Art, Baby, Art

 Criticism, a form of negative judgment, is absolutely out of our fellowship picture.

The practice of tolerance is a part of recovery.  It aids spiritual progress and helps us to control our emotions.  We do not believe that tolerance of improper situations makes good sense.  God gave us intelligence to determine between good and bad; therefore, we find as much harm in being tolerant of wrong thought or action as we find in intolerance of the right things.

I do not remember where I found these quotes so I was thinking of pretending they were my quotes but I don't think I'd fool many people. I'd fool Willie, of course - he's pretty stupid - but most of you would see right through my deception.

I continue to slowly, slowly make my way through a volume I bought at a thrift shop for $1.99 called The Reader's Digest of Great Painters. The book is divided into several sections and has about a page and a half on each painter with a few of the more noteworthy paintings or frescoes displayed. I have been using it as a starting point to dig a little more deeply into these masters, these portrayers of the existence of God or of some kind of higher power, if you will. Michaelangelo looked at a massive block of marble and saw his statue of The David encased within and understood that his task wasn't to carve a sculpture but rather to free the figure that already existed from its marble prison. C'mon, you're going to tell me with a straight face that this isn't a demonstration of the existence of something bigger than you? I mean . . . c'mon . . . give me a fucking break.

Once again this attempt of mine to use art, music, nature to grow my spirituality is working best if I don't try to overdo it, to remember everything, to understand everything, to look at every last damn painting the artist ever completed. I'm trying to wear the art world like a loose garment. Anyway, I finished a section on the Post-Impressionists and am starting to dabble in The Great Masters. We've all heard of Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci but several of these men are/were unknown to me. A dude named Giotto stopped me in my tracks as if I was shot with an elephant gun. I had the opportunity to see The David in person many years ago and it rendered me speechless. It was that profound an experience to see that expression of God right in front of me and the statue is big, man, I mean really huge.