God in my

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

- Be My Everything, Tim Hughes

I was told last week that I had unquestioning faith. I don't think that is true. I question all the time. But like this song, God is in my questions. He is in everything I do. These two stanzas of this song have been the past semester for me. Watching, waiting, hoping, weeping, hurting, healing. I don't think I have ever felt closer to God than in this last fall. I have such a sense of calling inside me that cannot be fulfilled anywhere except theatre. And where there is theatre, there is God. I am not sure of most things but I know, I know He is in theatre and that is where I continue to find Him.

Merry Christmas

To the Spectators

I've been thinking.
Maybe truth is beautiful in art to the person that looks and sees it.
To the spectator, audience, reader, watcher.
But to the artist, the truth in the art they have created can be horrible and terrifying and not beautiful at all.

That is the only way this book will make sense to me.

I can't get it out of my head.

"It is not a pretty world"

"I should have destroyed them. Who needs them? What good are they going to do the world? I had painted them; wasn't that enough? No it wasn't enough. They had to be moved into the public arena. You communicate in a public arena; everything else is puerile and cowardly."

"I had not even myself been aware of their power."

"I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. Art was demonic and divine. The solitary vision that put new eyes into gouged-out sockets was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine."

"Be a great painter; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause. But as a great painter I will cause pain again if I must. Then become a greater painter. But I will cause pain again. Then become a still greater painter. Master of the Universe, will I live this way all the rest of my life?"

- My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok

This book has changed the way I think about truth and art and God and their completeness in each other.

One thing I Love: Rita MacNeill. For some reason she just makes me really happy.
Song:
I've Got the World on a String by Michael Buble

Musings of a Different Day

The world around me lives, when I am silent
The things around me breathe, when I am still
Motionless I lay, watching the shadows play without me
I can only be.
Summed up in its entirety
is my life before me.
It would be a lie to run away.

I used to think that truth was beautiful. To see something or read something that is true was to see beauty in it.

I don't think that anymore.

I don't know what I think.

The truth is often painful and not beautiful or gratifying at all. Truth reaches and touches something of my soul that is sacred, yet not accepted.

Fools, the Lot of You

I'm reading My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok right now. I had to read The Chosen last year for an English course which he also wrote. That was the best book I read for that course hands down. If you have never read Potok before, you MUST. You MUST read him. He is a very gifted writer with many important stories to tell.

That's really all I have to say about it. And now a little poem for you.

When did we become so orderly

When did 'son' become the new slang

When did we decide neat boxed houses were the best way to reside

Did we even know we had a choice?

When did wrong become right

When did we decide that living lonely is better than living loving

Who tells us we have spots when all we see are stripes?

One Thing I Love: comfortable silence between friends
Song of the Day:
Heart by Stars

Myth stuff

My fear has frozen me

Awakening in cold sweat, still

Unable to move with the thoughts swirling through my head

I am motionless

I am the turning point, can't you see my careful actions

Oh Heavens how can I reach you?

What could I ever do to be with you?

Pour out your cries of pain to me all the Earth

I will hold you in your brokenness

What if stillness never comes?

What if stillness isn't here and everything I work towards is meaningless.

My cause isn't worth all my sacrifice and toil

Suddenly nothing makes sense anymore

Feelings of betrayal and pain take over and I begin to grope towards the door.

I stop and feel the strength come back

Up down up down

I find the power to hold your burden in my arms

I know that there is hope for you yet.

One Thing I Love: coffee shops with free internet. A student's friend.
Song of the Day:
Money, Money, Money by Abba

bits of Ryn. Ran.

Oh how the anguish.
What pain must you have suffered.
If my pain grows so deep and feeds such hungry desires,
then how must your pain have felt?
Did He forsake you?
The darkest hour of history it had to be
Suffering and pain co-exist.
I know this because that has been my experience
Congratulations to you all,
you have found your hopes and dreams in this little endeavour
May you learn and grow in different ways as I have
May you be gloriously rewarded and may all come to see your final product
May you understand the lonely process and the misunderstanding that must, oh it must, ensue.
Glad to have been of help.
Remember the love we have for one another.

Where does the good go?

Christmas Carol

Song of the Day:

We call them cool
Those hearts that have no scars to show
The ones that never do let go
And risk the tables being turned

We call them fools
Who have to dance within the flame
Who chance the sorrow and the shame
That always comes with getting burned

But you've got to be tough when consumed by desire
'Cause it's not enough just to stand outside the fire

We call them strong
Those who can face this world alone
Who seem to get by on their own
Those who will never take the fall

We call them weak
Who are unable to resist
The slightest chance love might exist
And for that forsake it all

They're so hell-bent on giving ,walking a wire
Convinced it's not living if you stand outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire

There's this love that is burning
Deep in my soul
Constantly yearning to get out of control
Wanting to fly higher and higher
I can't abide
Standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire

Oh ye brilliant literature

I'm writing a paper tonight and I was in the zone, researching and all, but I came across this quote about Ibsen and I have to share it.

"Ibsen's message to you is- If you are a member of society, defy it; if you have a duty, violate it; if you have a sacred tie, break it; if you have a religion, stand on it instead of crouching under it; if you have bound yourself by a promise or an oath, cast them to the winds; if the lust of self-sacrifice seize you, wrestle with it as with the devil, and if, in spite of all, you cannot resist the temptation to be virtuous, go drown yourself before you have time to waste the lives of all about you with the infection of that fell disease."

And it goes on. I wish I could write out the entire essay. So interesting. If you've read any of Ibsen you will understand this, if you haven't, hopefully this will make you curious.

Stop signs are optional

No they aren't. I saw one today and that's the first thought that came to my head.
Then I slammed on my brakes.

Silence no longer.
There is a God.
Whose love for me is deeper than I could ever imagine.
And who answers the deepest desires of my heart with far better things than I could ever hope for.

I should practise intercession more often.

Song of the Day:
SILENCE. NO SONG.

Forbidden Art

I was explaining to a friend yesterday that I went to see a performance of Handel's Messiah and he gave me the weirdest look. I gave an astonished one back.

"You don't know what the Messiah is?"

"Karyn, not everyone grew up in choir like you did"

"I'm pretty sure Handel's Messiah is one of most well known pieces of music ever written. At least in our Western world."

I brought it up at family dinner tonight and my entire family, including grandparents, agree that the Messiah is a well known piece of music. Not to mention incredibly beautiful and breathtaking.

This got me to thinking. How are we educating our children in regards to the arts? Are they even being educated? As a Christian and an artist, am I showing Christ and truth in my art? Is the Messiah a piece of truth that reflects Christ and should be known?

I came across an article in the latest Christianity Today issue discussing the use of the Messiah in China. The Chinese government decided that "sacred music should disappear". The author of the article states that "the Messiah is one of the greatest examples of Western music; it is also one of the greatest expressions of the gospel (the libretto is pulled directly from Scripture)". Despite this, the government has started to ban seemingly Western sacred pieces such as Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Brahm's Requiem, and Mendelssohn's Elijah. "While good music is valuable in itself, Christians contribute transcending value when they create beautiful art that carries the gospel" is the central idea or theme of this article and I have to say that I completely agree. There is something in the truth and sometimes awful grace of Christianity that brings us right to our knees in awe of the ultimate Creator. It outrages me that a government with such fundamentally high standards of living would find it acceptable to cut out an important art form from their society. John Nelson, a maestro who has performances around the world is quoted in this article. China may need to see action, "like Nelson's, to cultivate Christian art on the highest level- art for an audience of more than one, art that strives to be something with a long half-life, art that strives to be art, not propaganda. There is no small risk involved, because we never know at the time which art will, in fact, last. Yet despite the risk and difficulty, some of us should be deliberately creating it."

I think for me it is a little bit of both. Part of me is deliberate in creating art and what I create and another part knows that I need to, and out it flows, like it is the most natural thing in the world to me. It makes my heart sad that we live in a world where governing officials have say over what kind of art is created. Knowing that makes me want to create even more. What point is there in holding truth back from a group of people? None.

I will create because He first created, "If we love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, the church as it worships will contribute to our cultures' riches. And it will have given people the means and motivation to praise God, even in the most unlikely places".

One thing I Love: prayers being answered
Song of the Day:
Worlds Apart by Jars of Clay