love I made it mine
I made it small I made it blind
I followed hard only to find
it wasn’t love
it wasn’t love
love of songs and pen
oh love of movie endings
takes out the break
leaves out the bend
misses love
love not of you
love not of me
come hold us up
come set us free
not as we know it
but as it can be
love’s reality
is not a passing bravery
it holds out hope beyond what’s seen
the hope of love
love not of you
love not of me
come hold us up
come set us free
not as we know it
but as it can be
['Love', Sara Groves]
learning mine and delving into the characteristics and research surrounding it have been extremely fascinating and beneficial. I’m a 5 – “the Investigator”. Some further personality clarity that I don’t always realize about myself [excerpted from linked article]:
“Fives are also highly innovative and inventive. They love “tinkering around,” playing with concepts and overturning the accepted ways of doing things. This can produce extremely valuable, practical, and original works and discoveries or simply entertain them for many hours with no practical results.”
“Fives will stay with a problem or a question that fascinates them until it is solved, or until they discover that it is unsolvable. Boredom is unimaginable to them because there are so many fascinating things to explore, understand, and imagine.”
“In brief, Fives want to understand reality, to possess knowledge, to find a niche for themselves that others have not explored, to be free to explore their own inner worlds, to have sufficient solitude and time for their projects, to feel confident and capable, and to unsettle the unquestioned certainties of others. Fives do not want to feel uninformed or incapable, to have their competency questioned, to accept easy answers, to be intruded on (or “managed”), to be forced to respond before they feel ready, to suffer the ignorance of others, or to ask for help.”
I found a counselor who works with PTSD and trauma survivors. We’re slowly uncovering the work to be done. I’m finally ready to undertake it.
Kathy Escobar is still far better at putting words to the feelings that I’m only just now beginning to take the first faltering steps to articulate:
“one of the most painful losses during that season is that my experience rocked my faith, shook it to its core. it was like the scales had fallen off my eyes and i began to see all of the craziness of what i had been taught about God & the systems that are built in his name. i began to see the realities of believing-just-because-everyone-else-was-nodding-their-head-thinking-it-was-right-because-a-pastor-said-it-was. i admitted that everything i seemed to believe about God had become hooked into the church systems i had been part of. i started to wonder what was real from God and what was just fabricated by my experiences. what if i was wrong and rebellious & unwilling to submit to what was right? what if i was just being prideful by refusing to play by the same rules anymore?”Encountered this excerpt in an excellent article regarding conditions for CNAs working in nursing homes — this section jumped out at me as the most lucid characterization of the situation in so many missions teams, including the particular team environment I experienced:
“This is hard because reputations are such subjective things—someone might like you while another might not for some random reason. In a workplace where gossip is rife, and where the stress on the job creates many opportunities for misunderstandings and tension among co-workers, it’s hard to have a clean reputation.”
“We were IMB missionaries from 1986 to 2009. We saw the IMB change not by asking the missionaries what they saw could be improved in reaching people, but dictates coming down from regional leadership and Richmond leadership. Many, many on the field, trying their best to give a witness everyday were told that suddenly we are doing everything wrong. Change to do ONLY what we tell you to do, or there will be no place for you. The list of those who left just from our country is a very long one. It included some of the best missionaries the IMB has ever had on any field in the world. As those folks left, we wondered who would be next.
Then one day we were told we were not wanted anymore. We were devastated. However God told us very clearly there was life after the IMB. God provided a way for us to return to our former country as tent maker missionaries. We realized the IMB may not think much of us, but God still had confidence in our ability to share the gospel.”
-’Richard’, excerpted from a comment here
“ In the case of spiritual abuse, however, there is always a major problem with the “agency” that is specifically “designed” to be helpful: God. The fear is that if you go to God, you will get hurt even worse than you have already been hurt. Spiritual abuse always does damage to our relationship with God. It’s the worst. It’s a wound of the spirit. It’s a wound right down at the core of who we are.”
“And in the case of spiritual abuse, the abuse happens in the context of relationships where someone is in the role of representing God. Later, when the abuse has come to an end and we are looking for healthier relationships in which to recover, we may find other people—even people who may actually be faithfully representing God—but it will be difficult for us to trust in those relationships, difficult to invest again in relationships and difficult to relax.”
This is exactly where I’m at right now.
Almost no one talks about spiritual abuse that happens on the mission field, especially as part of a large, powerful organization like the IMB. I’m going there now. I’ve been documenting hints around the internet; anonymous blog comments and cached, deleted posts that tell tales of pain, abandonment, rejection. All are afraid to speak out publically about their stories of abuse at the hands of supervisors and leadership within the International Mission Board. Authoritarian, top-down leadership in Christian organizations will always produce these fruits.
We the abused can no longer be afraid to speak up. Healing begins with speaking truth and lighting the darkness.
Finals week: illustrating variation of flora on N vs. S-facing slopes on the transverse ranges.
Take the weakest thing in you
And then beat the bastards with it
And always hold on when you get love,
So you can let go when you give it
Apollo
A new print entitled ‘Apollo’ designed by Berg and arriving in the Editions of 100 online store sometime soon.
AULD LANG SYNE ~ The Sparks Sessions
It was not New Years Eve. We just wanted a sufficiently drunkardly song.
JeffPeff and I recorded this when we finished scoring Sparks. There had been a wine bottle in the kick drum the whole several weeks, and we did track after track until we drank the whole thing. I think it was around twenty-five takes, so both our voices on each made about fifty voices.
Bonne Année de la France!
<3
But while I’m on scenery, what even is this, Patagonia? Are you even serious? You expect me to believe this??
This is a Spitzer Space Telescope view of the star Zeta Ophiuchus (or Zeta Oph to its friends), a massive star plowing through the gas and dust floating in space.