The point is this.  God is good.  When I feel horrible or something bad happens I tend to immediately forget that.  It’s almost as if the situation was like this:

You have a best friend.  You two are close.  Really close.  You tell each other everything.  Just because I stub my toe one afternoon on my way to get the mail doesn’t mean I call him/her up and start hashing out how it’s all their fault or how they never should have let it happen.  That would be completely insane.

Now if that friend called you up and blamed you for something that you had absolutely nothing to do with on a regular basis then the next day wanted to borrow some money for the latest want they have been drooling over, how long would you remain friends?  Probably not very long.  Fortunately God has more patience than we do.

I think my prayer is that I learn to love God not just when I feel like all is good, but be able to go to Him when I feel like it’s not and just be completely honest that my pride wants to blame Him when it’s really the reality of living in a fallen world that is getting me down.  It should make me want to be nearer to the one who is my Savior rather than blame Him for the condition He never wanted for us to begin with and has died to save us from.

After Becca got home from the doctor’s visit today with Aidan.  I hunted down all the pictures of Aidan that I have on my computer.  886 images that show Aidan’s face.  Shown Below.

Picasa has a nice little feature that allows you to categorize photos with faces so it found all the images of Aidan’s face and I went through and verified the ones the program had trouble with.  I noticed that Picasa made all the images portrait shots of just his face for the categorization so I decided that I would try something else.

Picasa has a collage feature that allows you to effectively make digital double exposures.  I decided that it might be fun to get an “average” of all the pictures of Aidan that I had on my computer.  He’s grown a lot over the last year (he is after all 15 months old) and see what the “average Aidan” looked like.  The final image originally was a little muted, so I used the “I’m feeling lucky” button to give the image more dynamic range.  I thought it looked a little like a Rembrandt painting myself.

So take that, doctors who think Aidan has to measure up to some growth chart!  He may not be average according to the chart, but he is average for himself.  This makes him uniquely himself too.

1. Hosting and Running an online Forum.  1 year.

TRIED: Back in my college years, I was always writing some paper or another.  It became apparent that merely reading books was not a good way to engage the reader of my college papers in current events and social thought that was currently happening.  I launched decloned.com in 2001 and quickly thereafter managed to put up my first few adsense ads.  The site was doing rather good for those days and some guy running a forum based website.  I had on average 67 members who were active participants in the conversations that took place in about 15 different threads at any one time.  I abandoned the project in 2002 because I needed the domain for my ministry work that was picking up as I was an active youth leader at that time and didn’t have money to shell out for a second domain name.  Also, I had gotten married in college and balancing ministry, family and school was not something that worked very well.  All in all,  I consider the forum a success as it prepared me for both running scripts on websites and the maintenance of them as well as social networking through content production and online conversations.

2. Making Hand Hammered cymbals, chimes & gongs.

WANT TO TRY: I have an uncle who has started making hand hammered cymbals.  I went over to his place yesterday and fired one of the cymbals with some propane and was amazed at how the metal changed in sound quality with different things that were done to it.  The cymbal I worked on was a bronze cymbal that wasn’t exactly “bell quality” but it had a unique sound that I wouldn’t mind adding to my hand percussion ensemble.  Currently, I play each week at the church with the worship band.  This I must admit is a recent addition to my interests after looking at some online forums and getting the feel for what this entails from my uncle.

3. Glassblowing.

WANT TO TRY: Two of my favorite artists are Dale Chihuly and Josh Simpson.  Both are glassblowers by trade and artists.  They make the most amazing works.  I just saw the illuminated Chihuly Exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art a few weeks ago.  I don’t have the space to try this right now but I know a gallery locally that gives glassblowing lessons.  This is probably one of the things that will have to wait till we are out of debt to do.  Becca might also like to try it as well.  Maybe we can do a class like this together someday.

4. Landscape Painting with Oils (eventually “en plein air”).

IN PROCESS: I am currently working on the first oil painting that I’ve even attempted in about 10 years or so.  It’s been fun getting reacquainted with oil paints.  At first I was a bit intimidated by the nature of oils to try this at home.  Right now, I am a stay at home dad who builds websites for income while my wife works outside the home so it’s a little hard to get away to set up an easel and paint a painting with the little guy in tow.  So for now I am working on my latest painting from the comfort of home while I take breaks for playtime and feedings.  I have also felt the need to get away from abstract paintings and try more traditional representational art forms.

5. Photography. (about 1 year)

IN PROCESS: I have worked with Olan Mills as a portrait photographer photographing families and infants mostly.  I have also photographed the occasional dog at Olan Mills, but what really excites me is landscape photography and photo journalism.  These things I’ve only really attempted with a little point and shoot and have had moderate success at doing.  In the past, I’ve always been the guy that people typically ask to bring a camera and do some photography for various events.  In the last few years, a local professional photographer who is a friend of mine has had me help out with some events he has done.  Outdoor group sports photography for kids.  I have done okay, but in the end I felt frustrated over the constraint of trying to fight the light in these types of sessions.  Several of my group sittings needed to be retaken due to equipment malfunction or blinking or squinting children.  I enjoy studio photography but ultimately would like to get out and take pictures of landscapes and things as they happen.  Street and urban photography also appeals to me as these are seen as modern landscapes.

6. Blogging Professionally. (about two years full time)

TRIED and TRYING AGAIN: Back in 2006 I had been running wordpress for a few years and blogging on my own.  I had built a few sites using it as well as I had early on recognized the simplicity of the platform for cms or content management.  I saw that Darren Rowse’s blogging network b5media was hiring.  I did my research, put together a blog proposal and submitted the idea.  A few months later I was up and blogging a site called Artist Hideout.  I had the privilege of working with some pretty amazing people.  Within a few months, I was channel editor and a few months after that, my wife was a channel editor and writer as well for a different channel.  It was good times.  It was strange being in the same house and writing and interacting with people all over the world and then taking breaks to spend time with each other.  We would often IM back and forth about what we were doing or ask advice or just goof off while we worked.  Over the last few months while I was there I had put in a request to Darren to bring his blog Digital Photography School into the fold of my channel as an Owned blog.  I also transitioned the arts and crafts channel to be more broad by incorporating design into it and renaming it The Arts and Design Channel.  Overall, I consider my time there a success.  The blog network decided to go more niche oriented with their channels and Becca’s job was eliminated whereupon she gave up writing her blog, Mother Earth’s Garden.  My Channel was merging with hers and another channel so I was given the opportunity to take over the Music channel.  At the time I was also transitioning back into a reinstated full-time pay at the church I was working at so I decided to leave b5media and blog a little on the side with my own site.  A lot of things have changed since then.  Blogging is completely different now then it was then, but in many ways it is the same too.  I heard the frustrating news a week or two ago that b5media let go a lot of their bloggers.  Some were good friends and I hope they continue plugging away and writing their own sites now that b5media is no longer paying them.

Now, I am going at it again.  I’ve helped numerous bloggers get up and running and currently help several manage their own sites.  One friend, David is doing quite well with his blog nakedpastor.  I am not sure what the future holds around here but I know that if I want to succeed I need to be more focused and write more often.  So that is also in the works.  I’ve redesigned and finally dropped the domain name “decloned.com” from the site.  Hopefully people will still find me here.  If not, I’ll start fresh and build a new audience.  It’d be nice to have more discussion around here.

7. Pastor. (about 7 years altogether as paid pastor in different roles)

ONGOING: I am avid in my faith and beliefs and have been all of my life.  My actual degree is a BA in Biblical Theology with an Emphasis in Youth Ministry.  I love working with teens and showing them God’s love, but more than that I love being in love with God and sharing him with everyone I encounter.  It’s not just a thing I do.  It’s a calling.  The particular paid role within a church is a job.  What I do in that role is a calling.  So if you’ve been around here for awhile, you know I am looking for a new ministry opportunity.  I’d love for my wife to be able to come stay at home with Aidan and for me to be the provider for our family again.  But, the ministry that is a part of my life has not stopped.  Over the last six months we have been involved in a ministry here locally called Narrow Road Community Church.  Currently, I manage their website which has provided multiple different leads on other ministries locally that need websites.  I have felt the most at home and accepted within Narrow Road because the people truly love Jesus Christ.  There’s no competition focus with other local ministries either like many churches feel inclined to partake in.  I am challenged to grow through fellowship with other guys.  Guys who aren’t afraid to be vulnerable and share the gritty details of life either.

8. Write a Novel.

WANT TO TRY: I’ve always dreamed of writing a fantasy novel of some sort.  My favorite Authors include Stephen Lawhead, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Frank Peretti and more I can’t think of right now.  I am committed to eventually doing this, but I am at a loss as for how to begin.  For now, I will see what I can do on refining my writing skills through writing more often and exploring new ideas to write about.  Maybe I’ll add some short stories to the site eventually as well as I grow more confident in my abilities.

9. Be a Great Dad, Husband and all-round family guy.

ONGOING: Last year in January, my wife and I had our first child, Aidan.  He’s growing every day and walking already.  He’s working on some words now.  I love him so much.  It’s fun to see him develop new skills and I already miss the little bundle we brought home.  Maybe we will have more children, we are not sure on that just yet.  We know that God will have to work in some amazing way for us to be able to support more children, but He is able to do so if He chooses.  I love my wife too.  She is an amazing woman and great mother to Aidan.  I couldn’t have asked for someone more loving and amazing than her.  We celebrated our five year anniversary this last month and I can’t believe how much we’ve grown together in that time.  So while I am already in the mix on this one, it doesn’t stop so I’ve listed this one as ongoing because it will give me something to look back on and remember where I was when I wrote it and how sappy it probably sounded to everyone reading it.

10.  Build a dome home.

WANT TO TRY: This is a bit of a random way to end this list.  But both my wife and I are quite infatuated with one day building our own home.  A dome.  A monolithic dome to be precise.  About monthly, Becca looks through dome home layout plans to get ideas.  We know it is most likely years away from being a reality, but it is something that we very much want to do.  Right now we are renters and have neighbors on all sides of us.  It can be loud at times, but usually those renters move out and we either get louder ones or more annoying ones.  Now that I think about it, the neighbors on either side are great.  It’s just the people above that are usually the ones we… have to put up with being loud or annoying.

William,Hey I was wondering what are the costs, and all that is involved in setting up a website. I’m looking for a site that we can post pics, newsletters, and videos. I also am interested in a blog. I’m not sure if we should do a blog somewhere else and feed it also to the website. I would like to have a site that if any body is interested in this ministry, they can find everything out right on there. Thanks bro.

Then that’s all there was.  No email I could respond to or anything.  I’d love to help you get up and rolling, and even share with you my pricing for this, but I don’t know where to send it.  If this is you, call me at (740) 281-1351 and we can chat about it.

All of which were quite distracting from reading the Bible together.

Spiritual warfare?

CS Lewis makes the statement (I think it’s in Mere Christianity and please pardon the bad paraphrase) that we don’t lose ourselves in Christ to become a bland shell of who we once were.  The miracle of our faith is that when we are made more ourselves by the Creator.

My advice to my friend about his domain name was to be authentic.  Be yourself and quit trying to fit the mold you created for yourself.  You may lose readers, you may gain readers, but ultimately it comes down to you being yourself.  If the old name doesn’t fit who you are anymore, then surprise your readers with a more authentic version of yourself.

I started a series awhile back called “full disclosure” and one of my little business card slogans was “I am praying for you”.  But, I think I even perpetrate a misconception about prayer at times.  Prayer isn’t something that we do because it’s easy to close our eyes and act like life doesn’t get messy at times.  Life gets quite messy, dirty, and rather unpleasant at times.  God knows that.  Jesus even died on the cross a messy, horrible, even nasty death so He knows it better than we can imagine.  He even prayed a messy prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, sweating blood and asking His Father if there were any other way.  But we often use prayer as an excuse to get out of real life situations that are quite hard to deal with.  The bad part about it all is the fact that most times when we flippantly tell someone that you are praying for them, that we completely forget to do so.  Or worse yet, it’s just the “Christian” (say it with sarcasm) way of telling someone to bugger off!

found via shallowfrozenwater (awesome find by the way)

This skull was on the wall in the bathroom of the lodge we stayed at.  The wood panel walls really seemed to set it off.  I think the only thing that worried me was if I were to sit on the toilet, it would freak me out if it fell.  Imagine sitting on the toilet and trying to do your business when this thing falls on your head or in your lap!

I’ve been looking at doing more oil paintings in the near future and getting some more representational artwork out into the open.  It is absolutely the opposite of the abstract stuff that I’ve produced over the last four years.  In particular, I am being drawn back to landscape painting and classical still life paintings.

I think this has been a revelation that has happened in two parts.

Part One

Last week, my wife and I went to the Columbus Museum of Art where I spent some time gazing at a painting done by one of my favorite artists,  Albert Bierstadt.

Part Two

I watched the movie, Local Color.  If you haven’t seen it, then it’s like “Finding Forrestor” for artists.  Younger aspirant meets master who wants to be left alone.  The two become friends and the aspirant finds his voice with his paintbrush.  It’s a pretty cool story (but I will admit it has it’s share of language issues).

So, this week, I’ve spent time relearning all the things I used to know about oil painting so I can put them into practice here in the next few days.  In a sense, rediscovering a lost love of painting.

I am still debating if the painting is finished or not.

• Can God take care of the bills and the debts?
• Can God watch over my son Aidan each night when he goes to bed?
• Can God make sure we have enough to eat?

My answer unequivocally is “yes”, but as I told a friend last week “My heart knows it by my brain doesn’t quite get it.”

I am trying a different tack.  Yes, the sharp pointy things that you used to put on your teacher’s chair but now you would probably get expelled from school for doing because in our culture you were trying to kill the teacher with tetanus instead of a mere tack.  Tact.  Yeah that word too.

A simple journal.  This is a deliberate effort to be more real.  Be more myself.  Something like that.  I think the other voice was me too, but it was a critical, self-absorbed version of myself trying to shoot myself with the same gun I was trying to aim.  Maybe it’s all a bad analogy… maybe I should just shut up my critical self and write more?

image credit to one of the most unflattering images I’ve ever taken of myself

For me, I’d probably become some kind of wilderness recluse.  Buy a cabin in the middle of the woods and have most things delivered. Books and stuff I’d order from Amazon.com.  I’d learn about trees and roots and what to eat and what won’t kill you in the woods. Maybe even live completely off-grid and invest in some kind of alternative energy while I grew my own food.  In short, I probably wouldn’t be much help to anyone outside my own family.

Maybe it’s not just a burden that I carry of debt and having to try to supplement income every month.  Maybe it’s the blessing that through my situation (however much I dislike it) that I can be used to be a blessing to others. If I weren’t in need, it might be rather difficult for me to understand those who are in need.

All we get out of sin is death and destruction.

Sure, sins seem nice when they are happening. We even try to justify them a thousand different ways. But what it ultimately comes down to is that God is God. He is the one who decides if something is sin or not. In fact God even holds Himself up as the standard of Truth and righteousness.

If there is question about it, stay away.

It gets me that some argue that certain things are not sin because it’s part of their genetic makeup. I find it amazing that they have come to that conclusion because scripture tells us we have a problem called “sinful nature”. I won’t deny it.

• I am likely to speed every time I drive, so I use the cruise control to keep myself in check.
• My mother was an alcoholic, therefore I stay away from beer.

It’s really that simple.  I realize that I am prone to a certain sin so I take more measures against it. Sin is still part of our nature though. Often, those sins we are most likely to commit are also the ones that we are most aware of actually being sin and are the ones we usually fight most vehemently that they are not.

The opposite of rebellion is repentance.

Once we are aware of our sin, we can accept God’s grace. Repentance means humbling yourself and turning around and going the other way when you realize you were wrong. Rebellion is going the way you know is wrong knowing it is wrong.

Sin and the Church.

Unfortunately, many people who attend church have gotten it backwards. Church is a gathering of sinners who recognize their own depravity and want to be in community with other people seeking out the way of repentance. So the church can be divided in several categories of people.

• Those who recognize their own depravity and are somewhere in the process of turning away from it and seeking God.
• Those who think they have it all figured out and so waste their time by telling those who are seeking God where they think He is.
• Those who are delusional that their particular brand of sin is somehow acceptable to God and are seeking the acceptance of the church to somehow justify themselves.
• Those who really don’t care one way or the other so they go with whatever the majority thinks.

I’m a mess, you’re a mess, we’re all a mess.

Not to sound like an AA meeting, but we are all sinners and we have to come to recognize that fact first. You don’t have to justify it to me because God’s the one who has set the standard.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3

Godlessness in the Last Days

¹But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ²People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,⁴treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

⁶They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, ⁷always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. ⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. ⁹But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

Paul’s Charge to Timothy

¹⁰You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, ¹¹persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. ¹²In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, ¹³while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,¹⁵and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.