Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

Legalism and Morality Oooh. Those are some hefty words. For some easy reading, check out funnystuff.com. Someone asked me why I don’t feel free to marry again if my ex had cheated on me. (Because Jesus did say divorce was excusable in that circumstance.) And my answer surprised me somewhat. I said, “Because I’m not a legalist.” You see, when you think about legalism, you think of a set of rules. DO’s and DO NOT’s. New Testament writers said God gave us those laws because we needed to be aware of our inability to attain perfection in ourselves. To show that in order for God to be God, He must be perfect. And to be joined with Him, we also must be perfect. Jesus said His coming was changing all that. He came to fulfill the law. That is, to bring it to it’s natural conclusion. God illustrated through His chosen people that no one could stick to His standards. Not a single hero of the Bible was even close to perfect. Union with God required a s...

I’m reflecting on my interaction with women over the past couple of months. Well, two in particular. I have just procured the rights to share my recent story. The one I have been vaguely alluding too in the past couple of entries. This situation is particularly thought provoking because it is so similar to the scenario with ‘my new best friend’. Speaking of which, let me add a little side bar about her… She has purposely distanced herself from me to keep things from getting too hot. I kept inviting her to do stuff over the past several weeks, but there are usually reasons that she couldn’t. We were talking at our church group Christmas party about it and she told me she felt that she had to avoid me for the common good. I guess she’s right. So back to my current mess. I’ll set the stage with a little history and personality profile. So there is this woman at work. I got the impression she might be attracted to me, mainly from my nosy coworker who sits behind me - we all cal...

I am stupefied. I am appalled. I am completely taken aback at my foolishness. It’s times like these I am very glad I serve a loving and forgiving God. You know that last entry I made? Yeah, the one from a couple of days ago. I hurt someone. I said I was going to be so much more careful now… Well I did something that was so diametrically opposed to ‘careful’ that I don’t even know what to call it. It’s amazing to me. I would much rather hurt myself than someone else. Yet I’ve managed to get myself into a situation where I’m hurting someone again. Worse this time. What a horrible example I’m being of one who has God in their life. How ruthlessly I suppressed His guidance in order to put myself in this position. Although now that I know I can’t trust myself in this area, I will make sure to never, ever put myself there again. It’s a balance, I think, to keep yourself from sin. There are two ways I know to do it. One is to cut off any possib...

As predicted, the mold-making process on my Christmas present sculpture is starting off on a botched foot. I made a latex mold that got all distorted because it had not set long enough. But that was a good experimental mold, so I poured some clear resin into it a couple of days ago. I pulled it out a day or so ago and it’s still sticky. Last night I tried making a master mold from the main piece again using some really expensive stuff. It looks like it may be permanently embedded in there. Grrrr! I really wish I knew someone with experience in this area who could sit down with me and walk me through it. I’ve got a week left to finish! Panic, panic, panic!!! In other complicated news… this week I really hurt someone I like. I wasn’t careful enough about the way I communicated with her. I can’t really go into any more detail out of respect for the injured party, but suffice it to say the ordeal really made me take a long hard look at how I communicate. It...

Justin has been doing really well at school. This is despite the fact that he has been talking to his mom more, and thus been let down time and time again by her. Normally he would be getting suspended again. But instead he is flourishing. Praise God for His answers to prayer. Here is what his teacher wrote me today: ~ “ I just wanted to write you a short note to let you know how great Justin has been doing over the last couple weeks. He is very focused and is taking more responsibility for his behavior in the classroom. Even his handwriting has improved over the last two weeks. He is doing a wonderful job of expressing his ideas and showing me what he knows and understands. Great job Justin! “ ~ Two things are happening that could account for this. The Ancient Paths thing, with the prayer for breaking curses is one. Another is a double prayer-chain-attack. I’ve got my church on call, and my parents have theirs. Whatever it is, ultimately, God is sho...

I’m quite overburdened on the sculpture side right now. I always have a backlog of projects that are a quarter done. I always hope to get back to them, but most of them languish on the shelf until they get dusty and cracked. Super Sculpy (My preferred medium) only stays workable for a couple of months. I’m happy that I was able to complete a project for my dad recently. He wrote and preformed in a play that was recorded to CD and I made a sculpture to photograph for the cover. Now I’m feverishly working on one for Christmas presents. I hope to make a mold from it and cast multiple copies so I can spread the joy. But I have never had a mold work for me before. Either it doesn’t set, or breaks, or stick to the sculpture, or breaks the sculpture, etc. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on this one. Besides that one, I’ve got several in the planning stages. For some reason they are all based on songs. Then I have the pieces I started in that sculpture class back in ...

The longest, gayest movie ever. Ok, technically it was just bi-sexual. There are some interesting things Christians can pull from the viewing of this movie. The prominent one being the total depravity of man. Anyone complaining about the state of our society, or bitching about George Bush being a ‘tyrant’ should see what a real conquering marauder was. One thing the movie attempts to answer is the Why? Why was Alexander driven to slaughter his way across the known world? What kind of mindset and worldview would glorify that? There is a scene where his father is leading a young Alexander through some catacombs with horrendous painting of mortals being tormented by their Grecian gods. Oedipus ripping his eyes out, the guy getting his liver eaten out by crows, etc. His father tells him that it doesn’t matter how great you are, the gods will have you. Pain is inevitable. In another scene, Aristotle is teaching Alexander about the inherent superiority of the Greeks over their Persian neighb...