My Rant

Every morning God gives us a blank sheet to create a story of ourself and the people and situations that come by. Be an author that writes with love and hope.

Stolen from a friend on Flickr, Only By Grace

Houses and Homes

What I am doing... I have to read this "stuff" and review. What a challenge. I mostly want to scream and pull out my hair.

Houses and Homes

The story is about having closure in a series of unsatisfactory relationships and moving on. There is no real story in this in terms of action. The protagonist goes to work, says goodbye to friends and family and drives to New York. There is no crisis, no obstacles to him moving forward. He has some regret about Merrill, which he hopes to work out.

There needs to be more. It is interesting. I get the sense that the protagonist has changed. He wants to be serious about his work, in film. He also wants to avoid intimate relationships with too many women because most in the end bring him down. I think of the character in Chekov’s A Woman and a Dog. Merrill could be the woman who changes this philander’s mind. If you read the story there is more at stake. There is a great deal at stake in Chekov and in real life too as people live out the consequences of life choices.

In your story you have handled sex very causally, which perhaps fits the times. In doing so you have lost the real story, that sex is powerful and relationships are mysterious and unexplainable. The relationships the protagonist has with multiple women appear very shallow so you have lost the story. I suggest you go find it, the real story.

You also introduced the mother as the closest thing to an antagonist. You polished her off with a few well chosen words in an argument. He opposes her invitations to go to church. I think a more interesting story would have been for him to go to church. It would have at least created an inner conflict. He avoided this conflict by being cheeky with his mom and then self satisfied with putting her off. So again you have made shallow a relationship that could have depth and meaningful interaction. What if something his mom said did change his mind, he would have to integrate that into his life. It doesn’t seem that anyone affects him very deeply. How can one make serious film out of that? Give this artist some conflict and depth. Do not let him avoid relationship, but engage in it.

hmmmm need to sleep...

last night I "fell" asleep at 3-ish, 2:30 -ish the night before. Not a good habit, no, no, no. So maybe along with the peanut butter crackers and cheese and crackers, and possible Tylenol I will just pass out and wake up not screaming, "I don't WANT to get up!"

I have a feeling this blog may cross over into the art blog. Just the way things are lately. Then maybe a poem. Or why don't a pull out CD and pick a pick. That is always fun. A guy in my class lost his hard drive last night, the new "my dog ate it!" But it was for real so I think I am burning the DVD's this weekend.

I am supposed to get a Nikon D60 soon. Am I excited, no just tired, see the above note. 3 a.m. I will have to figure out how to use the camera and I can take classes. Cool. Except I have no time. I am one of those people who have crossed this line, with the need to takes pictures, I need to and I guess that is OK. I am like that with the Internet. I need to be on-line. Better yet, I am on-line uploading photos. Gee. Is that normal?

I twittered before, this sounds confessional. I put so much stuff on-line, I update in Facebook, twitter is across my line. It would be stuff like

"Independence and Parker."

"feeling like I want to eat again!"

"Scott left a towel in in the livingroom again along with a sock."

Like who cares. See you are spared all this because I don't twitter. I had an account, it was a bad idea.

I don't have a phone I could do that with, but I do, every once in awhile I hit a button and it says web. I immediately turn it off. Because I would have to fugure it out. And frankly finding the font and can a paragraph actually be centered in Publisher without causing someone to lose their religion is enough figuring out for me in a day. How about why can't you do two colors in Publisher. Because you can't. Let's try. NO. We can't.

That is enough trouble shooting for me. The last time I used help was last week to re remember how to convert excel into Word to do a mail merge. Why would I then want to go home and read about my phone. No I want to upload photos. So here ya go.

Oh, I feel better and more colorful too. (summer 2005)

Worship Art

Face to the floor, arms stretched out as the worship team starts the third stanza.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.

My left foot begins to shake, so I move it slightly to relieve the gitters so when I stand my knee won’t buckle because my leg is asleep.

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

I rise up and stand before the cross, remove a black draped cloth and ceremonily replace it with a white cloth symbolic of the resurrection. I take a few steps backwards and kneel hands raised facing the cross as the last chorus is sung.

love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

Again I rise up, turn and walk off the stage.

My prayer that morning in preparation of worhip was heard.

My flesh is rebelling and wants to sit in the pew unmoved. I confess that. This is dying to self in that I worry about what I look like, I want to confess that too. I want the worship to be very beautiful. I ask that you do that and that you help me be graceful because I am very capable of being awkward. I pray people will be moved to a greater sense of submission to your will. For me Lord it is an acceptance of your will for my life.

During the second service after the pastor’s wife had told me the worship time was beautiful, she was very moved by my gesture of worship, as I laid there stretched out before the cross, the Spirit reminded me of my call, to be beautiful. It wasn’t lost on me the meaning of those words.

My preparation for the Easter service began Saturday morning with the scriptures surround the Easter story and after a conversation with Scott. I told him that I was comparing the worship to performance art even though performance art has negative connotations. It isn’t drama and it isn’t dance. So I decided to call it worship art. I reminded him of the night of Thanks where the CR team walked across the stage and held up signs naming their issue. That was very powerful, but it wasn’t drama. A performance artist always has a message they want to get across, usually to shock. I didn’t want to shock, but I thought a woman going forward and prostrating herself before the cross and lingering there might be on the border of uncomfortable for people, I hoped, because I would like the question to arise, could I do that? do I do that? Still that isn’t the point, but I thought that element might be there.

I told Scott that there were three gestures that represented ideas or truths that I wanted to get across. There is the prostrated figure along with the lyrics and the black cloth. The part of the resurrection story I have been reading that God had shown His spot light on is that of Mary Magdalene. She witnessed the crucifixion.

… See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

Then there is the undraping and draping of the cross. Mary went to prepare the body.
The next gesture is the praise posture with the white cloth and the lyrics. It is not a stretch that Mary knelt after realizing it was Jesus to whom she was speaking.

…Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

The meditation for me had deeply personal applications for my life. I cannot even begin to express how much this meant to me to enact this scene of worship during the service knowing that the purpose of being asked in part was healing, at least that is what I thought while I was in the midst of it and the Spirit reminded me of my call.

Remembering My Aunt

I need to preface this blog with… the allergy thing I have going on. I have felt weird all week and it is just now evident that it is allergies, yuck. My mind is numb.

I took a nap when I got home from work… it has been a long week and when I am dragging like I am, longer. My mom woke me up. (flash back to childhood) She told me my Aunt Margaret passed away this afternoon about 1 p.m. ET. My aunt was the youngest of my father’s siblings and one of my favorite aunts because she was a fun person. A quality I love in people, maybe because of people in my family like my aunt. She lived into her 80’s. She had a long and fairly healthy life. The last few years she developed Alzheimer disease. This only became apparent to the family about a year ago. She has been in a nursing home and for the last 48 hours under hospice care. Not bad, I think. She lived on her own for years, I could call her independent. She laughed a lot, had a player piano and collected rug beaters. She was married 3 times; divorced once and widowed twice. She always had a least 3 poodles which were her babies. She lived in East Dayton and no one could get her to leave her house, even though the neighborhood became a less than desirable place to live. We worried about her a lot.

Things I loved about her. She was one of the people responsible for me being an artist. When I was in 4th grade I did a watercolor and I showed it to her. She made over it and told the family I was an artist. I mean the all my aunts and uncles. She never had children of her own so she often brought my grandmother over to our house. All four of us West girls would go with my aunt and grandma to Big Boy and eat and, you know, misbehave. My Aunt taught me to shoot my straw. We would laugh the whole time we were there. We had a three slurp rule. We were only allowed to slurp our drinks three times. Do the math, multiply that by 6 and you see why we giggled our way through lunch. Then there was playing spoons and the Elephant Club, whose secret I am sworn by fear of death to not reveal. But if you want to join the Elephant Club in honor my Aunt Margaret I just must let you in, special.

We used to have lots of family picnics where we spit watermelon seeds (contest) and made homemade ice cream.

When I was in Ohio my dad took us to the gravesite to show me where my grandmother is buried and my Uncle Gene. There will be a graveside service on Saturday, so I have it in my mind where the family will be gathered.

haiku

pressed
against
the window pane

she says shine
breathe remains
morning moon

jet trails
scratch
the cool azure

Self Portraits and Healing

I am looking at old photos trying to find the first self portraits I did. I was going to write about art class until I ran across another woman on Flickr who is doing self portraits as a way of healing. There is a group of them I really want to find. I found one called “A Matter of Time” Interesting to me this week because this week marks several events in my life.

The other was a series from the Hebrews mixed media portrait. They were more deliberate self portraits. I remember being very awkward as I did them.

This one was one of the first. I was trying to catch the pain in my face. There was some release in the taking of the pictures. It was the beginning of trying to deal with what was going on in my life at the time. There wasn’t a lot of self honesty. This was an attempt to see behind the appearance I kept up.

Then I am leaving this little exercise from this weekend. It captures feeling loved.

Tuesday is Creative Writing Class

There is something about literature/compostion/creative writing type classes that the Lord seems to love to use to speak to me. I guess when he walked the earth he used parables, so a short story isn’t a stretch.

So tonight it wasn’t so much the stories we discussed as the discussion and just my general state of mind for the last few months which is close to confusion, an increasing sense of peace and both a giving up and a renewed effort. Confusion is maybe a poor word, because in the Christian culture I live in it is associated with evil thus, God is not a God of confusion. I beg to differ only because I totally KNOW he doesn’t explain Himself, at least not to me. Half the time I just don’t get Him. I am slow to process. I think faith walk is a walk in the dark. Sometimes without bearings maybe just the still small voice that say… be open to this… And I am off in a direction I never imagined or I have fought, just because I didn’t believe it was the direction God was leading me in… just a distraction.

Tonight he said rest… awhile. Maybe I will catch up on all the stuff in my head that I am trying to figure out… or maybe I will rest from figuring it out… because I can’t.

I won’t go into the story that one of my classmates wrote, but I will share part of my review of it. I was about the death of a child from a fatal inherited disease.

The care the father gave was imperfect and inadequate, because there was nothing he could do and he was such a wounded character that really when he turned to God there was a beautiful plea to God for life. There was nothing for the father to do, but he did something. His prayer was not answered. Then there was the burial which again was imperfect. It seemed to add to the father’s despair. The author left us with the father’s only solution, to drink, again an imperfect solution. The story is an expression of the knowledge that life is lived in a fallen broken world sometimes without answered prayers or answers to our whys.

Add to this how angry I was about another story I had to read which was so full of obscenities, spiritism, drug, and homosexuality. When I found out the story wasn’t finished I hit the ceiling and refused to read it again in order to review it. I did a harsh review of it.

When I got to class I realized who had written it. I had written a bad review of his last story for the same reason. There is something about this kid when you see him in person that tells me he has been dealt some very severe blows in life. I know from his countenance and stature that he is beat down and broken. I didn’t give him my review I handed his story back uncommented on. I hate what he wrote, but the Lord broke my heart for this kid. He has softened my heart towards some others too. But even more than that he showed me how guarded my heart is and how un connected I am to people. I am there, but not really connected, not like I used to. I used to invest emotionally in people. I haven’t done that. I have a few friends that I feel safe with, but everyone else I keep at a distance. I have been too wounded and sad to invest. Or maybe I had nothing to give having been devastated by the events of the last few years. As I have worked so hard to forgive and have had some measure of success by feeling the pain, I am also feeling other emotions. I am very emotional lately and trying to deal with it all, thus some of the confusion that I don’t want to call confusion… maybe just restoration.

How God brought all that out in class I don’t know, but it all fell into place as I walked through the place that God speaks and out to my car in the parking lot.

I need to let some people in my life. I have really been in isolation.

Tying up my day with some writing…

I am in a Sunday school class now and we are studying Hebrews. This is one on the first mixed media pieces I did in what is now called my Faith Series. It is entitled “Once and For All.” It represents a struggle I had in accepting not that I was saved, but that I can be forgiven. The truth is Christ died once for all and He died for me. And the blood of Jesus is applied to me.

A Direct Quote

A woman I write devotionals for, an adjunct professor at a women’s college in North Carolina and a pastor’s wife, gave me a book to read a long while back. I have very, very strange reading habits that have been made stranger by the fact I am in school and have very little extra time to read what I want.

I have been reading the book she gave me for more than a year and finally came across why she gave me the book. She has been a dear and published some very heart wrenching devotionals and tucked most of them under the category of healing. She believes in it. In the meantime I want to write devotionals on victory, contentment, progress… anything but woundedness. But because I am obnoxiously straight forward, I haven’t written much like that.

I am dealing with what I am dealing with and it involves forgiveness as I encounter “triggers” that bring up memories that wound. I am not in control of this. I am doing the best I can. Recently the nature of the triggers has changed, also the responses. I have these very strong emotional currents that surface with these triggers. A kind word, something beautiful… really good things make me weep. There is something going on that I don’t understand, but it is powerful and healing. I feel a little wacked. But I think because I am aware of the phenomenon and I almost observe it and allow it, it doesn’t control me or even lead me to conclusions, it just is.

The passage… but I can’t explain how it relates to what I just wrote or the painting and the response to the painting I had on Saturday. I think if I tried to label this it wouldn’t do it justice and I would say, wacked.

From When Heaven Invades Earth, Bill Johnson, page 114.
About a spiritual experience he was having…

I didn’t know of anyone who would believe this was from God. I recalled Jacob and his encounter with the angel of the Lord. He limped for the rest of his life. And then there was Mary, the mother of Jesus. She had an experience with God not even her fiancee believed, although a visit from an angel helped to change his mind. As a result she bore the Christ child… and then bore a stigma for the remainder of her days as the mother of an illegitimate child. It was beginning to become clear; the favor of God sometimes looks different from the perspective of earth than from heaven. My request for more of God carried a price.

Tears began to soak my pillowcase as I remembered the prayers of the previous months and contrasted them with the scenes that just passed through my mind. At the forefront was the realization that God wanted to make an exchange – his increased presence for my dignity. It’s difficult to explain how you know the purpose of such an encounter. All I can say is you just know. You know His purpose so clearly that every other reality fades into the shadows as God puts His finger in the one thing that matters to Him.