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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 70: The Battle of Bedford Falls

April 29, 2015

klara_holdenfrom The Book Lover

   The title of this entry is from a movie reference, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey of Bedford Falls opts to take the role of Rescuer instead of the role of Adventurer; and the decision changes the course of his life. He takes on a job he doesn’t want, in order to rescue his family; he marries, ends up living in a drafty old house, takes on the role of father and ends up taking the fall for a mistake supposedly made by a daffy old uncle. On the verge of bankruptcy, he attempts suicide; and is rescued by an unlikely [and non-Biblical] angel. Clarence the angel gives George the gift of seeing what his world of Bedford Falls would have been like had he never been born…

The Battle of Bedford Falls is the battle of making it through another day when everything inside of you wants to opt out of the experience. There are a lot of other options to suicide that accomplish a similar task—‘opting not to play the game’ one more day; and immersing oneself in a variety of activities that postpone the inevitable.

When I started writing for public consumption—this venture into online journaling—I decided that I would only write about things I know about; things in which I have some expertise. I don’t write to gain “followers”—although they are appreciated; and I don’t write to ‘monetize’ my thoughts. I write as a way of exploring my life and myself, and hopefully express in words some thoughts that others may not be able to find the words for. Occasionally using bad grammar…

My only areas of expertise are subjects related to the Building Code; and a very particular style of illustration. These aspects of my life don’t offer a lot of practical wisdom [I wish I’d had more of the former, when I was building the house I’m in]. I’ve built houses, written City policy, raised kids into adulthood and stayed married for nearly 39 years. I’ve rarely left Portland; and at the same time have traveled to the Gulf Coast and to Mexico a few times for construction-related mission work.

I have years of training in how one can change their life for the better, and I’m happier with ‘me’ than I was 30+ years ago; but I only know how to change me—I can’t change other people. The most that I can do is create an environment where people can change, if they desire change. I can offer suggestions [many of which are for me, facts]—but until someone accepts my ideas as their own, they are simply ‘suggestions’. I can provide people with a list of books to study, but I can’t make them read the books or try to implement them into their lives.

There’s rioting in Baltimore; perhaps not tonight, but there has been rioting over the last few days. Rioting in lots of cities, reminding me of the late 60’s—the rioting then had different causes. Throughout the Twentieth Century and overflowing into the Twenty-first, we have become a people who prefer antagonism to mediation. Despite a century of bloodshed, people still pick up weapons in order to feel safe. The proliferation of weapons isn’t making us any safer.

The Battle of Bedford Falls—how do we get through today?

I feel shitty most days, at the start of my day; I start the day, these days, feeling like I did at the end of the day in the past. Due to my neurological issues, my entire body feels wrong; my legs, from the knees down feel wrong, but I’ve been walking for something like 60 years; my muscles know how to walk. I choose to ignore how I feel and walk anyway. The reality is that I know of dozens of people who are in worse shape than I am. So I start my day in prayer, listening to music that turns my mind toward the Creator and my inner self. I ‘lift people up’ in my prayers—I’m not smart enough to tell the Creator what His creation needs. Praying for others takes my mind off of myself. Do my prayers change the world? I have no idea. They change me, over time. Among those changes are a growing list of people—I pray for people I don’t know, I pray for people I’d rather not talk with.

I make sense out of my life by the belief that this life is but an eyeblink in the span of Eternity. I was told long ago, that we are minds with a body, rather than the reverse. Over time I have come to believe that we are Eternal souls that have a mind and a body. That Earth is a place where we are intended to learn how to live well with our fellow creatures. I believe there is another ‘plane of existence’ that isn’t tied to bodies and disease and suffering; and that we arrive at that plane when we leave these damaged bodies behind. I also believe that we could do a much better job of living with each other than we do. It’s our greed, our stupidity, our selfishness that makes this world a garbage heap…We blame God for not stopping us from doing the things we can do by our own choice.

And this is a lousy way to end this entry…probably indicative of my mood—I’ve been repairing a washing machine over the last couple of days, and I dislike the toll it’s taken on my body and mind. It used to be a lot easier.

In spite of a lot of evidence to the contrary, I look forward to seeing what another few years will bring into my life. I’ve met people I would not have met before; there are people I care about now that I didn’t know a couple of years ago. Granted, I’m not seeing a lot of points on the ‘win’ side of the ledger these days, but I lack the ability to see into the future. I have to wait for the future to show up. I see my kids overcoming huge obstacles, and I believe they will continue to move forward. Every day I see indicators of positive change for the future of mankind—if we will stop fighting each other long enough to pay attention. We walk in the shadows of giants; and I believe we will see more giants in the future, if we will simply pay attention.

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 63: Small Town America

January 26, 2015

Freedom of Worship-dwg

My version of Norman Rockwell’s
“Freedom of Worship”

   I don’t know a lot about Small Town America; I’ve lived nearly all of my life in Portland, Oregon. Portland used to be much more like Small Town America; the site of my uncle’s farm is now 5 miles from a major shopping center, and a mile away from suburban housing. When I was a kid, the fruit and vegetable guy drove his truck through the neighborhood; milk got delivered to the houses in the neighborhood. My grandmother lived in a small town in Eastern Oregon, we went there frequently. If my father had had his plans for his life, he would have been a wheat rancher. Economics and human greed stole that dream from him. I was shipped out to Eastern Oregon on two occasions, in order to learn farm life.
I didn’t learn much.
I grew up a city kid.

Much of my time is invested in watching a lot of DVDs—background sounds while I draw; it used to be VHS videos. I’m back in a “West Wing” phase. The fictional characters are heroes of mine. One of their shortcomings is that they, too, are city kids. They don’t comprehend Small Town American life; and a large part of our country is Small Town America. I watched a faith-based movie tonight that reminded me of my past; and at the same time, our present. The faith-based lifestyle is much like Small Town Life. Churches are communities; the expectations for life and living are very similar.

I sometimes fear that urban America and Small Town America will never understand each other—the mindsets are so different. Ultimately the goals are very similar—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; how one achieves these things are very different, depending upon one’s perspective. I know that the faith-based way of life is a place where those differences can be met; it’s hard to communicate this when the urban world thinks that religion is the problem. I am able to see the difference between faith and religion; apparently others can’t see that as clearly.

I have adult children that apparently think I’m delusional. That I see something that doesn’t exist. This is the only explanation that makes any sense to me; I’m not annoyed by the notion, more a frustration that my life hasn’t been the example I’ve wanted it to be. I’m not done yet.

How do I effectively communicate the fact that there is a Creator, an Infinite, Eternal Creator who loves His Creation enough that He would enter time and space in order to show us how to live. A statement more than a question. Free Will and Arrogance have prevented that message from making any comprehensive headway in life for very long. But the Message keeps growing and expanding, in spite of our incomprehension.

I was a witness to a joyous event this weekend; the retirement from public service, of the man who is probably the most influential person in my life. He led me to Jesus. He didn’t drag, or push; he simply was himself, a person of integrity and caring. He believed something I found to be preposterous, and he shared that belief in me. His friendship was enough for me to follow him down a Path from which I have never left. Brad led me to a ‘burning bush’ [I often wonder how many people before Moses passed by that bush? Or was it lit for Moses alone?]; he led me to a “Damascus Road” where I got knocked of my horse… Some sort of metaphor. It wasn’t Brad alone; Brad had friends, his friends were sincere.

The Path hasn’t been fun in these last years. I don’t know what ‘last’ really means; I can’t remember this Path ever feeling ‘fun’ for very long. But I’m thankful, Brad, that you gave me the opportunity; even if you don’t know what you did.

 

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https://www.artisticallysocial.com/users/mjartscom/gallery/

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 58: The Examined Life

November 24, 2014

valley of the shadow_crop

Yesterday, I thought I’d seen it all
I thought I’d climbed the highest wall
Now I see the learning never ends
And all I know to do is keep on walking
Walking ’round the bend singing

Why, why, why
Does it go this way
And why, why, why
And all I can say

Is somewhere down the road
There’ll be answers to the questions
And somewhere down the road
Tho’ we cannot see it now

Somewhere down the road
You will find mighty arms reaching for you
And they will hold the answers
At the end of the road

Oh, keep on walking

Somewhere Down the Road Amy Grant, Wayne Kirkpatrick

“Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to believe.”

Plato, Apology

Possibly the one advantage to living with pain for several decades is that it has given me a lot of time for examining my life. When all one can do is get horizontal in the dark, and hope that whatever method of pain relief one is using will kick in soon, one has a lot of time to think… I’ve spent a lot of time examining my life, and I have decided to cultivate faith in things that many people are unable to see; ideas they can’t understand.

One of the things I’ve learned is that I can’t fix people. The most that I can do is provide an environment where ‘fixing’ can occur, if someone is inclined to becoming ‘fixed’. Most of the time, we aren’t even aware of being broken. I think there are probably a lot of house pets that would object to the concept that the trip to the veterinarian ‘fixed’ something that wasn’t broken. It was merely inconvenient. ‘Fixing’ a human is far more complicated than some minor surgery.

I started realizing that the world is really messed up while I was in high school. High School, particularly an all-male high school in the sixties, was so different from high school today. At a guy’s high school in the sixties, if a food fight developed in the cafeteria, a coach simply went up to one of his players throwing food, and decked him. End of food fight. No counseling, no lawyers, no fuss. There were switchblades in my high school, and chemistry students making explosives [contact explosive on the legs of the teacher’s desk, which went off when the teacher slammed his briefcase onto his desk—probably the last time he ever did that to get his class’s attention].

During my senior year, I started reading stuff I never would have thought to read, and had to start writing essays on “Appearance vs. Reality as Demonstrated in Kafka and Camus.” I was also introduced to transcendence, in the form of “The 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.”
“I’ve been a soldier and a slave. I’ve seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I’ve held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no brave last words, only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning “Why?” I don’t think they were wondering why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams – -this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all – -to see life as it is and not as it should be.”

Being mostly a geek through my childhood and high school, my behavior stayed within certain boundaries because life worked better within those boundaries. In college, I learned that there really aren’t any boundaries. By the end of my sophomore year, I spent a lot of time in depression—like Senor Quihana, my brains began to ‘dry up’ as I witnessed man’s inhumanity to man in Vietnam, and in Chicago, and at Kent State… “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams–this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all-–to see life as it is and not as it should be.”

During my third year, at a different college, I discovered my Creator; and I learned that the idea of ‘life as it should be’ wasn’t simply some sort of behavior that my parents had tried to instill in me. One can instill behavior in another person, either in a positive way, or by coercion. To discover a way of living life that transcended behavior, and for me, was the beginning of a journey on ‘the road less traveled’. The vast majority seek a different road.

There are two people in my life who I wish I could help. “Help” in this context means to see life through my perspective. Seeing life through my eyes would not ‘fix’ them; their bodies betray them in ways that are similar to my 30+ years of pain. I’d like them to know that there is a reserve. That no matter how many times they find themselves stumbling on their paths, no matter how many wolves are waiting in the wings, Goodness and Mercy are always following them, protecting their souls. I believe their souls are protected, even if they don’t believe they have souls. Somewhere down the road, they will learn this. In the span of Eternity, our lives here, no matter how broken, are like the blink of an eye. We are as eternal as the stardust from which we are created.

Created. Such a strange concept in today’s scientific world. We learn so much and the learning costs us perspective. The explanations imply that we are machines of some sort, with predictable outcomes. We grow from the joining of two microscopic cells, in much the same manner as all life on this planet exists. Because we are grown, rather than manufactured, there are flaws; there are limitations. I believe that enough generations have passed to cause more flaws to occur. There has been enough contamination to the original strains that more of us are susceptible to breakage; more of us that experience life as it was not intended to be. Bad design? Perhaps. Perhaps it is simply that the raw materials are so fallible. And we are taught that life can be guaranteed. It can only be guaranteed to bring trouble.

 

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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 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…

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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 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 23: Sustainability

November 20, 2012

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I just finished watching Ken Burns’ “The Dust Bowl;” chronicling the 30 or so years that it took to turn a self-sustaining savannah of Buffalo Grass into what almost became the Sahara Desert revisited. Land that should never have been cultivated, because it can’t sustain agriculture. Rain is infrequent, but Buffalo Grass had roots that grew 5ft into the ground. The ‘Dust Bowl’ happened because wheat ranchers over-cultivated land that should have been left for grazing. I didn’t keep track of the numbers; but the narration speaks of millions of tons of topsoil that was blown away. At one point in the mid-30’s, Oklahoma dust fell on a tanker 300 miles at sea.

The area where the Dust Bowl once existed is now used for “corn” production, which requires even more water than wheat. The water for this production is pumped out of the Ogallala Aquifer. Not only does the aquifer provide water for irrigation, but it also provides drinking water for much of the central plains.  Some estimates say the aquifer will dry up in as few as 25 years. The Dust Bowl will very likely return. Drinking water used for hog feed.

Why are we so stupid?

The farmers came because they wanted to own land, and to make a life for themselves and their descendants. A valid desire. The Ken Burns story references the writings of Carolyn Henderson; a woman who came to Oklahoma looking to build a life for herself and her husband, and their family. I have relatives who are Hendersons, probably not related; my father expected to be a wheat rancher, here in Oregon. The Ken Burns story pushed ‘buttons’ that I prefer keeping un-pushed.

In America we have the freedom to ruin the land that sustains us. We do things because we can; not because we should. This too, is the American Way.

There are those who had the ability to create a ‘dust bowl’ of our economy. Not just the American economy; but much of the Western world’s economy.  The homeless [both on the street, and those who now live with family and friends, having lost their homes] are the ‘Okies’ of today. Victims of our own foolishness and/or lack of foresight. We over-cultivated our economy, in the same manner as did those who created the Dust Bowl. The parallels are frightening.

I am heartened by individuals in my children’s generation; people who want to repair the land, and live in a more sustainable manner. It requires a divorce from consumerism; which drives our economy. So, we not only need to live a more sustainable lifestyle when it comes to agriculture and energy production; but we also need to wean our economy off of consumerism, and into sustainability.

A large portion of the population of our world live in tin shacks or mud huts. They have internet access in this world of dire poverty; the contrast is also staggering.

Black Friday is coming, this week; and retailers are excited. During the time of the Dust Bowl, there occurred a Black Sunday. Walls of dust, thousands of feet tall, blocked out the light of the sun for hours on end, for much of the Plains states. I wonder if our upcoming Black Friday is also leading to a Black Sunday in the future.

Cover art for Scholastic’s “Oregon At Last”

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 10: Advent

December 16, 2011

[“Adoration of the Magi” acrylic, inspired by a Norman Rockwell painting: http://www.mjarts.com/port_1a.htm ] Chris Tomlin: Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

Did you know that Jesus wasn’t a Christian?
He was a Jew. All of His followers were either Jews or were seeking something More for their lives. These believers were later called “Christians,” but they referred to themselves as “followers of the Way.”
He probably wasn’t born in the Winter.
The “Wise Men from the East” didn’t arrive at the stable and the manger. Jesus was probably around 2 years old, when the Wise Men arrived. After the Wise Men left Herod the King, having told him about the birth of the promised Messiah/King, Herod ordered the deaths of all of the male babies 2 years old and younger.
But it makes for a good story.
For today’s times, I prefer this Advent Allegory by Jonathan Gray:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOlVheWcfhA

The Emperor Constantine legalized/”officialized” Christianity in the 4th Century. The Church has been messed up, ever since, confusing the Way of Faith with the ways of commerce and politics.

When the Holy Roman Empire moved into northern Europe, the priests re-purposed  the ‘pagan’ religious winter festivals into Christian feast days, so that Christianity would be more palatable to the folk they found there. This is human nature. Parents do it with their children all the time.

My Christmases, when I was a child:

This was taken in the mid-1950′s. I’m the kid looking at my cousin, Carol [Sunny]. Not sure why I wasn’t looking at the camera. Sort of symbolic, in a way, I’ve always looked in directions the rest of the world doesn’t. I still have the bear on the floor in front of me. These days, with my messed-up peripheral sensory nerves, I miss flannel-lined jeans [my cousin Jim, on the right, is wearing a pair]. My cousins, Bruce and Wendy are between Jim and I.

My first Advent was in 1973. That’s the year that I learned that the Eternal and Infinite Master of the Universe had, at a point in history, entered Time and Space. Seemingly impossible, unless one is Omnipotent. In 1973 I realized that this event was sort of  similar to my lifting up a rock, and deciding to become one of those crawly things scurrying around, under the rock. Only on a Much Larger Scale…
For 30 or so years, the incarnate Eternal apparently didn’t do much that one might expect from the Creator of the Universe. Jesus did the same sort of stuff that we do. Our Creator knows what it feels like to be human. Our Creator knows our struggles. At the same time, our Creator knows that our time here on earth is like an eyeblink in the span of Eternity–the existence for which we are created.
For three or so years, Jesus did the sort of things that the Creator of the Universe might be expected to do, and as a result, the religious leaders of the day arranged for His crucifixion. They wanted Him gone; only He came back, and told His followers that death wasn’t The End, it was simply The New Beginning…

I try to live with the message of the incarnation in my life, every day, as much as I can. It’s a little harder at this time of year. So many people are madly involved in celebrating Something Else. When our children were small, we got more involved in “Christmas”–there is something magical about the expression on a child’s face, their belief in the ‘magic’ of the lights, the presents, the wonder of the whole thing. A shadow of what the shepherds might have felt when they were in the presence of angels.

I told our children about Saint Nicholas, the real bishop, whose story somehow got transformed into Santa Claus. One year, to my complete incomprehension, there really were parallel lines on our driveway, and little round spots mingled among the lines…I still can’t come up with a more plausible explanation than the impossible presence of a sleigh and reindeer.

Advent. The time that marks the coming of our Creator into the world, with a message of forgiveness. We don’t have to continually beat up on ourselves, or beat up on other people in order to make our lives work better. We are accepted, the way we are; all we need to do is live in that state of acceptance. We can also become better than we are, because our Creator’s Grace can live inside us. Not so that we can experience magic, but to create wonder.

And, like Malchus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can be healed.

A blessed winter time of celebration, to you all.

Peace, and good will toward you all. May the coming year be filled with Hope.

Marty

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 9: Occupying Our Hearts

November 13, 2011

This illustration was created for Ken Gunther, for an upcoming book to be published by Gaiadigm Books.

Somewhere in the eighties I started drawing Native American portraits, some of which were compiled in the image below [John_10-16]. The process of searching for new images became a study of our government’s treatment of the indigenous peoples who lived here before the Europeans came; and the slaughter of those Nations.

Nations. Our government recognized these peoples as Sovereign Nations, and prepared Treaties with these Nations; and then systematically broke all of the Treaties.

In the image below, the words in the oval on the left state that the purpose of most of the early colonies was evangelism; over time the presence of the Native Americans became an obstacle…

“Our manifest destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying masses.”
John Louis Sullivan, 1845

“In treachery, broken pledges upon the part of high officials, lies, thievery, slaughter of defenseless women and children, and every crime in the catalogue of man’s inhumanity to man, the Indian was a mere amateur compared to “the noble white man.” His crimes were retail, ours wholesale.”
Lt. Britton Davis, 1884

In the image below, the oval on the right offers quotations from half a dozen “Indians” who spoke words that should have come out of the mouths of Christians of that time. Words that echo what Jesus taught.

The Lakota used a metaphor to describe the Europeans who arrived on their lands.
“It was Wasi’chu, which means “takes the fat,” or “greedy person.” Within the modern Indian movement, Wasi’chu has come to mean those corporations and individuals, with their governmental accomplices, which continue to covet Indian lives, land, and resources for private profit.
Wasi’chu does not describe a race; it describes a state of mind.
Wasi’chu is also a human condition based on inhumanity, racism, and exploitation. It is a sickness, a seemingly incurable and contagious disease which begot the ever advancing society of the West. If we do not control it, this disease will surely be the basis for what may be the last of the continuing wars against the Native American people.”
…excerpt from Wasi’chu, The Continuing Indian Wars,
Bruce Johansen and Robert Maestas
with an introduction by John Redhouse
[ http://www.dickshovel.com ]

Evangelical Christians in the US seem to have a short memory. We talk about being a nation ‘blessed by God’ and overlook the slaughter of the Nations that were here at the beginning. We overlook Hiroshima and Nagasaki as crimes against humanity. And somehow we call our nation “blessed”. How can we justify these actions of the past as Christian actions?

The “Occupy…” movements of today, I believe, are a reflection of the some people’s recognition of the spirit of Wasi’chu among us. We live in a country of vast inequalities. I do not believe the answer is simply “redistribution of wealth”. When the wealthy refuse to be taxed at the same rate as the non-wealthy, at the expense of “social services,” I think we have a problem of Wasi’chu.

What Would Jesus Do?
I don’t know; the Gospels do not include any instances of “Occupy Jerusalem”. Jesus lived under the foot of an Emperor; and such movements would have probably ended with death and maiming.

In an interview with Gary W. Moon written in “Conversations
Journal” [ http://www.philipyancey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/WhatGoodIsGod-Yancey-and-Moon.pdf ], Philip Yancey writes:
For one thing, Jesus didn’t live in a democracy; he lived under an occupying power, the most powerful empire of its time. In such circumstances, you can either accommodate the ruling power, as the Sadducees did, or violently oppose it, as did the Zealots. Jesus mostly ignored it. He said nothing about the brutality of the Romans or some of their nefarious practices, such as gladiator games, pederasty, and the abandonment of infants. His guiding principle, “[Give] unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” is wonderfully ambiguous (Luke 20:25, ASV).

GWM: So, if you could write a one or two-sentence prescription for the
church in the US and you were sure it would be followed, what would you prescribe?
PY: Spend less time and energy trying to clean up the culture around you—a task Jesus and Paul did not seem concerned about—and more time and energy creating a counter-culture that presents a compelling alternative while exposing the shallowness of its surroundings.

I don’t think I can say it any better.

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