Writing is a religious experience for me, if not a religion in itself. I write to process the world around me, I write to find meaning, I write to remind myself that there is “something bigger.” And being a part of a community of like-minded people, whether it’s in writing group or in grad school or at literary readings, is important to me. I read for all of the same reasons.
There’s an interesting article over at Magnet Magazine on the relationship between art and faith, specifically in music, as discussed by a Jewish woman and a former evangelical Christian. Excerpt:
I don’t know how it is for different religious practices, but in the one I grew up in, namely Evangelical Christianity, a big component of it is to try to convince other people that your belief system is the right one. And if a person holds that to be true on the one hand, and then tries to make art on the other hand—in artist practice there’s a lot more exploration and you’re not working from conclusions and you’re trying to engage in a discovery process about yourself and the world. And I think that for me, those two ideas tended to be at odds with one another. But then I started thinking differently about the religious side of it, thinking, “Why does it have to be this way? If this thing is true, shouldn’t you be able to explore that as well, and then you’d always end up with truth?” And so I think that it ended up feeling better to try to do the artistic process—that that was more honest and less loaded with a bunch of ascribed meanings or what have you.
Come to think of it, writers proselytize as well, don’t they? Read more »
Good storytelling is timeless and transformative. For me, nothing beats just sitting down and hearing a damn good story. True, sometimes it’s cool to see random stuff blown up while mutants battle it out on a big movie screen. And sometimes it’s cool to play with fancy electronic gadgets that simulate reality while I avoid my own reality. And sometimes it’s cool to use those fancy electronic gadgets to blow up virtual mutants of my very own. But if you tell me an engaging story with fascinating characters, if you pull me into lives that help me forget (and better understand) my own, and if you get me emotionally invested in the outcome…I am putty in your hands. But is the art of old-fashioned, sitting-around-a-campfire storytelling dead? Can individuals with interesting stories sit on a stage and engage an entire bitter, jaded, New York City audience? Oh hells yeah. I witnessed such a feat when I attended 
