Christians and the redistribution of wealth.

While doing the dishes I was listening to Npr and heard an excerpt from a talk by John Mcain. He was criticizing Barack Obama by speaking of his desire to redistribute the wealth. He did not elaborate on why this is a bad thing, but spoke of it as one might today speak of slavery. As if the evil so obvious one need not say anything further.

Of course, since he was speaking at a rally of fellow Republicans, that is how the issue is seen. Which I see as very ironic since so many of those Republicans are Christians. Have these people forgotten about one of Jesus' most fundamental teachings, about loving their neighbors in the same way they love themselves?
It reminded me of a quote in the book I am reading by one of my favorite religious scholars, Bart Ehrman: Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

"What person with wealth has really, actually, loved others as himself or herself?"

Meditation

This morning I had an interesting and unique(for me) experience while
meditating.

I felt disconnected from my body. Like I was floating in space. No,
not like that. It was like a floating sensation, but I felt completely
detached from my body. As if my consciousness itself were floating. It
happened very suddenly, about 15 minutes into the meditation.

I have been feeling kind of sick lately. Flu like symptoms (At first I
thought it was the laxative cherry soda I drank, but now I think it
may actually be something like the flu, such as 'the flu'), because of
this the contrast was very apparent, suddenly my aching muscles seemed
to fade away.
I did not feel as if my body was infinite, but as if the concept of
body, with a beginning and end did not apply.
The feeling was extremely pleasant. Euphoric.
Sometimes while meditating certain feelings may overcome my body, but
they tend to fade in and out, or feel as if they are fragile and could
end at any moment, but once this began it continued until I opened my
eyes, and felt comfortable in that it wouldn't end until I chose to
end it.
I'm not sure how long I was in this state, but eventually the thought
came into my consciousness that a significant amount of time had passed
and It was time to leave for school.

Despite realizing I needed to get going, It felt difficult to open my
eyes. Not just that I did not want to, but almost as if I were so deep
in my altered state I had not the ability. As if I were hypnotized.
And perhaps I was.

The thought of having to return to my body and the physical world felt
heavy and course. This reminded me of the near death experience
accounts I have read. Common to all the experiences I have read is an
extreme reluctance by the experiencer to return to their body.
I began to imagine the physical world as being just as refined as this
magic, bodiless world my altered consciousness had created, and doing
so allowed me to feel okay with returning to it.
When I finally willed myself to open my eyes, I immediately regained
the feeling of having a body, but the world now felt more special.
Less course.
It left me feeling pretty good the rest of the day. My flu like
symptoms have been much less, and a sense of wonder and magic has
remained.

I'm not sure why today's meditation was so unique. I have been
experimenting with visualizations rather than just focusing on
breathing and mindfulness. I am curious to try the visualization I
developed today again and see if anything similar happens. I will be
excited if it does. It was a wonderful state I and I would enjoy
being able to return to at my pleasure. If I do get the same results,
perhaps I will attempt to describe the visualization and perhaps
others might also be able to have similar results. (It is kind of
complicated to explain or I would just write it out now)

Test

Test

I just read these lines, and thought they felt appropriate for this time of my life:

So supposedly I'm strong
and I cultivate a luscious lawn
But my crops can fail, I can also be wrong.
I can woo a distant beauty
but hopeless missing always rules me.
There's no invincible disguise that lasts all day.
Painful storms will always come to blur my way
And conversely blurry storms will go their way.

mostly the line about wooing a distant beauty but hopeless missing always rules me.

Homosexuality and Shellfish.

I have been perusing different pro prop 8 blogs and websites to get a gist of what sort of arguments are being used. I have only noticed three distinct arguments. Tradition. God's will. Allowing homosexuals to get married 'threatens' heterosexual argument.

The tradition argument is easy to deal with. Open a history book!! There have been numerous cultures throughout history that were okay with homosexual marriages and relationships. Probably the best treatment of this subject is 'The Way we Never Were' by Stephanie Coontz, who, incidentally, teaches at my school, though I have never met her, and wasn't aware of this while reading her book.
But if it was accurate history was always on the side of forbidden homosexual's to marry, so what? We also have a tradition of racism and slavery.

I think people can forgiven for misunderstanding history because we often have a generational amnesia that views the ideals of past generations having extended back forever. But the stupidest of the arguments is that allowing gay people to marry will threaten the institution of marriage. What does this even mean? Are people so insecure in their marriages that if people who they disagree with also call their unions marriage they feel threatened? Do they think that allowing gay people to marry will somehow cause heterosexuals to enter into homosexual relationships in the way religions now attempt to force homosexuals into heterosexual relationships?

The third argument, it beings God's will is, I believe the real reason people take a stand against gay marriage(other than simple bigotry and homophobia), and everything else they come up with is an ad-hoc grasping at straws attempt to justify why their conception of God would ask for such a thing.
Of course it is hard to argue with what people believe God's will to be. When a person bases their belief systems on something not rational, rational argument can't touch it.
But for Christians, I don't think their justification for claiming to know that God is opposed to homosexuality is as strong as they may think. There is no record of Jesus ever having said a word on the subject. The apostles mentioned it, but these were men who all throughout gospels are misunderstanding Jesus. Where their are references that are made in the Bible, homosexuality is sometimes referred to as an abomination. Punishable by stoning. Sounds pretty straightforward, but just a few lines a way it says the same thing about eating shellfish. (Leviticus 11) If we aren't going to believe one, we then have to justify why will we will continue believing in the other. What is the justification? Tradition and threat to heterosexual marriage.

lve

It causes such a thrill in one's (mine?)heart (by heart I actually mean brain) to hear for the first time with words from the person you love the words 'I love you so much'. Even if it happens right when the connection starts to break up and so you aren't certain that is what she said, but it feels like a tender moment so you don't want to say 'wait, what did you just say?' But then she says it some more and it feels thrilling each time.
Then after you (meaning me) hang up you notice you spilled an entire bottle of ink on your bed. On your new sheets, but you don't care, because it is just sheets. Now they have more character. Now they are Rorschach sheets. 'Lay down on this bed and tell me what you see.'

a real life furby!

It is a called a 'dumbo octopus'.

funny video with a good message.

riki wiki

Someone (you) should check out the Wikipedia article about my brother before the funny stuff gets taken down. Take note to the section titled 'family and personal life' I have a screen shot of the page which I could just post, but I think it is funnier to read it on wikipedia itself. Maybe once some humorless kill joy changes it I will post the screenshot.
There used to be all sorts of funny stuff that got taken down. I had also put some pictures of ricky up that were taken down. Who are these people so passionate about the accuracy of my brother's wikipedia page?

Grad School.

3

Three cool things happened yesterday:

While on a break from class I was walking to the Cab building, which is Evergreen's student union building, like the Wilkinson Center at BYU. To get to the cab from my class I have to walk across 'Red Square' which is Evergreen's quad (communist school).

As I approached Red Square I heard the sound of drums. I thought it might just be some dumb drum circle, but it wasn't! It was a Native American dance! It was great. I had entirely forgotten it was Columbus day. Instead of celebrating the 'discovery' of a continent that had been inhabited for thousands of years by a people who were subsequently raped and massacred by these 'discoverers' our school chose to celebrate the native people of this region. I appreciated the positive way this was dealt with. Rather than calling it 'Genocide day.' (which is still better than 'Columbus day') they celebrated the positive aspects of the people who had once dominated this land.






After I watched the dancers for a while, then ate lunch I was again crossing Red Square on my way to class when I was stopped by a girl who begun saying: 'Have you travelled somewhere?'
Me:'Ever in my life?'
Her: 'yeah, or recently'
Me: 'I've traveled a little bit but not recently' (I was thinking she had traveled recently and thought maybe she had seen me wherever it was she had travelled)
Her: 'Have you been to
Thailand?'
Me: 'No'
Her: 'India?'
Me: 'No'
Her: 'You seem like you've been somewhere,
been affected by something. The way you dress... and your presence...is very
calm'
Me: 'Thank you very much, that is kind of you to say, I guess I
just got it in my bedroom'

It made me feel like a million bucks,
cooked inside of a pizza. Imagine eating a pizza and finding a $100
bill had been cooked into it. At first it would be gross cause $ is
dirty, but then cool cause you could buy seven more pizzas.

But it really did cause me to feel good. It made me think of one of my favorite quote by Ram Das:

-When you meet a being who is centered you always know it. You always feel a kind of calm emanation. It always touches you in that place where you feel calm. But you can't hustle it. You can't make-Believe you are calm when you're not. It never works. Everybody knows you know it's horrible inside you'

Her having said what she said to me gave me hope that perhaps I am successfully being the person I want to be.

I once put a slight variation of this quote on a ceramic tile, so I could keep it around and read it. It didn't turn out how I wanted. Those are the breaks with ceramics. Sometimes the colors end up totally different than you expected. Sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. This was for the bad. I don't hate it but it doesn't look like what I would like:



It also reminded me of how important it can be to express to others positive things about them. I make an effort to give compliments whenever I see an opportunity to sincerely compliment. But her comment reminded me of just how good an effective compliment can feel, even from a total stranger who stops you while walking, reminding me I should go out of my way to praise when praise is deserved. Now I will be like Will Farrell's character in Superstar, complimenting every single person who walks by me. (a joke)

Then, when I got back to class my teacher had a book for me. It is a book of artists she thought I would enjoy(looking through it, I appreciate the artists very much). It felt good knowing my teacher had thought of me, and took the effort to bring me a book she thought I would enjoy. I really like my teacher and feel she has a sincere desire to help her students achieve. She is willing to put in effort it takes to push, encourage and support us. I also like her as a person. Her and I have similar artistic sensibilities, which is a first for me when it comes to teachers. She is direct and firm, yet kind and understanding. She has good control of, and respect from the class. (the anti-thesis of my teacher last year who was very passive aggressive then would freak out about once every three weeks, and was not well respected by my class) She makes me think of Terri Gross. She has inspired me by showing how good and influential an art teacher can be. Because of this, and other reasons I will write about later, I have decided to pursue a graduate degree in art. Jean Mandeberg is her name. (Teaching art is her game. She is also on the Washington arts council, and so is an excellent contact to have. ) I will be graduating in april. I hope to start grad school this fall. Perhaps I will attend Risd, like my brother. Ricky. We will be two brothers who are also Risd alumni and art professors.

I snuck a photo of her in class yesterday.

What I want from a home.

I often think about the house I hope to have one day. I have many many ideas. As a former architecture major I spent an enormous amount of time thinking about what makes a good house. So much so in fact, that was part of the reason I changed majors. I was far too obsessed with houses. I would myself losing sleep about what I would like to see built.

But unlike other arts, there was little I could do about it. I could sketch it in a notebook, or even make a 3-dimensional rendering with a computer, or build small scale models, and I did all these things, but that was only partially fulfilling. Even after I would have graduated and become a licensed architect, it would still be many many years before I would actually be able to have my designs built. One often does not become an actually 'architect' until they are 40 or 50. Before that time they are a draftsman for an architect. Actual architects usually just make rough sketches which their draftsman make into plans that can be built from. A person must either move up in their company until they are head architect, or start their own firm, which would likely not receive much solicitation for a long time. I felt such a burning desire to create buildings, yet not only did I not have an outlet for this, and knew I would not for many many years.

Also unlike other arts, architecture cannot be easily escaped. Almost anywhere one goes, a person is surrounded by buildings. Being surrounded by buildings, I would constantly be thinking about what I would do differently. Growing up in Utah, where the architecture is monotonous and uninspiring, I felt frustrated by my inability to do anything about the the buildings by which I was surrounded. Once I finally gave up the desire to be an architect I felt released from that.

Though I still think about buildings and designs, my sketch books often contain a handful of floor plans and renderings, but I no longer obsess over it.

There are some things I would really love to have in my house:

A sacred or holy room. This would be a room that would be simple and uncluttered. Full of light and good feelings. It would be a place of quiet one could go to meditate, pray, or possible read. It wouldn't have much in it, it would be a place to get away from the worlds. I imagine it having plants and big windows allowing lots of light and an attractive view of plants or water something. I think it would be nice if this was something common to all houses. If people had such a room, they would be more inclined to take time out of their day to sit in silence and feel the warmth of the universe.







Rooms like wide hallways:
I love rooms that are very long, with one wall being all windows.









A library:

We all know what a library is.

Hallways with windows.

I love hallways that have windows on one side and doors or whatever on the other side.

A studio:
This would maybe be attached to the house, or a little building built near the house.

A tea room:

For tea ceremonies. This would need to be in a separate small building outside the house as a part of the tea ceremony is walking the path leading to the tea room.












A very large kitchen with a very large dining area.

Kitchen's are one of the most important parts of a house. People spend a great deal of time in them. I think a good kitchen should be open and light, with enough space it feels uncluttered yet one can still have all the necessities of a kitchen. Below are two kitchens I like. Though I think the first could use more natural light.





A cool bathroom with a nice bathtub because I love taking baths. I like bathrooms with lots of wood.:










I want a small house. In my opinion big houses are silly. They waste lots of space. My grandpa(one of the co-founders of Enron) has an enormous house, yet all his time is spent in his library/study, or the kitchen/breakfast nook, or the bedroom. He has this gigantic entry way, yet he himself enters through the garage into a little side room. This is typical of many houses. The entry is one of the largest, most elaborate parts of the house, yet that isn't even the door the home owner typically uses. It is just to impress guests and waste space. He has a giant size living room, but it isn't a comfortable place to be in and no one ever uses it, except, perhaps, for parties. I think when building a house the money would be better spent being invested into nice materials and craftsmanship, rather than large size.

I would also like to have a large vegetable garden where I can grow as much of my own food as I can. I love it when gardens are in the front and back yard. This also cuts down on grass which is a big water waster. But some grass is nice, for kids to play on, and bbqs and back yard parties. I would like a flower garden because flowers are pretty. I would like a greenhouse to allow year round growing. I would like a variety of fruit trees.