pregnant with possibilities

i've started to break in a series. the beginning materialized in my orlando recoil, overwhelmed by both my options and my limitations. adept and incapable to do anything i wanted. where do i even begin to start over?

it's been one of the few times in my life where i ran to my creativity to express myself. i've never made it to the end of my list of avenues. frankly, i'm scared of letting myself be fully known, letting others feel the weight of who i am, let alone expressing myself in a tangible way. leaving actual evidence. of me. for everyone to judge and analyze.

i suppose i was desperate.

white. blank slate. me.

my train of thought went to plans, layouts, blueprints, notes- scratchings, sketches, brainstorms that take place at a beginning of an idea. all beautiful things in the world started from a blank slate. all inventions, all architecture of antiquity and modern, and on a larger scale- all nature and creation. everything. granted, people and art absolutely do not exist in a vacuum and surely are inspired by something. so it's not perfectly white. (see also: jasper johns' off-white american flag, also a big inspiration.) plus, everything is slightly tainted, unconsciously biased by culture or upbringing and sin. so images appear, transcend, out of this off-white, that's been worked- underlining sketches and scratchings, underlying colors and images. something boldly steps forward. against the white. fighting against nothingness.

i wanted to test out the technique so i started by just doing a plain chandelier. something that i've always found absolutely beautiful, a symbol of elegance. completely ornamental. embellishment. if you're gonna effing light up a place, do it well. do it elegantly. someone set out from nothing, some light bulbs and crystals. all those individually beautiful pieces. together. it was a new idea at some point. and someone had to work, possibly from humble beginnings, to buy it.

i've finished two other small ones, re-working a few big ones, and really excited about one i'm in the middle of. i have an extremely hard time finishing things. but am excited to continue to express this season of life. the idea and technique has evolved slightly, but here's the first, with my camera phone, please excuse low quality and give me a little extra credit, of course you can't get the full effect.

i think you might. just have to trust me on this one.

god’s language assignment to adam exposed a void. unfolded incompleteness.

in naming creation adam realizes a need. a desire. for relational answering. for intimacy. naming something involves knowing it intimately, it’s an inextricably personal and meaningful process. one that must have taken a long time and a lot of thought.

he nailed it. can you imagine calling a fox by any other name. or a robin, a hippopotamus. or a skunk. you just don’t pull that out. and eventually adam is able to call all of creation by name… but they don’t answer. god chose to construct the story of creation this way. he set him up!

countless numbers of jewish people went without a messiah. without intimacy. set up. adam must have been so lonely. none were like him. none capable of relationship, all of them at the mercy of primal instincts. adam was participating in creation. by himself. incompleteness.

actual story or allegory, either way, exposes god's intentions. brilliance. plan. he's continually creating. it doesn’t stop in genesis. he is shaping us, never a non participant. and maybe, just maybe, beyond my short-sightedness, there is a reason for my state of inefficacy. my feelings of mediocrity. puerility. incompleteness.

i pride myself on my humility

maybe i've become cynical. [i realized the other day during a community night that i felt a disconnect. i've been learning and talking a lot about god but not talking to him. any approach to salvation, which he is playing out every day, that does not eventually become worship becomes distorted and reduced to a concept. a program. a technique. we master it and therefore control it. with intentions of worshiping together, i felt a loss of words during corporate praise and prayer. i've taken control.] all this to say, maybe the following is biased. maybe i’m cynical.

i found myself rolling my eyes at status updates that boast of, "great nights, great friends," "i love my life," "i am so lucky." [preconceived judgments possibly influence some intolerance.] i think, 'yea, so?' these sentiments in my mini-feed and twitter feel forced. seem fake. self-applauding. disconnect.

god is the source of all that is good. everything that's beautiful... wonderful. sorry, i couldn't resist. a dismaying abundance of altruistic phenomenon abides in the everyday. creation is endlessly complex. everyone can and does encounter good things in stunning and variegated ways, there's endless possibilities, literally. accordingly there’s disconnect with differing arrays of happiness. we roll our eyes, even if it's genuine from their end. rare is the discovery and connection with a kindred soul and stumbling upon such confidantes should in fact be celebrated. not everyone would delight in a rare thrift store find or the accomplishment of finishing a difficult run. to truly celebrate the good things you experience with you. to know first hand the feeling, because they’ve felt it. they make you feel like you're not the only one. cause you’re not.

i'm much more prone to comment or "like" or reply to updates concerning upsets, discouragements, sadness, injustices, hopelessness, annoyances. i can relate on a deep level more easily without preclusion. the devil’s imagination is vastly smaller than gods, not as far-reaching, his tools less reverberant. i understand human defense mechanisms, pains, the annoyances, the guilt, the same propensity to sin, same heart ache, same weaknesses, same lies. even if it's not the same circumstances, i have files and files of history of hurts i can pull from. empathize with.

it takes a lot less effort to relate the pains of being human. it takes certain skill to evoke an experience of beauty. god is too vast. ineffable. there's too big of a vocabulary to pull from. masters of written and spoken words chiefly seem to succeed when they evoke those feelings of embarrassment, pain, annoyance, hurt, abandonment. they cause you to mourn with or laugh at shared experiences, but they connect. the pains of being a human.

yes, i just blogged about status updates.

wild!

collection of thoughts after seeing where the wild things are. combined with thoughts from 'christ plays in ten thousand places' and 'the creative habit' ...

"everything that happens in a day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world. everything is raw material. everything is relevant. everything is usable. everything feeds into my creativity. but without proper preparation, i cannot see it, retain it, use it."

where the wild things are encapsulates all those childhood feelings of wonder and angst. and emotions that you don't quite know how to deal with yet so you wind up on top of the kitchen table screaming at your mother. all those beautiful, imaginative, intense feelings that we've squandered and labeled as maturity. as we get older, we develop competence and gain mastery over ourselves and our environment. we become so absorbed in what were doing, where were going; that god's work, god's creation is forgotten or marginalized. but our minds and imagination are inherently unrestricted and boundless from birth and we’re designed to begin participating in god's creation work.

something in max told him that celebration of creation and of each other was the first step to eliminating sadness, and so a wild rumpus began. a child knew instinctively. a child also innately knew that establishing a common goal for the monsters would bring them together. their community served together and for each other. there are things that are so carnal, so instinctive, so intrinsically life-giving that it can only point to the way things were meant to be. max unhesitatingly and barbarously discerns that.

but max is no savior. he can't live up to it. his ability to control starts to crumble after the early apogee of escaping there. the depravity of humans is beautifully and masterfully revealed.

everything in the movie, like a child, is raw, unfiltered, risky, and unabashedly nonsensical. from the dialogue to the music, it doesn't owe anything to anyone, it's free.

jesus said we can only enter the kingdom "as a little child." we rarely take the time to detach ourselves from the world's way of doing things and from our own compulsions. we take things into our own hands. we are not free to see and respond to who god is and what he is doing. to attend. to adore. as a little child.