Beauty

Beauty is an interesting thing to get a conversation started, especially in the area of the arts, so here are a few of my thoughts recently on the subject.

Becca.

OK, maybe that is not exactly what I am talking about, but she does seem to pretty much sum up the word. Actually, what I have been thinking about is beauty in the aspect of being an attribute of God. First of all I think it is, but it is an interesting one. Most the attributes that are attributed to God (like how that works) are things that we commonly think of- love, goodness, just, righteous, etc, etc, etc. These are all wonderful things, but what to they look like? We can see the effects of them in how we live our lives, but they are a lot like the wind and as such are great ways of explaining God because we can't really see Him either, but we can see and touch the effects of Him. So what about beauty? Beauty is something that is usually defined as something that is seen, so how does God demonstrate His attribute of beauty?

He does it through us. He does it through His church.

I believe beauty is one of the most communicable attributes of God, because He has chosen to use His creation as the outlet of this piece of who He is. Just in case you don't believe me here are some really great scriptures that I have been mulling about in my head concerning beauty:

I have asked one thing from the LORD;
it is what I desire:
to dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
gazing on the beauty of the LORD
and seeking Him in His temple.
Psalm 27:7

Think about it, what does the psalmist mean when he is saying that in the house of the Lord he can gaze on God's beauty?

From Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God appears in radiance.
Psalm 50:2

The "perfection of beauty." For some reason God has chosen to use us, Zion, His church as the culmination of all that is beautiful. What I think that means for us now is that God desires that the things that are being created and coming forth from the church are not regurgitated leftovers of what has already been created. His desire is to show forth true beauty, both in form and action, in a way that has not been seen on the earth before.

In the beginning...

God is really big. He can do lots and lots of things, and if I really had the time and ambition I am sure I could come up with blog after blog, year after year writing about all the great things God is and does, but today I want to write about an aspect of God that I think people sometimes forget about.

So lets start at the beginning.

"In the beginning..." (just in case someone has not picked up a bible lately this particular passage can be found toward the front of the book, usually shortly after the table of contents but before you get to the big number "2".) Isn't it novel that a book about so many great and wonderful things starts with "in the beginning." That basically means before anything else. And I think it leads nicely to the next part that simply states "...God..."

Before anything else. Before life, before sin, before all the things that we so often find our identity and purpose in, there was God. Before our brilliant piano concerto, before our best selling novel, before our brilliant stroke of original genius, there was God. He is the author. And here is why.

"...created..."

For some reason the first thing that an infinite God wants to reveal about Himself, before He tells us He is a just God, before He tells us He is a loving God, before He tells us He is a holy God, He tells us He is a creator. Now do not get me wrong. I am not trying to say that this is the most important aspect of who God is, or that it makes creativity something special that deserves a place of more honor than something else. I simply want to point out that I think God puts more emphasis on creativity in His kingdom than we do.

But this is not some open invitation to just start creating whatever fills our heads. Now we have to look at the last part of the sentence "...the heavens and the earth." God created with a purpose and what He created had a purpose. All the water, all the trees, all the animals, all the people were created for one purpose. To glorify Him. Because He deserves it.

We have been given the ability to create. We have been given the capacity to imagine. Why would we want to do it for any other reason than to glorify Him?

Friends are fun

A couple of weeks ago we made the long, harrowing travel across the great chasm that is Nebraska to visit my long lost friends and family in Missouri. On our way Becca and I started talking about how long it had been since we had been there and realized it had been almost a year. Yikes - people grow around 365 days older in a year and that's a lot of growing. Needless to say it was great to see everyone we got to see, and sad to not see those that we missed, but it got me thinking about the amazing friends I have.

One of my friends, Serenity posted on her happy again blog about some things that are underrated. Well, I think friends are one of those things, especially when it comes to things like we talk about on this blog, creativity, imagination, art. Too often we look at these things the way we always have been taught. They are something that comes out of your own inner muse, they are a reflection of who you are, they are a piece of your soul for gosh sakes. What does that have to do with friends?

It should have everything to do with your friends.

Something that I think is greatly missing in the creative process, although some people are beginning to get a hold if it, is a little thing I like to call "collaboration." (No, I did not make that word up for those of you who have never heard it, it is in the dictionary.) It is in the spirit of friendships and collaboration that I am working on peeling off the newest slice of this delicacy called ORAN6E. It is called just that "ORAN6Eslices" I want people to be able to meet and hear from some of my friends and see what makes them tick. In the next couple of weeks I will begin periodically posting "ORAN6Eslices" videos both here and as podcasts available for download on iTunes. (I am providing the link to iTunes in case someone has just awakened from a 10 year comma and has no clue what great and glorious wonders await them.)
So if there are any imaginative people that you would like to hear from, let me know. And who knows, you might just find yourself projected on the wee silver screen.

Todays quote

"I don't know why grownups don't believe what they did when they were younger? Aren't they supposed to be smarter?"
Eric- Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
Caleb

Sent from my BlackBerry

I have a dream...

Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. He had a dream.

We all have dreams. Some of us dream more than others, but we all dream. I'm not talking about that moment when we reach REM and we see little purple bunnies chasing hippos in the pond. I am talking about that moment when we realize there is something bigger than ourselves and know we want to be a part of it. We have a hope.

I have lots of dreams. I used to think that all the dreams that I had were just disconnected thoughts about something that would someday be cool to do. If I had 100 lifetimes I might be able to do some of them. Then I realized that the majority of my dreams were somehow connected. They all were a piece of something bigger than me. And it made me want them even more.

Then it seemed like nothing was ever going to happen. I even came to a point where I didn't want to be quiet with God because I knew I would get dreams that were never going to come true.

Who cares? Who cares if my dreams never come true? If they are my dreams they probably don't need to come true and if they are God's dreams, He will accomplish them. When He wants to. If we live with this idea in our minds we are free to dream as big as we can, as often as we can.

ORAN6E is a dream. It is something bigger than me, and it is part of something even bigger than itself, and I want to be a part of it. And I want you to be a part of it. I don't know how we are going to do it, but I think we need to give ourselves the permission to dream. Dream big.