Yesterday I heard a robin sing.
It was a pleasant sound to listen to – and no less so for the fact I had no idea what the message was that he was trying to convey.
I don’t suppose he was commenting on the state of the world – he sounded too cheerful for that – more likely he was marking his territory or addressing some other avian concern, or perhaps he was motivated simply by the joy of singing and the hope that I might enjoy his performance.
But one thing we can be sure of is that he wasn’t singing for money.
All of which reminded me of a conversation I’d had the previous day with a group of artists who were displaying a collection of their work in a little village hall.
We’d been chatting about this and that and then, perhaps inevitably, ended up expressing our views on the current goings on globally – some of which may have motivated my feathered songster. And after a few rounds of ‘ain’t it awful’ I suggested that it is precisely because of the mess it now finds itself in that the world needs art.
Being the talented painters they were, I thought my friends would agree though they qualified my observation by saying that it was good art that the world required. To which I raised a metaphorical, and perhaps literal, eyebrow since it seemed to me that the work of artists, irrespective of how adept they were at their art, still has value.
So then they explained that by good art they meant anything that was produced to express beauty and prompt thoughts thereof – rather than, as they saw it, the sort of art increasingly encouraged by college courses that taught fledgling artists to produce things that sell.
This was news that I found as depressing as much of what I hear daily on the television.
And I was left pondering what the world would be like if the One who created it did so for financial reward – rather than to reflect His own beauty and encourage thoughts of Him.
Which is, I think, what a little bird told me yesterday.
Some musings 