I debated writing this post. Steve Jobs passed away Wednesday after a long battle with cancer. It made me sad. It was sobering. But that didn’t mean I had to comment about it here.
I questioned whether or not the iLoveArtists blog is really the place to pay my respects to Steve Jobs. To do so almost feels like a political move, revealing my card-carrying status in the Mac party. I’ve always tried to remain non-partisan in my stance to technology when it comes to this site, as I know some of you reading are not Mac people, and like it that way, thank you very much. Add to this hesitation the fact that Steve Jobs was not a god, and could all too easily become a god’s sorry replacement; an idol.
Steve Jobs was just a man, destined to die some time or other as we all are, no more or less important in the eyes of his Maker than you or I.
But still, if I’m honest, his death means something to me. It means something deep down. It feels important. In the same way I cannot fully explain the significance of Jack Layton’s eerily similar passing just a month or so ago, hearing Jobs had passed struck a dark, minor chord somewhere down in my spirit. It’s a chord I cannot get out of my head, and so I must sing it out here.
Why does it matter, this passing one businessman? Why does it matter to me, a Christian passionate about art, faith, hope and love?
There are a few reasons, and I’d like to unpack them (for my benefit, if not for yours).
Erosion
First, and perhaps most “surface” is that like Layton’s passing earlier, this death feels as close as I may come to Kennedy or Lennon in my own generation. Those older than me may laugh at this, but I feel we have few public heroes in our time. There are few people who loudly and clearly embody ideals. My generation seems to embrace ideals only from the comfortable distance afforded by irony. People like Steve Jobs fully embody the ideals they espouse. Take them or leave them you know where they stand. I feel too few are willing to put themselves on that line. Too few are willing to gush idealist platitudes, and to be labeled that dirty word, ‘sincere’. Every passing of these idealists feels like an eating away at our collective ability to hold pure ideals at all. In mourning Steve and Jack, I think I am mourning that erosion. In the closing of his famous Stanford address of 2005, Steve Jobs quoted the Whole Earth Catalog by imploring listeners to “Stay Hungy. Stay foolish”. That sounds awfully ideal, and awfully close to gospel truth to me.
The Importance of How
The second reason I’m writing a post about Steve Jobs has more to do with the Mac products he’s made. I’ll become one of the aforementioned stand-takers here and tell you that I think Mac products are a lot better than the alternatives. Before you turn me off, please listen to my why, because I’ve put a lot of thought into it.
I’ll sum it up with two sentences;
It is not only important what a product does, but how it does it.
Steve Jobs transformed out tools into toys, and in doing so, let us play at work.
Firstly, the question of how. If you’ve ever tried to justify to a System Administrator or an IT Guy (read:tech geek) why you need a Mac, you’ll understand that on paper, the choice doesn’t make a lot of sense. Macs, like aesthetic beauty, love, or extra cheese, are a hard thing to justify. PC’s that do the same things (and usually more) are widely available at the same (and almost always lower) price. As a pure pros-and-cons-on-paper decision, the type a machine would make, Macs lose. But I am not a machine. Things like “look and feel” and the hows of technology mean a great deal to me. I want my tools to be beautiful. If I am to spend so much time with them, why should they not bring enjoyment to me? I know there are plenty of places to read email, but I like that swoosh sound that tells me that little paper airplane is soaring from its sender. I like the fact that my keyboard lights up from behind at night, and the little apple glows on the back of my machine. I like the fact that my new Airport Extreme Base Station doesn’t have 7 lights to tell me what’s up with my wireless, but one reassuring green light that turns amber when things go sour. I like the fact that even when things screw up (and yep, they do), I get a playful little beach ball to tell me so. It lets me know that somebody, quite often Jobs himself I’m sure, put some effort into the how. I’m willing to pay for that.
It’s a rare thing when someone who actually knows how to make things function gets the importance of form. If Apple products were all surface, I wouldn’t be able to use them. But if they were ugly, I wouldn’t enjoy using them. But Steve Jobs seemed to get that balance right. Things have to work well, but they also had to work well, well. It’s really hard to convince some people, especially tech people it seems, why that matters. It sure does matter though. It Matters! The more technology becomes a part of everyday living, the more these intangibles matter. You only need food and water and shelter and sleep to live. But you need so much more to truly live. Quality of life matters as much as life itself. It’s not just what gets done, but how it gets done. Thanks for reminding us of that, relentlessly, Steve.
Tools Into Toys
I created media (design, websites, videos) on PC’s before I did it on Macs (technically not true, if you go back to the Apple II of my elementary school). But here’s the rub. I never enjoyed my tools. They were simply tools, and sometimes tools I had to really wrestle with. And then I bought my first new Mac.
Still my favourite Apple model of all time, my long-neck, floating screen, alien like iMac introduced me to making music on Garageband. For months I enjoyed just watching icons bounce around, shrinking and growing windows, dragging loops back and forth, listening to massive sample libraries of instruments and toying with my digital photos in iPhoto, swooshing emails back and forth and stringing together iMovies and iDVDs. For the first time (and this sounds cheesy, I know), I actually liked the tool itself, not just what I could do with it. I think I liked it because, even while at work, it let me play. There are little toys hidden everywhere in my MacBook Pro and my iPod Touch, my two current Apple staples.
I watched Steve Jobs introducing the Macintosh back in 1984 on YouTube last night, and you can tell that from early on, before computers could do much at all, he was having fun, and he wanted us to have fun too. We spend a lot of time with our tools, so why not make them more like toys? Why must adults stop playing? This speaks of Joy and Abundance (albeit in little ways) to me and these things are Gospel things. These things are Kingdom things. These things Matter!
And now, a word from my sanity.
I know this is all subjective. I know I’m gushing. And I know other products from other companies can be (and are) both fun and beautiful. I know Apple will continue to pursue the ideals Steve Jobs set forth (or at least, I hope they will). But I also know that Steve Jobs was an idealist who cared about beauty and fun, and it’s at least partly because of him that we have the great tools we have. I am sad he is gone.
One more man has passed
Finally, and this cannot be missed, Steve was a person, with a wife and children, and that is the saddest part. Today I’d guess they care little about the digital revolution or i-anyhing. Today I’d bet they care most about the fact that dad and husband is missing. Let us not forget that Christ cares about this, too. Jack Layton was a man with a family and friends. Steve Jobs was a man with a family and friends. Before anyone is an icon, he or she is a person. A child of God and a wearer of numerous other hats left empty and fallen to the floor with his or her passing.
It is a good thing, taking this time to remember and to mourn. To “sit shiva” online I suppose. Life goes on. We cycle forwards. But we must also pause because some things are important.
I briefly mentioned Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford address. I embed here in hopes that you’ll take 15 minutes from your day to watch it, in its entirety. It’s well worth your time.
Do you have any thoughts to add? Feel free to comment below.
When you get pregnant (or in my case, your wife gets pregnant), there is a conventional wisdom that you delay the announcement for a few months, in case something goes wrong early on. It is wise caution, though I can’t remember if we ever followed it. Still, I can relate to the feeling of isolation that accompanies that first few months between conceiving something incredible and sharing it with the world. It’s a feeling I’ve had all summer long.
No, my wife and I aren’t expecting. Let’s just say we’re pretty much certain two kids is “done” for us. Claire is neither a new child, or a new pet for the Von Bieker family. Claire doesn’t even exist, yet.
Claire is just a story that represents a Great Big Dream. A dream that is about to come true. A dream so big and so fragile it has taken years to grow and months to prepare for its announcement. By reading Claire’s story you’ll get the first taste of what is to come for iLoveArtists, Urban Bridge Church and art, faith, hope and love on Alberta Avenue.
Ladies and gentlemen, Claire!
Claire is a painter who has moved onto the Ave in the past year. She is still getting to know the area, and walking one day she sees a curious sign outside a bright red storefront. It is simply white, framing a red heart with a hole in the centre. There are no words. It’s open, so she walks in to see what it’s all about. The room is small and uncluttered. It’s still and empty except for one person sitting, reading in the corner, who welcomes her in to look around. There is atmospheric music playing, which Claire later learns has been created for the space by Edmonton musician Andrew Mulcair. The clean white walls frame a near perfect square, with a wide open centre where two chairs and a coffee table wait. On the table she notices a magazine called Image and another book left by some earlier visitor. The chairs look comfortable, but Claire is new here, so she returns to the walls.
On the first wall she reads “Currency” in bold. Underneath she reads that this is a group exploration of money and it’s relationship to our lives and the creative process. At the end of the statement she reads that each piece displayed is actually currency itself. This is an interactive exhibit, inviting community members to create works themselves and bring them in for trade. They are free to remove a work from the wall and take it home, so long as they replace it with a work they have made about Currency. This possibility gets Claire’s mind racing and she nearly wants to leave for her home studio. Instead she takes in what is here. On a plain white stand sits a clay sculpture of an open cloth bag, spilling out ancient silver coins. It is called “thirty”. A painting on the opposite wall shows a fist clenching so tight as to produce blood from it’s own palm, but what runs down instead is liquid, metallic gold (while this story is fictional, this painting was actually created by artist Steve Opperman). Someone else has made a collage out of monopoly items. The final wall displays a massive reproduction of an American dollar bill.
Claire walks over to the person in the corner and asks, “what is this place?”. It’s the first of many questions Claire and others will ask in the Arts Space, known only as Bleeding Heart, and more often by a picture than text. “Is this for real? The part about taking a piece home”? That is her second question. The worker explains that it is, and she is invited to participate. She hands her a program of events happening at Bleeding Heart over the three months that Currency is running. A film showing of Exit Through The Gift Shop, a workshop for artists on applying for grants and a clothing swap interest her. She notices a group meeting monthly to discuss Jesus’ views on money in the New Testament. She reads about a worship experience featuring works by Currency artists two months from now in an old Anglican cathedral, and the questions bubble across her face. The worker recognizes the curiosity and explains that the art space has been created to explore the spiritual dimension of art, and is supported by a local church. Spiritual support is available for artists. Claire has some questions about this, but she doesn’t ask them now. Instead, she browses a bookshelf next to the worker. She spots a book called Good Taste, Bad Taste and Christian Taste and it reminds her of some bad church experiences she had years ago. She thinks it’s a funny title and the worker encourages her to take it home. This is a resource library for the community, she explains.
Before Claire leaves, she agrees to sign up for email updates from Bleeding Heart. Over the coming months, she will attend several of their events and create her own piece for Currency. Over time she will build a relationship with Kristin, the volunteer who later helps Claire apply for grants for a painting project. They will develop a friendship and have several deep conversations about their lives, their art and their faith. Claire will come to Kristin for help dealing with her dad’s fading health, and Kristin, along with several others, will pray. Claire will come to realize the meaning of the sculpture of the bag and the silver, thinking about it many times as it sits atop her bookshelf at home. Eventually, the Bleeding Heart Arts Space will purchase one of Claire’s own pieces for their collection.
Claire’s story has yet to come true, but it represents an opportunity to create a space and serve a community. And her story will not be the only one. Many other stories will begin in the Arts Space, and watching them unfold is the exciting part.
A few weeks ago, Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship, was with us for our annual We Are Artists Workshop (a part of Bridge Songs). Below you can download the audio from Mark’s first session.
I really enjoyed our time with Mark, and listening back to his talk I can easily see why. Mark shared a plethora of visual examples of “installation/station based worship experiences” that were really inspiring to those of us exploring the fusion of worship and art. Those obviously don’t translate well to audio, and for that reason, at least a large portion (if not all) of the second session from Mark will not make it onto this site. Visuals aside, Mark’s words were also powerful, practical and pulled us forward into new frontiers. I look forward to seeing and experience the fruit that grows from those words, and have enjoyed listening to them a few times this past week. Mark shares his encouragements and struggles about incorporating the arts in our churches and what that means for pastors and for artists. It’s my great pleasure to share them with you here, with Mark’s permission.
Enjoy, and hopefully we see you in person at next year’s We Are Artists workshop.
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We are pleased as punch to announce Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship, as our presenter for this year’s We Are Artists workshop, closing off the Bridge Songs 2011 weekend.
I am pleased to report that my quixotic home renovation project, The Gold Wall, is finished. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I set out to paint one wall in our new bedroom gold this year. Not finding gold wall paint, I turned to craft paint. A tiny bottle, a tiny brush and patience helped me in my task to paint every little square of our textured wallpaper a shimmering gold. One by one by one. When I started the project I took it as a metaphor for progress; for tackling large journeys one baby step at a time. Having recently completed the project, and in light of some current challenges with other endeavors, I can attest to the deep truth of the Tiny Gold Square metaphor.
the golden brush of accomplishment
There she waits, the final golden square
First, some facts and figures. The wall took me about 3 months of off and on work. That means grabbing an hour here, a half hour there, a couple hours on this evening while watching a movie and so on. I would have gone crazy to do this work in one go. I’d guess at around 20 hours by the time it was done. I suppose I’ve got nothing on Michelangelo. Second, the number of squares painted. They’re tricky to count, because while they do form a grid, and I do know how to multiply, there are features in the wall (like a vent) and some of the squares are cut in half (or worse, in thirds). All told, about 1160 squares were painted by me, by hand, to finish this wall. Eleven HUNDRED and sixty folks. Amazingly, I used just 1 little plastic container of craft paint. It cost me under 3 dollars. If you can’t brag about a feat like this, then what have you got?
I have finished this project deep in the minutia of another. I am producing and recording the Bridge Songs album this year, instrument by instrument, vocal take by vocal take, participant by participant, track by track. We are getting the job done 30 minutes here, and hour of guitar work there, a couple hours for vocals one day and a full day for drums on weekend. Bit by bit. Square by square.
This weekend, the impending weight of this project loomed large casting an ominous shadow over my vision for what we could accomplish. I began to see what was not done and got quite scared. I panicked a bit. I took in the whole. I forgot that a wall full of Tiny Gold Squares was not painted in a day.
I am happy to say that I shared this frustration with my team, and several people stepped up to lend a hand. Sometimes there are just too many “squares” for one person, and that’s when community gets really magical. When each person takes a batch of “squares” and applies their handiwork. I am looking forward to looking over to my right, as I paint my squares, and seeing a row already finished, by some other helper. That is encouraging. That keeps us going. That makes large projects possible. That is progress.
I’ve learned a lot from my Tiny Gold Squares, and as I face more “real” or “practical” projects than my big gold wall, by wall speaks wisdom to me. It shines for me to illuminate the sometimes dark path of a large, intensive work load.
And so today I move forward. Square by square, little by little, day by day, until we are finally done and have the chance to sit back and bask in the glow of our work well done.
Our friend Jim Robertson has organized a unique Creative Worship Retreat that began last summer called Half Speed. Here is some more information on the event;
Time: June 12, 2011 at 7pm to June 17, 2010 at 2pm Location: King’s Fold Retreat & Renewal Centre, Alberta
Organized By: Jim Robertson
Event Description:
1/2 Speed is a five day spiritual retreat where we will dwell in community at the juncture of corporate worship, meditation, devotional exercises, theology and philosophy. This will occur through a carefully crafted blend of daily rhythm, stimulating teaching and time. Time for conversations, rest, renewal, spiritual exercises, conversation and personal creativity.
At 1/2 Speed, we create a space where worship artisans, curators and leaders; teachers, pastors and theologians can facilitate one another’s deep spiritual encounters, and so be renewed and inspired in their worship ministries.
Our numbers will be small (twenty to thirty); lines between faculty and attendees blurred; and the programming will be relaxed, participatory and interactive. We will worship, eat, pray and learn together through the week as we seek encounter with the Living God.
The faculty is a blend of contemporary worship curators, worship leaders, spiritual directors, theologians and philosophers, including: Mark Pierson (a twenty year + pioneer/veteran of alt. worship, guerrilla worship, worship curation), , Chad Sundin (music); Jim Robertson (alt. worship, new liturgies, rituals, devotional exercises & contemplation), Dr. David Williams (philosophy & theology), Dr. Myron Penner (philosophy & theology) and Dr. Oz Lorentzen (philosophy, theology & spiritual direction). Additional presenters will be confirmed soon.
1/2 Speed will be hosted by King’s Fold Retreat and Renewal Centre, located an hour from Calgary, Alberta on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies. In addition to the mountain views and river valley, the 160 acre facility has two outdoor prayer walks, a labyrinth, two chapels, and a staff dedicated to hospitality and facilitating one’s retreat experience. Additional devotional exercises will be added to King’s Fold for the retreat.
Cost is $875 Canadian, and includes all meals (superb!) and accommodations. Rides from Calgary International airport can be arranged for a modest cost.
I’m very happy to share with you the audio recording of our Jazz Makes Me Sad artists forum, hosted by Erika Kobewka back in January and recorded and edited by her husband Arden. I know and appreciate the work that goes into recording and editing a piece like this, so I’m very grateful for the efforts to make this wonderful conversation accessible to those who couldn’t be there and even those around the globe.
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Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
For those wanting to know more about the event, it was held as part of Erika Kobewka’s thesis project at The Carrot Community Arts Coffeehouse on the evening of January 17th, 2011. The conversation covers many areas related to the mental and spiritual health of artists and includes artists Erika Kobewka, Cora McLachlan, Jared Robinson and Dave Von Bieker, among other voices of those in attendance. Below is a copy of the text crafted by Erika Kobewka and handed out to participants that evening, which framed the conversation.
Jazz Makes Me Sad: Discussion Outline
introductions/welcome
the beginning of Jazz Makes Me Sad
Erika will give the background and story behind Jazz Makes Me Sad.
meet the voices of the evening
Please introduce yourself! Things to possibly include: your journey as an artist (what has brought you to this very moment?), places/areas of study, projects you are involved in (past and present), how awesome you are, current passions, your role within creative communities.
artists with issues
Often, an artist’s role in culture is to shock and provoke – to awaken the senses to a truth that we may not have seen otherwise. Often, an artist’s life is a reflection of this mantra. Our creative muse is often our pain and suffering. As you are able, please share an experience of an interaction you’ve had with a “tormented” artist. What was their perspective on suffering and the creative process?
let’s talk about creative community
What role does community play in your own creativity? How has creativity built up your community? (open stages, art nights, galleries, community recording projects,
etc.) Has community-life ever been a hinderance in your creative-life?
let’s talk about hard stuff
Have you observed specific emotional tendencies in creatives?
let’s talk about you
Artist self-care: What are some of the intentional rhythms, rituals, and habits you’ve embraced in order to care for yourself and your craft in the midst of the stings and throws of life?
what if it destroys us?
Has the creative process ever been harmful to you or an acquaintance’s healing? How long, is too long in the darkness? Is the artful legacy greater than a human life?
what if it heals us?
As artists that operate within a Christian faith context, what bearing does the death and resurrection of Christ have on your creativity? I’m not asking, if all your art is “Christian” or not. Rather, in what way does the reality of the resurrection of Christ affect your art? What role has creativity played in your own healing?
champion the church
As most of you participate within a faith community, please take a moment to speak life into the church concerning the care of artists. There has been much written concerning the church’s broken relationship with the arts. What is the church doing right? In what ways is the church still growing?
Before you make that giant new year’s resolution, stop and remind yourself that an awful lot can happen in one year. You can trade in 365 days for a great deal, and that is a problem. It’s a problem because while my goals for this day are naturally small, my goals for this year are understandably huge. It’s not impressive to say “I’m going to write one song this year”. It is satisfying to say “I’m going to record a full album this year”. It’s satisfying until you realize you made the same “high resolution” last year and came away with not a single finished track.
The Problem: Failure Hurts
Ouch.
The pain of past failure keeps us from setting goals for the days ahead. But before you don’t make that giant new year’s resolution, stop. Remind yourself that making no goals at all will likely lead you towards the same unproductive finish as making grandiose resolutions.
There’s a simple fix here, and I know it’s going to work for me. I know because it worked in little ways in 2010. I know because it’s common sense enough to be called wisdom.
I know because I’ve been spending a lot of time painting tiny gold squares.
The Solution: Tiny Gold Squares
This is progress sqaured
Let me back up a little. One mega goal we’ve had for a long time around my house is to give the kids their own rooms and relocate ourselves to the basement. That goal required renovating the entire basement to create a bedroom and living space we’d be proud of. That goal was a high resolution; lofty, polished and sitting on the shelf just out of reach.
One short week ago, after two exhausting nights wrestling the children to sleep while they kept each other awake, we decided in about 35 seconds that there was no need to wait. Why, we wondered, don’t we just move downstairs now, giving each child their own room, helping their sleep, and salvaging our sanity? We could think of no real cons, and figured that for now a fresh coat of paint would do the trick nicely to make us proud of our new basement hideaway. The next day, we bought paint and had two walls finished by that night in “Mexican Tea”, a hue that seems to shift from tan to mud-gray to faint sage depending on the light. The next day we finished the other walls in a deep red called “Lava Cake”. But the real work was yet to begin.
We want a gold wall in our room. A real, metallic, gold wall. Something extravagant and bright and spoiled. Gold latex paint is hard (if not impossible?) to come by. But I was not willing to give up. The wall in question is painted wallpaper, boasting a grid of 3 inch squares on endless repeat. Armed with gold acrylic craft paint, water to thin it, and a half inch wide paintbrush, I began painting those squares with a thin gold wash. One by one. Square by square. Over and over and over again.
Two hours labor yielded a foot and a half wide of results. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It brought a smile to my face. I was proud.
The next night I started in again, another couple of hours to offer. Square by square I hand painted our wall, not possibly knowing if it would even look good at the end. Painting square after square offers a lot of time for reflection. I considered the ceiling of the Vatican’s Hall of Maps, it’s endless gold accents running the massive arched length. How many hours did someone spend on that? And so my painting of squares has become an act of worship. A time for reflection. When I’m less disciplined or more exhausted, a time to catch up on some movies, too. I feel quixotic, but I press on in the belief that beauty is worth it. And the wall is looking quite beautiful indeed.
I can imagine in a week or so I will sit back and take it in, my mistakes blending away into the whole. I will shine a flashlight across it. I’ll light a candle before it. I’ll watch it shimmer. The sight will justify every unimpressive little golden square. Every little low resolution on the way.
Therein lies the fix. Therein lies the possibility. Therein lies the hope.
Your Gold Wall
How can this apply to your own life and dreams for 2011? What does your gold wall look like, and what tiny squares make it up?
Here is how I apply “low resolutions” to my “high resolution” of recording an album. This year I am committing to record one song each month. I will take a month to do it right, track by track. I’ll share those early recordings with friends and get feedback. I’ll post them here.
Do that twelve times and you have an album. Pretty neat, huh?
Twelve songs recorded in a year is hard. One song recorded per month is doable.
Last year I embarked on The Art of Waiting project. Each month I took a picture that sprang from an act of waiting. Each month I wrote about the picture. It wasn’t that difficult, but I was proud of the stack of images I picked up from Don’s Photo yesterday afternoon. I’ll be even more proud when my little book, combining the images with their written companions, arrives in the mail in a few weeks.
Making a book is hard. Making one or two pieces for a book a month is manageable.
We need resolutions, or goals, or whatever you’d like to call them. But we need to right ones. The balance of challenging and attainable must be struck.
So take that gold wall of yours, break it down into tiny squares, get out your brush and your dollar-forty-nine craft paint and make something beautiful.
I choose to be proud of 2011. This is progress.
Questions (answer them in community here, or simply think about them on your own):
What is your gold wall (the “high resolution” you’d like to achieve)?
What are your tiny gold squares (the “low resolutions” you can actually complete to get you there in the end).
While my expectations for our first month off work were high, my expectations for our camping holiday were low. Very low.
In fact, the ten-day trip to a family reunion and wedding that included 26 hours inside the car with an 18-month and three year old, offered us a real* holiday.
One warm Sunday in the Okanagan I escaped the bustle of people that weddings never fail to conjure, and found myself sitting on a grape covered patio at a local organic café. Simpler Living, Compassionate Life in one hand, my budget breaking latte in the other, I settled in to read Richard Foster’s essay, ‘The Discipline of Simplicity’.
“Freedom from anxiety is characterized by three inner attitudes,” he writes:
To receive what we have as a gift from God.
To know that it is God’s business, and not ours, to care for what we have.
To have our goods available to others.
These three inward realities of simplicity captured my imagination for the duration of our trip. While Foster discusses these attitudes in relation to material possessions, I considered them in relation to critical areas in my life and I developed a kind of personal liturgy. As I recited these truths, a palatable calm replaced the anxieties that had formed around these things (for a short time!)
My kids are a gift from God and he will give me the energy and love to care for them, so that they may offer blessing to the world.
My relationships are a gift from God and he will guide me in understanding how to nurture and protect them. These relationships will not be exclusive but welcoming to all those around us.
My strengths and skills are a gift from God, and He will nurture and use them so they will be a blessing to others.
My creativity is a gift from God, and he will bring forward the opportunities to enhance this in order to enhance the lives of my neighbour.
Foster’s points have the potential to transform my actions and reactions and emotional responses to scenarios. For instance, when I think of the heap of rejection letters and no replies from editors, point 2 makes me feel a little more secure. When we open up our mailbox to find two $100 bills, I think about point 3 and wonder with whom we might also share this money. And, when my three year old pulls me out of a precious writing reverie, I consider point 1 and feel less reproachful and more invitational.
No doubt this is all simpler said than done, but mind over matter isn’t a bad way to embrace the world or shape our action within it. In fact, the apostle Paul affirmed this in his letter to the Roman church,
“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2 NIV)
I like this psychological approach to life, where every day is a treasure hunt;
Looking for gifts.
Looking for God.
Looking for opportunities to give.
As we entered the house after our ten-day sojourn, I was overwhelmed with the gift of our home. The familiar smell of cedar decking, the comfortable sagging couch springs, the relaxed creak of the porch swing.
While we were away, the house had offered its sanctuary to a cousin preparing for her wedding and she had left small gifts in return: a cigar, homemade jam, a 6 pack of Guinness, extra virgin olive oil, a potter-made lemon juicer, a card. Looking at the pile of treats left me with a feeling of great wealth.
That evening was pure contentment. The girls slept and we sipped our beer and ate garden cucumbers with olives in companionable silence.
* A holiday’s “realness” can be assessed by the feeling you have on returning home. If you feel like you need another holiday to recover, then the first was a misnomer.
Carissa moved to Edmonton from her hometown in the Rockies to attend Mount Carmel Bible College, then U of A. A wife of one and mother of two, she lives in Alberta Avenue where she tends roses, hosts parties, cooks from More-with-Less, writes short stories, and waters her children. She hopes that at the end of her life, she’ll tweak a quote from the good Book, “ahh, it was good.” If that’s to happen, it’ll be only thanks to family, friends, work and embraced moments of mystery.
On the first wall she reads “Currency” in bold. Underneath she reads that this is a group exploration of money and it’s relationship to our lives and the creative process. At the end of the statement she reads that each piece displayed is actually currency itself. This is an interactive exhibit, inviting community members to create works themselves and bring them in for trade. They are free to remove a work from the wall and take it home, so long as they replace it with a work they have made about Currency. This possibility gets Claire’s mind racing and she nearly wants to leave for her home studio. Instead she takes in what is here. On a plain white stand sits a clay sculpture of an open cloth bag, spilling out ancient silver coins. It is called “thirty”. A painting on the opposite wall shows a fist clenching so tight as to produce blood from it’s own palm, but what runs down instead is liquid, metallic gold (while this story is fictional, this painting was actually created by artist Steve Opperman). Someone else has made a collage out of monopoly items. The final wall displays a massive reproduction of an American dollar bill.
A few weeks ago, Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship, was with us for our annual We Are Artists Workshop (a part of Bridge Songs). Below you can download the audio from Mark’s first session.
Our friend Jim Robertson has organized a unique Creative Worship Retreat that began last summer called Half Speed. Here is some more information on the event;
Heather over at 
Carissa moved to Edmonton from her hometown in the Rockies to attend Mount Carmel Bible College, then U of A. A wife of one and mother of two, she lives in Alberta Avenue where she tends roses, hosts parties, cooks from More-with-Less, writes short stories, and waters her children. She hopes that at the end of her life, she’ll tweak a quote from the good Book, “ahh, it was good.” If that’s to happen, it’ll be only thanks to family, friends, work and embraced moments of mystery.