Between movies and religion, and everything else

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,678640-1,00.html

In light of the recent conclusion in the Spiderman triology, I think it's terribly appropriate that TIME Magazine jotted out this article about the religious qualities found in recent (that is, over the past few years) hits from Hollywood. While Spiderman 3 is pretty overt in its message of redemption and forgiveness, I know that pastors - at least the ones I know or have heard about - have been pulling from less obvious movies for a long time.

Thank you Brewing Culture for your tasty tid-bits.

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In other news... I know that the last blog-posts I left you with seemed to be pretty dismal. But as I mentioned previously, there have been some really great things going on in the spit of land I call my world. Thank goodness, too, because I would go crazy if I didn't know that God was taking care of me and doing these cool things.

1. First and foremost, I have a new car. It's a 1993 Dodge Shadow with a matted gray paint job. It doesn't look all too pretty, but I don't complain. Oh no. I had the most amazing van to ever exist: a 1987 Toyota Minivan, silver with purple stripes on the sides, and lovingly named "GiGi." It was terrible, but I loved it.
The Shadow couldn't have come at a better time or in the most humbling way possible. Like GiGi, the Shadow was given to me by someone else. My friend Sarah's parents treat me like a second daughter (which always makes me ponder how my dad feels about it), and they felt the Lord leading them to buy me a newer car. I feel like I don't deserve their kindness, and honestly I can't say enough how grateful I am to them and to God.

2. Earlier on the same day that I found out I would be getting a new car, an opportunity opened up for a place to move... to live with one of the students in my ministry, Emily. I'd been looking at a few apartments (two, really), since the Campbells are moving and Emily plops down in the coffee shop when I was in there one day. She turns to me and says, "Do you know of anybody who's looking for a place to live?" ... Did I ever. The tale of what happened the following two days is exciting and proves that God not only hears and answers prayers, but that He provides and is able to put the resources where His mouth is. I'd been looking at another place that was much cheaper, but considerably far away. I was going to come check it out and I prayed the night before that the Lord would make it abundantly clear to me where He wanted me to be. The next day I get a call from the girls at the house I was to check out, and they basically said that they were moving out and living somewhere else -- and they didn't need a roommate anymore.

So God made it abundantly clear by taking out the option entirely. How crazy is that?

3. The next story takes a bit to explain, so I'll try to be brief - which unfortunately means I have to leave out some details. I hate doing that.
I met a man who knows Ben from the studios, named Michael. He liked my work a lot, and said that he wanted to come by in a few months to see what kind of work I'd come up with by then. I get an email from him the next day saying that he had an opening in his schedule that Thursday or Friday, so I say we can get together Thursday (this was last week). We met from 11AM to 1PM, and the time I had with him was very encouraging to me as an artist.
A really awesome observation of his that he had to share about contemporary artists was how he related them to Translators and Interpreters because of his extensive time spent with both. Many contemporary artists, he said, seemed to be Translators... explaining that Translators merely state exactly what one person said in one language into another language. He went further and said that Interpreters not only translate one thing in one language to another language, but they are able to articulate the emotion and meaning that is found in one language and culture into another.

He said that I was more of an Interpreter, and that this was far better than being merely a Translator, because I seem to deeply feel what it is I'm trying to convey in my work. ... That's encouraging because that's exactly one of the things I want to get across.

By the end of our conversation, he had bought one of my prints and more or less commissioned me to do a painting for a certain (and surprising) amount of money. But this wasn't like your typical commission. He didn't tell me what he wanted and asked me to paint it for him. No, rather Michael had asked me to paint whatever it was that I wanted, with the desire to push me to paint. I'm a printmaker... I'm timid about painting. But he saw a painting I did a number of years ago, and a few others, and said that I shouldn't give up on painting. That I should definitely keep painting. This made me tilt my ear because another person that I did not know who saw (and bought) the same painting said exactly the same thing.
So somehow, by God's grace, I have this benefactor that not only appreciates the art that I have, but wants to see me make more and push me to experiment and go through threshes I am timid to go through.
This is an incredible affirmation to me -- from God, as God's way of reminding me of the gift that He's given me to make art. I still think that I'm just small viddles when it comes to art and art making, but to hear people (that are not my friends or family) seriously appreciate and compliment my work is encouraging.

Those are the awesome things that God has been moving in my life, recently. There are others... oh yes, many others. He is changing and growing and humbling me as His child. Continually and in personal ways.

That's what I've got for now.