On graffiti

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a train traveling towards Connecticut and took a few photos. They're from my cell, so they definitely not stellar.

It was sort of a rare day - there were clouds and blue skies mixed with light and and a sort of coolness in the air. Apart from today, everything has been pretty dreary weather wise.

I started taking a little more notice of something that is standard fare for urban living: graffiti. I started thinking about the thought processes behind it. I started to think about the alternatives.

There seems to be a stark reaction from some when graffiti is encountered - I think, more often than not, the reaction tends towards fear or disgust. There is a disdain from some for those who would tend towards defacing another's property. Though graffiti is nothing new. When Laura and I traveled to Italy, we noticed that many ancient structures also had ancient graffiti. One of the stark differences between those [structures] and these is artistic intent. There was an architectural artistry endued to much of what was created as opposed to erecting of a short term and functional building [much of what is built in our current world].

Altogether, there's nothing that I saw on my train ride that just blew me away.

The thought came: is it a rebellion against the premise of ownership (that being that ultimate control is maintained from behind the veil of the capability of financing a loan or making payments; i.e. money equated to power and control) or is ita sort of mutated form of artistic function that holds the artists expression above that of the perceived rights of others?

For equality's sake, I've tried to post both in a negative context above.

Personally...I'm starting to like some of it.

I think that the world might seem more oppressive [to me] if everything was a white walled cube made of corregated tin for the sake of meeting the needs of a consumerist culture. Trust me, I don't mean this as a counter-culture rant, but as a reality of the types of things that are built today (because, it is apparently much cheaper to build a Colleseum type structure with slave labor, so we tend more towards the big box establishment making).

There are other thoughts behind this that I might post later - but I'm really wondering what do you think about graffiti and why do you think about it the way that you do? If you respond, I may repost here. I look forward to hearing from some of you on this (though, I already know what some of you think...)

Um...

Right. Still not getting the hang of this. Everything is "Back to normal..."

Oops...

Looks like I really messed something up here. Give me a few days and things will (hopefully) look similar as it was. I hope to be posting a lot more this summer and into the fall (FYI).

In the meantime, enjoy my mistake...

Outrageous

This much is obvious - when I read what some of my friends from the South write on Facebook about their distrust of our President, of the current administration or of the government in general a vast majority of what is written is not as an outrage against injustice. More than anything, what is written is an outrage against a democratically elected Democrat led government.

Lets be honest - for most of those referred to, there was no outrage upon the revelation that we (America) have tortured individuals for the sake of "truth." There has very rarely been any outrage for the plight of those who slough through the swamps of poverty and destitution. The orphan and the widow remain on the margins, but what comes to the forefront on the minds of those who would carry the banner of Christ in America is the downfall of capitalism by the likes of a president who pushes to enact universal health care and fix the financial & budgetary problems left behind by a previous (Republican) administration (that I, admittedly, voted for - both the current and the former).

All the while, the hungry are still hungry.
The sick are still sick.
The marginalized are still off to the sides.

And the unfortunate thing is that I walked with the mess that is the myopic strains of a faith that is more political than actualized. When it comes down to it, I think that Jesus cares less about your government than He does about how you're treating (loving) your brother.

Maybe...it's a sort of temperament thing. I've never been a huge proponent of talking politics. I just think that the weight of importance given to the American political (and lets be really honest - ideological) process is generally wasted energy and has become more divisive and visceral than well thought and unifying. And this is come about with some difficulty in a faith that declares that Christ is the head over all authority (Col 2:10) and that we are to Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. At best, it's problematic even as we have declared our democracy to be supreme (which is why Arminianism plays such a huge part in our religious dialogue, I suspect) and, by association, God to be mistrusted even as we mistrust our own leaders.

Our failing, then...is that we are not outraged about the thing that Christ was outraged about. I don't weep over the brokenness of the world like Jesus - and in the end, this is only proof of how vast the separation is from Him and me (which is good, because I would make for a very poor Jesus). And that's the crazy thing - right - that Jesus gets outraged about how people are treated (how they are unloved, how they are overlooked, how the image of God is slandered, how the worship of God is corrupted) and not what government is in power.

I have failed to some degree by trusting that certain political powers have in mind the things of God while the reality remains that certain political powers have in mind the elevation of self and the propagation of an ideology that is not Christianity.

We cling to this false assumption that power is found in a vote - a voice amongst others in a democratic republic. We generally abhor the idea that Jesus would have us loosen our grips from the illusion of power (a vote... a voice... in other cultures, all that you have - Luke 18:18-30) and see what following and loving are...