Jealousy

Sometimes I see pictures of airy, beautiful, simple, tidy, clean, arsty homes, where everything is either new or stylishly vintage, and I get this sense of dread that I will never be able to have that.

Photos by Breeksohn

And then I ask myself, SHOULD I want them?

Should I strive for that? It’s sleek and simple. Everything looks new, or stylishly vintage. It certainly doesn’t strike me as a cheap lifestyle, but it’s sheer functionality (and of course, aesthetic appeal) makes it just the sort of home I could be incredibly comfortable in. Bah. I really do have to ask myself, every day it seems, what sort of life I want to live. When I do, I realize I’m not (usually) living it.

I’m sure the fact that I watched Rude Awakenings last night has something to do with it. The mom was nothing more than a stressed out, over-worked slave for these kids, with no joy or happiness in her life. Her house was a mess, her kids were lazy, and her husband sat on the couch, content with “work” being the only work he ever did. They owned too much stuff, had nowhere to put it, and their spending was out of control. It really was a terrifying picture.

So when I saw these pictures on design*sponge today, I coveted such a lifestyle. But I fear clinging to such dreams, when fear drives them. Fear of saying one day, like the mother on that show did, “I feel like a failure because my home is a mess, and I can’t get my kids or husband to help me.”

A Designer’s Oath

From Veer.com

Keep in mind

We are happy to consume, copy, critique & condemn culture.

But we are called to create culture.

- Andy Crouch

I have this pinned above my desk.

My Best (inanimate) Friend

is lost on the PC, that is, the dictionary.

What a Mac has that a PC will never have:

• flurry screen saver
• a dictionary
• stunning good looks

You may be what I work with, PC, but I go home to a Mac!

Lawn Mowers in the Summer

like the sound of snow shoveling in the winter, invariably signify the change of the season.

Colossians Remixed

This book reads like any one of the myriad of academic essays I had to read in university, until a couple chapters in, where it uses dialog and then a fictional narrative to make its arguments. I would still consider it in the same vein as academic writing, just more interesting, and dare I say relevant.

Here are some underline-worthy passages I’ve found so far:

I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’

You see, the danger of wanting a god, without being willing to allow this god to speak in voice that is radically other to one’s own voice, is that the god we end up with is like any other consumer product we take off the shelf. [...]This consumer-friendly god, this god of postmodern construction, this generic off-the-shelf god would be no God at all.

Grace is a fundamentally relational idea. We receive grace as a gift from an other.

Shalom, wholeness and well-being in all our relationships, is rooted in a restored relationship with God.

There is something ironic about Hosea’s comment (Hos 4:1-3) when read in light of the postmodern suspicion that large-scale truth claims invariably serve to legitimate violence. In contrast, Hosea insists that it is the absence of truth that gives rise to ever-escalating bloodshed.

Just as in the ancient world (Rome) the images of peace and prosperity masked the reality of inequality and violence, so the contemporary images projected by advertising mask the reality of sweatshops, inequality, and domestic and international violence created by our lifestyles. And in the face of the ubiquitous imagery of the empire, Paul proclaims Jesus as the true image of God (Col 1:15) and calls the Colossian Christians to bear the image of Jesus in shaping an alternative to the empire.

My cat

requires more love than I can give it.

Stop jumping up on me, cat!

TTC Strike

prevents me from getting to and from downtown today to see my Hot Doc. :(

My Model Belgium

Will took this picture and I used this tutorial to make it look like a scale model.

Fun.

It’s Passover time!

We had a Jewish Christian (Messianic Jew) staff come in on Tuesday, and instead of Chapel we had Seder, pronounced SAY-derr. It was awesome.

So tactile, so rich in symbolism, so humbling, so beautiful.