new photo? Why, yes. There is.

This is a photo from my flickr favorites. I’ve been quite busy and inactive the last few weeks (month?). I chose to post this image because I find it aesthetically pleasing. It tells a story.

There are a lot of assumptions to work through with the phrase “acting like the church.” This is a topic I do not currently have time to explore in depth. (To clarify: for this post alone.)

First and foremost what comes to mind is how I have even began framing the consideration.
Acting like the Church. The Church is not an act. It is not to be upon a stage. The church is to be the very demonstration of reality not a muse with which to toy and pretend to be. The Church ought to be the thing in itself. When she is no longer a mere phraseological phenomenon and a series of events but rather becomes life itself; then the body of Christ is the Church. (Saying that is misleading. Christ is life itself. If you are living in Christ and He in you, then you ought to be the Church.)

Let me attempt to rephrase given the above.
Being the Church, or rather Being the Body of Christ.

Body of Christ. What comes to mind when thinking of a body? Organic, natural, dependent upon other parts within itself or dependent upon one another. When I speak of the Church or the Body of Christ these things ought to come to mind. What do most people think of? Not to point out wrongdoing, as I myself am guilty, but I am afraid that most (who would consider themselves a part of the Body) would think of the building, or of the people, or the group of people, or even the various ministries which that congregation carries out.

No man is an island. We must be dependent upon one another. It is not a choice. Without connection we will perish. The soul will wither without the social connections. The Church is to provide the organic life support in all it’s truthfulness (reality) to those are a part of it.

I will pick this up at a later time.

Where I am headed: I believe we are called to community. I believe I am called to community. Out of necessity. It is deeper than fellowship. I desire to share my life with other individuals that the MOST HIGH has called. I want them to see my weakness and my faults. How else am I to be prepared to give glory to God unless I am refined? I should not presume to be a member of the Body of Christ if I am not within fellowship, within community. I desire to be and ask only that my life will bring Glory to the MOST HIGH.

This is for printmaking, obviously, but it definitely pertains to a larger conversation for me, as I’m sure you will be able to pick out. Due to the [lack of] resources at the university not everyone does the same project at the same time. On top of that the subject matter is completely up to us. This is thus causing me to think about subject a little differently now that I’m well into an art degree and realizing that my [God given] creations need to come from somewhere and go somewhere.

In short, these are brainstorming notes.

(this was a few days ago)
“The tension of faith and life. the thing in itself. realty. What is printmaking? (intaligo, litho) What is faith? How do the two of them mix and combine? I want to be, I do not want to to do. printmaking is about the reproduction. faith is more than tension. Then what is faith? How may I know the MOST HIGH through art? How may I discover Him?
[It must be sent from above.]“

(This was from today. I’m referencing the intaglio, yes I spelled it wrong in my sketchbook, process here. I’ll explain the intaglio process later and perhaps include pictures. That just means I’ll have to lug my camera around, which is okay.)
“combining two or more plates, erode the frame. hanging in space. Havce the tensions rise. double exposure. one over the other. I need the divine, and the unseen, to collide with the everyday. Is the supernatural hovering (above) or [below] the surface? a bit of both. I want to do that literally, but not in some sort of photorealistic manner.”

So I read Matthew Henry’s Commentary on this section. I haven’t let it (the passage itself) ruminate too much but I wanted some sound explanation from someone else. Just to see what he might exposit from it. It is solid. It was refreshing.

This passage is summing up a lot of everything. I do not wish to take the light off of the MOST HIGH, but I do want to point out that I am striving to stop regarding man and if that is the case, what other alternative is there? It must be to place all my bets on the Lamb that was slain, but yet that rose to conquer not only the grave, but to unseat the authority that had set itself up. [I pray that I may not fall into lofty speech that is beyond understanding.]

to be continued. Have to run again. [Now where was I..]

Stop regarding man

Who is man that we might regard him? Is not man frail and fallen? Even at his best he is a mockery to the MOST HIGH in his attempts to do well and be wise.  My own experience (of what little weight that holds) comfirms this in part. How many times have intentions been well and the outcome still hurts the one whom you have tried to aid? How many times have both the intention and the outcome been a ‘positive’ and yet there is a lack of completeness.

Stop – cease. do not continue
regarding – taking into account. paying attention to.
man – flesh.

Might I make the assumption that man here speaks of man living within the flesh? The unrenewed mind of man. The man that is not seeking to live by the Spirit and in the Spirit, whose utterance does not begin in the heart of God. (Consider the apostolic sending of Jesus Christ himself.)

in whose nostrils is breath,

A word study of breath throughout the Bible might prove useful here. Consider breath in terms of what we experience and know for truth and reality. First and foremost within my thoughts is being able to “see your breath” when the temperature reaches a certain point. Even in those tangible moments breath quickly disappears. It disperses leaving little trace of what is left. I have always been drawn to the romantic nature of being able to see your breath on such a cool evening. There is a moment of making the invisible, the indefinableable, to be seen and known(?) if only for a short time.
However. It is fading. It is not lasting. It is far from eternal.

Matthew Henry made a comment here about the breath in the nostrils, saying something to the effect of the nostrils as something that makes up man and the breathe is the temporary thing that is contained within him. It then follows that all of man is temporary.

for of what account is he?

This phrase ends the chapter, but not the passage.
For of what account is he? How did passage of scripture begin? Chapter 2 (which happens to be the beginning of this section) starts with

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” [This passage is too good to break up. Let me continue.] For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide the disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nationa shall not lift up sword against nationa, neither shall they learn war anymore.

The glory of the LORD is at stake. What account or portion does man have in that? Why are we so concerned with what man has to say (my own thoughts very much included, unless they are from the LORD,) that we ignore the very working of God Almighty? We have taught ourselves to be more concious of the temporal things instead of the eternal God.

May he have mercy on all those that he has called and that have turned to him to seek his will without benefit to themselves.

As naturalness, if you will, is a way into the truth. May the Lord God Almighty grace my thoughts with his eternal presence both through the very Word and breath of the MOST HIGH and..I’m all over the place and can’t accurately put stuff down in words.

I just want the Lord. I want everything that he has for me and my wife. I want his vision. His specific vision for his glory and how I may take part in that reality.

May the Lord God Almighty be praised.

As a side note. I wish I would start carrying my camera around more. I probably need a new bag to do that though. I love my messenger, but it just doesn’t have the support necessary to carry heavy things all day. It’s really made for “short” transport rather than lugging the same weight around all day on one shoulder.

What is it to not merely report on what the reporters are saying? Why not look around you and call upon the local news that actually effects you. Which is to say news in regards to the personal experiences and conversations that you have directly engaged in.

As I read through many blogs it is merely a summary or interpretation or commentary on what is being reported by the media already. I want to read something real. I want to read reality. I want to stop reading all this “commentary” as interesting as it can be and I want to stop being apathetic, but that’s enough about me.

helena takes some of the best dreamlike images I have come across yet I think. Be sure to peruse her photo stream.

semper eadem

semper eadem, originally uploaded by helena+.
]]> http://phrictionpheonix.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/semper-eadem/feed/ 0 williamn http://phrictionpheonix.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/foggy-morning/ http://phrictionpheonix.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/foggy-morning/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:12:23 +0000 william n http://phrictionpheonix.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/foggy-morning/ ]]>

Foggy Morning, originally uploaded by william.n.

It’s 2:11 right now and foggy and I can’t quite decide if I should sleep or if I need to go out and take pictures in the fog. !!

So I guess I chose sleep. I never know what to do in these situations.

I found this on flickr, (obviously) as I seem to have screen printing on my mind. Luckily I’m very nearly done with my final screen printing project for the semester. (I merely have to frame one, including making the frame.)
I had quite a bit of trouble finishing up the printing. There’s something about trying to do a four color separation (CMYK) screen print by hand even at 100 dpi half-tone (frequency 53) and getting everything lined up just right that is just a pain. It finally came out okay, but not after discarding about 12 of the original 24 prints after the first layer, and at least it was then and not later.
I realized there’s a screen printing table like the one seen in the picture here in the studio I’m working in (only ours only has four sides), but I didn’t think about using it until it was too late. I’m not sure if it would have make things go faster or not, but If I take an intermediate printmaking class I may have to look into using it.

I’ll be sure to post a photo of my final, as well as a few other works I’ve done over the semester. I’ll talk more about my piece once I post it.

mount rainer., [sic] originally uploaded by kaarins.

Quite an amazing shot from my friend Kaarin. Check out some of her other photography as well. Quite lovely if you ask me.