Depression, Strength, and the Struggle between Body and Spirit

Warning of some triggers for some who struggle with depression.

But if you do read this, please read the WHOLE THING.


I want to tell you about some of my struggles with depression, but I don't know how.

I don't know how to tell you how my brain wondered if the parking ramp was high enough.

I don't know how to tell you that my brain was wondering what I would write in a note.

I don't know how to tell you that I scratched my arms on purpose because the pain soothed my mind.

And it's hard on my friends and people who care because all they can do is nothing but tell me the same things over again, and hope some of it leaks into my poisoned logic.

Some people have to live with my shutdowns: communication shutdowns and apathy for my living spaces. Sometimes I get to the point I think I'll do something stupid at work.

So I had found the end of my rope.

So why am I still here? 

My brain and my spirit are at odds with each other, and having broken bits in my brain makes my interface to this world very difficult, but it is not my spirit.
 Because of a sinful fallen world, my body is still obligated to death and sickness. Sometimes God heals those sicknesses, but other times he doesn't. Both are for his glory! Lazarus had to die before God's power could be revealed.

"We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." 2 Corinthians 4:10

"We hold these treasures in jars of clay to show that this power is not from us."
 So my body, and brain, and synapses are in a physical body under the laws of this physical world. Where I am not healed are only cracks for the glory of God to shine through, for "where I am weak, there I am strong." There is a larger space for God's glory where there is less of us in our weakness.

So I feel honored that God trusts me enough to carry this death in me. You are honored to carry God's glory when you are healed, and honored to carry God's glory when you are still broken, for more of God can shine through.  And I have to trust and look for signs of the Holy Spirit when I can't seem to think it's all worth it, because here on Earth it probably won't be. But it's far more than worth it in the end. God gave us the Holy Spirit as a seal guaranteeing all of this.

When I am discouraged, I look for evidence of the Holy Spirit in my life, because that's a sign that it really will be worth it, and in the mean time, the cracks that I carry are also to God's benefit, and he will use those too, whether healed or not.

Between Two Worlds CIVA Conference 2015: Post Event Reactions and Musings from Me

The art and artists that I saw at this event intimidated me. 

  At first, seeing others artwork in such formal (and seemingly lucrative) settings felt a bit depressing. I felt, and to an extent still feel, like a small-time artist with small-time dreams.

However, seeing that there were successful artists who dealt with this subject matter was encouraging.

The scope of the artwork helped me choose to re-evaluate my career direction and the scope of my own art projects.

Here's my name tag, the conference book, and a book we got in our packet. 

 Most of the conference was panels, hour and a half introductions, "lectures," and discussions of contemporary art and how the church dialogs with it.



 One concept that I took away from the many panels was a general duty on the part of the church to open the dialogue between secular artists and art related to the faith.

A major goal of the church in incorporating art is creating an inviting atmosphere for secular artists for mature dialogue, often by raising more questions than appearing to have all the answers to begin with.

 Posture at approaching this subject with the secular art world was a big topic. Humility, maturity, and excellence seemed to be the three main factors needed to engage the contemporary art world.  

Here is a robin that was hanging out on a bush and I couldn't resist taking a picture of it.

Entering Art Prize a Possibility

This is just here to be pretty.

I've been thinking about entering Art Prize this year. I had an idea for something to go on or hang from a type of room divider, like a stained glass mosaic made with resin, but each piece being a part of a photo-essay or something.

The Two Languages of Art: Creating Art for the Church and the Secular World

   Why do I really want to go to this conference?
  I am an artist, and an artist for the church. I paint during the service sometimes, and they even have a whole wall in the lobby with my paintings on it! So in a way, I feel responsible to grow in this gift. But I also want to sell my work and eventually make a living at it too, and creating excellent art for both secular and faith based worlds that SELLS is a challenge.

  Beyond that, art is a communication tool to deliver a message. The problem is the church and the secular world speak two different languages. The secular world may be put off by the languages, much less be able to understand it. "Blood of the Lamb" taken literally or not in the secular world, is really quite creepy and cultish. But those of us with a Bible based background and education know the implications and symbolism of "the blood of the Lamb."
But the same message of redemption can be delivered in a visual language that the secular world can understand.

It's like translating the Bible into another language. The visual language.

And that's partially what this conference is all about.
I would really like to hear what other people in the Christian artist workforce have to say about this.


The church as a whole has gone back and forth about art for millennia, and I'm sure it will happen again with the cycle of the use and misuse of art as a tool. But we are currently in a phase where we are bringing GOOD art back to the church, and we young artists are at the forefront of that effort that will shape how art is perceived by the church for the artists and years to come.

More importantly, we have a responsibility to use our talents, skills, and time for God's glory. We can worship God with stick figures and joy, but need a reputation of excellence if we want to put it on the same market as the art we sell to pay our bills. It's about giving God our first-fruits, the BEST of what we can do. If the best we can do is stick figures, so be it. If not, let us paint will all our skill. We have to compete on two grounds. The first is how we pay our bills and the secular, visible, physical standards by which our art is priced and valued by the customer. The second is the spiritual, the message of the work, and our heart in creating it. Spiritually, it can be a tool or a snare. Satan will hate the tools, and what may be spiritually powerful may not be commercially viable in the secular market, because they are judged differently. So how do we as artists make a living at art and worship God with our gifts at the same time?

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all this will be given to you as well."
God knows what we need, he knows that we have to practice our art and eat, it's how he designed us. And it might be hard, but that is part of the great adventure. It just never seems like an adventure at the time. But I believe that we should make art for God first, because that's the art that will have the most lasting impact.

No matter what happens:

"Make good art" ~ Neil Gaiman

Encouragement From Success and Encouragement From The Trenches

To pay my bills, I work as a janitor. And I hate it with a passion.

Monotonous, and doing the EXACT thing day after day with no accomplishment or anything that really gets "done." And it doesn't really use much brain power either. Which is hard when I have 180 credit hours from college and I'm not
using a single one.

When you find your passion, and are prevented from using it, everything you do tastes like ash.

And it's in this situation that I feel God wants me to write a book, a devotional workbook for artists.
Most of these kinds of books are written by people who work at art as a living, or at least full time, maybe even through church. And I would think there are a lot of artists who don't.

This book would be written by one in the trenches. By one who hasn't had the "success" of profit through art, or the joy of being able to do it full time, and is not writing it out of that confidence. Also, I don't have that kind of success to validate what I am saying. But if God wants me to write this, why should I need ANYTHING else to validate my credibility? Worldly success won't validate it more than God does. Noah didn't have a degree in ship building. If you don't listen to me just because I don't have the resume that you think I need to qualify to write this, you are dismissing God's truths based on worldly value. So I won't tell you what I have that would remotely qualify me to write all this.

It's more important right now that I'm not, and that I haven't seen success yet, and that I am writing out of a place in the trenches, with the rest of you who also have not seen the success you want. It's easy to take the "advice" of a Christian artist who is successful and rich, apply it, and get happy or angry depending on how much that advice "worked."

It's easy to make faith based decisions when you see them physically rewarded.

But I write as a challenge to you to faith in the times when you aren't "successful," and have no confidence that you will ever be. That is where faith is tested. And we are very much in it together, I have no guarantee that this book will make any money. Maybe it can be free.

I wanted crowd funding to take time off to write the book. I have two jobs and don't want to quit either of them.But

I think God wants me to write this as janitor me. 

Not as a person working in the ministry full time, but someone who still struggles. On the other hand, if I don't depend on this for income, there is a lot less temptation to make it look and sound pretty just so it sells more. I'm after excellence and impact, not popularity. And I have the freedom to do that and my job isn't at stake. In a way, it's less of a risk. 

 Yes, I'm scared of being mediocre and amateurish. I'm scared of it being too big and my ideas getting in the way. I'm scared of all the permissions I have to get just to quote the Bible in my book.

I will do the thing. 

Now I actually need to do the thing.




I have already had opposition to the thing, which I take as a sign that its a good thing.