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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 30: The Strange World of the Future

June 14, 2013

Pulp-O-Mizer_Cover_ImageMy gratitude to the folks at http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/derange-o-lab/pulp-o-mizer/pulp-o-mizer.html  for  an enjoyable experience in creating pulp illustrations.

There is a seemingly never ending list of things I would like to explore, creatively, if I wasn’t concerned about earning a living. Finishing the illustrated stories I started 15-20 years ago; Steampunk, 3-D, special effects…. sigh

I grew up reading Tom Swift Jr. [Tom Swift Jr. and His Space Solartron], Tom Swift [my parent’s generation: Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive], Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and Doc Savage [sort of a combination of Tarzan, Indiana Jones and Major Samantha Carter]. I used to have a large collection of all of the above; my guess is that they bought groceries in leaner times. Had I waited, or been better informed, they would have bought a lot more groceries… But I still have a few copies on the shelf. Heroes who used their brains more than muscles, and rarely fired lethal weapons. I still remember my favorite ‘toy soldiers’–curiously a mechanic and a ditch digger, one orange, one blue… I also grew up reading Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and several others from ‘the Golden Age of Science Fiction’

When I thought about it, I wanted to create images like the above… The stick figure drawings that covered endless sheets of paper were drawings like the above, in my mind… and yet I haven’t really drawn many sci-images over the years. Not sure why. Too caught up with earning a living, I suppose, too caught up with the dramas in this time period to live in the future.

I’m recovering from my third ‘neuropathic episode’ in four years, almost exactly two years apart, which is really weird.  This one wasn’t as dramatic–I didn’t lose as many sensory nerves as I’ve experienced in the past. Probably because there are fewer to lose.  However, I had a day of a potential future I hadn’t seen before–one where changing the DVD was a major effort…drawing was out of the question– and the realization that I’m grateful for what I still have. So I’m re-calibrating myself to another ‘new normal’.

I’ve been drafting steadily for two months now; a very long time in my current life. Not getting paid a lot for it, but after nearly 50 years of drafting, I consider it as getting paid to watch DVDs. I’m on my second repetition of the Stargate chronicles, with a few other shows interspersed. I’ve always been a fan of ‘westerns in space’.

A couple of weeks ago we were in Fort Collins, Colorado, for the graduations of my daughter and my son-in-law: my daughter’s second Bachelor’s, my son-in-law’s first Associate’s. Amidst the celebration was a visit to the Holiday Twin Drive-in in Fort Collins, where we saw this:

startrek

…A digital re-creation; my little camera in the back of the pickup wasn’t of good enough quality to record the images in the dark. Watching Star Trek, under the Big Dipper, with shooting stars, was one of those amazing experiences that one can’t really comprehend. I do have to see the movie again–there were a few too many distractions…

I watched William Shatner’s “The Captains” this evening. A documentary about the 6 Captains in the Star Trek franchise. Classically trained actors, none of them type-cast, each of whom brought their own distinction to the role of “Captain”… and the tremendous cost that the casts paid during the 12-16 hour days of production for much of the years. I lapsed back into my ‘vulcan’ mode–[I immediately idolized Spock when he appeared on TV–the alien trapped among humans–I’ve always had trouble understanding human behavior]–watching thousands of fans at Star Trek conventions. I can’t imagine going to one, or why I would.

I think I may start drawing again this weekend. With a pencil. It’s been months. There’s a face on my drafting table that’s beckoning me, and I think my shoulder and neck muscles may be rested enough to draw again…

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 29: The other days…

May 10, 2013

Medicine BottleI don’t usually like to deal with my depression in public. Some mentors once told me that if the person you are talking to can’t do anything about the problem you’re having, then it’s somewhat pointless to tell them about it. Unless you are wanting to share your misery.
I’m not really wanting to share my misery, but other mentors have explained to me that shared pain can sometimes be helpful.

Of course, another part of the story is that the gentleman above was facing a hanging in the days ahead. True story. Late 1800s, photo by Edward Curtis. He was called Medicine Hat. His crime? His skin was the wrong color and he lived on land that American settlers wanted. The Westward Migration.

While in relative terms, my challenges are far less than those of Medicine Hat, nonetheless, I’m ‘calling in sick’ for a few hours; possibly the rest of my day. One of the challenges of self-employment is that I have no paid sick leave. I don’t necessarily lose my job, but I don’t get paid if I don’t produce. I’m supposed to be working on some house plans. They are weeks overdue. I’m working at an amazingly slow speed; apparently. I seem to be very busy, but don’t seem to be able to produce with any speed.
I’ve been burning my candle at both ends, and have started on the middle, and I’m not as resilient as I was in years past. If I ever really was. I think that perhaps I self-medicated, and pretended I was resilient.
Tonight I feel sick, sort of. One of the problems of idiopathic polyneuropathy is that I never really know what I’m ‘feeling’. I have a broken toe–the bone at the end separated at the joint– that I’m only am aware of the damage a few times a week, and only in the sense that I have a sensation in a toe that normally has no sensation. I ‘should’ have sciatica, but that nerve doesn’t function correctly either. After 30+ years of chronic pain, much of what I dealt with in the past was predictable. I still feel ‘shadows’ of being out of whack; but those things mostly don’t hurt.

What hurts now is ‘nerve-pain’ — pain that isn’t really associated with visible injury. Biopsies have determined that I have damaged nerves; no clue why. We have millions of nerve endings in our bodies. I’ve lost a few million nerve endings. I still have a couple million left. I’m learning to be thankful for what I have left–it’s more profitable than whining about what I’ve lost. I think I can guess what people with ‘phantom limb pain’ experience. My feet have little external sensation, but they ‘burn’, almost constantly. Particularly when they decide they are cold. Burning cold. Like a REALLY bad sunburn. Go figure.

Among other things, my gut changed 4 years ago, this month. I’ll spare you the messy details. Today it’s worse. My doc of 30 years retired about 2 years before the neuropathy started. I’m on my third doc since [not counting ‘specialists’]. A new doc has no history beyond what’s on paper. Since most of my symptoms are subjective, a new doc has nothing to compare with, and no particular reason to accept my assertion that my life was much different 4 years ago.

Four years plus a day or two ago, I begged my Creator to let me come Home. I was at my nephew’s wedding, and after a couple of hours filming with my pocket camera, my hands were shaking too much to shoot anymore, and I ached everywhere. I made a deal with the Creator, a couple of decades back, that I wouldn’t try to speed my progress Home. A few weeks from that wedding night, the neuropathy took over half of my body. Never make demands of the Creator–it’s extremely dangerous. That painful past, that I often complained about internally, was better than my ‘new normal’.

Most people are unaware of my physical challenges; I can fake ‘normal’ for a couple hours at a time. I prefer the ruse. I have some trusted friends that I share some of the challenges with; it lessens the burden. But the reality is that so far, no one has a clue as to how to address the slow decline. Since the people I’m normally around can’t help much, I try not to make a big deal about it.
Tonight I feel like whining. Maybe someone will understand that they aren’t alone.

Maybe the reason for the pain is so we would pray for strength
And maybe the reason for the strength is so that we would not lose hope
And maybe the reason for all hope is so that we could face the world
And the reason for the world is to make us long for Home
Well I know you’re past the point of broken, surrounded by your fear
I know your feet are tired and weary from the road that you walk down here
But just keep your eyes on Heaven and know that you are not alone
Remember the reason for the world
No ear has heard, No eye has seen, not even in your wildest dreams
A beauty that awaits beyond this world. When you look into the eyes of Grace
and hear the voice of mercy say, ‘Child, welcome to the reason for the world’
Matthew West

The hurt that broke your heart, and left you trembling in the dark, feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope’s a lie
But what if every tear you cry will seed the ground where joy will grow
And nothing is wasted; Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

It’s from the deepest wounds that beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end that every broken piece
is gathered in the heart of Jesus and what’s lost will be found again
And nothing is wasted; Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer Nothing is wasted

From the ruins, from the ashes, beauty will rise
From the wreckage, from the darkness, Glory will shine.
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer Nothing is wasted
Jason Gray

piggy back draft 5
A detail from an illustration for a book I never had the chance to finish.That’s Hiroshima in the background; the little girl is going to die in a few minutes from radiation poisoning. True story. Thousands of parent-less, home-less children wandered the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombs were dropped, looking for family or friends. Most of them died horribly alone and in pain, hours and days after the destruction. A teacher returned home from an out of town trip, and went to search for her sibling’s children. All of the children she found wandering died in her arms. She survived, and published her diary.

We did that. The good guys, the God-fearing, freedom-loving, rights-preserving US of A. Supposedly we killed hundreds of thousands to prevent the killing of thousands that would result from an invasion of the Home Island of Japan. My gut feeling is that the issue was really the nationality of those thousands who were ‘spared.’
The rest of the world remembers Hiroshima and Nagasaki and views us as either hypocrites or really stupid. We blame it on the past, and other people. But the true horror is that there are still idiots in the world who consider nuclear weapons as viable alternatives. Some of them live very close to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The reality is that while we are no better than the rest of the world, we also are not that much worse.

Home would be good.

Time for another hero movie.

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 28: Ending Eras

April 22, 2013

mickey

Walt Disney Animation Studios Lets Most of Hand Drawn Team Go


“So when Walt Disney Animation Studios says there will be no more hand drawn animated features, they mean it. Nine animators from the hand drawn team were let go yesterday. Sadly these are some of the most veteran animators on the team as well…”

The article above saddens me; there is also a small bit of ‘encouragement’ in a weird sense, to know that I’m not alone.
Nearly all of my work nowadays is digitally-manipulated hand-drawn graphite images. I do some entirely-digital work as well as photo-manipulation, but the work I’m most pleased with starts with a pencil and a piece of specifically-selected paper.
My experience so far is that my work isn’t that popular with those folks who buy illustrations for commercial use. I am immensely pleased with comments that I receive from people all over the world, who appreciate my work. I even have a couple of pieces in a museum… but, not a lot of ‘art buyers’ have any commercial interest in my work.

The image above was given to me by my paternal grandmother. I really don’t know who “Milt” is; I think the surname on the back is ‘Shafer’ but I can’t be sure. A vague memory tells me that Milt and I are somehow related, but I don’t recall ever hearing that surname in the family. I don’t know if it’s an ‘original Disney’ or simply a copy of a Disney concept. The calendar on the wall, to the right of Goofy, says ‘1937’ above the risque sketch of an apparently naked woman. Maybe it will end up on Antiques Roadshow some day, or History Detectives, and I’ll learn more about its history.

Back when I did school visits, one of the presentations I prepared was on the history of Illustration. At the beginning of the 20th Century, before photography had become part of the printing world, images that were published were created by engravers who worked in stone or very hard wood. Visual images were translated into intricate carvings, and prints were made from these carvings. The image below is a pen and ink copy of one of these carved images from the 1800s.

Peregrine Falcon

Photography entered the world of publishing. While it created new markets and opportunities, it also made engraving obsolete. The only place for engravers to work was basically in the jewelry and trophy industries. Disney animators have entered into the hallowed halls of the engravers.

I recently taught a couple of art classes for an after-school program at a local Middle School. A traditional drawing class, and a digital art class. I don’t anticipate doing that again. Two of the students in my drawing class were more talented in sketching than I ever have been. A couple didn’t really want to be there at all. I spent a lot of hours putting together handouts for them to work from; I don’t know that I had any positive effect.
The digital class didn’t go much better. The project I designed for the first one or two classes took the entire term to finish; in the process, the more talented kids got bored and the novices didn’t really retain much of the process.

I discovered that I’ve forgotten how much I’ve learned. I’ve been doing this for so long that I’ve forgotten what being a novice is, and what information is needed at the beginning. I think. Or maybe I’m just an ineffective teacher. At this point in my life, I don’t want to add those skills.

And standing for 3 hours, mostly on adrenaline, wiped me out for the rest of the day. Neuropathy sucks. Thankfully, I can still draw.

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 27: Crimes Against Humanity

March 31, 2013

sorrow

I watch a lot of movies.
Some movies I watch for entertainment; some for education in the Human Condition. Sometimes they overlap.
The Whistleblower.
[http://www.thewhistleblower-movie.com/]
A movie based on a period in the life of Kathryn Bolkovac; a midwestern cop that went to Bosnia to work as an International Peace Keeper. Employed by a Defense Contractor, given Diplomatic Immunity, as were her counterparts, she uncovered an organized crime ring of sex slavers–‘human traffickers’–to make it sound more polite. The Organized Crime ring leaders were UN cops and diplomats, immune from prosecution. Guilty of torture, rape and other crimes against all that is considered human. Kathryn was kicked out of Bosnia, and fired from her job by her Defense Contractor boss. She turned to the BBC, to tell her story. The incident led to the movie.

Slavery is as big an industry today, as it ever was in the 19th Century. And very little is being done to stop it.

I know of many women who were raped as children by male relatives. I know of mothers who have refused to aid their brutalized daughters… again, and again and again. Not women in the slums of Bosnia, but in Portland and its suburbs. Middle-class families respected in their communities. No better than sex slavers in Bosnia and India, and countries throughout the world.

Today was my 40th Easter. Before that I had 20 or so ‘chocolate egg easters’ but they don’t really count. They were as meaningful [candy] and meaningless as most of the other ‘cultural holidays’ we celebrate.
This morning Pete talked about the ‘religion of the box’–the box in which we store our religious texts and practices, available to pull from out of the closet whenever they are needed, and returned when we get on with life.
He also talked about Jesus, who was born, lived, died…and rose from the dead. He is still alive today. The Creator of the Universe entered time and space, and lived as a human being. To prove to us that He understands life as a human. He’s not a God who lives in a box, or in a church. He lives in the hearts of human beings. He’s alive, He can’t be controlled;  and sometimes messes with our lives.

Pete talked about the guy in Zanesville, Ohio a year or two ago, who upon his death released all of his ‘exotic’ animals. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my…
We like our lions in boxes at the zoo; we don’t look over our shoulders in the parking lot to see whether or not we’ve been followed by the lions. For a time, in Zanesville, one could see a lion on one’s doorstep.

Jesus is the God who refuses to stay in the box; He messes with our lives. He’s been messing with my life for 40 years now.

When I hear of stories like The Whistleblower, and I hear pronouncements like I heard on the radio this morning, driving my sister to church, that all of our problems can be solved by taking responsibility for our actions [partially true], I can’t help but wonder about those for whom no one is taking care, through no fault of their own. This last week has involved us in the life of a woman who refuses to accept responsibility for her situation; who grew up in an abusive situation, and may not even comprehend the concept of human responsibility. The temptation is to rescue her; the reality is that she is a very unpleasant woman who drives help away from herself, and sees no reason to change. There seems to be no comprehension that she is her own worst enemy.

When the Church advocates so largely and so vocally over some Issues, and ignores so many others I get angry. Part of me wants to do a ‘John Wayne’ and take the law into my own hands. Becoming lawless in order to deal with the lawless. Performing a LOT of castrations with or without a rusty knife…
Politicians getting rich while Seniors agonize how they will pay a $30/month rent increase in low income housing, when they barely have enough money to buy groceries. The extolling of the American Way of Life.

I get angry because my body no longer supports my ability to go build homes for the homeless,  or even to help cook Easter breakfast…

…so I write of the Man who healed the sick, fed the poor, and blessed the poor in spirit. Who lives, and who lives in the lives of His people. Just not enough.

garden gethsemane rev2

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 26: Four Decades…

February 27, 2013

heroes

Today was my 40th Rebirth-day. Four decades in this walk of faith, a walk called Christian. My life has a soundtrack, as it is with many others. I think my life began in high school—Senior English—when ‘Captain Bob’ played for us the soundtrack to “Man of La Mancha:”

“I shall impersonate a man. His name is Alonso Quijana, a country squire no longer young. Being retired, he has much time for books. He studies them from morn till night and often through the night and morn again, and all he reads oppresses him; fills him with indignation at man’s murderous ways toward man. He ponders the problem of how to make better a world where evil brings profit and virtue none at all; where fraud and deceit are mingled with truth and sincerity. He broods and broods and broods and broods and finally his brains dry up. He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined – -to become a knight-errant, and sally forth into the world in search of adventures; to mount a crusade; to raise up the weak and those in need. No longer will he be plain Alonso Quijana, but a dauntless knight known as Don Quixote de La Mancha.”

Church and faith were never a part of my upbringing. My parents, according to legend, were active in the church until their early adulthood. I was told once that my Dad was a lay preacher at some point in his early adulthood. Something drove my parents away from The Church. I was in my twenties when I first walked into a church sanctuary.

Listening to the story of Don Quixote was my first real lesson in the concept that one could live for something beyond one’s own life. I found the album during my first months at Oregon State University, and listened to my bootleg recording for years. In those years I learned to spot Christians from great distances, and to avoid them. My only real knowledge of what they had to say was that they said too much. We had ‘coffee houses’ in college; they had little to do with coffee, and much to do with folk songs. I could always tell when the Christians were about to sing, because they always had to explain the meaning of their songs; as if the song were so poorly crafted that it could not tell its own story…

I remember lying on my bed, for hours in the dim, listening to the songs of Judy Collins, Rod McKuen, and so many others. Dreary songs that matched my newfound understanding of just how crappy the world has become. Rescued by the Draft Lottery from a possibly short life in Vietnam, I lived among war protesters, dopers and murder. A young girl who lived two floors below me, was murdered one night; as it turned out several months later, she was murdered by a high-school aged kid whose emotional development didn’t match his intellect. She was murdered because she wouldn’t have sex with him…

In my third year of college, having transferred to University of Oregon, I was introduced to the concept that the Creator of the Universe had entered life in the form of Jesus Christ. At some point I made the connection that this incarnation was similar to when I picked up a rock, and found a bunch of wriggly creatures trying to escape the light. Unpleasant little creatures; what would it take for me to love those creatures enough that I would give up my life as a human to become a wriggly creature, so that I could share what I knew about Life with them… Multiply this by Infinity, and one comes close to the story of Jesus.

February 26th marks my ‘official’ entrance into the Kingdom, but it’s really the date that I audibly accepted the concept that I was willing to accept the Creator’s presence in my life. The journey of my acceptance into Faith took years.

the universe in his hands_1

Having come to an understanding of the concept that one could be “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good,” I decided I wouldn’t walk that path. Many believers walk the high road that parallels the ‘Valley of the Shadow.’ I decided to find a path along the wall of that valley. Similar, I suppose, to my scaling the banks of the Sandy River as a young boy, looking for the ‘right’ place to fish. I never fell; I came close many times. I was carried downstream by the current one time, because I had stepped further out into the river, again looking for that ‘right’ place; my grandfather running alongside the river, trying to reach me with his pole…

You know what I’ve put myself through
All those empty dreams I chased
And when my body lies in the ruins
Of the life that nearly ruined me
Will You pick up the pieces
That were pure and true
And breathe Your life into them
And set them free?
And when You start this world over
Again from scratch
Will You make me anew
Out of the stuff that lasts?
Stuff that’s purer than gold is
And clearer than glass could ever be
Can I be with You?

A slight paraphrase of the Rich Mullins song. This life has nearly ruined me. Thirty years of pain, once again increasing, as I battle neuropathy. My balance is shot, my endurance is shot, my hands are beginning to shake enough that more and more of my art has to be digital…I can hold onto a mouse, and move it with my wrist, when my fingers won’t hold still. The computer at the school where I teach a digital art class has a stationary mouse with a track ball; there are days when I have trouble convincing my fingers to locate the correct place to grab a file. Empty dreams I’ve chased…

I’ve learned that this life, this long and short time here, is merely an eyeblink in the timelessness of Eternity. I’ve learned that I’m not a body with a soul, but a soul with a body.

Maybe the reason for the pain
Is so we would pray for strength
And maybe the reason for the strength
Is so that we would not lose hope
And maybe the reason for all hope
Is so that we could face the world
And the reason for the world
Is to make us long for Home
Well I know you’re past the point of broken
Surrounded by your fear
I know your feet are tired and weary
from the road that you walked down here
But just keep your eyes on Heaven
and know that you are not alone
Remember the reason for the world
No ear has heard, No eye has seen
Not even in your wildest dreams
A beauty that awaits beyond this world
When you look into the eyes of grace
and hear the voice of mercy say
Child, welcome to the reason for the world

Thank you, Matthew West, for putting words together that I haven’t been able to…

the universe in his hands_2

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 25: Yearning to Breathe Free

January 24, 2013

Liberty

I started teaching art in a middle-school, after-school program this afternoon. Two classes, once a week. One digital, one traditional. The first class was survival, the second was a disaster. My battered body complained for about 4 hours after I returned home.
Teachers don’t get nearly the credit they deserve.

When I was in my middle-school years, I lived in almost entirely White neighborhood in Portland. While not particularly prejudiced, I lived in a White world. I was First Generation on my Mom’s side of the family; Second Generation on my Dad’s side. My family came from Scandinavia. I didn’t go to school with African Americans until high school, and was generally in a different program. I knew a couple of Asian kids. My first real conversation with an African American was during my third year of college.  Nearly all of the surnames I heard were of Western European origin.

My class list was filled with surnames I’ve never seen before. Eastern surnames and Western given names.
While many people of my generation would be distressed over the loss of the ‘America’ they grew up in, I see my class lists as evidence that America is working.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

So many seem to feel that the Golden Door should have been locked and bolted after they arrived.

I see right-wing comments on Facebook nearly every day, speaking of all the people who are taking handouts that aren’t deserved. I don’t go out of my way to meet people, but in 60 years I’ve only met one man who seemed to think that the world owed him a living. For many years, his wife supported that notion; and she worked her tail off, working herself into illness many times.

While I know almost nothing of my Norwegian and Swedish roots, I never forget that I am an immigrant son. My forebears came here looking for a better life. I don’t really know if that better life was found, since I know nothing of the life they left. It is only Grace [unmerited favor] that Scandinavians don’t have brown skin; living so far from the Equator. Americans have never been particularly welcome toward peoples of darker skin colors. Americans used to be opposed to Irish and German immigrants; but they blend in more easily.

C.S. Lewis, in his Reflections on the Psalms, writes that history is filled with writings that have more depth than was originally understood. Prophecy is realized in retrospect, when predictions are discovered to be true; and meanings appear that weren’t possible in an earlier time.
I am of the opinion that the Founding Fathers, when they wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” they were probably talking about White Males. History has enlarged that meaning toward, ‘all [American] humans’.  My hope is that one day it will mean that all people are equal. We aren’t there yet.

We have a Black President; one of the most reviled Presidents in our history. Both adulated and reviled. I am of the opinion that President’s Obamas Nobel Prize was an acknowledgement that at last a Black Man could accomplish that which Americans brag about, but don’t want to see happen. As someone recently quipped [referring to drones], ‘probably the first Peace Prize winner with a hit list.’

We export ‘American Democracy’ as if it was a proven product, forgetting that this is still an ongoing experiment. It’s worked for 237 years, having wiped out the indigenous population. The nations of the other continents existed LONG before we were even thought about. I do not believe in the ‘divine right of kings,’ nor do I believe in the Empires of the past. This country frequently appears to be attempting to create an American Empire, a plutocracy. As Churchill stated, “democracy is the worst form of government; except for all of the others that have been tried.” Can we rule ourselves?

Perhaps my students and their peers can finally make that happen.

Declaration cover

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 24: Epiphany

January 7, 2013

 

Adoration

The Feast of the Epiphany…”epiphaneia, “manifestation”, “striking appearance” the visitation of the infant Jesus by the Magi from the East. Celebrated in Christendom on a variety of dates, depending upon one’s calendar and traditions. In my tradition, January 6th. Since I haven’t gone to bed yet, it’s still Epiphany in my time. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the end of Epiphany marks the beginning of Ordinary Time.

I’m not Catholic; however, my life appears to be taking place in Ordinary Time. The period before the Resurrection. The period of ‘hit the ball, drag Marty’. One of my favorite jokes, if you’ve ever heard it.

Melancholy tonight. I decided that this wouldn’t become a platform for my battles against depression; so that’s all I’ll say on that subject.

There was a murder in my dorm back in my college days; a girl I didn’t know, but it changed life in the dorm. For some people, the subsequent investigation and uproar probably changed their lives forever. The Creator was merely a concept in my mind at the time; my life as a part of other people’s lives was also a concept at that time. I remember how my innocent next door neighbor changed dramatically as he was being investigated as  a subject. It appeared that the police used his investigation to draw attention away from the search for the actual killer–a 16 year old Freshman who’d been rejected by the older girl.

Christmas was changed forever for hundreds of people this season. In a family that I consider part of my family, even though I’m not really in their thoughts, a death and a re-awakening of life happened in the last week or two. A murder and a life-saving transplant. Mass murders were happening all over the world in the weeks of this Christmas Season. The time before the Incarnation revisited. Some of the murders received more attention than others. All were losses.

The painting above is taken from a Norman Rockwell illustration. The right-hand portion is a copy of his painting, the left half my own. It started as a painted window–a Christmas gift for a former church congregation. It greets me each Sunday as I enter the church we attend now.

The Christmas Story has become so sanitized these days, that it would hardly be recognized by Mary and Joseph. In the days following the slaughter of all of the 2 years and younger children of Israel, by Herod the King, a young pregnant couple couldn’t find a room for the night. They were offered the barn. “Stable” sounds so much better than a barn. It’s possible that the mule ride and subsequent events that aren’t covered in Scripture caused the child to be born…

Farm animals aren’t housebroken. One must muck out the barn on a regular basis, replacing the crappy straw with clean straw. Scripture avoids the muck. Our pastor asked the children at the Christmas Eve service whether they had pets, and if their pet had a food dish. That was where the infant Jesus was placed after his birth. In the animals’ food dish–the Manger. Hardly an auspicious beginning.

The “Call the Midwife Holiday Special” was heart-rending in its images of the Nativity/the Incarnation. A young girl giving birth alone in an abandoned building… the playing of “Oh Come, Emanuel” as the nurse and nun peeled the clothes from an elderly woman and gave her her first bath in years. The Creator became human so that our grime could be washed away, and so that we could share that washing experience with others. Some of the murders of recent weeks, like those instigated by Herod, were also acts that were politically-based. What we refuse to learn we are destined to repeat…the murder of children continues.

We were given substantial monetary gifts this Christmas. Charity. Hard to swallow; hard to refuse. We shared some of the funds with others; the gifts of charity were increased. Paid medical bills with the rest.

Dan Fogelberg is one of my healing places when I’m melancholy. Tonight I am thankful for his creativity, a soundtrack to so much of my life; I’m sorry he left so soon. I believe he is still writing and that I’ll be able to hear him again. The “After” equivalent, that is. I believe that the Creator became human in order to lead us to where we will go. I believe music is somehow involved.

One of my favorite DF memories is a time in Newberg, working on the house of a young couple who needed to make it more weather-resistant before the Winter rains. My gift of a few days labor, with Dan keeping me company for much of that time. I remember going to sleep in my hammock, listening to his music. So much of my life is centered on construction; something I don’t appear to be able to do anymore…

I watched “The Vow” tonight. “Inspired by actual events,” a young woman suffers a massive brain injury in a car wreck on a snowy road. When she awakes from the induced coma, she no longer recognizes her husband of 3 or 4 years. Her brain is erased after an event that occurred 5 years in the past. Her husband is determined to win her love again; she is no longer the same young woman he married. She watches a video of their wedding, and her passionate marriage vow; to her, it’s someone else’s story. The ‘for better or worse’ vow is meaningless for her.
“It can all be gone in the twinkling of an eye… is that all there is? There must be something more than this… [All There Is–Dan Fogelberg]

Fortunately, there is more than this.

the universe in his hands_mer

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 21: Politics

October 28, 2012

A warning from the outset: if you are planning on voting for Mitt Romney, you probably won’t like what follows. The efficient person will therefore not waste time by reading this. If you are like my brother-in-law, it will only raise your blood pressure , and you won’t like most of what you read.

I am not expecting to change anyone’s mind, nor am I trying.

I finished this image in 2008; I began it on that night in 2007 that Hilary Clinton conceded that she would not be the Democratic candidate for President…

Commemoration of President Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency of the United states

The quotations above, from the Declaration of Independence, from President Abraham Lincoln,  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Barack Obama all share Dr. King’s hope:

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Four years later, I find that I am voting against Mitt Romney and the Republican party platform, more than I am for President Obama. Prior to the 2008 election, I was a registered Republican, and voted for Republican candidates for something like 40 years.

I created the image above because I was honoring what I thought was impossible–that a person of color could ever become President of these still-racist, not-very-united States.

I am about as ‘white’ as one can be–from the color of my hair to the coloring of my skin. I spend most of my life in my office  in Oregon; I haven’t spent any significant time in the sunshine for years. I am also a first-generation immigrant to this amazing country. My forebears came to this country from Norway and Sweden; presumably to find a better life than they experienced in their home countries. I have never had that kind of courage; and have only found one other place than Oregon that I’d prefer to live–the expensive Hawaiian Islands. My ‘adventure’ in freelancing has made it so that we can’t afford to live elsewhere- I invested the ownership of two ‘free and clear’ houses into mortgages that have supported my business.

Not entirely coincidental to the campaigning of recent months, I’ve been listening to “Yes We Can-Voices Of A Grassroots Movement”– an album of music commemorating the Obama Presidential campaign. The music is interspersed with quotations from Dr. King, as well as from Senator Barack Obama:

“The fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, that’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now” Senator Barack Obama

Many Conservatives apparently hate that quotation; because they believe that this is not part of the American Constitution. For them, somehow this belief translates into the concept that people don’t have to care for themselves; that they don’t have to achieve based on their own efforts. That people who advocate this kind of thinking want the government to take responsibility for their lives.

I am my brother’s keeper. I do not believe that the Government should take care of all of my needs.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. For the last 40 of my 60 years, this understanding has been the foundation of my life. Nearly every decision I make is filtered by this belief. I don’t always make the ‘correct’ decisions. Or, perhaps more accurately, the consequences of these filtered decisions don’t always end up with results that I assumed would occur.

Many of us hear the words of Dr. King, and hope is rekindled. Many of us hope for a country that operates in a way where human failing doesn’t have the final vote. We hope for a perhaps-utopian vision where people treat each other with respect, honesty and fairness. Where elected officials truly serve their constituencies; rather than the desires of a Special Interest group.

The subtext I see in the hundreds of email messages I’ve received from Progressive groups  in recent months, is that the Presidency is bought. The party that raises the most money wins. Granted, there is a ‘trickle-down’ effect that benefits certain portions of the advertising and printing services in our country.

What happened to the notion that character and belief determines the outcome of elections?

In my opinion the Obama Presidency has been a disappointment. A recent PBS documentary included a scene from a Hilary Clinton speech, where she said, in effect, that Senator Obama was naive, if he thought that the desire for cooperation would have any impact on Washington. She was correct. It’s a naive thought. Our government has been corrupted by money and power; reflective of many of our citizens.

The fact that the Obama Presidency has had only limited success in overcoming the greed and selfishness of corporate-serving Republicans in Congress isn’t a reason to give up on The Dream.  A family member of mine is convinced that President Obama is the worst president since President Carter. Coincidentally, the only other President in my lifetime that was overtly Christian in his words, policies and actions. Fortunately, Jimmy Carter, the former-President, has been able to accomplish more in this world than he ever would have as a former-Governor.

President Obama’s military policies belie his Nobel Prize for Peace. However, my belief is that the Nobel Prize was given to the first person-of-color to become President of a country that still believes that ‘all white males were created equally’. The rest of the world knows this truth, and knows that Americans live with the fantasy that that we are far better than we behave. The rest of the world remembers Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Japanese internment camps, and the slaughter of our indigenous population; the policies of the State of Arizona, and similarly-held white-only prejudices.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I still have a dream that our country can live in harmony. That people of all colors, all nationalities, all religious beliefs can share the earth equitably. That we can assist other countries in their growth without becoming their overseers.

It’s probably just wishful thinking. But what’s the alternative?

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 19: The Power of Story

August 25, 2012

Last night I finished the last, and 100th episode of Stargate:Atlantis; not without a measure of sadness. The Story is over.  Prior to that I watched the 213 episodes of Stargate: SG-1. The better part of the sadness is the realization that I was working on my laptop during most of the episodes, so I can watch them again and still have the story be fresh.

I saw some of the SG-1 episodes when they were first aired; this was back in the time when we didn’t have a television in the house. We borrowed my Mom’s portable TV on occasion; and watched TV at her house on Sundays. Back in the early ’80’s, when I was self-employed as a building contractor, I used to watch “Cheers” and “Hill Street Blues” every Thursday night. At some point I finally realized that NBC wasn’t paying me to watch their shows; and I was turning down opportunities to bid on remodeling jobs, fearing that I might not return on time… So, the television went into the closet. When we moved to a different house, the TV did not accompany us. Our children grew up having television as a special event. They read a lot of books.

I got into this illustration gig to be a storyteller.

children's book jacket: Oregon At Last

Oregon At Last by Lillian Foreman, Scholastic Press, digitally colored graphite drawing

This is the cover of my first illustrated children’s book; one might think that people here in Oregon might be familiar with it. However, it was part of a 5th grade curriculum package for Scholastic, and they never bothered to market it in Oregon…

Back in the days when the world was in black and white, before color had been invented, I went to the bookmobile every week, and returned with a stack of books; mostly science fiction, if memory serves. The bookmobile was a mobile library. A converted bus with library shelves instead of seats, the bookmobile was used as a supplement to regional libraries. It had a regular route, and helped me get through my elementary school years. I had a small portable television in my bedroom, but there were only 5[?] channels available, and the selections weren’t necessarily interesting.

I grew up with the illustrations of Howard Pyle and NC Wyeth as well as several of their contemporaries. When I decided to do this illustration gig in the 1990’s, I envisioned following in the footsteps of Norman Rockwell. As big as my feet are, I knew I would never fill those footprints.

I was thrilled when I had the opportunity to enter the world of one of my childhood heroes, Sherlock Holmes…

A Scandal in Bohemia

A Scandal in Bohemia by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Digitally-colored graphite drawing; copyright Steiner Korea

I continue to hope that this will be followed by another Holmes opportunity in the future, but it seems unlikely, at this point.

Stories teach us to dream; they show us what and who we can be. Music, movies, books, stories around the campfire… these are the elements that can shape our lives. Stories can lift us beyond our circumstances.

Would we have cell phones today, if not for Star Trek and Dick Tracy?

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 18: Dark Matter and Faith

July 24, 2012

I was watching an episode of PBS’ “Scientific American Frontiers” the other night; an episode created while the Large Hadron Collider was still under construction. Physicists believe that the majority of the mass in the Universe is composed of ‘dark matter’–subatomic particles we cannot see or really understand. As you sit here reading this, thousands of neutrinos, again subatomic particles, are passing through your body, without your awareness of them.

At the atomic level, most of our bodies are composed of ‘nothing’–gravitational force whose origin isn’t really understood. The center of the atoms that compose our bodies is like some grains of sand in the middle of a football stadium, with a handful of electrons whirling around in the seating area. Our solidity, the solidity of your keyboard, is an illusion of gravity.

Physicists now believe that our expanding Universe is expanding at a faster rate than it was 5 billion years ago; the expansion being the result of the forces called ‘dark energy’–the companion of ‘dark matter.’ String theorists suggest that in reality, Reality is composed of 11 dimensions; 4 of which are known to us. The three dimensions of geometry plus time.

I know a lot of Christians who have a very hard time swallowing all of the above comments; as if they were stuck somewhere past Galileo; or perhaps stuck in the 19th Century…

I don’t have a problem with modern Physics and Faith. Having been interested in science long before I came to faith, for me it was a matter of integrating the teachings of the Church into what I already believed to be true. As a result, for nearly 40 years I have been walking down a long and winding road between the world of The Church and the world of The World. The Apostle Paul wrote about our being players on a stage, viewed by an unseen audience. I once heard a description of neutrinos, from a physicist in Antarctica, that sounded like a description of angels… I believe that I am a soul who has a body, rather than the reverse. No one has yet measured the soul. Some find that a reason to believe we do not have souls. I am of the opinion that somewhere among those 7 hidden dimensions is a dimension of the soul; the dimension of oneness with the Creator.

People get all bent out of shape over stories like Jonah and Great Fish; as if the most important part of the story was the fish. This story was told around campfires for ages before it was written down. There were no ‘eyewitness news’ cameras around to capture the event; no investigative journalists… How often have I heard the equivalent of ‘I felt like I was trapped inside a great fish’ become ‘he was trapped inside a whale for three days!’ Just read Facebook on any given day… The important part of the story is the Creator reaching out to the people of Ninevah. Who cares whether or not there was a big fish that could swallow a man for a long time and spit him out again? That’s not the point. The real story is just as True regardless of whether the details are factual.

Perhaps it’s my artistic temperament; I’ve never believed that Truth has to be factual. There are a lot of believers who somehow think that Truth only comes packaged in Facts. The entire point of the Newer Testament is that the Creator of the Universe entered time and space; and said that we really don’t have to live like the idiots we are… The rest is commentary.

The landscape should be far smaller; and the universe much larger. In truth, our full-blown, pain-filled lives are the scale of wood lice under a rock; the size of an ant farm, enlarged by a magnifying glass. Or probably more like the scale of the mites that crawl around on the heads of houseflies–I have a photo of these mites in my office, taken through an electron microscope. In the fabric of the Universe, our sometimes awful and barely-bearable lives are as miniscule in scale as the mites on the head of a housefly.

and yet…

Scripture says that we are created a little lower than the angels. More of the Universe that we usually can’t see. As we know it today, energy never dies; it merely transforms. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James and John saw Moses and Elijah standing with Jesus. Again, there was no ‘eyewitness news’; the Jewish faith forbade visible likenesses of that which was Holy. How did Peter, James and John know these guys were Moses and Elijah? They’d been dead for centuries. Name tags? A formal introduction? They apparently weren’t ‘dead men walking.’

The Bible and Faith make a lot more sense if one understands the concept of Eternity and Infinity from the standpoint of modern Physics. It’s only when one tries to fit Scripture into little wooden boxes, so that all of the questions can get answered,  that things start getting messy.

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