Posts Tagged ‘material poverty’

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 50: More Oddness

May 2, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 47: Black Care

March 14, 2014

scan0004Draft image for a book about a dying man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American Heroes

 

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

February 27, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

Pulp-O-Mizer_Cover_Image

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

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

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

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

wonder

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 41: Daddy

December 15, 2013

I haven’t checked the following numbers for accuracy, but they are in the ballpark of what Pete, my Pastor, talked about this morning. “Father,” in relation to the Creator, is used about 15 times in the Old Testament [about 80% of the Christian Bible]; Jesus used the term “Father” around 160 times in the four Gospels that tell the story of Jesus [about 20% of the New Testament in the Christian Bible]. Jesus also used the term, “Abba”–the English equivalent being, “Daddy,” when His disciples asked Jesus how they should pray. Jesus said, “Our Daddy, who is in Heaven…”

Our Daddy, not my Dad. Pete then showed a video clip of a girl running to her father at the opening of a baseball game. Her Dad was hiding behind a catcher’s mask as she was throwing the opening pitch of a baseball game. She thought he was still serving in Afghanistan. She sees him and automatically runs to him, her arms open to hug him…

My Dad:

Dad_3 Three ages of Robert C. Jones

   A good man, an honest man, an excellent provider for his family. He could also be harsh and unwilling to change, or to accept new ideas. He disciplined me with words, because [as legend has it] he lost his temper while spanking me, once, as a young child. He vowed he’d never strike me again. I’m inclined to think that he also decided never to touch me again. Probably not true, but recollections of ‘touch’ don’t come to mind.

I can’t even imagine running to my Dad, open-armed, for a hug. I can’t imagine this for my Mom, either. I don’t even remember ever being hugged by my parents. Good parents, emotionally-distant parents. Mom was Norwegian by birth, Dad was half-Swedish.
My understanding is that Scandinavians are often distant, by nature; but that’s mostly anecdotal. I haven’t ever been to Norway or Sweden. I have come to the conclusion that my parents did not know, because they also had not experienced.

So Pete’s teaching of how we are to approach our Heavenly Father does not match anything in my background. I have tried to model  for my children, by the Creator’s Grace, what I have only seen in others. To be the kind of father I wanted, but didn’t have. My adult children still come to me for ideas, solutions and help; I guess the modeling has worked. During the early years of our marriage, my wife and I created in my parents an expectation that the only time we came to visit was when we needed money.

Advent: the season of waiting. Expectant waiting. I talked with a young couple this morning; my kids’ ages, although I didn’t sense that I was talking with anyone a different age than myself. They are missionaries in Central Asia, among the Uyghur; a 15 million-strong ethnic-Muslim people. They are there to demonstrate the love of Jesus to a people that have never really heard of Jesus. The Uyghur understand the concept of Law; they don’t know the concept of Grace. Sadly, not unlike many in the US ‘Bible Belt.’

I asked them how in the world they ever ended up in Central Asia amongst people who, in theory, aren’t receptive to Christianity. The short version of their answer is, “it’s a God Thing” [my translation]. I understand God Things; I was raised as an agnostic/atheist; I finally surrendered to the Creator during my third year of college. It was God Things that brought me to Christ; things that happened only to me, that defied all laws of probability. A God Thing was the only ‘logical’ explanation-‘How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?‘ [Sherlock Holmes]. The annoying thing being that I couldn’t demonstrate my evidence to anyone, except by my life.

I live ‘in my cave’ most of the time; probably in the 90+%-of-my-time range. Doing everything is more painful and more difficult to do, compared with my life 4+ years ago; one way of dealing with the pain is not going anywhere I don’t need to go. A dear friend wants me to come to a Gospel Christmas performance; going there means ‘going there;’ which means discomfort. ‘Going there’ also means entering into the world of American Christmas, which, in spite of the caroling and good spirits, has very little to do with the life Jesus modeled.

I have trouble believing that Jesus really wants His birth [nor His death] celebrated; I think He’d prefer having His life celebrated. From the book of Micah, in the Older Testament: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God…”

For me, one of the ways I have tried to demonstrate this concept is to model for my children a love that I never really felt as a child. Where the modeling has worked well, it is probably by the Grace of the Creator; where it hasn’t worked well, it’s probably due to a history of ignorance. It’s hard to give what one hasn’t received. Where one hasn’t received it, there is a need for God, the Creator of all, to make up the difference.

 

Freedom of Worship-dwgcopy of Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Worship”

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 40: Advent- the time of waiting

December 4, 2013

AdorationAdaptation of Norman Rockwell’s “Adoration of the Magi”
Acrylic/Colored Pencil 27 X 17 –
The inspiration for this painting comes from a painting created by my Illustrator hero, Norman Rockwell. – See more at: http://www.mjarts.com/port_1a.htm

I don’t create many of specifically “religious” images. There are two, at present. One for Christmas, one for Easter. I’m not entirely sure why I don’t create more “religious” images. Probably because I’m not very religious, in spite of the fact that I gave my life to the Creator in 1973…forty years ago. This isn’t entirely accurate; in fact I’ve given my life to my Creator several times, as I’ve grown in my understanding of what a Christ-centered life means. Mostly it’s not about religion.

Advent. The word had no meaning for me until my 4th year of college. I came to the realization that Christmas mostly isn’t about what Americans seem to believe Christmas is about.  It’s not about giving presents, and more importantly, it’s not about receiving presents. It’s not about supporting the American economy by shopping, since there seems to be so little of the American economy that isn’t dependent upon shopping.

Christmas is about Grace. “Unmerited Favor.”  For a moment in time [thirty plus years is less than an eyeblink, compared to Eternity], the Eternal and Infinite Creator entered time and space and lived in the form of a human being; starting as a totally helpless infant born to an unwed mother, sheltered in a barn. One really can’t get much further away from “modern American Christmas” than that image.

There’s a Roman Catholic radio station here in Portland that does not play Christmas music until Christmas Day; in spite of the fact that the rest of the media world has been ‘celebrating’ Christmas since a few days before Thanksgiving. The station does play Advent music, along with it’s regular playlist; but not Christmas music. “Advent” to me is best described by the unwritten journey of the Wise Men coming West to find the newly born Messiah–the Savior of Mankind. Jesus apparently wasn’t born in December; He was probably born in the Spring [another good symbol, if one wanted to use it]. The Wise Men probably didn’t show up at the manger. If memory serves, one thought is that Jesus was about two years old when they arrived. Unfortunately, no one thought to write this stuff down at the time; it would have saved a lot of arguments. Surprisingly, no seems to have kept any of the gold, myrrh and frankincense the Wise Men brought. Would have been great souvenirs…

Advent is a period of anticipatory waiting. Probably ‘anticipatory journey’ is a better description. Joseph and Mary journeyed in to Egypt, because they’d been warned that Israel wasn’t a safe place for them to birth Jesus. So they journeyed to an inn that had no vacancies, and Jesus was born on the floor of a barn, and was placed in a feeding trough for the shepherds and angels to see. In theory, there was a pile of smelly stuff that Joseph probably moved, about 6ft away from Jesus’ bed… that’s what happens in barns.

My wife and I journeyed rapidly in our car, to the hospital, early one morning on a 9th of January. I was prayerfully ignoring red lights and was determined that our second kid was not going to be born in the car. Our new son was admitted to the hospital 4 minutes after Judy was admitted [Rob was born in the ER, on a gurney, on his mother’s bathrobe…]. The ‘no-frills,’ 2-door, 1979 Blazer does not have a sliding passenger seat; the seat is connected to a stationary hinge, allowing it to tilt forward to allow passengers access to the middle seat. It does not move backwards to allow birthing mothers to exit gracefully. The medical staff had to lift Judy up to the ceiling of the car, and bring her out head-first, since she couldn’t put her legs together… Rob is still driving the Blazer he was almost born in.

While I am not very ‘religious’ [kind of depends on one’s definition of the word], I hang around with people who are. After 40 years, I’m not as perplexed about religious behavior as I used to be; but there are aspects of this season that are mystifying to me. My understanding is that the religious leaders of the day decided to turn the pagan mid-winter holiday into something “Christian” and consequently, we have Christmas Trees. I don’t have a problem with that; “A Mighty Fortress”, Martin Luther’s famous hymn, uses the tune of a beer-drinking song from the taverns of his day. I taught my kids about Saint Nicholas [Sant-a _Claus], the bishop who would leave gifts at the houses of the poor in his parish. However, the birth of Jesus has nothing to do with evergreen trees and packages and jolly old fat men in red suits.

I recently watched a Dr. Who episode in which an “earthologist” tour guide was explaining to the interplanetary tourists about the Earth celebration of Christmas… a celebration of war, where the inhabitants of UK went to war with the inhabitants of Turkey, and the people of UK ate the dead Turks…  I wonder if the Followers of the Way [of Jesus], from the First Century would be just as mystified at how  skewed our practices of Advent and Christmas have become.

Jesus was a Jew, and he was raised in the Jewish tradition. Most of his followers were Jews. One of His statements was that He did not intend to change one letter or punctuation mark of Torah; and yet.. somehow we Christians have the Church traditions [in their almost endless variety] of today. We have starving fellow citizens of our planet, brothers and sisters in Faith, living in boxes and typhoon-tossed shacks, across the world; while we “First World” citizens spend hundreds of millions [billions?] of dollars on toys. “Jesus wept;” and I think He’s still weeping. Yes; I realize that when I point my finger at others, there are three more pointing back at me.

Jesus came to earth as an infant human, and lived the same sort of life that so many of us have led, to let us know that He knows what it’s like to be human. He was arrested and convicted of a crime He didn’t commit; He was brutalized in prison; and was spiked to a wooden pole with a crossbeam, hung out to die. He knows about Indignity and faithlessness. He also showed the world that this wasn’t the end of the story. He came back.  He left again, so He wouldn’t be hampered by human limitations; and left us His Spirit; that Spirit that enables us to occasionally recognize Grace, when He shows us that there is better stuff ahead.

Remember the victims during these holiday days. All of the victims. Perhaps especially those victims that we have helped to create, in the name of Peace.

Ashes of Hiroshima

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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 33: The Way of War does not work

September 4, 2013

Why do I keep getting into political arguments with a particular family member? I posted a photo of a “Love Thy Neighbor” T-shirt, with a listing of specific neighbors; a listing that many seem to not include in the definition of ‘neighbor.’ My relative pointed out a protest sign in the background I ignored; and took an entirely different view of the posting that I intended.

I know that my relative and I will probably never agree in these matters; we have entirely different viewpoints on the world, and how it should work. I am trying to suggest to the world [the limited world that gives a rip about my thoughts] that the Way of Jesus will bring us closer to a Way of Peace than a consistent application of the methods that have been used for the last century, that haven’t worked. My relative blames the problems of today’s world on “Liberal bias”; and longs for a reincarnation of Ronald Reagan for President [I wonder what he thought, back in the 80’s?].

As I write this PBS is covering Congress’ debate over whether or not we once again enter into a war. Somehow there are political leaders who believe we can ‘sort of’ enter into a war. A limited war. That somehow we can enter into a Civil War of another country, and not enter into a Civil War. We can kill people in another country indiscriminately with bombs, and somehow not enter into a war. We can bomb, but we won’t use troops on the ground. Sounds to me like the idea of sending ‘military advisers’ to Vietnam, the war that wasn’t really a war…

CONGRESS VOTES
$200bn has been spent this week on ‘smart phones’ and cellular technology; and apparently there is a money problem in this country. I wonder how much in taxes has been paid in regard to the generation of that $200bn… $200bn invested in phones we want but do not really need, when half of the world is starving.

From Nadia Bolz Weber–

Sermon About How Totally Uncool We Are


“When it comes down to it, we just do so much damn pretending. Pretending we don’t really rely a little too much on alcohol. Pretending that we are more confident than we really are.  Pretending that we care more about people than we really do. Pretending we are not afraid. Sometimes we even overcompensate so much about the things we are trying to hide, that no one ever suspects the truth… and then we are left in the aloneness of not ever really being known.
“On some level, we are continually trying to pretend some things about us are not true and other things are…
“The 2000 film, Almost Famous tells the story of a young man who finds himself as a reporter on tour with a famous rock band. His conversation with an older writer at the end of the film captures this perfectly: “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool”
“IN the kingdom of God we need not cultivate a persona to hide or overcompensate for the lame, poor, blind and crippled parts of us.  The unflattering photos. The parts which have nothing to offer, the parts of us which need help navigating our lives, the parts of us which must rely on others for help. In other words the uncool parts of ourselves are exactly that which Jesus invites around his table.  As though the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with God and each other when we are uncool, lame, blind, poor and crippled. And as uncomfortable as it might be to be seen in such a stark and uncompromising light, there is also just so much relief in it. You just don’t have to pretend, or over compensate or be shrewd. You can just be. And in just being you can, in the fierce and loving eyes of God be known, be whole and maybe even rest a little. Because keeping it all up is just exhausting.

The Way of War does not work. It only brings death.

Fhff7-2

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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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