dignity

i had the recent privilege to hear steven garber speak, and i loved what he had to say about faith, creativity and the arts. what he said about telling stories of truth and affirming dignity really impressed upon my mind the most.

dignity is a common theme in the things close to my heart. i get the most angry when someone's dignity has been violated--whether it be a person or animal, and my heart just hurts when individuals don't realize their own worth. i suppose it's the notion that all of creation bears the marks of majesty bestowed by their Majestic Creator, and to not be aware of that--to not live in light of that....what a tragedy. it's terrible enough that we don't recognize how we personally bear the image of our Creator, the beautiful gift that we have been given. it's even more horrible to think of the ways we rob, destroy, and strip the dignity of those around us in big and small ways.

i scribbled this little ditty the other day while thinking about what it means to see the dignity in others. nothing complex, but i really wanted to just paint simple imagery--childlike almost--because dignity should be a basic core of our human experience.

Dignity Passes By

Beneath the eaves, in the summer heat,

she shuffles by with blistered feet,

and ne’er a kind glance her eyes do meet,

but Dignity passes by.

The boy and girl with soiled cheeks,

behind closed doors and shutters peek,

shy and curious, with smiles so sweet

as Dignity passes by.

His body wearied by disease,

struggling and laboring as he breathes,

his family’s faces, once more, to seek,

Dignity…please pass by.

Millions of strangers rush the streets,

a hundred faces per chance we greet,

in their eyes, do we truly see

Dignity passing us by?

cups of coffee: 2

mood: scattered

better city...

"the expo is coming! the expo is coming!" it's almost like paul revere's famous midnight ride...minus the redcoats and add a lot of chinese. less ominous, more hopeful anticipation. plus one big blue gumby impostor dubbed "haibao".

12 days until the world expo officially opens, drawing years of preparations and months of drilling and construction to a close, only to kick off six months of events, visitors and orderly "civility." all 11 subway lines are now open, sprawling like veins under the surface of the city. each subway station is equipped with a bag scanner and guards directing passengers to toss their bags onto the painfully slow conveyor belt. some guards are more vigilant than others; at one particular security checkpoint, i recalled guards who looked no older than 16, bored and inattentive as i glided past the machine with my tote still firmly strapped on my shoulder.

i have to admit: i am not at all excited about the expo. annoyed would be the more apt adjective. i am dreading the influx of visitors (predicted to consist more of chinese from around the country than overseas tourists), the heightened security, the inundation (aka propaganda overload) of the mantra--i mean, motto--that is being chanted, posted, plastered, flashed everywhere: "better city, better life."

in the midst of all my complaining, i am trying to figure out how to love my neighbors more. not just the sweet family that lives down the hall from me or the couple at the vegetable market that i buy all my produce from, but the people i pass every day on the streets and in the subway cars. i don't want to murmur, "love thy neighbor, love thy neighbor," through grinding teeth as i endure the push and shove of crowds in mass transit or dodge a speeding taxi as i scramble across the road. i want to say it, believe it, breathe it. i want to mean it.

so i'm taking baby steps, exercising my tolerance as i brace myself for the masses that will descend upon this city in the coming months. and one thing i've discovered: starting small is good. and the simplest start? smiling. just smiling. smiling when someone cuts me in line. smiling when i get an elbow to the head during rush hour on the subway.

smiling is disarming. popping a smile instead of a frown, a string of obscenities, or the middle finger certainly does more in defusing a potentially tense situation. smiling at perfect strangers somehow eases down the guard, shortens the distance, reminds us that we're human and allows this inexplicable connection to happen. i've been trying it recently--even and especially when i don't feel like it--and i've felt the difference. i may not always feel the love. but it's a movement towards love, an act of volition and a step of faith.

on another note that is semi-related, the urbanity project continues, full steam ahead! we've been able to receiving substantial funding for the project, thanks to generous donors and foundations, and submissions are pouring in. we bumped the deadline back to may 1 to give everyone (including yours truly) more time to finish work for submission.

i've been privileged to meet some amazing people during this process of promoting the urbanity project and sharing ideas with others. one such person is the photographer and writer behind the beautiful blog, shanghai street stories. definitely a blog to keep an eye on:

http://shanghaistreetstories.wordpress.com/


cups of coffee: 2

mood: o spring, where art thou? please don't be a tease.

oh happy day

this is the year of coinciding holidays in china. the lunar new year fell on valentine's day, and now qingming festival (also known as "tomb sweeping day") happens to fall around easter.

one can't help but consider the contrasts between the two holidays. qingming festival centers around remembering and honoring the dead: visiting the tombs of ancestors, offering libations, kowtowing before stone graves. it's a time to demonstrate filial piety to your ancestry, to tend the graves of the dearly departed while welcoming the green of spring life.

easter also involves remembering a grave, but not in mourning - rather, it involves the jubilant celebration of an empty tomb. it declares victory over the grave and exuberance at the promise of eternal life. the budding life of spring merely symbolizes the new life - the full life - we have in the One who has risen and conquered death.

on easter, i remember what i too often forget - that i have been rescued and redeemed. that i am not my own and yet my life is more abundant than i can ever imagine. i make room for the miraculous. i am awed - childlike again - by glory.

and all that seems sad and wrong with the world pales in comparison to the blinding fact that resounds with easter morn: He is risen!

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
‘til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand
- lyrics from "In Christ Alone"

happy easter, friends.


cups of coffee: 2

mood: joyful, joyful

new york, how i love thee....

let me count the ways. :)

snow, glorious snow at my parents' house in upstate new york

red mango. 'nuff said.

my adorable parents navigating the subway labyrinth of nyc...

friend jason harrod rocking it at the IAM conference

installation at the IAM 38/39 space. title: "our little jimmy can do anything if he puts his mind to it." LOVE!

hitting the armory show with friends. free tix - thanks, mina!

and of course, reunions. :)

cups of coffee: 1 1/2

mood: sunny days, sweeping the clouds away.....

consider the lilies

shanghai arts community (SHAC), the arts movement that a group of friends and i formed a couple of years ago, is tackling an exciting and ambitious endeavor entitled "the urbanity project". the basic premise is to produce a publication that compiles work from artists of various disciplines and nationalities, all centered around the theme of "seeing the city in its people." we will also hold a series of events connected to the publication in the art studio that some of us are collectively renting - exhibitions, possibly a film showing or reading, etc. the push is to emphasis the value and dignity of each individual in urban centers such as shanghai - to not forsake humanity for the sake of modernity and progress. we want to push past the question of "are humans valuable?" to wrestle with "WHY are humans valuable?"

for more details, you can check out our website: www.shanghaiartscommunity.com

you can also follow SHAC on twitter: http://twitter.com/ShanghaiArtsCom

i'm also happy to announce that SHAC is now officially "friends of International Arts Movement", and we are now included on their website:
http://www.internationalartsmovement.org/shanghai

woo hoo! very nice.

i'm really excited about this project on so many levels, and i'm looking forward to thinking through and working out what my own submission will be. i love what we're doing in SHAC because i think it resonates with a simple, profound truth: art is essential to who we are as humans. there is intrinsic value in the arts, and art enables us to process, understand, experience, express and enjoy the world around us in ways that otherwise would be impossible.

frederick buechner sums it up nicely here:

"literature, painting, music - the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. in a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things." (buechner, listening to your life)

in the same passage, buechner also references a letter poet emily dickinson wrote to a friend, in which she mentions that "consider the lilies of the field" was the only commandment she never broke.

"consider the lilies of the field"...such a simple thing, really. yet so easily lost and forgotten in the whirl and buzz, the constant rush and incessant noise of daily city life.

cups of coffee: 1 + 2 cups of green tea

mood: thinking ahead

psalm

a lovely modern psalm from luci shaw. quite appropriate for ushering in the new lunar year and feeling the gradual warming of winter to spring...

Psalm for the January Thaw

Luci Shaw

Blessed be God for thaw, for the clear drops
that fall, one by one, like clocks ticking, from
the icicles along the eaves. For shift and shrinkage,
including the soggy gray mess on the deck
like an abandoned mattress that has
lost its inner spring. For the gurgle
of gutters, for snow melting underfoot when I
step off the porch. For slush. For the glisten
on the sidewalk that only wets the foot sole
and doesn’t send me slithering. Everything
is alert to this melting, the slow flow of it,
the declaration of intent, the liquidation.

Glory be to God for changes. For bulbs
breaking the darkness with their green beaks.
For moles and moths and velvet green moss
waiting to fill the driveway cracks. For the way
the sun pierces the window minutes earlier each day.
For earthquakes and tectonic plates—earth’s bump
and grind—and new mountains pushing up
like teeth in a one-year-old. For melodrama—
lightning on the sky stage, and the burst of applause
that follows. Praise him for day and night, and light
switches by the door. For seasons, for cycles
and bicycles, for whales and waterspouts,
for watersheds and waterfalls and waking
and the letter W, for the waxing and waning
of weather so that we never get complacent. For all
the world, and for the way it twirls on its axis
like an exotic dancer. For the north pole and the
south pole and the equator and everything between.

cups of coffee: 1

mood: happy

happy valentiger's day!

celebrating chinese new year in shanghai will never get old for me. i love the flurry of activity right before the holiday commences: the mobs of people preparing for their mass exodus out of the city, migrant workers with a bright smile on their faces and extra spring in their step as they look forward to long-awaited time with their families, flashy red and yellow signs promoting this or that sale amid supermarket aisles overflowing with bags of nuts and candy, the crackle and pop of the occasional early firecrackers set off by eager party people.

but the eve--oh, the actual eve of chinese new year!

for the past few years, some good friends have kindly offered their apartment and roof-top access to hold the new year festivities. cleverly combining chinese new year with valentine's day (the moon and stars somehow lined up in such a way this year), we celebrated "valentiger's day" with yummy treats and fun games. the climax was definitely trekking up to the roof, some of us with wine and cigars in hand, only to be surprised by big soft snowflakes! it rarely snows in shanghai, especially flakes as large as these.


watching fireworks explode in bouquets of light around the city, catching snowflakes on our tongues....it was all very magical.

in honor of valentine's day, here's one of my recent favorite blogs: missed connections. whimsical drawings accompany real-life ads placed in the 'missed connections' of the personals sections on craigslist. this artist captures the flight-of-fancy that colors these ads: serendipitous encounters that last only a few heartbeats, lengthened in memory by the coulda-woulda-shoulda's.

here's a great example of one that i love:


cups of coffee: 2

mood: warm