Bill Whittle: The Workshops of Identity [brilliant! - tribute to America and scorn of Hollywood]

There is an important element missing in the story of the rise of America’s civilization. The most important element of all.

Before civilization there were tribes and clans - bands of humans who relied on each other for survival. It was a day to day alliance that eventually extended to new generations by the power of reproduction moreso than brain power.

But as mankind learned to help each other, or enslave others to work for them, the opportunity arose to ponder and plan beyond the moment and into the future, and even to delve into the past. As imaginations soared above the immediate necessity and into embellishment, recognition and appreciation of finer things, of higher thoughts, of creativity - of ART - civilizations were established.

From this higher level of being within a civilization, the soul of humanity developed new facets. We bestowed upon ourselves the abilities to uplift and tear down, to speak truth and spread lies, to honor goodness and to glamourize evil.

Art is the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. The pursuit of any form of art - story-telling, painting, dance, healing, building, etc..., is the expression of independence. The artist exclaims, “I Am!” with every attempt to create. And with each little creation, we separate ourselves from the herd, gaining admiration and importance in exchange for the aloneness.
We become loved for what we can do, rather than just who we are, and can become drunk on the power and heartache it brings.

It’s the human condition, this Creativity and its consequences in success, poignantly ironic because it is a gift from our own Creator. It’s His tool to draw us closer to Him, but one we can use to wedge us apart.

If we use it to glorify God we will suffer estrangement from the world whose approval we crave. If we use it to glorify ourselves, our own little ideas, our own narrow perceptions, our own pursuits to become gods, then we suffer estrangement from God, truth, honor, beauty and all the God given talents we used to build up civilizations.

The very Art within us that lifted us as mankind, can bring us back down to primitive selfish levels of understanding.

As wonderful as Art seems to Artists, it is just art after all. It is the imperfect, but tantalizing reflection of the image of God shining onto us, not from us. For we can only be artists, not Artists. We are merely mortal apart from God, and so is everything we make.

Golden calves, Alexandrian libraries, twin towers in big apples, they are all doomed to suffer the same fate as the carefully prepared Last Supper. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The Ages of Enlightenment and of Darkness are intertwined, just as the Knowledge of good and evil were the fruit of one tree.

The only enduring civilization is the Kingdom of God. Everything we see here is just a fleeting taste, an appetizer, not meant to satisfy us, but to cause us to crave the bread and living water that we must ask for in humility and receive because we are Loved for who we are, not for what we can do. The Great “I Am” waits to serve us.

It is not faith in mankind’s creative technology that will preserve our civilization, it is the Faith that civilization was created to serve God and that God’s purpose will be met which will inspire us to grow a better and stronger civilization.

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