A New Post

So I was thinking last April, “I will write something again in that blog now that: it has been a year since I started it; I miserably failed my pseudo-goals for it; the inspiration for my first topic, Easter, is coming up/is upon me/passed already and could be a sort of reprise for this year”.

Needless to say, I didn’t do it. If you look at the date here, it is the last day of May 2009, It would be more fitting to celebrate my “A title for this“ anniversary—which by the way might celebrate the spirit of this blog better. There are a total of nine posts in this blog that is over a year old. Wait, no, ten now.

However, there are things to celebrate with myself about this post. This is the first post I do in 2009. This is the first post I do using a Mac (which I have been using for half a year already). This is the first post I do since October 2008, back when in a time when I barely cared about politics, I decided to post about them (In contrast to now when I am somewhat more involved with the topic, and probably don’t feel that differently about it.)

What can I say of this time? More politics, more work, less art (not that I am an artist, but most of the words in this whole blog were devoted to two posts which rambled about it). I have not read a whole book since. No, wait I read Coraline. I have barely done writing of any kind, including not writing that many quality emails, which were at some point my main outlet for writing. Yet, I have kept myself busy.

It has been good busy. Interesting things have happened. Good things even. Summer is always a breaking point. It all starts around May. Subtly anyway. Then it develops into a something completely different for my life by the fall. It happened in 2006. It probably happened in 2007 in not a such exciting way if it did. It definitely happened in 2008 (actually, didn’t I kind of blog from April-May to October and then stopped?) It sort of happened in years before that too, but I am set not to make the effort to mentally corroborate this for each. And it feels like it is happening in 2009.

Is this interesting enough for a post? You don’t have to answer.

Politics and Christianity: A Message to Christians

This is not a topic I would usually post about, but I think the current situation–particulalry right now in the US and the part that Christians are taking in it–merits it. I did comment in some forum regarding these issues and I now base this post on that comment.

 

I sincerely don’t see Jesus defending his faith like many Christians do today. He simply was and he showed truth and light and those who had eyes to see, saw; those who were willing to go into the light, did. I am not going to discuss how a litmus test tells me God exists, I have experienced things those who don’t know him haven’t and I can only be grateful and fearful and pray for the others with a willing and attentive heart. 

This obviously comes from what is being observed lately as part of the US contention for president and not so much the stance, but the attitude that many Christians take in relation to these issues. This of course happens in varying degrees in other countries and has happened for centuries all around the world; the present case simply makes its contemporary situation in the Western world starkly evident for discussion.

What is pitiful in this all is not having atheists and agnostics attacking Christian stands or even Christian beliefs in general. Such people are often sincere humans expressing their concerns for their society while they haven’t experienced the God their reactive mockers claim to have experienced—a God that showed us the way through Jesus not by attack, but by mercy and authentic love. 

The pitiful thing is having Christians attacking such atheists and agnostics and entering into silly discussions to defend a faith. How necessary is it really to create factions to defend a faith as if we were of this world. Will this give anyone a taste of the God who taught his followers meekness and a heart set in heaven and not Earth? Or will it just potentially make you look better?

Do not live to defend your faith or your morals against others, be strong enough to live them and let God do whatever he will while you remain with a willing heart. Isn’t the gospel more about this? Jesus never set into heated theological discussions to prove He was the Son of God, he simply spent the time being the Son of God. Jesus didn’t create political movements for Roman law to change, he was instead loving sinners into repentance. Yes, some of those former sinners might have ended in important positions and brought forth good fruit to this or that part of government, but not by fighting a government or society.

That society belonged to this world as, in this case, America belongs to this world and is limited to it. Through Jesus came a new society whose members have to be born again to join and which hence cannot be enforced through laws—a society which will never be America. And I mention America here because that is the topic at hand—this is a very particular nation that to its benefit has historically incorporated Christian values to its construction; values which when made mundane by politics have also brought negative effects. However, this applies to any government or worldly institution that is part of this world or which represents this world.

Now, if you, through the knowledge of God, believe that the biblical apparent disapproval of gay union means that such a thing could cause damages to the society you live in, it is your duty not to support such things, yet, as a son of God, to not viciously fight against the people who support them or be driven by emotional instead of spiritual reactions.

Your responsibility is to live—life in general but including any action related to these issues—with discernment and prayer, with humility and prudence and wisdom. One of the worldly responsibilities of each person might be to work for the betterment of their society (and consider here that some components of this world carry out this responsibility by promoting homosexual marriage, or by, sadly if you will, promoting women to have a choice over the unborn). The difference is that Christians participate in their worldly duties differently—with true meekness and love and not by the means of those of the world—having in mind that in the end (that is, if you believe the Bible) the world will still go wrong as is its nature and has been through towers and floods and kingdoms and crucifixions and holocausts and wars and all sorts of institutions. If you follow God, then your ultimate fight is not for any government to be God’s government. I think that a studied Christian will tell you such a thing will not happen, and hence, such a fight, especially if it is vicious, is not heavenly but worldly.   God wants souls not offices. Do not become of this world fighting for a religion or worse yet, to defend your beliefs (does God really need your defense, or do you just want yourself to be justified in the world’s eyes?)

Be God’s children in the darkness. America has a problem? Yes, it is, after all, part of this doomed world. Yes, it has Christians who live as if they were part of this world. Yes, it has Christians who are willing to draw swords against ears or more to see their morals worldly established. So, what now, are we going to be light amidst these problems or conform with being part of them? Study Christ, do you see him debating? Protesting against governments? Dictating how society should live? No, he dictated how God’s children should live, he cleansed the church, not society, and he needed not defend himself or his faith but to be, just as he invites us to be sons of God. 

Let the Vomit Roll! A Commentary About Art Part 2: Beauty

(Part One here)

I have been insisting on certain aspects of art that make it more particular than what some could validly accept for it. In doing so, I have maintained that it somehow, at least partially, acquires its value as such from representing truth. Yet, I mentioned I can enjoy contemplating the topic because I “enjoy the consuming beauty in art.

Before I go on, I will note that though I will not try to come with a careful academic definition of what beauty is, for the purposes of this post I think it safe to use it as a certain enjoyment found in beholding something.

You might then ask, “Is truth always beautiful?” Art is supposed to be beauty in some way or another, but reality seems not to be as kind as art is toward its subjects. Art, transmitting beauty even from tragedy, seems often oblivious to actual reality. It glorifies what some could hold shouldn’t be glorified at all: we see a black and white picture of a child starving and though it saddens us, we are attracted by a certain aspect of it that we could define as beauty while the actual kid couldn’t care less about beauty, nor does he see it or feel it. So art is thus an illusion, an insensitive fake.

And yes, it is a fake in that it is a creation that only seeks to portray some aspect of reality, aspects of a specific set of truths that it can aspire to convey. Though art could define a specific truth, which is more, universal than the many different circumstances in which it could arise, it cannot cover the whole of any of those particular circumstances or realities with every single element that forms them in time and space.

However, and looking back at the picture of the famishing child, when it soars above the part that is actual suffering (which in itself is not art) and looks at a truth lying somewhere within it, even faintly, and detects its thread in the whole canvas of reality, you cannot help but see a sort of beauty. The beauty is not for that child to behold at that moment and he is not expected to, but there is still a beauty in how the specific aspects of the event depicted by that picture play in the whole of reality; in detecting such traits through our shared humanity and existence even if we are never in the child’s exact position to experience. We feel some of that sadness and yet feel a certain pleasure in unearthing that particular aspect of reality, that piece of truth beyond the case in hand: and the part we thus take in it.

There is then an ultimate sense of coherence in the whole that is beautiful, unrestrained by the time and space that affect the actual event. Call it if you will the universal coherence—full of beautifully and chaotically interwoven chaoses—that simply and logically is; and from which we sometimes get to catch a glimpse of one of the threads that make part of it and feel the fascination for such a discovery for which art can be a vehicle. Art thus takes us from the physically restrained scene and gives us a look at the world through hints of threads of truth that connect it to the universal. We can’t help but finding delight in experiencing such a discovery through art, even if it is of just a faint distorted reflection of one of these threads. 

Though I think part of this is somewhat touched upon in many of the quotes presented in part 1, here are a few others that I like and which more directly make a relation between beauty and art.

“An artist is an artist only because of his exquisite sense of beauty, a sense which shows him intoxicating pleasures, but which at the same time implies and contains an equally exquisite sense of all deformities and all disproportions.”
– Charles Baudelaire

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”
– Samuel Johnson

“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.”
– Edgar Allan Poe

Some of our attempts might simply fall short of accomplishing being a certain truth or at providing us through art at least a ring of a truth that is broader and more powerful than its elements. Yet, these works might end up being likeable, informative, interesting, entertaining, and/or worthy of admiration. Apart from this, it is important to bear in mind that the degree of triumph in creating something that brings a truth alive to the beholder can vary. Add to this the consideration that art can be found in many places: a note that is played in the exact right moment and thus brings something to life that is oddly specific in an otherwise dull formulaic tune; a sole inspired brushstroke in a color experimentation that carries with it a something whose effect you can share with many fellow observers; a story that concludes cheap and outright false principles that are built upon observations of truth we get to savor and experience; a false assumption conveyed in a poem that effectively expresses the author’s true perceptions—all are examples of this art I am talking about. This art is perhaps present in more places than expected, yet it seems to be attributed to more than required. And then again—as much as I’d like there to be a common thread in all art that would separate it from the merely creative or different—being an abstract concept, there could be a lot more “arts” with different qualities than the ones presented here. For this two-part contemplation, which obviously isn’t comprehensive, I decided to talk about these specific traits in it that make it to me more particular.

To wrap this up, here is a last quote about poetry that could restate, if extended to all art, a lot of what was described about it in these two posts.

“A poem should not mean But be.”
– Archibald MacLeish

A Commentary About Art Part 1

The topic about the meaning of art arose recently in a casual conversation. It is often an enjoyable topic though I try to restrain myself from it if I don’t feel the conversation partner would relate in any way. Yes, I do bring it up if someone snobbishly starts talking about art and I happen to disagree; but that’s not what I enjoy. I seek the finer, smaller, simpler, friendlier conversations with people who seem to enjoy in some way or another a certain sort of consuming beauty in art. So this specific conversation made me remember previous conversations, email exchanges, and a specific search for quotes I had made years ago, to ultimately decide to write this. So bear with me, if you know me, as I again talk a little about part of what art means to me and how it opposes (this is where some start disagreeing) to the view that says everything can be art.

I know art can be defined in many ways and there has always been quite a debate about it. In the end, it is the beholder who ends up acknowledging it as such. However, there are so many creative outlets, skilled pieces of work, inspired writing, captivating images created, all of which constitute great things to behold; but there are a few even among these that have a something else that makes them transcendent through time and that speak clearly to people throughout generations. It is that which I want to pin down and separate from other creative endeavors maybe just to honor those lasting accomplishments that effectively recreate certain aspects of truth to the perceptive human eye. Considering it is just a given concept, people have the right to make it whatever they want, but if there can be something more specific that we have no choice but to call art in order to refer to it, I choose to go for that specific.

This time, however, I don’t want to ramble about it, though I know I already am. I started this post wanting to base it on that very small compilation of quotes I had gathered and that I simply enjoy thoroughly. These quotes mostly take poetry as a parting point to describe some elements of art—or if they don’t intend to, I use them to do so. I think good poetry, in its simplicity, has the main elements of art relatively identifiable. I could find authors who have said something similar about poetry but I don’t feel like searching and I am bad quoting verbatim or remembering names. These quotes I do have here came along after a not so very extensive search of such quotes that could support the ideas about art that I was trying to express in these emails and/or conversations I was having (quite) some time ago.

So one of those things I wanted to support with respected quotes is that art and melodrama are not at all necessarily the same, and I wouldn’t disagree so harshly if someone said they had little to do with each other though it is important to acknowledge that art can and does use melodrama and even sentimentalism; yet it does so rising above it, controlling it and utilizing it as an element to carve itself with. Still, they are not the same thing, and I found one quote that nicely expresses something similar.

“The job of the poet is to render the world—to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.”– Mark Van Doren

I remember reading too an about.com article which I am not going to search which touched upon the subject quite well; it said, and I loosely paraphrase parting from only memories of having read it quite some time ago: expressing your feelings itself is not art, it’s good and you can do it, but don’t inflict the world with it in the name of art. If you are not going to do it right; remember you can always just keep it to yourself.

Now, going back to Van Doren’s quote; don’t get all excited against him. Art within his idea could talk about feelings in the extent that feelings are part of the world to render, see, and report, without loss or perversion. However, the simple rant of feelings—even the creative ones—are often not what I would like to call art. I agree that sometimes the simple expression of feelings can still showcase creativity and skill even if by the personal definitions here presented fall beneath art. And that is good too. If those were not acceptable forms of craft, there wouldn’t be 80s ballads that have become so dear to many (not to me); nor would there be soap operas which many are willing to embrace as entertainment. The main issue here is to honor those things that go beyond, that are more relevant because they “render the world” unrestrained from the haze of emotion.

Related to what Van Doren said, there are many other quotes that go deeper into what I want to express about the subject. For me, real art expresses or showcases or materializes truth. Here are a few:

“Poetry is the utterance of deep and heart-felt truth—the true poet is very near the oracle.”
– Edwin Hubbel Chapin

“The poem… is a little myth of man’s capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see – it is, rather, a light by which we may see – and what we see is life. “
– Robert Penn Warren

“[A poem] begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”
– Robert Frost

“The poet is the priest of the invisible.”
– Wallace Stevens

…and more related to art in general, without confining it to poetry:

“Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale ’til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free. “
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I want to note that this doesn’t mean that books have to use realism to portray truth; that this doesn’t mean, for example, that books like Naked Lunch are not art because they are quite “out there” or take too many liberties with their apparent worded pornography, fantasy, or plots that are little concerned on narrative coherence. (That’s the first book that came to mind for some reason. I don’t mention it to state I consider it art or that I don’t; I don’t care too much about that discussion. I am pretty acceptant of those who consider it art and could probably be too of those who don’t.) Even such books—using absurdity, fantasy, and even incoherence—do portray or try to portray a truth  or set of truths, a simple trait or traits of the universe. Inasmuch as they are successful in accomplishing that—to leave those traits be a tangible object comprised in those words or those colors or sounds or the fit of these—they are successful in becoming art; lasting, admirable, re-experience-able art.

One way I like to talk about it is relating it to science. Science, following its method, could never get to explain many truths in the whole realm of reality. And even those it can, to our senses, they mean little: Science does not recreate truth for human perception, we don’t get to sense it or see it as truth; only an area of our brain grasps it as knowledge; we read the data that describes a certain aspect of reality and after questioning it and further developing it in science, we faithfully accept it as a truth. Art, however, goes where science cannot due to its restrictions and has a power of communication that is often more effective than pure data. It’s simple and concise enough to just leave that piece of truth there for you to experience rather than simply accept as a bit of knowledge. I think the quotes already presented express this quite well; yet, Freud makes a more explicit relation between these two particular terms:

“[P]oets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science. “
– Sigmund Freud

Dylan Thomas also expresses something about this nicely:

“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.”
– Dylan Thomas

 

(Part 2 here. Though, if you already read this much and actually do want to go on, you might as well read the comments posted here before doing so which present some good points and which give sense to the title of the second part)  

A title for this

I don’t know what to type. Or say. Sorry. At least I feel better with myself for posting something.

A story about mountains and scrub and earth

Given that I had claimed I’d try to post once a week, I’ll conveniently post this very short story sort of thing that I started writing two years ago (curiously, also around late April, but in 2006, of course) and left unfinished until some days ago when I finally took it again and, well, finished it.

 

I lay down on the long not comfortable seat in the back of the vehicle, at the moment oblivious to the outside world. The air conditioner on, the increasingly arid light of the outside lighting the inside, my head on a pillow against the uncomfortable side of the van, three books lying somewhere on the seat as I try to fix the jumble of cables and make a final music pick. Most of the trip on the highway and into the Mexican mountains in the northeast of the country as the van drove south their range was spent reading fiction to the beat of music. I had the idea of overhearing the name of the place we were heading to, but I could not be sure what it was or if we were in fact going to the place planned. As we started to ascend through paths that circumvented hills as they climbed them and which showed new hills springing at the other side and all around, I started to notice my actual awareness of the surroundings despite the plugs in my ears and my eyes on the book in my hands.

I looked out to notice the dark dry green and brown shrubs standing among more of the same. Once inside the range, there probably were at any specific time some five hills or mountain peaks apart from the one we were climbing, but never did I consider during the trip the number being left behind or the number that kept springing up to visible existence. Otherwise, the view didn’t hold anything new. The same scrub and tree, soil and breeze that were present throughout the whole region and had predated the road and the diminishing civilization leading into the range. The transition was too gradual to notice, the pavement growing to less while the possibility of seldom solitary lives rummaging through stone, ground, and shrub bleakly permeated all around in increase. The thought of such lives did not render the idea of that quiet, rich life in nature in the woods, but simply a conceivable collection of lonely quiet existences that might entangle only by luck, hardly becoming a whole. The trees were thin but with extending branches as if trying to get some air in the heat and at the same time cover from the beating rays as most meager space as they could. Their leaves endured dry green or already dried with brown—at seldom times red; forming a foliage and not so willing to let see through but having little choice and having grown wearily content with that; waiting with each other as if all were one to the slipshod eye but each enduring a life of its own. The ground stood beneath changing from yellow where uncovered to light tones of brown dried out by famished roots which brittle remained permanently seeking through dusty stones; this ground lived thus just like the wall of the mountain, just like the mountain hills around, just like the valley below.

Suddenly the drive round stony and semi scrubby walls—the constant leap from hill to hill which before had seemed to be a single mountain—became a straight road in a relatively level space with a slight decline to the left that then turned up into other mountains; and a straight short plain to the right that seemed to crash with hills that must look like mountain peaks from the other side. So there—over a road high above what was at least regarded to be the level surface of the earth when altitude does not make sense to the naked mind busied in its own immediate dimension of life—was the van soaring above the world guarded by peaks at its sides. Although there were some hills as a background to the front and the back of our view, it still seemed as if we were in a procession through a hall walled by two files of mountains. The soil was still hard and yellow, more yellow and perhaps with more quiet desperation than the one before. The rocks stood released from the ground, enduring with the dust. The trees farther into these peaks were still short and thin, surrounded by long gone trees or those just holding forgotten sparks of life within. The spark was still dull, rather holding the memory of old splendor than eager to let it shine; seldom having this occurrence.

There was never a feel of death, nor was there one of life. Death or life kept itself in secret. Still the supposed breeze that barely touched the vehicle had a peace and rest of its own. The life inside the van only worked with the former to let thoughts race through my brain: thoughts of nature, thoughts of rhythm and noise, thoughts of scientific dissertations about nature and about culture, about the environment, and about the lives within it all forming a distinguishable one.

The trees closed in—it was all greener this time—holding a not very well kept secret: a spring of water which gushed vigorously. It was crowded by loneliness and sadness, by courage to breathe and a spark of wonder—sightseers fleeing their own austerity, knowing doggedly unconsciously that they are no different than these places, trying to take pride with a forlorn smile on what they convince themselves they are.

The Crocodile and the Fly. And the Bird. And the Spider too. a fable

The spider weaved a beautiful web.

“This is my art. This is what I do”, she said as passers by stopped and watched

“I hope you enjoy my work, I think I am getting close to discovering my signature style”.

The fly flew by oblivious to the art. The spider struck up conversation and talked with high brow. The fly, intimidated, decided to praise the work most easily available to its eyes. “The lines, I see, represent the connections of the living things with life, the center is that spring of life we all crave and search for”, he exclaimed excitedly but with a controlled range, too anxious to sound smart, endearingly failing to the audience of one, but still surprised by itself of what so rapidly had been blurted out, trying at once to remember what it was.

“I am amazed! You sure can see through what I thought was so personal yet tried to convey”, after a thoughtful careful pause, she continued with a friendly but hesitant voice, “I don’t usually allow strangers to do this—I am very protective of my work you see…, but you have won my trust and you should be able to touch my art. Only that way you could really feel its meaning. I have an odd sensation that through your perception you can unearth more things hidden within it than even I ever imagined myself.

The limbs of the fly were the missing stroke of genius that would catapult Spider to artistic renown.

The spider proudly traveled around showcasing her work to more of the flies who in turn empowered her craft to insurmountable heights.

I wish I could say that the fly, surviving somehow, realized this and was very sad, taking the lesson to heart, but I most obviously can’t. I wish I could tell you that Spider felt bad and came to a new life, but I’d need to ask her and last time I saw her she was but a big gulp inside the bird’s throat.

So, what is the moral of this fable, you may ask…

Why, well, it is, of course, that you should beware… of…, say…, spider-ravenous cold-eyed evil birds flying around destroying artwork, and grabbing you from perhaps a leg—just one of them all from those you might have—and toy with you around and gulp you deep down.

So come already and absorb this wisdom that the spiders and flies and the treacherous birds so eagerly want you to learn.

Sad Secrets of the Universe!

 

And so it begins, with a chair and writing equipment…

I haven’t written anything. I haven’t. It is pitiful I know. I can number a great amount of excuses. I can even bring in not being able to get up in the morning with a motivation, being very busy and spent by the end of the day, spending most of the time I do have eating to pass the time and then regretting having eaten so much, feeling sick and hating myself just a little for having given myself to gluttony, but not calling it that, simply eating nonstop without giving myself a chance to stand up and realize my stomach is stretching desperately to hold it all in.

I won’t, that’s what whiners do, self involved little twerps, emo kids… I am not an emo kid. I am a man, master of my life. I am strong and positive minded. My mind is a key player in the universe to bring about whatever my inner self desires; my outlook is always what the universe needs in exchange. I have the power to make this day the day of my life. I take what comes and make beauty out of it. Give me work and I will give you revenue to the point work will not, at least for others, be a must. Give me sadness and I’ll unravel it until you see the inherent joy that is within, then I’ll take that to heart and share it to others and with the remains of it beat the evil spirits that say I can’t. Give me poverty and I’ll give you a feast from the infinity that lives within the crusts of bread, leaving those crusts as charity for the needy outside.

The writer—as in writing person and not current profession—stared proudly at his very short text, cherishing having exposed his acquired bits of worldly and trendy wisdom mingled with truth while still rather enjoying his effortless state of being that kept him from writing any further. And so he left the chair. A bit more pensive, a little gayer, not given in to anything that wouldn’t be after him in the first place—though maybe not quite standing his ground; or maybe again, doing so a bit for the first time in some while.

What can there be so bright and sunny as a rainy day after all

(This was written on Easter Sunday and through the eve of Monday and published on myspace as a first formal blog, but I decided to use one of these cooler blog things instead, so I copied and pasted it here so that I may already have something here).

I am a little embarrassed to say that Easter has never been a really, really big festivity as such in my life or in the way it itself affects me personally or my week. Easter has, sadly, mostly meant a time when I get vacation, when I get to be free of school–or now, work–for at least some time. As a child everyone cherishes days off; and I as a teenager despised my High School and College experiences. Most of the moments endured there, the responsibilities that came with it, the environment which wasn’t particularly hostile against me but which I contemplated with sadness and pity and certain disgust, all caused a certain despair and frustration in me. I appreciated teenage years, but I felt I was wasting them in my particular schools and city and worse yet, I felt they were only driving me to a future I didn’t want. Needless to say, once in college, I wasn’t happy with my major. I was pretty much stuck in these situations but I am not going to elaborate on anything regarding this for now neither do I really plan to at any specific point in this blog—not because I don’t like to talk about it but because I don’t feel the need of it at the moment, really. So I loved my teenage years and many things in my life, but mostly those which I lived outside of school time. Vacations were hence my life; and school—especially through High School and the first year or so of college—was just like a parenthesis in that life; I was just living through it in wait for “life” and I was constantly fearing it as I knew that even when this “life” arrived, the start of a new parenthesis was just around the corner. Easter in some way represented the coming of that “life” or of a small break from that long frustrating “break from living” that seemed to be school.

With all this, in the actual days that celebrate the main events towards Easter Sunday, the memory of the sacrifice was still present. You hear about it on TV to start with and of course it is touched upon in church, which I usually attend. I would say some prayers at random times of the day or sometimes make an effort to remember early in the mornings and make a special prayer regarding the sacrifice. I did often through these weeks feel terrible for living a life I shouldn’t be living and realizing in some way that I wasn’t fully embracing the sacrifice when I resumed my uneven life. A few years in my late teens and early twenties, I was able to work in missions and of course the Easter topics were touched upon, but the mission activities and what God was doing in those days was still more pervasive than the celebration. I guess, thinking right now about it, that that is the true spirit of the celebration in some way. It should go beyond a day and a church service into a life in which the duties performed spring from that sacrifice and that resurrection; and life itself is about living the outcome of those Easter events. Still, I sustain, the celebration per se was never in itself such a huge thing inside of me.

And that brings me to the present. The celebration is still the same, I remembered it, I’ve heard talk about it and I am aware of it, but I can’t say it tinged my week (though, thinking now about it after having typed the last paragraph, I now don’t know how much it really should have). After these thoughts I guess I wish I could really live this memory everyday in a way that honors it. And well, as I think about it, I do think the sacrifice and resurrection are actually somewhat present in my life at any time of the year (very different to the Nativity celebrations which do bring to mind some specifics about Jesus in a different way than during the rest of the year). After all, a very realistic part of the Christian life is to have that sacrifice and resurrection in mind. That’s what it’s all about when you hear a sermon or sing a song of worship; when you pray and use Jesus’ name to be able to reach the Father as a son of God, or when you ask for forgiveness; that’s what you are constantly reminded of when you read the Bible even when you read the Old Testament. So I guess there is some justification in me for not living a very specific, noticeable highlighting about the crucifixion every Easter. Yet, my life hasn’t in quite a while really been what it should be, not on Easter, not on most of the rest of the year. Remembering the sacrifice more often than just on Easter is no justification for getting to live so lowly on so many Easter weeks—and well, that’s if we decide to leave the judgment about my life on Easter weeks alone.

But that is another topic, back to the topic about my Easter experiences or about how the remembrance about the events related to the Easter celebrations affects me specifically during this week—even if it could be claimed it does little. What I really wanted to talk about when I started writing this is about one little thing that rather fascinates me regarding this week. About this special connection I feel there is between the week it lands on in our calendars and the actual week that is remembered. A connection that has to do with the weather.

Where I live, almost every single Good Friday brings about dark clouds and often rain. Even when it has been dry most of the time surrounding it, we usually get a wetter and darker week, or at least a wetter and darker Friday. It is a something extra that reminds me of that day and I mostly appreciate it (I say mostly because perhaps I should appreciate it with more enthusiasm than I actually do?). It’s a cool reminder in the cases I just go through the day as through any other day. It’s a kind of proof to the people around that this day matters though it might feel of little value or a coincidence to many, especially if this specific thing doesn’t happen all over the world. Most of all, it is just, personally, a really cool connection to that actual day.

This year was a big exception.

Good Friday here carried with it clear, sunny, dry skies. In fact, I don’t think there was one cloud in sight from Wednesday to Friday.

I didn’t make a big fuss about it; I just coolly thought it a pity to lose that cool thing about Easter. Later on however, on Easter Sunday, I did find and felt a particular special connection to that week.

Let’s start from the beginning. Weather wise, this week was not in the least normal. Monday was a warm, average day (well, average to what was to come, but still considering that a week ago it had been cold). Tuesday started the same way; I think there weren’t even any clouds early in the morning. At around ten in the morning though, the skies suddenly became very dark—but brown instead of gray—and the wind was blowing quite madly. The northern area is very dry and the soil is very loose. I am guessing that the winds picked it up and covered the mist and clouds that were near the ground level with brown, maybe the clouds and mist were mostly made of soil and dust, I don’t know, but more than feeling the particles, you could smell soil in the warm wind blowing strongly against you and against trees and billboards, many of which ended up falling against cars and causing a small chaos in a city which due to this phenomenon had many power outages, some of which took days to repair. The city seemed desolate by the afternoon; the winds went on at varying strengths (taking into account it calmed down during the evening for some hours) until around four in the morning of the next day. The whole day had been brown, warm, dry, and… soily.

Oddly enough, by the early morning, the sky was blue, not clean bright blue, but blue after all with not one cloud in sight and no dangerous wind to be felt. Among the problems that this small phenomenon left behind was that due to the lack of heavy rains for some five months and the heat, a fire had started somewhere near the south, the winds of course blew up the fire out of manageable proportions and some towns nearby were put in danger as it extended more and more with the days after having been dispersed terribly to begin with on that Tuesday. By the north there was an explosion in some plants that treated or extracted gas. The fire there also seemed unquenchable due to the continuing explosions the first one caused; I don’t really know if they controlled it by the weekend (they probably did). Anyway, the blue cloudless skies remained blue and cloudless for days while the fire kept consuming more land. This means that Good Friday, which had usually brought some rain, did the opposite of what was not only expected but this time also desired. Rain resolved not to bring refreshment and ease to this area that needed it. Darkness decided not to arrive this time when it would actually bring joy and refreshment instead of gloom while also bringing to those of us who cared about it, that typical connection with that day in history.

What I go to is that maybe, those depressing, dirtily clear bright blue skies were that Darkness that rainy clouds had brought before; while rain took that form of refreshment and ease of Dust and Fire on the Sunday that would commemorate the day of the resurrection of the loving savior of the desolate and desperate. On Friday there was fire and desolation combined with despair regarding the hoped for arrival of rain. On Saturday, the clouds were already assembling—white scattered ones showing through a moon that seemed still full. Early Sunday was receiving light refreshing rain that subdued for some time making the city sunny and safe to transit. This rain came back evenly and calmly later in the afternoon and through the evening to continue that refreshment process. Life was renewed. Jesus came back to life and gives us new life.

I know these comparisons might seem to some idly poetic and foolishly contrived, but I just regard them as a nice personal poetic reminder to savor.

And maybe for the first time, Easter was more of an actual and more special remembrance of the events for me. Not only for the welcome Sunday rain instead of the dark gloomy one expected for Friday, but because I actually ended up writing this and thus perhaps reflecting on it more distinctly as a celebration.

Welcome and behold my first post’s original title

Welcome to my long awaited by myself blog. I simply enjoy writing and I am starting this as a a tool I hope I will use and enjoy while I might get a reader or two who might actually like something I write. I simply want something to get me writing, plus it is good to have a platform to speak out even if it’s only for yourself and no one will read, but I still, of course, hope someone will.

I had considered opening one of these for years, especially after the repeated suggestion of a great blogger (I might post a link to hers here or anywhere in the blog whenever I have time to figure out how this all works [UPDATE: I did!!]), but I never did create one, partly for fear, partly for feeling incapable of committing to writing, and partly for simply leaving it for later. My goal is going to be to try (I’m always rather careful when it comes to committing) to post one a week–hopefully more, but at least one. For now I am going to cheat. I opened this like a week ago on Easter Sunday I think and even wrote something. However, I was unsure about having a “formal” blogging space and just posted it on myspace. Well, I am now going to copy and paste it here as my first formal post so I can feel at ease about this week’s post. And anyway, if that doesn’t really count in the code of ethics for those who try to post once a week, then this very post you are somehow reading should be enough, as short and typical a blog’s  welcoming post as it may be. So anyway, I hope whoever reads this finds it alright, and also hope I do use it well.