Experiencing Works of Art

          It requires time, patience and discipline to engage with artistic expressions, three qualities that our hurry-and-get-it-done-now world neither appreciates nor encourages.  To walk past a painting and pretend that we have perceived it, is to deceive ourselves.  To watch a movie while talking with friends, unless we have seen the movie before, removes the depth of experience that the filmmaker is offering to us.  To look at pottery in a potter’s showroom, without carefully feeling the nuances of the form, is to miss the joy of the work and the connection with the act of creation.

            To receive the impact of a work of art, one must engage that work, and then integrate the response into one’s thoughts and meditations.  This is nothing less than the careful discipline that any other form of spiritual nourishment requires, in order to fully receive the gift that is offered in that moment.