Prayers, Praise and Pomodoro

Grande Disco

Arnaldo Pomodoro

Charlotte, NC

"The social challenge of art today, in my opinion,

is to start a dialogue with the people."

Arnaldo Pomodoro

     "Congenial conversation- what a pleasure!

The right word at the right time- beautiful!" 

Proverb 15:23, The Message.

     Words matter. The art of conversation rests on the right word at the right time. Words are the stock and trade of preachers and politicians, poets and pragmatists... it's no wonder we cringe at the word rhetoric (check out Rhetorica ad Herennium, you can click here to download a copy). FYI- Google translate doesn't list art as a language.


     Saturday I witnessed a beautiful thing- teenagers giving away words of hope, written, spoken and sung, to strangers on a sidewalk in Uptown Charlotte. They defied all the stereotypical 'kids today' comments. They prayed for people, out loud. They sang. Loud. They danced. Extravagantly. They freely gave away one of their most precious gifts- time, for the express purpose of sharing the love of God... without hype or pressure. There were, of course, some who steered clear of the group. These are strange times, filled with strange people. Too many agendas to be leary of.


     Not too far from the youth, across the street, there stands a sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro. The Grande Disco. The artist's statement at the base reads:


     Our life today is one of crisis... of movement... of tension.
     We do not know what our world will become.
     I try to say something about this uncertainty in my work.
     I try to communicate a sense of vitality and connection
     with the movement of life today...
     and to be a part of its movement.
     The social challenge of art today, in my opinion, is to start
     a dialogue with the people.
     I hope that is what happens here with the Grande Disco.


Saturday, a group of teenagers in Charlotte, North Carolina started a dialogue with a few people. Face-to-face, in real time, in front of The Grande Disco.

Street Worship
Tryon and Trade
Charlotte, NC

What if...?

"Kids think with their brains cracked wide open;

becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut."

Jodi Picoult

     As a teacher, one of the questions that drives me is "What if...?" The universe is contained within those three dots. Every good teacher knows that the right question is more important than the right answer. Here are a few of the 'what ifs' I've been chewing on:

     What if time is an expanding circle rather than a spring unwinding?

     What if there is a sound inside me someone needs to hear?

     What if everyone could be childlike and released their sound?

     What if the One who created time stepped into the circle?

     What if anything is possible?

Scribes, Skins and Screens

My Kindle

    "History plays odd jokes sometimes, and it seems a prank that the first to use a true alphabet should be a people with no literature at all."

Oscar Ogg, The 26 Letters

     My disease is probably hereditary. I suspect my Father. It isn't painful, though at times it can be annoying. The description is as follows:

     Bibliomaniaor Book-Madness from the Greek biblion=book+ mania=madness.Behavioral disorder caused by bacterial infection, bacilli librorum (attributed to Eugene Field). Common symptoms include the uncontrollable urge to acquire and hoard books, indiscriminate bookstore hopping, and delusions of authorship, which alone or in combination may result in prolonged disruption of daily life. The more severe forms of bibliomania may involve recurring incidents of bibliokleptomania (book theft) and/or lying about supposed ownership of titles. No cure is known to exist... 

from The Gutenberg Project

     It began, I think, when I discovered a shelf of books in the basement- The World's Great Literature in twenty volumes. As my fingers touched the words of Stevenson, Poe, H.G. Wells and a host of others, the infection began. The very smell of the paper... the feel of the paper was a thing of wonder. I knew something was happening that I did not want to end. Several volumes from the shelf assimilated into my DNA. The feeling returns when I enter a used-book store; when I see that the well-crafted book I am holding is a first edition, causing a stirring in my inner-man (I once discovered a first edition To Kill A Mockingbird in a Memphis Goodwill- $1.00... still in the original dust jacket). 

Some old friends

     And so, when Joshua gave me a Kindle for Christmas my first thought was, 'What will I do with this?' It feels cold. The pages are stored beneath a screen of plastic. It smells of... well, it doesn't have a smell. Books are supposed to smell. And what about the books of old, carefully produced on handmade paper and animal skins (each Gutenberg Bible printed on Vellum required the lives of 170 young calves). Little did I know. 

     My Kindle currently holds 126 titles. There are, beneath my screen, four Bibles, two dictionaries and works by Thoreau, Ruskin, Kant, Kierkegaard, Aquinas and my old friends Stevenson, Poe and Wells. I confess- Kindle is convenient, and, no animals were harmed in the making of it. According to The Association of American Publishers, 3.4 million ebook units sold last year. Thanks to Project Gutenberg, I can download 39,000 ebooks- free. I can even download articles as a PDF.  If only it had the right smell.

  

  Alas, I can always go to the library for my bibliofix. 

A shelf in my library (Fort Mill Public Library)

Time is Weird

Samuel being tattooed

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
John Lennon, Beautiful Boy


     Time is weird. In the past two weeks my son Samuel turned 18, was tattooed and graduated from High School... in that order. Three benchmark moments occurred within a few days. But that's not the weird part. The weird part is that he was born just the other day. Well, it seems like the other day. Was it really eighteen years ago?   


     Samuel has always been perceptive. His child-like comments become known in our household as Sammyisms. I recorded some of them in journals. Here are a few, each spoken before Samuel turned five: 

"God can see the wind."

"God made butterflies so art can fly."

"You don't see rainbows at nighttime."

"Sometimes God asks us to do hard things."

"Dad, I want to fly. Will you make gravity go away?"

"My heart feels I should have a cookie."

"When you live in the Bible the Bible is your world."

"When I get to heaven, the first thing I'm gonna do is give God a kiss and a hug."

     Congratulations, Samuel. You are a blessing to me and to all who know you.

May the Lord bless you, and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance on you,

and give you peace.

Graduation Day