The Prayer of St. Francis

Here's one of those prayers that will change you simply by praying it:

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

As I sit here attempting to write my first research paper in five years on the late, great St. Francis of Assisi, I can't help but wonder:

1) Why am I a mediocre stain on the sleeve of humanity?

2) Why are artists never saints?

(It appears they may live artfully like St. Francis, but hey, he's Italian so I think he gets the whole flair for drama thing automatically thrown in. That and the Church can let something like the Nativity Scene pass. But note there are no St. Da Vinci's, St. Shakespeare's, St. Mozart's or St. Michaelangelo's apart from the latter in the Lutheran church... Message? It's ok for us to PAY you to make art, but we'll never actually let you up on OUR purgatory levels. Survey says? Boo. Boo to that!)

3) I want to be a saint.

I mean, I absolutely suck, but I still would like a shot at it. Of course, that goes back to the whole "I suck" part again. Maybe artists are too aware of their sin to stand up for becomming saints!

4) I'd say the whole saint thing is arguably bogus since it appears to be set up by the "approval" of the Church, but how do you refute the stigmata? Tricky. Very tricky.

5) Mostly, I just want the COMMUNION with God that these saints have. I'm not sure how saints lived these lives, and, even more foreign, is how Christ was able to live HIS perfect life.

Guess it's back to the paper... and back to #1.

New Favorite

I found this book in a bookstore yesterday.

I think it's a really good idea...

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

He has no idea...

I think these are the best surprises...

He'll love it- that is IF I can catch up with him in these dagnamit mountains before I move or he moves...

I loathe change.

I'm still deciding on the title.

Either "Jakey" or "When the Mirror Lies".

Mixed Medium on wood. Around 2'x2'. (I don't really feel like measuring.)

I guess I'll come out of my "cave" now and hang out with the real world. It gets kinda lonely in the cave and I get sick of myself- sick of my whining. But I have to stay in the "cave" til I figure out what I'm whining about...

This time? I think I'm scared to move. I know what it's like to be lonely here- in the same state as people who love you, know you, share your history. Nashville's an unknown lonely.

I've decided I'm pretty self-absorbed and demanding and I hate me this week. I'm scared I'll be left, which is pretty ironic when it's me doing the leaving- leaving LA, leaving friendships, leaving family, leaving pretty Yosemite nature- all in the name of Individualism. Or is it just that I have my identity wrapped up in other people and what they think of me that I am panicking about what will I do when they are gone?

I hope I go through this for a higher calling. I saw "Amazing Grace" last night and it confirmed the loneliness in the calling. The Bible talks a lot about persecution but I think that modern day persecution looks a little bit more like missing your friends and ex-lovers. Of course the worst is when you miss "them" (or what you have created these to be in your mind) when you are standing right in front of the actual them. Mostly, I feel screwed up and little on the melancholy side. It's easy for me to give people lots of room for grace- for me, I fear it's the standard of perfection, or I doom myself to the simple label of "lame".

The most important thing when coming out of the "cave" is to find balance again.

Where are you, Balance?

I feel safer with a paint brush...