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New Orleans felt magical. It felt really comfortable to me as an artist. It was this place for the senses: smelling the sweet honeysuckle and the musk and grit of the flood, seeing so many bright colors, twisting railings, and seeing the mix of old and new all in the same place, and hearing the jazz that floated into the streets from the bars. It was like a candy shop for the senses.
This winter, I painted a large landscape of New Orleans, hoping to find a connection to the flood that covered the city. I painted from a picture I had found in TIME magazine. It was a significant step, as it was the first piece that that evolved as I painted. It was also the largest canvas I have ever approached to paint (4 feet by about 3 feet). I had an idea of what I wanted it to be (a landscape of the city after the flood) but it turned into something a little different, changing as I spent more time with it. I really enjoyed the process, and it turned out better than I could have imagined. The painting was about redemption, growth, brokeness, process, and eventually… hope.
My friend Albert contends that the Kingdom of Heaven is the living, breathing paradox in life. It is said to come, and it also said to be here and now (at hand). We can choose to enter it (at the cost of our own life considerations), and it is reserved for the least of these. New Orleans, in its state of sadness, desire for renewal, beautiful history, awesome legacy of artistry, and the reminders of death and destruction seemed to be fit this idea of a living, breathing, paradoxical Kingdom.
We took a driving tour of the city, and I saw the exact view of the city that I painted. It was one of the moments where things came full circle: I was seeing (in real time) a place that I had imagined and wondered about. I think it’s the first time anything like this has happened. My artistic longings and curiosities became real and alive.
The weekend was really good, but actually a challenging time. I was confronted with the realities of a dying and resurrecting city. I was pushed to consider my own Asian American identity, and to see my culture with new eyes. It was really good to reconnect with some of my friends from MY, and also to reconnect with some of the ‘roots’ of what I feel has been the Great Awakening in my life. I was challenged to reconsider my commitment to to following the teachings of Jesus and to really think and live my life in response to the Kingdom of God.
Images that stood out for me:
- The beautiful colors from water images (the levee & water fountain)
- The sadness of empty rotting homes
- The water line on most of the homes (they were a beautiful and sad reminder of the past)
It was refreshing to be with folks that have committed a year of their lives to learn, serve, and be with the urban poor. I’ve always longed to be with more fellow friends of color who found injustice too much to ignore or be complacent about. It was awesome to hear about the ways that Jesus is alive in each person, even through a lot of shared suffering. I think I saw a younger version of myself in them, and it was encouraging to me to recognize that I am still that same person. Even though life has been a hard struggle since my own awakening, I feel that God has messed me up in a good way. And for that… I’m grateful.
This trip was pretty crazy. I flew on Friday morning to Indianapolis. Micah flew in to Indy also, and Matt picked us from the airport and we drove down to Nashville, TN together. Saturday was the wedding in the morning, and then on Sunday we planned to drive back up to Indy because I had to catch a flight back to California. (And finally I took the BART train from SFO to Oakland).
Micah wrote about it in his blog, and I feel similarly to him about the bond and connection that occurred during our time in Sierra Leone with Word Made Flesh. I told the guys that I was really glad we all got along well together because it would have been really hard if we really didn’t like each other. Granted, it was simply that easy, but I think there was a lot of grace and general likeability that we shared. Also, it was a huge plus for me to have 2 other guy friends around all the time. No knock on Michelle, because I feel like she was a great friend too, but it was really good for my soul to have dudes that were always around to back me up. I haven’t had much of that ( or much of that intensity ) for ( i feel ) a long time. Brotherhood really uplifts my soul, and helped to counter the intensity of life in Africa.
I’ve got a long list of weaknesses, but brotherhood is my anti-kryptonite.
Michelle’s wedding was the simplest wedding I’d ever been to. And, I’d have to say that it’s simplicity was beautiful. It was set in a really small chapel in the middle of a state park. There were no microphones, lights, flowers, candle lighters, or rolling red carpets. Just a old out-of-tune piano, great acoustics, a friend for the bride and groom, candles, family and a handful of friends. The only excess was the amount of pastors in that chapel. Both fathers and also both sets of grandfathers ( i think) were ordained (al) pastors.
I liked how the wedding reflected the lifestyle and personality of Michelle and Dane. I think I’d like to approach the event in the same way. I’d like the day to be about community, appreciation, hope, and joy. I guess, they all aim for that. Sometimes it only feels like shiny shoes, fancy food, and lots of pictures. Nothing wrong with all of that, but it feels sad to me when folks getting married don’t seem to be able to enjoy a day about celebrating them. Well, I’m actually projected pretty far ahead about marriage. But sometimes I think about that stuff.
After the wedding ceremony, everyone stripped off the fancies and we jumped into shorts and t-shirts for a barbeque cookout. Mr. Haas was on the grill, sweet tea was served, and we all hung out on the benches for a little while. It was fun. The rest of the weekend was kind of a blur. We hung out with with Michelle’s friends later, and then we headed back home the next day.
Two things stood out for me, and I think that will end this post. This one’s kind of disjointed.
We visited Michelle and Dane’s neighborhood. It was pretty run down, and beginning to become gentrified a bit. There were folks walking around hanging out. Kids on bikes on the street, and prostitutes walking about looking for work. It seemed like a tough place to grow up, and place that had it’s share of bumps and bruises. It was really encouraging to me that they’ve chosen to live in that particular neighborhood. We drove away and I kept saying to myself: this is so exciting. I hope this place is hard but good.
I think we all ( we meaning all of us ) have choices to choose for, whether big or small. I think the general audience to this blog has a lot more choices than most people in the world, and it’s encouraging to me when people choose to take risks with their lives in hopes that they would become friends with people different than them. It’s encouraging to me when people enter places of suffering and commit to living out their lives amidst those hardships. I feel like I’ve been trying to do be generous with my life in same way, and though i’ve had a lot struggles with it, I feel like it have been blessed to begin to learn to participate in suffering.
I’ve been re-examining my life lately, and I feel far from some of these hopes and desires from my life. I’m encouraged by the way my friends have made choices with similar hopes and desires.
The other thing was a short conversation that happened as Matt was dropping me off at the airport. Micah asked me about how I was feeling, knowing that I had some feelings for Michelle during out times together in Africa. ( It’s kind of crazy to put this on a blog, but I think it was a significant part of me and also my trip ) It was hard for me. Not all of those feelings and moments had worked themselves out. I guess the hardest thing was that it wasn’t all worked out on my end, and it would probably stay that way from here on out. It’s no secret that I had my hopes and stuff about things, and there was sadness that things didn’t grow into anything here in the states. Still, I think I learned a lot about myself, and my own heart in process. During our time in Sierra Leone, I think I learned to love people in a way that was more than self serving, and it hurt. It hurt in a good way, as I also was loved in the same way.
Somebody hacked into my account and messed around with my blog. They basically put all of my saved, unpublished entries online, and put links to spammy stuff at the bottom of every entry. I still have to delete all of the links from each entry on this blog. It’s pretty irritating that someone would spend that much time to do all of this. I’m just glad they didn’t erase my blog!
I don’t really have anything deep(ly angry) to say about this. I think some people are morons.
