“We’re moving!”

That what the sign would say if my blog was a business in some building. (Un)Fortunately it’s not, it’s just a blog, but it’s moving nonetheless!

This sort of marks the permanent “death” of this account. Unless, of course, I can’t figure out how to use my own personal one on www.calelivingston.com. In that case, this is totally going to be the “it” place which makes this message utterly pointless.

Haha, that’s how I roll…

Personal: Exciting Times!

“The ball is rolling” …umm… “The wheels are turning” …no, uh… “The plan is in motion?”

What’s the phrase I’m looking for? Oh, who cares! I’m just finally getting excited about Hawaii and not even for the reasons you’d think, unless you know me too well. The main reason? I’m finally getting my website going! I’m just waiting on a few finishing details before www.calelivingston.com can go live.

The key features I’m looking forward to are integrating my google calendar with the site so people can see what I’m doing and steal all my free time, assuming I’ll have any. The other thing I’ll be working on is fleshing out each of my main areas of interest: art, photography, graphic design, and video. But most importantly, blogging. I’ve got to stay in touch with all you guys on the mainland!

Which reminds me…

So far there’s not too much to report. I made it here safely, on the correct flight no less, along with all 120 pounds of my luggage. I was never in denial about my ability to pack light. And oddly enough the one thing I forgot to pack was my brand new program, Lightroom. Once I got here I had to fast from my computer for over four days since I was first lacking a monitor and secondly unable to connect to the wireless internet.

Helpful hint: Don’t put your computer directly against the corner of the room. Apparently that affects wireless potency. Who knew?

Hawaiian Home

The other big project has been situating myself, and my roomie TJ, into our new house. Ok, it’s actually just a living room, bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen/laundry room. We’re staying in the guest house of a great couple, Ray and Sherryl something… (eek, I hope they don’t read my blogs!). So this whole week has consisted of rearranging furniture, shopping for various items, disregarding a regimented sleep schedule and choke meetings (oh yeah, I’m going to re-introduce some pidgin english as well. Choke = tons). The meetings have been a bit of a stretching time for me since I’m working on this new thing they call “listening” and not just taking control of everything. Whether or not it has merit has yet to be determined.

Last night was actually the best time I’ve had since I’ve been here. Several of us drove almost 45 full minutes, a feat in and of itself in Hawaii, to Mililani for a night of Cranium and Catchphrase. My team won Cranium, naturally, but proved to have a difficult time claiming victory and captilizing on our early lead in Catchphrase. I swear “muffin couch” came up at least twice! After two demoralizing losses on the “Loud Team,” I jumped ship and joined the other team which only escalated sectarian aggressions (aka Cale-TJ rivalry).

Side rant: Apparently some people can’t handle my clue giving style. Maybe they should learn to cope, hey TJ?

In conclusion (yes, that’s a shout out for Mr. Garret Menges), I’m gearing up to start work this next week on various videos, posters and training at New Hope Diamond Head. In the meantime I’m also trying to complete my YWAM application so I actually have somewhere to go in three months!

Personal: I’m leaving for Hawaii in two weeks!

When I try to take in the trip as a whole it’s definitely daunting. I’ve already found myself explaining it to others in three different sections of three months. Somehow that makes it more mentally manageable, even if I draw too many parallels to pregnancy trimesters. Overall, I’m excited to try something new, especially after straining through this last event-less semester of life. But my main concern is, and probably always will be, raising the financial support I need to finance this YWAM trip.

Luckily, that’s where the internet comes in! I’ve already decided to use my own personal website, calelivingston.com, along with this blog as my headquarters for all my latest news updates. So look forward to new pictures, videos, reports, rants, and art. Also, it’ll be a great resource for those wanted to stay in touch will I’m away for the next nine months or more. It’s especially great for those who choose to support me since you’ll be able to see where the money is going and, hopefully, how much of an impact it’s making in the world. Yay for the world wide web!

Confession: I Love Typography

You know you have a problem when you get excited by a book full of letters.

Rant: Thanks-Getting?

Maybe I’m a little slower than most but it just dawned on me tonight: Our national holiday of “Thanksgiving” is directly followed by the single greatest day of shopping in America.

Oh the irony! Oh the hypocrisy!

I think I’m developing a bit of a grudge against our capitalistic culture these days. How/why exactly have we, as Christians, promoted and participated in a system that fuels greed, envy and discontented hearts? How is that even close to a pursuit of Christ’s heart? I think we’re in the midst of reassessing our priorities and dealing with the hard truth that money has been our master far too long.

It is capitalism and our greed that ultimately created this terrible recession we’re in as a country. We’ve collectively created a bubble that would inevitably burst. Only, in this outcome, it’s actual lives and families that are rattled to the core. Through herd mentality we’ve seen hundreds of millions of people slide into a life of comfortably living outside their means. If credit cards were the rope then we’ve made the noose.

I wish there were more spiritual mirrors in the world because it seems these days people don’t even recognize the consequences of their actions, as if we all function in a separate vacuum. Maybe that’s why we see things on TV like employees being trampled to death at WalMart. All for the sales, right?

America is just one step away from Lord of the Flies, despite whatever lies nationalism tries to feed us. We have our running water and constant electricity and suddenly we think we’re better than the rest of the world. We’re dignified. Civilized. Self-righteous.

I almost can’t bear to read one more statistic mentioning how little it takes to eliminate world hunger, poverty, illiteracy, etc. The reports even try to dress it up by relating it to whatever the current thing Americans are spending money on. The flavor of the week. The last one I remember said something like 2% of our Christmas shopping budget could feed all the children of the world for a year. But, clearly, that’s just not worth it!

What sort of evil and sin is there in the collective soul? How does the simple fact that there’s a mass of people allow not one single individual to act? Maybe this Friday truly is Black…

And when I think back to just 24 hours earlier I remember all the things I was grateful for, none of which were material goods.

My unrealistic challenge: Don’t buy any presents this year.

Instead, you might try investing an hour of your time with a person for every $10 you would have spent on them. Time is money, after all! Then again, I just value relationships and personal time way more than gifts or presents. So maybe that’s just unique to my love language.

Thanks for reading my first rant. Ideally you’d be so inspired/angered as a reader to respond in dialogue with me.

Inspiration: How Can We Raise the Bar?

I’ve read a few blogs and articles lately that talk about creativity and how it relates to us in our daily lives. One of the things that keeps come up is whether or not everyone is, or has the potential to be, creative. I’ve always taken the position that everyone can contribute something in the realm of creativity. I would say one of the biggest limitations to this school of thought is people are consciously aware of their supposed “lack of creativity.” And even though “creativity” is such an ambiguous term, we throw it out there for people to either embrace as a passion or avoid like the plague. The problem is we, the self-proclaimed artists, haven’t taken the time to show the rest of the world how to embrace creativity. Which brings me to my main point.

The general public is so used to having it mentally re-enforced that they’re not creative that they no longer try. They just throw their hands in the air in surrender. They’re ill-equipped for the task. So what’s the difference between them and us “artists”? I think it’s that artists actually pursue new, unique things. If we only surround ourselves with the same generic wallpaper and carpet we’ll be hard pressed to think outside of the box. Artists, on the other hand, are constantly immersed in the culture of creativity. And that, my friends, is the key. As soon as you realize that anything is possible you suddenly raise the bar for yourself.

The Christian subculture specifically has such a hard time with this. It’s so insular and shallow compared to the rest of the world. It seems ironic that the religious Christian community tends to favor stagnation over innovation. They’re afraid to keep moving forward. Or rather, they become complacent with where they’re at. But when you break out of this bubble you’ll realize there’s so much more to experience in medium of art.

So my challenge is to surround yourself with fresh, new expressions of creativity. That might mean dissecting the editing and cinematography of the next movie, tv show, or even commercial you watch. Or it might mean that you subscribe to a blog like Inspire Me Now! There are daily, practical steps you can take to expand your imagination and expectations for creativity. Why would you be content with living in black and white if you knew there was color? I think it’s about time people take off the blinders and see the beauty of the world as it was intended to be seen. Life’s too short to settle for mediocre.

Casual: I really want to…

..make a video in B&W!

Against Me! – Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart video
Yeah, I just have this itch that I can’t scratch. I keep watching videos on youtube and elsewhere and they always have B&W footage. Either that or B&W pictures set to a  narration about changing the world, which almost equally as cool. Just depends. I swear, I need a creative outlet! I need friends that have time to spend creating. I need a community that fosters creativity. I think maybe that’s my biggest problem. I’m relation-based; not time-based like our US culture. That’s why I keep slipping back to Hawaii, or even Seattle for that matter. (Hawaii’s not really part of the US, fyi) Relationship cultures = Art cultures. Time cultures = Business/tired/burnt out cultures. Oh, and I’m not bias at all!

Politics: “A Non-Voting Manifesto?”

Some thought provoking points for Christians debating whether or not they should vote.

Source: http://www.christianethicstoday.com/cetart/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.main&ArtID=959

A Non-Voting Manifesto?
By Tripp York, Visiting Prof. of Religious Studies, Elon University, NC

Note: In this election year many readers will disagree with the author’s conclusions, but to encourage thought and dialogue the article is printed and readers may respond by writing Professor York at tyork@elon.edu .

There are few things imagined in this life more dutiful than the so called ‘responsibility’ of every American to vote. Despite the fact that many decide, for whatever reasons, not to vote, the very idea that voting is an indispensable requirement on each individual goes without question.

Let me state at the very beginning that any qualms I may have with voting stem from neither apathy nor indifference. It simply makes little sense to me, given that we are as Aristotle claimed, “political animals,” that anyone would or should be indifferent to voting. Christians (whom I am addressing) should be concerned with the goods that constitute the temporal cities of this time between times, and voting is but one means of attempting to seek those goods.    Nevertheless, I often wonder if what has been passed down to us as an unquestioned duty is the only way, or even the best way, to be political?             To be even more specific, is it possible that some form of conscientious objection to voting could be understood as an act of politics that is concerned with the good of the polis? Could it function as a witness to a different order, one not predicated on the enforcement of legislation, laws, and the lording of power over one another? If so, what would be the rationale for such an objection, or at least a hesitation, to the act of voting? What sort witness would this attempt to make? In order to answer these questions I have jotted down eight possible reasons why voting could be problematic for Christians. If nothing else, at least dealing with these possible objections should make us more conscientious voters, if we decide Christian civic responsibility entails voting.

I. Romans 13 demands subordination to the government.

Which government? All governments. Paul (while sitting in jail) demanded that Christians are to be submissive to all powers that be because, despite how fallen they are, they, nevertheless, are ordained by God. Rebellion against such powers is understood as rebellion against God and is, thus, not permitted. It makes little sense, therefore, to perpetuate any order that was founded on explicit disobedience to God. The United States of America only comes into being inasmuch as it rebelled against the God-ordained powers of the English monarchy (the irony of this is rich as the most patriotic of souls love to use this text to demand obedience to every whim of their beloved nation-state without recognizing the hypocrisy that made it possible for it to come into being in the first place). To vote for the maintenance of such an order seems to approve of this act of disobedience against God, or at least renders Paul’s command nonsensical as it can be disobeyed if enough time has elapsed from the inception of the said rebellion/revolution.

II. Jesus requires that his disciples not be like those Gentiles who lord their power over others, even it is for some sort of ‘good’ (Mt 20:25).

Christians are, as Jesus says in Matthew 20:26, not to be power-hungry. Rather they are to be as slaves to one another. Perhaps it would be one thing if the elected officials of this nation were forced to take office; instead these are all individuals who desperately want to be in power and all of whom beg and plead with the common folk for their votes, all to the tune, at least in regards to the last election, of more than $1 billion—$1 billion spent to convince us that we should exalt those who would be like those Gentiles who lord their power over others. If we are forbidden to be like them, why would it be permissible to place them in the kind of posture that Jesus decries?

III. Capitalism, the socio-economic order that underwrites this culture, is predicated on the seven deadly sins.

Without just one of these sins, it would fold and collapse on itself. For instance, if there was no greed this economy would be destroyed. We are taught to never be satisfied, to never have our fill, to never be satiated, to remain in a perpetual state of want, all in the name of the common good. How is this even remotely akin to the kind of desires that should be produced by ecclesial formation? Goods are only good if they are shared goods, at least according to scripture and early Christian history. Sharing goods in this culture would be a sin. An aside: Let it not be lost on us that immediately after September 11, 2001, the President of the U.S. demanded that the people of this commonwealth respond by neither prayer nor patience—rather he told the people that they should respond by . . . shopping! The saddest thing about this ‘command’ is that this was actually a morally legitimate response by the President (as it would have been for any president for that matter). Had people ceased spending money, the economy would have collapsed. Therefore, in such a culture one responds to terrorism via trips to the mall as well as supplying a lot of missiles and the youth of the country. This is our way of life? This is what Christians are willing to both die and kill for? How can we vote for any potential Caesar under this sort of politic?

IV. While we are on the subject of the seven deadly sins, let’s look at pride.

Outside of the word ‘freedom’—which is by far the most seductive god competing for our allegiance—there simply is no greater form of idolatry than the worship of, freedom. Pride is a term that is uttered again and again by this country’s leaders. For some reason I am reminded by both scripture and tradition that pride is purely representative of the fall of humanity. There is really nothing to be proud about, except as one can boast with St. Paul, our hope in Jesus. Pride has become the very means that Christians have co-opted to this culture, for it is because of pride that we seem to lack the ability or desire to practice repentance, confession, humility and servanthood—all of which are at the heart of Christian discipleship. Voting is, de facto, an exercise in pride. Especially if you find yourself on the winning side.

V. The kingdoms of this world seem to be ruled by Satan.

Once Satan took Jesus to the mountain-top and offered worldly power: “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only’” (Lk 4:5-8).      Though the powers may be ordained by God, they are, nevertheless (as with all of creation), in rebellion against God. According to this passage it is Satan leading this rebellion. Satan offers the kingdoms to Jesus because they belong to Satan. He gives them, or at least offers them, to whom Satan pleases. All Jesus had to do in order to rule the world the way most of us imagine it is to be ruled, was to worship Satan. Thus it would appear that all of the kingdoms of the world, though rightly ordained for the maintenance of social harmony, are currently under satanic influence. One way to lead them is to worship Beelzebub, hence, my reluctance to vote for this sort of ruler.

VI. Regardless of which leader wins, that ruler will expect my allegiance.

That is, of course, a problem in and of itself, as Christians are called to serve only one Master. One way this affects Christians is that leaders of empires simply cannot enact the radical kind of peace Christians are to offer their enemies. Rulers, history has shown, must take up arms against their enemies. They must engage in warring, or at least threats of warring, in order to secure certain goods. This is a far cry from the peacemaking and non-violence which Jesus calls from his disciples. Jesus demands that those who would follow him must turn the other cheek, pray for those who persecute us (ever heard a president pray for an enemy—except that they be destroyed?), and refuse to exercise vengeance, which  belongs only to God.

Yet any nation-state, not just this one but all of them, demands the exact opposite. The literal imitation of Jesus in non-violence must be rejected in order to exist and survive in the world. I would argue that any order that demands that a Christian not imitate Jesus is a demonic one indeed, a stumbling block for Christ-like discipleship.

VII: The United States may be the greatest Babylon on the planet, but she is still a Babylon.

As William Stringfellow astutely pointed out, if we are to read all nations biblically then we must recognize that they are all Babylons.[i] No nation or culture is the Heavenly Jerusalem or the City of God. They are, therefore, parasitic on the good that is the heavenly city, and the church, as the image of this city on earth, is called to show the state that it is not the heavenly city. This is her task. It is not to buttress the powers that be, but to show them, through her witness that whatever the powers that be are, they are not the church. One way to resist being co-opted by the powers of this world, I imagine, might be to neither vote nor take office.

VIII: Voting is an attempt to elect someone who will enact, legislate. and enforce your political values upon others.

That is the point of voting—to elect someone who will legislate and enforce your convictions. If a candidate promises this, you will support her or him. That is, you expect your candidate to do what you want them to do for the betterment of how you envision the world and how you secure the peace of the city.

This process, in a sense, alleviates the burden of Christians to be the church because now Christians can ask the state require of others our Christian convictions. The church does not need to create an alternative community, does not need to be prophetic, does not need radical discipleship, because Christians now have become the very powers and principalities that Paul claims Jesus has defeated.

By the simple refusal to vote perhaps we can at least see how we have all become seduced by such a power in such a way that we can see how our faith has been compromised and domesticated in the name of something other than the Triune God.

These simple musings are but a few reasons why I am currently hesitant to cast my vote for yet another Caesar.

Personal: “So This is Where I’m At” Series III

Wow, it’s so reassuring to read so many articles that parallel my experience with media in the church and all the struggles that arise from that mixture. It’s sort of like when you ask your friend if he can see the creepy shadow done the hall too just so you have confirmation that you’re not crazy.

Side note: If you don’t know me very well then you’d be surprised to learn that I’m rather OCD and slightly ADHD so I tend to constantly rework my sentence structures and rearrange paragraph orders along with image placements. Right now I’m trying not to let my blog turn into another outlet of thought paralyzed by the impossible goal of perfection. To fulfill this purpose I’ll try to write more candidly and less grammatically correct (if that’s even possible for me?).

In short, Erwin McManus has already captured my heart with just this article alone. He’s basically writing the page of my life that I’m trying to live out right now. The innovation article is also inspiring because it points out that you’re usually up against the wall when the creative genius kicks in. I had a feeling most artists functioned this way. And lastly, I love the call to evaluate the pros and cons of “community” in the digital age. So ofter we just assume that the internet will solve all of our problems without actually contributing any of its own. How short-sighted! Ok, I’m done. Now read!

Erwin McManus:

http://www.collidemagazine.com/article/104/the-futurist

Innovation, because it’s all you’ve got:

http://www.collidemagazine.com/article/126/innovation-is-easier-and-harder-than-you-think

The Illusion of Community:

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2008/10/the_illusion_of.html

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2008/10/the_illusion_of_1.html

Ok, Apple. You Win!

Winner.

Honestly, I don’t care who you are. You just can’t say no to this creation of beauty! I’ve always had some choice excuses for resisting Apple’s OS and hardware but I think I’ve finally reached my breaking point. Simply the design factor alone was overwhelming. When did I go to sleep and wake up in the future?

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/design.html