can you hear me now...

Communication...

Humankind lives for it.

We want to know and be known

and nothing is more frustrating than poor communication.

"What we've got here

is failure to communicate."

The Captain, Cool Hand Luke

"You keep using that word.

I do not think it means what you think it means."

Inigo Montoya

"Can you hear me now?"

The Verizon Guy


Words

   Unity- a word that connotes oneness.

"Behold," the Psalmist cries, "how good and pleasant it is

when brothers dwell together in unity."  Psalm 133:1

   But what of unity in communication?
Effective communication requires agreement... definition and context are hand in glove.

   Imagine an agreement on and of words so pure, so unified, that God Himself said, "Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them."

Here is the story:

'Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.  Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”  And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.  Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.'
Genesis 11:1-9, ESV

Words

      Living languages evolve. We live in the midst of another stage in communication evolution- texting. Both Strunk and White are turning in their graves with each keystroke (and we call them smartphones). Ever since the tower builders walked away babelling to themselves, communication has suffered. We all know the best communication involves a multi-sensory experience:

   -We touch, with a hand on a shoulder or the feel of a printed page

   -We hear tonal inflection and volume

   -We taste, with a nod of knowing, over a shared meal 

   -We smell during a fireside chat as the woodyness ministers to our soul

...and, we see our two-dimensional presentations, adorned with serifs or sans.   

   We live and die with our words. Saunter through a cemetery. Engraved in stone are words, final words that cry, "I was here!" These words carry weight...literally. Granite weighs in at 180 lbs. per cubic foot. And yet, our living words carry even greater weight. Who among us has not felt the crush of a harsh word or soared with the release of a timely encouragement?

Words

   According to GLM (Global Language Monitor) as of January 1, 2014, the number of words in the English language is 1,025,109.8. (Yes, someone is monitoring our words.) The GLM adds, "Currently there is a new word created every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words per day."

nota bene- Google validates GLM's number of words in
English prediction...so, it must be true.

   We carry words because words carry us, calming us to stillness and moving us to action. Words tell our story and everybody has a story in want of being heard. When we share or receive someone's story we become part of the larger story... we remind and remember we are not alone.

   Frederick Buechner said, "In Hebrew, the word dabar means both word and deed. A word doesn't merely say something, it does something. It brings something into being. It makes something happen."

   And so we are to choose our words with care.

Words carry life and death.

Words make things happen.

Make something good happen.

 

 

Art Happens

   

"Art happens- no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend on it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy and coarse farce. This is as it should be, and all attempts to make it otherwise are due to the eloquence of the ignorant, the zeal of the conceited."

James McNeill Whistler

1834-1903

   "Art happens..." and, according to Whistler, art happens in spite of us. As a teacher of art, I am forever curious as to how art happens. So I make lists...questions to myself. For example-

What does a successful lesson look like?

Is the current lesson about process or product?

(Can/should the two be treated separately?)

How far am I willing to go to help a student?

My Morning Infographic

Ink on McDonald's napkin

   Teachers need students. Currently I am giving private lessons to Jadon and Lael. They are the picture of an art teacher's ideal- teachable, eager, and creative.

The creativity that a child carries exponentially exceeds that of an adult if given the freedom and encouragement it deserves...because a child knows how to play. The world is filled with wonder-repressed adults who have forgotten how to play; forgotten the joy of a dot that keeps going, forgotten how to form lines that speak to the heart of a matter.

Art reminds us to remember.

Art restores wonder.

   Buechner said, "In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things."

Self Portrait by Jadon

Blind contour of Lael by Jadon

Self portrait by Lael

Blind contour of Jadon by Lael

   Teaching children the principles and concepts of art keeps me young...it reminds me to keep life simple.

   My concept sketches are simple...enough information to remind me what I saw in the moment so that I might paint it later. This is the image that came after reading Matthew 26:69-75-

Then he began to curse and swear, "I do not know the man!" And immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, "Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly.

   I plan to use my face as Simon Peter.

   I am also considering a companion piece- The Restoration.

(see John 21:17) 

final thoughts

    

   Time is a curious thing. I hear a clock ticking... but that is not time. I see the calendar on the kitchen wall... but that is not time either. Time is our invisible constraint, silently provoking and enticing us... binding and releasing us... gears and galleys of clocks and calendars forever in motion.

     Frederick Buechner said, "We tend to think of time as progression, as moment following moment, day following day, in relentless flow, the kind of time a clock or calendar can measure. But we experience time also as depth, as having quality as well as quantity- a good time, a dangerous time, an auspicious time, a time we mark not by its duration but by its content."

   Here, at the end of a time called 2013, are my random journal entries... thoughts I liken to the crumbs in a basket of fish and chips- small with no nutritional value, yet I hate throwing them away. Feel free to use them as you will.

Laughter is often the best defense.

The only option for objects deemed 'priceless' is a transfer of stewardship.

The companion of loneliness is forgetfulness and neither should be entertained.

'Soon' is a short word with relatively long implications.

Perhaps 'beginning' is the contraction for 'begin being'

The paradox of art- execution brings life!

Do squirrels experience hiccups?

The only word larger than 'all' is 'I'

Light is offensive... it does not ask the darkness for permission to enter.

Don't bring a pig to Passover.

Making art restores the joy of child-likeness.

 and finally,

Which direction is forward?

  

The Word

Logos

36" x 47"

Oil and Gold Leaf on Corrugated Paper

"In the beginning was the Word..."

John 1:1

    Frederick Buechner said,  "When God speaks, things happen because the words of God aren't just as good as His deeds, they are His deeds. When God speaks His word, John says, creation happens, and when God speaks to His creation, what comes out is not ancient Hebrew or the King James Version or a sentiment suitable for framing in the pastor's study. On the contrary. "The Word became flesh," John says, and that means when God wanted to say what God is all about, it wasn't a sound that emerged but a man. Jesus was his name. He was dynamite. He was the Word of God."

Laundry Days

   

"It is tempting to say that what you do with this time you save is your own business. Briefly stated, however, the Christian position is that there's no such thing as your own business."

-Frederick Buechner

"The more you fulfill yourself the less you will seek God."

-Oswald Chambers

     Lately, I feel my life is what happens between laundry days- the moments I spend between the moments I stop to remove the world from my clothing.

The Call

Watercolor

Samuel Carter

"The place God calls you to is the place where

your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Frederick Buechner

Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

     The 17th Century poet, George Herbert, said, "Life is half spent before we know what it is." E.E. Cummings said, "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." 

     My life is surrounded with words of prophets and poets- the storytellers and imaginators who flavor my conversations, the men and women who share dreams and impart to me a title- Dreamer. At age ten I was an astronaut. By sixteen it was music. When my twentieth birthday arrived, I was a painter. But, musical astronauts who paint are an odd lot- too odd for most. In my twenties I was a part of the family business- a maker of tombstones... a storyteller of a different sort. Then something happened, something I did not expect. God called me to teach.

     We hear through the filter of our history. The distant voices cry, "You must ..." and "You cannot ..." 

     As I walk in the place where God calls the voices din. And it is good.