Yesterday I led worship in A Cappella, then preached both services, and went home and crashed, as wiped out as I’ve been in a long time. Sick for most of the week, I propped up on the coach and through one lazy eye managed to watch a few more episodes of the first season of Friday Night Lights, and then slept a bit. Then Anjie and I watched a romantic comedy starring Amy Adams called Leap Year. A silly little movie with a terribly clunky screenplay, but all I really saw was the lighting. Shot mostly in Ireland, the lighting was dramatic, perhaps overly so, but shot after shot painted beautiful, romantic images, and in the end, I didn’t care for the movie much, but I loved the shots.
But I know what the deal is: the deal is that I’ve been lugging my camera around with for the past month or so, capturing images and light, and whenever I really focus on what’s in the lens, my sense of visual life changes.
I see compositions everywhere. I catch myself staring at layers of reflections in windows, the transparency of leaves, the tumbling unfolding of clouds, the yellows that season the landscapes along the roads I travel each day. I watch the expressions of the people I’m with, wishing I could capture the various nuances. Textures of dying things intrigue me, the curves of graceful yielding to time and gravity.
It’s all about light. The age of the digital camera makes it possible to experiment endlessly with apertures and shutter speeds, and I find myself wandering the neighborhood (when I should be writing) looking for possibilities. And what I capture I like, but what’s the point? What to do with all these images cluttering up my computer?
I don’t know, but I know enough about the creative life to trust that these little windows of visual flurry add something to what’s going on in my hopper about projects that have yet to be created, written, and performed.
In the meantime, I’ll put a few here, a few on Facebook, a few on Flickr, and maybe someone will catch a glimpse of something that will make them smile. At least it’s in the Hopper.
Enjoy…
Filed under Beauty, Daily Life, Faith and Art, Photography
My throat’s a little scratchy. I refuse to give the sensation a name (like “cold”), seeing as any malady seems completely inappropriate on a birthday. But on this May 4, Nashville is under water, people mourning everything from the loss of homes to the hit to tourism, but more importantly, mourning several older residents of surrounding communities swept away by the fast rising river. The US and Iran are battling at the UN, most not nearly as concerned about all the nuclear weapons the US has dismantled as they are the number of nukes that remain intact. A University of Virginia lacrosse player was found murdered last night, allegedly a victim of a bad spat with a former boyfriend. Apple sold over a million units of the iPad in 28 days (sounds hopeful, anyway), and I notice as I read the headlines (I always forget that I share the date with this event) that there are ceremonies marking the death of the students at Kent State 40 years ago today. They got the guy that (allegedly) tried to blow up an SUV in Times Square, and some movie star whose name I forget came clean and said he cheated on his wife with one of the same women Tiger got tangled up in. The oil spill in the Gulf seems really colossal (how do you plug that hole?), and I guess the ash over Western Europe has calmed down enough to let planes back in the air. Some poor Phillies fan got tasered last night (shouldn’t have been running on the field, I suppose), and on this May 4th, can anybody count the maladies running wild in the world?
A 50-ish couple approaches the coffee shop laughing, pulled along by their beloved dogs. Steam is rising from cups in front of the two ladies at the window, and the buzzcut junior high student, sitting alone (his father gave him a big hug before he left), butters his bagel with great concentration. My iPhone bleeps, and I see that a former student, a big old cowboy kind of guy with a grin as big as the state he’s from, just posted a “Happy Birthday” on my wall. I didn’t sleep all that well, because those bleeps announcing birthday wishes pulsed steadily all night long, an annoyance I apparently valued and found some comfort in. My son is sleeping just fine, exhausted from the effort of memorizing IPA and Italian arias and idea-battling with his dad, and my wife’s early morning flight is just beginning its descent into Portland. Oh yes, and my daughter lifts out of LA about now, heading back east to her friends’ production of “Death and the Maiden” at Williams. The morning latte was especially fine, hotter than usual, which is just the way I like it. I look up, and two young high school girls, friends of mine, twins, are running, herky-jerky and laughing, to catch the city bus, and the dogs outside bark lazy songs as the bus pulls away.
The question was asked: “What does the pure life of following the Christ look like?” I don’t know. I’ll pray today, and inch my way forward, muttering again that something is better than nothing, and believe (even as 51 years of fatigue and mixed results and undeserved blessing rushing at me like a kingdom river run amok) that we have the agency to change the world. Can we make it perfect? Who am I to say that when the Kingdom of God comes (Jesus hoped for it, asked for it…so do I), a substantial perfection will or will not be born? And yes, it’s all God, and our agency is all grace, all metabolized and given life by God’s Spirit and His Will (go to it, theologians, get it right), and it is up to us to reach up and grasp the life He offers and calls us to. We must plug the oily holes, stop ourselves from killing the ones who infuriate us (be they lovers or enemies or both), nurture the love that is the source of all hope, and feed, clothe, and shelter the ones who somehow land in a place (who cares how they got there) where they lack all of that. And along the way, we must tell the story, make the meaning, find the beauty, linking arms and hearts and throwing grace to the wind like the farmer with those proverbial seeds. Little Christs, all of us.
We all wonder: why are we born? Why, 51 years ago, did I come climbing into being only to know wonder, loss, ecstasy, heartbreak, and one day out there, at the end of my own personal Act Five, to experience it all slipping away into a pretty long closing of the eyes? Why? For what?
For love, for hope, for faith, for God, for joy, for words, for the making of worlds…
For life…
Filed under Beauty, Daily Life, Faith and Art, Spirituality
I haven’t been blogging much. The habit of writing feels awkward, two months into my shared life–church half-time, something else the other half. There’s a play I’m working on, oh so slowly, and I finally finished up grading the material from my class. Lots has happened the past couple of months. Amy did her showcases in New York and LA, Daniel is home for a week before heading off to an opera workshop across the sea, and I’m growing a beard. In July, I’ll open in Man of La Mancha at Taproot playing the guy who has to sing “The Impossible Dream.” Lots to do.
Taproot Theatre’s production of Brooklyn Boy was fun, but more draining than I’d anticipated, at least on the emotional side. My character, Eric Weiss, has a rough couple of days in Donald Marguiles’ play about returning home after huge success as a writer. Eric’s wife divorces him, his father dies (having never given Eric the affirmation he so craves), and his movie deal goes into the tank. He can’t score with the young girl in the hotel, and his childhood friend has a way better life than he does, a fact that annoys Eric to no end. As I took the journey each night, I always landed in the same spot, having to confront feelings about my father, my career, and what it means to go home.
My father died in 1988, a decade before I wrote Leaving Ruin. I realize now that I was probably a bit of a disappointment to him, though I think he’d feel fine about what I’m up to now. But in 1988, I was still hunting around, trying to find what I was going to do with my life. This was after the MFA. I didn’t really have a career, and I think he wondered what in the world I was doing. I’d come out of the only job I ever had that I performed really poorly in–it was an independent thing that I was just too depressed to pursue with much verve–and though I think he was proud of my spiritual life (or at least thankful I had some kind of faith), I imagine he felt a little like Eric’s father did in the play.
So when we came to the end of the play, and my “father” told me night after night that I wrote a good book, I couldn’t help but think what it would have been like to hear my own father say that to me. I’ve already blogged about hearing those words as if God said something like to me in reference to my life, but to hear Dad say that would have been priceless. I suspect there are many of us out here in the big bad world trying to win the approval of a parent or two, and if you’re one of them…well, I hope you find what you’re looking for. Maybe what we’re looking for isn’t to be found on this side, but still…wouldn’t it be grand?
Maybe an impossible dream?
Filed under Faith and Art
I’ve been wandering around a bit with the camera again. I’m not sure if I’m procrastinating some other things I need to do, or if I’m using the photography to stimulate creativity or brood over ideas still cooking. Either way, I thought I’d share a few… Someday I’ll think of something to do with all these shots. I love the structure of things…
These were on the Administrative Assistant’s desk…
Looks like terrain, don’t you think?
A window in New York…
Looks like an old heart…
En garde!
The Big Apple…
Back to work…
Filed under Beauty, Photography
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