The Paris Pivot (Part V)

The Paris Pivot:

(Part V):

Until the first time he picked up a pencil, which saved him, and after failing out of secondary school, even a miraculous honorable discharge from the Armée de terre; Gabriel didn’t draw, paint, or visualize art at all. Instead, he suffered for 5 months under fumbling, misguided, veteran’s socialized medicine; mostly sleeping, in a bewildered confusion brought on by prescription drugs—numbing his senses and drowning him in a haze of disorder worse than the fog of war.

Gabriel almost didn’t make it out of the fog, but he made it to Paris.

I’ve labeled this chapter in his life the Paris Pivot, because it turned Gabriel’s life around. Concentrating on art as behavioral therapy rivaled whatever stimulant drugs (Ritalin), or psychedelic, organic tea had done for him so far. The tiniest details of his penciled drawings allowed him a portal to an awareness only achieved while meditating; but I experienced also the delicate social interplay between us focusing him intently, enlivening and stimulating him. Loosely called “flirting” in America, but very pedestrian in France, I didn’t know at the time whether a well-groomed American girl with a guitar could pull him out of his shell, but we recognized in each other an attractive detour from our pre-planned escape routes.

I represented for him a normal experience he could not have hoped to achieve while medicated. His depressive dullness kept him out of the cafés, and he was not self-confident enough to approach me at the time; even though his devilish grin and colossal frame, on the surface alone, made him radically gorgeous to me. I was falling backwards, spinning around, light-headed, over the moon, whatever you want to call it.

Out of the chaos of a mixed-up mind, he began to see eternal patterns. He drew the same self-similarity, or scaling, that is common among the seed patterns of flowers or trees. Even though Gabriel often seemed like a bumbling professor, or starving artist; his mind naturally pictured this famous ratio, with a long and honored history in mathematics, from Euclid and Aristotle to modern computer calculations. His black & white pencil drawings reflect the simple but divine “proportion” of Leonardo da Vinci, considered the most beautiful and important of mathematical standards.

Gabriel even sought the medicinal effects of mind-altering tea that has been brewed for centuries in the Amazon River basin. He found an underground tea-shop on the Left Bank, conducting ceremonial "tea-party" healing sessions where an Ayahuasca "potion" was served for many searching, tortured souls. Made from a blend of two plants, containing the hallucinogen "DMT" --  the psychoactive compound of organic elements provided a powerful, transformative, upending, "high," good for the ameliorating affects on numerous psychological conditions. Unfortunately, his brain activity changed little under the influence of ayahuasca, and the tea ceremony was anticlimactic. Gabriel's treatment-resistant depression was best fought by pursuing art.

He studied the nature of these forms and their relationship to each other (ratio), giving Gabriel a greater insight into the scientific, philosophical, psychological, aesthetic, and mystical laws of the universe. Natural inquisitiveness instructed him more than formal schooling; in fact, these symmetrical images opened his life onto a new path, resurrecting his future. During hours of meticulous sketching, grappling with all he had lost, fighting against the misunderstanding that dominated his existence before now; Gabriel used science to cure himself of dysfunctional mystery, reinventing and reinvigorating his soul. Detailed drawing was a small, simple way for him to express truth, and as deep as were his wounds, so deep too was the healing.

Failing to bring up the utility of studying law, nor my dusty, unstable ambitions of helping incubate struggling African democracies, we rarely discussed the chances that Gabriel could make a living painting, any more than to contemplate the average signing bonus for a beginning US “junior-lawyer”. His confidence, now rooted in his journey in the arts, also buoyed an exceptional faith in the rightness of his journey. Realistically, because I did not completely sell-out to my artistic abilities, instead falling back on my training as a lawyer; I was playing it safe while in Paris. But Gabriel didn’t have any other options, and I’ll admit to you here, that the question of whether his talent could carry him into his future, produced an unspoken tension between us. ##

Fiction 2018©Mark H. Pillsbury

Fast and Cool

What really matters... You gotta be cool... 

Three years ago (3/31/2015 -- "Up and Down the Dial"), I posted about the #SiriusXM satellite "highway"—taken each night; sometimes holding my sanity together on the parking lot known as Houston traffic, descending like a femoral artery into downtown.

The alchemy of memories and music transports me back on a tightrope time-machine to a place when we were all pretty "kewl", if I can say so myself. “Fast and Cool” as in the club, or Fast Times at Ridgemont High, for movie buffs.

Maybe a long time ago, but I remember when we were buff and the feathered haircuts fell just right on starched oxford button-downs. The girls all dressed for each other, and the wild night was calling. There was a time, back in my prime, when your old-man could really lay it down; but we didn’t rely on Instagram or Facebook to show everybody. It was sealed in our memories.

The music, tasting the rum, giving or getting all the jokes; ok, crank up the car stereo, and take off. The feel of a slow-dance with that girl you like… in the end, there's only the dance. How did the years go by so fast but the memories play back so slow? The smell of a ski boat's exhaust, a bonfire; I can hear the roar of the crowd, or the whisper in the ear. Youthful discovery is like electricity, but the assurance of wisdom is comforting. Life’s a balance in every decade. Maybe my pendulum needs to swing back to happiness; time flies whether you’re having fun or not.

It could be the passing of an old friend recently, or the end of a long week sending me on this journey, but my “trigger” is often just the right song, which takes me to the file cabinet in my head: pulling out the right disk from the right decade. We manually take it out of the sleeve and place it on the record player, crackling and hissing with expectation. Easter is the season of passage from death to life. The memories linger tonight in the “bardo” or in-between: I don't try to reconcile the past, but I do go back.

Without a physical photographic record on social media, how do I prove our youth? We were from all over the state, and the world was much more laid back. Somehow we had enough money to pool our resources as a group; supporting a large social structure consistently together to have a good time, and act “big”. I went to high school and college with the fast and cool crowd, always looking for adventure, maybe we were like the Club Gryffindor before we knew about Harry Potter. Or it might have been a middle-child syndrome, seeking to fit-in?

I would like to think of those foolish, happy days not as my last fling, despite the age and the miles. I believe that there are new beginnings in every springtime; I’d like to be happy again. Maybe we can get together and shake off the worldly blues and stride out tomorrow with the same arrogant confidence we had in our twenties, when everything was possible?

Probably not, but at least give the same swagger. I have more money and less hair. My car is not as hot, but more reliable. I’m more educated, but hopefully wiser. The songs seem more poignant now; the friendships deeper and more valuable. At least we can commiserate rather than compete—like we did back in those heady days. I don’t want to impress anyone like we used to, I’d rather show humility and kindness than competence and success. My heart yearns to express connection, admit defeat, listen with an attentive ear, be slow to speak, quick to squelch my opinion, easy to talk to, or ask for a favor.

“Grief” and its verb “grieve” come from the Latin gravis, “heavy, weighty” and its verbal form, gravare, “to burden or cause to grieve.” Grieving is like being weighed down with sorrow and a sense of loss. “Mourn” has its origins in the Old English murnan, “to mourn, to be anxious”. Jung says that mourners are fortunate because they are involved in a growth process, that “even though it cost me a great deal to regain my footing; now, I am free to become who I truly am.” (end quote) This is God’s truth, because the more I’ve cried and felt wretched and worthless, the more often I've felt on-a-passage (journey), and that I could have occasional moments of utter joy.

I think we know now how elusive confidence really is; the escalator has made some unexpected stops. Values now drawing respect are affinity, realism, collaboration, servant-leadership, empathy, kindness, faith, relationship, and humility. Money, beauty and power are not only elusive but ephemeral. Age tends to level the playing field even for those who woke up on third-base. (you know who you are).

Character is formed in the crucible, but everyone yearns for a second-chance; like the magical saying under the pyramid, on the back of a one-dollar bill: novus ordo seclorum (“a new order for the ages”). That’s what's astonishing about Easter; with Christ there is always the opportunity to brush yourself off and start again. His work on the cross gives us new life, forgiveness in exchange for our brokenness. This year I will relish in free grace, give thanks for true friends: “put that one on His tab, please…” 

I need to write off a few things, people, and losses, starting again with a clean ledger; don’t we all? Happy Easter.

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Book Review: Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch series)

Book Review: Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly 

(Harry Bosch series)

(Los Angeles) Who has the time or money to read books anymore? The sturdy hardcover, paper versions are $30/apiece, maybe you can save some cash by downloading it on your Kindle® but it still takes time to finish 400-pages. 

Here’s my quick proposition for the latest Michael Connelly book: save the cash and check it out from the local public library, because this one you won’t be able to put down!

Why review the 30^th novel of one of the most famous crime fiction novelists of our time? Because his books interweave prior characters, including his famous series starting in 1992 involving a hardened, over-60 retired LAPD detective, Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch. In the past few installments, I have to reveal that the author has disappointed me a little, so I was skeptical. 

I’m not throwing Michael Connelly under the bus, to use a hackneyed phrase or “today’s terminology” as an old lawyer claims reluctantly in the current book: “Two Kinds of Truth” (Little Brown, 2017); however, after finishing this 20^th installment in the Harry Bosch series in about 48 hours, it felt right to sing his praises and yell out to readers in the earshot of this blog, “Harry’s back!”

Two of Hollywood’s most popular recent films, Last Jedi and Wrinkle in Time, took over an hour to get to the launching point of the story’s action. That’s an awfully slow Part One, making for a long afternoon in both experiences. Connelly uses half the pages to finish Part One, but this time I was thankful for a thorough introduction to the action involving two major story-lines: one is ripped right from the headlines of TIME® magazine and the other is very personal to Harry Bosch and hence the title of the book. Unable to compare the book to those films, let me warn you that the next 30% of the novel (Part Two) flies-by like a juiced up Yamaha® crotch-rocket through L.A. traffic on the 101.

Part Three (18%) smartly closes up the story and gets into the psychological side of Harry Bosch’s worldview, appealing to police-procedural fans who take the time and spend the money to follow this popular series. Harry’s point of view relates to what many people think about criminal law, when they either ponder it or are brought-in against their will to a system which unfortunately emulates the world around us. It also gives the reader a peek behind-the-front-desk, into the complicated, layered reality of police work.

“What’s this world about, Harry?” the police chief asks. Bosch explained what happened that week and also added that the truth was, it felt like to him he was walking in circles: “true justice was the brass ring just out of reach.” Echoing Raymond Chandler, Connelly reflects Harry's angst: Vietnam War veteran who closed homicide cases for 30-years on the mean streets of Los Angeles, forced into retirement by department politics, feeling empty when facing the enormity of the evil in the big city, or even the small suburb of San Fernando where he's landed. The author's power comes, however, in the masterfully consistent, genuine "character" of Harry Bosch played out once again in Two Kinds of Truth; it's why readers keep up their relationship with him by their loyalty:

"“To be a character” is to maintain a few qualities, nourish them to excess until they dominate and dictate all others. A character is delineated and thus generally delimited. To “have character” is to have reliable qualities, to hold tightly to them through the temptations to swerve and change. A person of character is neither bribed nor corrupted; he stands fast, is steadfast." From The Identities of Persons (1976) by philosopher Amelie Rorty. (quote not about Harry Bosch)

As an executive producer, Connelly branched out into an AmazonPrime® TV-series called Bosch, starring Titus Welliver as the eponymous character; which in full-disclosure I have not been able to watch. Nevertheless, based on the latest novel which I highly recommend, I’ll be back in the hunt for his next fictional episode in 2018, featuring a new character working with Harry, Detective Reneé Ballard, in Dark Sacred Night.    ## 

2018©Mark H. Pillsbury

Paris Stories: Unlearn What You've Learned (Part IV)

Unlearn What You've Learned (Part IV):

(Paris) Along with differences in age, language, size, and demeanor; between us walked our constant companion, his art. Training alongside the verbal, linear logic of legal precedence, my companion spun mathematical formulas out of his mind into symmetrical circles of exacting care, drawn softly with pencil and later illuminated with black & white acrylic paint.

As the practical, grounded, first-born daughter of an accountant and a classroom English teacher, my style epitomized the ascending power of the American Female Lawyer. It is true that women still struggle in the workplace for equality, but my experience was like a clear, fortunate passage into a profitable career.  At the same time, Gabriel showed me how an unorganized giant, uncomfortable in his own skin, could give his art the hyper-focus it demanded; producing large scale paintings that drew your eye into a tunnel of precision, a mystical maze of fastidious circles.

His art bloomed out of more than a mere triquetra (trinity knot), it subtly revealed the sacred artistic geometry of life; exact, mathematical, but more than just slide rules and protractors. Exhibiting the formulas of Fibonacci and the ancient truths of a sunflower’s pattern of seeds, the paintings communicated the consistent, repeatable thread of life going back to the beginning—the historic symmetry of the human struggle.

[artist and author]

Drawing by hand, sequences appearing to have come from a CAD drawing and a laser printer, Gabriel believed the complete, ancient flower of life formed an inter-dimensional tool, like a portal. Meditation showed him a mental window into what some call the inter-space plane. Not only therapeutic, his mind now had a factory in which to process traumatic stress that had once destroyed and dismantled his natural genius. He patiently waited, unbridled the yoke of mental illness, practicing his art with hope, and what Cameron calls our true nature:

"No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity. . . . I have come to believe that creativity is our true nature, that blocks are an unnatural thwarting of a process at once as normal and as miraculous as the blossoming of a flower at the end of a slender green stem." (end quote) by Julia Cameron 

Gabriel created two series of curves winding in opposite directions, drawing with a fine mechanical pencil. Beginning at the center, they stretched out to the widest part of his canvas like petals. With each seed-shaped unit sitting at a certain angle from the neighboring seeds, he demonstrated the precision of a spiral, which exists everywhere in the physical universe. The angle found in the “flower-of-life” is the universal “juste-milieu”; yet, it is the most irrational number imaginable for such a drawing, a feeble approximation of a fraction. This number is sometimes called the golden mean, or the golden angle, which is 137.5⁰.

Aristotle thought the angle was the middle point between extremes, e.g., if courage is a virtue, its excess could manifest in one extreme as recklessness, and in deficiency, cowardice. The Greeks thought the golden mean was artistically beautiful but at the same time closely associated with mathematics, being both beautiful and true. Because the best known group of American artists are usually said to be the abstract expressionists of the “New York” style, my artistic palate wasn’t typically exposed to this degree of exactness, but I guess the lawyer in me liked it? Gabriel helped me realize that the artist often must "unlearn" what she has learned, in order to know her path. ##

Fiction ©Mark H. Pillsbury

The Burst of Bloom

The Burst of Bloom (Part III)

[Paris]

“Like the soil, mind is fertilized while it lies fallow, until a new burst of bloom ensues.” (John Dewey)

Without being an adept guitarist, still I joyfully practiced chords and songs in my Paris flat. With a cool breeze coming through the window, the street noise soothed my anxiety about learning. For hours we’d try songs we both knew; singing and reminiscing about each one’s importance; forging the kind of connection that led to a greater one, later. Music’s power moved us to experience different feelings, its primitive elements combined to reflect our own artistic predilections. These times playing guitar together fostered concord in our relationship, although we were hardly aware of it.

We also read together and discussed the state of our interests. By the hidden interface of fellowship through art’s revelation, we shared our personality struggles and became closer to each other’s quest for a new kind of beauty. 

Eventually it became possible to articulate how and where each of us sought validation. My gut told me that God sanctified mathematics through Gabriel, using his imagination as a soul-force. He would humbly remind me that a poem is not a legal argument, and that I could grow beyond my American biases and idols.

Once I read a passage that struck for us a note of truth: 

“Art celebrates with peculiar intensity the moments in which the past reinforces the present, and in which the future is a quickening of what now is;” Dewey continued, calling art’s qualities: “commemorative, expectant, insinuating, and premonitory.” 

This resonated between us, with a fervently mutual hope that the art would be such things, as our intensity grew. 

The Law Student in Paris (Part II)

Part II from Paris:

Cafe Society ©Mark H. Pillsbury (2015)

I’ve often remembered how complicated this relationship appeared on its face; but at that age, at that time, it fit like a glove. Without similar backgrounds or cultures, common-ground came from far more intrinsic personality patterns, where they fell on the arc of our lives. 

His English proficiency allowed us to communicate, but our rapport grew slowly, partly because of our separate styles. Gabriel leaned shyly toward introversion, but his eyes sparkled, connecting with mine when we met.

My strong, gregarious “American” persona, smooth as my tanned legs, pressured his French manhood, yet as artists we were noncompetitive; drawn together by his earnest skillfulness, far more interesting than mine. 

He loved to debate politics, or the legal system. I assumed my sophisticated, cerebral “aura” caught his fancy, but he told me later that he first noticed me wearing a simple red Hermes scarf tying up my long, wavy brown hair.

Even though both of us were “breaking-out” of entrenched patterns; we went about it differently. Trading my logical conformity and linear thinking with sublimity, artistry, and creativity, became more art than science. On the other hand, Gabriel escaped deep-rooted archetypes of chaos and disorder through focus and concentration on life’s blueprint, which he found in nature’s precise mathematical models. As representatives of yin and yang, I believe we came together at the starting point of these changes; like two halves chasing each other, seeking balance. ##

[*This is a work of fiction, all references are coincidental and photographs are used under the "Fair Use" doctrine]

A Long Way from Houston: Law Student in Paris

A Long Way from Houston: Law Student in Paris 

(aka "Chick-lit")

(Houston) Part I

A gray, opaque blanket of clouds obscured the blue-white sky like a lamp shade, not blocking but dulling the light. Reflections off shiny office towers sometimes shot a bright laser across my eyes as I powered up the highway that bisected Houston, US Interstate Ten.

It was the kind of weekend when parents with children took their turns car-pooling to a game or practice; and single folks were lazily waiting in the Starbucks drive-thru, scrolling through Twitter®. Regardless, thousands of cars emitted enough ozone to make moist Gulf air smell just like summer.

The powerful southeast breeze was damp; saturating the atmosphere, exposing Houstonians to a stifling heat not yet oppressive, but that’d put the average American into heat stroke. You get used to it I guess, “it’s the humidity not the heat,” the old saying goes; the sky has a neutral, azure quality which burns off in the afternoon into searing yellow fire.

This Saturday, I hovered somewhere in the middle. Not a soccer mom, but not “single” enough to be waking up tangled in sheets, late after a binge-Friday night. Too poor to live in a luxury condo, and poaching off the local CrownPlaza, I sunbathed in the peace and quiet of an empty corporate hotel pool, diligently studying for the upcoming bar exam. 

I’d saved an old plastic access “key” entry card from a legal conference a year ago. So much for hotel security. At least the lecherous old men wouldn’t ogle my 70's style white diamond crochet-islet "micro-bikini".

The well-maintained pool had no bartenders to take my order, so I snuck an Evian bottle with my law books; sporting a pink canvas beach bag containing highlighters, power-bars, sunblock, and aviator Ray-Bans. Tools of the trade.

   

As a release valve, I toted a steamy novel I’d borrowed from the library. Sometimes there’s just so much Torts a girl can take before she reverts to the bleach blonde mentality of summer-reading: if the sun fries your brain, don’t use it on anything substantive. Besides, lately the pressure of thinking about the job market and the upcoming bar exam weighed too much; fiction was a way of coping with the real world.

Saving money during law school, I chose to "splurge" and leave Houston to travel abroad in Paris, the quiet city of lights. Having French classes in high school made it easier to survive. I’d never left Houston, but I was sure about Paris. The legal aspects of my stay merely provided tasks and subject matter; the surface, raison de mon émigration. But the real motivation of Paris? To fly. Escape. By soaring above my apparent direction, I wanted a perspective of life’s thoroughfare, before I took it. I needed more than a vacation in France; my time served a higher purpose.

My sojourner spirit grew out of the need to flourish and test my traditional upbringing, and the confining nature of legal studies. Reading in a café suited my taste better than studying in the law library, teaching myself guitar or meditating in my flat were more enlightening than staying after class to debate cases. The capitalist, puritan bromide my mother taught me: work hard, get a good job, quietly grow successful in the suburbs, fell off of me like a second skin; scales coming off my eyes as I discovered an authentic purpose.

Not readily apparent, the conversion came only through meditation and experimentation. I considered contrary paths: maybe I would be better working in a foreign country, helping develop a nation’s government? Returning to an American corporate legal department seemed like the least attractive option, and in Paris these questions hounded me. They still do.

---

Transition to Part II:

As much as “chick-lit” novels occupied me when not concentrating on common law and the upcoming multi-state exam; nothing could tear my subconscious from the love I’d found during the last semester of law school, studying in France. The opportunity to achieve a Master de droit in one-year studying abroad, morphed into a difficult academic experience surrounded by the passion of a genius artist, as different from me as possible.

I mastered the skill of sitting at sidewalk cafés, because that is the best place to absorb Paris. With a hard piece of sourdough and French roast coffee, I’d spend hours listening to other conversations, people watching. Different corners or plazas, depending on the neighborhood, traffic, and time of day, gave variable atmospheres. I had my favorite cafés, but my reasoning never considered where to meet the fellows. That’s because trolling Frenchmen are everywhere. I got to the point where I just reacted blithely, saying, “I don’t speak French?” One day, however, I watched an artist sketching what looked like the most compulsive doodle I’d ever seen. Gabriel attracted me like a subtle magnet, or maybe it was his art.

##

Fiction ©Mark H. Pillsbury (2015)

Advent: The Coming of Christ

That's What Christmas is About, Charlie Brown?!

Dialogue:

"Are you going Christmas shopping?"

"Yes, of course I am," she said.

"Don’t get anything for me, OK?"

"God, I’ve got so many people on my list!"

He asked, "why don’t you skip it this year?" He continued:

"Would anyone really miss your small gifts?"

She snapped back, "how do you know they’re small?"

"Your budget, amigo."

"I know, there’s no way I can afford all this," showing him her list...

"You sure you have to do it?"

As a retort, she said, "what, are you not "all-in" with the Christmas spirit?"
"Santa’s making a list and checking it twice?"

"That’s bullshit." He said firmly: "What is this season about, capitalism?"

"I’m just doing what everyone else is doing;" "it's called being nice." "I have to."

"That’s how we got here," continuing, "this is a #FakeHoliday if it's all pretty paper and boxes of things."

"Well, what in the hell is it about, Charlie Brown?"

"Don’t go all Linus on me, Chuck" (wink)

"It is a great speech, Linus gives"

[he says softly, like a little boy, "I can tell you what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown"]

Adding, "but watch it closely next time?"

Right when he says “Fear not” – Linus drops his security blanket.

"He doesn’t need it anymore, dude."
"Need what?" she asked. "The security blanket!"

The Savior has come to save us… It’s called Advent (his coming), no more fear...

*The speech from Linus:

https://youtu.be/eff0cqYefYY

*Note: I like to pin a #YouTube video to my writing and this time it is from the famous "Charlie Brown Christmas" shown on ABC in 1965, using the Gospel of Luke, ch 2, verses 8-14, as translated by the Authorized King James Version.

Christmas Thoughts on Literary Devices and Why Jesus Came

Christmas Thoughts on Literary Devices and Why Jesus Came

“And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction (oppression), yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher (God).

Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but (then) let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, may glory dwell in our land. (When) steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” (end quote)

Note: (parentheticals and underlining are mine)

As literary works, these ancient passages from the Old Testament, also called in Hebrew “Tanakh” pronounced [təˈnax]; helped me learn more about writing tools:

·         metaphor, a substitute for perspective;

·         metonymy, a substitute for reduction;

·         synecdoche, a substitute for representation; and

·         irony, a substitute for dialectic.

The metaphor of bread and water represent synecdoche for the bare essentials needed for sustenance. Jesus instructed in the NT that in this godless world, we’d continue to experience difficulties, which indicates to me that tribulation is a basic component of life. But the next sentence from Jesus is an encouragement: “Take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”

During the season of hope that Christians call “Advent”, where hope’s coming to the world is celebrated; the promises of God can be found by listening to God through his Word (metonymy). After this good news above, the prayer is that we’ll not turn back to the folly of the “rat-race” which is the world, then and at this time.

These passages can be used as metaphor in order to gain perspective and not as a tired, dying cliché; like a tutor showing the lesson by using a word picture to bring home the point. I’m encouraged that the Teacher (metonymy) is not hiding, that my eyes have been opened to see God through his Word.

It is a fearful and wonderful thing to be taught at the feet of God, simply by opening his Bible and allowing its glory to shine light into one's circumstances. This is the intersection where steadfast love and faithfulness meet.

The metonymy of such large concepts: righteousness and peace embracing for a kiss, reduces meeting of truth to something loving, human, and simple to conceptualize. Picture the metaphor of the intimate closeness, and the kissing: it’s a story of relational love!

The apostle Luke wrote about Jesus and said, “then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and (Jesus) said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’” 

Jesus' clear instructions are that to hear from God, to learn about the gospel (metonymy), one must try to understand what is written in the Bible about his coming, his life & death, and the meaning of the resurrection; and it should be proclaimed to all nations. As we seek the light of the Scripture, shining into our land, bright with God’s glory; the gospel is the climax of the story, bearing witness to Jesus and his work. This is where the steadfast love of God meets the faith of believers. Merry Christmas. ##

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Kusama Infinity Room -- Dallas Museum Exhibit (2017)

Kusama Infinity Room -- Reflections on Immersion Art

(Dallas) Yayoi Kusama’s mirrored room gives the appearance that spotted pumpkins go on forever, in what’s known as an “infinity mirror box.” A small, 12X15X12 foot box at the Dallas Museum of Art contains 62 plastic pumpkins, bright, yellow-orange, and highlighted by black polka-dots.

Surrounded by 45 mirrors (55% on the interior ceiling of the box) a visitor has but 45 seconds to go inside and look at the flowing fields of pumpkins stretching out endlessly into a limitless horizon. Inside the room was stuffy, constricted, and we were shuffled in, and out rapidly—making me feel like a carnival barker hoodwinked me to hurry inside and see the fat lady or the house of horrors.

I wondered if Kusama’s series of infinity rooms are each reflections of her complex mind, or rather small slot machines for paying customers to move through like coins in a casino. A similar exhibit at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles sold 50,000 tickets in less than an hour.

Seeing a photograph doesn’t give the illusion credit; three-dimensionality and the infinitude of the box cannot be captured in a photograph, and weren’t meant to be. The black/orange contrasted well with the polka-dotted pumpkin patch theme; but I didn’t have enough time to think about any deeper meanings.

After taking 20% of the allotted visitation for a smartphone selfie, I could not study the size of the mirrored squares, nor could I look closely at the pumpkins. The infinity effect draws your eyes to how many rows of gourds spread out from your vantage point, away from a closer inspection of each piece of plastic art, or the design of the room. Maybe that is the intention of the artist.

Kusama’s fame (and fortune) make each installment in her series an event. One visits the room in pairs, so I went at the invitation of an art student very close to me. 

The experience as a whole takes longer than 45-seconds, but even the ticketing, reading, waiting in line, and discussion afterward lasts no longer than 30-minutes. We both expressed appreciation for the event, but I didn’t connect with “speed art” the way many do; instead, my taste is more traditional. I enjoy slowly meandering through an exhibit looking at the artist’s nuances, even to the point of envisioning how the art is designed and constructed. I enjoy art like a nice meal, or a fine wine, noting all its flavor, bouquet, and body. Nevertheless, each artist’s intent must be appreciated even if it doesn’t appeal to my own preferences, as is the case with my short immersion into Kusama’s infinity room.

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Reformation Day: 500-years after Wittenberg

After Wittenberg: The Reformation 500-years from Luther

^{1 John 2: 15-17}

^15-17 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. [MSG]

¹⁵ Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; ¹⁶ for all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. ¹⁷ And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever. [TLB]

¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, ¹⁶ because all that is in the world (the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions) is not from the Father, but is from the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away with all its desires, but the person who does the will of God remains forever. [NET]

¹⁵ Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. ¹⁶ For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. ¹⁷ And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. [NLT]

¹⁵ Do not love the world [of sin that opposes God and His precepts], nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the lust and sensual craving of the flesh and the lust and longing of the eyes and the boastful pride of life [pretentious confidence in one’s resources or in the stability of earthly things]—these do not come from the Father, but are from the world. ¹⁷ The world is passing away, and with it its lusts [the shameful pursuits and ungodly longings]; but the one who does the will of God and carries out His purposes lives forever. [Amplified Bible]

¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. ¹⁶ For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. [NIV]

¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. [ESV]

15 Love not ye the world, nor the things in the world; if any one doth love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, 16 because all that [is] in the world -- the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ostentation of the life -- is not of the Father, but of the world, 17 and the world doth pass away, and the desire of it, and he who is doing the will of God, he doth remain -- to the age. [YLT]

(My thoughts):

Pride, arrogance, ostentation, confidence, isolation, independence, longing, self-reliance, desire, lust, ambition, pretention, worldly pursuits; these things are not from the Father. Loving the world usually begets desires for worldly priorities such as these. It’s like the difference between light and darkness, or white and black. However, those who do what God wants—His will—they are the ones who carry out His desires, and not those of man. Worldly pursuits eventually fade away, Godly works remain with Him forever, they have eternal worth.  These two systems are incompatible. They were incompatible 500-yrs. ago when believers paid the church “indulgences” in order to buy their loved ones out of purgatory. The Reformation started a move away from the worldly system into an age of the Gospel.

Broken people usually give up on the worldly success they once thought was their destiny. Brokenness develops humility and groundedness not usually found in the kinds of ascending, ambitious, successful, worldly “superstars” described in these three verses. The cravings of the flesh (e.g., gluttony, dissipation), the desire for that seen by our eyes (e.g., pornographic images, greed), and our pride in life (e.g., status, class, success) are very natural, as easy as taking in the air we breathe or the food we eat. But these verses are a simple mathematical computation. One does not equal the other. You cannot live in both realms; the Bible tells us. The world and the gospel do not mix.

As a believer it suggests to me another question: “How do I keep all that is going on in the world, and my human reaction to it, from overwhelming me and squeezing the life out of me?” Can I let go of the worry that keeping up with these worldly goals causes me? Will there ever be enough? Matthew 6:25. I believe that in this world which is filled with so much pain, dissension, injustice, violence, and oppression, it is the weak people who can become a source of renewal and salvation, for the world and those who serve them. This is a difficult place better done in community, which is life-giving, but also a place of pain and sacrifice. Many do not want that, but it is a place of truth and growth.

Or deeper, “how do I replace the natural desires of any man, with the willingness to do his good works (which God prepared in advance for us to do), aka, the “Will of God,” instead of pursuing my own priorities? In so many endeavors, like a new job, new relationship, or moving to another town, we don’t know what we don’t know. But in the case of the Bible, these things are clearly told us so that we do know what God wants. This is a blessing. We know what we need to know about the eternal things of God because he shared these with us in His word. He tells us directly that the great commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind.” Matthew 22: 34-46. That is the beginning of all wisdom. (Paul would tell us as we look not to worldly things seen, but to things that are unseen, that the worldly things that are seen are transient; however, things that are unseen are spiritual, and eternal).

Conclusion:
I was fortunate enough to be taught the logic of the Reformation, in that justification (being declared right with God), by faith alone, is an essential point of the gospel. I learned that the real gospel was what Jesus did for me by his work on the cross, that I could not earn or buy for myself. These magnificent truths became clear over a long period of time, by going to church, sitting at the feet of good teaching, and Bible study. Since then it is clear: a church that doesn’t put this doctrine front and center, even if accompanied by good discipleship, music, outreach, and/or fellowship, is not where I want to invest time. Unfortunately, if one rejects justification by faith alone, and seeks after worldly pursuits, they’ve rejected the gospel, and that strategy will fail in the end. Church growth, like our own growth, is dependent on a gospel-centered life. Celebrating the beginning of the Reformation today, is celebrating gospel truth, the triumph of the people’s church not the Pope, and the importance of recognizing what God did for us, and by doing his will.

Thesis No. 62, posted by Martin Luther, October 31, 1517:
"The true treasure of the Church, is the most holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God." 

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©Mark H. Pillsbury

Environmentalism: A Blogger's Track Record

If you've followed my writing on the "New Rostra" blog, you've read about natural disasters, weather, and the dangers of this beautiful planet we inhabit. I love living here, but it is not safe. The environmentalist dilemma is front and center on this forum. My record has been set here, in many different contexts:

Pardon me for quoting my previous posts on #BlogSpot via the New Rostra, but here they are...

I've detailed the incredibly dangerous lives of storm chasers: http://goo.gl/iKZCTM

There have been musings on running away from threatening storms: http://goo.gl/sAqjpV

Reflections on Hurricane Ike in the Houston area: http://goo.gl/8cTmaa

The disastrous earthquake in Nepal:  http://goo.gl/3jyBjn

Thank you reader, and if you'd like to read these previous posts you'll see that I respect the earth and her power, but I don't pretend to understand that power or predict what will happen next. It's crazy to try to do that...

Many in the environmentalist movement seemingly make fear-mongering a religion, and their know-it-all scientists have twisted statistics and theories in order to scare the public into thinking that we're ruining the habitat, and in a few years with the ice caps melted, the population is doomed to drown or be crushed by famine. [They're not sure how the bad stuff is going to happen, but they're sure that it will happen; which I call, "it's too late" environmentalism]. As an example of vague warning, climate scientists emphasize that climate change didn't proximately cause hurricanes Harvey and Irma; still, they maintain with assurance that climate change exacerbates risks posed by the storms.

This hubris is addressed by the famous thinker Kurt Vonnegut, when he said,

“For me (Kurt Vonnegut), the most paralyzing news was that “Mother Nature” was no conservationist. She needed no help from us in taking the planet apart and putting it back together some different way, not necessarily improving it from the viewpoint of living things. She set fire to forests with lightning bolts. She paved vast tracts of arable land with lava, which could no more support life than big-city parking lots. “Mother Nature” had in the past sent glaciers down from the North Pole to grind up major portions of Asia, Europe, and North America. Nor was there any reason to think that she wouldn't do that again someday. At this very moment she is turning African farms to deserts, and can be expected to heave up tidal waves, hurricanes, or shower down white-hot boulders from outer space, at any time. She has not only exterminated exquisitely evolved species in a twinkling, but drained oceans and drowned cites or continents as well. If people think Nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.” (end quote)

I could be wrong, but I won't live to see it. After a few hundred more years when I am but dust in the wind, I think the earth will still be doing fine; although her weather patterns may have changed again after few more millennia, who knows?! My opinion won't be relevant, but that doesn't mean that as stewards of this great earth, we should not be careful about how we behave. (Balanced with human reality).

As an historically violent and unpredictable planet, the earth's recurring environmental nightmares are more common than we know: for example, Japan had been hit by tsunamis before 2011: in 1585, 1611, 1677, 1687, 1689, 1700, 1716, 1793, 1868, and 1894. The most destructive tsunami before 2011 was the Meji Sanriku Tsunami of 1896, which killed 22,000 people. Many of Japan's older residents remember the 1933 tsunami, w/ waves as high as 100 feet, killing 3,000 people. These hardy folks are not inclined to complain about weather, even in its extremes; nevertheless, she throws at Japan walls of water, every century. My point is that man didn't visit this tragedy on Japan.

Kathryn Schulz wrote in the New Yorker, in 2015: 

"The “ghost forest” is a grove of western red cedars on the banks of the Copalis River, near the Washington coast. The cedars are spread out across a low salt marsh on a wide northern bend in the river, long dead but still standing. Leafless, branchless, barkless, they are reduced to their trunks and worn to a smooth silver-gray, as if they had always carried their own tombstones inside them. 

What killed the trees in the ghost forest was saltwater. It had long been assumed that they died slowly, as the sea level around them gradually rose and submerged their roots. But, by 1987, it was discovered through studying soil layers in the ghost forest, evidence of sudden land subsidence along the Washington coast. The death of the cedars was not due to long exposure to saltwater; instead, the trees died quickly, when the ground beneath them plummeted. Scientists followed this lead to discover circumstantially, and through Japanese history that a massive earthquake happened there, and spread a tsunami to Japan, across the ocean. 

At approximately 9pm on January 26, 1700, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck the Pacific Northwest, causing sudden land subsidence, drowning coastal forests, and, out in the ocean, lifting up a wave half the length of a continent. It took roughly fifteen minutes for the Eastern half of that wave to strike the Northwest coast. It took ten hours for the other half to cross the ocean. It reached Japan on January 27, 1700: by the local calendar, the eighth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of Genroku. In Japan it was labeled in history, the “orphan” because no one in Japan felt the earth shake prior to its arrival." (emphasis, and paraphrasing are mine)

If we need to panic, there are more immediate needs of our attention as a species than the environment; if I were to categorize things to which humans can actually affect change. There are numerous examples, but trying to wrangle mother nature is a waste of our time and resources.

In a previous post about petroleum's impact on the world economy, if you weigh that impact against the environmentalist view, the decision is forced: to lean on the side of humanity flourishing, or to limit carbon-based fuels to developing countries when they need it most:

http://goo.gl/H2uWPQ
"The need for abundant fuel is just as acute in 2017 (e.g., more than one billion people lack access to electricity and modern cooking fuels, and 75 million new cars are sold each year, globally). There is an incredibly strong correlation between the use of fossil fuels and life expectancy, and between fossil fuel use and income; one can observe the recent history of China and India as examples. Human “flourishing” requires resources, and abundant energy (points made by Alex J. Epstein in his book “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” 2014)."

https://books.google.com/books?id=_ld9AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Alex%20Epstein&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=Alex%20Epstein&f=false

If you would like to discuss the environment with me, please give me a Tweet @markpills

Disclaimer: views expressed in this blog or anywhere on social media sites are my own personal opinions and express my individual perceptions. They do not represent the policies, positions, or viewpoints of my employer.

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©Mark H. Pillsbury