I saw a video a month or so ago showcasing one of my favorite filmmakers, Salomon Ligthelm. In this beautifully-shot short narrative, Salomon talks about his experience as a filmmaker in the secular world, and how the talents he's been given is not for himself, but for others. The point of creating, building, making, is not for the artist, but to serve everyone else. That is something I must continually remember when shooting, editing, directing, etc. Any gifts God has given me is not for myself, but for other people. It is a surrendering of those gifts. Salomon would ask it, "Have you surrendered yourself to the Great Abyss?"
"In the beginning, God created..."
The opening line of that well known and little understood book...drum roll please...the Bible. I think this text often gets lost in the whats and whos and whys and hows, "...the heavens and the earth," or "...Adam and Eve," or "...that gosh darn, pesky apple," etc. and I think we often lose the impact of that first line: In the beginning, God CREATED. The action. God created.
If you've been following the Mozambique Initiative's goings ons in the last month, you've probably heard about this jazz trio that was here visiting all the way from Mozambique, bumping around the state in a church-van-turned-tour-bus. For three weeks my mission was to cart around three amazing musicians and one full-time representative while not losing any of them or accidentally driving off of a cliff. Mission accomplished! My job duties ranged from band manager to bus driver to translator to lead singer depending on the circumstances. Easy, right?
As the hours on the road wore on, we all grew closer to one another and through complicated translations, had discussions of great significance. We talked about all that Missourians do for the people of Mozambique, and the guys were overwhelmed with both the wealth and generosity present here. They were grateful, wide-eyed, and in awe of all of the luxury. They marveled at the material wealth and all of the conveniences that we have here, and they wondered aloud about what a band of musicians could actually do for a people that, from the outside, seem to have everything.