I just got home from watching the movie, The Soloist. It is not normal for me to come home from a movie and want to write about it, but this one really made me think about life and about the work I am doing with BuildaBridge.
In the movie, based on a true story, a reporter named Steve Lopez from the Los Angelos Times befriends a homeless man named Nathanial Ayers. When he meets Ayers, Lopez discovers that he is playing a violin with only three strings. As he finds out more about Ayers, he realizes that he was once a musician and student at Julliard and, because of mental illness, eventually ended up on the street. After reading the stories in the paper, a woman sends a cello for Ayers to play....this is his original instrument.
In the moment Ayers first lays the bow to the cello and begins to play, he is transformed, Lopez is transformed, and those of us in the theatre are transformed. You can see something that is intangible, but recognizable to all humankind. It is that moment where music brings humanity to the presence of the divine. It is the thin place; the place that is sacred and higher than our everyday experience.
I have witnessed this in the face of a boy in the slums as he performs on stage and in all of those who watch him.
I have seen it in the body of a ballerina as she dances across the stage and in the tears of those who are watching her.
I have seen it in the eyes of a suicidal teenager as his brush glides slowly across a canvas and in the hand pressed lightly over the heart of the mother who sees his work.
I have seen in the the hands of the potter as he molds the clay.
I experience it every time I close my eyes and hear Vivaldi's Four Seasons or admire Frida Kahlo's work.
I feel it when I sing a song, perform on stage, or paint a picture.
Art, in any form, is a vehicle for people to express themselves, and to express pain, suffering, sadness, love, joy, and peace. These are all things that are hard to define, but easily understood through art. The story of humans is complex, diverse, and fascinating and it is our creative nature which most clearly explains this story in its truest and richest form. No matter what your religious belief is, you are a spiritual being. Music, Theatre, Visual Art, sculpting, poetry, or whatever other creative expression, are the ways in which you can tap into this spiritual self and feel whole...unbroken...complete. This is where the healing process begins. This is where the healing process is. This is where the healing process ends.
May you find your thin space and discover the means in which to get there and may you embrace it.
