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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 38: Choices

November 10, 2013

Law Office FourGrnA recent image, created for an attorney who chose not to comment upon the image, and also chose not to pay me… I can’t say that I’ll ever recommend her.
I find the bulk of my work [numerically] by trolling Craigslist, across the country. Sometimes I run into good projects; other times…

“How Shall We Then Live?” The title of a book by Francis Shaeffer, from the last century, but still a valid question. Today I watched a movie about the abduction and murder of a Wall Street Journal journalist, working in Pakistan a few years ago. He chose to interview the wrong man, and ended up paying for it with his life. There was no clear reason why he was killed. Maybe because he was Jewish, though non-religious; he was accused of being a spy, and wasn’t. His kidnappers wanted the behavior of the US government in regard to Guantanamo to change; that was his ransom.

I came across a great website today:
http://themetapicture.com/how-to-interact-with-the-introverted/
a perfect picture of my life.

We make choices every day. Sometimes, even relatively small choices can have dramatic outcomes. The things we say to the people around us can change a life.

At present, I’m struggling with a FEAR [False Evidence Appearing Real] about picking up a pencil and drawing again. I haven’t done this for a few weeks; most of my work lately has been digital. My hands have started shaking a lot when I try to make ‘small motor’ motions. Another side effect of the neuropathy, I imagine. Threading a needle is probably impossible. That’s the fear. Holding a mouse works; although clicking the button correctly is sometimes challenging.  My fear is that I won’t be able to finish the drawing I’ve laid out digitally; and the subsequent fear that I won’t be able to finish the book I started a long time ago.

Coping. Work-arounds. Finding ways to accomplish what I really want to accomplish. The ‘importance’ of what I want to accomplish in the light of a typhoon that has killed possibly 10,000 people in the Philippines; all of whom had their own goals and dreams. None of whom expected to die that day.

I don’t know what introverts do in Pakistan…maybe they move out of the major cities. So many people; I’d want to scream all the time.
I am so accustomed to my life, and my lifestyle. I’m so accustomed to my life looking like Portland. I was in Oaxaca, Mexico for a week, helping Medical Teams International with a project. The city of Oaxaca is comparable in geographic size with East Portland; and has several thousand more people. Many of the people live on the hillsides surrounding the town; they don’t have running water. Tin shacks next to stucco three story houses, next to bark huts. Electricity carried by lamp cord. Antennas on top of tin shacks…

One of my coworkers had a Margarita too many and was talking in the mostly-non-English restaurant about how Oaxaca should become like a city in the US; apparently oblivious to the fact that Oaxaca has been there for centuries. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, across the plaza from the restaurant we were sitting in began construction in 1535 and it was consecrated on July 12, 1733.  Fortunately, most of the people in the restaurant did not speak English, or we might have been thrown out.
My four companions were all rich, and very conservative, and were there for some reason I couldn’t discern. I was there to be Jesus’ hands and feet. I didn’t have much to say at dinners; because they lived in a world that was almost as far away from mine as life in Oaxaca was from me. They gave me an opportunity to talk about my interests on our last night there; can’t remember what I said.

I’ve posted this before; it’s about the only thing I can say about the Philippines, the Middle East, and all of the victims around the world.

Ashes of Hiroshima

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 34: Urban vs. Rural

September 7, 2013

146 counties=1_2 US population

“Using publicly available Census data, Business Insider‘s Walter Hickey and Joe Weisenthal have deduced that over half of America’s population is localized to a mere 146 of the 3,144 U.S. counties and county-equivalents.”
http://io9.com/half-of-the-u-s-lives-in-these-146-counties-is-yours-1258718775

I live in one of those 146 counties, Multnomah County, in northwestern Oregon. Oregon also includes 2 of the 50 least-populated counties [14 are in Alaska].

For a couple of years we’ve done without cable TV; an expense that wasn’t needed. This isn’t entirely accurate- for most of that time, we were able to watch the two channels we most often watch, because they apparently were ‘unencrypted’ on our cable provider’s signal. That changed a few months ago, and I lived with DVDs for AV entertainment.

media_head

I’m a movie junkie. Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, the early ’80s, I put our portable TV in the closet, or gave it to Goodwill, or something like that. One night I realized that I was choosing not to go visit potential customers on Thursday evening, so that I wouldn’t miss “Cheers” and “Hill Street Blues”. It dawned on me that NBC or CBS, whichever, wasn’t paying me to watch these shows. I was taking money out of my families mouth, so to speak, by not seeking out new work as a remodeling contractor; so that I wouldn’t  miss a couple of TV shows… The TV had to go.

So, our kids mostly grew up without television, mostly because I’m a movie junkie. We’d occasionally borrow my parent’s portable TV for weekends. By the latter part of the 80s or early 90s, we allowed ‘the beast’ back in the house full-time. My sister was moving, and wasn’t taking her old, but very durable, color TV [yes, they used to be black & white, only] with her. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and none of the usual places were willing to take the TV. The deciding factor was the detachable power cord. The Beast went into the living room, and was covered with a blanket. Our kids got to watch TV by appointment, and I kept the power cord hidden. I was working for the City by this time, and my movie addiction was less injurious to our family income. My ‘two-week vacation’ came to be the time between Christmas and Martin Luther King Day. I could be gone from work for a period of time without it being too painful upon my return. Not a lot of construction takes place in Portland during the Oregon Winter. I spent most of my vacations watching movies and drawing.

Back to my point:
We have an antenna device now, and have more channels available to us than during the ‘brown out’. Antenna-television relies on a lot of stuff from my childhood. Late in the evening [early morning] when my DVDs has been run-through, I often switch to TV  rather than dealing with the challenge of getting out of my recliner [legs are becoming problematic]. Antenna-TV brings back black&white memories–my childhood, and lives of my family. My parents had the American Legion and the Lions Club as ‘their church’. I was raised without a knowledge of God, beyond the word, which was usually the first word of a phrase. Life amidst the American Legion was very traditional.

The early 60s and before were ‘unsophisticated’ eras. The late 60s and early 70s were a time of ‘social consciousness’ [in addition to sex, drugs and rock&roll]. The US awakened to ideas that weren’t acceptable in earlier years. ‘Unacceptable’ due to this strange mix of religious, social, and traditional morality that makes up so much of the American Way of Life. A way of life that still exists in much of the US. Traditional Thinking that was neither moral nor true.

Over half of America’s population lives in 146 counties of the US; in total, a handful of blue dots on a much bigger landscape. Presumably, around half of the voters in America live in these 146 counties. My observations of Oregon rural life give me the impression that life in Rural America hasn’t changed all that much since I was a kid. Many technological changes, but the ideas around which rural society operates are still very much the same.

On road trips I pass by hundreds of tiny little towns; their extent can be seen through the side windows of the car. The bigger towns may take up the front and back windows as well. Passing by these window-sized towns, I wonder about the kids growing up in a tiny rural town: what is life here, like? I’ve lived in Portland nearly all of my life. I think the total time I’ve been outside of Metro Portland is less than 7 of my 61 years. I learned about rural life from my parents [my Dad was raised to be a wheat rancher; Life had other plans]; most of their friends shared a basically-rural mentality. Portland was a small enough city that a rural mentality could easily coexist with Urban thinking. I have no idea what it would be like to grow up in a town that I could easily bicycle across and back in a couple of hours.

I know that rural Oregon is usually upset by the fact that Multnomah County  largely determines the outcomes of State elections. Some friends of ours live in a small community in southeastern Oregon; and the river that crosses their property is ‘environmentally-protected’. When the river floods their property in winter, they can’t legally do anything to change the course of the river. They can’t dump excess dirt into the river that crosses their property, to prevent flooding. People in the Willamette Valley, on the other side of the State, many of whom have never been to southeastern Oregon [it’s mostly flat wheat fields, small hills and rocks], determine such things as ‘environmentally-protected’ rivers.

I think that the encounter between ‘Urban thinking’ and ‘Rural thinking’ is the basis of most of the conflict and inability to make decisions that affects our government at this point in history. Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans can’t agree on many issues. I remember a Conservative lawmaker recently making a statement that “he would never compromise on his beliefs.” One of my favorite movies has the phrase, “Never compromise; compromise is the language of the devil”.  I’ve lived most of my life among people who share that belief to some degree or other. Is this a Bad Idea? I can’t make that statement, but I understand the thinking of those who have this idea. At the same time, I’ve learned that “compromise” literally means, ‘with promise”. I believe compromise is necessary for progress to occur. I understand and empathize with Fundamentalists; and their thinking isn’t wrong. I think the Creator is larger than Fundamentalist thinking.

I think “life makes more sense” in the rural environment, and this environment has traditionally been the focus of American thinking. I think the ‘more sense’ has come from fewer options. There are more options available in the Urban environment. Not all of those options are good. Not all of those options are helpful. Not all of those options are easy for traditional thinking to accept. We won’t be going back, any time soon.

and then there’s Syria…

Ashes of Hiroshima

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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 27: Crimes Against Humanity

March 31, 2013

sorrow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

garden gethsemane rev2

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 26: Four Decades…

February 27, 2013

heroes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the universe in his hands_1

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

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

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

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

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

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

the universe in his hands_2

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 21: Politics

October 28, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 18: Dark Matter and Faith

July 24, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and yet…

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

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

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 17: This is what I am here to teach—a mystery!

June 4, 2012

 

 

As I write this, I’m watching a biography of Audrey Hepburn. Watching the images go by on the screen, there are so many that are familiar. I illustrated a biography of hers several years ago; a ‘work for hire’ job for which I was paid; but never saw in print. One of my projects that did not go well. Portions of the illustrations went well, but overall, the book’s illustrations flopped. As usually happens when I illustrate a book, I became immersed in her life, searching the Internet for photos, and watching her films; all in a space of a few weeks. Watching her story after all these years is a strange déjà vu.
Judy and I were on our way to Denver, Colorado, to attend Rob’s graduation from Johnson & Wales University. I planned on working on the illustrations with my portable drawing board, scanning the drawings at Kinko’s, and manipulating them on my laptop. My laptop decided to crap out on me during the trip; and most of the illustrations had to get finished after we returned home, by working 16 hours a day for 2 weeks, in order to meet my deadline. As it happens whenever I have to work in a rush, things did not go well, and I had no time for making better versions of the images… I delivered my illustrations on time, I got paid, but received little satisfaction from the project.

    “All of life is a mystery, but the answer to the mystery is outside ourselves, and not inside. You can’t go on peeling yourself like an onion, hoping that when you come to the last layer, you will find what an onion really is. The mystery of an onion is still unexplained, because like man, it is the issue of an eternal creative act. I stand in God’s shoes, but I can’t tell you any more. Don’t you see? This is what I am here to teach—a mystery! People who demand to have all of creation explained from beginning to end are asking the impossible. Have you ever thought that by demanding to know the explanation for everything are committing an act of pride?  We are limited creatures. How can any one of us encompass infinity?”

Pope Kiril I, The Shoes of the Fisherman; Morris L. West

…I got paid, but received little satisfaction from the project… I wanted a ‘do-over’, but didn’t have the chance. A lot of the people in my life are going through difficult times right now; myself included. Doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem fair, we want a ‘do-over’. As they were growing up, I often told my children that ‘life is hard; then you die’. This is my third career, the first two not ending as well as I’d have liked. The line, “…and they lived happily ever after…” hasn’t been the story of my life. Until I reflect upon the lives of others…
    A scene from a Hiroshima Diary, another project that didn’t work out; again because of an unreasonable time line. The above illustration was a gift. I was compelled to create the drawing above, the product of a drawing marathon, and I felt the Hand of the Creator guiding me. Unfortunately, I had to earn a living while working on the project, and I could not devote the concentrated time that I had with the first illustration. The story, written from the reflections of a woman still living in Japan, tells the story of a teacher who returned to Hiroshima a few days after the bomb, looking for her niece and nephew. Throughout the story she meets other children, all of whom die in her arms, from radiation poisoning. Children everywhere, separated from their parents or huddling by their deceased parents. The teacher brings a final blessing to their short lives. A part of our ‘proud American history’ that never gets told…
One of the reasons why I watch so many movies is to enter into the stories of other people. I prefer living my life in my cave, rather than interacting with others; at the same time I realize that my Creator made me as a person who needs other people in my life, in order for me to grow. When I was in college I was told repeatedly that “God has a plan for your life;” and I’ve always wondered whether I was really following that plan. My desire has been to follow that plan, and my desire has been to live the life I felt led to follow. My assumption, based on things I’d heard from platforms and pulpits, was that my life was supposed to work out well—by my definition of well. In truth, my life has worked out well; but I suffer from the Human Condition, I suffer from envy. I want my life to work out like some other people’s lives have worked out. Funny how we rarely envy those who live in tin- or cardboard shacks. I’ve met people who live in tin- or cardboard shacks, and have been learning that happiness does not depend upon the things with which we clutter our lives.

Some people are content with not asking questions about their lives; some people have no questions to ask.

    These lives remind me of the fact that I am blessed. I’m angry with my dissolving body; I’m angry about the stupid financial decisions I made when I didn’t realize that the economy was going to collapse. And yet, I have a roof over my head; my children have roofs over their heads; I’ve been married to Judy for 36 years [in a couple of weeks]; my career with the City earned a small pension that pays a lot of our bills. I can create images that have meaning for me.
Life is a mystery. Sherlock Holmes isn’t around to answer all of the questions for us. We have to live with the questions until we get Home. A lot of people claim to have answers to the questions, and I suppose it’s a good thing that these answers work for them. Unfortunately, a lot of the answers aren’t as universal as they believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 16: only you can know if the price is worth the stress

May 20, 2012

Every now and then I get paid to have fun. A client wanted some ‘bots’ for his PowerPoint project, so I was able to design ‘bots’. I wanted to avoid ‘feet’ since we’re in the 21st Century, but the client didn’t seem to understand plasma jets. In the time-honored tradition of animated robots, all of my bots were created from ordinary household objects…

Our pastor reminded us this morning of the importance of joy in our lives. That’s why Christ came to space/time as the incarnated Creator; to help us find joy in our lives. The Church has messed that up for the last couple of millennia, because rules are easier than freedom. I needed to hear that message today, because I’m still beating myself up for once again succumbing to one of my perennial temptations–one that has cost me dearly over my life. I have the ability to willingly abuse my body with overwork, in order to accomplish goals that I set for myself; substituting self-medication for common sense. This last week it was 6 hours of sleep in 48, I think, in order to finish a project by a totally unreasonable deadline. But I wanted the money that the job would bring.

Richard Jesse Watson, a very wise man, once told me, “You can get quality, speed, and inexpensive but not all three at once. In other words, if they want it fast and cheap, fine, but they can’t expect quality. If they want fast and quality, fine but it won’t be cheap. If they want cheap and quality, that too is possible, but it shouldn’t be expected fast, as it might be more of a favor or gift.
If it is something that you feel you need to do for you, then only you can know if the price is worth the stress.”

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 15: wormholes

March 26, 2012

I spent [wisely] several hours today watching the Science Channel’s “Through the Wormhole;” an overview of quantum physics, cosmology, astrophysics and the history of modern science. I don’t have any other space images in my collection of illustrations…

As they were growing up, I advised my kids of a saying I learned in my ‘hippie’ days [I can remember the 60’s & 70’s; consequently I wasn’t really there]. “Whatever you own, owns you.” This includes the ownership of indebtedness. If my life had been different, I would be ‘semi-retired’ by choice, at this time rather than by circumstance of economy.  My 14 years with the City were an investment I didn’t understand, and keeps a roof over our heads during this uncertain time. Nonetheless, my indebtedness means my wife and I still need to be employed, rather than enjoying the early retirement of some of my colleagues.

If I had the time to create the illustrations I want to create, instead of focusing my time on trolling Craigslist, I’d have more ‘space’ images.  I loved science fiction novels growing up; now I enjoy [some] sci-fi movies; I can go through a story in two hours. My current reading is classic novels, and they take a long time, due to the  limited amount of time I allocate for recreational reading.

A lot of religious folk get really spooked by cosmology. They’ve been taught to read the Bible as a literal textbook for science and history; rather than as a journal of the Eternal’s interactions with a family line of humans. The Richard Dawkins’ of the world find solace in mathematics and physics; and decide that since they find evidence that the universe can exist without a Creator, it must be so. ‘The need for a Creator’ coming from propaganda. I look at cosmology as an attempt by very finite, very limited human beings to understand the language of the Infinite and Eternal Creator of everything. A mentor of mine taught me that the Bible is, in reality, God’s ‘baby talk’ for his ignorant children.  I’ve never understood the Eternal to be some sort of ancient grandfather figure who occasionally entertains his descendents with magic. That’s probably because I had a personal encounter with the Creator during a period when I was in my twenties; and everything since then has been the ‘acquisition of background’ more than following parental teaching. I had none.

So, I’m fascinated with astrophysics and cosmology. I’m also fascinated with theology. Moses Maimonides, a Jewish rabbi of the 12th Century, taught that, at the Beginning,  all of the material in Creation was condensed by the Eternal into the space of a mustard seed; and was rapidly ejected outward into the heavens. The Expanding Universe, 400 years before Galileo. Maimonides found this information in his extensive study of Holy Torah. He also taught that the first letter of Torah, in Hebrew was closed in the backward direction; there was no reason to seek out what happened before Creation. He hadn’t run into many modern cosmologists.

I’m revisiting Stargate SG-1; a sci-fi show of the nineties[?]. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the series. And I enjoy the references to Star Trek and Star Wars. I’m continually impressed at the way that science fiction and science fact interact and depend upon each other.

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee..” Augustine

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