the resolution of all the fruitless searches

I’ve been fleshing out the idea of becoming truly myself. The person I am, who God made me to be, reaching my full potential. How do I do that when the world tells me to be someone else? (I think about the Cure song “why can’t I be you?") When my wounds and fears teach me to be someone else to avoid getting hurt?

The craziness that I came up with is community (also read relationships)…here’s why it’s crazy. It’s others who tell us who we should be. Though rejection and conformity we learn who we should be and how to hide who we really are. The paradox is in community we also learn to expose the venerable parts of ourselves to acceptance and love. When we don’t receive rejection we no longer feel the need to hide. So we start emerging, carefully at first then no longer hindered by who we think we should be, we come completely out of our shell. Fully visiable completely exposed to someone else we truly see ourselves for the first time, or at least for the first time in a long time.

A couple of days ago I ran across this description of Marriage from Buechner. The ending was completely unexpected but I agree with it wholeheartedly. I also love that he describes the promises a man and a woman make to each other in marriage as rash and quixotic (look it up, it’s a perfect description).


Marriage:
They say they will love comfort, honor each other to the end of their days. They say they will cherish each other and be faithful to each other always. They say they will do these things not just when the feel like it but even--for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health--when they don't feel like it at all. In other words, the vows they made at a marriage could hardly be more extravagant. They give away their freedom. They take on themselves each other's burdens. They bind their lives together in ways that are even more painful to unbind emotionally, humanly than they are to unbind legally. The question is: what do they get in return?

They get each other in return. Assuming they have any success at all in keeping their rash, quixotic promises, they never have to face the world quite alone again. There will always be the other to talk to, to listen to. If they're lucky, even after the first passion passes, they still have a kindness and a patience to depend on, a chance to be patient and kind. There is still someone to get thought the night with, to wake into the new day beside. If they have children, they can give them, as well as each other, roots and wings. If they don't have children, they become the other's child.

They both still have their lives apart as well as a love together. They both still have their separate ways to find. But a marriage made in Heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone. When Jesus changed the water in to wine at the wedding in Cana, perhaps it was a way of saying more or less the same thing.

the black and white blindsiding fact

The metaphor at the end of this poem hit me...well like a black and white blindsiding fact...it is very interesting and took this poem from kind of cute to extremely deep in a matter of a few sentences...enjoy

Earl

In Sitka, because they are fond of them,
People have named the seals. Every seal
is named Earl because they are killed one
after another by the orca, the killer
whale; seal bodies tossed left and right
into the air. "At least he didn't get
Earl," someone says. And sure enough,
after a time, that same friendly,
bewhiskered face bobs to the surface.
It's Earl again. Well, how else are you
to live except by denial, by some
palatable fiction, some little song to
sing while the inevitable, the black and
white blindsiding fact, comes hurtling
toward you out of the deep?



Poem:"Earl" by Louis Jenkins, from North of the Cities.
© Will o' the Wisp Books, 2007.

electricity: unplugging the myth

I'm really proud of the short film created by our small crew of 11 people. We were involved in the 48 hour film project about a month ago, which means this film was put it together, from the first word of the script to final edit, in only 48 hours. Please give it a look-see at the link below. It's really funny and I'm not just saying that because I'm biased (although I am…VERY…and I'm not denying it). Last night at the screening I attended it was the ONLY film screened that received wholehearted applause...

Genre: Comedy
Required line of dialog: "Can I get a little help, please?"
Required Character: Steve or Stella Fogarty, Electrician
Required Prop: Automobile part

electricity: unplugging the myth
A shocking propaganda film designed to convince the world that "electricity" is an elaborate hoax


48hour Awards: Earned

Best Overall Film
(that MEANS we WON the Nashville part of the contest!)
Best Comedy
Best Sound Editing
the Audience Choice Award
Runner Up: Director
Runner Up: Screen Play
Honorable Mention: Editing

Cast
Josh Cherry – Hubert J. Ohmsberg/Little Man
Dan Fiedler – Steve Fogarty
Megan Frank – Little Woman


Crew
Kevin Tucker – Director, Boom Operator, Best Boy, Writer
Ben Frank – Editor, Special Effects, Animation, Main Titles, Writer
Becky Tucker - Director of Cinematography, Location Manager, Co-Writer
Dan Fiedler – Second Camera, Grip
Jeff Leet – Production Designer, Property Master, Story Contributor
Tim Holt – Score Composer, Sound Editor, Sound Mixer, Foley Artist, Story Contributor
Lauri Leiweke – Costume Designer, Make-up & Hair
Mendy Myers – Production Manager, Cue Card Diva, Story Contributor
Megan Frank – Prop Wench, Co-Writer
David Perry - Writer




ENJOY!

just call me chicken little

It was a typical Saturday morning for me; I had picked up my produce and ran to the grocery store to grab a few necessities. I came home read a bit then proceeded to the kitchen to start making salsa. I had all the fresh ingredients for black bean corn salsa, my personal favorite. As I chopping up some tomatoes I hear the sound of dry wall cracking, well at that exact moment, I didn't know it was the sound of dry wall cracking. I looked up at the ceiling above the refrigerator. The crack up there had gotten considerably larger since the last time I looked at it. Realizing the sound I heard was telling me it wasn't going to hold much longer I stood there helpless trying to figure out what to do. I'm not very good at standing helpless. So true to form, I rushed into the problem to determine if there was something I could do to fix it. Given that I was pretty sure the ceiling was going to cave it. I assessed the situation and determined the only thing I could do was to try and guide the large pieces of drywall down instead of letting them fall on their own. If I tried to control the cave in, I might be able to save some of the stuff still piled high on the refridgerator and cabinets near the fissure.

The first chunk fell, and I though ok that wasn't that bad. Then as I'm standing there holding the ceiling up I realize this wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done in my life. (Although, surprisingly not the stupidest either.) Then I thought I'm going to die, this ceiling is going to collapse on me and I'm going to die, alone, under a pile of drywall and fiberglass snow. Somehow I was able to drop the piece of drywall behind me. Now, like everything in the kitchen I was covered with a thin layer of dirt and fiberglass. I'd survived the sky falling, and stepped down to assess the whole picture. Of course I stepped on a nail. So I headed to the bathroom, took a seat on the floor and processed for a few minutes while waiting for my foot to stop bleeding, keeping myself from panicking about infected puncture wounds, and trying to remember when my last tetanus shot was.

When that moment passed I started making phone calls… roommate… landlord… help… roommate… help.

The landlord came to check out the situation and didn't offer much in the way of comfort or help. He couldn't find anyone to come over and clean at that hour on a Saturday evening.Now, I need order in my life. When I am out of control of a situation (like when the ceiling falls down, perhaps) I need it more than ever. At that moment I needed to put the kitchen back in order. So, after leaving a few "please help me" messages, I began cleaning. Help arrived in the form of a friend and his brother about two hours later when I was cleaning up the last of the fiberglass. They took the three monster bags of fiberglass and the big heavy trash can full of drywall pieces, out. Then sealed up the gaping hole in the ceiling with trash bags and staples. (It's ghetto fabulous, and makes a whooshing sound when the back door is opened or closed.) Then entertained me ate some salsa that survived the ceiling collapse with some chips that didn't, and had a couple of beers that I had just happened to pick up at the store that morning. Then since the kitchen was not fit for cooking went out to eat some sushi.

It was definitely not how I had planned to spend my Saturday afternoon, but I guess it's best to be flexible. My high school choir teacher used to always say…cope and adjust…truer words have never been spoken, well at least when your ceiling falls down on you in the middle of making salsa.