Forgiveness = Freedom

I did the whole painting during the service thing. It was interesting. The church and the pastor were a bit new with it, and it felt a bit awkward for me - but I want to do more of it and get other people involved doing the same because I usually am running like a headless chicken on Sundays which doesn't really make it prime time to reach inside my soul and paint. I was going to do it this Sunday, but I had to teach Sunday School instead.

Anyhow - here's my blurb about the painting

Visual inspirations - graffiti, tattoos, Andy Warhol, and Latin American folk iconography. I love all of that stuff because it's rough, obvious, and not considered by all to be art.

And by obvious I mean its purpose is obvious and what it communicates is usually obvious. It's like branding something - wether it be skin or a wall/train or a church.

So I feel like the message and the symbolism I used were pretty cliche. Not only that, but I did the sin of all art sins by actually using words in my painting. So I pretty much told everyone how to read my painting. But I did do it in Spanish - so there's me trying to be mysterious - ha ha.

So yeah - shackles represent repression or bondage. The hands on either side of the middle shackles have no shackles on so obviously they are freed. The shackles are flying away like an iconic catholic angel - complete with a halo. And the hands have blood spray painted on the wrists - representing an ultimate sacrifice given to us by Jesus on the cross when he forgave us and freed us if we chose to accept this freedom.

This then gives us the power to forgive others and free them and ourselves throughout the many times we will be hurt in our life.

The inspiration for this painting is the sermon series Pastor Bruce and Karen were preaching - it's called Vertical Habits. It was looking at different Christians and how God shone through their lives. So we looked at Desmond Tutu and Corrie Ten Boom - both exceptional people who were peace makers and freedom givers because they chose to forgive.

Parking Lots, keys, cellphones

According to Behavioral Science, if a repeating negative consequence for an undesired action occurs, that negative action will decrease.

So if this is the case then WHY WHY WHY can I never ever ever find my car in the parking lot?

I will tell myself to remember, and I still forget where I parked. And it's been driving me especially crazy lately because I do so many errands for my job so I'm constantly driving to different places and parking parking lots.

Yes - I'm the person you see wandering like a space cadet up and down rows of cars looking for my bright blue '98 Neon "Clark" (his name).

I always loose my keys too. I have to officially schedule in about 15 minutes extra to my destination time because I know that's how long it will take me to get my keys.

And most missed calls on my cell phone are actually from me calling myself to find my phone. I pretty much have a land line just so I can find my cell phone.

Pretty much.

I wish I had homing devices on my car and my keys - that would make my life a lot more simple.

The scary thing is I might have kids one day.

Did I tell you how we almost left a kid behind at YC one night. Yeah.... we won't talk about that.

E-mail Jihads

Yes, the "E-mail Jihad." We all know what I'm talking about. The largely circulated e-mail by some right wing rightgeous who wants us to ban Harry Potter, Gay Marriage, and preserve prayer in school.

Holy War E-mails. The definitive preservation of Christianity in the Western world will hang in the balance and only be saved through these all important e-mail forwards.

Did I mention that I'm not a fan. (ok and I'm not counting personal concern e-mails in that because some of you have written e-mails on a personal level on issues that we can have an impact on - like rights in China)

Ok - there's my rant for the day.

Actually - just one more rant now that I think about it ...

Ok - this might be a bit offensive, but just think about this point and I actually welcome comments about this because I want to know other viewpoints. Ok - this is about prayer in schools.

Ok - so God tells us not to take his name in vain - right? So taking God's name in vain is anytime we use God's name that is not in the context of who he really is - whether that be in anger as a curse, or in religious bable like the pharisees and tele -evangelists, or even out of banality.

So if we are forcing there to be prayer in schools we are forcing God's name to be taken in vain. Do we really think that forcing a bunch of atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, etc... to say the Lord's prayer as a ritual is going to preserve Christianity in the West?

The thing is I've been a teacher to largely non - Westernized, non - Christian kids. And I would have felt like the emperor Constantine if I would have decided that everyone was going to bable the Lord's prayer together when the kids didn't even have the first clue who Jesus was.

It used to be that the majority in a public school were from a Christian background so it was ok to say it together. But now the majority is not from a Christian background and we cannot force on other people's kids what they do not believe. It will only make them more against Christianity.

People have to choose to pray - it cannot be instituted from the public school systems.

I know that the reason people protest this is because they remember the time when everyone was mostly from Christian backgrounds and supported this. And these people miss that time.

But North America is largely post Christian now and we need to be wise how we spread the gospel. We cannot institute it onto people or onto other people's kids. That will only cause further rejection because we are presenting Christianity as a forced culture and not as a personal choice.

separation of church and state folks - that's how our forefathers set it up. And some argue - "well, we're a Christian Nation and If my kids were going to a public school in Iran they'd be forced to read the Koran so if immigrants come to our country then they need to accept our culture too"

First of all - unless you are First Nations - you're an immigrant - so don't even give me that immigrant crap.

But Christianity isn't a culture and part of the reason that North America is post- Christian is because we set it up as a culture and some of the culture that we set up was very negative and not very Jesus at all (but we decided to say that it was Jesus). So people started associating Christianity with some really negative things (like war mongering).

But on the other hand - we do need to preserve the freedom of speech for Christians who are trying to pray and say what they believe on a personal level.

Like those "See You at the Pole" things where groups of kids would CHOOSE to go and pray at the school flag pole. Or at my old school in China a group of kids asked me if they could come to my art room and pray with me at lunch every day.

Like - that's cool. And if the government starts banning that - well gnashing of teeth - yes we should protest that squelching of our rights.

BUT NOT THROUGH AN E-MAIL FORWARD.

The end

When we first met

I still remember when we first met...

I had just finished 9th grade or grade 9 (you choose the interpretation depending on your Americanness or Canadianness) and we had just spent a year in Canada.

As a family we were taking our pilgremage back to Bolivia to stay there again for another three years.

We got on the plane in Miami and as my sister and I went to find our seat numbers on the plane we realized that the gods had smiled on us. We were sitting in the middle four seats. The other two seats were inhabited by two brothers that were our age. They were missionary kids from Brazil heading back after their furlough.

They were pretty cute, and they were the type of guys who were attatched physically to their discmans ( for those who are not familair with that term - they are pre- ipod technology and they played cds.) Well, they were both super excited because they had just bought U2's newest album. It was 1993 and the album was Zooropa.

They were super friendly and we hit it off instantly and we talked the plane ride away. And they were quite insistant to share their music tastes with us.

The first song I heard was called Numb. I didn't know that at the time - but I just remember the word "don't" was largely repeated and the whole album was pretty great.

I loved it and that was when we first met...and I've never turned my back on them since.

But I do sometimes wonder what happened to those boys on the plane.