He Left The Light On For Us

There is a full moon on this morning, keeping dark at bay and peace in the woods.  All those slinkers and ne’er-do-wells keep to their holes and allow the small things to rest in peace.  Darkness is good for sleeping but scientists have no idea why we sleep—rest yes, all living things need rest but sleep is a little more difficult to understand.  I like a full moon and my lover in the dark especially walking on the beach or curled down by a fire but dark, in general, not a fan.  I have found it odd that at my church the first thing we do on Sunday morning worship is turn off the lights.  There are no windows so it makes for some dark.  I would prefer windows and lots of sunshine to accompany my worship.  I do prefer dark chocolate and my coffee and sunglass dark and I always like a bad guy to wear a dark hat, helps to know who’s for ya and who’s agin ya. But overall I’d say I am more light than dark which is why I like a good full moon…it’s like God saying, “I’ll leave the light on for you!”

Your An Old Man Reborn

It’s one morning.  You are an old tired man, slow and bent, scared from head to toe.  You wake up in the dark, make coffee, sit alone with The Old Text, the day still dark.  You are old.  Dawn comes and the old river lays there and dark rain clouds race by lashed on by the wind and sun.  All is slow.  A message comes from your first born, a message from God.  You open it and listen and your old heart is reborn and you begin to cry and you know this is Good Friday, and it is your Friday and you are an old man but Sundays coming.  You are reborn.  You love your Savior.  You are invigorated by your gratefulness.  He came to you again this morning.   

   

The Liturgy of The Coffee Cup

One of the greatest pleasures in art making is seeing craft become liturgical.  Students can almost never see it in themselves but having lived this life for decades I have become quite aware of it when it occurs.  I teach from the premise that art making is primarily a way in which we can love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  Young students never fully grasp that concept but what they are able to grasp is that making something with all the sincerity they processes, at their age, is the first step to understanding it.  Making art with sincerity means, with meaning, and eventually the students will begin to see ultimate meaning is only found in a consistent and prolonged personal relationship with God through Christ.  It is on this trail that all acts become sacramental, it is the wisdom of knowing that all good things come from God and few vocational things rival that of the creative Art act, so the act of art making becomes liturgical; thus an act of worship and praise.  This culminates, at least at age 60, in a continuous state of gratefulness to and for Him for allowing you to love Him in the way His grace allows, through the creative act.

So when I see a work that a student makes with sincerity I know it; they most often do not nor or they able to understand it when I say it.  I often try to explain it by saying it is when you take yourself seriously and your work seriously.  It is that student’s work that receives the highest praise and best critique...and they most often don’t understand why!

Sarah Lawler's liturgy.

I Am A Liberal

I have a dear friend who feels compelled to inform me that he is “probably the most liberal friend you (I) have!”  I always think how wrong he is because the most liberal friends I have are my wife, children, brothers and sister and mom.  My friend considers his alignment with most of the popular beliefs of our day validates his liberal understanding of himself.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Liberal comes from the idea of the freedom of humans to be, liberating oneself from the prevailing current of cultural mandates.  Today it is becoming more and more difficult to live a liberated life because the powers that be are becoming more emboldened to require belief by consent if possible, by force if necessary.  There is nothing liberating about tyranny.  My family, following historical examples, mainly my parents, have chosen to live alongside popular currents of culture but living in opposition, swimming in the same stream but in opposite direction.  At one point this was neither noticeable nor problematic but in fact celebrated for its commitment to cause.  Now however, as the powers of popular belief become more powerful and truly more sinister, opposition of belief is to be isolated, publicly condemned, forced compliant and if necessary thrown out of the stream.  The more powerful the current of popular belief, the more liberal those that swim in opposition to it become.  Freedom in a mass is unrecognizable from coerced freedom.  Being free from the mass, accepting the possibility of marginalization, answering to The Only Power capable of setting you truly free from tyranny that makes all human desires acceptable, is the most liberal and liberating idea for humans and for human culture.  If we are ever truly set free we are “free indeed” and that is the most liberal of all ways of being truly human.  The Bensons didn’t invent that but we have accepted it.      

Dirt and Babies

It is a horrible situation to be unhappy in life.  Without joy one must actually ask, “what’s the point.”  There is a grandness to living and to noticing the living, being aware of how wonderfully made everything is, from dirt to babies and everything in between.  I love dirt, probably the most sincere of all material.  Why?  Because it allows for everything in it to grow and growing plants offer up another great material, oxygen, which is very important to babies.