Art, Salvation, Faith, and Spirit

I've been reading biographies and autobiographies of poets lately and just finished reading Mark Doty's Firebird. These words struck me, and I wanted to share them for other writers and artists. Doty begins a section near the end of the book with the sentence, "I believe that art saved my life. How is it that making sustains? I had these examples, this gift . . . ." He then recounts the various experiences in his life that were important to him in becoming a writer. He continues: "The gift was a faith in the life of art, or, more precisely, a sense that there was a life which was not mine, but to which I was welcome to join myself. A life which was larger than any single person's, and thus not one to be claimed, but to apprentice oneself to. In the larger, permanent community of makers, you could be someone by being no one, by disappearing into what you made. In that life your hands were turned, temporarily, to what beauty wanted, what spirit--not your spirit, not exactly--desired: to come into being, to be seen."