Saint Wolfgang and the Devil "Michael Pacher 004" by Michael Pacher - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
I've pondered your insights and questions, and here's the best I've got: Art is a ministry.
I think this when my wife makes art, when I listen to your music, and even when I play in all my goofball bands. There's a little bit of the Will Witkowski shaper in me, but mainly my role as a drummer is to help other musicians sound their best and meet their visions for their music and to help the audience have a powerful experience that in some way draws them toward God, even if it's just through a reminder that life is good and joyful.
Praise Him with drums and dancing! Praise Him with loud cymbals!
The Arthur White project aims to give more to God and man than any of my other projects and it's hard to feel significant feelings of accomplishment because the scope is so large and we're so small. But my faith here has a German angle to it. We keep going, not out of a hope of reward or success, but because it's the right thing for a story and body of songs so powerful to exist. We keep dedicating everything that comes from the project--whether it's joy, recognition, wealth, or suffering--back to God. And if we fail, we either screwed up, weren't really doing God's will, were being taught our limits, or something else.
But to go full-out Beowulfian, we've all got to enter the cave. If Arthur White doesn't make much impact, we haven't failed. If we and other people called to make art cease to be the sort of people who enter the cave, a fallen mankind falls some more.
The Swedes of mediocrity conquer us, and Screwtape and his minions get an endless but flavorless buffet.
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