Shedding Some Incandescent Light

I AM PEEVED. That's one of the privileges that comes with being "of a certain age."

Trying to be all self-aware and stuff, I've tried to get to the bottom of my pissed-offness. I'm afraid it comes from that propensity of us "men of a certain age" to resist change and accept the New.

But, it could be that maybe all those who tell me the feds are trying to take over our lives are right. That is one of the arguments of the newly armed--get a gun and ammo while you still can.

While I do understand that concern and respect the seriousness of it, as I've said before, it scares the crud out of me. I'm just not sure semi-stable people like me need to be packing.

My mind hasn't changed. In fact... let me tell you about a recent encounter with a good-ol', red-blooded, pick-up driving Okie. I can't say much, for fear he'll hunt me down, but apparently he was displeased with my driving. And since we've relegated the power of the middle finger to the mundane through casual use, I guess he figured the only way to let me know of his discontent was to use his handgun to fire a shot over the top of our car. I'm not kidding.

I'm holding to my belief that he intentionally shot OVER us, because I can't bring myself to think that a person would actually be so mad, medicated, or mentally-deranged to actual shot with intent to kill. But hey, he had a gun, why not use it?

Well back to my peevedness and concern over government intervention. I really like incandescent light bulbs. I do not like florescent. Florescent have a freakish blueness to them and a flutter that drives me nuts(er). 

Now the government comes along and says, "Incandescent bulbs are banned." Seriously? Not to brag, but for an old guy, I'm pretty green. I don't hug trees, but I do recycle.

I did some quick Googling and ciphering and best I can tell with the electricity it takes to power every house in Oklahoma for a week, you can power the Vegas Strip for a day. Probably not a good attitude, but as long as the Strip gets to keep it's lights on. I'm going to burn my incandescents (until they've all burned out anyway, because you can't buy them anymore).

I wish I could blame the Obama administration (just because they are so easy to blame for everything), but this one is on George W. Blame doesn't help anyway.

Let me just say this right now to the light bulb police, you can come to my house and try to unscrew my bulbs if you want, but be forewarned, I might hit you in the shins with my walking-stick.

You can read about my preference for Bartitsu here.

POPS To Be The New Barbara Walters

BARBARA WALTERS WENT PUBLIC with her list of "Fascinating" people for 2013. I think she said there were ten but I could only remember nine. And actually, some were groups.

Miley Cyrus
The Royal Baby
Edward Snowden
Duck Dynasty cast less Phil. He was purported to be hunting.
Kanye West & Kim Kardashian
Robin Roberts
Pope Francis
Jennifer Lawrence
Hillary Clinton

No offense to Ms. Walters or those she found fascinating, but my list would be different with the possible exceptions of the Pope and the Royal Baby.

Barbara announced that this would be her last TV special about her fascinating people. That's a shame--she does a good interview and I like the intent.

Photo of Barbara Walters that is old enough I can hopefully post it without getting sued.

So I am happy to announce that I will be stepping in to her pumps and developing the list of Fascinating People for 2014.

The whole thing will be a little different though. First, my list will be less populated with "famous" people because those types are unlikely to give me the time of day much less a sit down interview (and frankly, they're not always that fascinating). Also, at this time I don't have a commitment from a major (or minor) news medium to air the "special."

But, good news, I do have this little forum here at About POPS. That is one of the wonderful things about the WWW. It's provides such a wonderful way for anyone to have a say, sing a song, rant or rave, publish a book or a movie, etc.

I don't know at this point how many will be on the list. I'm not going to be limited to the Top 10 or Twelve or whatever. That kind of limitation puts you in the unnecessary position of having to ultimately choose one as more fascinating than another. Also if you have a certain number of spots to fill it puts you in the unfortunate situation, as Barbara found herself, of having to include brutally unfascinating people like Kim Kardashian and Kanye just to fill out the list.

That brings us to what seems to be the most daunting part of this challenge: identifying who is fascinating. I'm keeping the criteria broad at this point. I am definitely interested in your suggestions on whom I might consider. So keep your eyes and ears open for fascinating people. Oh and here's a hint: if by some chance, our paths should cross, act fascinating; you might just make the cut.

Manger, Magi, and The Mystery of Majesty

INCARNATION! THAT'S WHAT THIS SEASON IS ABOUT. The Word becoming flesh and dwelling with us. (John 1.)

It is so weird to me that God would do this--enter humanity like this; and then we, the church, seem to work so hard to make Jesus something other than human. Why would we do that?

I want you to meet a dear friend, Mako Fujimura. Mako is the person that taught me about the concept of "re-humanizing" the world. Becoming what God intended us to be.

Somehow in understanding this, the mystery of incarnation became clearer to me.

Mako Fujimura

For this post, I am sharing with you some of Mako's words.  This is from a talk Mako did to artists encouraging them to create art for the Christmas season. Mako is an artist and founder of International Arts Movement, a movement I've had the joy and honor of being a part of for several years now. I asked Mako for permission to share this with you and he graciously agreed. You can find more of his writings and learn of his work at www.makotofujimura.com.

What a strange beginning to what many have called “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

A teenage girl engaged to a carpenter gets pregnant. She claims that an Angel appeared to her to say that she would have a virgin birth. Her fiancé is hesitant to believe her. They cannot make it back home when she is ready to give birth, and they cannot find an Inn in which to stay. So she gives birth in a stable.

The people who come to visit are not the in-laws or other family members, but shepherds—an identity few people desired, like today’s garbage collectors. A few weeks later, Magicians from the East come with their gifts. They are fortune tellers, not religious leaders, and the stars are their scriptures.­

The themes of the Greatest Story are not of power, wealth, and worldly notions of success; it is rather the story of people in the margins, people under suspicion, people who are outsiders—people like artists.

When I meet someone on a plane and I tell them I am an artist, I almost always have to go into “explaining mode” to answer the same common questions: “What kind of art do you make?” “Why do you do it?” “Can you make a living?”

If I said I was an electrical engineer, explaining would not be necessary. But tell people, particularly Christians, that I am an artist and I am immediately regarded with suspicion and thoughtless dismissal: “You don’t paint nudes, do you?” “I don’t understand modern art.” “You make that weird stuff that my kids could paint and then call it ‘art,’ don’t you?”

No wonder artist types sit in the back of the church and leave as soon as the music ends, if they come to church at all. Church is for successful people, for respectable folks with real jobs.

But church people forget that the Bible is full of wonderful, strange artsy folks. Ezekiel the prophet believed he was told by God to do performance art like eating a scroll and cooking with human dung. King David danced naked in the streets. The prophet Hosea claimed that God told him to marry a prostitute and, when she’d run off, to keep buying her back from her pimp by baking food for him.

Stillpoint-evening. Makoto Fujimura.

Then you have this pregnant teen who gave birth to a supposed King in a food trough—a King who was first greeted by the garbage collectors of the time. Right.

When I read the Bible as an artist, though, it really makes sense. Artists do all sorts of strange things to communicate—they create language to describe the indescribable. Ezekiel, David, and Hosea were marginalized, poor, outcast, creative, curious—more like artists than “respectable people.” God is also an artist, inventing strange ways to communicate. Since he exists outside Time and Space, He has to translate the indescribable into our notion of the ordinary. He humbled Himself to condescend to us, daring to use us, broken and lost, to do the work of re-creation. And like “modern art,” this looks strange, otherworldly, and full of mystery.

Saint Paul, while in prison, asks for prayer to “boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel.” The “gospel” is the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, which on the surface seems pretty clear. So why does he use the word “mystery?” Why not say, “Pray that I can be clear,” or “Pray that I can be persuasive?” Perhaps what Paul meant by “proclaiming the mystery” was revealing things spoken of in the past, in the Old Testament, secrets that were now being revealed through Christ.

“Mystery” can also, in the generative sense, mean indescribable, unseen, or unforeseen things. Jesus—himself a mysterious, artistic person—often spoke of mysterious things by using parables, stories that did not really work on a normative level. He said things like, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or wear,” and then, as an antidote to our worry addiction, suggested, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them . . . Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

He told the story of two sons. The younger, wayward son takes his inheritance from his father and goes to town, wasting it all on frivolous pleasures. His father does not stop him from destroying himself, but when the son loses everything and decides that it’s better to be home than homeless, the father throws the biggest party for him, saying, “My son was lost, and is found.” The elder brother is understandably upset with his younger brother’s reckless behavior and cannot fathom why his father would welcome his younger brother home. Where’s the discipline? Where’s the punishment? As Jesus tells this story, he turns to the religious authorities of his day, insinuating that they were that elder brother who did not understand the Father’s frivolous love for his inconstant and selfish child. They were as we often are—legalistic and wayward, an anxious people who cannot stop to appreciate beauty or hear music in the spheres of our world.*

A journey with Jesus is more like being an artist than working a predictable 9-to-5 job. It’s unpredictable, risky, and often strange. It’s an adventure for which you need faith. You don’t need to be a “respectable Christian” to walk with Jesus: in fact, it’s best if you are not. You’ll be better able to wrestle with the deeper realities of your journey, to confront your brokenness. You’ll be able to let your life’s experience become the materials for your craft, articulating that deep mystery within you rather than trying to explain it away.

The church needs artists, because, like Jesus, they ask questions that are at the same time enigmatic and clear, encouraging and challenging. But, unlike Jesus, they are far from perfect. And that’s okay because none of Jesus closest followers were respectable, well put-together people either. Jesus still gave them “authority” because they were chosen, broken creatures in need of a Savior who learned of their dependence on God. He gave them “author-rity” to write the story of the Kingdom and the mystery of redemption. He made them into artists. 

We are all chosen, broken creatures and Jesus has made us all into artists, whether we use a brush or simply ride on a garbage truck. Our stories are living stories of the Kingdom that we write every day. Infused with the mystery of the Great Artist’s spirit, our stories can become a wide open adventure—part of the Greatest Story Ever Told.

About Time

RECENTLY MY AMAZING-MISSUS AND I SAW ABOUT TIME, a new film by Richard Curtis. We're big fans of his films. Judging by the fact that we were two of about six people in the theatre, not enough people saw it. I hope you were one of them.

If not, raise your right hand and repeat after me: "I promise I will rent and watch About Time as soon as it's available."
[Note to all the "Pops" out there: the DVD release date of About Time is February 4, 2014. It could be a smart thing to get it and watch it with your significant other(s).]

I am fascinated by time. It's mysterious and precious. It is the basic rhythm of our lives and we need rhythm. Let that little ticker in the center of your chest stop and see what I mean. Check out my post on the autumnal equinox (it's better than it sounds). 

Time is weird. We talk about "saving" time, but we know we can't. Try stuffing a few hours in a piggy bank and you'll find out those hours aren't there when you go back to get them. You can't even get back the time you spent pondering how fast the time goes.

Each year for the past three we've taken our oldest grand-girl, Karlee, to see The Nutcracker. I was looking at the photos I took of her next to the nutcracker at age four and this year at five. I commented that before long she would be able to look him in the eye. And then I thought, "NO! Slow this all down."

Karlee at 3,4 & 5.

We have a friend named Traci. She is originally from Keyes, Oklahoma. Traci is one of those people that when you spend time with them you feel like a better person and that the world is a better place. She has a sort of eternal youthfulness. I think I've figured out why. 

If you're in Keyes, Oklahoma, Traci's hometown, you can jump in the car (or more likely, the pickup), drive an hour, then check your watch. You will find it is the same time as when you left. Really. It's like the hour didn't pass. Maybe Traci did that--a lot.

Saturday, December 21st is the Winter Solstice. If you live, as I do, in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the shortest day of the year. Well, that's not exactly right. It will have 24 hours just like all of our other days. It's just that more of those 24 will  be dark than any other day of the year. So if you're a bat or vampire, this is your day.

What makes something timeless--not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion?

To me, many stories are timeless like To Kill A Mockingbird. But I don't know why. Songs like: Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Amazing Grace, and Silent Night are timeless; but why?

I don't need to be timeless, but I do want to make the most of the time. I once told my muse, Kathleen, that one of the words and realities I hate most is squander. Squandering is as ugly as it sounds.

I wouldn't mind living long, but when it comes to death, I agree with Woody Allen: "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

A couple of years ago, I had a surgical procedure. I guess it was sort of elective--it's not like I had a heart attack or anything. During the surgery, they stopped my heart. I don't know for how long, but it seems to me that I shouldn't have to count that time. Right?

It's kind of like Traci from Keyes. By now, you no doubt have figured that puzzle out. If not, Keyes is out toward the end of the Oklahoma Panhandle. If you drive west from Keyes for about 50 miles you go from the Central Time Zone to the Mountain Time Zone where it is an hour earlier.

From here you can be in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, or Kansas in less than an hour.

Maybe it's just that in places like Keyes, Oklahoma, time moves more slowly. Traci is the only person I know from Keyes, but if folks out there are anything like her, they laugh more, they live in the moment a little more, they don't squander time or friendships.

So Saturday at sunset maybe we'll raise a glass to the Winter Solstice. Do it early though: night is coming fast--literally and proverbially. So let's make a toast to timelessness. And whatever you do, slow down and savor, don't squander.