Art matters

Sometimes I wonder why in life coaching and in life I am so drawn to creatives or wanna-be creatives. Today I am not wondering.

Oprah showed a segment on 14 families in Charlotte, North Carolina who adopted children from Liberia. Interesting in and of itself, but the fascinating part is how it happened -- music. A group of orphan boys was giving a concert in their town. One woman there, a mother of two, heard what she called a message from God telling her she should adopt two of those boys. Everyone, including her husband, thought she was crazy at first. But then her friends went to see the boys perform and were similarly touched. It set off a chain reaction of adoptions.

Yes, I cried.

Later I read Anna Quindlen's wonderful piece in Newsweek about the movie Freedom Writers and how a teacher used writing to release a world inside of troubled teen-agers who seemed unreachable. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16608254/site/newsweek/) It was so touching and inspiring and it certainly convinced me to see the movie.

Art can do wondrous things.