Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

It's funny that people are so repulsed by that statement. Yet we live with that assumption in many areas of life. What is school? It's a series of people who know more about a certain subject telling you that they are right, and you agree with them. How do we teach our children to be moral? We tell them that when they lie, cheat, and steal that they are wrong to do so. I am right and you are wrong. Such a basic principal. If we go to driving school and insist that we should be able to drive through red lights, what would our instructor say to us? That's right. We are wrong and they are right. Now I could ask why this is fine for most people in those spheres of life, but when we make the claim about spiritual things we are horrible people. But instead I'm going to turn it around and ask this… Why don't you apply your insistence that no one knows the truth, and that everyone is right, to the real world? Why don't you tell the IRS that? ...

I read about a movie on video that just came out on an online forum called 'What the Bleep Do We Know?'. It sounded really interesting to me because it's about a topic that I find fascinating: quantum physics. Moreover, I heard that its thrust leads towards philosophical and spiritual ideas. I've been intrigued by the concept of quantum physics ever since I heard about it for just that reason. It seems that the more we try to understand the natural world, the more we realize we don't know. And many of the new discoveries and theories point towards what can easily be described as a spiritual reality. Scientists have found that the sub-atomic world have very different rules than what physics has said since Newton . Quantum physics is full of paradoxes, anomalies, enigmas, and every other synonym for weirdness that there is. So to explain why, scientists have come up with some theories, and they are really out there from a modernist, materialists viewpo...

So I thought I was getting better after my car accident last month. My side was hardly hurting at all. Then last weekend I decided I was well enough to swordfight with my kids on the playground. The problem is that when I play with my kids I tend to get carried away. We do some serious swashbuckling, complete with jumping off of high things, swinging on ropes and tumbling around. Well, I didn't tumble this time. But I had to stop after 20 minuets or so because my side started aching again. So I took it easy, but by the next day I was back to the way I was a day after the accident. I couldn't rotate certain ways, pick up anything heavy, and getting up and down hurt. It subsided a bit by Wednesday, and I felt brave enough to attend a Zao concert I had a ticket to. I knew I had to take it easy, so I spent most to the show, (While the other bands were playing.) hanging out with Dan -the vocalist for Zao- in the bar area talking about all sorts of things. Th...

One thing many Christians have a problem doing is differentiating Christianity from their culture. I was born and raised in the church, so I'm quite familiar with this phenomenon. In fact, I still struggle with it. It's really hard to evaluate all the assumptions you had about the societal norms that you grew up with. Which were biblically based, which are just cultural, and then how do you deal with all the sticky ones in between. Here's an example from my background… My circle of friends who were all Christians in the same church thought that people who drank alcohol were hell-bound for sure. Same with smokers. Sure, we recognized that people who snorted coke were worse, but really, who cares… they're all going to the same place. So imagine my shock and horror when I met someone who seemed to be a grounded, rational Christian who drank an occasional beer. It made no sense to me. I think that was the first time I realized there was a difference b...

I'm very sad to report that I've lost what may have been my only reader. I apparently offended them enough that they no longer want to know me any further. Being the type of person I am, my first reaction was "Oh well." Because I rarely care what people think about me or my ideas. But then I remembered how annoyed I get by most street preachers and other in-your-face proponents of my faith and ideas. Why am I annoyed by them? It's not their message. (Usually) It's the method by which they present that faith. Telling people that they will suffer for eternity if they don't start believing like me is not conducive to a loving relationship with God. For one, because most people simply don't believe it anymore, but more importantly, because those who do make a religious decision based on fear are more likely to be working the system then they are to be lovers of God and His ways. It's what we call fire insurance. And it's a r...

I can't think of a time that I have ever envied rich people. Perhaps because I grew up middle class, and was never deprived of the necessities of life. But mostly, I think it's because my parents instilled in me a four-dimensional view of life. It's not hard for me to see the downside of being rich or popular or beautiful. I value character much more than those outside facades. All those attributes are subject to change at a moments notice. But character will always remain. And when you factor time into the equation; and when you believe that this time on earth is a drop in the bucket, it's not hard to look past the inequalities of life. So I was surprised to find myself having a bad attitude towards a complete stranger today just because he was rich. I was standing in line and overheard these two guys talking about real estate. One was opening an office in Hawaii , the other had just sold a big hunk of land for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and ...

If there is one philosophy that could pull me away from my Christian beliefs it would be agnosticism. Why? Because I've found a lot of balance and maturity come from examining two sides of an issue and finding what seems to be the most true somewhere in the middle. This satisfaction with the center seems like a good rule to apply to many things in life. But is it good to apply to all things? That's what I am exploring right now. First, let's look at places where it has worked for me. I think the easiest way to define a position is to find the extremes on both sides of the spectrum. Let's take an issue like the environment. The absolute extreme from an industrial/economic interest viewpoint is what has been the historical norm. Basically, you use any and all resources available to you until they are gone. That's one of the reasons Australia has no local domesticatable animals and the Middle East is mostly desert. Some native Americans woul...

I love my pastor, Curt. We have so much in common. Sometimes I think my love for him is colored by that commonality, so I try to be cautions about my enthusiasm. He keeps saying things that I have said before, and articulating ideas that were half-formed in me, or have heard from my parents before. There were many examples of this at our last Wednesday evening class. It was our last class and we were discussing the last chapter of the book we were going through called Doing What Jesus Did. We had gone through healing, and this chapter was about casting out demons. Over all, it had a fairly balanced approach. But our pastor had us look up and compile every verse in the gospels and Acts that had examples of this sort of thing, and told us to keep those in mind as we closely read the chapter. He warned us of what he called charismatic baggage. He explained that every group has a certain outlook on life that colors what they teach and how they teach it. You may thi...

Dear Mr. Knowitall, I am thinking of buying a pet, but I'm not sure what type of pet is right for me. How do I decide? I've already detailed 3 different pets in other articles. Namely the Snake , the Woman , and the Bonsai Tree . Assuming these aren't the type you would like to get, I'll provide you with a fool-proof way of determining what pet is right for you. Answer each question and add up your points according to the simple formula listed at the bottom of the quiz. Feel free to fill in the circles with a marker on your monitor. Remember: you must choose only ONE answer from each statement. While it may seem that more than one (or none) applies to you, I assure you that this is impossible. 1. I live in a: O city (50 pts, 52 degrees Celsius, blue, diamond) O barn (40 pts, 22 Celsius, white, onyx) O igloo (10 pts, -87 Fahrenheit, brown, jade) 2. I enjoy: O ice cream (40 pts, 75 Fah...