte, Autumn 1891 by Claude Monet or Sunflowers by Vincent van Gough, there would have to be something wrong with us.

We're made to appreciate beauty and pleasure and fun and enjoyment and happiness :)