Or How To Be Free in a War-Ridden World

 

Writing is a process whereby we set ourselves free – not always in our circumstances but in our minds and souls and hearts.  This doesn’t mean everything is right in the world; it means there is a germ of hope that no human being can completely stamp out.  It means we are because God is, and that hope is the joy of this reality – the promise of heaven. 

 

Writing allows us entry, if only for a moment, to that place where joy is the norm, which in turn gives us the hope that we can create this peace for all people.  We need not only writing with words but with music, and painting with color.  Because of Hitler, we read Ann Frank.  Because the world knows war, we need Beethoven’s joy more than ever.  The muses must bring reality, because we live in a violent world.

 

In writing, we gain a grip on reality that the world has dismissed.  We reclaim precious values.  The writing of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” is not only possible in a war-torn world, it is essential to the possibility of peace.