(You can read Part 1 here.)

“In the beginning,..”  there was no stuff.  There was darkness and void… it totally sucked.

God knew it sucked and so He went about making it not suck.  He did this in a very interesting way.

So, while there was no stuff, God made light by which to see the stuff God would eventually make.

And when God had made the light, “God saw that the light was good.”

The light was “good”…

um…

…good for what?  There’s no stuff. Stuff had not been made yet.  The purpose of light is to make stuff see-able.. So that we would know what we were buying… and eventually returning or replacing (which is another story).  That’s the point of light, is it not?

But before light was good FOR something,.. God called it “good”?

God then went about saying the same thing about just about all the stuff He was making… Even before we were there to use it…

The seas were “good.”  The vegetation was “good.” and on and on.

All the stuff was good simply because He saw it that way… simply because He had made it.  Creation was (and is) of value to God because it is His,.. not because of it’s usefulness.  So that the innate value of all things would rest in its relationship to the Creator. Not it’s usefulness to other parts of Creation nor it’s nearly arbitrary value in the Marketplace…

All Creation has value,
All Creation is good, because He is… and it is His.

I think we have this understanding of value almost entirely upside down, backwards and inside out (much like I do when trying to fold a fitted sheet… it’s a travesty.)  The dominant value system is so driven by and distorted by utility and profit that we struggle to find value in the the poor, the developmentally disabled, the unborn, the elderly, the Raiders… the least of these.

This is where I believe art is central and necessary for the human heart: In art, the value-relationship between Creator and Creation is expressed more clearly than just about anywhere else.  A piece is not worth what it sells for.  Be it 99c to $1.29 for a digital track or $30 to $5M for a painting, the monetary scale hardly tells us anything about a work’s ultimate/inate value.  What makes a song or a sculpture worth something or “good” generally has little if anything to do with the money it generates.

I believe we must come to this understanding in relationship to one another.  I also believe that embracing this value system as it is expressed in and through art is a key to that understanding.

This is part of why, in a time when the ‘value’ of art is seemingly in constant flux and negotiation…

-“Tweet about it and get it for free!”

-“Tell your friends about it and get it for a deal plus a second copy!”

-“Get your parents to think about tweeting about it to their friends and they’ll get a free copy of it, plus a shirt that reads ‘My parents thought about tweeting about Justin McRoberts’ new album and all I got was this lousy shirt’.”

.. I really wanted to do an album that was simply worth doing. It is not the most marketable thing I could have done at this point and though I hope folks enjoy it and support me when I release it, I honestly would have done the project were there no prospect at all for sales.

Now, don’t get me wrong; i’m not ‘against’ free music downloads and new forms of consumer media exchange.  In fact, I (heart) Noisetrade.. I
really do.. But Noistrade is not an end in and of itself.  Those behind the experiment are people who value art and are counting on medium of Noisetrade to help create a culture in which art is a good worthy of our social and financial support.

Art communicates value in a way that very little, if anything, in all this world communicates value.  My songs are not worth what listeners buy them for.  Their value simply cannot be measured in that way.  This album will not have been “worth it” if it sells well; it is worth it because the songs are good; and the songs are good because there is something of God in/about/through them…

…just as there is in all art… just as there is in you and me.