Day 13 of 25 Days of Les Misérables: A Toast to the Master of Art

We’re about half way through 25 days. This is a good place to take an intermission and talk about something else. This may seem silly, but I’ve thanked God for creating people like Alain Boublil, Claud-Michel Schönberg (composers and writers of Les Miz the musical). I thanked him for creating them and giving them the abilities to create such beautiful music and poetry. A successful artist is a difficult thing to achieve in an industrial world. Music and lyrics that can speak to the average person while still maintaining its height of ingenuity is even more difficult to achieve.

You know I’ve talked about Christian art on the blog before 

And have recommended some good articles 

You know how passionate I am about good art.

I’m about as passionate about good art as I am about art in general.

I was raised in a town overrun with engineers. It’s a highly technical town as well as extremely functional. It’s also very artsy. There are dozens of community theaters, community choirs, dance academies, and orchestras. I grew up surrounded by the functional and the beautiful and have an appreciation for both. I also have an appreciation for how they work together to make the world go round.

But art and artists are my true passion. I get so into this sort of thing that I forget how profoundly art reflects a certain aspect of the heart of God. I forget (how it’s possible I’ll never know) how incredible an artist our heavenly Father is. He could easily create seven different sunsets and put them on a timer to recycle every week. Instead, he designs a new sunset every single day.

He could create five or six different trees with the basic colors from the color wheel and turn them on when it starts to get crispy in the autumn. Instead, he creates hundreds of thousands of trees, each with different hues of oranges, reds, purples, and yellows.

Did you know that each individual snowflake is intricately designed and is completely different from every other snowflake? These snowflakes could just be tiny clumps of ice and serve the same purpose. Barely anyone notices how incredible they are because they are so small. Yet God puts the most ingenious design into these ice clumps, just for the beauty of it.

That’s why something like Les Miz reminds me of the heart of God. Our lives would function just as well without this remarkable musical. We don’t need Les Miz to survive. But the beauty of the story, the music, and the lyrics are vital because they show us that God cares about joy as much as he cares about our daily bread.

Raise your glass to art. It’s an endeavor worthy of a toast.