Trust and Strength

I began reading the novel Light in August by William Faulkner today. The story tells of a young girl, in the early nineteenth century, forced into a servant situation. She begins sneeking out to meet a guy she likes. Soon her lover has to abruptly leave due to work situations, and soon after she finds out she is pregnant. Her family finds out and begins shunning her. He leaves home, and starts hitchhiking to find him. When I was thinking about this portion of the story later that day I was wondering why she would travel so far with so little promises. She was so devoted to the love she had for her "man", that she was prepared to face anything. That might not have necessarily been the best desicion but it was an incredibly devoted one nonetheless. It makes me consider my relationship with Christ. My life with Him is filled with promises. But how many times do I miss that and take me own road. The girl in the story was devoted with none, and I am quite shy of devoted and His Word is basically filled with them. It makes me wonder what am I really practicing? Strength or trust? One can fail you eventually. Even the strongest of men become weary at times. But trust is a principle that only God can teach amd keep in your life. This is a concept I have definitely been learning since coming to college. Am I going to trust God or rely on my human strength? The Bible says that the joy of the Lord IS my strength. So in essence I cannot even rely on strength without God. Without Him there is nothing.

Pink Cloud

"Oscar Wilde once wrote that an object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. Here is your opportunity to explore your own idea of beauty, and, potentially, ugliness. A variety of works from the permanent collection have been selected to represent the many ways in which we might find beauty within an art object. Confucius might have been right when he declared, everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it. Viewers are encouraged to express their thoughts, and some of the most interesting responses will be added to the wall label text as the exhibition remains on display."

-Polk Art Museum Website Regarding The Beautiful Things Exhibit



This past Thursday our class went to the Polk Museum of Art. There were so many beautiful paintings. I could not help but wonder what the artists were thinking when they constructed such creative pieces. I encountered the ancient artwork of pre and post early civilizations, like clay and rock designs. This art consisted of mostly animal and people design. The next exhibit was child art. I was astounded by the talent of the children at so young of an age. This exhibit contained mostly jungle and animal art. Then I continued on into pre and post modern art and paintings. I think trying to understand and really truly apreciate art for what it is can become somewhat of an overwhelming task. The one peice that stood out the most to me, was a peice called pink cloud. It may be hard to describe, but I will try. It was an individual pink diamond on the end of a peice of wire.There were about ten of these diamond wires braided together into a design and then the other end braided into another braid strand. It was a large mass of braided diamond strands that hung from the ceiling about eight feet tall. It was so gorgeous. It must have taken hours to braid each strand into another and another and another. I could not help but notice that a general theme was beginning to show itself. This peice of art would have been not have been as beautiful if it was made of only one strand and diamond at the end. It was the community woven togther that made it so beautiful. For generations we have seen person after person try and stifle the beauty of community and the diversity that it represents. Hitler and his nazis tried to make a dominant race, but it was and is the beauty of the Jews as a whole that add to the vibrance of the world. We need community. We need unity. Community completes us. Even Jesus stressed the importance of community when he emphasized the body of Christ. How can the body walk without the legs and how can even the HEAD turn without the neck? We need each other. Every peice of art had some form of community or even a hint of it, from pre-civilizations to post modern.

The Observer

Her name was Abagail. I had watched her play before. Our rooms are conveniently located next to the sports side of the campus, luck for me, the most athletically challenged person alive. We must have a team, us as in the students from Southeastern University, because they are always there, day and night. It is always the same girls playing. Almost like I used to be with my guitar, why I had stopped I do not know really. Devoted to the court, with tennis I mean. But, for some reason to the one girl this it is not just a tennis game. It is much more. I always notice her. As if her just being out there is an attraction. I used to be attracted to watching singers perform with their band, not just at church, but anywhere. You usually know if she is there because there is a somewhat larger than usual audience. She draws people. I noticed her on this particular night because she was no longer playing drills with her team, or being tested by her coach, but playing a young guy. He was someone close to her age by the looks of things. He was someone I recognized seeing with her before around campus. Seems like when you become the most devoted to something is when you draw the most attention. Everyone wants to be your friend when you are going places and doing things with your life. When I first started learning guitar I let him show me how to play one of my favorite songs to listen to. That is how it starts. Innocent at first, then you become them, and when your devotion becomes human and no longer moves in a fame like direction they move to the next “devotie” they meet. Such a shame for her really, seeing as she really is so good. Your eyes are almost instinctively draw to her, as if she commands your attention without saying a word. Even people from the courts directly beside hers have to stop and watch. People at the bench escaping the heat and drinking from their water bottles almost loose their thirst for a moment in regards to the verosity they show the plastic. The first time I ever sang at church, I was very young. I walked up on the stage in the middle of service. I could tell the pastor and everyone on the first row did not expect much because they were continuing to whisper and point at the bulletin. The moment the first word escaped, the pastor immediately looked up. His assistant dropped the bulletin. The words from my mouth almost like a tennis ball straight from her racket. Commanding everyones attention. This match was different though. She did not have the same extreme focus. She was laughing and acting childlike. Smiling at all his bad serves and huge dramatic dives from just her gentle tap. I see her around campus and everyone recognizes her. They congratulate her on being well taught. “You are so talented”, they say. “What a gift God has given you!” My pastor said the same thing. It is funny how everyone suddenly remembers your name when you are going somewhere, especially him. Only he left with a part of me. She seems to walk around happy and proud of herself. But, I wish I could ask her the same thing I have been asking myself. Do you have a love for the passion or a love for the fame?


(Anyone reading this story from back home...Know that this is a fictional story. As in made up!!)

Wasting Wasted Time

On Thursday in class we were learning different approaches to reading poetry.
I found myself in the poetic mood, so I wrote a poem in response to all the "poetic talk."
The poem is called:


Wasting Wasted Time

Sitting alone again
Again
A silent scream...
Outside somewhat blank
Expressionless
A canvas unpainted
Emotionless
Like my blinking alarm clock
Timeless
Timeless is ticking
Wasted time
Is being lost

I'm alone
Wishing
Someone
Anyone
See through this blank gaze
See me
Just me
The me who loves to sit and watch the sky
Watch the clouds
The clouds that slowly pass me by
The me who loves wasting time

I'm thinking alone
Again
Of a one time
A time when I was different
A time when I felt with
Instead of this without
The without is heavy
It weighs me down

I'm wasting time
Wasting your time
Wasted time
is passing by
On the clouds that I watch
They seem light
In my head
They have a with
I think of them
Alone
Again

The Beautiful Escape

"Allowing God To Be In And Beyond The Text" -Paul Corrigan

Lectio Divina

Lectio Divina is Latin for divine reading, spiritual reading, or "holy reading," and represents a traditional Christian practice of prayer and scriptural reading intended to engender communion with the Triune God and to increase in the knowledge of God's Word. It is a way of praying with Scripture that calls one to study, and ponder.
Lectio

This first moment consists in reading the scriptural passage slowly, attentively several times. Many write down words in the scripture that stick out to them or grasp their attention during this moment.

Meditatio

The Christian, gravitating around the passage or one of its words, takes it and ruminates on it, thinking in God’s presence about the text. He or she benefits from the Holy Spirit’s ministry of illumination, i.e. the work of the Holy Spirit that imparts spiritual understanding of the sacred text. It is not a special revelation from God, but the inward working of the Holy Spirit, which enables the Christian to grasp the revelation contained in the Scripture.

Oratio

This is a response to the passage by opening the heart to God. It is not an intellectual exercise, but an intuitive conversation or dialogue with God.

Contemplatio:

This moment is characterized by a simple, loving focus on God. In other words, it is a beautiful, wordless contemplation of God, a joyful rest in His presence.

This is my reaction to this art and my reflection of the story we read called
Sunny's Blues.

Everyone is the same. There is no line between sinner and saint, abstractly speaking. We all have some sort of escape whether good or evil. We all experience the same. We are he same. Meditation on the connection we have together should take front seat if we are ever going to accomplish anything. "There is nothing new under the sun", is what my poppy told me one time, and in this story it reigns true. Our lives are beautiful connected together as a whole; They are all made up of the same things. Love, trouble, dispair, and triumph. Each one is made with more or less the same "ingredients". Life is made up of experience. Yet, we have lost our faith in hope.

My Prayer:

Open our ears to listen. Quiet our minds to hear. Provoke our hearts to love. Open our eyes to the revelation of you. Let us lay our lives aside and simply wait on you. Help me become sensitive to a hurting world.



This is the portion of the story we read if you would like to try this exercise or just follow along:

"On the sidewalk across from me, near the entrance to a barbecue joint, some people were
holding an old-fashioned revival meeting. The barbecue cook, wearing a dirty white apron,
his conked hair reddish and metallic in the pale sun, and a cigarette between his lips, stood
in the doorway, watching them. Kids and older people paused in their errands and stood
there, along with some older men and a couple of very tough-looking women who watched
everything that happened on the avenue, as though they owned it, or were maybe owned by
it. Well, they were watching this, too. The revival was being carried on by three sisters in
black, and a brother. All they had were their voices and their Bibles and a tambourine. The
brother was testifying and while he testified two of the sisters stood together, seeming to
say, amen, and the third sister walked around with the tambourine outstretched and a
couple of people dropped coins into it. Then the brother's testimony ended and the sister
who had been taking up the collection dumped the coins into her palm and transferred them
to the pocket of her long black robe. Then she raised both hands, striking the tambourine against the air,
and then against one hand, and she started to sing. And the two other
sisters and the brother joined in.It was strange, suddenly, to watch, though I had been seeing these meetings all my life. So,of course, had everybody else down there. Yet, they paused and watched and listened and I
stood still at the window. "'Tis the old ship of Zion," they sang, and the sister with the
tambourine kept a steady, jangling beat, "it has rescued many a thousand!" Not a soul under
the sound of their voices was hearing this song for the first time, not one of them had been
rescued. Nor had they seen much in the way of rescue work being done around them.
Neither did they especially believe in the holiness of the three sisters and the brother, they
knew too much about them, knew where they lived, and how. The woman with the
tambourine, whose voice dominated the air, whose face was bright with joy, was divided by
very little from the woman who stood watching her, a cigarette between her heavy, chapped
lips, her hair a cuckoo's nest, her face scarred and swollen from many beatings, and her
black eyes glittering like coal. Perhaps they both knew this, which was why, when, as rarely,
they addressed each other, they addressed each other as Sister. As the singing filled the air
the watching, listening faces underwent a change, the eyes focusing on something within;
the music seemed to soothe a poison out of them; and time seemed, nearly, to fall away
from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as though they were fleeing back to their first
condition, while dreaming of their last. The barbecue cook half shook his head and smiled,
and dropped his cigarette and disappeared into his joint. A man fumbled in his pockets for
change and stood holding it in his hand impatiently, as though he had just remembered a
pressing appointment further up the avenue. He looked furious. Then I saw Sonny, standing
on the edge of the crowd. He was carrying a wide, flat notebook with a green cover, and it
made him look, from where I was standing, almost like a schoolboy. The coppery sun
brought out the copper in his skin, he was very faintly smiling, standing very still. Then the
singing stopped, the tambourine turned into a collection plate again. The furious man
dropped in his coins and vanished, so did a couple of the women, and Sonny dropped some
change in the plate, looking directly at the woman with a little smile. All I know about music is
that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something
opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, orhear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates themusic is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposingorder on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible
because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when
he triumphs, is ours. I just watched Sonny's face. His face was troubled, he was working
hard, but he wasn't with it. And I had the feeling that, in a way, everyone on the bandstand
was waiting for him, both waiting for him and pushing him along. But as I began to watch
Creole, I realized that it was Creole who held them all back. He had them on a short rein. Up
there, keeping the beat with his whole body, wailing on the fiddle, with his eyes half closed,
he was listening to everything, but he was listening to Sonny. He was having a dialogue with
Sonny. He wanted Sonny to leave the shoreline and strike out for the deep water. He was
Sonny's witness that deep water and drowning were not the same thing-he had been there,
and he knew. And he wanted Sonny to know. He was waiting for Sonny to do the things on
the keys which would let Creole know that Sonny was in the water.And, while Creole listened, Sonny moved, deep within, exactly like someone in torment. I hadnever before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his
instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make
it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and
wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. While there's only so much you can do with
it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything......And Sonny hadn't been near a piano for over a year. And he wasn't on much better terms with his life, not the life that stretched before him now. He and the piano stammered, started one way, got scared, stopped; started another way, panicked, marked time, started
again; then seemed to have found a direction, panicked again, got stuck. And the face I saw
on Sonny I'd never seen before. Everything had been burned out of it, and, at the same time,
things usually hidden were being burned in, by the fire and fury of the battle which was
occurring in him up there.Yet, watching Creole's face as they neared the end of the first set, I had the feeling that
something had happened, something I hadn't heard. Then they finished, there was scattered
applause, and then, without an instant's warning, Creole started into something else, it was
almost sardonic, it was Am I Blue? And, as though he commanded, Sonny began to play.
Something began to happen. And Creole let out the reins. The dry, low, black man said
something awful on the drums, Creole answered, and the drums talked back. Then the horn
insisted, sweet and high, slightly detached perhaps, and Creole listened, commenting now
and then, dry, and driving, beautiful and calm and old. Then they all came together again,
and Sonny was part of the family again. I could tell this from his face. He seemed to have
found, right there beneath his fingers, a damn brand-new piano. It seemed that he couldn't
get over it. Then, for a while, just being happy with Sonny, they seemed to be agreeing with
him that brand-new pianos certainly were a gas. Then Creole stepped forward to remind them that what they were playing was the blues. He hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself, and the music tightened and
deepened, apprehension began to beat the air. Creole began to tell us what the blues were
all about. They were not about anything very new. He and his boys up there were keeping it
new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness, and death, in order to find new ways to make
us listen. For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may
triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only
light we've got in all this darkness. And this tale, according to that face, that body, those strong hands on those strings, has another aspect in every country, and a new depth in every generation. Listen, Creole seemed
to be saying, listen. Now these are Sonny's blues. He made the little black man on the drums
know it, and the bright, brown man on the horn. Creole wasn't trying any longer to get Sonny
in the water. He was wishing him Godspeed. Then he stepped back, very slowly, filling the air
with the immense suggestion that Sonny speak for himself. Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played. Every now and again one of them seemed to say, amen.
Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat
statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make it his. It was very
beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with
what burning he had made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we
could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could
help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was
no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go
through until he came to rest in earth. He had made it his: that long line, of which we knew
only Mama and Daddy. And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that,
passing through death, it can live forever. I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first
time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the
moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and
carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel's tears again, and I felt my own
tears begin to rise. And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited
outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.
Then it was over. Creole and Sonny let out their breath, both soaking wet, and grinning.
There was a lot of applause and some of it was real. In the dark, the girl came by and I
asked her to take drinks to the bandstand. There was a long pause, while they talked up
there in the indigo light and after awhile I saw the girl put a Scotch and milk on top of the
piano for Sonny. He didn't seem to notice it, but just before they started playing again, he
sipped from it and looked toward me, and nodded. Then he put it back on top of the piano.
For me, then, as they began to play again, it glowed and shook above my brother's head like
the very cup of trembling. (Sunny's Blues)"