Category: thoughts

Known by Joy

In Acts 14, Luke (the author) offers a one-sentence insight into an argument that would later be fleshed out in Paul’s brilliant theological diatribe to the Romans. After Paul and Barnabas heal a crippled man in Lystra (a city in Asia Minor), crowds of people mistake them for the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes. They begin trying to sacrifice animals to the two visitors , which really distressed Paul and Barnabas. They rush into the crowds, tearing their clothes. They begin proclaiming a new God to them, the God who made heaven and earth and sea. In the midst of their desperate declaration, these words about God tear from their lips: “…He has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

Interestingly enough, Paul is talking to non-Christian or pre-Christian people. He’s not making the mistaken assumption that only Christians have joy: He’s merely saying that the regular, everyday joys we all experience are gifts from God and evidence of his nature. These pleasures or gifts stand alongside the trees and the oceans as evidence of a creator and giver.

So next time you’re tempted to disdain the secular or profane joys of the world, abstain. Instead choose to see God’s nature in all that is Good.

A Nightmare

Early this morning I dreamt I was in a war zone on the road to Haifa, Israel.  A rich older woman talked me into going with two girls and two other guys so I could write about the experience.  It was such a scary place to be.  Men were driving by in big trucks with machine guns.  Somewhere along the way there was a DeWalt chop-saw, and someone had been using it to kill other people.  There were bones and remains scattered periodically along the side of the road.  I wasn’t able to keep track of who was on which side, and both sides threatened us.  I remember a man who, eyes crazy with zeal, threatened to kill us with his AK-47.  I answered very softly and calmly, and he turned away.  I remembered the passage from Proverbs 15:1 – ” A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

The dream didn’t have a conclusion, and I woke up fearing first for myself, then for the people who will actually live that nightmare.  My first thought this morning was to pray for Israelis and their Palestinian and Arab neighbors.

[Angry Rant] Keep Your Appointments!

It’s 7:45 p.m., and I just got home from the studio. No, I wasn’t working late. I went to the studio to meet with a potential client (Julie) after she got off of work. Lisa wasn’t happy that I went to the studio after hours, but she understands that I need every client I can get right now.

When I got to the studio, I prepared for Julie’s arrival. I set up a special slide show of senior guy photos (her son is the potential subject). I turned on the television and prepared the slide show for presentation. I ran the air conditioner. I cleaned the table and chair we were to use for the meeting. I made sure to get out a bottle of fresh, cold water for her and carefully centered it on a napkin. I turned on some smooth, soothing music so she would feel comfortable when she walked into the studio. I took notes from our previous phone conversation and started a special file for information about her son. I prepared questions about her son, his personality, his interests, and his unique personhood. Then I grabbed the latest issue of Photoshop Magazine and waited. I’d look up every 30 seconds from the article I was reading (about how to implant baseball stiches onto a bald-headed guy). But all I saw was condensation from Julie’s cold, unopened water dripping down past the napkin I’d laid out and re-soiling my clean glass table. After waiting for 35 minutes (that’s 70 glances at her bottle of comfort-turned bottle of offense) I locked the studio and walked to Julie’s place of work. She was gone. She’d either forgotten me or blown off our meeting. I was crushed. When I walked back into the studio, the soft piano music had turned to a doleful swing number. The combination of the music and my mood was dangerous. I felt like chaining my camera around my neck (with a 70-200mm lens!) and jumping off the nearest bridge.

My mood volatility has a little more behind it than just one missed appointment. This happens probably 40% of the times I agree to meet with a potential client. I carefully set up and eagerly await their arrival, thinking about little else than how well I’ll serve them. Then they don’t show up, and I usually don’t even get the courtesy of a call to re-schedule or apologize. I’m not a hard guy to get ahold of. I get all of my e-mail on my cell phone, and promptly return calls and e-mails, especially to potential clients. I give out my business card wantonly, spreading it like kids on a playgroud spread germs.

When you agree to meet with someone, keep your word. I lose so much respect for people when they show themselves unreliable or discourteous.

[Rant over]

Andrew’s Notebook

A few months ago, I got an electric toothbrush. It has changed my life. For some reason, that phrase, “It has changed my life,” seems to imply a large change. It hasn’t been a large change. It’s been a small one. But my life is changed nonetheless.

Lisa got a library card the other day. She checked out some great music CDs from the library, including albums by Reba McIntyre and Avalon, and the Music Man soundtrack. With all the recent kerfuffle by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and others are causing with digital rights management and strict licensing of music use, you’d think they’d crack down on public libraries, who freely loan copies of music discs. Anyway, the Music Man soundtrack is great. As I listen to the songs outside of the context of the movie, I have come to greatly appreciate the cleverness of the songwriting. On the train, as the salesmen are singing about Professor Harold Hill, one guy says, “And when the man dances, certainly boys, What else? The piper pays him! Yes, when the man dances, certainly boys, What else? The piper pays him!”

How is face lotion like Homeland Security? They are both preventative, and carry the unique burden of being measured by the absence of something. With both in place, the situation looks normal. It’s when you start to consistently neglect them that the picture gets less appealing.

It’s Brad and Mary Fast’s (Lisa’s parents’) 30th wedding anniversary tomorrow. It’s also my first father’s day as a father (sort of). I don’t have a child to hold or be grateful or ungrateful yet, but I do have a child! He or she is supposed to be about the size of an apple by now. We had a family party at our house for Brad and Mary and sent them off to a bed and breakfast in the area. Congratulations on 30 years of marriage!

New series of prints

I’m starting work on a new series of art prints. This is the first one. I’m not finished with it, but at least this gives you an idea of what I’m working on. Click on the image to see it larger.  Then leave a comment.  Do you like it?  I hope not.  What does it make you think?  What does it make you wonder?  This image make statements on several level, and even pokes a bit of fun at itself.
Ruin's natural canvas

Violence and Trustworthiness

A personal reflection set on violence and danger: I’ve had three people tell me I need to worry about theft at my storefront. One has been the victim of violent crime; the other two haven’t. All three own firearms for personal protection. I offer this eastern parable:

There was once a little boy who had a beautiful set of marbles. His friend, a little girl, had a bag of candy. When the boy had tired of playing with the marbles, he offered to trade the girl all his marbles for all her candy. Just before the trade was to be made, the boy looked over his marbles and selected his two favorites. He slipped them into his pocket, his agreement notwithstanding. Later that night, he lay awake. One thought burned its way through his mind: I wonder if she gave me all of the candy?

I offer this only as a possibility, and I’m open to refutation: Is it possible that it’s not what others are willing to do that drives our fears, but what we ourselves are willing to do? Is this why perfect love drives out all fears?

* I offer these only as thoughts, and I temper them with some modicum of hubris. The other night, I was faced with a drug-addicted friend of the former residents of my house. He wanted to know how many people were living at my house and offered with a smile that he already knew the layout of the inside of my dwelling. I didn’t sleep for several hours that night, worrying about the guy on the bicycle who stopped by that evening. I didn’t sleep until God gave me this verse from Psalm 121: “He who watches over Israel will neither sleep nor slumber.”

Sad times for U.S.

“It’s just like it used to be in East Germany,” he told me.  He should know.  He lived there during the reign of the communist regime.  He was detained for several hours yesterday at gunpoint for taking pictures of the Golden Gate bridge from a scenic overlook.  “In East Germany, you could be arrested and detained for taking pictures of any government building or national landmark.  I never thought it would be that way here.”  The park ranger, plainclothes detectives and two squad cars of police officers kept him for a long time, cited him with a fine, and make him delete photos from his camera.  In my understanding as a prior government media relations specialist, this is an unconstitutional practice.  But faced with a night in jail and a trial for resisting arrest (he was told), he complied and handed over his equipment so the officers could delete any ‘dangerous’ images from his camera.  When he asked me about it, I told him that the officers had overstepped their legal bounds.  But the price of showing them the error of their ways would be a trip to jail and a court date to let a judge (who has a fuller grasp of the constitution and U.S. case law) straighten out the constitutionality of the situation.  So he complied and submitted to the unwarranted search, seizure, and destruction of his property.  All for taking pretty pictures from a scenic location.

Inwardly I weep for our country.  If this is to be the routine way of things, then in some ways the terrorists have won.  Will they be able to turn the United States into a totalitarian regime where citizens lose their first amendment and personal property rights?  If so, our momentary security may have the illusion of enhancement, but our idealogical gatekeepers have lost the battle that separates us from our enemies’ version of a perfect society.

Faith and Politics: An Answer to the Question

I’ve wondered long, hard, and deep about a Christian’s role and responsibility within the political realm.  I’ve felt the waters as if with my pinkie finger, wanting so badly to bathe in the stream of that answer.  This morning the answer hit me like a flood.

A friend pointed out that Judaism is the only world religion in which faith seeks to inform power instead of grasping at it.  I understand now that a modern Christian’s responsibility is to do the same.  My friend put the Old Testament prophetic tradition into an entirely new context for me.  What is a prophet?  According to Abraham Heschel, a Jewish scholar, “The prophet is not only a prophet.  He is also poet, preacher, patriot, statesman, social critic, moralist.”

As American Christians, we are called to speak God’s Word.  We are called to speak prophetically.  We are called to start with the message of salvation and redemption, but we’re not to stop before addressing systemic oppression and the dirtier threads of the fabric of our society.

The answer for me came along with another set of questions.  My previous question (What should Christians be doing about politics?) became: What should I be doing to speak prophetically to our culture?  How can I best be a voice to the nations?  And what’s the weight of that task?

Audio Books I’ve Been Listening To

  • The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, by John Battelle.  Fascinating listening.  Battelle knows his stuff, and presents a thoughtful, well-rounded look at search that ranges from the theoretical to the historical, anthropoligical, technological, and literary aspects of search.  He starts his book by examining what he calls the database of intentions.  This is the aggregate or click-stream that comes from people’s searching habits.  What people are searching for is what they care about.  You can see a snapshot of this at Google Zeitgeist.  For some damn reason, Battelle occassionally uses profanity when it’s probably not needed.  I found that *%^&ing odd.  In the epilogue, he lays out a brilliant narrative of the human search for immortality, drawing from the Epic of Gilgamesh, mankind’s earliest known writing. Overall, this book is moderately recommended.  I really enjoyed it, but I think most of my readership would just kinda’ enjoy it.
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey.  For some reason, I felt a little cheesy listening to this as an audio book.  I felt like I was back in the 80’s, listening to self-help literature on a cassette tape as I rush from one big-city sales meeting to another.  But the material itself was decent.  I’ve read the book twice previously, so it was mostly review for me.  But the author, who was also the reader, did throw in some new material by way of examples and such.  Covey’s psuedo-Christian Mormon-ness emerges pretty strongly.  Good concepts, though.  The book is divided into two parts.  In the first part, he sets up principles on which he bases the habit.  In the second part, he enumerates the habits themselves.  I found the second part particularly useful.
  • The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown.  I’ve read the book, and I really enjoyed it.  I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t that an anti-Christian book?”  Well, sorta.  It’s more anti-Catholic than anything.  It kind of promotes goddess worship and pagan practices.  By now you might think I’m looney or have turned from my faith or something because I said I enjoyed the book.  I assure you, I haven’t turned from my faith.  (I may be a little looney, though.  I’ll let you judge that for yourselves.)  The reason I enjoyed the book is that it’s darn good fiction.  It’s a fun read, and I’ve always been a sucker for a fun read.  Also, I have the ability to read critically.  I don’t believe or buy into everything I read.  I’m not going to read the DaVinci code and worship goddesses any more than I’m going to read it and start searching for the holy grail (also featured).  You see, Brown starts from a flawed premise: that right religion worships equal parts male and female god, and the Catholic church has been suppressing the female side of that equation for centuries.  He also has a bit of a flawed assumption that the (pre-Christian) ancients know more than we do today.  To assume such is to deny both the power of revelation and the wisdom gathered through a long lilterary tradition of philosophers, scientists and Christistian thinkers.  I’m able to enjoy the book because I can take the entire work as fiction and enjoy the story while analyzing and walling off the mistruths, flawed premises, and outright fabrications.  I listened to 6.25 hours of the audio book yesterday, so compelling is the storytelling.

If anyone wants to borrow any of these audio books, I have CDs of them.

Today Show Interview about The DaVinci Code

  • Ian McKellen, on whether there should be a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie to clarify that it’s fiction: “I’ve often thought there should be a disclaimer at the beginning of the Bible. I mean, walking on water? That takes a bit of…….faith or something.”
  • My response: “Yep, Ian, that’s what makes those things supernatural. When you start by acknowledging that such things don’t naturally happen, it means they’re miracles and thus worthy of the telling.”
  • Matt Laurer: “Paul, when you got the call that you were going to be the killer albino monk, how long did it take you to say yes?” Paul Bettany: “It took about ought-point-three seconds to say yes to that. It doesn’t matter what else you have going on. You can’t turn down an offer like that.”
  • My response: “I think if I got a call asking if I want to play a killer albino monk, I’d say yes, too. Who wouldn’t? I’m looking forward to seeing the movie just to see Paul Bettany. He’s great.”