The amazing power of the arts

Just got finished watching The Kennedy Center Honors and it's perhaps the best two hours I've spent watching television in quite sometime. I don't often get to watch the show and I don't really care about any other awards show out there, but the Honors always catches my attention.
This year, they honored a bunch of people with quite varied artisitic backgrounds, as they do every year. Steven Speilberg. Dolly Parton. Smokey Robinson. Zuben Mehta. Andrew Lloyd Weber.

All of them have made significant contributions to the arts. All of them have done so much more than the benefactors of the arts could ever hope to do - by using their inherent talents to mold and shape the world and the lenses through which normal, everyday people see and understand the world.

But it's the benefactors, too, who have made these individual's journeys possible. It's the people who have given them permission to pursue a dream, support when the times got tough, and challenged them to find focus when focus may have been lost. Now, they're an inspiration to many others - artists and non-artists, alike.

I'm blessed to be surrounded by amazing, budding artists myself. Pianists who win world competitions - like Dima, who will go to teach in the Czech Republic this summer after he completes a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, sharing his talent and knowledge with other great artists. A friend who has a dream of beginning his own conservatory to pass along the love of the art to a new generation - and perhaps has the ability and resources to establish such a place now. Friends who've studied classical guitar - and one currently pursuing a master's degree in cello. (I'd put her up against Yo-Yo Ma any day, but my ear isn't as trained as others, perhaps.) Filmmakers who yearn for the strenuous journey of their senior year, just to be able to travel to Los Angeles to show off their work - to people who can truly discover and appreciate their talent. Classical ballet dancers who know all too well that a career in classical ballet is often over before most even consider a career.

The president of the Kennedy Center shared his thoughts about arts and the Center's mission during a brief vignette in the show. He noted that art bridges the gaps in society and makes us all realize the humanity we share. He noted that art cannot be left to survive on its own, that it is often overshadowed by the reality of the world events happening around it. Art must be supported and encouraged everywhere, regardless of the roadblocks and setbacks it faces.

Art has the power to heal and to teach. Nowhere is that more obvious than the annual Kennedy Center Honors awards - and those who have been blessed enough to receive such an honor.