Building One’s Life

As a Work of Art

Recently my wife and I went to The Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre to see the ballet production of Anna Karenina. Prior to the production there was an interview going on with a lead dancer from the ballet company. The interviewer was attempting to explore the interior tensions of Tolstoy’s story; however the dancer was more interested in addressing her actual dance steps. After some pregnant pauses they managed to navigate the impasse—but in my mind a bit awkwardly.

What is my point? It is one thing to be an amazing ballerina and it is quite another thing to tell a good story. How do we tell our stories? Even more, how do we build our lives?

From the lobby of the Four Seasons Centre I took this blended photo of the cityscape and an art piece of a winged cherub which raises for me the critical question : “How do we build our lives? Both concretely and metaphorically?”

To this point I was impressed by an interview exchange featuring the venerable sage Abraham Heschel and Carl Stern from NBC. “What message have you for young people?” asked Stern in concluding a television interview with the rabbi shortly before his death.

Rabbi Heschel replied: “

Let them remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every deed counts, that every word has power, and that we all can do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments.

“And, above all, [let them] remember. . . to build a life as if it were a work of art.” (Abraham Heschel)

Building our lives as though they are “great works of art!” Something worth striving for, and by the way, makes for “a pretty good story.”