Artistry - Excelence - and Worship

Today was a "yee-haw" roaring good time of worship at Bear Valley Church. I am consistently moved by both the heart and skill of those who lead us into worship each Sunday. The rhythm and and pace varies drastically from week to week, but the heart and skill of those who draw my heart to sing praises to my God never seem to wane. This week was straight up bluegrass! - with a mandolin, flying fiddle, upright bass and everything. We didn't just offer up old timey spirituals like "I saw the light," and "I'll fly away." (We did sing those, and they were AWESOME!) But, there were bluegrass arrangements of more contemporary works as well.

I found myslef lifting my hands in voiceless praise as the musicians picked and fiddled extravagant bridges between the choruses. Thank you God for your gifts. Thank you God for allowing us to fellowship with you and with one another through offerings of artistry and excelence. You love diversity - I know it is true just looking at your creation. You have created us diversely as well. And we offer up to you a diversity of praise!

Be glorified! Yee Haw!

My Best Work

Maybe its just because it is 1am and I've been staring at the monitor post processing for the last 2 hours... But I just had a moment of complete shock that this beautiful family is mine.

My Story (Part Two)

"Dave, I'm going to the library. Want to come?"

He sat there hunching over the keyboard. His 6'-5" stature made the dorm room's little desk chair seem all the more tiny. A quick series of keystrokes, then he bounded up and with his distinctive loping gate headed for the door, "Let's Roll."

There were two copies of Mere Christianity at the Southfield Public Library. Both were old. of the 1960's hard cover, yellowed pages starting to fall out variety. One was twice as thick as the other. Dave didn't say much during our trip after I told him what I was up to. He browsed the tech manuals or maybe went looking for a good collection of sci-fi short stories. Anything by Asimov or Orson Scott Card. I'm not sure whether I took the shorter or longer version home, but I set right to reading it.

Years later I picked up a copy of Mere Christianity to own. As I read it through again I marked all the significant passages that impacted me that first time through. Each question that pierced me, each explanation that somehow put my upside down world back in order. I even made note of the section where I am fairly certain I came to believe. A month after I marked up my copy my laptop bag was stolen, along with my Bible and this well glossed edition of Mere Christianity. I wonder to this day if those notes led to somebody else coming to faith. I'll find out some day!

That night I lay in my bunk and read right up to the part where Lewis makes his case that Christ was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. I remember the narrative pausing for an aside... "You should really make up your mind on this before continuing. The rest of the book won't do much good to you unless you decide." For the record... that aside wasn't in the edition I bought years later. I put the book down and went to sleep pondering: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? Hmmm. Good and likely irrelevant teacher wasn't an option anymore.

The next day I saw Shelley in Technical Writing. She had a copy of Mere Christianity for me. "I don't need it," I said. I remember the confused look on her face, followed by surprise when she found out I took the initiative to go get the book myself. "I am half way though, I'll talk to you about it tomorrow after I finish." That statement was made to impress. "Yes, Shelley, I am the kind of person who takes challenges seriously. Just wait and I will give you my verdict." I had decided I would keep reading even though I hadn't made up my mind on the Lord, Liar, Lunatic thing.

The image from the second half of the book that resides in my soul to this day is that of a fleet of ships sailing in formation. It seems God rights our miserable un-seaworthy tubs, and even creates a system whereby he can keep us from crashing into each other. I remember how heavily my failure and incapacity in relationships weighed on me. My parents couldn't make a marriage work. I couldn't even be a decent guy to my now ex girlfriend. I knew I wasn't capable of making a relationship run smooth - in formation. Somehow God could make that work.

Sprawled on my grandmother's couch in my dorm room, with Dave asleep in his bunk in the next room, late on that November evening, somehow I knew he WAS Lord! And he deserved more status and prominence in my life.

(Man, those last two sentences are bland. They simply do not convey what had just occurred in my heart. Quickening - palpitations! Somethings just don't have words. Jesus went from being a 2000 year old teacher to the Son of God, and Lord of my life. What are the words to convey that? Shock - amazement! Somethings just don't have words.)

The next day, flush from the news of my confession that Jesus Is Lord, a giddy Shelley reached into her backpack and pulled out a slightly worn Bible. "Here. I want you to have this. Start reading in John, or Romans." I didn't even know what those instructions meant.

(to be continued) Teaser: The next three days were REALLY FUN!

What do we want?

The dialects of creativity are authenticity and hope. Authenticity communicates the distance between brokenness and beauty. It's not that much. Hope communicates the distance between the already and the not yet. It too is not that much.

The poets and mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into human face; but it won't. Or not yet.

We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

~C. S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory (1949)

My Story (part one)

This lovely post by a dear friend has prompted me to put in writing the story of my conversion. I set out to do it in a night, but was only able to cover background. The next set of nights didn't get me any closer to the conclusion because relevant eddies waylaid my journey down the river. Understandably, I love this story. After all, it is mine. And there are delicious details I could NEVER cover in the 5-10 minutes they give you to share your testimony in a church service. Our testimonies get boiled down to elevator pitch speeches. There is a crisp efficiency in that, but what about a more baroque beauty? What of a naturalists walking pace encounter? A testimony of His handiwork is carved in these rocks too. Yet, what friend or acquaintance wants to sit down and hear a detailed documentary of some one's life?

You do?

Well then... for history! For my children! This is my witness. rough draft, part one! ;)

Enjoy!

-----

Average is not awful
We are not made for excellence
It comes at a price

Do I pour all I am
Into space, form and light?
or trade it away
for for 2.4 and a wife?

Design taking all of me,
no time to match my socks
How glorious that would be!

Yet "C" is not a crime
that disappointing balanced middle
that possible better!
given real limits.

All in one "A" basket,
and the rest to hell
or spread it around
for a cumulative "C"?

Maybe I can push a high B!
I still want it all.

------

I remember riding shotgun in my friend Mark's rusty Toyota pickup with my grandmother's old couch bungeed in the bed. We were heading back to Lawrence Tech's student apartments, prize in tow for my dorm room which was something like $20 a month less expensive for being unfurnished. This was the same couch that left impressive black streaks on the concrete with a shower of sparks as the casters were ground to nubs in the 1st annual couch luge some years later. Mark and I were talking about girlfriends.

"There's no denying it." I said, "I'm an asshole." My arm hung out the passenger window and cool September air started to whistle past the seat belt as we pulled out of Grandma's subdivision and onto south bound Van Dyke. I rolled up the window.

"No, you're not." He offered, annoyed. If I was an asshole, what did that make him? I was the good guy, the nice guy. He was the slacker thief, the unaccomplished womanizer. I was the one who had it all together - a good family, a good career, a good woman. In truth my motives weren't that dissimilar from his. But I was a good year away from understanding that.

"No, I am." I said slowly, nonchalantly, resigned to my fate. "I'm doing whatever I can piss her off and make her be the one to break up with me, so I don't have to do it. She loves me, and I'm a coward asshole."

The relationship lingered, but not that long. It wasn't as painful as I thought it should be.

------

All in!
as the poker legends say.
the "A" basket it is.
I never liked matched socks anyway.

-------

Graduate school entrance essays require originality - especially for a design profession. I was still writing rough drafts on onion skin back then, letting the words flow free-form - making connections on the page, all arrows and exclamation points, delicately threading concept to concept and finding the hidden connections of word and symbol.

"Describe the significance of architecture, and why you feel called to pursue a career in design."

"Simple enough," I thought. "Architecture is my life! My one! My All! The superstitious and the weak put their trust in all sorts of things - and they do it out of fear. No social or existential crutch for me! Who needs an external prop when you can CREATE! Nothing is beyond me in this sphere. I am Master of the Universe - if I have religion, architecture is it."

-------

"So? What do you think?" I smiled proudly after reading them my first draft. I thought to myself smugly, "I've penned one of the great manifestos! Howard Roark would be proud! It's a rallying war cry for all that we've sought to become."

They sat there silent around the cafeteria table, my compatriots from the graduating class of '96, some of them slack jawed. Of course, I knew some weren't up to the call, but surely Dave - surely Shelley. They knew the instinct, the intuition, the feeling. Push! Work! Destroy! Rework... They knew. They would understand.

And then, slowly at first, words came out of their mouths. It seemed each of them gathered around this table had something to say. Strange words, almost blasphemous to my ears, unheard of words - a cripple's feeble set of words...
"What about God?"

God?!? Who says there is such a being? Surely not you. INCREDULOUS! A force? A higher power? Maybe. But a personal God?!?

"And Jesus Christ?"

Are you serious? What could a man who lived two thousand years ago possibly have to do with me?!?! SHOCKED!

"And Faith!"

FAITH? FAITH! Why would I entrust myself to some unknown and unknowable thing? I have faith in ME! I believe in my ability to take things apart, put them back together, find congruency, orchestrate beauty, discover truth!

"Who ARE you people?" Bewildered disbelief ricocheted inside my head, but my face likely didn't telegraph my dismay. I had studied alongside these men and women for three years. I knew them, so I thought. We had shared so much as we learned from the great masters of our craft, and now they come out - closet religiosos? Worse than that Christians! It was a serious blow.

Sure Dave's dad was a minister... and I was baptized Catholic! The nominal past came up on the first day of school in passing year's earlier, and never again. According to my parents the baptism was "just in case." I never attended church, save the few occasions during my early childhood when visiting Grandma. I had no interest in the goings on. But I can recall the organ! The oak and steel tubes wonderfully arranged held my attention even when not in use. I was transfixed on them through all the stand up sit down. I remember thumping the tan leather wrapped kneelers on the grey terrazzo while being repeatedly shushed and handed breath mints. We always left the service right after the Eucharist while the organ fired into closing crescendos and everyone stood. She would stream out ahead of the rush holding my little hand in her's, into the grey skied world outside, her hair held manageable against Michigan's somehow humid winter wind by a plastic babushka.

-----

Shelley walked out of the cafeteria with me that day and extended a challenge. We were crossing the quad toward architecture from the harsh brutalism of the management building. "Erik, you are downing on Christianity, but you don't know anything about it."

"Fair enough," I thought.

"We may not have been able to answer your questions, but there are answers. If you think you can take things apart, put them back together again and find truth, you should look into Christianity before you decide what it is. There is this book called Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. You should read it."

OK, challenge accepted.

Summer Projects

I didn't blog all that much this summer. I was doing to many other projects, things that required not a little time. Here is a sampling:

The Prayer Closet

This last Sunday night my wife and I dropped our kids off at Children's Choir and went for a walk around the lake next to our church. Before the "date night" was over we ended up praying together in one of the newly remodeled prayer rooms at our church. The rooms are used by prayer teams/ministers on Sunday mornings with those who are in need.

My call to ministry is in Spiritual Direction with and through art.

I was contemplating the bare walls of the little room, and wondering about what it would be like for these walls to be adorned with ebenezers. My first thought was that such objects might be intimidating to the uninitiated - when their focus should be on encountering God through prayer in the moment. Then I saw a vision of this little prayer closet opening onto a huge rotund gallery of paintings and sculptures and objects commemorating encounters with God. I was overwhelmed. To make a long story short - I feel this vision is a calling to be involved in the prayer ministry of our church - engaging others in their journey, offering Spiritual Direction, creating and helping others to create their own ebenezers. What FUN!

In many ways this is an outward call that includes the inward practices of quiet, reflection, surrender, and prayer. It is both humbling and exciting to think that the ministry before me exists in a little unadorned windowless closet.

Our Prayer

Like cold steel shackles chafe and burn the skin, rubbing raw and scaring. I watch despair and incapacitating obligation bite viciously through to their bones.

Then a flash of bright springtime green with little yellow flowers dotting the field and cotton wisps floating in the air. In slow motion stretching, yearning eyes heavenward, leaving the earth she leaps, a pirouette of joyous vibrant color, the icy black chains falling broken back to the ground.

and back again to black eyed doubt and duty. Peeling wallpaper, rust and must make their home in bewildered blinded hearts, becoming embittered - cracked and peeling just like the walls of this cell. Like late fall leaves caught up in a thorny juniper, dry and crackling, so fragile after a season with no rain.

How to remove them without crushing them to dust?

The enemy watches too. Giggling with glee at his priceless catch of princes and queens.

Oh tears! Sweet gift of tears! Flow like sacred waters of baptism. Immerse these drying souls and soften them - be a salve for their affliction. Holy tears from our savior.

Look up and feel the life giving summer rain as it kicks up coronas of dead and dying dust all around you with each weighty plop.

Plop

Plop

Stand up from the spiritual squalor and humbly stretch your needy arms upward in the downpour of his compassion and care.

Lord hear our prayer.

a dream - The Visitor

Hovering above me as I slept in my bed he scratched out, "You don't want to forget this." The somehow familiar hoarse whisper. He set a small box on my nightstand. I woke up slowly, without fear and with too slight an annoyance. In hindsight I wonder how this could be. A looming figure in our bedroom in the middle of the night, three children asleep just across the hall.

Lean and disheveled, his unkempt greying beard disguised leathery sunken cheeks under deep set dark eyes. Well worn khakis two sizes too big were heavily cinched at his waist. His soiled t-shirt fell over them smelling of stale cigarettes, sweat and beer. The faint blue moon illuminated the silence through sheer shades gently wafting. I glanced at my unstiring wife, and scanned his hands for weapons. A gaunt yet imposing visage belying a wiry strength, I knew he didn't need any. So I rolled out of bed gently sliding his clandestine delivery off the nightstand and holding it protectively to my gut.

We stood together in my grandfather's pristine garage with plastic flowery curtains hiding the clean work bench and well sharpened gardening tools. All around was the comforting warm sweet aroma of lubricating oil mixed with grass clippings. Our only illumination from the half light side door spilled askew across the space. His half lit disturbing presence juxtaposed against the light in stark angular vertically. He turned to face me.

"I don't want this," I said, holding the box out to him. I felt like a ghost outside of myself, like I should be fearing for my life, but I am beyond fear of pain or injury. No! Like I should be fearing for my soul, and a nauseating tingle rose up my spine.

"That's fine," he offered slowly through a pursed frown, shaking his head and casually swinging his sinewy arms in a wide gesture that he really couldn't care less. He took a step away from me, his gaze sweeping across the painted concrete floor.

"Then take it back," I thought to myself.

In the driveway now, his dark junker of a work truck, bent and rusting, overflowed with debris and filthy tools. The driver side door was open and an empty beer can fell out, bounced twice and then rolled with a hollow tinkle out toward the street. He stood there pacing in the glow of the orange sodium street lamp where the well trimmed lawn met the sidewalk.

I watched empty handed next to the house as he unzipped and took a leak on my grandfather's roses. "You're going to want it back," he intoned, hostile.

"I don't think so," I offered calmly confidently, controlling a wired alertness ready to react - to run or to fight. He stared right through me, throwing all of his energy into that piercing gaze, penetrating my soul. There he met an outside strength that bolstered me and allowed me to stand despite my fear. A strength that assured me the battle was uneven in my favor.

"Oh, You're going to regret that," he threatened as he undid his belt and let down those two sizes too big khakis and began to defecate on my driveway.

I turned and went inside.

Play House Follow up

Here are a few pictures of the different playhouses from the gala. The night of the gala was overcast and rainy. A shame, because there was low turn out. All told they raised around $20,000 for their non-profit.


The week of wear and tear from being on display at the children's museum did minor harm to most of the houses. The only thing we couldn't touch up: They had removed the bell cord, and try as we might we couldn't get it re-threaded inside.


Our steering wheel survived though!


I got a lot of compliments for SPOT. In the end our firehouse was the biggest dollar bringer at auction, though in my opinion, it wasn't best of show...

This beauty was dubbed an "artist's studio," and had a chalk board inside. The week at the museum left it completely covered with chalk tags and names. It looked fantastic. I thought it was a shame they hosed it down for the gala. If I were to buy one of these playhouses, this would be the one. It now has a home in the backyard of a posh 1920's mansion near Cheeseman Park in Denver.


"Chia House" photographs better than it looks in person. Construction wise I doubt it will make it through a winter.

Act now and your child could have the COOLEST lemonade stand on the block...


This "space station" was completely covered in zinc panels! We are speculating that the price it fetched at auction wouldn't even cover the cost of the siding.

All in all, working on the playhouse competition was a fun experience. I think we can do a much better job, much more efficiently next year.

Three Fires

This economy is getting the best of me

I wish I could say the sweet scented smears of sunscreen and the whistling slightly over-seared dogs being snatched from certain fiery death by my tongs just in time for dinner has been occupying my carefree mind this summer, keeping me content if not slightly too full and a wee bit sticky. But truth be told, I've been sinking. sinking... sinking...

Going under. Glancing up far too calmly at the swirling immense complexity of it all clicking and whirring away without me. "Isn't that interesting?" I think to myself. Down. down... down...

Here I sit, Monday through Thursday, earning what feels like too much pay for this... this... sitting.

Grateful to be employed, but with lack of good meaningful work to do a curious little battle for my self worth is being waged. As if I was a genteel spectator at a civil war battle, I watch the flying darts and arrows of occupational malaise pierce my own soul. Lethargic - almost disinterested. Their seeping poison making me sleepy.

One more lap around the empty office? Another cup of coffee? What am I doing here? Isn't there something more important I could be doing? Is this pay check worth it?

How did work get all tied up with money anyway? Work is good for the soul. But money without work has me caught like a greedy monkey with his clenched fist in a jar.

Hey! I would listen if You told me to let go. I thought you should know.

Playhouse Design

Well times are slow for us architects right now. In our lull we contributed some time for a fun fund raiser for a local affordable housing developer, Rocky Mountain Communities. They are on display at the Children's museum for the next week and a half. If you are in Denver on July 25th consider attending the gala and bidding on one of the five playhouses designed by local architects for your backyard.

We designed a firehouse complete with a fire engine to drive, a bell to ring, a ladder to climb, and a real brass pole to slide down! The engine house mascot "Spot" even has his own doggy door!

I have a couple of quick shots from set up this morning. The signage was installed later. I'll get a few more shots at the gala. Some of the other entries are pretty cool too!