You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
    You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
 that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever! – Psalm 30:11-12

I may share two posts by the time today is done, because there has been so much of interest going on in our lives here in beautiful eastern North Carolina!

First, a shout out to the New York Theatre Ballet experience Rebekah and I enjoyed this week. The performances, the choreography, the beauty – it was all amazing.

Again – and this is something I often think about church too – it is beyond my understanding why the Keihin auditorium was not full! We are privileged and blessed to have so much amazing cultural enrichment at our fingertips here in Tarboro, and what I don’t believe we understand properly is that much we take for granted operates under a “use it or lose it” principle.

Not that losing something so beautiful and unique as the fine arts would be a punitive response, so much as the logical result of non-utilization.

It’s a lot like church in that any number of us can say how important it is personally… but the fact remains the only way church will be there twenty years down the road is if we attend it, and support it and live the truth of if TODAY. Ditto the arts.

Let me put it this way: Maybe we are people who say, “I am proud that Tarboro is so culturally sophisticated. The North Carolina Orchestra plays here; we have summer symphony on the Town Common; last year we had a Mozart Festival; this year the choral society will host a Brahms, Bach and Beethoven Festival; the New York Theater Ballet comes here too….” But then we never show up! We love the idea of the arts, but we almost never vote for it with our active support!

Sorry. That just won’t do. Also, I don’t really believe it! Because our love of (or nostalgia for) the arts – or that church we almost never go to – is essentially pointless without our participation; because without us it will likely cease to exist. The church, the ballet, the orchestra – everything we say we care about.

Imagine Tarboro without anything in the way of cultural sophistication or real spiritual depth?

It is not other people’s responsibility to keep these things going for us… it is our responsibility to keep them alive: alive for them… alive for ourselves… alive for the next generation… and alive for tomorrow.

I confess that I do not always understand the nuances and the complexities of the avant-garde. However – and just as with the Opera when I attend a live performance – even though I can be a cultural Philistine I sense the creativity and the excellence and the power and the joy present when people at the top of their game give everything they have in a performance.

Fine art elevates us all. But – just like church – we have to be there. If not, we will lose the gifts that underpin our culture and we will be sorely impoverished. – DEREK