Today while looking for some material for my sermon tomorrow, I was flipping through "Surprised by Hope" by NT Wright. Now NT Wright is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, theologian. I love what he writes. As I was looking for specific quotes dealing with mourning of our world's condition and our response to it, not to pull away from the world, but to work for a more just world, I found a quote that for me resonates strongly with the vision and dreams for the future of Veritas. Here is the quote:

"Part of the role of the church in the past was– and could and should be again– to foster and sustain lives of beauty and aesthetic meaning at every level, from music making in the village pub to drama in the local primary school, from artist’ and photographers’ [and poet's] workshops to still-life painting classes, from symphony concerts (well, they managed them in the concentration camps; how inventive might we be?) to driftwood sculptures. The church, because it is the family that believes in hope for new creation, should be the place in every town and village where new creativity bursts forth for the whole community, pointing to the hope that, like all beauty, always comes as a surprise…”

This quote gets at one of my visions of creating the "Veritas School of the Arts" which would include things like painting classes, photography workshops, guitar lessons, bass lessons, drum lessons, and other art classes. So that as NT Wright's put its, that Veritas will be a place where new creativity bursts forth for the whole community. That is a dream that I believe we are working towards.