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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 24: Epiphany

January 7, 2013

 

Adoration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fortunately, there is more than this.

the universe in his hands_mer

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 21: Politics

October 28, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 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 13: the predicament of nuclear man

February 27, 2012

Today is my 39th Re-Birthday.

The first part of Henri Nouwen’s “The Wounded Healer” [The Search of Nuclear Man] describes my theological quest for meaning in life: “When we look around us we see man paralyzed by dislocation and fragmentation, caught in the prison of his own mortality. However, we also see exhilarating experiments of living by which he tries to free himself of the chains of his own predicament, transcend his mortal condition, reach beyond himself, and experience the source of a new creativity.”
Using Nouwen’s categories, I was a Mystic in a time of theRevolutionaries during the first half ‘the seventies’. Too bound by my upbringing to truly become a Revolutionary–I considered emigrating to Canada to avoid the Draft, but didn’t have the nerve. I was ‘saved’ by a very high draft number. Had I been born 4-6 hours earlier in my 10-month gestation, I would have probably become a 2nd Lieutenant in Vietnam, with a 20-minute life expectancy. I had no religious beliefs nor upbringing, so I could not become a conscientious objector; even though that was an appropriate definition.

I came to life in college.
I really have very few memories from childhood. Memories from our family cabin on the Sandy River, near Brightwood, Oregon. Some hormonal experiences/dreams. Some boring trips to my grandmother’s house in Condon, Oregon. Memories of my Grandparents’ house. Helping my ‘Grandfather’ [great uncle] build their last house. Riding my bicycle/jumping off of my bicycle onto our lawn. Playing in the back yard of my across-the-street neighbor/best friend, Bobby. There are more memories from high school, although not a lot. Memories of my best friend, Pete; and my other best friend, Mark. Pete remains on the periphery of my life; Bobby and Mark are absent.
For many years, I felt as though I could clearly remember every day of my two years at Oregon State. Discovery. The beginnings of an understanding of who I am. Chronic despondency. Hours and hours in my darkened room, listening to the dreary music of Rod McKuen and other folksingers who saw the problems of life, but had few suggestions for improving the situation.
“In the absence of clear boundaries between himself and his milieu, between fantasy and reality, between what to do and what to avoid, it seems that [he] has become a prisoner of the now, caught in the present without meaningful connections with his past or future. When he goes home he feels that he enters a world which has become alien to him. The words his parents use, their questions and concerns, their aspirations and worries, seem to belong to another world, with another language and another mood. When he looks into his future everything becomes one big blur, an impenetrable cloud. He finds no answers to questions about why he lives and where he is heading. [He] is not working hard to reach a goal, he does not look forward to the fulfillment of a great desire, nor does he expect that something great or important is going to happen. He looks into empty space and is sure of only one thing: If there is anything worthwhile in life it must be here and now.”

At University of Oregon I encountered The Eternal. I lived across the hall from two of those ‘annoying Christians,’ who in time, became close friends; Brad remains my spiritual ‘father/big brother’. After months of asking, I finally agreed to go with them to their Sunday night meal and Bible study at the pastor’s house. One gathering sticks in my mind; the group was kneeling in a circle at the end of the evening, praying; and I realized that these people were not delusional, they actually were in contact with someone I did not know, nor had ever heard about.
“For the mystic as well as for the revolutionary, life means breaking through the veil covering our human existence and following the vision that has become manifest to us. Whatever we call this vision-“The Holy,” “The Numinon,” “The Spirit,” or “Father”-we still believe that conversion and revolution alike derive their power from a source beyond the limitations of our own createdness.”

While I consider today to be the anniversary of my rebirth, it really didn’t happen on an individual day. It probably started in my second year at Oregon State, when I told my good friend, Jeff, to quit bugging me about his newly-found belief in Jesus: the story of the druggie that had an overnight conversion and became a street preacher. Our 2am sessions in the dorm hallway, Jeff singing Crosby, Stills and Nash in a voice like Neil Young; and then singing strange Christian songs in the same voice. He moved his ministry to University of Oregon after I wrote  a lonely letter describing my living among strangers. The conversion process continued actively for my next three years at U of O and my first couple years after college. By the time I was 28 I was indelibly altered.

After nearly 50 years of an artist’s life, I really can’t find a single image that represents my coming to faith. Which is probably why I consider myself an illustrator rather than an artist. I don’t do well with creating abstract images; and the conversion to faith is an abstract process. The Apostle Paul’s description of life as a battle may have something to do with my fascination with Asian martial arts movies, even though I’m a pacifist. One of the reasons I could not honestly become a member of the Society of Friends [Quakers]; even though their beliefs are probably more along the lines of my own than the conventional Protestant church.

“…and the monstrous creatures of whales” [below] probably represents my faith most adequately, although I really don’t know why.  The Eternal cannot be described in an image; the wonder of Creation can perhaps best be described by the ocean of the South Pacific [I’m not familiar with the South Atlantic]. Warm, teaming with life, teaming with Wonder. I invested two years of my life creating the full-size image from which the image below is derived; in the *interesting* nature of my life, I can’t justify the expense of printing the image in its glory…

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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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