Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

I got some feedback from a very kind person who took the time to read my entire epic. One thing he said stood out to me because it reminded me of something my pastor said in his sermon on Sunday that stuck out at me. My pastor noted that where the heart leads, the mind follows. That really resonated with me. In fact, it’s where I hang my hope. I’ll explain why below…. My gentle reader said, “[your] combination of existentialism and skepticism is pretty cut & dried postmodernism, no?” And this could be the crux of the matter. I don’t particularly care about labels, but I care about where my heart is, and what my attitudes are. I don’t know if existentialism and skepticism are intrinsically good or bad things. My guess is that they are both. Perhaps I am a victim of my milieu and can not escape these post-modern propensities. (Although I read Vieth’s Postmodernism Today several years ago, and found most of his arguments sound.) But I assume the heart ...

Here is a true confession for all the atheists who keep telling me I need to check out their I'm-a-happy-atheist website. Ready? I am weak. I don't have the strength to live my life without God. I know my limits. Call it poor character, bad genes, god genes, or pure laziness. Call it what you will. I need Jesus. I need Him more than the air I breathe. I've heard plenty of hard-core atheist arguments. Some are better than others. I could go explore all the reasons that I'm a weak minded fool who is being pacified and used. I still entertain the thought that I can't be a true apologist until I've explored every possible belief system and found them lacking compared to my belief in Christ. After all, I don't want to be like the folks who were born in Texas and have never traveled further than Oklahoma , saying that Texas is the most beautiful place in the world. Yet here I am, born and raise in a Christian home. Sure th...

I found this guy's writings last week, and have been reading them every chance I get. He's some animator guy named Derek Flood, who thinks and writes like me. … Only probably better! (Yes my gentle readers… that is possible.) Here's the thing. I don't read other people's blogs. I have so much I need to learn that wading though someone else's emotional swamps, looking for nuggets of inspiration or truth is just not something I can justify doing. So when I stumble across a blog that just rips open my heart and articulates its unexplored corners, I gotta talk about it. The first article I read was about the need for a different metaphor when it comes to Christ's work on the cross. The way it has been cast for us evangelicals, (and Christianity in general for hundreds of years) is though a legal metaphor. God is an impartial judge who sentences us to eternal torture because Adam sinned, and we all do to. But here comes Jesus the great la...

I don't think I've ever liked fart jokes. But I was watching a little movie on YouTube where someone spiced together clips of televangelist Robert Tilton, and interspersed loud farting sounds throughout. Normally I wouldn't find this sort of thing funny. But because few people in the world deserve this treatment more than Mr. Tilton, and because his pseudo-spiritual facial expressions and halting cadence I was actually amused. Then my coworker, Little Miss Takes It To Far asked me if I'm at that stage in my marriage relationship where we fart in front of each other. Apparently that is some kind of marker post that tells you that you are truly comfortable with each other. Well, I went 11 years without doing it last time. It's really not a comfort level thing. At least as it applies to relationships. The fact is I'm not comfortable with the entire idea of gas. I never have been. It's probably the thing I hate most about being human. ...

Well I got my business license, so I can officially sell art and charge tax! I've gone through several ideas for lines of sculpture that I could make relatively quickly and sell for a fair compensation for my time and skill. Well, I haven't quite hit that goal yet. The sculptures I make keep taking me 10 times longer than I think they should, so I can't justify selling them for what anyone would be willing to pay. The last go at it resulted in 3 sculptures of kids in costumes. I made a lion, a monkey, and a grim reaper. They are about a foot tall and super detailed. I had my first art show in July and sold a couple of those lion heads I made a couple years ago, and the lion boy. My mom bought that one. Which is cool, because now I have access to that sculpture for other shows. (He was a big draw, almost everyone stopped to look at him.) I got into the Kirkland art fair thing because I met a guy who owns a store there that sells Santa sculpt...

We just locked down the art assets for Guild Wars: Nightfall. The third installment of Guild Wars. I guess we have 2 million people playing our game now. I've been working here almost 3 years now. I'm getting tired of working on the humps and bumps of these levels. The best comparison I can give to someone who doesn't know how computer game worlds are made is this: Imagine that you have a big bed sheet laid flat on the ground. Now imagine that you have to make it look like a world by placing wadded up newspaper under it to create mountains, canyons, and oceans. But you can't ever have sheer cliffs or overhangs. Then, you take model trees, houses, rocks and other props and place them on top of the sheet. Well that's what I do all day. I feel like I'm haven't had more than a handful of chances to actually exercise my creative potential here. I've considered trying to move over the creature modeling department, but it looks like there ...

I don't know if this counts as a weakness to my argument, but I'd like to have it on record anyway. So I was looking for Zao lyrics on some random website and saw an ad that asked if hell really existed. I was feeling feisty and thought it would be fun to read some crazy heresy and took the bait. Well it turns out to be the site for L. Ray Smith. ( http://bible-truths.com/ ) A feisty, kinda scary man who uses way too many CAP LOCKED, UNDERLINED SENTENCES!!! And while his style was distracting and hyperbolic he actually made some really good points that I had never thought about before. I first read his 16 part Lake of Fire series, which is almost as redundant and disorganized as my own writing. But really got me thinking. He starts going out on a limb in parts of it where he actually states that any churches who preach anything other than his beliefs are the Whore of Babylon and we must "come out of her", yadda yadda. It's funny, but my dad,...

heterodox 1 : contrary to or different from an acknowledged standard, a traditional form, or an established religion : UNORTHODOX , UNCONVENTIONAL heterodox ideas> 2 : holding unorthodox opinions or doctrines I'm using that word instead of heresy now. I think it's more apt. I've been reading over C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity as a way of sorting out where I am in relation to the church. I'm convinced I'm still in the building. Somewhere. Well, at the beginning of all of this I promised to do my best to counter-argue myself. The best part about having my ideas in public arena is that I get lots of help with free criticism. So in this series I shall roll over and expose my weak, soft underbelly. Get your arrows ready. My hope is that I can be level headed and open hearted enough to see genuine weaknesses in my ideas, and that God will grant me the strength to discard any that fall short of His glory. Originally I wa...