Wonder

As a child, the world was promised to be a big round thing of possibility. We were going to explore the universe and plunge into that glimmering cacophony of colors— the whirl of cities and peoples and jungles and deserts and animals we didn’t know the names of and places we saw in a book or imagined—we knew nothing other than the endlessness of a world that would expand to hold our huge hearts.

They said nothing of wonder calcifying, of defining the parameters of belief. I grieve that. I feel the weight of children who hang their paint-smeared smocks on the hook of practicality and production. If there’s anything we need right now it is some belief. Some wonder. Some hope in a world that isn’t this (gestures wildly around).

Many of you are better than me and can slip between the bitter cold angles to find pleasure, or can filter the existential muck. I can’t. Or won’t. In the forever lyrics Switchfoot, one of those 90’s bands Christian kids clung to like a life raft:

“We want more than this world's got to offer

We want more than this world's got to offer

We want more than the wars of our fathers

And everything inside screams for second life.”

We’re always chasing wonder and being told this is it, you’ve got to look inside to find it. Or be happy with the shaft of light that blazes through the vapor of your morning coffee. There is wonder there, no doubt.

But I think wonder was never supposed to be constricted and that we’ve tried for force wonder; to commodify it, to mass produce it and funnel it through pixels and sugar until we’re so doped up that the world is one brown smear of stimuli.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe a little more wonder could remind us of what it was like to be a kid, when we didn’t even grasp the concept of gravity and the only reason we weren’t floating into the stars was because the world was pretty amazing as it was and we liked being here, together.

Empire

An emperor for an empire. Why are we surprised when America chooses a would-be king who reflects their darkest dimensions? Hiding behind policy will never excuse giving power to a man who only regards democracy when it suits his intentions, and who only values people for the backs he can walk upon to a throne.

We have re-activated and permitted the sinister intent of man that must be kept in check and routinely extinguished with reason; the work of common good thwarted by the same musty demons of conquest in the name of self preservation.

My son texted me from school today: “People are being crazy. And Loud. And unsafe.” We abase ourselves by deifying the worst among us and enabling the humiliation of our neighbors. We consent to a culture of violence, gloating, and othering— and violence (in word or action) toward those we other. This is the worst of us.

Do you believe he won't use the power of the empire as a justification to consolidate his own control—to prevent America from falling back into the hands of the so-called "enemy within" (ie: anyone who disagrees with him)?

It is now incumbent upon those who labor in the shadow of empire to protect the marginalized, to speak out against tyranny, to place ourselves between the throne and the people, and give democracy one more try in four years.

Election 2024

Religious inclinations and personal values do not justify an allegiance with tyranny, even when that tyranny reflects your peculiar form of virtue. Today, about half of Americans will gamble on a dictatorship because they see democracy as a failed system. Believing civil debate, reason, and compromise can no longer improve our republic, many Americans misplace their trust in a demagogue who gives voice to their innermost compulsions and elevates self preservation over common good. I, for one, prefer the deep flaws of democracy to the promised ruin of autocracy and hope to God I am wrong about all of this.

If

I never mocked people with anxiety or depression but I was not quite sure I believed them either. Those conditions seemed to cripple a certain type, I thought, and maybe some of us (a lot of us) just needed a name for our demons. That was until my thirties, which is when it all seems to go to shit anyway, and I found myself tangled in a mess of sheets, panicking, ocean-weight collapsing my mind and lungs. They call it an anxiety attack. Panic attack. I have had a few more since that night.

What brought it on? The nominal erosion of certainty. The brutal normalization of car payments, and higher grocery bills, and demands both real and imagined. The disintegration of civility. Fabricated news stories. Fighting with tweens about screen time. “What ifs” shelling a confidence I never even questioned. Clowns leading my country in a wicked parade. And this trickle of groundwater cleaved and cleaved until the entire shoreline collapsed. Onto my chest, apparently.

Kipling, speaking for me when my mouth is filled with tidewater: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same”. Imposters. Ironically, the rest of that poem is about clinging to yourself (or your convictions) despite the turbulence, but when your faith is in question - not your faith in something but the ability to trust at all - most everything slips as soon as you wrap your fingers around it. And when we are short of breath, convinced we have it all wrong, maybe facing the phantom is exactly what we need. Wave a hand through the air to touch…air. Fucking imposter.

Can you believe in uncertainty? Belief is choosing to trust in what we need or in what resonates most with our variation of reason. Uncertainty is certain, or it is at least close to true. That can be unsettling, but for me, I would rather be true than believe in imposters. 

I believe, help my unbelief.

Timshel

Days carry their own texture, clinging to forms of rage or reluctance like canvas draping marble, and we run our hands along the weave to know it, but not how it came to be. These days are addled with simmering resentment calcifying into violence against our neighbor. Furtive glances at the convenience store, the reeking cauldron of online town message boards, an epidemic of mistrust; reality itself the heavy shroud. 

If we cannot trust our neighbor and we cannot trust our own faculties with the burden of truth, what ruthless animal crawls forth? What primal tribal instinct obscures civility in favor of survival? If we believe one another the enemy while the world unravels around us, eroding the merits of goodness, of neighborliness, what remains other than fear? Fear, which primes us for the elimination of virtue. Fear, which deprives us of hope. Fear, that thread which, when dragged through our assumptions and intents, leaves nothing but a frayed heap of regret.

I recall the pivotal moment in East of Eden when Lee discloses his long held revelation regarding the various translations of the Hebrew word “timshel”. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”

This stuck with me through the years. As Steinbeck masterfully threaded this conversation it feels revelatory of our agency as we are reduced to our basest selves in this turbulence. We have a choice. Fear does not deprive us of hope without permission. There is no “you must” or “you will”, there is only “you may”. With conviction, we may abate the existential dread that permeates our culture and braces our battle lines; we may choose unity over brutality, the evanescent truth over certain devastation.

Circus

It was a big church with a big steeple and a big sanctuary; whitewashed and numbly modern in the way anything from the 90's tried to be modern, with practical cushioned chairs and generic low-pile carpet and stage lighting and enough room toward the front to stand a group of teens in a semicircle while a pastor gesticulated and slapped their foreheads. Spotters (parishioners who catch those keeling over, presumably overwhelmed by the holy spirit) lined up behind each youth who, in turn, toppled into a trust fall as soon as they were palmed. Unfortunately for the room, I did not take the hint and stood there like the simple beast I am as the man blew plosives into the microphone and put a hand on me. It was mildly embarrassing for everyone. When the spotters had no body to catch they fumbled their hands, unsure of what to do. Impossibly, the scene grew more awkward when the man asked how I felt and put the microphone to my lips. Now everyone knew I was a spiritual carcass, possibly evil, and an idiot who said things like "great" in the presence of the heavenly host, who was busy whirling my peers into a frenzy on the floor. I do not recall much else about that night other than the brisk air washing away the desperation of that place, like stepping out of a river.

Colors of Breathing

What can I make from dust

If I am like you

And you scoop clay and breathe

Was it more a kiss?

Breath being necessary to tenderness

Death being all lipless, all teeth

Anoxic

Blue

We should kiss more

The way fathers kiss their daughters

And sons their mothers

And fathers sons

And daughters fathers

And mothers sons

And you and I

Abundant

Blushing

Honey

You were saying how you adored the wild native colors and grasses when a flurry of red touched - just barely held - a reed that bowed deeply. And it felt auspicious; Cardinal red, a punctuation against the sand and stone of our northern hill. We imbue dimension into mundane (but beautiful) happenings so that birds are more than birds. They are spirits, fathers, grandmothers, messengers, winged disruptors. And why not? Beat down to believing life is waking and working until hope is just a gasp between days instead of a glad assent to sunrise and hope-soaked moments, thickening time like raw sweetness off the honeycomb.

Help My Unbelief

After all the years of unburdening and reverse engineering and truth seeking, I am here at the beginning. And yet, everything is different. Truth may not change, but context does, and perception does, and I am a product of time, standing on the other side of my certainty, perplexed by its dissonance. I am back in the sanctuary like there’s something I missed. I have exhausted this space; flipped the pews, and read the books cover to cover, gnawing on the poetry, the anecdotes, the prophecies, the histories, the stories. 

I was never against it. Coming back, I mean. Those who resolve to chase truth are committed to the actuality of it; meaning they assent to finding the ecstasy of the divine or the bleakness of the void, or any permutation between the two; also meaning, I was leaving and the only way to really leave a place is to know you are never coming back. 

But I did. 

And it’s not the way it was.

And I’m not the way I was.

I believe, help my unbelief.

I have concluded this circling back has something to do with the misalignment of kingdoms and kings and the incongruity of power. This disrupted cohesion is evidence to me. This disagreement satisfies the questions like why does everything here have a tilt to it, like we’re not quite on axis (we’re not) and everything is sliding, slipping off; gravity threatening to loosen its grip just like every other promise. The incompatibility of what is and what should be is my Polaris and is the answer to disorientation in a place that is supposedly my home.

Certainty is a compromise of nominal faith, a luxury of assumption, and true believers (in anything) have to acknowledge the absence of absolutes. This conflict has a peace about it once we untether ourselves from our desperation for clarity. It took shoving off from shore into the wild open waters for me to willingly return to land, otherwise I would have lived in animus toward the familiar, having never tried for more than the shallows where my feet could still touch bottom. 

I believe, help my unbelief. I am certain only of my uncertainty. My unbelief contours the belief that was, is, and will be. I am at peace in pursuing truth rather than weaponizing what I want truth to be. My assurance is incomplete, my nature is pliable in the way most things bend and writhe across the fabric of forever, my convictions are always wandering away from expectations.

There is no place for those like us here, but then again, there was no place for the son of man to lay his head and that, too, is a comfort. 

Free Fall

I keep settling

back to the silt and brine

sun gazing

that distant pin of light

and miles of water suggest

it’s just a matter of time

(until til I break the surface)

if I were inclined

and did you know we can free-fall

beneath the surface

(around thirteen meters)

how is that possible

that we can still fall

even when the air

is

gone

Wishing Well

If we are on the topic of wishing, and a wish can be anything, and it doesn’t mean it’s the end of more wishing tomorrow, then I will heap my dreams into this river like some giant wishing well. That’s what they call it? Any body of water which drinks our spare change and the full bodied hopes of children who teach us all the meaning of believing and of course the world is possible, it’s ours isn’t it? All of ours? And conflicted people stare casually at grace and let it slip to the bottom.

Adopting Analog Principles to Digital

The virtue and terminus of analog photography is the tangible print, which occupies physical space. It is defiant to the cold storage and virtual nonexistence of digital imagery, which trivializes the entire process. We can adopt the principles of the analog camera to the digital by imposing a restriction on the otherwise limitless capacity of our technology. Before every press of the shutter release we need to ask whether this is an image which should be printed into existence.

Film demanded some intention by design. What was considered a flaw of film during the advent of digital was its limit of 24 or 36 frames per roll. Every single shutter release would bring the photographer one exposure closer to winding the negatives back into their housing to later be processed in a darkroom. There was (is) an economic calculation in photography, particularly as film became more expensive.

Digital promised to eliminate that pressure. And it did. But art which thrived on the scarcity of a product was replaced with an abundance of digital files, which may or may not possess any element of inspiration or intention. Hence, a self-imposed restriction: is this picture worth printing? My CF Express card can fit over 1,500 RAW images at 48 megapixels. And like a bigger house, or a bigger backpack, more space often excuses more junk.

So rather than sell off your digital kit, it may be worth adopting, even temporarily, this habit of slowness, and intent, to preserve the virtue of picture taking: to make images that matter; if not to the world then at least to yourself.

AI and Photography

Thoughts on AI and Photography in response to last night’s @ctforum :

The nature of photography is one of preserving fragments of reality and that is something Artificial Intelligence has neither the motivation nor the sentience to accomplish. Photographs are artifacts of precise record, and are captured at the free will and whim of people. One might say these images are shavings of truth and for all that AI is (or may become) it is not an inspired soul which considers and chooses the moments to chisel into eternity. AI generated art assembles visual content from a dataset, and thus never truly deals in the immediate unfolding of reality and the documenting of the pulsing, breathing, interactive nature of life. By definition, it cannot. Whatever conflict exists between the visual arts and the social values of profit and expediency, is not new. The struggle between unmitigated consumerism and our autonomy is carried into this new frontier. New players. Same game. And it is incumbent upon the creators to surge against addictive technology clutching at our very agency. So, let us put our minds to the deep work of imagining and create something beautiful from that deep ocean of conscience, virtue, and wonder that we call humanity.

Think on These Things

There’s a verse from my childhood that hangs on the door to my mind so that I read it each time I pass through (which is often). It says to consider only that which is worthy; saturate yourself with what elevates you. In the many caustic renderings of religion, beauty is tarnished by reckless people and we are so dismayed with the whole damn mess that we discard truths caught in the tangle. But some words cling to the corners and don’t shake out. The mandate to set our minds toward the truest, most honest, just, pure, lovely, and good - assumes an elemental truth of humanity: we require goodness to flourish. The fumes of fear and hysteria yield no hope. The dysphoria in our world may well be tacked down to our obsession with lesser things. But the lovely and good are reflective by nature, perhaps even viral. And it is only by their nourishment that we will thrive. So the next time you see a dogwood in bloom, or the next time a song reaches deep into your heart, or a story raptures your imagination, or the sunset kisses your cheek, “think on these things”.

Skyline

I have a bad habit of looking up in cities, that’s how you know I’m not from one. A skyline for scale; asphalt fairways for dimension. The world I’m from undulates with the slowness of organic resurrection; glacial landscapes, ancient lakes. It’s an old world that cycles through centuries like breathing. A city beats like the heart of an infant, and rests on the breast of the land.