We know art is creative. But have you ever thought about the creation of wealth? Wealth not just for one individual, but wealth as life-improvement spread throughout a community or nation of people.
"Think about oil for a minute. For thousands of years, oil was a nuisance - an insoluble mess to be scrubbed from your feet if you were unlucky enough to step in it. Then one day someone had the bright idea of burning it to provide energy. Suddenly oil was a resource, not a nuisance. Soon dark streets could be lit, homes heated, cars driven. The oil hadn't changed. But [human] ingenuity had made this formerly useless substance into something we call "black gold." Can you imagine the world without it?
"Now let's examine sand. Sand is everywhere. Like oil, it's sometimes hard to get rid of! A grain of sand by itself has no value. But a man can take that grain and transform it into a silicon chip, and suddenly it has value. Another man can then take that chip and impregnate it with data, making it worth even more. And when someone else connects that chip to a computer, it is worth quite a lot. Multibillion-dollar companies like Intel have been built on grains of sand. The sand, of course, remains basically worthless. It must wait for people to give it its value." Darrow Miller, Discipling Nations
Like Michelangelo's chunk of marble, oil and sand had no value to people - until people applied their imagination, effort, resources, aesthetic sensibility, engineering, craftsmanship, cooperation, and problem-solving skills to them. And then there was value, worth.
People create wealth for themselves and their community!
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