listening to:
Sigur Rós' discography on repeat (thanks to dear Celine for reminding me of them again. I was lost in finding an artist to listen to while writing this)(click the link to learn how to say it properly)
feeling: content
Well I don't really know where to start; I just plan on covering a lot in this post.
Well to start it of, this last week and a bit have been absolutely wonderful. Everyday of break has been fun. Even the weather compliments that fact as well. I have been making plans with many of my friends who I have lost contact with over the last semester and it brings such joy to my heart that I shall see them all again. I am putting off starting work until May so I can fit all the time I need to hangout (don't tell my parents though). My tan is already starting to come back to me, even sunburned the back of my neck on the second day of break. Life has been good to me as of late. My heart has been filled with joy and I wish my every week of my life was this much fun.
Well if you know me, you know that I tend not to get angry or moody. I am a bottler of those emotions. The worst part about being a bottler is that when something opens the door to those emotions, they all get out at once. When that happens, I haven't been able to really describe why I get sad or angry. Since whatever sets those gears in motion would never get me that moody. It's a horrible trait to have, I think, I have said things that I wish I had not said and have done things I would have never if I were in the right mind. Until I learn to actually deal with it better though, it's stuck with me. I know that it has much to do with how I like to always please people and with how I always avoid confrontation. Instead of actually bringing up the point with the person, I just store it somewhere in my body and ignore it. Last night was one of those moods and I don't know why I was like that, maybe it's about me getting my hopes up and then having them slowly crushed (it's not that person's fault at all, nothing they could of done about it anyway). It could have been a number of other reasons as well but I can't point the blame at anyone or anything other than myself for being a bottler. Every time I do empty that bottle of all emotions, I get back to thinking about a Nooma video. Number 16 in the series, Store (yes I have talked about this video before but I shall talk about it a little differently this time, not to worry. I just know how much it applies to me). Rob Bell is talking about our anger. Not just our surface anger, it’s the anger that we keep down and hidden away. It's exactly the type of anger that I get every once in a while. He uses the example of a guy who flipped him off in traffic and tail gated him for a while with a look of sheer rage on his face. When traffic started spreading out and Rob thought he'd have some fun with this. He was going to smile when the road-ragger passes him. When he pulls past he doesn't even acknowledge that Rob was there, he just looks straightforward. It can easily be seen that rage wasn't from 5 minutes ago, that guy was angry long before. It's true; we see this so often in our daily life, yet we just shrug it off likes it is not that big of deal. Yet this is the anger that gets us in trouble, we don't know what to do with it. So we take it out on strangers or the ones we love. It's impossible to avoid, we all get angry, it's just one of our emotions that we must deal with. Anger leads us to places; I want to learn how to direct my anger that is not selfish. I want to be more like Jesus, to get angry at the injustice of the world that I live in. It will be a long and hard road to travel upon, but it's a road I want to travel. In the end, I will be a better person, someone who I want my children to look up to. The first step for me is to learn how to bring up the small problems that happen in daily life and to not be scared about talking with my friends about them.
A few days ago I had coffee with an old friend from high school who is going to school in Vancouver to become a Youth Pastor. I have only seen her once since high school, which was at the last new years party i attended. So we basically haven't sat down and talked for 2 years basically. One point that we talked about really brought me home. I was asking if she had ever read a book called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. She said no, so I started explaining it the best that I could (seeing how I haven't read it in almost 5 years, I did pretty good. Although I am going to search for it again so I can read it again. It applies to me now, more than ever). What the book is about Donald Miller in his young adult years and his struggles to find a church that fit him. He talks about his journey through church after church, finding out each time that they didn't fit his spiritual needs. First of all, I can't stand when people talk about a church like a building. Any place can be a church; you could be in one without even knowing it. A building can't make one closer to god; it's all about community. It's the people that are around you that make a place a church; they are the ones that challenge you. A building can't challenge you, it can't show compassion or support, it can't care for you, ask you how you're days been, pick you up when you have fallen. It's just not possible for a place to do those things, that's why it makes me upset when society labels a place a church. You don't need material to be able to worship god, nothing can connect you to god, that connection is inside of you. You can't see it, you can't break it, and it is there and will always be there.
The word Church comes from ancient Rome, in the days of Caesar. When Caesar would conquer a new place he would give them the choice to worship him or to not worship him. If your answer was no, you would be crucified. If you did agree and acknowledge that Caesar is your savior, your town or village would become a place of worship to Caesar. The places were refereed to as, in the Greek language, Ecclesia. Translated to English, Church. The earliest Christians took this word, used by Caesar to show his military might, to describe their gatherings. Where they confessed Jesus is Lord. It was actually quite ingenious of them to use this military propaganda to send the complete opposite message (Thanks to Rob Bell for his history lesson in Nooma 15, You).
The problem for me, is that I am not challenged by my church as a whole, right now I can't refer to much that goes on there. The people are great and everything, but I've felt much more connected at other places of worship. I am going to start the process of finding a new church soon. I want to feel guilty when I sleep in or miss it by accident that guilt is just not there. I want to enjoy going and not feel forced by my family. Youth was the only thing that connected me to the church and since that is now gone (those people that are reading this will know why, but there are also a few who don't know, you might find out one day, don't try and force it though). I am left alone, lonely on the side of the road. I really want to travel to different areas of the world and see what their 'churches' are like. I've seen the very traditional, contemporary side in Italy and England, but I want to see how my generation does church around the world. I love how some of young adults are doing it here in Calgary and it just makes me want to see more. Maybe one day, I'll make a sweet documentary out of it afterwards too, for the people who are just like me. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about how cool that would be.
Rob Bell describes what a Church is perfectly. "When your around people like this, you have the sense that in some way, you've been with Jesus, that is Church." Those people are the ones that challenge you, that make you question, the people that make you feel like god hasn't given up on the world. That's the kind of church I want to be apart of.
This past Thursday I had my last 1on1 meeting with my teacher. This was for our Photographic Technology class and the class I enjoyed the most. I came out with my best work in that class and it challenged me more than the other studio classes we had this semester. During this meeting, we didn't talk about any of my work at all, but rather about me. This teacher is the most blunt teacher we have and we absolutely get challenged in his critiques more than all our other classes combined. We get so much feedback out of the critiques, and we don't accept any shitty feedback that you'd normally get from your friends. If you don't feel like you could of improved your work by the end of the critique (or even hate it) then you are the most stubborn person I would ever meet. I really impressed him this semester which the work I was bringing in and that made me so proud of myself, since the class we had with him last semester, I just wasn't showing up (I was physically there but my work just wasn't up to par). We started talking about medium format cameras (he showed me some absolutely sick student discounts on new medium format cameras) and was showing me different models. He was asking me if I was bound on anything about the camera. I said square format, but also for the option of a waist level viewfinder (you can view the viewfinder when the camera's at your waist, you aren't bound by having to hold it up to your eye to see the picture). I started using medium format to try new things, but also to slow down my process. The more and more I used it I realized that while I was slowing down, being able to have the camera at my waist, I was able to keep both my eyes open. I was able to be aware of my situation, I could absorb my surroundings. Compared to my dSLR (my Canon), I was able to let my mind breath, to step away from the camera itself. That's the point he brought up with my work, it was the final 10% that I needed to put more attention into. Like how I present it, how I talk about it, how I can see the small details that can be adjusted for my work to shine. For my work to improve, I need to not only slow down, but also to step away and breathe. Give the piece a rest, come back a day later and look at it again with a fresh mind. It really talks about myself as a person, I can get so excited with something that I forget small little details. It's funny how my work really relates to myself as a person in ways I had never thought about. Yet I can easily see why that is, when we put work up for a critique, you can almost always point out everyone work without having seen them put it up. The style, the treatment of light, even how the model looks. I love having opinions from an outside source, the people that don't really know you. You may not always like hearing them, but sometimes they can be so bang on, it can surprise you. I've progressed so much in my work, even looking back to last semester, I can't even imagine how far I'll get in the next couple years.
