my name

My middle name is Christian. I got this name because my parents believed Christianity to be true and important enough to attache it to their children - my brother is also a "Christian," by name. It means "little Christ" or at least that is what I was told. I never tried to hide it. It's not like the middle names that people try to hide, like Kalidor or Merle. Mark Christian, I thought, sounded nice. I used to think to myself that Christian could be the name of a great, probably blond-haired, Canadian hockey player. But I've always known the real reason why I had this name. I was Mark Christian as a consequence of my parents decision. I was named after my parents religion. And, like most of the world that I was born into, it just happened to be part of my life, an unexplainable consequence of being.

Now, It's almost 2010. Post modernity has blossomed, and I live in the Pacific North West, of the educated, overly tolerant, and passively-nice. The wreckage of the great world wars have been tucked into history books, and the colorful multi-media of today's tv and computer screens has an effect, opposite of what I would expect. On a large scale, it appears that we are more concerned with ipod fires and Oprah's retirement. Meanwhile, this world is not becoming less violent. And, I'm guessing that the pollution causing, greed induced activities of our industrial souls have continued to cause a rapidly widening gap between the rich and the poor.

I've also been reading a classic book about boundaries, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, at the moment. This is my second time reading the first half of the book. This time I'm highlighting, taking notes, and reading slowly but obsessively. God is speaking to me in these pages: "Any time you are not loving others you are not taking full responsibility for yourself; you have disowned your heart." Irresponsible engineers kill people, and the stakes are no less sever in all other realms of life. (I grieve - a deep penetrating pain, a long blank stare at nothing - my own deep irresponsibility on an intense personal level.)

My name, Christian, sounded nice, but I never "owned" it either. Was it really just a consequence of being? Is anything, ever, "just a"?

THIS, however, is the origin of my name:
A king, a perfect ruler, infinitely wise and pure and living in blinding righteousness, came searching for me. He took off his robes, and went to the slums. He went to find me. And when his pure heart exposed my dirt, I put nails through his hands and feet and hung him on a cross. While I laughed and mocked his naked bloody body, he was wearing my death-row name tag. (How I wish I knew what was happening when he was dying in my place.) He took the penalty I was due, and bought my freedom. He took my death. But, even death itself was overwhelmed by the love that brought him to my slum. He shattered death forever and came back to life. This servant king, that succeeded in a great subversion of my former rebel kingdom, is my wild lover. I don't want this dirt, my pride, delusion, and fear, any more. But the great passion of my king (and others who love me) is for me to be me, a strong-soft man.

So, I used to stare into a the mirror and wonder who, and sometimes if, I was looking back at me. I don't do this any more. I don't know why or what changed. Perhaps, I'm beginning to learn that my "me" is founded by someone (my king and victor) much deeper. My shame has wanted to push my name, anything that is me, far from my person. But (!), my middle name, Christian, isn't "I'll try" any more.

nazareth.

"Can anything good come from Nazareth?" (John 1:46)

I'm guessing the modern day version of this Nazareth is covered in graffiti.

seattle summer sunsets

...still studying clouds, on the rim of the visible world*, waiting for the medicine (of the gospel message) to kick in. It aches the most when I wake up in the morning: "why am I alive?" A friend and fellow artist once talked to me about how he could enjoy being a tree. How he would be still and be "glory to God". Still, part of me is numbering days just to count them.

I am reading the Gospels slowly and carefully. I think, I'm beginning to learn that Jesus is a reason to live. "Why worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself" is one of the most comforting thoughts I've ever known. Will I trust Jesus is I AM?

Oh, this digital painting is a quick study based on a photograph I took just after I moved to Seattle. The sunsets in Seattle are often surreal, with intensely vibrant colors. I don't quite know why God paints the sky like he does, with such rich colors.

*My favorite Jason Upton album yet.

cloudscape, two

cloudscape

I like this one.

"the only wrong way to do a painting is to not do it at all."

-Above

another sunset sketch...