here are some sweet pics that i have been trying to get up for awhile. i wish i had a mullet to contribute to this super trashy facial hair. oh, well. maybe next time. elizabeth didn't want me to put them up, but against her better judgment, i did... i just had to do something to compete with jim beaty's amazing snowman pic (a little shout out to our joint effort to return to the blog-o-sphere).

why i am not a very good artist...

so i have been reading this book called the war of art (along with several others i am reading right now) by steven pressfield. i started reading it because i have been really trying to write music lately. i always get writer's block or feel that what i have written is crap. well, i don't just feel it is crap; i know it is crap. the book is quite interesting and inspired my blog about how we are boring people (and will inspire several more that will be coming soon that i have been thinking about). the book talks about how to break through what pressfield calls "resistance," which is personified as being the thing that holds us back from being creative. for someone coming from a secular perspective, i am finding many spiritual applications. i encourage you all to read it if you feel you are struggling with the same sort of thing. it is a super easy read. any way, i have been thinking a lot about what holds me back, which sort of morphed into trying to figure out why i think i am a crappy at art and being creative. you see, artists have this ability to see things in ways that no one else sees them... to see beauty where others just see ordinary things. but even more than that, they have this ability to express and present things in a stirring but ambiguous manner that invites the viewer/listener/etc. in and allows one to come back to the work of art time and time again and find new things (perhaps that the artist didn't even think of). no good artist just comes right out and says what they mean. there is always something deeper there. that is the point of art, right?

so i have discovered two reasons why i have failed at being creative. first, i am simply no good at not just coming right out and saying what i am thinking. this is probably good in the practical world, but i wish i could turn it off sometimes. i am too dang literal all the time, which probably makes me a pretty dull person. for as much as i love art, it is sort of weird that i really hate to beat around the bush. maybe that is why art appeals to me so much... because i need to escape myself sometimes! i think i have this fear of being misunderstood. i want people to hear exactly what i am saying and see exactly what i am seeing. this is why i spend hours working out sermons questioning just how people will interpret every single word i say and making sure that it is just right. but i have always been jealous of people who can just let things be put out there for others to interpret. this is what makes art both great and risky. it demands interpretation but does not demand a particular interpretation. it only invites. laura foxworth used to write songs while i was preaching at intermission. she was literally doing what i could not do. i could say, "okay, here is what has really inspired me this week (and that is what i preached in a very literal way)," and she would take that (while i was preaching it) and turn it into something that was expressed in a way that allowed others to enter into it wherever they were at that moment. amazing. i could have just preached to her before the service and just let her sing my sermon. it probably would have been a lot more effective (and time saving!). so this brings me to my second problem with being creative... inspiration. art requires it. where exactly does a song originate... or a picture or a poem? this is not to say that i don't have plenty of inspiration (i have an infinite source actually), but i don't think that i spend enough time keeping my eyes open to see things in a deeper way than they first appear. anyone can look at a mountain or an ocean and say, "that is beautiful." but we are constantly surrounded by beauty in the ordinary things of our day. and i miss it 99.9% of the time. this is what makes a good artist good. they take the ordinary and show it to us in a new light because they have kept their eyes open in a way that allowed them to see it in a new light. and the art invites us in and we relate to it because it is ordinary things (just expressed in a moving way). perhaps this takes special talent. perhaps it just takes attentiveness.

figuring this stuff out helps me move forward because at least now i can practice putting thoughts out there that don't demand a certain interpretation and keeping my eyes open. i am also very open to any suggestions that any of you may have.

cheers,
jw <><

aliens? what aliens?

check out this article... very suspicious.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,390161,00.html

to infinity and beyond,
jw <><

we're boring people...

friedrich nietzsche wrote, "we have no dreams at all or interesting ones. we should learn to be awake the same way - not at all or in an interesting manner." good point.

i have realized that we christians are a really boring people. i am certainly including myself in this. i have just been very convicted lately that the very people who claim that God has blessed them with spiritual gifts, talents, and creativity are the very people who seem to spend most of their time being very rigid and unoriginal. further, we claim to be created in the image of God who is THE CREATOR. honestly, could we live in a more boring fashion? worse yet, we make God and His message boring. it is like we are saying that this message that we have (which we claim is life-altering and provides life and freedom itself) isn't worth our time to figure out how to live out and show to others in an interesting way.

please don't misunderstand me... i don't want to risk sounding like it is our job to make God "relevant." this is an ridiculous idea, since it is God who makes all things relevant. i do think that God has blessed us with gifts and talents (and brains that can reason!) in order to bring glory to Himself, though. and there was a time when people's faith was expressed creatively in their lives - some of the greatest art (including music, architecture, and literature) ever produced came from these expressions. but the church has ceased to be creative and has begun copying secular society. and we wonder why the church is shrinking at drastic rates. perhaps the world looks at our laziness and lack of zeal and thinks that these things have spoken pretty loudly about our attitude toward our faith.

further, there are a lot of problems in the church and in the world that don't get solved because we don't spend time thinking of how to handle them. we feel like it is too costly to dream these things up. we are struggling to hold things together as they are now, right? here are some crazy thoughts: what if we didn't just see our professions as a means to an end - retirement? what if ministers didn't view sunday morning as just another sermon to get through but as a time (maybe the only time) to deliver the life-giving words of God? what if teachers saw their work not just as a job but as a time to share with children the knowledge that would help their lives be productive? what if scientists saw their work for what it is - as a chance to learn more about God's creation in order to protect and sustain it? the list could go on and on. the point is - what if all this struggle to hold things together is just self-created because we are not doing things in a way that allows us to be creative and passionate? what if this freed us up to do them as they should be done?

the truth is, nevertheless, that it takes a lot of energy to live this way, and it is easy to get caught in the flow of life and lived tired and boring. my friends, life is a battle either way, and we have only one chance. you can choose to struggle to just make it through each day or you can choose to struggle to make it through the day creatively. my attitude is - i would rather live forty hard-fought years and die than live a boring life to be a hundred. i choose to fight because, frankly, i am sick of a morally inept society with its poverty (spiritual and financial), corrupt politicians, failing school systems, wars, and polluted environment. i choose to fight because i think God wants more from the church than just becoming secularized with its diminishing influence and attendance, its biblically illiterate members, its ineffective and boring educational programs, its wimpy stand on social and moral issues, and its stressed out clergy. more than these things, i choose to fight because death has already been defeated. i choose to fight because there is beauty and truth that just needs someone to shine some light on it. i choose to fight because i believe that God continues to move in this world and continues to do new things. i choose to fight because one day this battle will be over and LOVE WILL WIN!

each day is a blank canvas, an empty piece of sheet music, a shapeless lump of clay or stone, a blank roll of film... what are you doing with it?

cheers,
jw <><

i'm doooonnnnneeee!!!!!!

everyone get excited - i completed summer hebrew today. i have to admit that i enjoyed it more than greek, which seemed kind of rigid and boring to me. any way, i have been wanting to blog for sometime now, so i think there is probably about to be a flood of blogs. so it goes.. a drought of blogs followed by a flood of blogs.

cheers,
jw <><