Lately I’ve been so inspired by artists–people putting sounds and words and images and action to the things we feel and know and want to know.  Sometimes things we don’t want to know.  Bobby posted a link to a really amazing performance of Pink’s "Dear Mr. President," and I cried much of the way through.  Natasha Bedingfield’s Unwritten makes me cry, too–tears that are all about hope and joy and a deep, deep yearning.  Watch a video here.  Or just read the lyrics.

And there’s this artist, in Columbia, making guitar’s out of guns, instruments of destruction into instruments of peace and construction.  "Violence fears love because it is stronger," he says in the interview.  "Violence fears my voice because it goes beyond death."  Gah!  So beautiful.

I could list hundreds and hundreds more.  And these are musicians, but what about painters, sculptors, writers, poets–the host of souls doing the frivolous work of prophecy?  The "not-a-real-job" of waking us up, lifting us up, agitating us toward action? 

Who can say art is an extra in this life, an added film of icing on all the real stuff?  I say art is essential.  Like the heart that keeps our blood alive.

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