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Thursday, 16 February 2006

Currently Watching
Gray's Anatomy
see related
A remembrance of Spalding Gray

Is anyone out there a fan of Spalding Gray?

Years ago I stumbled across a film called "Monster in a Box" I found it because I was attempting to tape an obscure Steven Soderbergh film that was playing on Bravo and it happened to be on immediately after. Apparently at the time I couldn't figure out how to program a VCR...

Anyway, I was introduced to this performance that captivated me.

I mean, how often do you find yourself sitting through a 2 hour film where it's just one guy talking the whole time and actually find it interesting?

Already being a huge Soderbergh fan, I went out and rented "Gray's Anatomy" and the art of monologue was met by the brilliance of an independent film director's genius. Alright, maybe that's a little overboard, but it was still a great experience.

Years later I had the amazing privilege to see Spalding Gray perform one of his monologues live. "The Slippery Slope" was different than the Woody Allen like self deprecating yet funny material I had seen him perform in the past. It was beautiful and ended with a great deal of hope.

Which was why a year or two later I was devastated when I learned that Spalding Gray had committed suicide in New York's East River.

For some reason, Spalding has entered my mind again.

Karen and I watched the first part of "Gray's Anatomy" again, but now I want to start at the beginning. Kind of do a study of a man.

We'll be watching:

The Killing Fields
Swimming to Cambodia (His first monologue about the making of "The Killing Fields")
Spalding Gray - Terrors of Pleasure
Monster in a Box
Gray's Anatomy

and then listening to "Its a Slippery Slope" if I can get my hands on someone who has the CD!

any one interested in joining us?

Monday, 13 February 2006

Getting something for nothing!

Months ago I set out on a quest to see if it was actually possible to get something for nothing. I had seen a website called freeipods.com and thought to myself, its gotta be a scam... but what if it's not?

I did a little research and found that the site seemed pretty legit. . All I had to do was complete a trial offer from an advertiser and find Five friends to do the same.

That became the hard part...
Rightly so, people were sceptical, (as was I) but it was worth a shot!

In the beginning of December, I got my mom to sign up for my final slot, the last person I thought would ever help out with something like this. Because of the timing, my free iPod was delayed and the office was closed for an extensive Christmas break. It didn't look good... By the time the first week in January passed and I hadn't heard anything, I figured it may never come...

However, on January 11th, 2006, the day I happened to be leaving for my heart surgery, IT CAME!!!

I downloaded as many albums as I could before we had to leave for North Carolina to get my new heart. It was one of those moments where you just have to say, "Thanks God!" Karen used the iPod to help pass the time as she waited for me to get out of surgery and I used it almost every night to help me fall asleep.

The ironinc part is that in the hospital in North Carolina, the rooms were divided into nursing stations with four rooms to a station. These clusters of rooms were called "Pods"

My room was in Pod i.

By The Way...

If you have any interest in showing a little charity to a guy recovering from heart surgery and stuck in his tiny apartment every day...

I'm trying to sign up for a free Xbox 360.

It'll only cost you a dollar to help me out and you may end up getting $20 back depending on what offer you choose!

Let me know.

I'll send you an email with the details!

Friday, 27 January 2006

Currently Listening
Live Songs and Stories
By David Wilcox
Good Together
see related
The Blessing

Can I just tell you how much I love my wife?

I truly believe that she is the perfect woman God ordained for me. He had her planned from the beginning. I remember when my mom used to tell me she was praying for the woman that I would one day marry, that God would be protecting her and preparing her for me that day. I always thought it was a little silly, but a little sweet. (how like my mom) I wanted to believe that there was that one person out there for me, but as I got older and more practical I kind of doubted that was really the way love worked.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Karen when I married her, and I had the feeling that we both had enough attributes that would keep us interested and keep us together, but I never knew until recently how perfect she is for me!

It's the little things. How she sees culture and art enough through similar eyes that we enjoy the same kind of things. We enjoy theater, we enjoy edgy and sometimes dark independent cinema. We both love low natural lighting. But it's been through the experience of going through heart surgery that our lives have really clicked for me.

Over the last few weeks, God has been extremely gracious to have broken me down to a shell of a man, only to finally get it through my thick prideful skull that I am nothing apart from Christ. I was able to see this while sharing the somewhat guilty pleasure that my wife and I enjoy in watching "Six Feet Under." What an amazing show and we're only through Season 3.

God revealed things to me while watching Nate's character and allowed me to realize that though I'd really tried to protect in myself the notion that I was at my core a "good" mad, I was finally able to see that I am not a "good" man. Even though the bible had told me this a million times, I never quite believed the fact that,

              "There is none righteous, not even one;
                   11 there is no one who understands,
                     no one who seeks God.
              12 All have turned away,
                 they have together become worthless;
                there is no one who does good,
                   not even one."

            18"There is no fear of God before their eyes."

                                              Romans 3:10-12, 18

Finally, I got it! Finally I realized through a series of incidents and God bringing me to the point of death, that, "Jason, you are not good. You have no hope in working out your own salvation. Either fully depend on God as your Father or you'll die."

I don't know that I can explain to you what that understanding is like. It seems like it should be heavy and morbid, but its like a light was switched on and finally I can see how simple things really are. I can see how all the pain that I've allowed into my life and consequently into my wife's life were allowed so that I could see for myself how much I need God. I know it sounds cheesy and you've probably heard it in some sermon a hundred times, but this time it was for me and I'm holding onto it with everything I've got.

So while this relationship with God my Father is obviously the most important thing to come out of this, what's amazing is that as an offspring, He has kindled and burst into flames my love for my wife!

She has been so kind to me. Providing for me like she would an infant. Waking every four hours to either help me reposition and take my meds, or getting up to change all my sheets that I had sweat through from these damn night sweats I get. (No one told me to expect that one after heart surgery!) She has been taking the mornings off and going to work in the afternoons. I can't tell you how much I cherish this time. Today especially was amazing! We slept in and just spent time being close to each other. I love the feel of that woman's skin! But we've been having breakfast together every morning for the first time in our marriage. We have this really great breakfast nook in out small apartment and Karen found the perfect table for the space. Its perfect!.

But apart from her kindness throughout this time, I've been amazed at simple things where God has confirmed to me that we were "made for each other" as cliche as that sounds. Because of Karen's experience with surgery she had when we were roommates, she knows exactly how I've been feeling. My right side, where the tubes ran across the inside of my chest to drain off the infection from the surgery site, caused a lot of damage. That whole area is still very tender and every time I try to roll over in bed or shift positions my chest cries out in pain. So Karen understands my pain. Its more than sympathy, its empathy.

Aside from that I've been really trying to change the way I communicate with my wife. For the first time, when conflict arises, instead of jumping to my defenses like I have always done in the past, I really try to listen to her. I'm not always perfect in this, but now in times of conflict I, "just see another human suffering," like David Wilcox says so eloquently in his song Start With the Ending.

Now, I try to see why Karen is hurt, not simply defend myself from what must be an assault on my personal character. This is new for her, and I don't think she quite trusts it yet, but I don't blame her. I've used words and made great vows before, but I was trying to do it all on my own. Now, I see myself as dependent on Christ for myself and my marriage. I guess now I just have to learn how that all works out, but I am filled with hope!

Since I've been able, through the grace of God, to change the way I act and actually listen to my wife, I have found her to be the greatest resource I could have ever found. We are so alike, but we are also soooo different. In the past it's been the differences that may have been the source of our conflict. Now I recognize the difference as a gift. The only way that God can ERUPT change in my life. Its when Karen sees through her eyes something totally different than I do, that I now see the privilege of seeing the world through those second set of eyes and come to an understanding that only Karen can explain to me. While they are difficult, I celebrate our differences, and I praise God for placing Karen in my life because only she can make me see "the other side" that I'd never seen before. She is a woman of great discernment and I cherish her vision in my life.

So I guess all of this is to say that I LOVE my wife. She is my perfect traveling companion.
If you've read this far, thank you for allowing me to raise this tribute to Karen.

Last Christmas, Karen commissioned a small clay sculpture for me. The name of the sculpture is, "The Blessing" and the form is of Karen and I, with Karen knelt down before me with my hand gently placed on her head. At first glance, it appears that I am blessing her. But it's based on a scripture out of Genesis 1:28 where God has just created male and female in His image, and then did the most AMAZING thing.

              27 "So God created man in his own image,
                  in the image of God he created him;
                     male and female he created them.

           28 God blessed them"

He blessed them. In the Hebrew this word has a very special meaning. The word God chose for "blessed" was barak.

Barak in Hebrew means to kneel down and to adore! At the beginning of creation at the beginning of humanity, GOD knelt down and adored his children. Is there any greater love than that. Doesn't that make it obvious why he loved us so much that he would sacrifice his only son to desperately win us back!

So in this sculpture, Karen chose to bless me. She knelt down and adored me...

I pray these words stand as a blessing to her.