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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 53: The Nothing

July 22, 2014

I’m addicted to movies; I have been for nearly as long as I can remember. My two favorite places to be, when I was a child, were the family cabin in the foothills of Mount Hood; and the movie theater. While I devoured books, I also loved to see the illustrations come to life on the silver screen. I became an illustrator because I was born at the end of the Golden Age of Illustration, when ‘adult’ books came with illustrations. The works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, Howard Pyle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Illustrators like N.C. Wyeth, Frederick Remington, and countless others. My hope was to join that fraternity of illustrators who brought the Classics to life. I’ve come close, in that I illustrated a Korean version of a Sherlock Holmes story, “A Scandal in Bohemia.” I hoped for others; the company went out of business.

Scandal_P21Watson, Holmes, and “The Woman,” Irene Adler

 Our granddaughter visited us from Colorado, for close to a month. We haven’t been around her for that length of time since she was 3 years old; she’ll be 12 soon. Among the movies that was watched was the 1980’s classic, The NeverEnding Story. I have always been touched by the dialog at the end of the film:

G’mork: Foolish boy. Don’t you know anything about Fantasia? It’s the world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries.
Atreyu: But why is Fantasia dying, then?
G’mork: Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.
Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
G’mork: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
Atreyu: But why?
G’mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control… has the power!
Atreyu: Who are you, really?
G’mork: I am the servant of the power behind the Nothing. I was sent to kill the only one who could have stopped the Nothing…

We suffer the attacks of The Nothing—the killer of hopes and dreams. My neurological challenges are an example of the Nothing. The Nothing is nearly everywhere one looks; and one has to make a special effort to see that The Nothing hasn’t killed off all of the hopes and dreams. The high school girl who invented a flashlight powered by the heat of one’s hand…towers in the desert that will one day be filled with water, sucked out of the air…the earth is also teeming with dreams that can come true, if they are allowed to flourish.

One of our most treasured National Monuments stands in New York Harbor:

Liberty“Mother of Exiles.”

I am the son and grandson of immigrants to this country. My mother was born in Norway, my paternal grandmother’s parents were still speaking Swedish when they baptized their daughter here in Portland. My paternal grandfather’s line goes back to Nottingham, England, back in the 1600’s.

Being a son of the American Legion, and all of the God and Country messages that go with that heritage, I grew up respecting that statue in New York harbor; welcoming those who came from Europe, Africa, and lands to the East. Some, more welcome than others…

Those who keep track of such statistics report that there are over 50 Million refugees on this planet, the largest number since World War II. Half of these refugees are children, many of whom will end up in the human trafficking “industry”. Thousands of these children are reaching our border from Central America; that portion of the Americas that our government has been screwing with for decades, helping to overthrow democratically-elected governments that weren’t to ‘our’ liking…As with all of our “Wars On…” we have created problems, rather than solving them.

I was discussing this with a friend last week, who mentioned the importance of protecting our borders; and how when our country can’t even feed our own people, we can’t afford to feed refugees.

It isn’t that our country can’t feed our citizens; the reality is that those with the power to do so WON’T do what it takes to feed our citizens, to create jobs that will enable the populace to thrive. The Stock Market is at all-time highs; Robert Downey Jr. [“Iron Man”] is the highest paid actor in Hollywood, earning $75 Million/year to make comic book movies.

There are close to 400 Billionaires in the US. #100 owns around $4 Billion. Each of these individuals could donate/collaborate/invest $1 Billion [I hear that it’s possible to get by on $3 Billion], and create a $100 Billion fund from which new companies could be created; companies that would create something like the WPA and CCC, and rebuild our country’s infrastructure. The problem isn’t lack of money, the problem is lack of WILL.

I have trouble with the concept that this country of immigrants is just too selfish to open its doors to refugee children; children who didn’t volunteer to be born into the slums, ghettos and gang-infested countries of this continent. Gangs that were trained in American jails before they were deported. The selfishness isn’t on the part of the people; the selfishness is that of those who have the power to create positive change, but don’t have the guts to do it.

There are those who mention the concept of “pitchforks and torches” as a way to facilitate change. I can’t think of any way in which pitchforks will actually work. Homeland Security now has its own arsenal.

Ashes of Hiroshima

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 52: Secret Identities

June 12, 2014

heroes1Secret Identities.  We all know about them. All of our childhood [fictional] heroes had secret identities in order to protect their families and friends, and to avoid a source of moral blackmail.
So what about the rest of us?
I grew up with these heroes; they were my role models. I had working parents, my first babysitter was a rectangular box with a fuzzy black & white screen. I spent more time with these heroes than with my family.

So why do I have a secret identity?
I’ve never been very heroic, I’ve never feared for my family, based on my heroic exploits.
I’m just not very fond of people.
I like persons. Over a long period of time, I’ve learned that you only get to know persons by putting up with people. It was awful for a long time. Some days it’s still awful. But not for as long, and not to the same degree.
When I was a building contractor, in my 20’s and early 30’s, I hid my identity behind a beard; supposedly it made me look older, but in retrospect, it made me look scruffy.

I got into sales. I studied personality, sociology, psychology and  self-esteem for years. Tapes and books whenever I wasn’t working at my job. I wore a suit. Shaved the beard, got haircuts regularly. My secret identity. Clark Kent, hiding Superman.
After a few years, I finally realized that I was viewing people as prospects and potential customers; not as persons. In the process of becoming a better me, I found out that I really wasn’t becoming a better me.
I dropped the suit; didn’t visit Marsha as regularly for my haircuts [she’s been cutting my hair for 30 years]. I tried to be more real with people, and to listen to what they were saying. To get a glimpse of their Secret Identity.

My Secret Identity today?
Mikey bushesMikey. My inner child. The kid who embraces zip lines and COPE courses; the kid who gets in squirt gun fights with other kids; the kid who plays with kids. The Secret Identity working in reverse. Clark Kent protecting Superman.

Another school shooting today; another ‘random act of violence’ here in my home town. And all of the ranting about guns and ammunition; and very little public ranting about broken souls seeking attention, seeking to act out their anger… People looking for meaning, or trying to cope with their lack of meaning, and acting out their pain.

Does violence happen more often because there are so few heroes today?

heroes2I think this is the reason. We live in a society of instant gratification, instant fame, instant popularity. People become ‘heroic’ by performance in a video game, and that heroism becomes more gratifying than life in a cubicle or life behind a food order.
And I think that we realize that it’s a game. We fear that it will always be only a game. I played games within games. My family’s favorite card game involved bidding on the number of hands that you would win per round, based on the cards in your hand and on the table. My cousin counted cards; I never had the patience, the planning. So I decided that I wouldn’t try to win, I would aim for winning a certain number of hands, which often meant sacrificing good cards in order to hit my number. I often won. Lost the game, won my game.

I knew a man who spent a lifetime beating on industrial sawblades with a hammer–hand-tempering industrial sawblades. Big discs of steel with teeth. Day-in, day-out for 40 years. He couldn’t understand that his son, and I, could not find jobs to stick with. In his private time he served his church congregation, carved wood and trained plants. He made his world a better place, and that was enough. A different pace for a different time.

I think there is a movement today toward longer-term thinking. It’s a movement that is being drowned out by the clamor of the 24-hour news cycle and the latest technology being obsolete in 2 months.
To succeed in this endeavor, it requires a willingness to step away from our Secret Identity and become real. To be willing to be willing to walk a different path–one that treats people in the manner we would like to be treated.

My wife is one of my heroes. She treats all people equally. She treats the homeless person in the same way that she treats those in authority over her. She doesn’t fear for her personal safety; she fears for people’s well-being. She’s an odd person, and she doesn’t care. Because she loves people. Far from perfect, prone to moods; and at the same time, willing to stop her world’s schedule in order to make sure that a dead possum gets moved to the side of the road; so that it can have a more-dignified death.

My goal in this next chapter of my life–to become more fearless in my willingness to live honestly.

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 51: Teleology

May 12, 2014

Part of me keeps wondering why I bother to write this stuff. Part of it sharing stuff that I’ve learned, that seems important to me. I suppose that mental health is involved in some fashion.

Teleology…a new word for me. “…ology” always means ‘the study of…’ so, at first glance my inclination is to think that it means something like…

media_head…the study of television.

But it isn’t. Teleology is the study of Purpose.

Do we have one…what might it be…why it would be…all of those kinds of questions.

I seem to be thinking about this a lot these days. I have a client who appears to be in remission from liver cancer. I spend more time listening to him, and discussing “purpose” than I would have imagined. Illustrating his book appears mostly to be a reason for me to be in his life. We have a lot in common. He’s in a lot of pain and discomfort most of the time, as am I, but for him it’s a new thing still. Not surprisingly, he hasn’t figured out how to integrate it into his life; and he wonders how much he has left. As do I…

I believe that my life is in the Hand of my Creator; my client is angry with God, and doesn’t want him to be in his life. I know I have a purpose, even if it isn’t clear to me; because I was created for a purpose. My client isn’t sure he has a purpose, now that his life goal may not be realized due to illness.

I was talking with my friend, Marilyn Keller, a couple days ago; she’s getting ready to head to Australia for her annual international jazz/gospel tour. I’m watching one of her performances in Perth, as I write this. To my surprise, in earlier years she worked with her dad in a chlorine gas manufacturing plant. They manufacture chlorine gas by running extremely high voltage through brine [saltwater]. She was telling me about the precautions needed in order to work on the machines, and being around 20,000 volts of electrical current. How much of the work is simply that of resisting the magnetic current that is created by high voltage. Having to force the giant wrench to stay on the giant bolt, when magnetism wants to suck it away from the bolt.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the concept of the Creator as pure energy. The Bible doesn’t contradict science, although there are a lot of people who seem to think that it does. At times in the past, I’ve felt that way myself. One has to realize that the Bible had to make sense to people who were very literal about life, thousands of years ago—what you see is what you get—the earth is mostly flat; the sun revolves across the sky, which is something that is possibly held up by tall mountains. The stars are lights in the sky; the sun and the moon are bigger lights…Some people feel that in order for the Bible to be True, it has to match our understandings of science today…Only, it’s not a science book. The Bible is a multi-thousand year ‘journal’ of man’s interaction with our Creator.

I’ve written of this idea a lot, I may be repeating myself—I was sitting in the yard one day, and turned over a rock; and all of these squiggly critters started running around. A couple thousand years ago the Creator entered time and space in the form of a human. Not unlike the concept of my deciding to enter the world of those squiggly critters under the rock; in order to help them understand how to make sense of their world. Only I wouldn’t do that. I have trouble leaving my office and interacting with friends; reaching out to strangers is extremely draining. The Creator entered time and space as a human infant, about the most defenseless creature on the planet; in order to understand our lives, and to give us some instruction as to how to make our lives better. And the message started getting messed up, as humans do, shortly after His time here was completed.

To the Creator, in some sense, the Universe is small. In the same sense as with the people who design an aircraft carrier. To a naval architect, in some sense an aircraft carrier is small enough to fit into the imagination.

The Universe is so immense that the planet Earth is a flyspeck in a small suburb of one of the millions of galaxies in Creation. We are so infinitesimally small that the Creator would have absolutely no reason to pay any attention to us. Sort of like those critters under the rock. But if the Creator is Infinite, what is Large? For that matter, everything, including flyspecks, are small, compared to Infinity. I believe the Creator is still Creating today; that’s what Creation is about. I’m losing my ability to draw; I’m losing my ability to write legibly, and pressing these keys requires more effort. And I keep looking for ‘work-arounds’ that will enable me to keep making illustrations. I can’t stop. My life only makes sense to me if I’m creating images. I expect that this is a gift from the Creator; part of my being Created in [His] image. I apparently also need to learn how to make sense of my life when I can’t to this stuff anymore. I’m not there yet.

I’ve created some characters in my career; they’ve never been famous. I still keep using these characters over and over again in other illustrations. I like them. In some sense, I love them. They are important to me. At their most tangible stage they are lines and shading on pieces of paper; at their most developed, they are bits–electrons on a monitor, or ink/toner on a piece of paper. I rarely throw drawings away [I have stacks and gigabytes of them]. Small images that are a part of some larger image remain in my files, and only leave when absolutely necessary. Like when I spill coffee on them, and the ink runs…they become ‘broken’ and I dislike losing them. They aren’t evil; usually they didn’t even choose to become scrap. But that’s what they’ve become.

There are a ton of people who are angry at God, and those who blame/credit God for nearly everything, no matter how nonsensical. I don’t blame them; I used to be one. Religious people can be very annoying, even if one shares their views. I’ve been thinking a lot about how the life of the religious is like a bubble—self-contained and purified. the universe in his hands_1

But the modern Urban world is a bubble as well. Not as pure, not as simplified as the religious life. And I walk a road that wanders in and out of both bubbles. There is no gate between the two, although some think there is. One can wander in and out.

The Creator is Infinite and Eternal; we are very finite and very time-bound. While we are Created in the Creator’s image, it is a large mistake to believe that the Creator exists in our image. The Bible makes a lot of statements that are generally interpreted to mean that the world is filled with ‘bad’ people—“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. That Jesus, the Creator’s presence in this world, somehow absorbs the Creator’s anger over our wickedness. He protects us from…Himself? Seems like that would mean that the Creator is schizophrenic. While the world is no doubt filled with a lot of bad people—read the headlines on any day—I think that the reality is that while Created in the image of the Creator, it is our human limitations/liabilities that are incompatible with the nature of the Creator. Like humans and high-voltage.

I’ve done a lot of electrical wiring over the years. I have this tendency to choose not to flip the breaker before starting to install electrical outlets. It works, if one is careful, and insulated. With 110v, one can get zapped if one does the wrong thing, but if one isn’t standing in a puddle of water, and is wearing rubber-soled shoes, one can get zapped and still get reminded that it would have been much smarter to flip the breaker… I’ve never been this stupid with 220v—I’ve heard too many stories. Suppose the nature of the Creator is more like high-voltage than it is like being human. Grab hold of high-voltage and you are toast. The Bible talks about how, at the end of time, all that we are will be burned as if in fire, and that only ‘the gold’ will remain [remember, this was written so that people living a few thousand years ago would understand—it isn’t necessarily wrong, but there was no electricity when Jesus was doing carpentry in Nazareth]. The smelting of metal made sense as an illustraton. To me, this seems to be consistent with the idea that the Creator is pure energy—high voltage—and we need to be changed in order to be compatible with Eternity. Turning our Free Will toward the Creator, rather than our own foolish pleasures. Things I do for myself vs. things I do for others. I think maturity is learning to focus my attention on others, and on things that will last, rather than things that fade with time. Like bodies.

the universe in his hands_mer
There’s a part of me that wants to write something that will solve most of the world’s problems–that will bring peace where there is anger. That will bring the assurance that we are Loved as we are; and that everyone doesn’t have to agree with each other in order to live together. That my having doesn’t take away from you, and vice-versa. We’re making a mess of this world, and we don’t need to; but it requires a ton of cooperation and a willingness to change for a higher good; a willingness to make some sacrifices. It means sharing, and that, in human beings, does not appear to occur naturally. It has to be learned, because sharing means overcoming the fear that there won’t be enough. That sharing means that we all deserve to live harmoniously with our world.

But I doubt that this will occur in my lifetime.

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 50: More Oddness

May 2, 2014

I was sitting in one of those ever-present coffee shops, where I can now actually enjoy the coffee since they’ve added less-burnt beans to their offerings. My client was ‘waxing eloquent’ about a drawing I had hastily finished a few hours before. Knowing that I wanted this particular image to be completed for this particular meeting, I scanned the uncompleted drawing, removed the background and then adjusted the contrast with the computer until it was similar to another drawing in the set. So, it was a darkened semi-finished drawing:

scan0013My client was thrilled with the outcome, and was telling me about all of the emotion I had been able to include in the drawing… I sat there wondering what he sees– meaning and emotion that I can’t see.

I’m pleased with the drawing; it’s one of my better images…but I don’t see the emotion he sees in the drawing. I just copied the photo; a still from an old movie. I don’t see the emotion he sees in the photo, either. For my client, the image is perfect; for me it’s another drawing; created in a very similar manner to the one he described as “ugly as sin” a few weeks ago…

Images create stories in our minds. And, for the most part, we  are not aware that this is happening. Neurologists can explain some of the mechanics, but they really don’t understand how our brains work. Light comes in through the lens of our eyes; electro-chemical signals are transmitted to our brains through the optic nerve; and somehow those signals create an image in our brains.

Grady's Brain“Grady’s Brain”
Adapted from a character I created a few years ago; combined with a logo image I created. I like the mechanical images, even though they aren’t accurate; but, I have an understanding of mechanical things…

We don’t have flat-screen televisions imbedded in our brains; the fact that we see the world as if we have a flat-screen inside our head is an illusion created by our brains. When we read a book [remember books?], we ‘see’ a story in our minds; we picture the characters, we picture the situations. We sometimes see those stories replayed in our minds, as if we had seen the story in a movie or television show.

So what happens when we interact with people? Probably something similar. The words we speak–the stories we tell–create stories in the minds of our audience; and frequently their responses come from the stories in their lives, the stories in their minds and in their memories. It is it any wonder that we have trouble communicating with each other? Have you ever talked with someone about a movie you’ve both seen, and you wonder if the other person really did see the same movie you saw?

How do we get through the clutter in our minds, so that we can actually live our own stories rather than someone else’s? In today’s world visual clutter–someone else’s story–is everywhere we look. While I own a cell phone, I rarely use it. I bought it so that I could report that my land line was down. I consider cell phones to be a lot like commercials, junk mail and calls from solicitors. Stuff that interferes with the story of my life. When I worked for the City, I trained my customers to send me a FAX [dinosaur age–pre-internet] with their questions written out. When my phone rang, I mostly ignored it; and a couple times a day I listened to my messages. Every day I heard inspectors talking on their cell phones while in the rest rooms. The background noises could be interesting as it is; but if there was one part of the day when privacy could be expected, it seemed as if the bathroom would be it. The aforementioned client asked me recently for my cell phone number; I politely refused. “Well how can I reach you when you can’t be reached?” “You can’t. When I can’t be reached, I can’t be reached. It’s not your time. That time is reserved for someone else.”

There was a point to all of this rambling, which started a few days ago.At the time, it seemed really significant. Should have made some notes. Too many other stories in the last few days, crowding out my own… Obviously, I don’t know the answer as to how we keep clutter out of our minds…

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 48: That Old Man

March 22, 2014

I’ve always enjoyed Science Fiction. Granted, I’m more inclined toward ‘cowboys in space’ than I am toward the many other genres within science fiction. Science fiction is one place where morality and philosophy can be discussed without some of the claptrap that religion often brings to the table. I think the ability to analyze ‘who I am’ is probably the most significant aspect of being a human being, Created in the image of the Creator [Lost some attention right there].

I’m also a big fan of Stargate SG-1. The episode I watched tonight deals with the issue of war crimes and redemption. Teal’c, the ‘bad guy’ turned ‘good guy’ [and in my opinion, the hero of the series], stands trial for the murder of the father of a boy grown into manhood. At the end, after all of the dust has settled, and the SG-1 team helps take out the bad guys, Teal’c turns himself over to his accuser to be executed.
“I am the Jaffa who killed your father.”
“No, you are mistaken. That Jaffa is dead; he was killed by you.”

MALCHUS 2.5Malchus’ Ear [detail]

I created this image some years ago, inspired by part of the Easter Story, a part that is somewhat underplayed. The part about Jesus choosing to die, as opposed to being betrayed by Judas. When the Roman guards come to arrest Jesus, a servant named Malchus is attacked by Peter, using the sword that Jesus told him to bring. The more famous part is ‘those who live by the sword shall die by the sword;’ overlooking the idea that this apparently was planned; or at least, not a surprise.
Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? Mt 26:53
Jesus wasn’t worried about a few Legionnaires.
I’ve always wondered about the ear… The Gospels teach that Jesus healed Malchus. So, did He ‘glue’ the ear back on; create a new ear; or somehow reverse time, as far as the ear is concerned? We don’t know. My favorite mental image is of Malchus’ mantlepiece and this shriveled, mushroom-looking thing lying on a special cloth or plate. The ear that was lopped off. Maybe an ear ring in his new ear…
Peter was no doubt confused about the whole thing. Why was he supposed to bring a sword if he was going to get chewed out for using it?
When did Jesus know that he had more than twelve legions of angels at His beck and call? The whole time? That night in the Garden?
There are apocryphal stories of the boy Jesus molding birds out of mud, and watching them fly away…

………………………..

Through the Creator’s Grace we have the ability to become a new creation. To become a new person.  Some would say that it’s because of evolutionary development, psychology, or the power of positive thinking, or any of a number of explanations; and I suppose those explanations are accurate in terms of the means by which redemption takes place.
I look back at the last 40+ years of my life, and the guy I was in my first years of college. I try to imagine what my life would have been like if not for the ‘simple’ decision as to what I was going to choose as my major; once I found out that ‘my plan’ didn’t exist at Oregon State. At the time I didn’t realize how momentous a decision that was; it was simply choosing how I wanted to spend the next 4 years of my life. A couple years later I discovered that the number was really 5… It’s only from the perspective of 40 years that I see how my life could have been entirely different.

I look at my adult kids, wonderful people, and I can see who I would be, if not for an encounter with Brad. Brad opened a door into the world of Grace, which led to another door, and innumerable doors that followed. I made a decision to change my life, and become the person I wanted to be, rather than the person I was being led into becoming.
Because Life has a way of making us take a left turn when we’d planned on going right, ‘the person I wanted to be’ is not the person I’ve become. A person for whom the Creator is more important than I could ever have believed; and a person who realizes that what I believe is a Mystery… I will continue exploring the Mystery and probably never get closer, in this life.

Joni Mitchell is singing Judy Collins’ “Both Sides Now,” as I type.  I don’t really believe in “random” music selection. Joni is probably in her 50’s at this time. An adult voice singing a song I listened to a lot in college, when the song was new.
The apostle Paul talks a lot about ‘shedding the old man,’ and becoming a new person.
The ‘old man’ that I was has been replaced by this old man…

Mikey avatar 3

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 47: Black Care

March 14, 2014

scan0004Draft image for a book about a dying man

NARRATOR: Theodore Roosevelt embodied America at the turn of the century — the confidence, the exuberance, the aggressiveness. It was all there, all in him. ”Roosevelt,” someone said, ”was a steam engine in trousers.” Cowboy, soldier, explorer, scientist, a world authority on large mammals and small birds, the author of 36 books and more than 100,000 letters, he made himself president by the age of 42.
None of it was easy. Shadowed by illness, haunted by the deaths of those most dear to him, he learned early, he said, that ”Life was one long campaign where every victory merely leaves the ground free for another battle.” ”Black care,” he wrote, ”rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/tr-transcript/

My pace apparently isn’t fast enough. This has been a crummy week. Black Care at my back.
Why would I be telling anyone about this? It’s certainly nothing I want to brag about; and I don’t have any solutions. I also don’t really have any explanations as to why this week has been worse than others. Part of it is the pain; but the pain hasn’t been any worse than at other times. It hasn’t been any better, either.
I seem to be communicating with folks who are dealing with difficult stuff. A woman who has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s; a man who may be dying from a damaged liver; damaged by the doctors who were supposed to be treating him. So much grief…

I listen to music all day; much of which is what I’ve labeled, “songs for broken people.” Lyrics that I want feeding my brain, an alternative to the stuff that my brain wants to shove out into my thinking.
I have a small heater blowing hot air on my feet all day, and they feel painfully cold. They can’t be cold, but that’s what the damaged nerves are telling me. Having spent much of my life living on aspirin and barbiturates, and having toxicity/self-poisoning the only likely suspect that hasn’t been ruled out; I’m working at avoiding pills to deal with the pain. It’s possible to be addicted to ‘non-addictive’ meds. One merely has to hurt bad enough, often enough. I see the pain doc in a couple of weeks; not a lot of expectations.

People don’t talk much about pain; I suppose this is mostly because we all hate it; and people feel they should have answers. I don’t have answers. My belief is that this life is short compared to Eternity. While I would never have wished for 30+ years of pain, it’s the hand I’ve been dealt, and my Creator understands why. I believe that every one of my 61+ years has been known by my Creator since before my birth. And all of the days I have left. My Creator has known about the lost weekends in dark rooms, with my head packed in ice. All of the time I wasn’t able to give to my family; and if I’m honest, time I wouldn’t have spent with them, because of other stuff.

Why would the Creator allow pain in our lives? Wouldn’t a loving God want his children to live without pain and suffering? Most of the world’s pain is caused by Man. Where would He start in changing the way a person behaves? I spent a lot of the time I had, visiting as a kid in an Eastern Oregon town of 3 digits in population, killing ants. I was bored stiff and there were a lot of ants. Not really damaging anything as far as I could tell; they were mostly doing what ants do all day. It sort of bothered me, but they were only ants and it was something to do…just ants…
Created by my Creator.
To my Creator, I may not be that much more significant than an ant. Made in the image of my Creator, and I’m not really sure what that means. I doubt that it’s my mind; the image probably refers to my ability to choose how I live my life. What I do with what I have.
Americans waste so many of our choices.
I shot a bird once; I was aiming at it, but never imagined I’d actually hit the thing. Dead by one BB. I am aware that I have the capacity for violence; and I’ve avoided it as an adult.

Natural disaster. The Earth moves. We feel as though we have some sort of protection from natural disaster, but it happens. Thousands of people, every day, damaged in their bodies or their souls by stuff they couldn’t predict.

The only answer that makes any sense to me is that we are Eternal beings, and this lifetime however, long and painful it may be, is only an eyeblink in the span of Eternity. Watching my children growing up, comforting them in the everyday pains that children encounter, I realized I could not protect them from hurt; and that if I could, I wouldn’t be helping them. We learn through pain. It’s a really lousy answer, but it seems to be the one that makes the most sense.

So I rant at the Creator. Whine and grumble, more than rant. I was given a Gift this morning, during my mostly-daily walk through the cemetery up the hill from us [I live on an inactive volcano, one of several that surround Portland]. Three deer came out onto the road ahead of me, one at a time. Watching me as they came out of the creek bed, and continuing on their morning adventure. The one in front seemed to be the most daring, the most adventuresome…projection on my part. While I realized that seeing the deer was a Gift–it’s been close to a year since I’ve seen any deer at the cemetery–I was also aware that I was still bitching about how I felt; frustrated with the state of my business; frustrated that a large check I received from a potential client was fraudulent. I already had the check half-spent, in my mind. Frustrated that I can’t be everything I want to be; frustrated that my time for being that person is being cut short.

Time for another hero movie. Time for some more drawing, while I still can.

American Heroes

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 46: Everything’s Amazing And Nobody’s Happy

February 27, 2014

My apologies for stealing the title. Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/02/25/282516865/everythings-amazing-and-nobodys-happy
Watch the video, also.

This is the first map of radioactivity in a supernova remnant, the blown-out bits and pieces of a massive star that exploded. The blue color shows radioactive material mapped in high-energy X-rays using NuSTAR. Heated, non-radioactive elements previously“The new view shows a more complete picture of Cassiopeia A, the remains of a star that blew up in a supernova event whose light reached Earth about 350 years ago, when it could have appeared to observers as a star that suddenly brightened. The remnant is located 11,000 light-years away from Earth.” http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/image/nustar140219a

picture of Cassiopeia A
whose light reached Earth about 350 years ago
located 11,000 light-years away
If these aren’t OMG phrases, I’m not sure what are. And we are so complacent.
I am so complacent.

People are walking around with more computing power in their pocket than any of the Apollo astronauts had, traveling to the Moon. And it drops, and the glass cracks and you have to pay a huge amount of money to replace it; even though it’s still in its “trial/return period” which does not replacement of damaged phones… Because 3-digits-before-the-decimal may be a large chunk of a paycheck that is already stretched to breaking…

When I was a kid, I used to get up early to watch the Mercury and Apollo launches. On a fuzzy black and white cathode-tube television that Einstein only dreamed of [slight exaggeration for Albert]. I remember NOT watching the launches, because they had become more commonplace.

Pulp-O-Mizer_Cover_Image

Today I carried on almost-simultaneous conversations with a client in London, a couple somewhere in Mongolia and a client in California… OMG

One of the ‘spoilers’ is money. Smart phones cost a lot of money, as do utilities, food and the other stuff that fills our lives. I don’t have a smart phone; I only have a dumb phone that I often forget to take with me on those rare days when I leave my office. Of course, I also have two desktop computers and a laptop computer, all of which run 24/7 for most days of the year. I also have two other laptops mostly in disrepair, and a stack of dead ones, as well as two or three desktop computers that don’t- or barely run.
Money means employment; employment comes with its own headaches.

The cares of life beat the ‘wonder’ out of us. Jesus, my mentor and my example, teaches that wonder can be part of our life every moment; but I haven’t learned that teaching very well. My children, now adults, have been some of my best teachers of ‘wonder’ and they mostly don’t remember how to do it; due to their own cares and concerns.
My recollection of the adults in my life, growing up, is that they mostly were wonder-proof. I remember telling my father that he worked too much, and was missing out on too much of life. I have become my father. Fortunately, my own kids are somewhat wiser.

I wonder if, as a child, I was ever a teacher of wonder.

wonder

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 45: Seeing the World with New Eyes

February 27, 2014

February 26th is the anniversary of my “re-birth”; 41 years since I decided that to enter into a journey I did not particularly want, but could not explain in any other way. I gave my life to the Creator of the Universe. Four decades and I still haven’t figured it out. It isn’t religion, it’s ‘faith;’ but that in itself isn’t really an explanation.
Robert Barron in his “And Now I See” describes it in this manner: “metanoiete. This Greek term is based upon two words, meta (beyond) and nous (mind or spirit), and thus, in its most basic form, it means something like ‘go beyond the mind that you have.’”
I believe that we can touch a HUGE world that exists beyond our understanding, and that we continually try to reduce its size to something we can manage. To understand the Infinite with minds of the finite. I’ve had two conversations of depth with people who have a challenge with Belief, based mostly on the behavior of believers.

And I’m not sure what else to add to this, tonight.

greentree3an homage to Vermeer

We are living a time when we need to see the world with new eyes. The world is broken, and seems to be getting more broken. Looking inwards to our own hearts to find the answer sees not to be working too well.

My brain doesn’t appear to be flowing with words tonight. Time to draw.

people collage 2

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 43:

January 20, 2014

valley of the shadow
A friend of mine was describing the images that came to mind as he read the 23rd Psalm–“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all of the days of my life…” He described angels watching over him. This is the image that came to my mind, as he described his image.

I have always been partial to “fear not and behold!” angels as opposed to the Hallmark kind. If one reads the descriptions in the older parts of Scripture, one doesn’t find Clarence Oddbody nor the cute little angels found at Christmastime. I’ve always figured that angels must be fearsome to behold, since fear seems to be the first reaction the angels have to deal with.

For much of the 40 years that I have been following the Creator I’ve heard this continual subtext–that good things will happen to the Believer who is following the Creator closely; that trouble will stay away. This hasn’t necessarily been the overt text, but it has been the subtext, and I’ve always found it confusing. 1] it isn’t Scriptural–if nothing else, Scripture assures the Believer that there will be trouble; 2] I’ve been battling chronic pain for half of my life–something like 30 of my 60+ years.

I’ve never been very religious; just can’t force myself into that mold.  Part of me has found this notion to blame; but then I read the Book of Job–the oldest part of the Bible, which basically says that being religious has nothing to do with a life that pleases the Creator [it seems that serious acknowledgement is central to a faith that pleases the Creator]. “shit happens” seems to be the best explanation as to why bad things happen to good, and not-so-g00d people. It’s a part of Life.

I’ve also come to believe that there is a part of Life that is much harder to figure out. The Apostle Paul writes that we are like players on a stage, performing for an unseen audience. Physicists postulate that there are 11 dimensions, rather than the four we know about [length, width, height and time]; I have come to the conclusion that if there are 11 dimensions, then one of these dimensions is a dimension of the Spirit; or that the correct number is at least 12.

There has been so much of my life that has pointed me to the Creator; events that have happened to me, or to my family, that have been so personal that I can’ t prove them to anyone. There is no proof; and at the same time, there is little room for doubt.  Mostly in the context of a middle-class [and sliding], non-adventurous life. Not much drama; nothing from which to make an interesting movie. Crises, an ample number of them; from which we mostly survived fairly well, although not cheaply.

Through all of my life I have felt that I was in the presence of unseen Presences; formidable angels seem to qualify. Amidst the crises, there is much that happens on filmed stories that have never happened to us. Burglaries with minimal damage; car wrecks without death; accidents without death; deadly illness that hasn’t. There are unseen wolves that have been held back by Guardians we cannot see. Perhaps.

pilgrim col

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 39: Bruised Egos

November 23, 2013

CAKFL63D_REV
I decided a long time ago, when I started writing stuff [as a Building/Planning Code consultant I send out a newsletter], that I would only write about things I KNOW, rather than things I’m guessing about. Consequently, I never provide suggestions about investments and financial matters. I had a lesson in this concept a long time ago; a time that now seems like a different lifetime. I accepted a challenge to ‘sit at the feet’ all night with an ‘expert’ in marketing and life. I went to work tired the next day, but energized. He had spent a few hours talking about how to make marriages work successfully–a handsome, well-groomed businessman who was married to a gorgeous and gracious woman. A few months later, they were divorced… After that an upline business associate embezzled some funds. A sad commentary on Free Will.

The only thing I know for sure about freelancing is that one’s ego will get painfully bruised. But this is a generalization, and like all generalizations, it’s not totally accurate. MY ego has gotten painfully bruised on a regular basis, ever since I took this gig.  One day I have people telling me how great my work is; the next day I have people skipping out on a payment.  Some days I lose out on work because as much as they liked my work, they found someone who can do it better. And they can…

I specialize in drawing, and digitally manipulating my drawings. While I can copy almost any style, I can’t create in multiple styles. I can copy cartoons, but I have trouble creating cartoons. I met a young woman one day who created amazing drawings on the spot, no visual references. I taught a drawing class at a middle school this last winter term. There were two girls in the class who were able to draw manga illustrations off the top of their heads, better than I could begin to imagine. One of the ego-bruising aspects of today’s technological age is that there is so much specialization. I’m a generalist who was once in sight of the leading edge of technology; now, I’m not even sure how far ahead the leading edge is. But it’s far. I have software I’ve barely used, specialties I’d like to have; but don’t have time to explore.

It’s all about Time. As in the clock above. A clock image I created from a guy’s artwork. An image along with others, for which, once again, I was never paid. A lot of time invested by me this year that proved about as successful as Wall Street’s management of the lending industry…

An ever-present dilemma for freelancers. The ‘logical’ solution is to always get a down payment before working, in order to at least get something for work done that turns out to have been a bad investment of time. However, there apparently a lot of dishonest ‘creatives’ out there who have cheated a lot of people in their time. Enough that there are a lot of buyers who won’t even consider giving a payment in advance. So what’s an honest freelancer to do?

What I do is to act as if I’m not going to be cheated this time; and act as if every client is going to be a client for a very long time. And hope that I don’t screw up the deal by not communicating well enough. The clock project was a year ago, and my brain is full…I don’t recall any of the details, and I apparently didn’t copy the email at the end of the interaction. According to the beginning of the email conversation, I supposedly was going to get paid $20/hr. Nothing in my billing records; and 1Gb of digital files in the client’s folder.

Time. The element of life I try to control, but cannot. I gave up on wearing a watch years ago; my watch was controlling my life. Of course, fewer and fewer people are wearing watches now. Cell phones track time and nearly everyone has a cell phone with them. Mine stays either in my office 98% of the time. The message on my cell phone directs people to call my land line, because my cell phone is probably in my closet. Having a computer in my pocket would have been a tremendous temptation years ago; since I now mostly live in my office, it’s an expense I can avoid.

Time. Do I make the most of my time? Probably not. I’ve spent too much time chasing a living, and too little time with my family. I have a granddaughter in another state; far enough away that we only see her about once a year. Since she recently turned 11, that means I’ve seen her 11 times, more or less. Twelve times–they came here last summer, as well as our going to Colorado. When she was an infant, and again as a pre-school-aged little girl, she lived with us for a few months… Skype. I could see her all the time, if I made the effort. These days, I’m weary, aching and tired most of the time; when I stop working, there’s little left for relationships. Fortunately my wife doesn’t require a lot of attention.

I have become my father, in spite of my best intentions.

Dr.Watson

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