I think; therefore, I am dangerous.

Speaking of thinking, I've been doing a lot of that lately. The process of trying to get my internal clock tweaked back into some semblance of ... well, as close to normalcy as I ever get... it's a process that has involved a lot of lying awake in bed trying to quiet my thoughts. In the process that whirlwind I call a mind has been visiting some very interesting topics lately. I get the idea that if only I could think on that level all the time I would soon have no troubles in life. But the mundane distracts and irritates, focus is lost, and life is more interesting.

It makes me think of story plots. Whenever someone uninitiated to the ways of storytelling watches a movie or reads a book & says "but wouldn't it have been simpler for so&so to do such&such instead?" Sure, but there would have been no story worth telling had they done so. Is it sad that I console myself about real life that way sometimes? Yeah, life would have been easier if I had done that or hadn't done this, but think of the great stories I would've missed out on living! :)

Am I a writer or what? :P Plotting: it's my life.

But anyhoo, I was speaking of sleepless nights and thoughtfilled silence (yes, I know thoughtfilled isn't a word, but thoughtful doesn't mean that anymore so :P).

One of the things I find myself doing at night is having conversations with people. I don't know how many people do this--I've heard everything from "oh yeah, I do that too, all the time!" to "you do what?! That's crazy!" So take your pick. But my inner dialogues often take the form of an imagined conversation between myself and an acquaintance--who exactly changes depending on the topic of conversation, but still. I try to have them answer as close to their personality as I can... sometimes that makes for interesting encounters with the person later, I've accidentally been very angry with a friend before because of how the imagined conversation went, only to have to remind myself when I met them later that such a conversation never actually happened, so I really shouldn't be angry at them.

Sometimes I wish I had the guts to have these conversations in reality, instead of just in my head. It's easy to speak my mind there--kind of hard not to, actually--but in reality? Psh, who knows what the person will actually say in response? It's ... terrifying, sometimes.

Wow I ramble a lot... I would apologize, but if you're reading this I suppose you already knew this & decided to read the blog anyway, hm? :)

I really don't like that word, "blog", it's so... it doesn't taste right. :P But this is ground I've already covered--onward! To knew & unexplored territory!

Have you ever considered how very dangerous it is to not think? We are told often how dangerous thinking can be--this is why when a totalitarian government--be it a group of people or a dictator--(I really like dashes, I never really thought about that before...:)takes over the first things to be brought under government control is the press and the arts. These things encourage people to think through things for themselves, and are dangerous to the new regime unless they feed the people thoughts that the government approves.

I think this may also be why the Church & the arts have had such a tumultuous past. Religion too is a threat to totalitarian governments, but not necessarily because it encourages independent thinking--more because it encourages loyalties to a different place than the government. But I digress, back to arts & Church.

Artists I've met & admired say they pursue truth, they seek to discover & present truth in whatever form they find it, that they may show it to any and all who wish to see it. As an artist that follows Christ I don't feel threatened by this because I think in terms of "all truth is God's truth". Even artists that do not know Him can reveal truths about His nature by their work, because everything that is actual truth comes from Him. So I believe.

If this is the case why has the Church felt so threatened by the arts in certain times in history?

I suppose, if we--and by "we" I include both artists & church-folk--were honest with ourselves in examining this, it could be thought that those periods of history when the arts--especially theatre--and the church were most at odds were a result of one (or both) of two things.

1. Artists ceased to seek truth and instead sought to shock, to push the envelope for the sake of merely pushing the envelope. They ceased to desire to be the ambassadors of truth to the masses, and instead wished only to serve themselves and their ambitions. This would lead to followers of truth rejecting what they had to say, because they no longer spoke truth--or is they did, the truth was not the focus of the work, but merely a tool with which to shock & horrify.

2. The church no longer desired to hear truth. Such times in history are frequent, unfortunately, and artists were not the only ones to suffer the wrath of the church at these times. Anyone who spoke truth contrary to the "acceptable truths" of the church and her leaders were subject to persecution. I wish it were otherwise, but if the Church today is to learn anything from the past it must be faced unflinchingly.

But I must leave off my ramblings here, my battery dieth & must go to find it an outlet. Happy thinking!