frustration, thankfulness, etc.

note: i will probably come off as sounding self-focused and lamenting and bitter and ungrateful. and to some degree i am. i am aware of that. simple honesty and expression of thoughts/emotions is the aim.

---

i figured it out
my frustration
or part of it at least:

christianity basically aims to make me feel guilty that i am

i didn’t ask to be here. i didn’t ask to be born, to be alive. and yet here i am. which is all fine and good… except for the expectation that i then be thankful for that fact.  grateful for a ‘gift’ that you can’t prove i wanted to begin with.  and on top of that, as soon as i was conceived i was deemed sinful, not by anything i did, but by my very being, which i remind you i did not ask for.  and then, without my asking and before i existed, you died for me to cover for this inherent sin. and i, again, am expected to be eternally grateful. appreciative. in awe. awe that this little puppet was chosen to be born and deemed sinful and ‘redeemed.’ did i ask you to do that?

i am not saying i shouldn’t be thankful.
i am not saying i am not ‘sinful.’
i am not saying i am not grateful for life.
but these expectations are frustrating.

i am thankful for the trees that reveal their thin and wiry frames every winter and create dappled shadows on my shower curtain every spring. i am thankful for the sun that paints the sky each morning and evening with its fiery tendrils and the way the clouds morph before my eyes as they glide across the purest blue imaginable.  i am thankful for the expanse of the darkened sky and the glittering reminder of the vastness of creation. i am thankful for people who see and care and think and imagine and create and love and cherish and laugh and cry and smile and listen. i am thankful for those deep and satisfying tones that resonate from the cello and how perfectly they can compliment the easy, playful ukulele and the wonderfully common acoustic guitar. i am thankful for my eyes to see this world, my ears to hear it, my nerves and skin to feel it.

so god. i am thankful. maybe not for the “right” things. but i am pretty sure you know that already. i need to say it anyway.

sketchbook

because sometimes after scanning in your sketchbook from the last couple months, you are simply curious.

define: reading / define: book

a statement?

why is it that i tend to think and speak and write and talk in questions rather than statements?  am i afraid of a fight?  of getting stuck defending a position that i was unsure about to begin with? am i afraid of failing? of being proven wrong? is it reflective of my approach towards life? is it because i think it broadens the conversations? do statements shut down conversation? are my questions really statements and i am just pretending they aren’t? do i actually believe they are unbiased and without answer? [some perhaps. not that one.] do we not question enough? or are we too skeptical? do we accept the status quo too readily? is this all just me, inside my own head?

will someone converse with me on design, theology, philosophy, psychology, and science all in one conversation?

i guess we’ll see.

( o o )

every morning i delicately circle the only feature deemed worthy of attention.

who taught me that?

can we not notice unless we point, highlight, circle? do we need to be told where to look, what to care about, where to focus? [insert advertisement here] are we not capable of determining that ourselves? no longer capable of hearing whispers? [hearing aid] have we lost all attention to detail?

we and i and them and us and you and they

who am i? what is my role? what is my goal?
what is the [role/goal] of society?
the [role/goal] of a(n) [writer, architect, artist, designer, poet]?
why ask questions? what questions to ask?
what questions to answer?

what

are we making

o o

eye contact?

– –

o o

iMultiverse

Written with an eloquence I could only dream of, these thoughts have surfaced in my mind many times (less virtual simulation, more puppet show/zoo) and now I have an incredibly interesting conversation to eavesdrop on.

russell & pascal

The 5th grader noticed one of his apps had auto-updated on his quantum iPhone 72, so he opened it.

He watched as multiple fluctuations began to appear and disappear randomly in all shapes and sizes — sometimes bumping into each other and merging, sometimes exploding. He zoomed into one of the isolated bubbles and saw nothing but emptiness. In another bubble he saw white hot plasma. Time sped up and he watched it cool and dissipate into nothing as the bubble disappeared. Many more bubbles began to form. One expanded and collapsed again, causing part of the bubble to grow back out the other side. Some bubbles expanded so quickly some of the simulated energy cooled to form superheated matter, which eventually cooled further and began to clump together. He zoomed into one in time to see countless clumps collapse into beautiful stars which exploded into heavy elements that coalesced…

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_what’s_my_line_again?_

could jesus really have empathy?
he was god and man.
i am just man.
well, not even.
(wo)man.
he was infinite.
i am infinite.
he was author and character.
i am just char(actor).

c o n ( f o r m )

a sermon on conformity this morning.  how fitting.

summary: acts 5. these two people conformed and look, they’re dead because of it. hypocrisy. masking. fake it ’til you make it. don’t conform. be real, be honest. conclusion: conform to the likeness of jesus.

kind of contradictory in my opinion.  don’t conform. except wait yes do conform. but to the correct right true things.

. . .

do i even have a choice in the matter?

from the instant my being was conceived, be that physically or in the mind of god, i have been formed and molded and directed and tied and sculpted and boxed-in. from my dna, the conditions in my mother’s womb, my family, my race, my country of origin, the off-gassing of new toys and furniture in my room, my ‘predispositions,’ my tendencies, my birth order, my generation.  victim mentality you say? sure. let’s put some labels on things to make the box walls a little stronger. ocd tendencies. major depressive disorder. type-a.

ya. i choose certain things. i choose them based on the limited selection available on the shelf predetermined by the monopolies. i choose them from a list labeled red and blue that have been filtered through all sorts of systems.  i choose them because they are the ones in a language i can understand. i choose them based on the hormones or the lack of sunlight or the chemical imbalance. i choose them out of necessity.  i choose them because the plot was written long ago.  i choose them because my strings gave me no other option.

. . .

i want to believe. or at least i say i want to believe. i don’t want to doubt.  or at least i say i don’t want to doubt.  i want to choose. or at least i say i want to choose.

i guess i must not want it enough. i must not be focusing on truth enough.  i must not be in community enough.  i must not be reading the word enough.  i must not be praying enough. i must not have been honest enough. i must not have faith enough.

enough.

if i really was honest
if i really said what i was thinking
if i really laid it all out
if i really took all the masks off

what then?

a hand on the shoulder
a look of worry
a convincing speech
an argument
platitudes

where am i going with this? who knows.

again. writing for survival.

empathy

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge.  It requires no accountability, no understanding.  The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.  It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”

-Bill Bullard

the ghost

“It is the powerful feeling that history is simultaneously there and not there, real and illusory–a ghost forever tailing behind, which vanishes when we turn around…history is full of missing pieces and indecipherable shards that are the material counterparts of human forgetting.”

-John Vernon