my mind won't stop working. this week has been filled with design. non
stop design. i do it when i wake up. i do it all day. i do it in class.
i do it on the weekend. i'm doin it. i even dream about it. the amazing
thing though i actually feel on top of things. i feel like i am accomplishing something and i suppose there is something to be said for that. i randomly sent my resume and a
.pdf of some of my work to a firm in amsterdam. www.artmiks.nl/ we'll see what happens. we'll see what God wants for me.
25 March 2007
19 March 2007
memory of God.
My last spring break is over, wisdom teeth out and everything. Six weeks of school remaining.
I've come to realize that I have narrowed my options after school down to one thing; finding a job. Obviously this is the right thing to do, there's nothing wrong with it, but am I focusing so much on what I think I need in my future that am I missing other opportunities that may not seem so conventional? I always thought I would keep my options open to missions once I graduated and now that the time has come I have hardly considered it. It's more of me saying I will fit that into my personally planned life if it works.
After reading through some verses in 1Peter I realized how much I am lacking in living an honoring life. I feel like I keep slipping further and further from purity, from pursuing God and being satisfied in His love and knowledge of me. Do I get crushes on so many people—people I know I don't really want to date—because I am not seeking out my first love? The hard part about having a relationship with God is that it is unlike anything we know. We can't see Him or touch Him or have the type of conversation we are used to. It's hard because you have to work at this type of relationship because we are usually satisfied by the mere sight of a person but with God we have to be satisfied through His presence not just visually.
So how do we even know God exists? I was thinking about this today, for me it's simple because I believe in Jesus. Even if I didn't know Jesus was the son of God but I found that He rose from the dead, that the earth shook when He died, that He came back and talked to people and He said it was because of God, His Father. Then that's how I know.
And then I read 1Peter1:8-9 today and it even talked about this difficult relationship with God:
Though you have not seen Him, you love; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
I wish so badly that all those who say they believe in Jesus would show it in their lives. I wish I showed it in my life, that I would be filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy because of my faith. That I would be holy in all that I do and self controlled. That I would have sincere love for everyone in my life and love them deeply from my heart. We try and live this perfect life from the outside but really we just need to be sincere and honest in our lives and that's how we get closer to the perfection of Jesus.
And then I woke up the other morning with a random thought about perfection. When we think/imagine people, objects, events do we envision them as perfect? And how do we know what perfect is when we've never experienced it? Are things perfect in a different way in which we think perfection means? I know what perfect is through Jesus, but how does someone who claims not to believe in Jesus or has never heard of Jesus understand perfection? Where does that example come from? Are we able to come up with new ideas and creations from things we have never seen, heard of or experienced or is everything based off of something else? And if this is true then how would we make up an idea about God if there was never any memory of Him?
I've come to realize that I have narrowed my options after school down to one thing; finding a job. Obviously this is the right thing to do, there's nothing wrong with it, but am I focusing so much on what I think I need in my future that am I missing other opportunities that may not seem so conventional? I always thought I would keep my options open to missions once I graduated and now that the time has come I have hardly considered it. It's more of me saying I will fit that into my personally planned life if it works.
After reading through some verses in 1Peter I realized how much I am lacking in living an honoring life. I feel like I keep slipping further and further from purity, from pursuing God and being satisfied in His love and knowledge of me. Do I get crushes on so many people—people I know I don't really want to date—because I am not seeking out my first love? The hard part about having a relationship with God is that it is unlike anything we know. We can't see Him or touch Him or have the type of conversation we are used to. It's hard because you have to work at this type of relationship because we are usually satisfied by the mere sight of a person but with God we have to be satisfied through His presence not just visually.
So how do we even know God exists? I was thinking about this today, for me it's simple because I believe in Jesus. Even if I didn't know Jesus was the son of God but I found that He rose from the dead, that the earth shook when He died, that He came back and talked to people and He said it was because of God, His Father. Then that's how I know.
And then I read 1Peter1:8-9 today and it even talked about this difficult relationship with God:
Though you have not seen Him, you love; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
I wish so badly that all those who say they believe in Jesus would show it in their lives. I wish I showed it in my life, that I would be filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy because of my faith. That I would be holy in all that I do and self controlled. That I would have sincere love for everyone in my life and love them deeply from my heart. We try and live this perfect life from the outside but really we just need to be sincere and honest in our lives and that's how we get closer to the perfection of Jesus.
And then I woke up the other morning with a random thought about perfection. When we think/imagine people, objects, events do we envision them as perfect? And how do we know what perfect is when we've never experienced it? Are things perfect in a different way in which we think perfection means? I know what perfect is through Jesus, but how does someone who claims not to believe in Jesus or has never heard of Jesus understand perfection? Where does that example come from? Are we able to come up with new ideas and creations from things we have never seen, heard of or experienced or is everything based off of something else? And if this is true then how would we make up an idea about God if there was never any memory of Him?
14 March 2007
desaturated colour
I'm back home where I grew up. I went outside today and took pictures of my childhood. It was sad in a way, seeing how everything is so old and rundown. Everything really is past, but it was almost ethereal; the way everything looked so desaturated as if I was seeing in black and white. It fit perfectly with how I would imagine my past now, once in vibrant colours reduced to a desaturated grownup world. It was beautiful. Just how I would want it to be.
So as I've been asking questions of and about God lately, I realized I was reducing God to a science instead of allowing myself to be in awe of His presence. We are called to have a childlike faith and I think I've been trying to think so much that I've taken away this faith. This does not mean to blindly believe in something, as a lot of people think Christians do anyway, because as any child does they ask questions. They question why they are to do certain things or why the world acts in a certain way. I think it's a good thing to question our beliefs to challenge them and be challenged, but with that not to take away from them.
And as I began to ask questions of our reality, how do we know what's really real and true? How do we know we are being genuine when we've been told to act a certain way all our lives; when we are told certain things are wrong that seem to go against what we want to do instinctively. How even the idea of sacrifice seems objectifying and odd. But by first looking at all of these things from a secular point of view and then putting them in the context of Jesus they made sense. God explains so much of why we are this way, we are always searching for something better yet never satisfied. Why we long to worship something and turn objects into more than what they are. I'm not trying to put God as a cop out and say that since I can't explain anything it must be God, but it genuinely makes sense to me.
It's been good to get a way for a week. My mind needs a break so my heart can begin to love God again, or perhaps begin to appreciate and love all that He has done.
So as I've been asking questions of and about God lately, I realized I was reducing God to a science instead of allowing myself to be in awe of His presence. We are called to have a childlike faith and I think I've been trying to think so much that I've taken away this faith. This does not mean to blindly believe in something, as a lot of people think Christians do anyway, because as any child does they ask questions. They question why they are to do certain things or why the world acts in a certain way. I think it's a good thing to question our beliefs to challenge them and be challenged, but with that not to take away from them.
And as I began to ask questions of our reality, how do we know what's really real and true? How do we know we are being genuine when we've been told to act a certain way all our lives; when we are told certain things are wrong that seem to go against what we want to do instinctively. How even the idea of sacrifice seems objectifying and odd. But by first looking at all of these things from a secular point of view and then putting them in the context of Jesus they made sense. God explains so much of why we are this way, we are always searching for something better yet never satisfied. Why we long to worship something and turn objects into more than what they are. I'm not trying to put God as a cop out and say that since I can't explain anything it must be God, but it genuinely makes sense to me.
It's been good to get a way for a week. My mind needs a break so my heart can begin to love God again, or perhaps begin to appreciate and love all that He has done.
05 March 2007
searching for God.
How is it that we say we are distant from God or that our faith is lacking when God is omnipresent. When God never changes and does not exist in some time frame where he is more powerful than other times. Everything is happening right now for God, he has no future or past He just IS. Why do we so long to satisfy ourselves yet are never satisfied. We never seem to learn from our mistakes. I go to church and ask myself what I got out of it. when will we start living the way we were intended to live? to live for God, to be holy and pure and praise His name.
My mind has been searching for God and knowing Him more in this way, but my heart has been lacking. I am entrhalled to be challenged in my faith, to think deeply and ask questions about God, yet when it comes to my personal faith where it's just Him and I, I lose my focus and I feel that distance which I cannot understand. But how do I live without trying to please myself? How do I live an honest life where I am not fake in my actions even if they are the right actions. how do I get back to the roots of purity? I want to be consistent in my faith, I want to emit Christ in everything that I do. I say these words but I do not live by them. How do I begin to live them?
I know that I need to let go of myself. Quit trying to blur the lines and see how far I can push things and not feel guilty. Perhaps we all need to feel destruction in our lives so that we can come back to the rawness that is ourselves. Destruction does not make something extinct, it only takes away for a while until you start to rebuild again. I think I need to be rebuilt.
My mind has been searching for God and knowing Him more in this way, but my heart has been lacking. I am entrhalled to be challenged in my faith, to think deeply and ask questions about God, yet when it comes to my personal faith where it's just Him and I, I lose my focus and I feel that distance which I cannot understand. But how do I live without trying to please myself? How do I live an honest life where I am not fake in my actions even if they are the right actions. how do I get back to the roots of purity? I want to be consistent in my faith, I want to emit Christ in everything that I do. I say these words but I do not live by them. How do I begin to live them?
I know that I need to let go of myself. Quit trying to blur the lines and see how far I can push things and not feel guilty. Perhaps we all need to feel destruction in our lives so that we can come back to the rawness that is ourselves. Destruction does not make something extinct, it only takes away for a while until you start to rebuild again. I think I need to be rebuilt.
01 March 2007
today.
i'm lacking sleep. drinking loads of coffee and reading about theory of religion, while a snow storm is happening outside my window. i absolutely love this.
here is an excerpt from the theory of religion by georges bataille:
The General Weakness of Moral Divinity and the Strength of Evil:
Precisely because awakening is the the meaning of dualism, the inevitable sleep that follows it reintroduces evil as a major force. The flatness to which a dualism without transcendence is limited opens up the mind to the sovereignty of evil which is the unleashing of violence. The sovereignty of good that is implied by the awakening and realized by the sleep of dualism is also a reduction to the order of things that leaves no opening except toward a return to violence. Dull-minded dualism returns to the position prior to the awakening: the malefic world takes on a value much the same as the one it had in the archaic position. It is less important than it was in the sovereignty of a pure violence, which did not have a sense of evil, but the forces of evil never lost their divine value except within the limits of a developed reflection, and their apparently inferior status cannot prevent ordinary humanity from continuing to live under their power.
it goes on..
here is an excerpt from the theory of religion by georges bataille:
The General Weakness of Moral Divinity and the Strength of Evil:
Precisely because awakening is the the meaning of dualism, the inevitable sleep that follows it reintroduces evil as a major force. The flatness to which a dualism without transcendence is limited opens up the mind to the sovereignty of evil which is the unleashing of violence. The sovereignty of good that is implied by the awakening and realized by the sleep of dualism is also a reduction to the order of things that leaves no opening except toward a return to violence. Dull-minded dualism returns to the position prior to the awakening: the malefic world takes on a value much the same as the one it had in the archaic position. It is less important than it was in the sovereignty of a pure violence, which did not have a sense of evil, but the forces of evil never lost their divine value except within the limits of a developed reflection, and their apparently inferior status cannot prevent ordinary humanity from continuing to live under their power.
it goes on..
relativism
i'm really frustrated the way things ended in my religion class the other day. somehow my papers always spur on these deep philosophical questions that don't entirely relate to the books we've read. sorry professor buyze. but in this last paper, over the theory of religion by bataille, he raised a lot of questions in me about the meaning of objects. How man has given everything meaning and purpose and man himself becomes an object. And somehow this relates to our spirit and how our spirit is separate from us once we die that "the spirit is so closely linked to the body as a thing that the body never ceases to be haunted, is never a thing except virtually, so much so that if death reduces it to the condition of a thing, the spirit is more present than ever: the body that has betrayed it reveals it more clearly than when it served it. In a sense the corpse is the most complete affirmation of the spirit" (40). So in fact even when man becomes an object it is only metaphorically because we have the spirit which keeps us separate.
But then I was questioned about saying that truth is independent from belief. We can believe whatever we want but that does not make it true. I can believe that my hair is blonde but it obviously is not true. This seems to make perfect sense. And it doesn't mean not to believe in anything, there is obviously truth out there, there is an answer to everything whether we will ever find the answer or not. I just can't understand how someone can argue that our beliefs create truth. We may convince ourself that it is truth but that still does not make it so.
Will someone please argue this? I want to hear an intelligent side to someone who believes in relativism, and for that matter an argument against it as well. Because if ethical relativism is true what I believe is 100% true and what you believe is 100% true, therefore there can never be moral progress.
And what is the difference between truth and fact?
ohhhh thoughts thoughts thoughts.
But then I was questioned about saying that truth is independent from belief. We can believe whatever we want but that does not make it true. I can believe that my hair is blonde but it obviously is not true. This seems to make perfect sense. And it doesn't mean not to believe in anything, there is obviously truth out there, there is an answer to everything whether we will ever find the answer or not. I just can't understand how someone can argue that our beliefs create truth. We may convince ourself that it is truth but that still does not make it so.
Will someone please argue this? I want to hear an intelligent side to someone who believes in relativism, and for that matter an argument against it as well. Because if ethical relativism is true what I believe is 100% true and what you believe is 100% true, therefore there can never be moral progress.
And what is the difference between truth and fact?
ohhhh thoughts thoughts thoughts.
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