Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

ZAO!!!

Since this blog is supposed to be functioning as a journal, I’m going to throw some random stuff in here that happened over the past week or so. I went to a Zao show in Seattle . Their star guitarist was in the ER, so the set wasn’t that great. Oh well. Their last album was amazing! A conceptual record called ‘The Funeral of God’. It’s a hypothetical look at what would happen if God gave humanity what they wanted and went away. Very scary stuff. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s ‘Between Heaven and Hell’ in that the horror is not in the form of torment from demons and fire, but the torment of being completely enslaved to our own natures. “As we pray on His grave, our words fall and decay” I also love the cover art and logo design. I painted the logo on the back of my spare tire cover. Oh, and the thing I did right was during football last Saturday. I actually made a touchdown. It doesn’t mean much since everyone else on the team has made dozens. But...

Here is a little insight into the meaning behind the image below. This picture applies only to how I feel about my romantic life. Not life in general. I’m mostly very thankful and happy about my life and all the things in it. So here I am standing on the tombstone of my marriage. It’s got our initials and dates for how long it lived. It is flanked by thistles; a traditional Christian symbol for sin and sadness. Laying in the shallow grave is my heart. Again, I’m only referencing my romantic heart. I’m holding my eyes to keep myself from looking at women ‘that way’, while I contemplate whether I should finish the burial of my heart, or drop the shovel and pick it up. It’s night time. Time for me to sleep and renew. But my confusion keeps me awake. Finally, there are seven stars behind me. Seven has a plethora of meanings from scripture. One of those is the reference to forgiveness. God has forgiven me for the part I played in the death of the marri...

Excavation or burial?

I’m going through a really interesting process right now that I wish I wasn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s bad or unfair. I just didn’t want to deal with it at this point in my life. But I’ll take God’s timing over my own any day. It involves, (what else?), romance and love. Since I’m not the best looking guy in the world, and I’m divorced with two kids, I figured I’d have plenty of time to figure out if I should pursue a romantic relationship again at some point in my life. But somehow I have two women pursuing me. One of them is easy to ignore because she’s not a Christian and I would never even consider a woman who isn’t as passionate about God as I am. But then there is my New Best Friend. She would really like me to be free to give her an answer one way or another. So would I. But like I’ve said before, I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of the obligation to stay unattached, just incase my ex has a Saul-to-Paul style conversion. I can’t think of a w...

So there is this girl I met at church. She is a really cool chick. And by chick I mean woman. We get along really well and can hang out and just be comfortable with each other. She is super sweet and caring, and blah blah blah… I get the picture. Anyway… One of the things I really like about her is the straight foreword manner in which she communicates her feelings. For instance; I think it was the second or third time we hung out that she told me she had a crush on me. (Now before I go thinking what a bastard I was, let me remind myself that I had already made it clear at that point that I was not available.) But I gotta give massive respect points to a girl who can lay it all out there and take what comes. This woman has been through more crap in her life than anyone I know, and yet she is really mature and not bitter. I think I can learn a lot from her. So the natural problem is that I can’t reciprocate her feelings towards me in any honorable way...

My ex came and visited the kids last night while I was out with a friend and my brother was watching them. This is a pretty major event since the last time she saw them was back in April – about six months ago. She has been promising them she would visit all that time. Setting up times, then calling at the last minute and canceling over and over again. I didn’t have much reason to believe this time was going to be different, or I might have stayed home just to make sure everything was all right. (And to protect my valuables.) Well, apparently it was a quick visit, and the only thing she took was a framed photo collection. The boys seemed fine this morning, which was a major relief to me, since her calls generally cause them to behave badly for a day or two afterward. But I just got two emails from school saying my oldest is having a very bad day. He was kicking a little girl for not sharing her fruit snacks and calling her stupid. (Could there be a connection to t...

A work in progress

Last week I attended a sculpting workshop every evening after work. This sculptor from L.A. who does movie concepts and such came up and gave us a quick run through of some of the stuff he does and techniques he uses. Mom wonderful mom was gracious enough to come stay at my apartment and watch the boys after school and all night while I did the class. I didn’t get much sleep last week but I learned a lot. I worked with Wed clay for the first time. That’s the stuff they use to sculpt all those monsters and aliens you see in the movies. (The ones that aren’t computer generated of course.) I also learned some new techniques for Sculpy, which is a polymer clay I’ve been using for years. Jordu Schell (the instructor) is a really interesting guy. We seemed to get along swimmingly. He has the same dry, sardonic since of humor I do. I took him to Seattle to pick up some supplies for the class on Tuesday, so we got to have a little alone time to talk. He was tel...

Something I’ve noticed about people – myself included – is that when they change habits or beliefs, they tend to jump from one extreme to another. Hard drinkers become teetotalers, right wing ideologues become left wing extremists, etc. The amount of swing seems to be directly proportional to the extremity of their initial position. Here are a few recent examples from my life… I used to be pretty lethargic and eat unhealthy food. I wasn’t extremely out of shape, but enough to cause me some alarm. Now I’m jogging daily, lifting weights, and eating lots of vegetables. Nothing extreme, but certainly on the other side of the spectrum. Over the course of the last decade I have probably spent a total of 2 or 3 hundred bucks on clothes and shoes. Over the past couple of months I’ve spent the same amount. (Don't worry, I'm done now!) Still, not huge levels on either end. I went from not caring about my appearance very much to caring about it a little bit. ...