So I went to jail today to visit a friend.  Before I got to see him, a text message came in from another friend Brian telling me he had posted a new blog.  This is always a joyful time for me as he writes really good story blogs.  So in my response to him, I told him where I was and what I was doing there.  Brian’s response was that he wanted to visit jails, as it was very Jesus.  I started to think that it was indeed pretty cool.  Back in the days of reading the Bible without actually thinking about what I was reading, you know, the youth group days, I remember reading Matthew 25 and began to think about the check list.

            Jesus was hungry and I fed Him

       
    He was thirsty and gave Him something to drink

       
    He was a stranger and Invited Him in

       
    He needed Clothes and I clothed Him

       
    He was sick or in jail and I visited Him

So having covered the others on the list, I was feeling very “Jesus Like” visiting someone in jail.  I just might get off the “Goat” list yet.  But the more I thought about what I was doing, two thoughts came to my mind.  One was very comforting and brought a deep joy to me, the other wasn’t so happy and made me feel like the phony I often can be.  Let’s jump into the good stuff first.

When Brian told me it was very “Jesus Like” to visit someone in jail, it  hadn’t occurred to me that I was doing such a noble act.  Truthfully, the guy in jail is my friend who simply made a mistake.  He’ll be out in 20 days, but pretty much said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person (someone with a badge) and is now in jail.  Now my decision to go to visit him wasn’t at all inspired by my wrist band with the letters WWJD on it.?  (Actually, my red plastic wristband has “Life” imprinted on it.  As in “Life” is sacred, as in end abortion AND equally as much abolish the the Death Penalty.)  No, I didn’t go visit my friend because that’s “What Jesus Would Do”.  (In fact Jesus said that if you go and visit someone in prison, you do it unto me, yet Jesus wouldn’t even go see his own cousin John the Baptist who was soon to be beheaded.  But that’s a story for another blog.)  No, I didn’t go to the Clark County Detention Center to score brownie points with God, that aspect of it actually hadn’t even occurred to me.  And the journey down there wasn’t an easy one either.  Naturally it’s downtown, so there’s the travel time, then finding parking (which is metered and charged in 15 increments), the metal detectors and unloading of pocket stuff, showing up at least an hour ahead so I could be logged in and then of course the waiting.  So why go through all of this if it wasn’t inspired by “What Would Jesus Do?  Simple, he’s my friend.

Now you may be thinking, “Oh good, I’m clear, I don’t have any friends that would do things that I would need to go visit them in jail.”  To that way of thinking I say, keeping it G rated, shame on you. To clarify my point, there is a passage in your Bible were Jesus said, “Why do you trouble the woman (who had just poured purfume on Jesus’ feet during a party she clearly wasn’t invited to)?  For she has done a good work for Me.  For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always.” 

Now many (by no means all, but many) affluent people use this as an excuse to not assist the poor.  They use this verse as justification that Jesus himself said the problem will never go away, “So what can I do?”  And so they do nothing.  But their interpretation of the verse is wrong.  They don’t want to help the poor so they find scripture to justify their actions, or lack of action in this case.  Too much of scripture has been misread and misinterpreted to hear what someone wants to hear, like this one about the poor always being among us. But this isn’t what Jesus was saying.  It was a fact that the poor WERE all around Jesus. But far from saying it in defeat that we should not worry about the poor since they are always among us, Jesus is pointing the church to her true identity, that the church is to live close to those who suffer.  The poor will always be among us because the poor will find a home in the church, the true church.  The poor will always be among those the call Christ “Lord” because they will always be welcome and feel safe among those who call Christ “Lord”. Gandhi would often reply, when asked if he was a Christian, “Ask the poor.  They will tell you who the Christians are.” 

So the question comes back to you, if you have no friends who would ever need a visit in jail, maybe you need to widen your circle of friends.  Maybe those who might find themselves needing a visit while they’re in jail are the ones who need to feel safe and welcome in your company.  There is more to this blog, but as I read what I’ve written thus far,  I think I’ll give a few days for the reader to digest this part  before going on.  It will also give me time to look at my own desperately wicked heart and hold myself to the same standard that I’m challenging you with.  See you in a few days.

Peace,

~ Rafael

I never believed it could happen,

Especially not to me

This thing they call “Love at First Sight”

It’s all just pure fantasy

An irrational apparition

Of a desperate, lonely mind

Projecting feelings of compassion

Upon a person you can’t find

But then you came into my life

And shattered all rationality

I can’t dismiss these new feelings

That are coming from inside of me

With no warning at all

You quickly waltzed your way in

And the walls around my heart

Were blown into oblivion

When I’m around you

I never want you to leave

Time zooms by, hours like minutes

You’re in the air that I breathe

Your eyes seem to make time stand still

There’s a joy and peace to you inside

I can’t wait for the times that we talk

What is this going on in my mind

I thought only Disney created fairy tale love

Dreaming of you every day and night

But you Mary Loo are a princess in the flesh

My Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White

So hoping we live happily ever after

One thing I know is true

I’m not saying I can’t live without you

I’m saying I don’t want to have to

Here’s the problem, my former political party wants to rally votes behind claims of “end abortion, no embryonic stem cell research, protect those without a voice”, from the rooftops they proclaimed “Life is Sacred”!  Then in the next moment support killings in the name of “Justice” in our courts.  What?!  But it’s no better in my new political party with the Democrats acknowledging that capital punishment is an ineffective and racially and economically biased vehicle for fighting crime, yet they are all about killing the unborn for the sake of convenience.

According to the Washington Post, 9 Feb 2007, Barrack Obama is pro-death penalty but wants greater measures employed to ensure the wrong person isn’t executed.  That’s a problem since 129 people have been freed from Death Row (not commuted to life in prison, but freed) after DNA testing and other evidence proved they didn’t commit the crime. (Staff Report, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights)  Since 1973, Florida has executed 60 inmates.  In the same span of time, 21 Florida Death Row inmates have been exonerated for innocence.  These stats show that states do error in death row convictions.  So how many others nation wide have been put to death but were also innocent.

So I’m stuck in the middle.  I strongly believe that all life is sacred, ALL life, the unborn and the person on death row.  However, Christians don’t believe all life is sacred, just the unborn ones.  Republicans love their Death Penalty, Democrats love their right to kill the unborn, I mean love to support a woman’s right to kill the unborn, I mean love to support a woman’s right to choose. 

So how do I vote in this upcoming election?  As a card carrying member of Amnesty International I stand with them and will do what I can toward the abolition of the Death Penalty worldwide and specifically in the U.S.  88 per cent of all known executions in 2007 took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA. (http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty#figures) Nice company we’re keeping.  So again, Democrat or Republican, who to vote for?

Sadly the “church” is as clueless as the two political parties on this one.  Yes the Mosaic Law, the Old Covenanat, says an eye for an eye. But check the Hebrew with an unbiased mind.  Eye for an Eye wasn’t the rule, it was a boundry for people (like all of us) who want payback as well as justice.  Punitive damages added on so they “Learn their lesson”.  Retaliation in gang violence, war, any aggression is never one for one.  The aggrieved or wounded party always wants to extract more than what was afflicted.  Eye for an Eye was a restriction, a boundry.  We humans always want to escalate in vengence.  You took my eye, I’m taking your eye, a hand and four toes.  The law of Moses didn’t allow this.  Eye for an eye was a boundry to protect society.  If someone breaks your leg, you cannot go back and break their arm and their leg too.  But let’s go ahead and look at the new covenant, what you religeous people are supposed to be adhearing to. (Ha, what a novel concept)  Your prophet Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’   But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”  Gandhi commented that “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and with dentures.”

Taking it a step further, the Gospels tell the story of a group of people who were ready to stone an adultress. (Stoning was the legal consequence of adultery) They ask Jesus for his support of this death penalty case.  His response is that they are all adulterers.  He says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) As a law abiding Rabbi, Jesus doesn’t condone capital punishement, even though it is the law.  If those of you who call yourself Christians are willing to look at people through the eyes of Christ you will see new things.  In the murderers you can see your own hatred, in the addict you can see your own addictions.  In the saints, you catch glimpses of your holiness.  You can see your own brokenness, your own violence, your own ability to destroy and you can see your own sacredness, your own capacity to love and forgive.  When all of us realize that we are wretched and beautiful, (you have beauty within you, no matter what a family member or significant other might have said.  Beauty IS in you) we are freed to see others the same way.

So who to vote for?  I absolutely want a person convicted of a crime to serve their time in prison and never release them if their crime warrents it.  But I only have two candidates to vote for this coming November.  If you have any advice, comments, help for my decision making process, please let me know.  I am open to and want to hear from all sides on this one. If this has touched you in any way, please comment. Even if it’s to say I’m a fucking idiot..  Your words have value to me.

Peace,

~Rafael

P.S.  Much thanks to Shane Claiborn for helping me understand my own feelings on this topic.

“Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”  ~Pablo Picasso

As the story goes, humans are made in the image of God.  Now I doubt that God has fingers and toes, hair, skin, and a belly button, though that one is open to debate.  (Did you know that in the painting “Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Adam has a belly button.  But that’s a thought for another time.) 

Now I don’t believe that God has a physical body like ours.  So what does “Made in His image” mean?  What I believe it means (at least one way) is in the area of creativity.  Only God and humans can create.  Angels, fallen or holy can only copy what they’ve already seen, but humans have been given the ability to create.  This is the access point.  Every piece of art whether a painting, poetry, writing, music, or whatever shows original thought, all of it is given to man through the portal of creativity that resides alone in God to man. 

Now art by definition is original.  A print of a painting is a copy of art it isn’t art itself.  A worship “leader” who sings songs someone else wrote is leading a worship cover band; they aren’t creating art until they sing their own song.  But the wonderful thing is that creativity from God knows no boundaries.  There will always be another song or poem or picture (you get the idea) that is waiting to be brought forth to the earth from Heaven.  Waiting to be unlocked and freed into this world, as it already exists in the next through the portal God made available.

“Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale ’til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

So create!  Too many times have I heard “I just want to be more like God or more like Jesus”.  So pick up a pen and write a poem that comes from heaven.  Its source can come from nowhere else.  Pick up a paint brush and be “God’s hand extended.”  Write a song and play the music that’s in heaven awaiting you to give it a home on earth.  Create – Make Art – Express Yourself – Try.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t appeal to anyone else.  Commercial art needs that, but this is about you connecting with and being like God.  You creating art is about God giving a gift to the earth and you get to be the first one to see it.  And what you create doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to make you feel good doing it.

“The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”  ~Pablo Picasso

 Create, create, create     Don’t self edit, don’t, don’t, don’t       Release the art that is within you, it is there waiting for you.  You want to be more like God?  Do as He does and create.  The world not only needs more art, it needs YOUR art.  According to Andy Warhol, art is whatever you can get away with.  You are an artist in something already, become more like God through daily releasing of your unique creativity.  Be the giver and the gift.  It IS in you and it wants to be shared

Peace,

~Rafael

“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”

Now I, in a reactionary mode when I first read this, instantly believed myself to be one of those dancing.  Not only that, but unabashedly didn’t care if I was thought to be “insane” by those who were so old or out of touch or close minded or (you get the picture) that they couldn’t hear the “music” that drove me.  As a neo abstract expressionist, I am used to people not “seeing” or “getting” or “understanding” my visual art.  Naturally it is their small mindedness or lack of creativity or prejudice or (fill in the blank with your favorite judgmental negative comment) that left them listless and uninspired while I danced and created (insert your art form here).  Those lame, shallow, analog breathers of air in MY world, how dare they edit or confine or censor or restrict my art.  Let’s face it, until they can right the letter I’m writing, they are the postman and I’m the letter writer.  The chasim like divide known as “us” and “them” continued to widen as I became more misunderstood by those sleeping in the light.

In the words of that great prophetic voice Suicidal Tendencies from the song “Institutionalized”,

        “Wait, what do you mean, what are you talking about, we decided!?  My best interest?! How can you know what’s my best interest is?  How can you say what my best interest is?