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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 60: Wounded

December 8, 2014

Michelangelo's_Pieta_Legion
I came to Christ in college; I had no religious upbringing. Christmas was ALL about Santa Claus and presents. When it came to the historical event that divides our time and space into BC and AD [yes, I know CE is more politically correct], I understood Michelangelo’s image of The Pieta [above left] before I understood the image on the right– Michelangelo’s The Bruge Madonna. I understood the Cross before I understood the stable—but that isn’t entirely accurate, because after 40 years of study, I can’t say I understand either very well. Jesus was killed by the people He came to save…although it is more accurate to say that Jesus chose suicide by crucifixion rather than execution by religious zealots. There were 10 legions of angels waiting to protect Jesus, had He desired for them to be called up.

Raising my three children at this time of year was always an exercise in trying to reconcile the two images below; the two men in the red and white suits:

nicholas
We parent-types make Christmas a magical time for children, a time of lights and parties and presents. I have no real complaint against the concept, except that the concept we experience today was mostly created by Madison Avenue; and has little to do with Jesus of Nazareth, born in a barn to a homeless couple named Mary and Joseph…

Granted, the Christmas tree my wife and I no longer install nor decorate is an old tradition; supposedly the work of ancient priests attempting to bring the pagan tree-hugger world closer to the Christian world. Saint Nicholas was a real man [at least as real as any historical accounts are believed to be, in this skeptical world]; a bishop who was known for giving presents to the poor of his congregation. I talked about Saint Nicholas and explained that Santa Claus was a mispronunciation of his name; that Christmas was about giving; and that the celebrating the birth of Jesus was intended to be a year-round event; not something that only happened in December.

I still remember the Christmas morning when my kids discovered a pair of grooves in the slush on the driveway, and a number of vaguely circular depressions. It really did look a lot like the remains of a reindeer-drawn sleigh having landed on our driveway, and I swear on a stack of whatever, that I had nothing to do with the illusion. I believe in a Creator who has a strange sense of humor…

And then there’s the idea that Jesus was probably born in the Spring, according to those who study such things…

My first Christmas church service happened when I was 22 years old. I had planned on going to a candlelight service at First Presbyterian Church, downtown. A beautiful sanctuary filled with carved wood panels that I can’t imagine being built by the carpenters of today [I was one]—truly a labor of love by skilled craftsmen that probably won’t be duplicated again in the future. I’ve carved wood; the amount of time invested in such work could not really be justified in today’s economies.

1stPres
I had missed the bus [it happens a lot, in my life]. An African-American woman at the bus stop invited me to come to her church [in a part of town that I had been trained was dangerous for white folk to go]. A joyous multi-racial celebration; but as the service was going into its second hour, and showed no signs of stopping, I excused myself, vaguely unfulfilled. The experience hadn’t been what I’d hoped for.

I had by this time experienced a Presence appearing in my life. Sort of like a door was being opened in a stuffy building—suddenly the environment was fresher. Nothing outwardly different than the moment before, but I became aware that I was no longer alone in the environment I found myself in. Of course, there was absolutely nothing I could point to, for someone else to see. It was an experience. These experiences don’t happen often, and rarely at the times I hope they will. However, they have happened for 40 years… These experiences prove to me that there is a Life beyond the one I live, and beyond anything I can imagine. These experiences tell me that words in books about the Creator are True…

…and, I believe in a Creator who has a strange sense of humor…

The opening words of the Book of John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I have a music collection that I label, “Songs for Broken People”. Songs about surviving, about enduring, about overcoming; about Peace. I play these songs every day as a way of training my mind. Voluntary brain-washing; my brain needs continual washing, and it has little to do with germs. Several years ago I read these words of Tim Hansel:
“Most people who live with chronic pain or chronic problems have a hard time being happy. That is to be expected. Although there are moments of laughter, nothing seems to stay.
“Joy, on the other hand, is something which defies circumstances and occurs in spite of difficult situations. Whereas happiness is a feeling, joy is an attitude. A posture. A position. A place. As Paul Sailhammer says, “joy is that deep settled confidence that God is in control of every area of my life.”
“If we are to have this kind of joy in our lives, we must first discover what it looks like. It is not a feeling; it is a choice. It is not based on circumstances; it is based upon attitude. It is free, but it is not cheap. It is the by-product of a growing relationship with God. It is a promise, not a deal. It is available to us when we make ourselves available to Him. It is something that we can receive by invitation and by choice. It requires commitment, courage, and endurance. –Ya Gotta Keep Dancin’

Christmastime has come once again, and once again I find that I’m out of step with the society in which I live. There are a bunch of people outside of the United States of America that have very little reason to celebrate, this December. Celebration becomes a difficult choice when there is nothing material to celebrate—death by disease, death by soldiers, death by drones, death by the people down the street; homes flattened by war or natural disaster. Much of the world is having the stuffing kicked out of them, and we Americans complain about the stuffing in our Christmas turkey—we consume in one evening meal more than many consume in a week. Each day we dispose of enough food to feed most of the world—because it’s no longer ‘fresh’…

I’m not sure if I never learned how to celebrate, or whether the ability to celebrate was removed from me by the life that wears me down. Not sure that it matters, since the result is pretty-much the same. My kids provide me with reminders about the importance of celebrating. I am thankful for my kids, because they have taught me so much about Grace, and love, and courage and endurance. I’m still learning.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Adoration

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 56: The Value of Altruism

September 19, 2014

“Before the names Theodore, Eleanor, and Franklin were indelibly etched into the American consciousness and the course of human history was forever changed by their individual endeavors, a prominent family made a point of teaching the value of altruism, the power of perseverance, and the virtue of helping out one’s fellow man.”

Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts: an Intimate History

TR
I’ve been enthralled, watching Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts: an Intimate History” on PBS. TR has been one of my heroes for years; and the above drawing does not really do him justice. I will probably try it again at a later date.

While I hate to admit it, I don’t always ‘hit the bull’s eye” when I create drawings. This one is my first pencil drawing in the last month; maybe less. I’ve been working digitally since then. If I don’t draw regularly, I get rusty. I’m working on a new set of illustrations for a children’s book; so it’s time to get the ‘oil’ back into the joints…

Theodore Roosevelt was a complex man; from a complex family. Born with severe asthma, doctors didn’t expect him to live past his fourth year. His father, Theodore Sr., was unwilling to allow this to happen. As an infant he carried Theodore night after night, so that TR could sleep vertically and breathe more easily. His father drove him through the streets of Manhattan at night, at high speed, to force air into his lungs. When TR was a boy, his father encouraged him to work out in a gymnasium in his home; forcing his chest to expand. When, as President, he was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin, his doctor stated that he’d never seen a man with chest so well developed. The bullet was lodged less than one-quarter inch from his heart as TR gave an hour-long speech to a hushed crowd. He had checked to see that his lung wasn’t punctured; the rest was simply ‘leaking’ that needed to get plugged, when appropriate…

One historian states that if TR was a child today, he’d probably be given Ritalin, and would become a terrific car salesman, and we’d never hear from him. TR was a flawed man; many of his beliefs conflict with 21st Century ideals. The irony is that he set the stage for many of our 21st Century beliefs. He was an imperialist; he earnestly believed that America had a place on the world stage; comparable to the British, French and Spanish Empires, that still existed in his time. He read 1-3 books per day. He could recite from those books, 5 years later. As a college student he became an expert on the Naval War of 1812. He had immersed himself in world literature, and developed the belief that Warfare was the place where man achieved Glory. The histories of war are always written by the winner. As World War I killed his youngest son, and severely injured his other sons, he learned about the personal cost of War to the families of the soldiers. He learned that War is not Glory.

Theodore Roosevelt Sr. taught his son that those who were privileged in society had the obligation to use their wealth for the benefit of those who were not as fortunate. The wealthy should invest themselves in the Arts and Sciences, since society does not realize the value of the Arts and Sciences to society. TR became one of the foremost Naturalists of his time. TR changed the face of politics in America. Politicians in the 19th Century were considered a class of society with which a Gentleman did not spend time; TR had decided he wanted to belong among the Governing class of people. He believed that the virtue of helping out one’s fellow man was a ‘divine calling’ for a person of privilege.

TR’s cousin Franklin idolized him; and wanted to emulate TR as much as possible. TR could easily have served three or more terms as President; he chose to make a promise to the American public he later regretted–after his election to what was substantially a second term in office, he promised he would not run again for another term. George Washington served two terms in office; it was considered ‘improper’ to serve more terms than the nation’s founder. After one term served by his hand-picked successor, TR decided to enter Presidential politics once again, splitting the Republican vote with his Bull Moose/Progressive party, awarding the Presidency to Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. While TR became a ‘persona non Gratia’ in the Republican Party in 1912, there was talk of TR running again as a Republican in 1920; the year in which he died; an old man who had never fully recovered from a near-death foolish expedition in South America.

The Roosevelt name became one of the most revered and most hated names in American politics. I am now benefiting, in a new way, from Franklin’s belief in the virtue of helping out one’s fellow man, in that I now am a recipient of Social Security Income. The American people owe Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Compensation, Minimum Wage/Maximum hours and dozens of other benefits to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A huge portion of the American landscape exists today as a tribute to the Roosevelt Presidencies.

I am still figuring out what a ‘semi-retired’ life as a partially-disabled person looks like. I owe too many people too much money for me to stop working; but I can now be more selective in the work I take on. Travel is difficult; my lack of sensory nerves in my mouth make ‘culinary experiences’ somewhat lost on me. One of my sons is a Sous Chef, a maker of what I understand are outstanding dishes. Sadly, to me, it is simply ‘food’. His skills are wasted on my appetite.

This is not the ‘retirement’ I imagined, when I bothered to imagine. However, it’s the hand I’ve been dealt; and I have a choice as to how I live out this life.

and the monstrous creatures of whales

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 56: Incredible Friends

September 12, 2014

new faces“New” faces; mostly from my latest project, “The Book Lover” by Roger Burke; due to be in print by the end of the month. Someone has written that the eyes are the windows of the soul; they’re probably right. I find myself fascinated with faces. If the eyes are the windows, then perhaps the faces are the window treatments; how the individuals decorate their souls…
I returned from Colorado at the beginning of the week; a 2200 mile round trip, living out of my mini-van for a couple of weeks. A few nights in motels. Some Colorado germs apparently finished their incubation while I was driving home; the Sunday stretch from Baker City to Portland is sort of a blur. Monday I ‘died’ on the living room couch, watching movies. Now, Friday, I feel over the worst of the illness; but it’s still time to give my right arm a rest—tendonitis. Too much awkward mousing; too many boxes lifted.
2200 miles provides a lot of time for listening to music; I don’t pay attention to the number of hours. A key to Life Success: time is only important when you choose for it to be. Not all time is equally important. Sometimes time is irrelevant. Another Life Key: I’m fairly selective about my audio entertainment while driving; I long ago came to the understanding that music—audio input—is “brain food”. I listen to music that helps me become who I want to be, rather than listening to music that simply reflects our culture; music that someone wants to sell.
From Todd Agnew’s “My Jesus”
‘Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud
And I think He’d prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud

Helping someone move from one home to another is probably a true test of friendship; those who show up, and those who don’t. There were many who didn’t show up; a handful that did. I spent a couple of days working alongside two amazing people; busy farmers that dropped their lives for a few days, bent plans around, and did more than could reasonably be expected. I’ve only seen this dedication in the context of ‘church’ or ‘mission’ or ‘Scouts’. People who believe that by serving they are doing the work of the Creator; using Jesus as the example of the true Servant.
JT and her foreman “would never be accepted in my church”…nor would they want to be. I don’t know their stories, but ‘church’ isn’t anything like their world. Much like myself 40 years ago. A lot of ‘trash talk,’ a lot of profanity; that in itself doesn’t particularly bother me, I spent a lot of years in the construction industry. For most people, words are fairly meaningless. From my perspective, their efforts were True Grace on legs; from their perspective it was mostly because they knew that the family we were helping would do the same for them, if needed. Friendship built over a lot of years. Perhaps it’s more of a rural phenomenon; the concept of helping a friend simply because ‘that’s what one does, for a friend.” Having spent most of my life in a metropolitan environment, it seems rather odd. But I generally don’t go out of my way to interact with people. When I go to such lengths, it’s because I realize that this is what Jesus would do, odd as that seems to outsiders.
Parenting can open one’s eyes. Doesn’t happen automatically, it seems that many are ‘blind.’ I have three adult children who are following paths I didn’t expect, when they were kids. “Church” isn’t necessarily an important part of their lives—three kids, three distinct relationships with their Creator. None of them see the Creator in the way that my wife and I do; and I probably won’t understand that until I’m Home. Faith is a gift of Grace; I got God-smacked when I was in my twenties; they either ducked or didn’t need to. Life without the Creator doesn’t make any sense to me; and I never would have believed that I would say that, back in the fall of 1972, a Junior in College. I’ve been learning not to compare my life with others; a difficult thing to accomplish.
Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
removes the colours from our sight.
Red is grey, and yellow, white,
but we decide which is right,
and which is an illusion.
“Morning Glory,” The Moody Blues

My wife and I raised three incredible adults; and they have found some fairly incredible friends. A rare commodity in this world.

LAURELHURST PARK

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 54: “Souls on Board”

August 4, 2014

people collage 2

No one talks about souls anymore. Like all generalizations, this one is to some degree inaccurate. Passenger carriers—ships, airlines, etc.—still use the term to describe numbers of people on board; surprisingly, a Google search doesn’t really provide answers as to why.

Science-oriented folk, particularly those with a dislike of religion, tend to say that we don’t have souls because there is no scientific proof for the soul. Urban legends aside, no one has measured the weight of a soul, and a soul can’t really be detected by modern science. Therefore, the soul can’t exist; right?
X-rays didn’t ‘exist’ until 1895, when Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen “produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today that was known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901”. [wikipedia]
Except that x-rays have existed as long as the electromagnetic spectrum has existed. We just weren’t aware of them. I find it interesting that in the first chapter of Genesis, Torah states that the Creator created light before creating the sun. Visible light is one portion of the electromagnetic spectrum; wherever the electromagnetic spectrum exists, light exists.

C.S. Lewis wrote that we are not bodies with a soul, we are souls with a body. Years ago I spent time with people who talked about how we aren’t bodies with a brain, we are a brain with a body. Consequently, we are souls with a brain and a body. If souls exist, and are eternal, then they really are different than our time-bound bodies. Is it probable that we can really understand the concept of an eternal soul? Perhaps our brains are merely the interface between our very physical bodies, and our very non-physical souls. Perhaps it is simply human arrogance that we think we can understand the workings of the universe.

I spend a lot of time thinking about things like this. I distract myself from thinking about the pain my body experiences, by thinking about stuff. I use music as well, and movies; if I’m awake, there is a soundtrack. In reality, there’s a soundtrack 24/7 in my house. I have music playing all the time. In theory I can’t hear it when I sleep—the office is too far away from my bed; in theory maybe I hear the music even then. The sound drowns out the whining in my head caused by tinnitus—the ‘gift’ I received from spending too many years as a foolish contractor using power tools without hearing protection. The lyrics of songs also become the means by which I ‘program’ my brain—upgrading my software. There was a time when I had silence in my life; one of my delights while my sons were in Boy Scouts was walking down to whatever body of water was present at the summer camp, and watching the stars, listening to the silence. The worse the tinnitus got, the less enjoyable the experience of sky-watching.
Movies help drown out the ‘noise’ of aching joints, aching bones; the sharp pains that come when neurons act out.

One of today’s movies was “Hereafter,” Clint Eastwood’s exploration of the ‘white light’ phenomenon associated with near-death experiences. The ‘text’ of the story is that the idea that when the ‘plug is pulled, the lights go out’ is inadequate. Something exists beyond life as we know it. There isn’t a lot of scientific proof [although the dialog hints at more scientific evidence than I’ve heard about]; but there is a preponderance of experiential evidence.
For myself, I have no doubts about the existence of my soul. I was aware of my soul before I’d even heard of a soul. In my early twenties, during the seventies, my soul was troubled by the hatred and fear I found in our society; a hatred and fear I hadn’t known about as a kid. I spent lots of hours grieving over the emptiness in our society that I hadn’t known about before I started thinking about more than myself. When I asked the Creator into my life, it was a matter of that emptiness becoming filled.

My soul is troubled by the violence and hatred in today’s world…The “top stories” on BBC World News are that today is the 100th Anniversary of the beginning of World War I; and the co-existing facts that Israel’s attacks on Gaza have resulted in the deaths of 1800 Palestinians, mostly women and children; and the deaths of 66 Israelis, mostly soldiers. A ‘fitting’ testimony, in my mind… We never seem to learn that death doesn’t solve life.

String Theorists suggest that there are 11 dimensions compared with the three we know from geometry plus time. I am of the opinion that one of these dimensions is a dimension of the soul; a dimension that has no clear meaning for us today. The fact that we don’t understand does not mean that these other dimensions do not exist, any more than x-rays didn’t ‘exist’ in 1890. We just aren’t able to see them.

Through hardships to the stars

 

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 53: The Nothing

July 22, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liberty“Mother of Exiles.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ashes of Hiroshima

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 52: Secret Identities

June 12, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 51: Teleology

May 12, 2014

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

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

media_head…the study of television.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I doubt that this will occur in my lifetime.

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 48: That Old Man

March 22, 2014

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

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

MALCHUS 2.5Malchus’ Ear [detail]

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

………………………..

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

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

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

Mikey avatar 3

 

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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 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 44: The Art of Changing the World

February 9, 2014

Clapton_King_2_sm“Blues Kings” Eric Clapton, BB King    [graphite]

Watching “The Night that Changed America”–the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of The Beatles’ first performance on Ed Sullivan…
It’s amazing to me how much the Art of Paul, John, George, and Ringo has changed the world. 4 blokes from Liverpool, filled with all of the faults and failings of the rest of us; whose combined efforts rewrote the soundtrack of the world. Art that is much larger than the sum of the individuals.
Like the music of Sugarman, living in the slums of Detroit, whose music was instrumental in the overcoming of Apartheid in South Africa. As far as Sugarman was concerned, he was a failed musician; bootleg copies of his two albums gave the young people of South Africa a view of a world they could only imagine; and that imagination changed a country forever.

I have come to realize that my own art will probably not have the impact on the world that I hoped it would. I think this is probably the fear of all of us who dare to express ourselves by ‘performing’ [all displays of art are ‘performances’] in front of an audience, whether live or in some other media. But my art has changed me…

…and in changing me, my art has changed all of those my life has touched– my wife, my kids, my granddaughter, some people in Mississippi, some people in Mexico; and possibly others I’ve never heard about.

 

Banjo player

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