"The Child Within" by Peter Schmidt

I saw this painting, and my heart said "This is me!" My childhood was filled with imagination and messiness and books and paint and warm drinks on cool nights. To this day, I am a glad I grew up in a home that encouraged reading and creativity. If my child-mind hadn't looked like this, my adult mind wouldn't be this way either. Although I feel that escapism is not the best option, fantasy is not a bad thing and can often show a window into deeper issues of life. Books and art are windows into the soul of the creator, or as my parents' college professor used to say, "Literature is a repetitively selective series of concretions revealing a value scale." The same is true for art. Every decision that is made affects the final product, and it comes from values that the artist holds to be significant. Thus, Peter Schmidt, I salute you for making a piece that resonates with me. Your value scale is wonderful. :)

Haze of Self

I am Atlantic fog around iron hulls-
A wall of roiling impossibility.
I am liquid, glacial air
Surrounding him 
To find all his cracks and fill them 
Until he pulls aside the shades 
To beam through my incorporeality.

Shattered, I slide down into his sunshine mouth
To rest and burn away in the molten light.

Life Maze

In this entry, I am going to recount something that happened several months ago, but which is still relevant to my current situation. The last week I was at Point Loma for the year, in the middle of finals and projects and stress, the church on campus offered a prayer walk in their sanctuary. I was stressed, naturally, and the semester had been a very difficult one for me emotionally. Although the fall semester should have been (and was in some ways) more difficult, the reality of some life changes only began to really hit me in the spring of 2011. Thus, I was internally a mess while I tried to hold it all together and make it through the semester. I had just attended an amazing worship service, and God was really drawing me that night.
Despite my massive to-do list, I decided to go through the prayer walk because I knew I needed it. It was the best decision of the whole semester. To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting much. While the quiet ambience of prayer walks helps me focus sometimes, and occasionally leads to epiphanies, I was expecting a fairly mundane amount of revelation. Most of the event produced the expected response, but there was something unexpected in the middle of the floor: a maze. At first glance it looked like a regular maze, but upon closer inspection I realized that it was not intended to make one lose one’s way; only one path led to the center. I stepped onto the pathway.
At first, walking around the maze seemed to be a simple prospect, I merely followed the lines as they curved around the floor. Slowly my focus began to shift, however, and my mind went to all the preoccupations that were troubling me. Things were not going the way I had anticipated, and my goals seemed further than ever from my reach. My mind began to parallel the way my body was moving, and it was only a matter of time before I began to see a connection. I was so close to the center goal at times; it seemed just within my reach. Then a sudden, hair-pin turn would take me away from the direction I thought had been clear. As I slowly traversed the length of what felt an eternity of maze, I could feel the Holy Spirit saying, “Don’t you see? You’re sitting in a turn staring at the goal without taking the steps necessary to eventually reach it. You are stagnating.” And I was. If I never let life’s current carry me further along its path, I would become fetid like putrid, rancid water, never making any progress.
When I left the church, I felt refreshed, and the summer has begun with a much lightened spirit. The turns of life are still difficult to take, but I have been reminded rather firmly of reality. I will not so easily be caught in the same place of stagnation, and am looking forward to whatever life brings, knowing I will have a loyal guide along the way.

Manifesto of a Young Artist

There are some things in life that can only be expressed through visual mediums. Words do not do them justice, nor does music, nor anything else. There is something raw and visceral in a piece of artwork that has been made to express something – be it anger, pain or ecstasy – that would not have the same impact in another form; there is a passion in art that impacts people, connects them to their very existence. Traditional art, especially, has this quality: the touch of a human hand to create something from nothing, to express the inexpressible. To me, art is largely about that expression, and a thoughtful, physical response to externals has been a huge part of my own artistic journey.

Art changes the way people think; it gives the viewer a new awareness. Either spatially or conceptually, it can cause them to have a different perspective. Many great artists utterly redefine space for their viewers, causing them to stand, shocked, as they see areas in a way they have never experienced them before, caught up to another level of awareness.

This process of increasing people’s perceptions is something that is unique to the arts. While increasing people’s awareness of their physical environment is wonderful, it is an equally important role of art to cause people to reexamine their mental surroundings. A simple painting can cause someone to rethink their entire philosophy in a way that words or arguments would not, merely because of the power of the visual image. This power of the artist should not be taken lightly. One should be thoughtful, aware, and very intentional in the message, whether it be serious or comedic, conceptual or purely a formal exploration.

I hope one day to share something eternal with people who see what I have made, to have an impact that will last long after I am dead. For this is what art is; it is the expression of life that will outlast death itself.

Time Inexorable

The more I try to hold onto time, the faster it seems to slip by. Sometimes it feels more like a variable than a constant, but I know that it marches steadily forward despite what I might do to speed it up or slow it down. Sometimes it feels like life’s only constant.

There are some moments, however, when time seems to stop, and I have found that those times are either the best or the worst that this life has to offer. Sitting on a bench for fifteen minutes reading poems in the sunshine can feel like an eternity, but so can the few seconds between the words “I’ve been meaning to talk to you” and the final blow.

I feel, however, that the good moments ultimately have a longer impact. Taking a few minutes out of my day to just be is something that has been a theme for me again and again this year as the busy-ness threatens to engulf me. Watching a documentary about the artist Andy Goldsworthy in my Contemporary Art History Class made me realize just how “busy” I have let my life become in the last few months. The gorgeous imagery of his home in the Scottish countryside made me wish for a simpler time when people rose and rested with the sun and cared more about relationship than the rat race.

So as I sit with a warm cup of tea and a calm spirit after meeting a few deadlines, my heart is filled with a soothing that I haven’t felt for over a week, and I wonder if there will be time in heaven (a topic I was discussing with a friend last week). It will be an eternity, but never having existed outside of linear time, I find this a difficult concept to grasp. Perhaps I will never fully understand it, but for now it is nice to only worry about the unanswerable, and to allow slumber to slowly take me.

I love to listen to this kind of music. It forces me to unwind, and it’s one of those times that seems to take both an eternity and a split-second to finish the song.

My Prayer Tonight

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will, that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.
(Attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr)

Living Sacrifice

So I had a longer post planned, but it's taking a backseat to homework for now. So in lieu of that, we were singing worship at a student-led service on campus tonight called "Timeout," and I feel like I should share this song because it is exceptionally close to my heart. 


...
A thousand times I've failed
Still Your mercy remains 
And should I stumble again
I'm caught in Your grace
Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame

In my heart and my soul
Lord, I give You control
Consume me from the inside out
Lord, let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love you from the inside out

Your will above all else
My purpose remains
The art of losing myself
In bringing you praise
Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame

In my heart and my soul
Lord, I give You control
Consume me from the inside out,
Lord, let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love you from the inside out

Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart
Is to bring you praise
From the inside out
Lord my soul cries out
...


Lord you know my failings and my strengths; you know exactly the plan you have for my life. Let me follow what /YOUR/ will is, not what I might think your will might be. Give me clarity and peace. Remind me to be still to hear from you.