I spent the weekend in Asheville with Alysen, her sister Rachel, and her boyfriend Jason. We had a great time hanging out, going to hear the drum circle, listening to Jazz at Tressa’s and playing Chickenfoot.

On Saturday, the group indulged me by going on the Studio tour of the River Arts District.
There were some great studios there, including many sophisticated crafts people…interestingly several great fiber artists, and a couple of artists working in encaustic. One artist that caught my attention was Carol Bomer. Her work was thought provoking and interesting. The surfaces of her work were sophisticated and beautiful, with mark making akin to Cy Twombly and think rich textures like Larry Rivers…and anyone who knows me knows very well that this combination makes me smile.

There were a couple of other interesting artists there, both working in The Wedge…forgive me that i cannot recall their names, but one was working in what appeared to be photo emulsion on drawing paper exposed with images on people and then drawn on top of. I found this work to be beautifully made and subtle in surface and style. Showing side by side with her work was a portrait painter that was akin to Alice Neel’s work. Though perhaps too close in that approach, I found the paintings beautifully seen and quite nice.

If you have a chance in the near future, be sure to spend some time in the River Arts District in Asheville, worth your time for sure.

Finally, we spent some time in Blue Spiral 1. This gallery was full of intriging and world class art. I was impressed with the consistency in excellence throughout the work and the presentation.  Showing in the main gallery were John L Cleaveland, Jr and George Peterson. Cleaveland’s pantings were uniquely southern in feel, with the most interesting being the large oils of trains. Peterson’s sculptures from large pieces of wood were complex in their surfaces and textures, and without reading the descriptions of the media, you would never be completely sure how they were made.

Truly exceptional work

Alysen and I watched Michael J Fox’s ABC special last night on hope and optimism. One thing that I found very interesting was his link between happiness (bliss) and connectedness. He suggested that in his experience traveling around the world searching for what made people, villages communities and countries happy and hopeful was whether or not they are connected with others around them.

One of the examples that hit home for me was an interview he did with a group of dairy farmers. He visited with them in the Hudson Valley of NY and discovered that in order to maximize their ability to survive, they had banded together as a group of dairy farmers and were living communally. This expanded not just to their lives, but to their business as well, having invested in their own bottling machine and advertising of their own “brand” of milk and produce.

Just more evidence that everyone around us are becoming more and more connected, through technology, through churches, through community organizations, and now to some degree out of necessity of survival.

I for one think this is the best development in our recent history, what do you think?

This morning while I was driving I heard the NPR segment called “This I Believe”. Those of you who read my blog regularly know how intrigued I am by people’s belief systems and what drives them. This I Believe is a segment that I love to listen to for that very reason.

This morning there was an essay featured by Matt Harding of Seattle, WA. Matt has been known in the viral video world for his crazy dancing videos from all across the world.

In his essay, he points out how freeing dance can be and also the realization that this process has brought him to. We are no longer people of a small tribe of 10-15 people, judging the other tribes around us, but instead, technology has connected us to eachother in unexpected ways.

This experience really resounded with me, and made me realize that the world really is transitioning to an Age of Interconnectivity.

CLICK HERE to read Matt’s essay and then drop me a note to let me know what you thought about it.

And this is his video:

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

This guy continues to whack at my head. I love that I have stumbled upon him through my friend Paul at the same moment that I am considering the concept of time so carefully.

Greg Boyd, in his recent post addresses the false integration between Christo-centric theology and Hellenistic philosophy. This is a point that my friend Randy and I have discussed on many occasions. If you have a few minutes, read Greg’s post and think about it in relation to my ideas on time. This stuff is really beginning to come together for me.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE POST

OK, I know it seems absurd that I am posting on “LOST”, but I find several themes running through the show as relevant to the issues I address here. Ignore for just a second that according to my view of time the island cannot even exist, but alas I digress.

This week’s episode has a injured John Locke visiting those who have made it off the island. Unexpectedly, one of those he visits is Walt. Walt made it off before anyone else, and so it was surprising that John goes to visit him. The really interesting part of the encounter though, and the point of this post, is Walt’s reaction to seeing John Locke. He is not surprised in the least, in fact John asks him why he is not surprised, and he states that he was expecting he might show up because of a dream he had.

Here is the cool thing. Walt had come to EXPECT the supernatural. As a result, he did not have to conjure up enough faith to believe that John was really in front of him (contrast Hurley’s reaction - assuming that John is a delusion).

Expect the unexpected…if you begin to encounter the supernatural on a regular basis, you will begin to increase in faith in a way in which you will not be surprised by it.

Theology of Faith Via LOST.

Most of my friends who are well versed in theology would argue that God and the rest of the “spirit” realm stand outside of our history and are able somehow to move through it. While this is often believed about God, it is far less often discussed about angels and demons. However, when it comes down to it, most agree that the issue of the spirits being outside of our time space realm is why we cannot see them every day.

However, I would like to suggest that these two realities are intertwined in time. Take as an example, Daniel’s encounter with a spirit messenger in Daniel chapter 10. The angel comes to give Daniel a message but he says that he has been delayed. Take a look at what he says (NLT for ease of reading here)

I have come in answer to your prayer. But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia. -Daniel 10:12-13

So the simple question I have is this. If the spirit realm is movable in relation to this physical realm in which we live, then why on earth would the angel have been DELAYED from seeing Daniel in the physical realm by an event that takes place in the spirit realm? I think the reasonable answer is that they are not separate. Thoughts?

http://changingchurch.blogspot.com/2009/02/for-friend.html

Continuing to explore this idea that we are moving out of a Postmodern era and into a more fluid “Age of Interconnectivity” (AoI) I though it would be prudent to explore the possibilities of Art in this age.

There are several artists now working that embody the idea that we are all connected and participating in the art itself. Unlike the happenings of the 60s and 70s which “performed” art as a dramatic representation of a visual expression, art of the AoI engages the viewer personally, not only as an observer or voyeur but as a participant in the creation of the work. A perfect example of this is Daniel Rozin’s Wooden Mirrors. These pieces are incredible and will never be able to be represented well in an art history book because of the movement that is at the core if the image itself. CLICK HERE to see a youtube video of the mirror in action. Not only does the image involve the participation of the viewer, the image does not really exist without the viewer, yet the “reality” expressed by the image is still an expression of the artist’s vision.

The genre of interactive art has gone mainstream for more than a decade now, so if you are not familiar with online manipulation of images and experiences in art, take time to look at some of the past exhibitions and artists represented by Art Interactive.

All of this being said, I am still just a regular ole freakin’ painter…so how do I express my work in this new age without being irrelevant? There are a couple of ways this could be achieved. First there could be an interactive “live” interaction in the making of the paintings. Imagine a ustream video feed from the studio while the work is being made, with chat comments active during the process and me responding in the work. In this example, the “work” would really be the event itself, while the painting is merely a marketable residue of the event. Secondly there could be art that “comments” on the AoI. This is the most likely position for artists who have and will continue to work in traditional mediums. A great example of this is Eric Parnes’ work on surveillance. CLICK HERE to learn more about him and his work.

Let me know what you think, and what you suppose art will look like in this new age.

Assume our understanding of Time posted earlier. If this is the case there comes an interesting relationship between people on this planet from a theological point of view. If we are all in the present, including God, then how and why do we interact with each other the way that we do?

Suppose that God has a “plan” for your life. I actually think this is true. However, this plan is impacted by our own process of living. We may choose not to follow God and His “perfect plan” for our lives. In this case, consider that there is a “re-calculation” of the perfect plan for us from that point of decision forward. God does not “make” most things in our life happen in the direct way that we think of in Calvinistic theology, rather since Pentecost, mankind has been moved to BE the body of Christ in the world, and as a result has the responsibility to BE His actions in the world today. So imagine a group of believers who all have the Spirit of God living in them, being impressed to do things for God. Many of them will ignore these impressions, thus not “following God’s plan” for their lives. God’s “Big Picture Plan” is not thwarted though, because He will continue to impress upon believers until one chooses to answer YES. This can be applied to both big plan for the universe or little plan for individuals. When I make bad decisions, God can impress upon others to engage me and my life to bring about change. If they say no, the next “perfect person” will come along to say Yes.

In this way, we look back in our lives and say “man God must have been at work all along in these events” no matter how crappy or even evil those events were. Can I just tell you that this is not the truth. God does not cause evil, individuals cause evil. However, if God is constantly trying to bring about good from the decisions you make, no matter how terrible, then when looking in retrospect, they will look like they all fit together.

OK, so I am working on a concept of time that I think makes a lot of sense. In some ways it is very much like an existentialist position but I think as you hear me out it will be more obvious where I am coming from.

We assume that time is a linear reality and that there is both a future and a past. In this reality if we assume that Einstein is correct in his theory of relativity time is movable, changeable and specific to the context of the entity experiencing it. However, while Energy, Mass and the Speed of Light have a specific relationship to each other, we have not conclusively determined that this is the definition of time. In a relativistic world, we must assume that at least theoretically, there are aspects of time that suggest you “could” go back in time, or in some sense go forward into the future. (I will leave out the difficulty for now that the energy exerted on an entity would be nearly infinitely large prior to reaching the speed of light necessary to experience this variance in time.) Thus, if God does exist, He would exist “outside” of time…having created all physicality that can experience time, He would necessarily have to be outside of that realm of creation. Many have argued that this means God would be able at any moment to experience any given second of time. Thus, being outside of time, He could freely move through it. If this is the case, time in the universal sense would be relative to the context in which it is experienced. That is assuming of course that we believe that Einstein is correct in his assessment of the definition of time.

I propose that there is perhaps another way of looking at time; and just being an artist I will have to defer to my friends and others who are more well versed in the theory of relativity and physics of time to prove that I am an idiot, but I think there may be something to this position I have been considering.

What if time is ONLY the present. It is indeed moving along, perhaps even in a linear manner, but that there is no way whatsoever that the past can be reached again. The only moment that exists is present. For those of you reading this that are Christians, yes…I mean for God as well. (Hear screams of blasphemy in the background) In this sense, God IS present in the same way we are present. He does not simultaneously experience time in the future and the past, because it no longer IS in those realms. The only way in which the past exists is in the “residue” of its former present. We know through texts, art, architecture, music and even our own memories and inherited pasts from friends and family that there was a past present, but in no way can it be re-visited in any way.

So my skeptics are now saying, well that does not jive with Einstein in any way. That is correct it does not. However, imagine for just a second that Einstein has not described time by definition but the effects of time on individual bodies of mass in relationship to their place in the universe. In other words, “time” in its truest sense does still progress evenly, however the impact of its passing may differ based on the energy exerted upon a body and its own mass. (and even the impact of gravity on that entity.

In this, we DO see that the way in which we observe reality is “distorting” our concept of the truth in that reality. After all, we can never truly REACH the speed of light, if Einstein is correct. That seems a problem to me in the moveability of time. It expresses the truth of the observation, but ultimately, does not define our understanding of time.

Thoughts? Tell me I’m a fool, I can take it. Thats what the web is for isn’t it?

I will refine and expand as I work out this idea, and get correction. And I will expand it into the impact on theology in a follow up post.