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Hello friends, and welcome. This website has been completed for my COMM 330 class as an online portfolio. I am majoring in Communication at Regent University.

As communicators, we can either manipulate and dominate, or in kindness and gentleness draw the wounded to the heart of the Father. It is my desire to learn how to be an effective and godly communicator. In learning how to more effectively communicate, the words of my mouth can speak life into a world of darkness. There is so much conflict, hatred, and turmoil, communication should then be used to bring unity, reconciliation, and hope.

 

Machinations of Desire

“The Guide laughed. “You are falling into their own error,” he said, “the change is not radical, nor will it be permanent. That idea depends on a curious disease which they have all caught—an inability to dis-believe advertisements. To be sure, if the machines did what they promised, the change would be very deep indeed. Their next war, for example, would change the state of their country from disease to death. They are afraid of this themselves—though most of them are old enough to know by experience that a gun is no more likely than a toothpaste or a cosmetic to do the things its makers say it will do. It is the same with all their machines. Their labour-saving devices multiply drudgery; their aphrodisiacs make them impotent: their amusements bore them: their rapid production of food leaves half of them starving, and their devices for saving time have banished leisure from their country. There will be no radical change.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress

 

https://twitter.com/Geegawla/status/563069908985327619

Blindness Is A Choice

 

“We were each born spiritually blind. The Lord calls us to learn to see, but our brain was designed so if we do not walk in the light, we remain blind.  It takes a moment to break a boundary; but it takes repetitious activity to establish a boundary, where, with intention, we actively turn from the blindness of Self, and learn to look to Christ. Where we do not die to Self, we remain blind; devoid of fruit in our life.”

From Transformative

 

 

Keep Moving Forward

Every year the Sandhill Cranes have a baby or two. Sometimes they make it. Sometimes they don’t. Don’t give up. Be one that makes it.

Keep Growing. Keep Moving Forward.

Social Justice – Get The Facts

For a class assignment, I had to complete a podcast interview on a social justice issue. I chose the prevalent problem of rape:

If you or someone you know has been raped, please find a trusted individual to talk to such as your local rape recovery center and get the help and support you need. If you’ve committed violence against another, come before the Father God in repentance. God loves His people, social justice means loving others too.

Can I Get Some Closure

I was looking at some words in Revelation and came across the familiar “I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 1:8). I was curious about the word “End”. Here’s what it means:

1) end

a) termination, the limit at which a thing ceases to be (always of the end of some act or state, but not of the end of a period of time)

b) the end

1) the last in any succession or series

2) eternal

c) that by which a thing is finished, its close, issue

d) the end to which all things relate, the aim, purpose

2) toll, custom (i.e. indirect tax on goods)

My mind jumped to a little book from my Visual Lit class where the author speaks of closure:

“To reduce tension, to rationalize and explain, to resolve confusion, all appear dominant in man’s needs.” (A Primer of Visual Literacy, Dondis)

Perhaps when we are seeking closure, we are really seeking God, seeking the Beginning and the End.

So many things in life are without closure. Rather than striving to control and force closure, just rest, be still in His presence, the presence of the one who is Himself closure.

Mat 10:31 “Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Words That Shape Us

I was raised with a deep appreciation for books. The written words of man are what shape our views and cast shadows on all we see. These are some of the most important to me.

The Church Hates God

Why is the Church so afraid of the Arts?

There is something unrestrained, and uncontrollable about Art. It doesn’t fit well into Legalism, and tradition, and controlling patriarchal systems (not that all patriarchy is controlling). Yet, at the same time there is in art a level of tradition, law, and hierarchy. The very things that Art denies possession of and Christianity condemns for the lack of, are really fundamental building blocks for Art.

Yet, Art transcends these foundations and embraces a level of freedom that most Christian’s find shocking and reprehensible. I’m prone to believe that God is an artist, and quite often I find HIM shocking. I’m not talking about Aesthetics and morality and the ability for art to transcend these boundaries. Just art. Just the plain expression of creativity.

Why is creativity something that gets so repeatedly repressed and denied? Art is an act of worship, and worship is intimacy. I don’t think there’s much that man fears more than intimacy.

So maybe, when the Church is running away from Love, they have to kill anything that is true worship. The counterfeit is much more comfortable and easy to control than the real, the true, the original. It could be, the reason art is such a contentious issue, is that man is always running from intimacy and love, and of course this means that we are running from God.

It’s not just the world that hates God.

Love and Lines

Water light dancing down empty flat corridors on,

Pregnant white paper, cast on the kitchen floor.

Blue shadows streaming, melding, consuming dark blue

Acrylic, water tongues tracing the plate, running soft lines

Circling thick paint, disbursing light watery blue

Drips,

Drip,

Dripping. Past hot fingers,

Casting unrestrained shapes under demand of tense shoulders,

Terse words, melodic backdrop.

Drop.

Dropping. Down fibrous brush,

Brushing past long days onto long strokes, and,

Unrelenting sliding water, cascading down flat paper,

Littered with red toned streaks,

Blood reminiscent lines, tracing holes in my heart,

In Your wrist, down Your side,

Sideswiping me with logic defying love.

The Art of Grieving

Many cultures have strong expressions for grief. Not America though. Usually there is the stunned silence, and perhaps a few will weep uncontrollably for awhile.

Ultimately though it will be restrained and controlled with a decorous and quiet somberness. America happens to be one of those cultures that finds grief too uncomfortable to do properly. Yes, I said “do properly”.

I’ve always been a bit envious of the Jewish Lament. Really, the idea of unrestrained grief is so appealing, so…right.

Remember the scene in Breakfast At Tiffany’s when she recieves news her brother has died? She goes crazy. But, well, did she go crazy? I’m prone to think such a response is much more real and honest. Much closer to sanity and reality than this restrained and repressed front we American’s take to.

Why do we restrain our grief? God certainly didn’t restrain His grief when He was
on the Earth, and what about all the prophets and people in the Old Testament with their sackcloth and ashes?

Suffering is something the Western world seems to ignore, repress, and deny. Perhaps this is why our Art is so empty and apathetic. There is no life when the core emotions of suffering, injustice, and grief  are not only repressed, but entirely denied.

We seek so desperately after knowledge, weaving our roads of control and domination, selfish desire and pain-free living. We build our castles on top of broken bodies with empty eyes and empty chests, unaware of the cost of our demands.

Where is our grief?