Urban Cause

St. Valentine Was Single Too

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:01:00 +0000

I guess according to the internet we don't really know that for sure. But it's an interesting possibility!

And if St. Valentine was a single dude – maybe a celibate priest – he'd probably have written love poems to God rather than some Roman chick he was crushing on.

Therefore (and because I have nothing else to blog about) here is Psalm 63 – a love poem of sorts – rewritten.

You are my God
I am looking for you
I cannot find enough of you to satisfy me.
With all of me I know you are everything I have always missed.

At times in the night,
I see your glory like glimpsing your back as you walk away from me.
Because your love is better than life
Because your love is the only really good thing I can think of,
Because your kingdom is the only place I could live happily ever after,
My lips will glorify you.
My feet will carry me on chasing after you.
My hands will reach out to catch you.

What parts of me seek to run away,
What parts of me question you,
What parts of me rebel,
They will be silenced, swallowed up, destroyed forever.
And I will be content in just the shadow of your wings.

The Goy's Teeth

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:03:00 +0000

A Serious Man.

Rabbi Nachtner: ...These questions that are bothering you, Larry - maybe they're like a toothache. We feel them for a while, then they go away.

Larry: I don't want it to just go away! I want an answer!

Rabbi Nachtner: Sure! We all want the answer! But Hashem doesn't owe us the answer, Larry. Hashem doesn't owe us anything. The obligation runs the other way.

Two things that I find myself weighing are these: every life has a purpose; not every life has a purpose.

I think, like Job, we could one day find ourselves in the middle of inexplicable suffering and loss. Right now I see two ways to respond that allow us to keep believing and trusting God. One, we cheer ourselves on with something like, "This will work together for my good." Or two, respond like Job: "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth."

The inclination of people around me as I drone on about what upsets me is that God has a point in bringing me through these hard times and harsh questions – that one day he will turn these things around.

But I cannot say he is. Or even that he has to.

It is quite possible to me that I will never know the "how come?" Just like I don't know what lessons to draw from my first bout of unemployment or times that I have prayed or fasted and not seen fruit.

Hashem doesn't owe me the answers. He doesn't owe me anything.

If I allowed myself to stop looking for an answer or a comforting way to interpret life crap, I might find a God to be in awe of. One who can deliver me into pain, not explain it and still demand my obedience to him. I know very well that the obligation runs the other way. I know too that if he has given me a mind to comprehend some of this complexity and mystery, then he has given me the strength to carry answer-less questions as my burden.

The only point may be to say, "Okay. Enough questions. Starting now I'm just going to carry on."

Psalm 23 Rewrite / Because I Don't Live on a Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:06:00 +0000

I have a disconnection from many of the Psalms. I get that they are poetry and that they were written by courtly types with different preoccupations and ways of talking about things. But sometimes the difference between what it says and how I feel is so great I resent the words I read. Our church is using Psalm 23 in preparation for a time of prayer and fasting, so I have to read it. But I decided to rewrite this one so I could engage with it better.

Psalm 23 (The real one) –

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul.  He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,  for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;  you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,  and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalm 23 (The personal one) –

Although it could be worse, there are a lot of things I'm lacking.
But if he's
my bread from heaven and
a spring of water that overflows to eternal life and
if the shadow of his wings is my shelter,
I will always have what I need most in my heart –
where my hunger and thirst and nakedness really come from –
where the worst of it really happens. I guess.

The only rest from the agony of dealing with
life, people and always working working working to be something
are these moments when I get that what he's leading me through is to loosen my grasp on the world –
to make me free –
to make me whole.
Sometimes it's like my mind is changing and my soul is not so buried in my body.
And if I could just listen to him I would be drawn closer to his peace.

It's your promises and your heaven that get me through the long hours.
When living feels like a waste of time,
it's that you've sought me out and that you've chosen to abide in me
that lets me hold my head up in a world that wants
to sell me on itself,
replace my worth with commodities,
wants to bind me with its incomplete reasons.

The only thing I trust is that you will always be good,
and that when it's all over I'll be home.
Where I won't need
the sun
or moon
or stars
which cast a shadow for all they illuminate
because you yourself will be the light.
And I'll get it – finally – like you get me.

Psych Paper on Bipolar Disorder

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:08:00 +0000

So, still finding ways to recycle my college class assignments as blog posts! Here is yet another.

We were asked to write an essay on a given psychological disorder; mine was bipolar. It was very helpful writing this! I know a few people with this diagnosis and I felt better acquainted with their point of view after doing the research. I also tried to focus my reading around therapeutic techniques that I as a friend to such folks could potentially sample from in our relationship.

Why might this be relevant to you?

You might also have friends or neighbors with bipolar and want to understand their situation better.
If you find yourself throwing around the term "bipolar" to mean anything from unpredictable weather to your boss, chances are you have misconceptions about what bipolar is like.
Finally, if you live in a low-income community, you might be someone's only mental health advocate. Ethnic minorities were once found to be over diagnosed with more severe psychological disorders than their white counterparts (ie. schizophrenia versus depression.) In addition, low-income neighborhoods often lack mental health resources which could help someone be recognized and treated for a disorder.

You can read the essay here on Google Docs if you're really bored today.

Important Learnings:

Bipolar is not the same as mood swings. It is not suddenly feeling happy then suddenly feeling sad. Mania and major depression are longer processes and come with much deeper effects on thinking and feeling.
Bipolar is not necessarily feelings of "up and down." You need only have experienced one manic or one major depressive episode ever to warrant this diagnosis.
Although people suffering from a mood episode are aware of what they are doing, they are not in control of themselves. This means later on, under normal functioning, they can experience a lot of shame and fear about their behavior.
People with bipolar deal with stigma at work – and even among friends and family – that at any moment they could break into a psychotic episode. Because of this their manic episodes are not properly handled and their depression may go completely unnoticed.
Medication is often essential to treatment of the disorder, but the symptoms of bipolar are the worst enemy of anyone trying to maintain a drug regimen.

Reflections on 2011, Looking Ahead to 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:35:00 +0000

By Matthew Kavan Brooks. Here.

This was a crazy year. Crazy things that happened included:

Being fired,
Going to Paris,
Being rejected by MFA programs,
Deciding to explore art therapy,
Going back to school, and
Committing to a new home fellowship group at church.

Those are the milestones – the externals.

Internally, I went through a lot of changes as well. I had to deal with the stigma (both from others and imposed on myself) of losing a job and being on unemployment. Those two elements provide a looming sense of fear and shame that threatens to descend upon me when my defenses are down. But on the other hand, more positively, I am connecting with my own experiences more deeply since starting to explore the therapeutic relationship (which is to say, I had a posthumous 50 minutes with Carl Rogers.) I'd say since beginning to explore my vocation back in the spring, I have a tighter grasp on God's love for me. And in Paris especially, I learned that life is too short, impermanent and unimportant (in a freeing way) to allow cultural expectations to make me miserable.

I'd say it was a year of uncovering the triumph in what seemed like loss. Slowly, yes, and painstakingly – but nevertheless I find myself in a undeniably better place even though insecure in so many ways.

At LA City College I learned the joys of being a student. For the first time, I was open and secure enough to enjoy my classmates, which was an enormous victory and source of amusement. For the first time I really challenged my inclination to procrastinate and stayed ahead of my assignments. I reconnected with the love of drawing and the intense focus of art-making. Overall, I was encouraged that if I go to grad school, I have in me the skills to do well there and be comfortable with other students.

I'm reminded of family this year and some of my changing attitudes towards them. Of course, my grandfather passed away in May and small anniversaries are always popping up to remind me of my cousin and grandmother who passed in previous years. So much of the dynamic of my family was altered by these losses and reforming bonds without those members has been painful and strange. Staying connected to my aunt, uncle and cousins is different. My paternal grandmother is now my only living grandparent, so I am finally focusing on her the way I should have been doing. My bond with my four parents is always morphing and deepening as I reflect on what they mean to me and as we experience more together.

I've also been in Baltimore this holiday season, which always stirs up nostalgia about where I came from. I think about my goals in leaving: to become a part of a Spanish-speaking community in Los Angeles; to know and support my neighbors; to make more art. I have done those things! But I am also newly convicted of my need to go further with those goals: to be apart of community building efforts or growing our youth, to know a few Spanish-speaking congregants more deeply, to find the place of art in my life and not be discouraged. April also marked my one-year anniversary of living in my house with some amazing people. I continue to learn from them, be encouraged by them and just generally entertained.

Well, that's getting into what I want 2012 to be about! So here are a few tentative, nebulous aspirations for the coming year:

More wine country (I'd like to visit parts of Paso Robles, Napa or Sonoma.)
Employment at a job with less emphasis on “career” and more emphasis on wellness and sustainability.
Be comfortable enough with my body to go to a Korean spa before I turn 26!
Volunteer work or field experience in psychology or art therapy.
Complete my final semester at community college successfully (meaning hard work and creating meaning in my assignments.)
Get back into therapy.
Develop a deeper relationship with Spanish-speaking church members and serve with diligence at my home fellowship group.
Complete my portfolio, essays and applications for grad school and apply.

Eleanor and Zoyla

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 05:48:00 +0000

Well, here it is! The dummy book I completed for my illustration final project. The story was sort of cobbled together last minute, and obviously the illustrations are just mock-ups. So now that I've apologized for it, enjoy:

Love of the Law

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:47:00 +0000

I stumbled into being a Christian through mostly three things:

I happened to be born into it,
I happened to attend a school where the gospel was taught, and
I loved the law.

I remember the first few years of growing into a personal faith life I would hunker down on the bathroom floor (the only room small enough in our house to get thoroughly warmed to my standards) with the Bible and several reference books to help me understand the text. And I read the whole thing that way.

Harvesting olives.

Verses that resounded most with me at the time were ones like, "I will delight myself in thy statutes... My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments..." (Psalm 119 vv.16 and 20.) Yes, I was a King James kid! I simply loved the law and felt comforted in knowing for certain what was required of me.

I don't consider my childhood to have had a lot of rules or even very firm expectations for my behavior. I didn't really have chores or responsibilities for extended periods. Plus being raised in four different home environments (before my parents divorced, then living with my mom, living with my grandparents and living with my dad) left me with uncertain notions of what was right and wrong.

It's obvious then why I was pretty intent on knowing the Bible. Compared to my classmates in Sunday school, I knew a lot about scripture and took it in the most straightforward manner. I remember having a group icebreaker question asking, "If people remember you in one word, what would you like it to be?" I said, "pious." I think I was 14.

Later that would take a turn. One defining incident that I remember occured in high school. I brought up Matthew 19:9 with my mom, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." My mom wasn't certain about my interpretation (ie. a literal one) so we went to talk to our pastor. What he said would forever throw a wrench into the gears of my biblical literacy: "Yes, but the Bible also says, 'It is not good for man to be alone.'" He was the first teacher I heard to interpret away a direct command in the Bible. Later, I would find out this is happening all the time and the fancy word for it is "hermeneutics."

Being a mature adult and a mature Christian means recognizing that we interpret the world from an ego-centric standpoint: not egotistically per se, but relatively. And, yes, it's good to recognize, but it sure doesn't make reading the Bible any easier. In fact, I have a very hard time picking it up these days because as I read I am questioning my understanding. I'm not comfortable reading many Christian authors either, because I don't know how to trust what they say.

But it's not like I have had nothing but bad experiences with relativistic teachers and self-centered preachers since my "pure, childlike" understanding was shattered to bits. Along the way I've learned there were sections of scripture with commands that I had been ignoring. I was taught to see things like "When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow" and this meant that God cared about the hungry (Deuteronomy 24:19.) So even though I don't have a field and am not obligated to do this, I still delight in this law because of what it says about God's values. (By the way, if you want to see how a family was fed because of this rule, read the book of Ruth.)

I wrote all this to help me reconnect to the the love of the law. I think that joy in his commands is still important to me, but I've ignored and questioned it for many years. As I am trying to love God more, I want to spend time cultivating that same soil.

It might be a helpful reflection for you too: What was most important to you at the beginning of your pursuit of God? How has it changed and how could you rediscover it now?

A Little More Illustration

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:37:00 +0000

Yes, I am still being boring: the semester isn't over yet! Here are two more assignments from our illustration class (actually we only had three total... bummer!)

The Fat Rat Smiles Carefully.

For this assignment we chose words at random from a hat and had to illustrate the resultant sentence. Let me tell you, I got very lucky! Other students pulled things like, "Angry snot weeps sleepily" and "Clean toothpaste swings reluctantly." As it was I had a number of options but went, of course, for gangsters.

The fat rat smiles carefully.
Colored pencil on Bristol board.

Submit to Nature; Return to Nature.

This assignment was labeled a "poetry" project and came with this so-called "haiku." But of course, if you know me, you know I am a fan of the haiku. And this is no haiku! (It is missing a line of seven syllables. Fell free to invent one of your own and leave it in the comments. Mine for example would be, "Submit to nature / This assignment is a farce / Return to nature.")

The black and white mock up. I like this one better!

The fossils are fun, but this version is missing something for me.
Colored pencil on Bristol board.

Illustration Project Sneak Peek

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:59:00 +0000

Our illustration class is on its final project. Some students are doing frames from a graphic novel, still shots from an animated film, or – like me – a dummy picture book. Dummy books give a preview of the story and artwork but don't include final pieces.

Ellenor, the main character.

That said, here's a sneak peak at my book, about the misadventures of an older lady in Paris. Yes, it is largely based on my own experience there.

At the Eiffel Tower. The beginning of the story features her sight-seeing.

Enjoying some Ladurée in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe. I am trying to come up with less obvious ways of depicting the famous places of Paris.

Looking out over the Seine. The green things are stalls for vendors. They're everywhere selling the exact same stuff.

It's challenging, but I'm beginning to enjoy the work. At first there were a lot of mishaps with the watercolor paint... it's a tough medium! Now it's going more smoothly and I'm able to showcase the actual drawing more.

Once I've added text and put this in PDF format, you know I'll plaster it all over the blog and social media. So hold tight!

Circadian and Social Rhythm Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:18:00 +0000

My life right now is all about school. If I have anything else going on besides that it's pretty boring like, "I started a budget," or "I picked up books at the library," or "I saw you at church today." So allow me to regale you with my personal experiments in psychology.

Click for source.

I was reading in our Abnormal Psychology textbook* about IPSRT, interpersonal and social rhythm therapy. It's a technique used for those suffering with bipolar disorder. They've found maintaining a good, consistent schedule is helpful in regulating mood. I was also reading about how some people with depression have "shortened REM latency," meaning they fall into deep, dreaming sleep too quickly. For a portion of these, sleep deprivation can actually be helpful in alleviating symptoms.. So then I started reading about circadian rhythms and seasonal affective disorder (SAD.) Exposing yourself to more morning light has an advancing effect on circadian rhythms too.

I thought, "why not try to combine these ideas?"

So I created my own little social rhythm chart based on the examples in the text. You can see it online here. My interest is to see if there is any improvement in my mood by regulating my schedule. A few points to note:

I'm recording what time the sun rises and sets since I may want to adjust my routine to maximize the "photic zeitgeber." (Oo, fancy German word!)
I'm trying to sleep only 7 hours a night this week (seriously, right now I get like 9 or 10.)
I'm recording my diet as well. Things like fruit are supposed to be a good alternative to caffeine and refined sugars for energy. Also, folks with SAD crave extra carbohydrates in winter. Do I? We shall see.
Social interactions are zeitgebers as well, so I am tallying up my people time. Plus, I like people time.

I know I'm not going about this experiment totally scientifically, but I figure it's better to foster my curiosity than wait to learn good research methods. (Who knows when that could be?) Feel free to use a copy for yourself and let me know how your experimenting goes.

* Alloy, L. B., Riskind, J. H., Manos, M. J. (2004). Abnormal Psychology: Current Perspectives. New York, McGraw-Hill.

Friendship Therapy

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 06:48:00 +0000

One reason they say women are twice as likely to be depressed as men is that they tend to ruminate on their feelings instead of distracting themselves from them. It's easy to write off depression as pouting and learned helplessness. It's also easy to write off our feelings of anything less than "happy, happy!" as stupid and try to move on.

Source http://www.wherethelovelythingsare.com

I do think sadness is something we should experience as humans. I even think there are situations in which prolonged sadness is totally understandable and is not criteria for a mental disorder. Like when you have no sense of meaningfulness. Maybe you can't find direction, or you see the power of evil and violence in the world, or you feel threatened all around.

As humans, we sometimes catch on to the big pattern of suffering and separation around us. In the 60's we studied alienation, there is the concept of Weltschmerz, and the Bible says, "to die is gain." We want a new place where we are called worthy of love, free from pain, created anew – with no strings attached. So it's very real to the human experience, and certainly real to the Christian experience, to grow sad with life and tired of living in a vapid, cruel and unpredictable world.

Is that something we should distract ourselves from? Myself, I feel rather compelled to ruminate on such revelations.

I am very lucky that right now, even though I can't afford to pay a therapist to listen to my woes and affirm that they are in fact painful and confusing, I have friends. Friends who remember me, are glad to see me, and – even when I can't share my thoughts with them – convey a sense that they understand and love me even though they know I'm a screwed up person.

I wouldn't say that friendships cause me to stop ruminating on life's crappier themes, but I would still say they are part of the cure for sadness. If there is anything that should make life a little meaningful – any relief for Weltschmerz – it's got to be friendship. People who won't be fired for disliking you, don't have to be attracted to you, don't need to define themselves by you. Often in the past I had only one of these friendships at a time. But I can see a trail of those relationships emerging through the years and I know my life was and is saved by friends.

Unconditional Positive Regard

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:25:00 +0000

I was touched to tears one day just sitting in the library innocently reading my abnormal psychology assignment. We were covering the different perspectives on psychology and I got to the section on the humanistic-existentialists. It was like seeing the Good News where I least suspected.

From the reading, I did some internet browsing, from the browsing I ended up reading a book called, On Becoming a Person. It's a collection of talks and articles by Carl Rogers, a therapist who founded what is called client-centered therapy. He pretty much revolutionized the practice of therapy as we know it, and instituted the practice of unconditional positive regard (if you are going to therapy, you have probably experienced this without knowing... I hope anyway.)

"Conditions of worth" is a concept that basically says that we grow up with certain expectations put on us by our caregivers and authority figures. It is like our parents or teachers are saying, "To have my love you need to – be girlish, by masculine, be questioning, be obedient, be smart, be quiet – whatever." A fortunate few are raised with unconditional positive regard (affection.) They are those well-adjusted folks who feel worthy when being totally, authentically themselves.

Probably the majority of us weren't raised with that. We look inside ourselves and see something wrong, something that needs to be hidden. Harsh feelings, immoral urges, despair. Not only can we not air these things in a relationship because we would lose the love of others, but we may also deny and cover up those feelings to ourselves. We live detached from our thoughts and emotions because we cannot accept them.

When I'm sitting listening to someone tell their story, how often do I have to stop myself from feeling my disbelief or anger or frustration with them – or even my sense of hope? I might feel fear of their feelings: if I listen about their depression will I become depressed? If I really commit to understand this person's madness will I lose my mind? This is me placing on them conditions of worth.

The idea of unconditional positive regard is based on the believe that in essence, we are each moving positively (however infrequently) towards growth and well-adjustedness. Since starting the book, I've experienced fleeting moments where I can conceptualize and feel this deeper self: below my facades, below the crap, into something at the core of my person. I get the sense that I can be both loving and hating, both angry, sad and serene without reservation or judgment towards myself. And in those times I felt I was better and could be one day totally well – whole whether authorities, parents or even friends regarded me as such.

As I get closer to seeing that self in me, I know it is also there in other people. I would say that self corresponds roughly with the part of us that is trying to reunite to God: to be love, to grow and be restored. And that's a very different concept than what we're taught: "Meet this standard, conform to this model, be good.. all the time... no matter who you are talking to. Even in your most intimate relationships, you must turn down the volume of your internal experiences."

It was reading this book that the occupation of therapist became very accessible and exciting to me. Essentially within the confines of your office, between the therapist and client, you are able to produce the only genuine, open, two-way relationship some of us will ever experience giving or receiving. Where would we be in our communities if we could learn to extend this sort of listening, empathy and non-judgment to one another?

Life Without Buying Books

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:38:00 +0000

Image of my local branch! The Exposition Library.

I'm a reader. It's a habit. I picked it up around the fourth grade when Edgar Allen Poe made me realize books could feel as moody and mysterious as I did.

When I was living in Baltimore serving my AmeriCorps year, I was dirt poor. At least I was stingy beyond my own capacity to support it. Lots of expenses got cut out like coffee, music, going to the movies and even buying books.

Since moving to LA – while I make more money on unemployment than I did in AmeriCorps – I still don't buy books. That's for three reasons:

I think it's a way of practicing a simpler life which allows me to be more generous or else afford experiences like vacationing.
I am still super cheap and will work the system so I don't have to pay for things I normally would.
While an avid reader, I am an even more voracious skimmer, meaning I don't necessarily need to read a whole book to be satisfied. (Why pay for words I don't read?)

I embraced that knowledge and quickly became a library aficionado. I learned to use the online catalog and place holds, memorized my local branch's open hours, started making use of multiple branches based my location (at home, at work, at school), and finally broke my habit of desiring to buy and hoard books.

Ha!

I used to think of a shelf full of books like a hunter thinks of a taxidermied bear in his foyer: Proof that I had accomplished something. Buying and owning books propped up my identity as some sort of intellectual. The kinds of books you'd find on my shelf proved that I was interesting. In me there was a strong emotional and commercial need for buying books.

But I think my consumerist impulse to browse, select and purchase is totally satisfied when I'm at the library. In fact, I bet the amount of time I spend there keeps me from shopping for other things too. Practically speaking, now that I can "afford" an entire county's worth of books – I can check out 15, "wastefully" skim 14 and maybe read 1 – I am learning a lot more. I expose myself to more content than when I was buying.

Urban ministry application: The love of learning and an appreciation for books is something we need to cultivate in ourselves and our neighborhoods. Being fluent in the library system is one way we can make that more accessible to low income folks. Changing our vocabulary from "buy this book" to "check out this book" removes the subtle implication that knowledge is for people with money.

I encourage you to find some weekend or evening times when you can visit your local branch. Heck, go on your lunch break. If you mentor kids, have a field trip. Take steps to replace your Amazon wish list with a library account.

Friendships Come and Go (Tron Is Forever)

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:40:00 +0000

I may be the only person you know who liked this movie. Which means I expend too much energy thinking up reasons it was good. So that brought me to this post in which I am saying, "Ending friendships is like Tron Legacy."

Flynn around the time he first created CLU.

So the idea of Tron Legacy, right, is that Kevin Flynn created CLU to be the "perfect" governing program of the Grid. CLU had Flynn's ideas, his ideals, his logic, but only developed up to the point of the program's creation: when the designer parted with his "masterpiece."

Then Flynn and CLU diverge. The organic user learns new things; he especially begins to embrace chaos, mistake-making and weakness. CLU, however, continues to maintain order in the Grid at the cost of other programs and with little regard for learning – but in keeping with his design.   (Actually Flynn says CLU was corrupted, but I don't think that's necessary to the plot... or my point... so we'll ignore it.)

Okay, now I've gotten ahead of myself. But basically, when you become friends, it's at a time when you are about the same. And if you two grow along different paths, you should diverge. That's healthy – even if you are both growing in healthy ways.   Otherwise you'll be like Flynn trying to live in a system run by CLU (ie. the confines of your original friendship and your old personality.)

It's sad though.

For every friendship I've had to end or move away from, I felt a loss. Loss and nostalgia. Because for what I was at the time, this person was a great match. I don't miss being what I was (which was mostly a more ignorant and insensitive person.) But I miss feeling I had found a kindred spirit.

I was once enamored with the idea of having a best friend. At some point I came under the assumption that a person always had one: like a default superlative buddy. Now I'm sort of at home with idea of not belonging to anyone per se, not having the pretense of an unbreakable bond. Not because best friends are necessarily fatal to personal advancement, but because I think they are a sort of mutually agreed upon mania that ignores change in the other person instead of fostering it.

Through isolation and meditation, Flynn learned that the ways of CLU were not cool, man.

These days I feel my personality is in a state of unraveling, shifting and being reorganized into something more liquid and holistic. I have a hunch that I won't be making any best friends, but that I am more bouncing off different people, looking at them and seeing if there is truth I can take away or offer.

At the same time, whatever I am coming home to in myself is more loving. I guess the new norm will be providing non-judging, trustworthy yet impermanent relationships with whoever is around me. It's not about forming an alliance with an imperfect person and clinging to that connection for stability, but being my truest and best self for others' benefit for the time we're together.

Enmeshed and Set Aside: Being Single in a Family Church

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:45:00 +0000

[Edit: Sorry if you got this post twice!]

As though I don't have enough to do, I began the process of discerning my stance on vocation. You'll note I've updated my goal from actually "discerning my vocation." That's because to some extent, I don't believe that God will choose to give me a distinct calling in the area of singleness and marriage.

I would describe my current stance this way: Be actively single as long as you care to be; while you're single, live singly for God. When I read the passage in 1 Corinthians 7 about marriage and celibacy, I hear an open-ended kind of challenge. For me right now, that looks like this:

I'm not evaluating anyone romantically. If I can help it, I won't get interested in the first place.
I'm not going online or switching churches or whatever to find a man.
There will be no experimental dating (ie. "I'll say 'yes' to anyone who asks me out... just to see what happens.")

That in itself is a big deal. But thinking about the implications of this as a lifestyle raises questions about how the church can support other actively single folks.

How do we celebrate and distinguish intentional singleness?
Being a "eunuch for the Kingdom" is different in the Catholic versus the Protestant church. As Protestants, we don't have anything like the process of becoming a nun, for example. There isn't a celebration or anything when you decide to stay single. You're not held up to any special standard of behavior. You don't get a cool outfit, don't get to live in a house with other decidedly single ladies, you don't take vows.

Do we need something like this?

How do we change our mindset and remove assumptions about marriage?
Protestants, it seems, are only just reawakening to the idea of the single vocation. In most churches there is an underlying assumption that you will be getting married sometime and having kids. I hate this assumption so much, I'm half interested in staying single just to prove it can and should be done. (But that's another issue all together.)

How would our messages on Sundays be affected by an institutionalized single vocation?
There would have to be special attention paid to the concerns of single people: How do I discern my vocation? Am I dating when I shouldn't be? How do I learn to readjust my view of my own future and remove assumptions about a mate? What are the financial implications of a single-income household and how does that involve the church? What if I'm a single parent already and called to not remarry; what do I do? How do I put an end to any single-person's anger, resentment or jealousy (ie. so I can stop comparing myself to married and dating folks)?

How do we balance service and pastoral care between singles and families?
It would be easy for families to think singles should serve more or in riskier capacities. It would be easy for singles to become burnt out trying to keep themselves busy. But we can't try and take away the advantages of singleness (time, certain freedoms, the ability to pursue your personal potential) because otherwise singleness would really suck... and I don't think that was Paul's intention in promoting singleness.

Now, I'm getting into the abstract, but would we need to teach and learn a kind of intentional sublimation?
How does one convert the energy normally going towards fulfilling the "biological imperative" into a focused adoration of God? Normally we're content to let our curiosity wander: Is there anyone cute here? Is there anyone I would date here? But all those become useless questions when you are actively single. And if you could tame your mind, you'd be left with a lot of spare energy.

What about you? How do you think singleness can change Christians and the church? What does it bring up?

High School Do-Over

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:36:00 +0000

I like my community college. One reason I feel really excited to be there is that I'm essentially getting a do-over on high school.

Believe it or not, I was very anti-social back in the day. Painfully so. I had gone from a small, private school (I was in a class of 5 people in my grade) to a really big public school (1500 students if I recall – that's bigger than my college was!) The lack of structure, the overabundance of people and my natural tendency to standoffishness sunk me into an isolation so deep, for the first two years of high school I could remember every word of every conversation I had with another student. Because that consisted of maybe 200 words.

Nerds: You cannot kill what already has no life.

Finally I joined the Allied Sports program and a club or two and things improved some. Then I was only isolated because I was socially stupid and not very nice.

College was a pressure-cooker of social adaptation. I hurt a lot of people with my attitude, spent a lot of time sulking and angry, but eventually the great rock-tumbler of relationships knocked off enough spikes to make me sort of tolerable (you be the judge.) My first year or two out of college I spent in a constant flux from goofy and loud to quiet and depressive. Thankfully, through different modes and with a lot of wisdom from others, I'm learning some adaptive behavior.

As an introvert, I wouldn't have thought this, but there is a sort of formula to talking to someone. I think living in community, especially during my summer programs in college, gave me a chance to examine and internalize the back and forth of a normal, extroverted, adult conversation. (Maybe I should diagram this out in another post... in case you the reader are slow like me.) Anyways, I've mostly gotten to where I can keep up with the formula but still listen to my fellow students.

It helps that community college students are way more interesting than regular students. They have lives. They have lived. Some are working, some are parents, some are old, some are just getting started, some are starting over. This is LA too, so there are international students, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, LGBTQ students, nerds, jocks, artsy-types, ballers, skaters, ... I could go on but you get the idea.

With all that diversity, everyone is still really approachable. So either I've learned extroversion or just happened to find a big metropolitan place that feels like a small, supportive town. Maybe both. Either way, it's been invigorating so far to listen to other people, get in on their conversations, feel accepted and valued and eager to serve.

That old high school sensation of fear and worry over interacting with other students is gone; those days are being redeemed; and things are really, really good.

Big Life Update Post

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:24:00 +0000

I do hate spending time away from topics that apply to more people than just me, but it seemed necessary. So here is the quick run down of life changes.

CoachArt
Began volunteering with CoachArt. They serve kids with chronic illnesses by offering free classes in the arts or sports. I am teaching a very cool 9-year old to cook. Why is she cool? Because she loves vegetables.

Youth Policy Institute
I suppose when the job posting reads, "In-Home Tutors needed!!!" you should expect a quick turn-around on your resume. I applied for the job Sunday afternoon, and was interviewed and offered the job on Tuesday.

I'll be tutoring kids somewhere in Central LA in language arts or math. I think it should be a far better experience than tutoring in Baltimore, and it lines up pretty well with art therapy if I got that route.

Check out more on YPI here.

LA City College
Classes are going well. I really love my classmates: they are super interesting folks and I see a lot of my own story shared in theirs. Enjoying a chance to play the extrovert and serve.

Favorite class: Illustration.
Least favorite class: Korean.
I'm just bored to tears because I'm ahead right now. It also appears I have an unwanted gentleman caller. "내버려 둬!"

House
One of our renters moved out (he retired and moved home to Mexico, so good for him) and another moved in. The new guy, I'm told, is a chef. I hope he has a problem bringing work home with him.

Big ups to Robert who got a job! If you're lucky, you may get your next delivery from Urban Noodle from him.

Hair
It was a cathartic experience as haircuts usually are. You must compliment my haircut sight-unseen in the comments section below...

More Stars Than Sky

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:25:00 +0000

Yosemite Valley

I know that tonight, when the sun has set and I sit around a backyard fire pit with friends, I will be lucky to see three or four stars in the sky over South Los Angeles. There will be the sharp, surprising glare of a helicopter search beam and the blinking signals of airplanes as they roar low over our neighborhood – but not much in the way of heavenly bodies.

Last night on the other hand, there were more stars than sky above my head. A group of fellow campers in Yosemite and myself snaked our way along a two mile path through the woods and the night. I focused on the ground ahead of me, in the small circle of trail illuminated by my flashlight. All I could perceive of my environment were the trudge and thud of our footfall and the cracking of small branches in the forest.

But then the trees would open up, I would hold my friend's shoulder for balance and look above. The trees were pitch black, the sky a dark grey, and the stars burned in the millions, uncountable. Over a background of the hazy Milky Way, were stars like salt spilled across a table. And huge and bold over these, the Big Dipper and other constellations.

By the time we got out to the lake, the clouds had rolled across the sky and obscured our view of the stars. Tonight with the sun setting, the pollution of exhaust and city glow do the same in LA.

I wonder what if we could all stop using our cars and could turn down the lights of Hollywood and show the stars to the inner city?

What do we lose when we can't see such spectacular things? When the nights' spiritual darkness (crime, prostitution, danger, loneliness, fear) is not matched by a show of such awesome splendor? When our environment in the city is dominated by man-made, man-scaled, artificially illuminated, blingified, commercialized stuff?

How many of our problems do we have precisely because we are out of touch with natural glory? Because we spend our time magnifying our human problems instead of standing in the valley of the world, dwarfed by the mountains?

Back to School

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:24:00 +0000

Señor Chang, Community

It's back to school season! And I get to say that with an exclamation mark because: I've gone back to school!

When I found out I wasn't accepted into an MFA program, I got pretty sad. Among other disappointments I knew I'd have to watch all my other friends who got accepted into their Masters program go off to school with new notebooks and haircuts. And I'd only be able to watch them jealously from my window, frowning.

Well, as you may know, I am trying to figure out if applying for and potentially attending a program for art therapy is my next life calling thingy. And while that wouldn't start until next year, I actually would need to take pre-requisite classes.

I haven't gotten the lightening bolt revelation that indeed art therapy is for me, but sitting around quietly in Yosemite away from other influences than my thoughts and maybe the still, small voice, I felt it was okay to take steps approaching the application itself.

So that entails a few things:

Writing an autobiography
Putting together a portfolio of art with psychological themes
Pre-reqs including 2 studio art classes, 1 abnormal psychology

I am successfully plunking out my life details, sort of stalled on the portfolio, and now enrolled and taking classes at LA City College (LACC.) And loving it!

It's been stressful in some ways because I have to deal with possibly losing my unemployment benefits – still waiting to hear about that. (Basically to get your checks you have to be available to take on full-time work even if you can't find it. And by taking day classes I am mucking that up. Admittedly, it makes sense.)

Currently I'm looking at illustration, ceramics, abnormal psychology and Korean (because I can.) But depending on the Unemployment Lords and my willingness to cave to their demands, those arts might change to Saturday classes (like design and drawing or something less tantalizing than playing with dirt and poetry.)

Ways it is extra, extra cool to be at community college:

Yes, it is like the TV show.
Some folks from my neighborhood also attend LACC and I look forward to sharing the semester with them.
I get to do goofy things like join clubs again.
There is real potential to assist low-income students through tutoring or something else.

You can send me your good vibes on the unemployment bit, but other than that I'm happy to report a fun change in things!

What's Going On When You're Making Art

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:42:00 +0000

When I think about the importance of making art for me, I try to imagine what connects the different kinds of arts and crafts I do. What is the same between painting and baking or sewing and throwing clay? It's not the function of the work: some things you eat, others you hang on a wall. It's certainly not the retail value of the piece when it is finished, because I rarely sell anything I've made.

There are two things I can think of that all art making has in common for me: coming up with ideas and being focused.

Jackson Pollock... whatever you may think of him.
Image source: here.

Especially when I am working, I notice a stark contrast between the joy of being totally consumed and focused on the creation of something versus the painful ache of paying attention to, say, data entry (as just one example.) Art making involves drawing out of nothing a visible or audible something and you look inward and outward at the same time: focusing on the vision and overlaying it onto the medium. For acting, I see this as focusing ahead on the script but inwardly on the attitude of the character you are creating at the moment of your performance. Data entry and other detail-oriented work on the other hand is more about replicating something extant with all its exact minutiae: there is no room for error, invention, flourish or novelty. Nothing liberating or enticing about that kind of focus.

There is something very simplistic in baking (let's put coffee together with chocolate or strawberries with rum... or just straight rum which is always good.) and it reminds me of solving those peg-in-the-hole games: circles go with circles, squares with squares: earthy flavors go with smokey flavors, citrus flavors go with nutty flavors. Slightly more sophisticated but pretty much a feat of problem solving or adjusting a short algebraic problem for new variables. (This only explains the way I bake, by the way.)

With drawing and painting the generation of ideas is in exaggerating reality. I might see a plant with interesting holes in its leaves or an accumulation of clouds making a strange pattern of shadows over the land. I think, what if these things could be extruded into a hyper-real, dreamy sort of image? And a painting is born. If baking is matching, then painting is dissecting.

Ideas. Problems. Concentration. Patterns. These are the joys of a certain kind of mind. I don't know if it is at all universal among other artists in different medium, but I have heard some authors imply that it could be.

I'd love to know: when you're performing or writing or sketching, what is the exciting part? Can you discern any underlying cognitive process that could relate to art-making as a whole?

Church Like Fight Club

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:12:00 +0000

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

– Fight Club

One of the few decent screen caps from this movie without a shirtless Brad Pitt.

Are you content with your Ikea furniture, your personal space, your 401k, your 9-to-5? Or even your alternative culture – which is the same thing but with a sense of irony and reusable grocery bags?

Me and a housemate watched Fight Club the other night at an outdoor screening in Exposition Park. First off, I forgot how very, very graphic that movie is. Oh well, still great.

Second, I had a thought while watching it. Listen to a few of the principles espoused by Tyler Durden and his Project Mayhem:

We are not what we own. Possessions are a hindrance to genuine living.
Experiencing reality is about reaching the bottom not the top.
Image doesn't matter; meaning does.
Mankind has advanced beyond its ideal state and needs to "regress."
Community and mission take precedence over individual ambition.
Rebel against corporate control and commercial values.

Now, there are some definite incompatibilities but doesn't this sound like something right out of Colossians Remixed? Doesn't it sound like the contemporary, liberal application of the gospel?

I was struck by that in a very big way: affirmed but also challenged. Because here's a secular and aggressive pop-culture staple asking the same questions and rejecting the same model of success as the church. I feel like "our" message is more relevant than I had thought before, and not just to other Christians. At the same time, I wondered are we going far enough?

Durden complains that his father had "commandments" for his life (go to college, get a job, get married) but was ultimately unable to give him direction. His inept, absent father was his model for God. To get God's attention he started acting out against [stereotypically] feminine values like playing nice and nesting. Magnified x1000 that became Ikea and the entire corporate system.

Whereas in the church, instead of replacing our father-as-god with myself-as-god, we seek out of scripture another deity. He isn't the blue-eyed, blond Jesus with a lamb on his shoulder that we're presented in Sunday School. That guy would make anyone want to punch a stranger. Nor is he the chaotic, pathological Saturn Devouring His Son who would make anyone want to... punch a stranger too.

Saturno devorando a su hijo, Francisco Goya

Our rebellion against corporate and consumerist values is one of abstention and service: "I don't buy this, I don't shop here, I refuse to own one of these. I stand up, I speak out, I replace unjust things with just ones."

Abstention and service still sound awfully yin and probably wouldn't appeal to the "space monkeys." And while I sure would like to blow up a piece of corporate art and destroy a coffee franchise with it, that seems too yang. In the destruction and violence of Project Mayhem, what did they plan to set up as the alternative? In the passivity of the Christian church what do we hope to accomplish?

It can't be only destruction, but it can't be only biding time till the new Jerusalem either. If for no other reason than we tend to go insane at either extreme. So instead of blowing up art that is so PC it's worthless, I need to make art that speaks. But how to make an impact with it? Instead of trashing a coffee bar, I can take my business elsewhere. But how to reform or hold to account the unfair business?

If I'm discontent with my life and the world around me, I probably shouldn't bring it down with a van full of explosives. I need to actually change it from within or else distance myself from irreparable negative influences. But what does that look like and how much time should I spend on it?

How do you see the conflict between "loving your life and losing it" play out? Between destruction of the old ways and creation of the new? How has that changed? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Update: Good Temping

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 05:48:00 +0000

It's 10:21pm Wednesday night and if I don't post something by midnight, I'll have missed yet another artificial deadline! Woe is me!

From The Office.

These past three weeks I've been temping, doing the most menial of white collar tasks: data entry. Data entry is basically a human trying to do the work of a machine: it is the disinterested, precise replication of figures from one medium to another. A scanner with optical text recognition (that's a real thing, you know, not science fiction) could do a better job of it than me.

Nevertheless I have been chosen. I am being paid. I am doing the work. I am losing my eyesight a little more each day.

But the work is good! In a lot of ways I feel like the office of my employment has restored my hope in "the workplace." I like my coworkers-slash-supervisors very much. They are clear with their instruction, explanation and one even apologized to me. Here's how that went:

Supervisor: "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the extra data you didn't need to enter."

Me: ".... Oh...! [Read: what do I do with that?]"

Anyway, this post serves more as an update, but I wanted to acknowledge my props to RNLA (which doesn't have an active social media presence, so I don't think they'll ever find this post.) Thanks for giving me hope that not all post-collegiate places of work are crazy and totally lacking in rational management.

True, there are "personalities" at this office, but I feel like everyone has a proper foil: the narcissistic so-and-so has the down-to-earth supervisor and direct report that balance the experience of dealing with them and so on... ad infinitum ... ex nihilo....

I am encouraged to know that if I'm working for bright, reasonable people I am totally fine taking orders, doing grunt work and double-checking everything. It's not glamorous, it might even put some people to shame, but temping at this place has made me trust people a little more, have more confidence that I am not a screw up and take some measure of joy in the thought of re-entering the workaday world once again.

Plus, if you want to live in low-income Los Angeles or the North Valley community you should check out their properties for sale here at RestoreNeighborhoodsLA.org!

Much love.

DIY of Late

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:15:00 +0000

Other than pontificating the weightier matters of existence on this blog... I've been crafting! Yay! Here's what:

A flannel quilt (props to Donna Tompkins for teaching me how to make these!)

A painting with the constellations. (Don't ask me which ones; I still don't know them.)

Re-painted the chest of drawers given to me by Sierra.

It took many episodes of the Colbert Report to get this done.

Kinds of Morality

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:08:00 +0000

I just love psychology, don't you?

Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory was designed to identify values across politics and culture. It's definitely a useful tool for understanding interactions in urban environments like Los Angeles where there are tons of cultures (with multiple generations of each) and misunderstandings between them abound.

The different kinds of morality, he says, are:

Harm/Care
Fairness/Reciprocity
Authority/Respect
Purity/Sanctity
Ingroup/Loyalty

When studied, liberals tended to be concerned with harm/care and fairness/reciprocity at a very high level. Conservatives tended to value all five moralities but at a lower level. Individualist societies tend to value fairness/reciprocity and collectivist societies tend to value respect for authority.

It's interesting how as a liberal Protestant I don't naturally value the same things as many in my neighborhood. Especially I wonder:

How do I show respect for the various authority figures and cultural leaders here? (Like family matriarchs, elders, etc.)
How can liberal Protestants honor the idea of sanctity when we don't tend to believe earthly things are holy?
How does the work we're doing in the neighborhood -- especially among youth -- put a strain on the value of group loyalty in our neighborhood? Is it always best to challenge this or can we create a different group ethic to identify with?

Trendism: Anatomy of the Art-Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Candice Carr) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:05:00 +0000

Click for source.

Awhile ago I got feedback on my MFA portfolio. I was told the technical skill was all there but my work needed to be more critical to get considered for a masters-level program. I totally agreed with that characterization, but did I start making more critical art as a result?

Heck no! Instead I took a dive off the deep end into total, depraved trend-whoredom.

You may already know about my alter ego blog on Tumblr. I've been running it for years (!) as a storehouse of trending images in fashion, food, illustration and whatever else generally comes in pastel colors. Whereas the "psyche" or consciousness of my art-mind idealizes individuality, originality and critical thought, I clearly have a subconscious attraction to trends, bandwagoning and rehashing/throwbacks to formerly popular (i.e. "retro") ideas.

If the content on my Tumblr represents the subconscious of my art-mind, then it's no wonder it all started finding expression in my painting post-MFA. For, to quote my main man, Carl Jung, "No function [of thought] can be entirely eliminated – it can only be greatly distorted."

Geometric patterns and naive art.

There is hope though! By dredging up the subconscious mind, we may take away its distorted power and give it a healthy place in our psyche. Fingers crossed, my "trendism" is a phase that will pass and hopefully when it has I'll have a clearer view of what my art will be about.

Besides, there is something resonant for me in the fixation of trends right now: A return to primitive art making ("naive art") perhaps in response to the sleekness of technology and computer graphics. (I feel that.) Obsession with humor and funny memes, maybe as a response to the American economy and our 2-3 wars. (Yeah, seriously! ) Total abandon to the "girly," "pretty," or "sweet" – probably because we women have no effing clue what it means to be feminine and feminist... again. (I'm so there.)

Nature, botanical illustrations and diagrams.

And, why not? Here's a list of other trendy tags and some thoughts about the subconscious behind them:

Pastry, especially macarons, cake, cupcakes and donuts. As a jaded liberal arts student, there is something romantic about the notion of baking. As a woman dealing with social pressures to be thin, I am lingering over food I "can't" eat.
Weddings. I am not getting married any time soon, but I probably followed 25 wedding blogs at one time. I think in our culture of cohabitation we've suppressed a lot about marriage. Watch an episode of Millionaire Matchmaker: I was surprised and yet totally gratified by some of Patti's conservatism.
Geometric patterns, especially "tribal," "ethnic," African or ikat. Globalization? Noble savage? Appropriation? Those all work...
Fashion. Always. The ultimate trend, the standard of beauty and a defining marker of groupthink (especially in adolescence, and especially in women.)
Paris will never die in our imaginations as a place of romance and Ladurée (even though the coffee sucks) while we cling to serial monogamy and the ABC diet.
Bicycles. Energy crisis! Sustainability! Plus, the openly mechanical structure of a bike is counter to the simplified silhouette of a car.
Illustrations, especially plants and birds. Anything to do with nature is really big. Duh, we're worried there won't be any nature left when we've melted it all with pollution.
Girly stuff, especially pink, gold and sequins. Besides my previous comments on feminism, think about this: What do gold, gems and sequins in fashion right now say about the global economic crisis?
Cafe culture and latte art. Again, romanticization of baristas, bakers and other light-weight blue collar jobs. Also, cafes are where we go to be alone together (social behavior in a culture with supposedly decreasing social fluency.)
Vintage: Think, "Things hipsters love." Vintage is both counter-consumerism ("everything must be shiny," "get the latest model") and yet consumerist. I mean, why else are we making new faded jeans?

I'd love to hear some other trends you're noticing and your thoughts on what they mean.