Culture: improving goat intestines and horse-hair

"Culture that catch-all word to describe the state of being civilized, is not about reading the right books or seeing the right films, knowing which knives and forks to use, or never calling napkins serviettes. It is about taking responsibility to conserve, develop and improve the world which we have been given.

Improve? Yes, God actually gave us marble, knowing that, when combined with those invisible gifts of imagination and determination, it could be turned into Michelangelo's David. God created catgut, horse-hair and wood, knowing that human ingenuity could draw from them Vivaldi's Four Seasons; cocoa pod, knowing that curiosity would transform it into chocolate and mouldy bread, know logic and the quest for knowledge would one day discover penicillin. (Of course, he also created the Grand Canyon and the Amazon jungle in the hopes that we might have the wisdom to leave them well alone.)"

-Hilary Brand & Adrienne Chaplin in Art and Soul: Signposts for Christians in the Arts