"MORE TREASURES FROM THE FILING CABINET - the Importance of the Arts in Your Family"

This week I am sharing more treasures from my filing cabinet as I continue to clear it out, keeping and discarding as I go.
The article I am about to share, speaks about the important place the Arts must have in families. The following quotes come from an article written by Terry W. Glaspey. It is Part One, entitled "The True and the Beautiful"
"Given my own deep love for the arts, to write about their importance seems to me too be a rather strange undertaking, something like trying to defend the necessity of breathing.
..... One of the reasons that art is important to us and our children is that it helps keep us focused on that which is truly beautiful and good. The poet Wordsworth wrote that the mind should be "a mansion for all lovely forms."
..... It (the arts) can provide those moments in which we can put aside the rush of our everyday demands and find a quiet repose. Sometimes our lives seem so disordered, so rushed and harried. We are driven from one activity to the next by the momentum of necessity and spend our whole life missing out on the enjoyment of the present moment.
...... If we do not introduce our children to the exquisite pleasures of truly fine art, we rob them of a magnificent source for making their lives more fulfilled.
..... Art is also of great importance because it trains the inward eye. It helps us to see more deeply and clearly into the realities of our everyday life. It reaches us to awaken our sense and look more searchingly into ourselves and the world which surrounds us.
...... We tend to use art in our culture as a diversion, a leisure activity, a time filler. Therefore, the art that is the least demanding is the art that is the most popular. But the truest art gives us eyes to see more deeply into ourselves and into the world around us. Great art often functions like the shock of cold water across our face.
In our scientific society we focus on the outward appearances of things, on what our senses can interact with. We try to reduce life to the rational sphere, pretending that everything can be rationally dissected, examined and explained. But it cannot. Art reminds us of this truth.
..... Art is reaching after transcendence. It is the probing of the mysteries of life. It awakens the senses; it grips the spirit; it brings us alive; it causes us to see. Art is the bridge between the natural and the spiritual realm; it focuses us to see that there is more to life than meets the eye."
THISWEEKWITHTHEKIDS ~ give some thought to how you can increase the Arts in your family. Visit an art gallery of your local library for some inspiring books in areas of the arts that you are unfamiliar with. Just start browsing and you will stumble on things which will lead to new ideas and hopefully new practices that make your children's lives "more fulfilled."
Cathy