I Think My God Beautiful

Brushstroke on canvas
Sound Blessing Air
Light Sings Voices Shine
Trembling Leaves
Dancing Roots
Curve, Line, and Color
Sound, Smell, Taste, and Wonder

Wander Aloud Over Syllables Apples
Stone Sour Sweet Tonalities
Soul Light Awe Going Graces

The purpose of my living - Beauty

Finding my Way

I painted something today. It was a tree that sits outside my friends and parishoners Patty and Ralph's farmhouse. It is a huge tree, unimpeded by power lines it is curled and tall... so I wanted to paint it.

I got alot of interesting things on the canvas. I did a good job of demonstrating structure and I love the way everything bends. However there is a problem.

It's the colors. I used purple for the tree on a blue midnight kind of background... then I used orange and yellow to make the details on the tree and the leaves are green. The problem, the purple and orange make it look spooky. Like a halloween tree in children's book.

I'm going to fix it... but in the meantime... I find this a wonderful metaphor for my life right now. It's right and yet so wrong at the same time. It works and it doesn't. I don't know how this tree should grow.

PS I'll post a picture of the tree later.

Haiku - Bleed

Sail across the strings
How the bow rips painful stripes
sound slashes the air

Friday Night in Montpelier

So it's Friday Night in Montpelier. Tonite we had a "Meet The Parents Night" for our preschool program from 5-7. I of course attended and met lots of cool kids and their parents. When it was over... I went home, ordered a pizza and watched four episodes of "Louis and Clark" on DVD (Thank you Netflix). Whoever told Dean Cain he can act? And Teri Hatcher is still playing the same role on Desperate Housewives. I can tell even from camera angles that neither one was chosen for their acting ability.

I say all this because I want to make one thing clear. This is not my idea of a cool Friday Night. In fact, I remember a time when I studied all day and then spent almost the whole weekend with my friends. Movies, art museums, plays, even hanging out at home was the coolest thing ever. Not so lately. I miss community.

The people of this town and church are so wonderful. This church is filled with loving folks. The problem is not the church, the town, or it's people. Also, one does not need to go out every weekend in order to have full life. It's just that so many weekends, and weekdays have been spent alone. Days filled with ministry and papers, and work but no deep conversation. There are no soul friends here and one can only do so much reading.

Ugh... feeling sorry for myself. I'll stop.

So I went to a movie and...

So I went to see that new movie "Step Up" and it was exactly what I thought it would be. Boy from wrong side of the tracks meets girl with opportunities, they change one anothers lives, fall in love, they fall apart, something bad happens, they come back together just in time for a huge showstopping number to end the show... and they all live happily ever after.

Check out this line from USA Today film critic Steve Bowles:

"Step Up dips from the well that seems to feed all Hollywood dance films: forbidden love between a roughneck boy and a repressed girl, drawn together by their common desire to shake their rumps."

But you don't go to this movie for the story since the story is incredibly corny; you go to watch people dance. I enjoyed it. It was fun.

However, on my way home my mind kept turning toward one thing with a singular and powerful focus. Though I was almost twenty miles from home I could see, suspended in the road above me one thing that seemed to get more and more real as I got closer to home. My thoughts were pointed like an arrow toward a blue case leaning against the wall of my prayer room. Where it has sat since the day I moved in...with broken pegs and in need of new strings my thoughts were concentrated on my violin... Giovanni.

ONe thing I can say about my musical ability on the violin is that so far as the world is concerned I'm not very good. In fact, if I could do my life over again I would have started the violin earlier, rather than after college. I would have studied music and art, and would have gotten a BFA degree. Now, as I seek to integrate the Fine Arts and Theology, I find myself lacking certain skills.

As I was thinking about all this I became aware of God's presence as he said: You once read "With Christ in the School of Prayer... correct? If I can teach you the eternal work of prayer, why then do you assume that I cannot teach you art history, and music, and painting? I have given you this time to fill you life and gain the skills you need. Leave it to me to bring people into your life to teach you the things you need to know."

So tomorrow, in an effort to no longer neglect the work God would have me do... I'm going to have my violin repaired.

(PS... I just completed another painting... I'll post it soon.)

Stigmata

If I could
I would feel in my own flesh
what he did:
Hands tearing in empathy--
Thirsting for a people too drunk
To realize their drought
Weeping for a people to
Jubilant to feel their sadness

Somehow within his passion
Would be feeling more for those around me
Somehow by looking at them from the cross
Through tears I might see them truly.
Crying that they might be found.

In feeling his isolation
I might understand those distant from God.
I might see more of God from from such a perch
Heat, blood, lonely, breath,
Drowning in the midday sun.

If I could be that,
If I could see there,
Then I would not sin.

The Marriage of Jesus - The Ultimate Oppression

So lately I've been thinking about what it might mean if the DaVainci Code wasn't a work of fiction. What if Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married?

Now, let's try this out in several theological constructs. Imagine if Jesus wasn't divine... imagine if he was just a man. It is clear, even if he were just human, that the gospels portray him as the Messiah. The annointed one of God. Now imagine if this annointed one this Messiah got married. His wife, in this case Mary Magdeline, would be married to teh one who was to reestablish David's Throne and wrest Israel from the hands of it's oppressors. Now... this means, that anytime Mary decided to disagree with her husband, she would be disagreeing with the Messiah, with God's purposes, with Israels salvation. This is not marriage, this is oppression.

Now let's try this out as a Christian. Jesus being both human and divine, one with the Father, and part of the triune God. God, the creator of all things, first creates Mary Magdalene to be Jesus wife. Remembering how far above us God is the very thought of immortal God marrying a mortal human being is almost beastial and/or incestuous. Further, it would almost be like a human being creating a robot to supply their needs.

However, imagine now what it might be like for Jesus and Mary Magdalene in their marriage. In this scenario every time Mary Magdalene disagreed with her husband, every time she got angry with him, she would be committing a sin. Further, anytime she wasn't wanted, Jesus by his almighty power could mirculously silence her or send her away. The difference in power is just too extreme for such a marriage to ever be healthy. Further it paints a rather sickening picture of God creating a woman to satisfy his own needs.

Just a few thoughts...

Ordinary Piety

(Inspired by Vespers a few nights ago... I wanted to write this poem.)

Underneath my robes
I wear blue jeans
Wishing my feet were bare
Wanting to be a Hippy
High Church sensibilities

In my soul, dreadlocks
My words - wings
Maybe a tatoo
Definitely tie dye
Long hair given
Lyrical soul
Chant and Evensong
Guitar Solo

Raging inside me
Another person
Bashing Free
Headed to the altar
Ordinary Piety

Happy Feast Day

So, I am heading back to Minnesota for a wonderful wonderful yearly retreat with my Benedictine Oblate Brothers and Sisters. Once a year I go to Minnesota to pray and spend time at Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery. If you click the link above you will find a copy of the Abby Banner from Saint Johns abby from Spring of 2001. Look on page 14 and you will find a story detailing the hisotry of Saint Brigids as a Methodist-Benedictine Monastry.

So anyway, next week we will be celebrating the Feast of Saint Benedict and having our yearly retreat. I won't be around computers so I won't be able to blog about it... but still I am very excited. Talk to you guys soon.

Michelangelo

You've Got to Have a Dream

So I'm reading a book called "You've Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Musical" by Ian Bradley. It makes me ache to be in musical theater again... it has been far far too long.

Anyway, I was taken aback by the thesis of this book so I thought I might present it here for discussion with whomever reads my blog. "My Thesis in this book is that the musical, and especially in the modern musical, has a significant theological content and spiritual dimension and provides for many people an experience which can genuinely described as religious as well as entertaining."

Oddly enough I have very little problem with this thesis because I know musical theater. When you place human existence into musical form it carries a double emotional impact that cannot help but transformative. The thoughs emotions and beliefes are transformed into musical form and are therefore twice as prevalent. Beyond emotion though, musicals grow out of the theological worldviews of their writeres andso even when God is absent from the plot the writers beliefs about God are present in the music and lyrics.

What do you guys think? Don't be afraid to post!!

The Birth of the Imagination...

So a recent thought came to me... Look at this text from Genesis 2:19

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Creation was brand new and the first thing God asked of Adam, was to delightfully use his creativity. I imagine it in my mind like this. As God show adam everything in the garden he seems to say:

"Conceive Adam, imagine, what is it's name? Tell me what it makes you think of? What symbol, what prescence does it have? Dream Adam, what is it's name."

The birth of humanity is quickly followed by the birth of imagination and creative thought. the song that brought forth stars was still ringing in the universe when God turns to Adam and asks him to imagine. More than that, Adams creative power was sancitifed by God in that, whatever he imagined it would be called, that was it's name.

Now it is up to parents to name their children. The creative capacity continues not just at birth but throughout a child's life as it is up to parents to write upon their children their identity. Parents who take this role seriously dream and write hope into their children. Others fail in doing this and write depair into their lives.

What would we have been had we not fallen? Where would our imagination have taken us? Where would our children be, if we say them with undimmed eyes, and had the capacity to write hope perfectly into their lives?

A Thousand Rainbows

So lately I've been having the most productive week of my professional life. I walk the corridors of this little church and it feels full of life and vitality. People are serving, children are learning, we are brimming with life. This is the gift to the church, Vacation Bible School. My church hasn't done a VBS program in over ten years, and now we have rooms filled with children learning and hearing the message. Everyone says it is a success. Children are telling thier friends, and all of a sudden I know we'll be alright.

The children have started making thier own VBS posters each day and bringing them in, today, a young girl brought in a poster that reduces me to tears it is so beautiful...

it has a rainbow on it and reads, "My love for Jesus is bigger than a 1000 rainbows."

Tonite we had a banquet, our church was happy, tired and filled with joy to be together. It felt like family, comfortable, and loving. Even husbands and folks who never come to church were having a good time.

This Sunday is VBS celebration...I'm hoping that our church will be filled with life and vitality still. I pray that it will continue as we stumble to our feet and start to again run the race that has been set out for us.

Pray for us as we try to create sustainable ministries to continue our growth. Pray for us in the changes that are likely to come now that the ball is rolling... God has done alot in our church... he loves for us is bigger than a billion rainbows.

Art and Theology Foundational Understanding: Literature

When God began to create the heaven and earth he did so by speaking. He speaks and things suddenly come into exsistence. There have been many who say that God did not merely speak but sang creation into existance citing Job 38. Such a claim is not surprising considering the sing song quality of these verses. The chapter practically breathes as we read it... "and there was evening (inhale) and there was morning (exhale) the first day." We don't even get through the first chapter before we begin to see the first few lines of poetry. The Bible is so filled with poetry in fact, that I will speak more on poetry and spirituality later. This particular literary exploration is about narrative, prose, and story.

Though the Bible contains lists and instructions, primarily it is a literary work filled with stories. This is embarassing to many in today's culture who want to rape the texts and take from it a few life lessions to carry along with them. Lessons that support their lifesytle, and promote their own goal of self-actualization. We almost wish God had given us a list rather than a story. (Note our current fixation with the ten commandments. Why this list among the allof others that Yahweh commanded?)

Story however is not clean and neat, but is instead suprising and subversive. Have you ever read a book or watched a movie and wanted to tell the characters, "Don't go in there!" "Don't do it!" "Hey stupid, he loves you... can't you see that?" Stories have a way of engaging whole persons in ways that other forms do not.

Story also allows for relationship. When we encounter characters in stories we can find our ways into relationship with the characters. We can tell who we love, and who we despise. We can identify or be horrified by characters. In comparison, when was the last time you felt special affinity for a list of principles?

I often imagine myself within stories. I imagine myself with Harry Potter giving him advice. I rejoiced with him when he finally kissed Jenny Weasley. I cried over Dumbledore.

I have also wrestled with the angel (still am wrestling in fact). I have cried with Hannah, and I have played the harp with David. Sotries are invitations to walk with the writer. Through the characters and chronicles you begin to see the author... and that is true of God as well.

in scripture this takes on an even higher dimension. We begin to see in as the author of not just a book, but history itself. More Later...

Beloved

Dearly Beloved, Child of God
I take my leave of you.

I rise, I ascend, I walk
Cloudways and windswept
Air and Sunlight
Dappled misted raindrops
Annointed surround me
Goodbye and remember...

Remember quietly dear one
Remember calmly blessed
Remember loudly broken
Remember soundly healed
Remember lions, cups and horses,
Table, Ring, and Stone.
Remember fairy tales and heroes,
Remember river, blood and bone.

Remember to Remember,
For I am going home,
Remember though I'm going,
You will never be alone.



--Michael Lawson Asension 2006
Okay, so maybe it won't win any awards but, I still like it.

I hate excercise...

So check out this link...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/17/jumbo.treadmill.ap/index.html

This link reminds me that I am not alone. I am not the only person who hates the stationary bicycle. I am not the only soul who cannot abide the dumbell. My Weight Watchers leader is so good at reminding us to find an excercise that we enjoy. I haven't found one yet.

So I am asking advice. What is fun for all my six or seven readers? (If I'm lucky). Reminding you that I will never play golf and don't look good in a swimsuit what would all of you recommend?

The Lego Cathedral

Check out this link... it's amazing.

http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_nov2004/LegoChurch.htm

About David Blaine - A Rant

I don't care. Let me just begin by saying I just don't care. I don't care if he wants to sit in a box suspended above the Thames. I don't care if he wants to stand a pillar for three weeks. I don't care if he wants to be buried alive, set on fire, pushed into a coke bottle, or hung by a string. I don't care what he does...

Therefore I certainly didn't care when he sat in snowglobe for a week. I cared even less when he wanted to hold his breath underwater. What's next Davy? You gonna do a cannonball?

Hey David here's some advice: You're a magician... do a magic trick! Make something disappear, fly, hover, levitate... even a rabbit out of a hat would have a nice retro feel to it but stop it with the attention seeking boring ass "tests of human endurance." You want to test your endurance? Train for the Ecochallenge! Try the Tour De' France but stop wasting our time with your lame publicity stunts.


Butthead!

IPod

Instructions: Go to your iPod and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

How does the world see you?
The Real Slim Shady - Eminem (Clean Version)

Will I have a happy life?
Finale - Pippen:His Life and Times

What do my friends really think of me?
When This all Began - Jeckly and Hyde

Do girls have secret crushes on me?
King of Glory - Chris Tomlin

How can I make myself happy?
I'm Gonna Always Love You - The Muppet Show

What should I do with my life?
The Boys - Big River

Will I ever have children?
No Such Thing - John Mayer

What is some good advice for me?
Call to Arms - The Insyderz

How will I be remembered?
And Can it Be? -

What is my signature dance song?
Hampster Party - Hampton the Hampster

What do I think my current theme song is?
Fascade - Jeckle and Hyde

What song will play at my funeral?
Pandora's Box - The OC Supertones

What type of women do I like?
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee - Passion

What is my day going to be like?
How Deep the Father's Love for us? - Resurrection Dance (Instrumental)

Love Like a Jane Austen Novel

I want a love just like a Jane Austen Novel
Give me page after page of breathless expectation
Give me a torrid longing that rages underneath the
Smooth pleated folds of civility.
I want the kind of jungle heat thats too intense to speak of
The kind that will not be quenched in the constant downpour of puritanical politeness
The kind of reckless love that makes lofty and humble alike.
Give me a love just like a Jane Austen Novel

I think I want to live in that place between the covers
In that place before the happy marriage and after that first confession of passion
I want to live uncertainty as we consider how we can be together
All the while drowing in love both pure and unconventional.
Give me a love just like a Jane Austen Novel.

Give me a love that is so incomprehensibly quiet, so remarkably hidden
It exists only in sidelong glances and a half smile upon the lips.
Give me a love so powerful that all it needs is one kiss to confirm the existence of eternity
Because you know the story will exist forever, the souls intertwined as they realize that
Love with no compromise is no love at all-
That class and culture are not near the gift that love is-
That when all is said and done the most beautiful to be shared
is devotion.
Give me a love just like a Jane Austen Novel

Dance

"Dance"
Acrylic on Canvas

Okay, so here it is, what I dread writing. This is a painting of a body in freedom. It makes me happy and makes me ask the question: "Is he merely dancing or is he flying?" Personally I feel heavy most of the time... When you have a weight problem, most of the time you don't have a spring in your step. When I was at Asbury we had this ramp leading down into the chapel and the chapel office and I dreaded walking down it alone because you could always hear this thump thump thump as your feet hit the floor. Now this happens with everyone but with a weight problem it feels like it my thuds and thumps are louder than other peoples. I had this insane worry that it was echoing down the hall behind me. It's just my imagination but still this picture points to a body completely unashamed. I have been continuing to lose weight since I left seminary, in fact tonite I have a Weight Watcher's meeting. It is going well. In many ways this painting points forward to something I have only glimpsed. I like how my friend Isaac Hopper put it:

Understanding that I see this with eyes irrevocably changed by an intense and ongoing encounter with the Christ of salvation, I see such tragic beauty in this piece that I can hardly contain myself. I see in the dancer a life that has been freed to become the Father's joy. He explodes with motion as he expresses the joy he feels at the warm embrace of the Father. He does so against a backdrop of sacrificial love - the blood of Christ. It envelops him, holds him, suspends him in his eternal dance.

Hmmm... well put Isaac... I didn't know why this painting made me so happy until you said that.