Writing excercise: Apr 10 reflections.

Bah. I should be in bed. It's the early morning Bug review meeting tomorrow & I should probably try to be up for that & should maybe try to beat the traffic 'cause the roads will likely be crap tomorrow after the rain we're getting tonight turns to ice (though maybe I should just stay home & avoid the carnage)....

Anyhow, I'm attempting to write stuff to reflect on the day. The urban monastery folks (http://www.urbanmonastery.ca/) are trying to provide a more structured/consistent pattern of morning & evening prayer that the community joins in on. Since I've now figured out that I don't have to show up at the community house at 6AM & 9PM every day to participate, I figure I should maybe join in.... so far I'm already behind & not sure how I'm going to fit in stuff this week, but we'll give it a whirl & try.

Reflections on today:

- goal was to spend the majority of the day at home in quiet, paint G.I. Joes, watch some stuff, cook some, meet with Marie at 2, cook some more & slack in the evening & hopefully clean some in preparation for the party this weekend.

- morning started as planned. Bit of painting, then watched the final episode of 'Justice League Unlimited: Season 2'. This rattled me. The series ends with the forces of Apokolips invading earth & hero & villian alike have to band together to defeat them. There is a set of scenes where the heroes assemble, as individuals & groups & they are all teleported one by one to join the battle.... this imagery of heroes assembled, of the gathering of courageous souls to fight one last fight against the overwhleming darkness & evil, left me weeping uncontrollably.... wasn't really sure all of the why's for that, it just happened. More tears came as Superman let loose on Darkseid... where he finally unleashed the full extent of his power instead of holding back for fear of hurting something in the 'world of cardboard'.... and more tears at the return of J'onn J'onzz.... Maybe it's just tiredness. but something there shook me & this affected the mood for the rest of the day.

- after that, more painting. Have been fiddling with heads. Forming heads are a pain in the butt. Have finally maybe started to figure out a technique to do eyes. Realized that mostly you can just draw a black line on the upper rim of the eye & this looks like the dark line of eyelashes & then a black dot in the middle for the iris. Instead of painting eyes last, I'm starting the heads by roughing in the eyes & then painting over anything that looks like a mistake... it is funny how even in this, the figures sometimes take on a life of their own & somehow it just looks 'right' to put a brushstroke or dab of paint in one area or another.....

- I think I got stressed with the figures & time today. Wanted to put a lot of time into the painting today & ended up with various interruptions.... not bad interruptions, but just not what I'd had planned. Unsuccessfully attempted tech support for dad with computer stuff, had lunch with Marie & chatted for a few hours. Had to pick up roomie Dan from the airport which ate a 1 1/2 hour that I wasn't planning on. But I was sort of pre-occupied with how much time I'd get to spent painting... stressing about finding time to relax... maybe there's something wrong in that. Or maybe it's a good shift of craving the creative time & the place of solitude.... I made good progress. Have some of the figures coming together well. Some where the faces look like actual faces. Others that are likely salvageable.... Some figures where the colour schemes & the rough outline of how they'll be painted are coming together nicely. Got a good start on about 5-7 figures & finished coating & assembling 10 other figures, so it felt nice to see some finished product after a long time of fiddling with them.

- ended up with tears & such while in the shower getting ready to leave the house. Was listening to Tool's "10,000 days" & the opening track 'Vicarious' - it's a song about humanities tendancy to observe carnage & destruction from a distance. He proposes the theory that we do this as a power trip, that vicariously we watch the world crumble & burn around us & we remain unscathed in our being outside of the disaster zones... he figures maybe it's some dark god urge that wants to wipe out the planet & to still remain in power & alive.... Again, not sure the source of the tears for that... I like the song. The melody ripples with power & crunch.... maybe I just crave the sense of feeling empowered.

- Marie was busy at the Lazy Loaf when I arrived, so I had time to sit there by myself & observe & reflect as I ate my sandwich that was too tall for my mouth. Kind of felt a bit like I'm going crazy. My head felt like I was thinking through a fog & yet crystal clear... thoughts like molasses & yet instantaneous.... I was preoccupied with the stuff from yesterday, the random tears from today, the call/lure of solitude & creativity.... so maybe that was it... tried to share about the thoughts from yesterday, but that didn't go very far - no answers or clarity at least....

- after the return from the airport made chili & watched 'Crank'.... not the most intelligent movie.... Honestly found it kind of slow in a lot of places... Figured the dude should die from lack of adrenaline 'cause I was bored & assumed he'd be too... I shake my head at the chick in the movie... it sort of saddens me to think that there are women who are maybe like that & who seem to be pretty dang clueless.... pretty yes, but just not really thinking so well.... The ending was odd... All that movie about rush to try to say that we should slow down & smell the roses more often... Though who knows, maybe there's a message for me in that woven through the theme of the day....

- reading passages: I sort of skimmed through the passages for today... they speak hope & taunt me at the same time. I am both encouraged & angered by them... the anger is of course longing & a sense of powerlessness to reach/encounter what is longed for....

- John 17. Out of all that Jesus prays when he prays for us, it seems the most important to Him is that we are one. The Father is in Him, He is in us & we are all one... He wants the world to know that the Father has sent Him & that He has loved us (verse 24). Again, His prayer is not that we'd do a bunch of things or convert a bunch of people (though that may come as part of the package), but His prayer is that we are united with Him & (in theory) with each other - that love reigns & unites....

-Psalms 104: vs. 2& 3 - God clothed with light, heavens like a tent & the beams of his chambers are in the water. The idea of laying beams in water intrigues me.. There is so much of the structure of this planet that I don't understand. How is the land held up? What exactly is in that ocean down there? God looks wild, uncontrolled, unpredictable in this passage. He looks sovereign, ruling over all & in control of everything... There is a majesty in this passage & a beauty of God's intimate involvement with the planet & His creation....

John 17:17 asks to sancitfy us through His word & says that His word is truth... I've been having the potential of conflict with my family over me drinking wine. Part of me twinged with this passage & the 'vino veritas' - in wine, truth - which was much the reason for me getting started into really trying to learn to enjoy wine. The twinge was why seek for truth elsewhere when truth is found in 'the word'... I've been reading a wine tasting book recently & it's been explaining that wine does not lie because the condition of the grapes & the processing will definitely be found in the taste of the wine... and so I'm understanding the 'truth' that wine brings... and it's nice to see here in Psalms 104:15 this idea that God brings wine as a gift to make the heart of men (& women) glad... He doesn't comment on the morality of alcohol or on drunkeness, etc. It's just a statement that God provides all of our needs, all the things that we seek & want....

... I find the comments on darkness & leviathan interesting. The whole passage is like taking a 'day in the life of God' & watching Him 'get up' in the morning to go out for 'chores' & to tend the earth. He lights the sun, rides on the clouds, sets the foundations of the earth & keeps the waters in place. He then tends to the animals & people, providing them water & food & sustenance... and part of His day, part of those 'chores' of God is to 'make darkness' - to provide time for all the beasties to roam & devour prey, to let leviathan (a great sea-serpent & often metaphor for satan) 'play'... God's discourse in Job ends with God giving Job a lesson in the anatomy of leviathan... and Mike Mason, in his "The Gospel According to Job" book seems to think that this is God showing His response to the problems of pain & suffering in the world. God doesn't answer the questions of why there is pain or why He allows evil to exist & have reign & to consume & destroy & chain & kill.... Instead all He does with Job it to pick leviathan up, turn him over & spin him round & open his jaws & basically it's like God taking this fearsome dragon & like some great child playing with it like it's some plastic dinosaur... God's lesson to us about suffering & evil is to show us that He is greater than these things & more powerful than even the most terrifying of villains in our stories....

...verses 28-30 & really the end of the Psalm.... Shows everything's reliance on God. If He breathes into us, we live. If He takes away the breath we crumble to dust... but at any time He can breathe again & resurrect us... but yet in all of this, He remains unchanged, eternal.... and so this goes back to yesterday where I'm waiting on His breath, the spirit, to move.... all He has to do is speak one word & it's done.... but yet He waits.... I have come to realize that sometimes He just outlasts us... His eternal constant-ness just waits for us to give up, to stop our fighting & fall into His arms.... some of us take longer to stop pounding his chest than others....

- John 15 - again, the connection... We abide in Him. He is source, we are just conduit...

-Jeremiah 33: Ah, yes, this passage. It starts out with the tantalizing, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." This & the passages about healing & restoration both cause my heart to soar & crushes it to pieces... These are the promises of God, the reality we are supposed to live in, but yet it seems so far off... the scriptures seem to tease, like in Song of Songs 5, he comes to the door & calls & I rush to the door, hands dripping myrrh (the fragrance of suffering & of a crushed spirit) & yet find Him gone... lost in the night, leaving me lovesick & desperate... I ask for great & mighty things & the revelation seems to give only the same stuff - the same promises of a faithful & good God that does above & beyond all I can ask or think. A God who keeps covenants for as long as sun & moon endure... and I believe this stuff. I trust all of this, but I want to see it's reality....

...I feel a kinship with Jeremiah. He was the weeping prophet. He was the dude whose heart broke for his people. He cared probably the most for the people He prophesied to out of any of the prophets. And he was given at times the hardest messages to deliver to them... and at the end of the day, after all that care & compassion & faithfulness, I'm not sure that Jeremiah saw a single 'convert' (i.e. someone who actually did what God was speaking).... and then there's Jonah who was hoping that God would smite the people he was sent to & the whole city repents....

...but yet Jeremiah was given visions like here in chapter 33. Imagery of a restored Israel. A people healed & set free... & I wonder how he responded to these visions... How did He react? Did it leave him weeping with joy at the beauty of what God was going to do? Or was he stuck looking at the 'now' & seeing how far things were from the coming redemption?

OK, that's more than my quota of writing/thinking for the day. Time for bed.