Word of the Day
Countenance (n./v., KOWN-teh-nentz)
A face, the expression on it, a show of support, or the action of showing support. A frowning countenance may receive countenance to be strengthened.
Gif of the Day
Link of the Day
Hannah Anderson - Beauty will save the world
If you have lived in this world for more than a day, you know what is happening today. This is the day when a new person is sworn in be President of the United States of America. Today, a reality TV star will swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and become our 45th President.
The amount of sheer terror over this event is surprising. There is a lot—a LOT—of fear and anger that has pervaded the discourse over the change of power and next four years. Engaging with news at all recently has felt like walking through a snowbank to a car only to find out that the battery is dead and you’re stuck there until the blizzard is out. It is exhausting. We are exhausted.
And this is precisely where we need art and beauty, as Hannah Anderson articulates so well in today’s link:
But beauty is not simply about creating an escape from present difficulties. The work of beauty is to create a vision of the world as it was meant to be. It is a way to see past the present darkness to a future beyond. To the tired, beauty promises rest. To the oppressed, it offers freedom. To the fearful, it whispers “Hope.”
“Poets, prophets and reformers are all picture makers,” Frederick Douglass writes, “and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements.”
What poets and prophets and reformers offer us is a vision of the world set right. This is why beauty is so powerful and why human beings have always made art, in even the most difficult times and most hardscrabble places. The Appalachian mamaw, fingers bent and eyes straining, thrusts her needle through bits of scrap, quilting together utility and beauty. The island child, malnourished and broken by disease, still gathers bits and bobs to fashion a toy.
This is human heart searching for its home. Searching for safety. Searching for the world as it should be. For in the beginning, it was good; and in the end, it will be good again.
It was no surprise that the Nazis attacked the art of a country when they invaded. Art challenges people, unifies cultures, and links us to our history. Destroy a nation’s art and you destroy its identity. (No comment about defunding its art.) Art needs to continue, especially in uncertain and challenging times. It’s not just for diversion or the awakening of the senses, though those are useful. It is because it forces us to focus on the sublime, to interpret the world and see it for what it truly is.
So, as Americans try to yell or legislate each other into submission, may we suggest turning to our art instead? Especially to the process of making it? Instead of telling that the world is or isn’t the way it should be, show what it should be by creating beauty. Awake our souls to sing a new song.
WritingBeautyStatements of purposeReality TV starsHannah AndersonSturm und drang