52 Week Creativity Challenge, Week 17- Help

"Help" taken on a Motoral Photon Q phone, edited in Google Chrome
By S. Clark

Here in Washington state, we like to help our squirrels by building tiny squirrel bridges to help them cross busy streets.  We have four in town, the oldest was put in place around 50 years ago. This bridge is decorated with lights every year at Christmas because in addition to safe, we also like our squirrels to be festive!

I'm Finally My Age

My cousin and I celebrating our birthdays in 1989.
I was 40, I mean 14, and she was 7.
Her brother was "helping" with the candles.

My 2nd dad, whom I have always referred to as "Dear," always said I was 12 going on 24 or 13 going on 30, or whatever age I was and whatever age I seemed.  I am not exactly sure what specific behaviors he was referring to, but I was avidly reading Newsweek and Scientific American in middle school, so I imagine I had some commentary to offer on Clarence Thomas or possibly the Iran Contra Scandal.  I was always reading things above my pay grade.   I also read my mom's self-help books on how to raise teenagers or adjust to living in a stepfamily or whatever was laying around.  My senior year I really felt like it pointless to be dealing with Physics or English when there was genocide in Rwanda.

This is pretty non-standard for  teen girls, so I can see where Dear was coming from.  I know I was a standard teenager in a lot of ways; I cried a lot, I liked dumb boys exclusively, never the nice boys, I disliked driving the ugly station wagon and spent too much time fussing over my ginormous bangs.  I often wanted to kill my brothers and I didn't always clean up after myself (Dear may tell you I never cleaned up after myself and his scissors were always missing, but I do think that is probably an exaggeration). But really, I always felt older than the years I'd actually spent on earth and often acted older, too.

I've been feeling closer and closer to my age for the last few years.  Yesterday, I turned 40 years old and I am finally my age. I finally don't feel decades older than my actual life.  During high school, my English teacher had us write an essay on what we wanted to be doing with our lives.  I was adamant that I was done being a teenager.  The life I described is pretty much what I am doing now; a home with gardens & animals, meaningful work, and engaging hobbies.  The only thing I didn't envision was a husband and daughter, because, hey, I couldn't know everything, right?  All this time, I've been 40. It is difficult to describe this feeling, but my inner world and outer world feel congruent.  My psyche is not banging up against my real life constantly.  It is such a relief.

My daughter, my dog and I on my 40th birthday.

The best I can describe myself is it as though I am psychologically standing in mountain pose, very firm and grounded.  I feel really settled into my hips and solid on my legs.  Like I can hold myself up, regardless of the weight the world might place on my shoulders.  I feel solidly myself.  And while I am certain that I will continue to grow and change as a person, it is my hope that I will also continue to feel solid and become every more myself.

From the Window- a Study of Images While Traveling

"Girlfriend"

I have been taking pictures with my phone from the car (and once from an airplane) of images that have caught my attention.  I think they tell the a story of my life.  These pictures show the beauty in the mundane, everyday stuff as well as the more easily identified beauty of nature in the Pacific Northwest. 

"Giraffe Bling"

All these photos where taken on my phone, the Motorala Photon Q and edited in Google Chrome.  These were taken starting in February 2014 up until today.  They are in reverse chronological order.

"Drive from School"

"Lewis and Clark Bridge"

"Mountain View"

"To California"

"Snow Day"

52 Week Creativity Challenge, Week 16- Give

"The Mister" taken on a Lumix Panasonic DMC-G5, edited in Google Chrome
by S. Clark

Giving you my love-

Melting into your embrace,

because we are one.

52 Week Creativity Challenge, Week 15- Inside Out

"Inside Out" watercolor paint on file folder
by S. Clark

The image evoked by the phrase "inside out" was of an umbrella in the wind.  We have a lot of rain and wind in the Pacific Northwest, but not a lot of umbrellas.  I think it rains so much, everyone just figures out how to live with it.  We don't mind wet hair or have sensitive hair styles.  We have a wide variety of fun hats.  The only time I see a lot of umbrellas is when parents are standing outside for hours on end at sporting events.  Even we have our limits!

I don't feel that this painting quite captured what was in my mind's eye, but I like the colors.  And I made a commitment that I would not allow perfectionism govern this 52 week creativity challenge.  Instead, I made the decision to create a work of art and post what I created regardless of my judgement of that work of art.  This gives me an opportunity to grow as an artist and further my life-long recovery from perfectionism.  I don't think perfectionism belongs with creativity or art because it has a set idea of "perfect" and not only is that unacheivable, following the creative process often leads to a better place than a preconceived idea of "perfect."  So, I post this painting I don't quite like but feel good that perfectionism isn't in charge of my decision-making.  

Faith and Doubt

My Grandpa, Aunt Vickie and Me, when I was about 12.

I have always been, am currently and will likely always be full of doubt and questions. Is there really a god?  Is there an afterlife?  What does it mean if there is a god? What does it mean if there isn't?  What about Jesus?  Do the answers to any of those questions change how I live my life?   Why isn't anyone else asking these questions? What is this business about "All things through Christ, who strengthens me?"  

I remember being in my dorm room my Freshman year of college.  I had just thrown up, probably for 5th or 6th or maybe 12th or 14th morning in a row, and my next door neighbor, who I didn't like very much, stuck her head in the door and asked if I were pregnant.  That prompted crying, because I was barely keeping it together.  Stress and anxiety and depression were making it impossible for me to keep my breakfast in my stomach.  Upon explaining this to my next door neighbor that I didn't even like very much, she said to me "Have you tried praying?" Well, no shit, praying you say? Why didn't I think of that?

Except I had prayed, desperately and unceasingly.  I'd only attended Christian schools from 1st grade up until that very moment in time.  In fact, at some point in that awful year, I even attended a class called "The Life and Teachings of Jesus." Of course I had been praying!  Praying didn't help. Eventually, Prozac would prove to be more powerful than prayer and it helped me get a toe hold and climb out of the pit that I was in.  

My freshman year of college at a Christian school with mandatory worship services and people I didn't like telling me I should pray to solve my problems only served to underscore what I had learned growing up.  That is, that I lacked adequate faith.  If I had enough faith I wouldn't be bothered by all these doubts and questions.  Of the 12 disciples of Jesus, three are noted trouble makers; Judas, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans; Peter, who betrayed Jesus three times and Thomas, who doubted that Jesus was the savior.  Doubting was not okay.  Faith had no room for doubt.  Even, Jesus who made the ultimate sacrifice, didn't doubt.  He asked to be removed from the situation, if it be the Father's will.  "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." Luke 22:42 (NIV)

Of course, Jesus was God incarnate, in human form on earth, so of course he wouldn't have doubt.  (What? How does that make sense? Even if that is true what does that have to do with eternal salvation? What if I don't accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal savior? What if there isn't a personal god? Do we even need a personal god?)  Thomas doubted so much he got a nickname because of it.  

" Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:24-29 (NIV, italics are mine).  

See?  There is no room for doubt.  To be a person of faith required you to put aside questions and doubt.  You were just supposed to go with it, I guess.  However, I was never willing to set aside my doubts and questions just to claim a solid faith. It would have been false, the doubt would be lurking below the cheery "Yes, I believe because I have faith" and would be a lie. Lying about faith seemed worse than lacking faith, so I have just owned the doubt and questions. I figured I was doing the best I could with what I had. If what ever higher power was unhappy with that, well, I figured that I didn't want to be friends with someone who wasn't happy with my best effort anyhow. 

Today, an author I like, Anne Lamott posted on her Facebook page "every single thing I know" in honor of her upcoming birthday.  You can see the entire list here, but I was especially struck by #11.  (Just noticed there are two #11's, it is the second one, which I quote below that I am talking about, although I like the entire list) 

 "11. Faith: Paul Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. If I could say one thing to our little Tea Party friends, it would be this. Fundamentalism, in all its forms, is 90% of the reason the world is so terrifying. 3% is the existence of snakes. The love of our incredible dogs and cats is the closest most of us will come, on this side of eternity, to knowing the direct love of God; although cats can be so bitter, which is not the god part: the crazy Love is. Also, "Figure it out" is not a good slogan."

My Grandpa and I when I was about 12 years old.
(it was hard for him to have serious faces when a camera was out)

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty." Holy cow! Really?! I don't have any idea who this Paul Tillich guy is, but this is a paradigm shift for me.  I've been wandering in the wilderness of my mind concerned that my grandpa, who passed away in 2001, would be ashamed of me because I was so lacking in faith.  When I was around 12 years old, he told my mom that he was amazed by my understanding of spiritual matters.  With all this doubt and questioning, I figured that I had fallen far from the place I lived when I was 12.  I didn't have doubt when I was 12.  And the answers to my questions made sense when I was 12.  

What I don't have is certainty.  I don't have answers to any of my questions.  Sometimes I am not even sure I am asking questions that are even relevant.  I have a bunch of "I hopes" and "I like to thinks."  I have almost zero beliefs that I hold to so strongly that I feel the need to convince others that those beliefs are the "truth." All except one,  I do believe strongly in "working hypotheses," which I wrote about in this post.   

So, now I am handed this idea that doubt can coexist with faith.  Not only that, the idea that certainty is the opposite of faith.  That makes it seem as if doubt is part of faith.  If that is the case, I have buckets full of faith.  What I am going to do with all these buckets I have no idea, but I think a paradigm shift is enough for one day.  I'll figure out what to do with it later.  

52 Week Creativity Challenge, Week 14- Know Something

"Know Something- Front of Library"
Taken on a Motorala Photon Q, edited in Google Chrome
By S. Clark

"Know Something- Side of Library"
Taken on a Motarola Photon Q, edited in Google Chrome
By S. Clark

If you want to know something, go to a Library!