Good Friday! Goodnight!

Sitting on a toilet at 3 AM, pants on, with a laptop as a companion, can breed a variance of thoughts...

In the upper West side of New York City, the surroundings to me at first glance seem incommensurate with all the ideals of a community I most cherish: the intangible value of families sharing the same home-base and zeal for its health, a radical inclusivity shaped and molded by a conscientious shattering of all, power-based distinctions that create barriers between individuals and breed all sorts of stereotyping, and, well, doors with windows and formidable houses turned into homes by years of nurturing care. In her nursing years, Dorothy Day used to drink until the morning with Eugene O'Neill across town from here, listening to his retelling of the times he almost drowned himself in the darkness of the river at night. At the same time Bob Dylan and Harry Smith searched through Smith's collection of 7” for the perfect track to accompany a night of exploration into a realm created by drugs paid for by Smith's ever-growing collection of university grant money. My ever-curious, ever-unsatisfied mind wants to barrage my sister with all of the questions it can put forth related to this place, seeing as I better get all of the opinions I can get before I denigrate an entire city with my pathetic opinions. Becca is radiant; the wrinkles on her face when she smiles attest to the rapture she seems to be feeling now that her family has insurrected her apartment, her untraditionalism no longer slated into the minority of these apartment dwellers. My father's grunts, snorts, reverberant throat infestations, oftentimes abysmal to my sister and I growing up, are now innocuous at the least to all of us, and dare I say, cherishable. Seeing a woman forging through black garbage bags outside of this apartment complex, looking for fitting clothing, makes me realize the ever-existing incongruities between “the rich” and “the poor.” Is it disrespectful and shamelessly discourteous to offer this woman a sweater or a meal, just exaggerating these distinctions?
Reading on educational reform in Africa while sitting in a comfortable fold-out bed says to me again that I am too oftentimes unaware of the privelege that I have, and so far removed from anything African, other than a couple of books bought for what can bring hundreds of people clean water, that it is simply naïve, childish-thinking to want to go there. I remember reading an interview with a man who said, “Americans seem to take pity on Africans because we have so little, but I pity Americans. Americans expect to be taken care of, whereas with every thing we receive, we thank God for his provision.” I'm reminded of Joseph Farrel, a sixty year-old broom-toting, Gospel-laden street gyspy, whom I am priveledged to know as my friend, and co-conspirator. I pray I will never give into the provocative insulation that replaces groveling, grateful, thankfulness with lamentable expectation.

Reflecting on Reflection

I've always been a cheap philosopher by nature, so here it goes...
I sometimes rant about blogs being the perpetrators of what I perceive to be one of the most grievous and confusing travesties of technology: the proclamation of some personal inwardness at the expense of it being regarded as entertainment, or maybe worse, fodder to perpetuate vanity on the part of the writer. The former can be seen in the popularity of those uber-serious dating television shows and the public's response that is little more than some type of destructive emotional pornography, the same emotional pornography which feeds the exploitation of intimacies otherwise known as common gossip. It should be no surprise to me that these things take natural sentiments and distort them, but it still really makes me angry. Curiosity about an individual should first and foremost be taken directly to that individual, and the prevelance of Facebook or Myspace being some type of mashed-up destroyer of the graces and beautiful gifts of intimate communication, is very troubling. In other words, using the intimacies of others without temperance or regard for their soul seems to me to be a usurpation of what I hope our natural sentiments are for: training us to regard others as better than ourselves and training us to bear with the sufferings of others. For these things to happen, first and foremost, I have to abandon superficial regard for how I am perceived, and as Oswald Chambers says, “my right to myself,” my own falsely perceived “rights” I think I have to my own feelings or “needs,” above the needs of those around me. I haven't greeted my brothers and sisters together in vulnerability to each other and before God in my home church, through trust in Christ, since Christmas Eve, and I now realize the incredible responsibility I have to them. Here's how Merton speaks of this:

“Of course no one assumes this responsibility merely in obedience to arbitrary whim or to the delusion that one is of oneself capable of taking the troubles of the whole Assembly on one’s own shoulders. But one emerges “in Christ” to share the labor and worship of the whole Christ, and in order to do this one must sacrifice one’s own superficial and private self. The paradoxical fruit of this sacrifice of one’s trivial and “selfish” (or simply immature) self is that one is then enabled to discover one’s deep self, in Christ."

I'm hoping that blogging, in one sense, can be a medium that fuels trusting abandonment at the expense of my own “need to be taken seriously” which is fundamentally vain bullshit more than anything else.

I've been thinking quite a bit about the idea of self-contemplation, and the ever-foreboding thought in my mind in the midst of contemplation that -- self-contemplation isn't bringing me anywhere but to a place of despair, or at the least, confusion. Though I perceive it as a way of understanding myself and my actions in hopes of justifying myself to myself, in vanity justifying myself to others, and less frequently to God, it becomes a bludgeoning tool--some purveyor of a perceived isolation, instead of bringing me the inner consolation I am looking for. Walker Percy has quite a bit to say about our failure to know ourselves completely through self-scrutinization, reverberating Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky's assessments that as human beings, we are fundamentally enigmatic to ourselves. We try to understand ourselves through our own eyes and through the eyes of others, but to no avail. We can never know ourselves through everyone else or through self-scrutinizing examination. Kierkegaard writes in “The Present Age,”

"For unless the individual learns in the reality of religion and before God to be content with himself, and learns, instead of dominating others, to dominate himself, content as priest to be his own audience, and as author his own reader, if he will not learn to be satisfied with that as the highest, because it is the expression of the equality of all men before God and of our likeness to others, then he will not escape from reflection."

It seems to me that we can only know our true selves through seeing ourselves as Christ sees us: together unworthy, together soaked in sin and self-obsession, and together goaded in patience and mercy to accept grace and realize that it is ultimately up to Christ, not our own limited perspectives, what takes place after this life.

Review of The Photographs of Margaret Courtney-Clarke at The African American Museum in Philadelphia

An artistic appraisal of Margaret Courtney-Clarke's work would have to encompass a multiplicity of considerations. In addition to aesthetics, of which Clarke's photographs certainly do not neglect, Clarke's work comprises intimations into individuals. Her photographs create single frame stories of resiliency, of cultural and artistic contentment amidst the threats of cultural subversion from the West. Within her photographs are unabashed subjects, vulnerable in their own persons to the camera without ostentatious affectations.
Courtney-Clarke herself was born and raised in Namibia. Her peculiar origins as a Namibian-born photographer give her the empirical experience needed to fully interpret her subjects first as African women in their own cultural setting, a necessity if cultural devotion is to precede artistic interpretation. It seems Clarke would agree with writer Erskine Caldwell, who wrote that in order to create something true and believable, “You have to know people themselves, and be able to believe in these people...If you do not believe in them, if you think they are just characters to manipulate...you end up with nothing.” Clarke manages to shroud these rich rural traditions in aesthetically symmetrical portraitures, refusing to let her work become aesthetic pornography. Her images pay a humble and fractional homage to the rich and exhaustive cultural and artistic traditions imbedded within the daily lives of rural African women. She views the women through her lens as artists in their own right, preserving a way of life and commitment to artistic beauty, often in the face of ongoing social, political, and economic disruption and upheaval.
To briefly move in another direction in hopes of a better understanding of Clarke's subjects, I'd like to contrast ideal conceptions of democracy and education, with a generalized account of the education provided by colonial domination. The implications of Clarke's photographs for my personal understanding of ideal democracy and education can be complemented by the thoughts of Bertrand Russell, who contests that the goal of education is “to give a sense of the value of things other than domination,” and to encourage a combination of citizenship with liberty and individual creativeness. In Russell's point of view, these ideas if implemented could produce free human beings whose values are equality, cooperation, and participating to achieve common goals. Adam Smith, the humanist and pre-capitalist thinker, agrees with Russell in that he praises the basic human right to creative work, denouncing the “new spirit of the age,” which is: gain wealth, forgetting all but self.
Colonial domination in Africa was produced by this same spirit, embodied within the pathological entities who claimed to be forerunners of democracy. What colonizers claimed as liberation from African spiritual slavery came along with enslavement of another kind: the double edged sword of collusion between succesively oppressive regimes and those believing the Kingdom of God could only come in the form of African cultural dissipation. Thankfully, Courtney-Clarke's photographs provide insights into those whose lives are shaped around creative work, something colonizers never could have brought them nor taken away.
Art's potential as a singular means for subsistence in maintaining wholeness on the individual level is written in the visual vocabularies of the “work” of the Ndebele and Imazighen women: a hand-carved ladder, hand-died fabrics, intricately designed and painted patterns covering the entirety of homes; This is perhaps the only education that fosters these closely-knit communities who have managed to preserve lives undeprived of artistic and aesthetic nourishment. These women seem to be whispering “I need beauty in my life. It is so much a part of me that I cannot separate my work from my art.” Perhaps it is these women who in the midst of seeming domination, truly understand the meaning of education and democracy.

Understanding Judaism in Antiquity

The item of importance when attempting to understand the culture and lifestyle of the ancient Israelites is in finding similarities and common points of intersection between such a severely different time period and our own. The single point of entry into assuming a means of curiosity and appreciation for Ancient Israelite life, is found in observing and seeking commonalities. If I do not relate the culture of Ancient Israel in its most human forms to my own humanity, I will cease interpreting it in a way that bears any importance when reading the Bible for personal soul reparation. If I cannot understand the cultural background behind the writings, I will apply my own cultural presumptions to my reading, resulting in a drastically flawed reading of the Bible. If I cannot ascertain what the writings meant culturally and socio-politically to its readers and writers originally, I disadvantage myself, and severely taint what I bring out of the text. Beginning with a simplistic understanding of Jewish life in antiquity, I begin to understand the importance and relation of the text to an individual's life at that time. If I begin to understand this, I can then strip down culturally derived, hermeneutically unsound principles of Biblical interpretation, and replace them with studied cultural examinations as precedent to examination. Isolated, personalized ideas about the interpretation of the Bible are unfounded, static and schematically inapplicable. The merit in wanting to understand the culture of Ancient Israel is that it brings about a more holistic understanding of the context in which Jesus came. In understanding the Jewish culture in which the patriarchs lived, Christ's cultural and religious deviance for the purpose of the extension of the Kingdom of God and employment of God's grace can be realized and understood in its own culture. Failing to understand the ways in which Christ replaced the culture he was born into with the embodied culture of the Kingdom of God, how can we expect to understand Christ's relation to our own culture? Without understanding the Jewish historical context in which Jesus lived, is it possible that we can understand Jesus apart from our tainted, Westernized, historically and culturally ignorant perceptions of Him? Understanding the Jews and their culture is pertinent to understanding Christ I think. Thoughts or criticisms from the lone reader?

"Howard Kleger remains the longest distance between any two points; the world's greatest living foe of expediency."

I met a remarkable gentleman tonight by the name of Howard Kleger. Howard lives in Philadelphia and makes his nightly residence at a cafe my sister frequents near the Northstar Bar. The place has an array of characters, though Howard remains the spectacle of originality, a living embodiment of complete abandonment of vanity and societal normality. His life is artwork in the purest form. The world is his canvas, and his revolving array of friends and interactions: witnesses to his inestimable genius of such an unbeknownst marriage between imagination and daily activity. My sister has been wanting to aquaint me with Howard, and tonight her wishes were realized. A friend and admirer of Howard has written a thoroughly developed analysis of his surreal and seemingly fictionalized life, which can only merely introduce laymen such as myself to such a wonder of humanity.

Howard Kleger and Hypermeaning by Brandon Joyce
The Klegatorium

Howard invited my sister and I to spend Hannakuh with his family, after a remark I made about wanting to experience the holiday. His plan is that I will pretend I am the boyfriend of one of the residents, hide in her room, and escape the stairwell so his parents will not see me. Then Howard will knock on the door, saying, "It's me, Howard!," and I will burst forth as a Hannakuh joke for all to enjoy in holiday mirth. I'm excited to see how this one plays out.

Letter to Daniel on Art

A friend of mine asked me to read and consider some of his conclusive ideas on the relation between art and poverty some days ago. Putting aside the uselessness of lying in bed in rumination, I decided to write him at around 3 AM one night. Here is the response I wrote, which, in turn, has brought me to the place where I am now: adding to my list of sleepless activities, a personal blog. Daniel's blog is an amalgam of thoughts comprehensively collected in the mind of a man, and expelled on the internet for the reading of one or maybe two people. (a tradition I will thus continue here.) Thanks for the inspiration to write more Daniel.

(Note to the lone reader: Daniel's thoughts on the relation between art and poverty are more conclusive and meditated upon than my own verbose meanderings. His post "Art and Poverty Pt. 2" is worth the read. Jonathan Barker also has some good thoughts on the matter.)

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[from danielrleonard.blogspot.com]

Daniel,

I think an important thing to consider when trying to come to conclusions about the importances and implications of art, is the model of the Creator. Being created in the image of the Creator grants us all the ability to create in our own individualized ways, which too often we dismiss because of the tendency to compartmentalize art into specific categories. (ie: I cannot draw or write, and create according to what our culture defines as the only accepted artistic formats, so I will dismiss my ability to create.) This approach is too often accepted, limiting the self-actualizing (or rather Christ-actualizing) potential of those created in the image of God, to revel in a joy granted to us freely, creating being a part of the whole in Christ we are to become, and ever becoming. I am known to politefully and contemptibly dismiss any attempt from anyone to enter into a dialogue seriously with me about the purpose or culturally and spiritually significances of art, simply because it so oftentimes delineates sheer enjoyment of art for me into abstraction and impersonal sub-reality. I think another important thing to raise questions about is the personal ramifications of art, and the creation of art as a means for as you say ”liberation.” Perhaps instead of looking at the cultural and spiritual significances of art as a whole, it is more beneficial to understand the significance art has to its individual creator. As we were created to be in personal communion with each other and God, originally, I think we can again, look to the Creator-God as a source of direction. I understand the human race through and in the lens of the Creator and His creation (the whole scope of what was created!) Without an adequate understanding of the Creator, it is hard for me to make any sort of formidable sense of His creation. I think this ethic bears weight somehow, and may be an adequate model to use in approaching art. Like yourself, I believe art is a questionable topic to approach with any sort of certainty, and I am not sure that is a bad thing. Any all encompassing, preponderance of evidence related to art must be gathered personally and intimately through attempting to understand the mind of its creator.

A good Christ-centered resource which does not diminish art's significance, raising many more questions than it attempts to answer is aptly titled, “Art Needs No Justification,” by a man named H. R Rookmaaker. I have a copy if you'd like to read it.

Continuing the dialogue about art and poverty, I think aesthetics can be a dangerous thing if we are more drawn towards enjoying the aesthetic qualities of a photograph of impoverished peoples, than willing in our hearts (and wishing to act) for their relief. This very thing is terrifying evidence of the seemingly insurmountable disconnections between our lives here in the West, and those “others,” whose photographs may be used to pull together colors in a room, rather than evoke Christ's want for restoration and justice in our world. This is why I am upset that one of my favorite photographers has a book being printed with all of his photographs from several trips to Africa. There is something evidently discordant about the ability to purchase a book for twenty dollars, which attempts to expose the bitter, should-be intimacies of real, struggling [a word we cannot even feign to resonate with] people. Unfortunately, the possession of such a thing so oftentimes will in our minds become travestied beauty, becoming, cheap, fleeting pornography, robbing these beautiful people of dignity and personality. This is where theory intersects reality. This is why it is at times for me painful and hurtful to watch others look at photographs I have on a wall in a gallery solely for personal enjoyment. It's contemptible and shameful, and I'd like to tell them to stop objectifying human beings. But I must admit that I am being a pious prig, and look for the whisper of Christ in it all.

Bonhoeffer on Security vs. Peace

A friend of mine has been reading about Bonhoeffer extensively in preparation for some type of scholastic dispensation as of recently. Here are his remarks, followed by Bonhoeffer's radical thoughts on defining peace apart from security.

[from catholicanarchy.org]

More and more I’m convinced that Bonhoeffer’s most powerful material comes not from his classic, well-known works, but his speeches and sermons delivered for particular occasions. The following is an excerpt from another speech at an ecumenical conference on the Church’s vocation of peace, titled “The Church and the Peoples of the World.”

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"How does peace come about? Through a system of political treaties? Through the investment of international capital in different countries? Through the big banks, through money? Or through universal peaceful rearmament in order to guarantee peace? Through none of these, for the single reason that in all of them peace is confused with safety. There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture. It can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust, and this mistrust in turn brings forth war. To look for guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means to give oneself altogether to the law of God, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.”