The price of art

I saw my dad this evening and as he drove me back home we were speaking about music as we usually do and we start to talk about, as this blog is titled, the price of art. Allow me to explain. Something my dad mentioned as we spoke and I think this will help with understanding was about Bob Dylan. Apparently, and I take this in good faith from what my dad said as I haven't listened myself, but Bob Dylans rather brilliant music took a serious nose dive in quality once he got married, settled down and had a family. Then when he went through a bitter divorce and ended up alone again he started to write great music again. This is one man and one example but I see it over and over again. Great art, be it music, painting or writing, comes from a place of pain, loneliness or isolation. Is it this pain or feeling that inspires people to go on to create much of what they do. Elliotte Smith, Conor Oberste, Jeff Buckley and in a way Aaron Weiss, the evidence is there again and again.
I think for me the most real experience of this is personal, I wrote a song, which I believe is posted in an earlier blog, titled "An artists Pain". These lyrics talk about this very subject and what inspires me to write, sing or play. Though what I do is deffinitely not up there with these greats I've mentioned I think one of the reasons I appreciate their music so much is because I empaphise with them in regards to where it came from. It's very often when I'm alone, when I feel isolated, rejected or sad that I feel the need to produce something from whatever poetry I can find inside me.
From the people reading this there may be differing opinions on prophesy but I believe it has its place as long as it's not misused. There are a few prophesies that I am reminded of that were spoken over me and I just wander though I took them with a pinch of salt at the time if maybe G-d was speaking after all. The first one I was strongly convinced was relevant at the time. I was probably around 12 at the time and was attending some sort of Christian event. There was a boxing ring in the middle where people could go to speak or pray through a microphone if they felt G-d was leading them to do so. It was prophesied over me by some random bold guy that by the end of the day I would feel the pain for my unbelieving friends. I later went up to the boxing ring and as I started to pray for my friends I started to cry. I think it was my first experience of truly being moved by G-d and the start of a passion for evangelism.
Some people some years later, maybe I was 18 at the time were visiting Living Waters and one of them prophesied over me while praying for me that I was called to suffer for G-d. I rejected this at the time as stupid but maybe it was fear more than anything that made me do this. I believe strongly that G-d called me to music, I believe he gave me a heart for evangelism and to use music in this. Could it be that these "prophesies" apply to these "callings". That G-d called me to music but the passion for music will come from a place of pain, from a realisation of my need for G-d. I think most of all it has to come from a passion for G-d but Aaron manages to mix these 2 beautifully and I know Rumi speaks in one of his poems about how pain is like our realisation of need for G-d and forces us to seek him and how in this sense it is a good thing, so I guess the 2 can come together. But could it also be that G-d has given me a heart for the lost, those who haven't yet found hope and part of that is empaphising with them and their pain.
Does beauty come from a dark place first of all. Christ accomplished our freedom through the darkness of the cross, he calls us to take up our cross and follow Him, maybe this is my cross.
G-d's will be done.