Tonight I was gleeming over a picture I have been labouring on for a sum of time now and I began to notice all the places where I had made mistakes or where it was imperfect. I began to see the painting as an incomplete work. The work of creating a picture so that it is true to-life is a feat. When you first notice this painting it looks pretty decent it looks almost finished. Even I was thinking wow only a few more parts and its done. The truth however is that it is not close. I watched a movie and returned to my painting to see what it was all about and reviewed the perspective it captures. When I returned I found so many flaws and incongruencies that I found it hard to even want to fix all of them because the task seems so grueling, so for now I decided to wait for a bit to paint it further.

The painting reminds me a little of myself, and my friends. Upon first view wow what a cool fun person to be with hang around and enjoy thier company. But exactly like the painting what is the perspective it captures what about the painting is it revealing, and conveying. I don't want to judge people. I just mean to say that learning about people takes time and hours of countless scrutiny to determine the true state of their heart. I had and have and plan to spend hours working on this painting in order that its perspective is as close to reality, or the true picture as I can. This painting experience reminds me so much of how I need to pour hours of my life into earnestly sprinting to know God intricately not to find imperfections in Him but rather in me, and to scrutinize my friends not to find sin but to find the image of God in them. To see them eternally as my family. The flaws and incongruencies of my painting does not make me want to forsake it and start another one, but rather I seek to work through the imperfections so that the painting will become more true to itself if you will. My goal then in getting to know my friends and even those who I don't know is to be such a good artist that I may display the picture which God has placed within my heart, and to understand the picture he has put in theirs as well. That i may be able to show the beauty of the creator. I pray that I may be able to use my artistics to articulate the beauty so intricate placed within my heart. To make this painting it takes great detail and the proper canvas. I learn from the painters around me as we all are learning how to make the good brush strokes in order that the texture of the painting accurately depicts what it is true to. The painting as the physical one I am making is incomplete and always will be because I don't feel able to properly and fully reveal its true honor and majestic perspective.
All of our artistic abilities are different and we make different pictures, "let know one hate on our paintings, but we may not pervert them either" our pictures tell stories of love, hate, friendship, life. Our painting brings us hope. We find our unity in the love we share even though some of our paintings are abstract, realistic, water-based, oil-based, acrylics what have you. The unity of our collage is unique to our kinship, but is not discriminatory to any. This painting has taught me quite a bit, I have learned that we all have our quirks, BUT we are all portraying a real picture. our painting has a purpose.
-paint

birthday

Another birthday what a phenomenon Who started these selfish celebrations I have found myself in a very diferent place today mentally that I feel can be taken to an unfair level. I feel like people are much more vulnerable upon a birthday as they want to demonstrate care. I really feel like the care they show towards me is not demstrated in a day. I feel like I already know who cares an these people I know I already trust. I feel like today more than ever that I have learned that as a friend its important to know when to draw the line so that my friends are not abused by my self celebrating birthday. Much in all situations its vastly imperative that I never misuse or abuse the relationships around me as these friendships are what are considered the purest form of human interaction.

pleasures and prizes

Pleasure is a funny thing. Pleasure is fun and takes up and fulfills a lot of emotions. Pleasure can be something we strive for. Pleasure has many physical side effects, like adrenaline and endorphins. Pleasure can be very addicting. I feel like I often substitute pleasure for my goal. The satisfaction for winning the competition consumes me to obtain an item or a position. I have often heard from people that the prize in a contest is mostly the satisfaction of winning. What a cheap goal and exchange. This satisfaction seems almost like not a prize at all. I remember feeling cheated and having wasted my effort just for this pleasurable satisfaction. If you were to try your best in the Olympics for the satisfaction of winning and bragging rights, it would then not be a competition of the best, because the best compete for a true prize but this pleasure of winning seems to be just a side effect of obtaining the prize. In our pursuit towards God there are many pleasurable paths to take that lead to much pleasure and fancy but ultimately this pleasure and fancy exchanges with the obtainer just a pleasure for their true goal. When we seek pleasure over the ultimate prize we lose our aim and we misplace our ambition in exchange for pleasure, something that only lasts but an instant. When we (people) seek pleasure in others eyes especially in relationship(this usually is found when people try to impress others) we find that we are caught up in a very unhealthy cycle of trying to continually impress our friends or at least who we think are our friends. However how can we determine our friends when we are always on our guard? Maybe we throw around the term friend and friendship loosely but to me friend is someone who really knows you and knows some things about you that suck. Yet they still want to continue in this relationship with you. They are your friend not because they are seeking the pleasure of your approval but because the prize for them is the relationship. I feel that I have been viewing my relationship with God for the pleasure not the prize. The prize at least I think is the relationship. The idea that I can say that I know the one and true God who made everything. The pleasures of this relationship wow where can I begin. God loved us so much that he even created pleasure. Recently I have realized that even sub-consciously I seek the pleasure. I feel that the prize is not fully but only in part my now-ability to live in heaven with God for eternity if you will. But the fact that I know Him feels to me like the real grand prize. When we begin to paint our relationships with this cheap glitter and glam it looks like an out-dated circus in view of the truth, therefore I find it essential we focus on our hidden agenda and make sure we are headed in a direction that is healthy for both us and the person whom we hope to befriend and hopefully not misuse. friendship is to be pure with no alterior motive except the loving of one another.

From outside

Do I portray the image of me I want people to see? do people see the things in me I strive for? Or is my image just a facade I have created in my own mind of how I am and how I react to my world? These are hard questions. I know what I want people to understand about me, I know how I feel but are people being abused or disrespected by me? Am I hurting someone without realizing it? Are someone's feelings the ground under my shoes? I only have questions. I so much so don't want to hurt all you people out there in my world. Its against what I want its against my goals. Its against me. I don't want to wrong people. I want to reply in kindness and love. Like that is easy. I don't want to confuse the truth to hurt people. Kinship with those within the body which I am a part of relies heavily upon my reactions towards them and those not a part of this group. With my Kin I no longer want to dishonor them because the fruit of this is destruction and pain. For me to be involved in this harmony; sacrifice on my part needs to be made. All this in order that we can work together to cover each others disappointments and cover their shame in ways that they feel loved and cared for. To bring life to each other instead of dishonoring each other. Dishonor is opposition to kinship and rots the core of our relationships. So I wonder how I am seen by people everything down to my facial expressions towards them so that I can work to love them as I claim to. god says love your neighbor, I strongly sense that relation is mandatory in this love. When we love our spouse or God we don't just love them from a distance saying I love them but I don't really like them or want to be around them. No instead we love them by treating them with more honor and respect than we deal ourselves. We give them our best when we truly love them. Love has no alterior motive, like physicality or stature or even fame because love is done out genuine adoration and care for another. Love is very intimate not fully sexually as that is a culimnation of love but as a person makes sacrifice to treat the other as better than themself. In loving all my neighbors I have no room then for false jestering or banter even because i feel like that brings shadows of doubt into the one whom you love. God would never tell you aww you really suck at whatever your doing no instead God would allow for instruction given in an intimate and loving way which may seem harsh but you grow in a positive and more full-to-life direction. To be seen positively by my peers really sounds hard to me. I feel like I need to be soo cautious and thoughtful. But I love my God, and he has asked me to love his people just as he loves me. intimate true love, the true kind found in friendships. The kind with no motive to gain anything accept to love one another in a most pure form.