in the midst of all this chaos i have had to struggle to find quiet and meditate upon what this holiday really means. it truly is a battle with culture to remember that Christ has brought peace on earth, that the Kingdom of God is within us.

i hope that wherever life finds you in these few days that you manage to take time to meditate upon what it means for God to become man. may God grant you the peace and love that Christ alone can bring. merry Christmas.

in other news (and in relation to photography), i have recently been very interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, monasticism, and iconography. more to come on that soon.

love and peace to you all.

-floridagizzi

is less a post and more of a spam of links and articles I’ve found supremely interesting as of late.

1. Buy Nothing Day as Advent Activism Against the Demon Mammon

It’s clear that I am a big fan of Shane Claiborne. Here’s a recent article in response to Black Friday he wrote for Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics blog. I think his commentary on cultue and civilization is astute and he brings to light some obvious things that I feel we as Christians so often obscure.

2. Advent Conspiracy

Similar to the Claiborne post, Advent Conspiracy is a campaign to help people believe that Christmas can still change the world. I love this. As opposed to “taking Christmas back” as many Christians across the country have sought to do, I see this as a reminder to Christians to live like Christmas matters, refocusing our attention to the miracle of a holy God, savior and king being born into the world to begin the recreation and redemption of the world and its people. so often Christmas is, as AC says, about spending money we don’t have on stuff people don’t need to give to people who don’t care and really only want to create true memories and moments of relationships, love, and caring. I’m a bit harsher than AC, but I think thats basically their gist. That its not consumerism but radical love and selflessness that changes lives. Oh yeah, and they advocate giving the money you save on not buying junk for people to charities, particularly Living Water International. Beautiful. For another well-building and clean water project check out Blood:Water Mission

3. Sacred Loops

Though the site has been mostly inactive recently, it has a wonderful library of loops and samples for worship music. This mostly includes Reason Files (including Dr. Rex, Maesltrom, NN-XT, and others) and AbletonLive files. There’s some really awesome user created stuff and its great when you want to get synthy loopy Crowder songs.

4. NT Wright

So the guy is a heavy hitter in Christian theological and academic circles. He’s fourth from the top in the Anglican Church, has taught at Cambridge, has a Ph.D in Divinity and Theology, honorary degrees from Wycliffe College, Durham University, Aberdeen University, and is an all around smart guy.  Here’s two interviews that makes me think I’m diggin NT Wright’s chili:

Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop

Heavy Theological Dude Mistakenly Talks To Us

Some other great links which I don’t feel like elaborating on but are definitely worth checking out:

Invisible Children

To Write Love On her Arms

Create Digital Music

Create Digital Motion

Processing

Stay tuned and I may actually have some original thoughts to contribute to the world in the near future…

The movie tells the story of con artist Frank Abignale, Jr. as he traveled the country and stole over 4 million dollars through forged. Abignale impersonates airline pilots, poses as a doctor and gets a job in an Atlanta emergency room, and passes the bar to practice law in New Orleans. You can’t help but marvel at the skill with which Abignale manipulates people. The there are two themes I really enjoyed in this movie. The first is that Abignale is largely a product of circumstance. The movie tells the story of Abignale’s mother stepping out on Abignale Sr, and the subsequent divorce proceedings that lead Frank Jr. to run from home and begin his life of crime. The theme of ‘living the lie’ and running from the past are persistent throughout the movie, and while the actions of Abignale are obviously immoral, you can’t help but see the boy (he first began impersonating pilots at the age of 16) in the con man. Inside the person who manipulates and steals is a boy suffering in dealing with reality.

But the circumstances do not excuse the actions. Tom Hanks’ character Carl Hanratty makes very clear that the game is not called off at the offenders word, that there are consequences for actions, and that he will pursue Abignale until he is caught and punished. I see God all over this character. There is a commitment to justice in God and there are consequences to our actions, a debt that must be paid and sins that must be punished. Abignale is eventually caught and sentenced, but Hanratty feels some sort of affection towards the imprisoned boy and visits him often in prison. After Abignale reveals his capacity to identify forged checks and thus aid in the tracking of counterfeiters, Hanratty negotiates a deal to get Abignale released to work in the Bank Fraud department at the FBI. Abignale is to serve out the rest of his sentence through serving the FBI. But our God does not release us from prison only to serve out our sentence in serving the Kingdom. God does release us from our imprisonment, and he invites us to serve the Kingdrom. Christ has paid our debt and released us, and God asks us to work for Him. 

What I enjoy most in this film is the idea that no man is beyond redemption. No matter how sinful we are there is the possibility of redemption. No matter how fast and how far we run, God will pursue us. Because He loves us. That is the Gospel of Christ, that through the unfailing and inexhaustible love of God pursuing us in the Spirit and hung on the cross, a blood sacrifice for our sins, we can be redeemed. God is in the business of redeeming people, of loving them out of the hells of their lives, and recreating the man into a heavenly being. We are reborn, a new creation with a new life to live. Our old lives have passed away and we have been given a new life in Christ.

this morning at breakfast brigade a copy of Graphic Witness appeared on the table. i only had the chance to browse briefly through the introduction and a few of the woodcut prints of Masereel’s The Passion of a Man but i was immediately drawn to the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of the pieces.

there is quite a tension displayed in monochromatic woodcuts and linocuts that i think fascinates me, the tension between light and dark, the use of shadow to communicate with the viewer.  the motif has been present in cultures and civilizations far and wide: darkness and light in eternal contest in the world. 

i think this tension is the tension of soul and the tension of self in eternal struggle with our potential for good and evil, our potential in following God and fleeing Him.  pascal writes in his pensees:

“The greatness and the wretchedness of man are so  evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us  both that there is in man some great source of  greatness, and a great source of wretchedness. It must                                                                          then give us a reason for these astonishing contradictions.”

i think this greatness and wretchedness is precisely the tension we feel. augustine has said “Lord Jesus, don’t let me lie when I say that I love You… and protect me, for today I could betray You”. i think this is the truth of our spirituality, that there is this constant battle within us between yearning for God’s kingdom and trying to erect our own flag in our hearts, claiming the land of our body as our own. there is this eternal struggle within us between the heavenly and hellish, and the act of becoming a heavenly creature is the struggle of a lifetime, yet we are bound to fail. i think this is part of what draws me to this style of art: the presence of two extremes in the same moment.

but i am also drawn to the revolutionary image of it all. the print has been the medium of political commentary, revolutionary pamphlets, and nationalist propoganda. indeed many of the artists of the medium often deal with political and social issues, and i think our faith must necessarily deal with such things as well. the tension of light and dark within us all is not relegated simply to the metaphysical or the moral in the sense of whether i go to church or treat my mother with respect. the tension is played out in every aspect of our lives. we must wrestle with the choices that we make and the impacts of our decisions, even in areas where we believe that there is simply no other decision to be made. as shane claiborne has said, “we vote very day with our feet, our hands, our lips, and our wallets”. i must question myself, ‘who or what are you voting for?’ and quite often i find i am voting for the darkness. i find i am voting for filth and unrighteous self service. i find i am voting for selfishness and greed and wealth and security while brothers and sisters are starving and homeless, or suffering under the yoke of slavery in foreign fields to put food on my table, or sweating under the lights of a textile factory to clothe my wealthy body so that they may take home a few cents at the end of the day to put food on their table, all for my hyper-consumption. frustratingly i find that i must humble myself everyday, frequently multiple times a day, and ask for forgiveness for trying to be my own king. Christ is the King, and He must be our King. His Spirit must be our Aid if we are to ever to forsake ourselves and truly work for and say ‘Thy kingdom come’.