Pew Conversation

For Mother's Day this year we went with my mother to a baby dedication at a church in Salem.  Mom & Pop are the Godparents to the kid, so it seemed like the thing to do at the time.  As I looked around I became quite sure there were others there for the same reason we were: to show their moms love through action.  The pastor and his wife took advantage of this situation, each giving a sermon on this most holy of days when we're supposed to talk about how awesome mom's are.  I'm pretty sure the pastor actually gave two sermons, one before his wife spoke & one after.

Stuck in a pew--well it was actually a chair cuz this particular church is "progressive"-- my wife and I did the only reasonable thing; we started writing notes on a giving envelope.  It's not long, but there are a couple good thoughts here:

Kisha: "If Jesus is not allowed to have fear and go through the real struggle of human death, what does that mean for me/us who are having fear and struggling with what life has brought?  This thought hurts those for whom life is furiously full of pain... The beauty of Jesus is that he really did experience what it is to be human.  And in the garden experience his will, desire, emotion not wanting to die, not wanting what the Father wanted.  Yet in submission came freedom to all.  How we must submit for freedom... not to humans, but to God."

Me: "YES!  How unbelievably difficult it would have been to choose the cross when Christ knew what it was like to be intangible and self-sufficient.  But we have a God that can identify with us because He/She went through the entire cross fiasco.  I believe this to be one very important part of theology people outside the church don't get to hear because  of the political power struggle."

Kisha: "Yes.  I was thinking about the song we just sang that said Jesus shed no tears for himself but sweat blood for us... what a crazy interpretation."

Me: "Yep, there is a great deal of self-illusion that disallows the sub-culture to experience this comfort themselves.  It's sad."

Art

"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."

~Pablo Picasso

Dust happens.  It happens to the best of us, and the worst of us.  It happens to people who really really care about dust (and keeping it off of everything) and to people who could care less (and simply don't clean it off of anything).  Some people seem to have a permanant layer of dust, while others look as if they've never seen a speck in thier lives. 

I've got a VanGogh in my living room.  Obviously, it's not an original.  That's kind of an understatement, because it's just a poster in a plastic frame, but I really like it.  It's called Cafe Billiard, and I like the way the colors go together, how things don't quite match up as if the whole thing were a dream sequence, and how unclear brushstrokes still manage to convey an idea.  I could hang out at Cafe Billiard.  I really could.  The lights bouncing off the green ceiling... The patrons slumpped in their chairs... It would be my kind of hang out.

My wife Kisha is a bit of an artist.  She does photography, and is genuinely moved by the other art she sees: photos, paintings, sculptures, nature, etc.  You should see her pintrest page for photography.  I give her a hard time for being a "lookey lou", but secretly I like that she sees the things I might walk past.  It provides me with an opportunity to take in things I wouldn't normally observe.

If we're not careful, our souls truly can get dusty.  Daily life, the grind, the rut, the groove; no matter how your description, life has a way of providing dust, whether or not we're moving around and doing a lot of activity.  Art helps us engage with our emotions, and sometimes to employ emotions we won't usually use.  If we stop to look at a piece of art--really consider what we're looking at or hearing--we're wiping away the collection of stale emotnionlessness that we encour just by living.  I think Picasso may have been on to something.

Illicit Firecrackers & the Burning Bush

A few years ago... no wait... a very long time ago, I happened across some fireworks right around the time of Independence Day.  Now these weren't your ordinary, garden variety of  fireworks that can be purchased legally in the state of Oregon.  These were some certified, you-can't-buy-these-in-Oregon-cuz-they-fly-in-th-air fireworks.  It was jubilation in a little winged aircraft. 

The only thing about these were they didn't stand alone on the ground very well.  They were kind of rounded, so one would need to place it in a cup or some such thing so they would fly up in the air.  In my brilliant adolecent mind, the best possible place to keep these fireworks was in my trunk, so they could be used at any time during the independence festivities. 

The opportunitiy presented itself in the parking lot of Washington Square Mall.  I just got off the bus from downtown Portland, where I had watched the waterfront fireworks display.  It seemed like as good a time as any, because there was nobody in the parking lot, and no cars parked there, either.  What I did find was a McDonald's cup that was the perfect size for launching my illicit showers of sparks.  I could light those suckers, set it in the Mickey D's cup, and watch the showers of sparks as they few about the sky above the parking lot. 

There are a couple of things I didn't consider.  Call it youth, call it overall stupidity, but it never really occured to me that the mall might have security.  Second, it hadn't rained in about a month, which is rare in Oregon.  What that means in practical terms, is that all the vegitation turns brown and flakey.  Both of these conditions seem perfectly obvious now, but I'm 10-15 years wiser and more mature these days, and in those days the very idea of burning, lighting, and exploding things was enough to get me out of bed early, scrape and save cash, and make poor decisions in general.  When I blew things up I felt alive!

I set the newfound cup up just so, and began setting off these little beauties.  They took off straight into the air, emitting showers of sparks, and giving a satisfactory pop at the end, before the casing cascaded to the ground.  It was both exhilarating and awe-inspiring.  As I was getting toward the end of my batch, I lit one, set it in the cup, and walked backwards.  To my horror, the cup fell over, and wouldn't you know that little firework went straight to the nearest bush, which was quite dead due to the weather conditions that year.  All off a sudden, the bush is on fire and I swear I can hear it calling me Moses and telling me to take off my shoes.

I did not, at this time, take my shoes off.  I ran over and stamped the flames out, raced back to my car, and sped away through the night.  They say all's well that end's well, and I suppose they're right.  I can tell you what I learned that night; McDonald's cups not only burn you with scalding hot coffee, they sometimes throw burning objects into flammable situations, and are not to be trusted!