Archive for October, 2010

When to Say “When”

When to say "when"?

When to say "when"?

I am afraid that looking at life as a glass half full makes it harder to say “when.”  There is such savor in the filling that it keeps pouring in and suddenly its overflowing and your table and jeans and Blackberry are soaked.

My life seems that way right now—full and overflowing.  Which is wonderful, no question.  Intimidating, absolutely.

Oh that I would be strengthened with might.  That curious kind of might that happens when you think you’ve reach your edge and suddenly, there’s more.  More to you than you thought.

Diving into a glass of water...

Diving into a glass of water...

2010
10/31
CATEGORY
news
ponders
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Discernment in Creation

Creation is one of the most absurd situations in which we human beings find ourselves.  Embodying a form, an idea, a concept in material reality is difficult.  And not always because of limitation, but rather of possibilities.

Some friends and I are making a few short films together for a local drama class.  It is thrilling to apply our skills to storytelling—and overwhelming to interact with our limitations.  I am becoming more and more glad for them each day, however, because these limitations spur our ingenuity onwards and upwards.  But I feel like I am lost in a Chutes and Ladders game: multiple routes and unpredictable dislocations.  Chutes and Ladders is the bomb dot com, but when you’re living it for real, it is quite a different experience altogether.

Should we rent equipment?  Ask the parents to pay for costumes?  Borrow cameras?  Rehearse indoors or out?  Re-write the screenplays to fit the children’s capacity for memorization? or push through to the final product unswerving?

The list could go on.

But the point of it all is to actually make a work of art.  A work of art that requires input and energy from everyone involved—even and especially the audience.  So in the end, we keep moving forward and forward, and one day if we reach the edge of a cliff, maybe the forward motion of our art will suddenly teach us to fly.

Can the artistic impulse teach us to fly?

Can the artistic impulse teach us to fly?

2010
10/27
CATEGORY
ponders
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The Epic in Us

 

 

the longing to be epic

the longing to be epic: we are on the stage already

Oh there is something in us that longs to be epic.  You can see it in the way we live and move and have our being.  Even driving down the road feels epic to us with the right movie soundtrack playing from the iPod deck.  we long for what we do to be important, to take energy and give energy, to have a pulse.

I want to be epic.  I want to be epic but I long for my bed and I ache for my home.  Faithfulness is epic, but when the little things come I want to pass them by and distract my pain while I wait for something bigger.

But my life here and now is the something bigger. There isn’t anything else coming because there doesn’t need to be anything else coming.  I am in the movie.  I am the script.  I live the plot and I love the moments.  My new hypothesis is that everyone’s life is a movie but some haven’t been distributed yet.

2010
10/19
CATEGORY
declarations
ponders
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The Paradox of R&R

Peer pressure for endorphins?

Peer pressure for endorphins?

Exercising gives you endorphins, right?  Those happy little hormones (or something like that, haha) that make you feel rejuvenated and inspired.  I am definitely on board with this scientific fact since I see it play out each time I go to my ballet class.  I always feel better about the world and in command of my sphere when I leave the studio.

And then they say rest and relaxation is important to reduce stress, right?  For me that usually translates into sleeping in and reading in bed, which I love.  The warm sun slanting through my window blinds and all that.  But I have noticed that more often than not, I feel groggy after a long sleep.  And I usually have more than one mood clinging to my soul because of multiple involved and usually dramatic dreams.  So I finally roll out of bed feeling like a failure because I haven’t done anything, don’t feel like doing anything, and actually agree that I’m probably useless for the remainder of the day.

So much for R&R.

Any cures?

2010
10/15
CATEGORY
ponders
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Screening for the ATLFF

A friendly email invited me to apply for membership in the panel of screeners for the upcoming Atlanta Film Festival.  With innocent and smiling eyes I filled out the form and turned it in–hoping to make it, not sure what I was doing, but feeling cool every second of the process.

A friendly email notified me that I was in fact accepted into this circle of evaluators and would I please join a conference call next week?

Of course!

Now, I begin my journey through 90 films in 15 weeks, hallelujah.

I wish I could write about these films–the ones that grab my insides and squeeze, the ones that tickle me pink, the ones that leave me, just leave me.  But, alas, the beautiful privilege of screening denies me company in this adventure.  It makes me wonder what Someone must feel like Who knows and sees everything, the exquisite and the unlovely, and holds it all in silence.

Suspended in Silence

Suspended in Silence

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Pregnant silence.  The kind of silence that must fill the earth when sees germinate in the spring.  The kind of silence that whitewashes elephant bones.  The kind of silence that makes you want to seek other out but finds that no bridge could span its borders…

The truth, perhaps.

2010
10/15
CATEGORY
film
ponders
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