Lent Recap

Easter Dinner, St. Johns, Portland, OR

“Therefore, my dear Sir, I could give you no advice but this: to go into yourself and to explore the depths whence your life wells forth; at its source you will find the answer to the question weather you must create.  Accept it as it sounds, without enquiring too closely into every word.  Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist.  Then take your fate upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking for that reward which might come from without.”

-Rainier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

The beard has come off.  It is now 1:28 AM on April 5th and I am sitting in front of my computer pondering the past 40 days and thinking seriously about my future.  Yesterday was Easter and it marked the end of Lent.  I can say with all honesty that this has been the first time that I have ever approached Lent with purpose and it feels great to be on the other side of the season.  I feel like so much has happened in just a short amount of time.  I feel like I have learned a lot about who I am as an artist, I say artist rather than photographer because it seems these days that anyone with a couple hundred dollars for a camera and a pirated copy of Photoshop is a photographer.

I suppose now that Lent is over I can share just what my purpose was for participating in the season.  It started about 4 months ago, the weather in Portland was uncommonly beautiful considering what time of year it was.  I was walking around the Buckman neighborhood in southeast Portland and was thinking about photography.  I love photography, I love to shoot, I love to observe, and I love to share.  It is something that I discovered was a passion of mine when I was in Scotland a couple years ago.  As I wandered around I started thinking about my education.  As I shared on day 12, the Theological education I received doesn’t have much real-world application.  I thought to myself, “I should go to school for photography, take it seriously, see where it takes  my family and I.”  I immediately dismissed these thoughts.  You see, I am terrified of failure and I think it’s easier to dismiss something as a passing fancy than to engage the challenge that it represents and truly live a great story.  A couple days later those “passing fancies” returned and I decided for maybe the first time, to engage a challenge that frightened me.  I talked with Kendra about my thoughts and she was supportive and we have been on the journey of processing this decision ever since.

Then there was Lent… I considered Lent for several weeks before the season began.  I have always thought about Lent, always thought it would be a good thing for me to participate in.  I have honestly never had the determination or follow-through to engage God during the entire 40 days.  Again, fear of failure usually leads me to not try, not trying is failure by default.  Again, a challenge…  When Ash Wednesday rolled around I had wrestled good and long with myself about not just Lent but about my education and weather or not I could even be an “artist”.  This was when I decided to shoot 40 days of photography with purpose.  I felt like it would be a good way to examine my heart toward art and creation while at the same time remembering the death of Christ and the redemption in which I live.  Art, redemption, rhythm…

The past 40 days have been trying at times, as an artist I feel like the photos I take are an extension of who I am.  There is a narrative in each image weather it is apparent or not, there is always a story.  Any time you expose a part of who you are to the world at large, even if it is a community of friends online, it takes vulnerability.  As Rilke says in the quote above, the need to create comes from a deep place within and I’m beginning to realize that not a lot of people ever tap into that place.  I can see also how so many people are attempting to do so.  The exploration of creativity is beautiful and revealing, I would recommend that you try it out yourself… If you do this, be prepared to make yourself vulnerable, be prepared to be uncomfortable and to share things that at times you don’t even know you’re sharing.

What is the end result of my exploration, you might be asking…  I have decided that I do want to learn more about art, about the creative process and about photography in particular.  I can’t say that I have made a solid decision yet.  I am considering The Art Institute of Portland and also Pacific Northwest College of Art.  PNCA seems to be more geared toward fine art and nurturing the creative process whereas The Art Institute is geared toward building a portfolio through your educational experience and getting a job afterward.  Both have pros and cons.  I am hoping to connect with a local photographer through the summer season and I will start taking general education classes at Portland Community College in the fall, I just feel like this will be a good step for me, to have forward motion will be healthy.

Of all the photos I posted, these are my favorites:

Sauvie Island, Portland, OR

Free Geek Art Show, Portland, OR

Witte Family Photos, Jacksonville, OR

La Sirenita, Portland, OR

Broken Sylo, Sauvie Island, Portland, OR

This music has inspired me through this process:

Thrice – Beggars

The Dear Hunter – Act III – Life And Death

The Album Leaf – A Chorus of Storytellers

Coheed And Cambria – Year of the Black Rainbow

Thanks so much to everyone that has been reading and keeping up with this experiment of mine.  Thank you for your feedback, for your encouragement, and if we happened to have a conversation during this process, thank you for being my sounding board.  If nothing else comes of this, the process has been more than worth it and I hope that I have in some way inspired even one person to look inside themselves and explore the artist within.

Grace, peace and justice.

Lent Day 28

Sauvie Island, OR

Saturday was the 28th day of Lent, I say that more for myself than for you.  There have been a couple times on this journey where I have forgot where I was in the whole process.  Which day is what number again?  Yeah, I’m doing a little catch-up because the past few days have been pretty busy but I’ve been having a lot of fun.

Saturday Kendra and I ventured out to Sauvie Island.  I think there’s something significant about the size of the island, largest island in North America or something like that.  Sauvie Island is covered with all kinds of beautiful farm land, parks, nature reserves and quaint little businesses.  A lot of it reminded me of some of the more rural parts of the Oregon coast.  Kendra and I have wanted to visit Sauvie since we moved here and the wait was well worth it, the sun was shining and everything was so beautiful.

I’ve been spending so much time in Portland that I kinda forgot what farm land smelled like.  This was the kind of farm land that smelled like a combination of blooming flowers, fresh cut grass and dirt.  The scent was intoxicating, I think our little trip out to the country was just what we both needed.

I think something about being away from the city sparked my desire to shoot.  I took a lot of photos that day because there was so much interesting stuff to see.  I’ve been feeling like my creative battery has been running low, I haven’t felt motivated or inspired much the last few days.  This is all part of the process I suppose, learning who I am as an artist, as a creator.

Art, no matter what medium, says something about it’s creator, about it’s subject and about the person viewing the art.  This is something I learned recently from fellow photographer Joshua Longbrake. Weather I admit to it or not, a part of me comes out in all of my creative expression.  There is a vulnerability that I share when I create, there is a narrative taking place in each piece of art, each photograph taken.  Then, there is you… the reader, the viewer, the interpreter.  What does art tell you about yourself, how does a certain piece or photograph make you feel?  Don’t just dismiss those feelings, ask yourself why it evokes what it does.

This is one of those photographs… I must have taken 15 shots of this hole in the wall of an old farm silo. I wasn’t sure why it appealed to me, why I felt like I needed to catch in a photo what it was making me feel…  I connected, if only for a moment, with a deep part of myself while creating.  The discovery that I made about myself is mine.  I wont share because it is personal and because I don’t want to influence your interpretations.

Art and creation are universal, if we look close enough and know what questions to ask, we can get to know ourselves and each other on a deeper level.

Justice toward self.

Lent Day 16

Portland, OR

Saturday was the 16th day of Lent and also the night of my good friend Jeremiah’s graduation party.  It has taken me some time to sift through all the photos I took that night and choose the few that I wanted to share for my Lent post.  This was, by far, the craziest party I have ever been to.  I am not much of a party person, never have been and when Jeremiah invited Kendra and I to his graduation party, neither of us knew what to expect. There was fire dancing, live DJs, lots of food, good beer, dancing and a ton of people.

The mood of the entire evening was very celebratory and everyone was congratulating Jeremiah on his achievement of graduating college.  It all was good.  I wondered to myself while I was there, “if Jesus was alive, in the flesh and we knew him and invited him to this party, would he hang out with us?”  The answer to that question is without a doubt, yes.

The party was great for so many reasons, one of which was the fact that it brought together a lot of people who under normal circumstances would never meet.  There were christians, non-christians, artists, musicians, students, professionals, I even saw one of the worship leaders from Imago Dei at one point.

Jesus was about celebration, and people in biblical times celebrated the right way.  Take Jesus’ first miracle for example, the wine had run dry at a wedding celebration so Jesus turns some water into the best wine these folks had ever tasted so that the celebration of the new union could continue.  I’m not advocating drunken and disorderly conduct, but where did the church turn away from celebration, from wine (not for drunkenness sake) but for the merriment of the heart?

We were glad that Jeremiah invited us to his crazy graduation party, it was an good opportunity to observe and to have some fun at the same time.  Here’s to celebration!

Justice toward self, others and God.

Lent Day 2

Breakfast (justice toward self) – click photo to enlarge

Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day, it is supposed to be the meal that gives us the sustenance to start our day on the right foot.  Breakfast, however, has become much more important to me over the past several months.

In the mornings, I often find myself sitting at the table in our dining room, sipping my coffee and contemplating the coming day.  It is in this moment that I find my true sustenance, peace. Sometimes I like to open our dining room window and listen to the cars passing by on Barbur blvd.  Doing this reminds me that the day to come, even life itself, is filled with noise and traffic and to savor the moment that I am in.

Breakfast has become very important to my day to day life, it is my moment of peace before the day begins, it is my communion with the divine, it is simple… and that, is beautiful to me.

“be still and know that I am God.”

thoughts on home & identity

So, I have some exciting news today… I just finished filling out the rental agreement and picking up the keys for my new apartment. I’m really excited about this, it’s going to be nice to have a place to call my own for a while. For the last week I’ve been staying in my parent’s camp trailer, which to say it’s been a blessing would be a huge understatement. Moving into my new place marks my third move since December, fourth if you count my parent’s trailer.

It has been at times, discouraging, because I haven’t felt like I’ve had any stability in my life as far as my housing situation. I’ve felt like my life has been in some kind of transition, constantly, for about a year now. At times I’ve longed for rest, shelter, security, and comfort… wondering when this season of my life will settle down. I can’t say that this new residence will be my point of rest, because I honestly don’t know.

The work that God has been doing in my heart and mind during this season of my life has been such a beautiful thing. The theme of identity has been somewhat of a constant in my relationship with God for close to two months now, and I know I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. I know that God has been teaching me, through my various living arrangements, that where I live has no bearing on who I am.

God is restoring me.

I came to a realization this week; I feel like God revealed some things to me, about myself. I’d like to be honest with you, the reader, about what God is teaching me.

I constantly sell myself short.

I give my all to those around me, and settle for so much less in return.

I allow my circumstances, relationships, and experiences to determine my self worth. This is probably the lesson that is effecting me most right now. It’s been a difficult lesson to learn. There are a lot of things I do that are linked with how I view myself and there are a lot of ways I view myself that are linked to how I’ve been treated and how I’ve reacted to that treatment.

Relationship has probably been the hardest on me. Now, I know that I have my character flaws, just like anyone else… but one thing I know I do well is relationship, it’s the way God has made me. I am a very relational person, I am loyal, forgiving and loving, and I’m deliberate about that; I don’t hold back, when I love someone I give them the best I have.
It’s difficult to love in a way that puts yourself on the line, that makes you vulnerable before other people. When you give someone your all, and they lie to you or betray your trust, they are in a way stamping a price tag on your heart, setting a standard for your worth. Unfortunately that tag often says “not valuable” or “cheap” or “not worth my time, love, etc…”

Rob Bell says that love is a complete abandonment of self to those around you, a kind of mutual submission. When a friendship or relationship is not reciprocative in this way, it becomes painful.

I believe that abundant life begins with knowing who we are.  I don’t see the theme of identity fading from my relationship with God any time soon, if nothing else the intensity of these lessons will only increase.  God is at work in my soul, restoring what has been broken, mending what has been wounded, bringing new life to dead dreams and desires, but most of all He is loving and giving worth to what has felt worthless.

I’m done selling myself short, done allowing myself to be labeled , done allowing others to determine my worth.  God is my father, my restorer, and my hero.

So, I’d like to wrap this up by saying that you’re all invited to my new place… I don’t have any furniture or decorations, or food, or dishes; what I do have, however, is love and peace and a renewed sense of who I am.  I would love to share those things with you.

2055 campus dr. #3, Medford, OR