Pushing through some earth

Dear Earth & Dirt,

I'm deciding to continue beginning entries with "Dear suchandsuch." It makes me feel like I'm actually writing to someone and not just typing words to a largely anonymous and intangible audience.

It's been since January that I wrote a blog entry, as if Avatar was the last interesting thing that's happened in my life up until now. That's not entirely true. I realized in January (or was it February?) that I was struggling with seasonal depression, and I realized I had a lot of errors in my perspective of how, deep down, I think I should be treated by friends. A major shift in my life occurred more recently: I am leaving the ministry work I've known for four years and moving on to God knows what. I went on a personal retreat in the woods at a hermitage, and literally it was a single-person cabin in the woods with little interaction with others. Just me, God, and woodland creatures. It was a good time of reflection and reassessment of what was going on in my life.

So now I'm in a place of looking for and praying for a new career. It's hard to get one when you feel like you don't have much to stand on. Why do I say that? Welp, I went to school for art.

Yes. Art. Printmaking to be precise, but that's neither here nor there.
This is where you shake your head and say, "Way to go."

I realized the implications of gaining a degree in the creative arts. It's not the kind of career move that makes you financially stable unless you're Picasso - and he's dead. Then again, going into full-time ministry isn't exactly the kind of career move that makes you financially stable either. That's the kind of work that you pray hard in, eat lots of humble-pie, and ask God to provide for your needs while simultaneously working hard to invite folks to join your efforts. No easy task when the culture is steeped in the mentality that money comes when Team #1 works hard for it, and it's held in a vice grip unless they are otherwise convinced you are worthy of their donation.

OK. That's not exactly what my experience was like. That's an extreme example. However we do live in a culture that is pretty rooted in the phrase, "MY money." I have a problem with that phrase too. But ultimately money belongs to God (no, not in some massive bank in the sky).

Anyway.
Being an artist I think is just as difficult to be a missionary. As an artist who loves Jesus, I need to pray while I paint, eat lots of humble-pie because my art is not nearly as awesome as Makoto Fujimura, and I need to ask God to give me the fuel of inspiration and to provide for my family's needs. And dear God please help me find a paying job that is somehow related to art! Once again, no easy task, since there are lots of folks out there (sadly, many of them are Christians) who don't think that art is an important and valid activity outside the realm of decorative art or "hobbyist" art.

Even worse is my brothers and sisters that think that the only viable type of art for a Christian to make is if it is strictly obvious that it is about Jesus.

C'mon. I don't think even Jesus was that obvious about who He was in His day, unless people had open eyes and more importantly open hearts to Him. Here's an example in which the irony had to be pointed out to me. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus runs into two guys who don't at all recognize Him (probably thanks to some Divine now-you-see-me, now-you-don't phenomenon). He talks to them about everything that was said to happen to him, and then when they're about to part ways, He pretends to go on His way before they urgently invite Him over for dinner. The Son of God not only veils His identity, but He "acted as if He were going farther." If you don't believe me it's in Luke 24. Jesus totally fakes out His friends. Dude, if Jesus can hide His identity when He's standing right in front of someone to help bring out a greater point of understanding, why can't I make a piece of art that isn't obviously about Jesus?

That all aside... I'm looking for work in a city where work seems to be hard to find. But, nothing is impossible with God. While I'm searching and applying, I'm praying because I've got no other way to get a job. Remember the whole degree in art business? But, nothing is impossible with God. I'm saying that twice because I have to remember that; it's surprisingly easy to forget.

Wow, this entry went a completely different direction I thought it might. Maybe next time around I'll write about an art project I'm slowly working on that involves journals, and making a critique of online journals.

We'll see. It might go a totally different direction.

Covered in dirt,
Yiv