Today marks the birthday of one of history's most remarkable artists:  Michelangelo di Lodovica Buonarroti Simoni, otherwise known as, simply, Michelangelo.  Why do we find  Michelangelo so significant?
     Like all of us, Michelangelo was a creature of his time, a person working in one of the most fascinating eras in the history of the West:  the Renaissance.  As I have said elsewhere in this blog, the Renaissance was a singular point in the evolution of European thought.  It was a time, a very brief time, when the secular and sacred seemed to fuse together, blending in the most amazing way in all areas of human endeavor.
     This was perhaps most notable in the art of the period.  Across the board, people sought to do art as a fusion of unwavering belief in the goodness and creative power of God and their comcommitant belief in their innate creative abilities, abilities given to them, they constantly affirmed, by God.  Deeply committed to the joy of art, profoundly dedicated to the presence and love of God, Michelangelo's astonishingly fertile mind produced some of the most memorable artworks in human history.
     Although much of today's art is very different from the of the Renaissance, the essential truth about its origins remains:  the human heart and mind cannot help but create, be it to the wonder of humanity and its world, the glory of God or, ideally, both.  Michelangelo demonstrates to us that we are awesome beings, beings capable of creating things beyond our imagination.  We are creatures of immense possibility, possibility inherent in a universe created by an infinite God.
     There are no limits to whom we can be.