Stepping into a Calm Rhythm and How the Church can Fix Culture

I got my first writing assignment at 12:00mn my time.  But I was sleeping then and was just able to open it early this morning.  I am too eager to delve into it and read all 6 poems through the practice of lectio divina.  But I held back.  I don't want to rush into such a sacred moment most especially since I know I'm not in a complete disposition to appreciate the words and soak in them during a busy weekday.  There is still so much to improve on time management.

Yesterday's weight was primarily caused by my inability to handle pressure from other people who had a different work rhythm.  Perhaps you can also say, a different work ethic or a different work value.  I had an early unexpected meeting that asked for the extraction of an urgent report.  Suffice to say, this report is indeed important but what didn't make sense to me was how many ways can such data be manipulated until the outcome is satisfactory?  It feels like pounding sand.  How far can sand be reduced to smaller grains of matter?  

Accepting another person's idiosyncrasies is crucial when we want to leave harmoniously in the work place or anywhere else.  But how far do we need to accept?  How far do we need to bend?  

I couldn't bend so far and hence the headache that affected my disposition the whole of yesterday.  The only thing I ended up looking forward to was my writing lesson.  

Right now I'm relaxing into a calm rhythm.  The meeting this morning has been postponed and I'm just letting it be without having to get too worked up in disappointment.  Searching through the archives of artsandfaith.com landed me into a really thought provoking article written in 2004 by Barbara Nicolosi.  The article is entitled "Easy Things the Church can do to Fix Culture".  

It's a wonderful read that has given me quite an adrenalin rush for five minutes.  Confirming that deep rooted desire that still exists in me to remain an advocate of the arts and how it enhances a person's journey into the faith.  My favorite passages quoted below:

If we are going to get a new generation of young people to make a foray into these influential worlds, we have to stop acting and talking like they are innately evil and dangerous to the soul. We need to stop talking like we are outsiders on this planet, watching through the windows while the world marches into hell on the other side. Our speech needs to be “my” culture, not “the” culture. We live here, too. We own the airwaves and the museums and the public discourse as much as any other group. As Pope John Paul II has said, we need to re-enter “that fruitful dialogue” with the arts that used to define the People of God, seeing the arts not just as something to be studied but as a lens through which to study many things — art as a real “source of theology,” as a companion to history, as the response to the sciences. 

The sad fact is, with all of the Catholic colleges and universities in this country, there isn't one film program that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best secular programs. I was at The Catholic University of America a couple of years ago to speak to the last screenwriting class before the film program was phased out. What kind of a planet are we on for the paradigm Catholic university in the nation to be “phasing out” studies in the primary art form of our time? Did I miss the memo that said screen productions are going away? A huge part of winning back the culture will be to provide state-of-theart training in our own educational houses for the next generation of writers, filmmakers, actors, painters and musicians. We need Church-sponsored guilds for our artists that emphasize beauty and the social responsibility of the artist. We need Church-sponsored conferences on the spirituality of creativity and the role of entertainment, and on ethics and responsibility for the mass media.