This weekend, I was reminded once again of the extraordinary gift of the Arts.
A weekend filled with celebration: a well-acted and beautifully paced community theatre production of “Misery” by the Ladysmith Little Theatre; an incredibly stellar performance by the Vancouver Island Symphony under the baton of guest conductor Jonathan Girard; and a deeply moving, heartfelt tribute, shared by livestream, honouring the passing of a legendary theatre friend and colleague, Jacqueline Dawson of Powell River.
And outside those moments, the world continues to swirl.
The uncertainty continues. The vitriol continues. The sadness continues.
People are thinking about voting. Arguing, mocking and name-calling from behind the safety of anonymity, simply because someone’s opinion doesn’t match their own.
Folks are provoked by the words and actions of some of our southern neighbours, where allegiance to a flag and a gun can seem to speak louder than reason.
Elbows are up, elbows are down, and then they’re folded tightly across chests as our own country wrestles with another identity crisis…and whispers of divorce.
Meanwhile, others are grieving the tragic loss of Canadian Air Force personnel, while along the Pacific coastline, people watch and wait as hurricanes threaten…again.
So much noise. So much unbridled emotion. So much uncertainty. So much ambiguity and chaos.
And then, for a few hours, the lights go down.
An actor tells a story.
An orchestra begins to play.
A community gathers.
We laugh; we weep. We hold our breath. We remember someone we’ve lost. We feel something Together.
The arts don’t fix the world. They don’t silence the chaos or the idiocy. But they give us a place to breathe within it. A refuge. A shelter. A reminder that beneath all the division and noise, we are still human, and we still have the capacity to create, to connect, to grieve, to laugh and to imagine something better.
Perhaps that is why the arts matter most when the world feels most fractured.
They remind us not only of who we are, but of who we can still choose to be – Together.