A Change of Heart

I never understood the world's obsession with African Art before. It was so primitive and caveman-like to me in style. I didn't get it. My thought process was, "Duh, isn't the point of art to force society to transcend above the carnal? Think beyond the body and simplicities of life and grasp the abstract?" This is a good point, I think. And it's in my opinion still that some art is intended to do that. But how naive I was to believe it was the ONLY purpose of art. Art is also to celebrate the simple, carnal, human! What a fool I could be to think the only important things in life are complex and distant--intangible. The everyday, the physical, the realistic . . . that's important too. Now my love for African art is ridiculous. Not only do I have strong opinions about what it means, but it also just makes me miss this land I love so much. These may be nondescript African artists I found from who knows where, but just viewing these images makes me tear in missing what I left behind. Some of them are almost photographs of people I saw. I left a part of my heart in Uganda. Margaret mentioned in her blog she left part of her heart in New York (sorry to share, Margie, but you got me to thinkin') and my comment to her surprised myself. One of those things you don't realize you believe until you say it, you know? I thought, "I think part of our purpose for being here is to find the places over this beautiful Mother Earth God has created which mean the most to us. We should find those places where we leave a part of our heart on purpose so that when we die, we die having our love speckled all over the globe." Check. I found one. I'll keep looking. Let you know how the next one goes.