Steadfast

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North Ridge entered 2012 by partnering with Port City Church in an initiative called My One Word. My One Word is a program where an individual methodically selects a single word, an attribute to which the aspire, to focus on becoming throughout the year. This single word replaces the cumbersome list of New Year’s resolutions that are all broken by Valentine’s Day. My word for 2012 began as ‘bold’ and honed down to ‘speak’ before the year’s end. You may remember seeing drawings from the sermon series (check out the My One Word link in my past series cloud if you are new to Plasso).  Several of us who found success in emulating our words last year chose to re-up on My One Word in 2013. My word for this year – steadfast.

Steadfast – fixed in direction, firm in purpose, unwavering, firmly fixed in place or position.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.  James 1:12

Our family of five will be embarking on an adventure this year that we will be a ride that lasts the next four. We are letting go of a safe, consistent income so my wife can return to school full-time. She has been teaching biology in public high school since the fall of 2001. The increasing government regulations and bureaucratic meddling is effectively driving all the quality teachers out of the public sector, Julie is adding her name to their casualty list at the end of this semester. This time of spring in 2017, she will graduate as a licensed pharmacist.

To be quite honest, I chose this word focus on for all four years of the PharmD program! Letting go of the teaching position is the least of my concerns, I’m actually relieved to be free from the toll that career path takes on the teacher’s family. I encourage any young person who asks my opinion on their projected career path to avoid teaching if they also see family in their future. The nation’s public school system is in a sad state, driven by statistical algorithms instead of actual effectiveness. The mountains of paperwork and loathsome hours wasted keeping up with the requirements of this bureaucratic mess have changed the landscape of public teaching.  No longer is it a honorable career path that opens the door to significantly impacting children’s lives. It is now a contractual marriage to a thankless job that demands higher priority than any other aspect of the teacher’s life. 12 years of experience as a teacher’s spouse (2/3 of one year testing out the job personally) created my opinion and nearly every person I speak to who are also (or were formerly) married to a teacher corroborate this position. I am at least as equally excited as Julie that her professional divorce from teaching will be finalized in thirty days.

Our objective now is maintaining the household while she becomes a commuter student  and fulfills a dream to enter the medical field which was alive when we met 16 years ago. Remaining steadfast.

Those of you who follow this blog know how my mind works, or at least are familiar with its results. Steadfast is more than just my word until 2017, it is also an image that is burned into my mind and hangs on the wall above the desk where I type.

Steadfast

Steadfast

Steadfast is composed of three 12″ x 16″ canvases. I used four 8-penny nails to hold each panel in place. Once the shape was created, I began painting. The primary emotion I wanted to convey was agitation. The first layer of the painting was a very dark, midnight black with just a touch of blue. To experiment with media (and a bit out of necessity when I realized I was out of blue acrylic at the time), the under-painting of this piece is tempra.

I made sure to purchase all the black and blue I could need for the outer layer of this piece. Using long, fast, borderline violent strokes horizontal strokes, I imagined myself inside a tornado seeing the wind and debris swirling around my head. Various shades of blues and blacks concealed the dull under-painting. Stepping back to look, I was quite pleased (and a little out of breath) when this sitting was complete.

The final piece of this painting was to take a Jackson Pollock sort of spin like I used in ‘Torn‘ and literally throw some highlights of orange, yellow and white onto the dark canvas. Hosting a party to break the mundane-ness of January changed my direction. Once complete, ‘Steadfast’ had a hole to fill over the computer desk in our living room. It is not a direct focal point in our party-gathering space, but leaving the space empty would stick out like a sore thumb. Though incomplete, I hung ‘Steadfast’ for the party. This proved to be a defining choice for the piece and my understanding of my word.

We have can lights in the ceiling in our living room and the wall above our computer desk is an ideal location for artwork without glass because the piece is perfectly illuminated. ‘Steadfast’ was no different. The piece looks amazing in this location; the lighting makes the subtle light blues pop against the darker hues. The light also added another unexpected dimension. Reflecting against a sheen I only guess was created by painting acrylic over tempra, a streak of almost white yellow slithers its way down the paint and gives the image the same likeness as a calm, moon-lit lake.

Steadfast (no flash)

Steadfast (no flash)

A good friend who is a creating in his own right as a writer (check out his work here) admired the piece and we discussed the background, the creative process, and the future plans for the piece. Jason made a profound suggestion; leave the image as is for 2013, but revisit it each year and modify the image as your understanding of remaining steadfast evolves. Pure creative genius. I am doing as he suggested and practicing steadfastness by leaving the image alone until next January.

What began as an agitated, chaotic whirl-wind with three canvases holding on for dear life became the most peace-filled, calming image I can recall ever creating. Through the process of creating this piece, God showed me that remaining steadfast is not just exemplified in a soldier on the front lines of battle who yells to his comrades to stand their ground. There is a peaceful, calm side of steadfastness as well. Keeping your cool under stress, refusing the urge to worry when anxiety comes knocking, declining the part-time, third shift job I was offered to supplement the income and remaining faithful that ends will meet without sacrificing my presence with Julie and the boys. This is me remaining steadfast.

Steadfastness for you could manifest in a thousand different ways. Steadfastness is maintaining your integrity and standing your ground. While at times it will be a fight against adversity, there is a peacefulness to be found. Peace as a result and peace within.

Peace runs deep, deep in Him.  - ‘Train Song’ Josh Garrels

Speak

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We’re between series this week at North Ridge. Last week finished up Man School, next week we begin The Bible: It’s Not About You. Today we took a step back to revisit the series that launched 2012, My One Word. To recap, My One Word is our New Year initiative to pick a single word to emulate throughout 2012 instead of making a list of resolutions to achieve.Today we revisited the words we picked and were encouraged to continue striving towards adopting the word as part of our character.

Romans 12:1-2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The word I chose back in January was bold. To be honest, I felt like selecting that word was a cop-out. For one, simply ‘bold’ is a vague characteristic. Bold about what? There’s a fine line between being bold and flat-out rude! Second, My One Word led into a series titled Bold; picking the same focus for myself that we were studying as a church seemed quite “convenient”. Nevertheless, I could not get away from that word so I have stuck with it. Over the last seven months, that word has evolved, honing in how this boldness will manifest. Just in the last few days, this re-focusing on my word has inspired the word to change. My new word for the year is ‘speak’.

Speaking is where I have chosen to focus my boldness because it is the area in which I am weakest. Call it a lack of confidence, a passive nature, or a fear of rejection; but my goal is putting forth a conscious effort to speak my mind and voice my opinions at every opportunity. Doing this requires a certain level of compassion, I do not want to mistake arrogance for boldness in my words. I found the inspiration for my word in 2 Timothy 1:7: For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.

Selecting my new word is the first avenue of inspiration for today’s drawing. Realizing where I wanted to focus my boldness felt like release in my spirit, symbolized by the figure breaking through the water’s surface. The expression on the figure’s face shows relief, despite the shadowy figures circling around him. The shadows represent the situations that arise to test our commitment to bettering ourselves, temptations to abandon our goals, and the premature pride from thinking minor victories means we’ve arrived. Deciding to make positive changes in your life with God’s help does not mean the task will be easy, in fact it means the opposite. God will teach you the characteristic selected with My One Word by placing you in situations that require using that quality. It can really be quite frustrating! Are you wanting to  be more patient? Expect to face situations that will test your patience. Is your goal to be more honest? Expect hard questions and to give hard answers with increased frequency. My word brought opportunities to take on new risks by stepping out on my own. With my new focus, I am expecting more instances to share my ideas, though it’s not always the most popular. (I had to choose this during an election year….DOH!) God is not looking to make things easy, He is pushing us to become more like Him.

My One Word

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North Ridge is taking a new perspective on new year’s resolutions in 2012. Instead of resolving to “fix” some habit we have or gain a positive habit and abandoning that idea within weeks, we’re being encouraged to pick a single word and aspire to embody that word throughout 2012. The concept is, narrowing our focus to a single word will last longer than an idea while also being applicable to many areas of life. My drawings so far during this series are so closely connected that they’re better understood when seen together rather than individually.  Today’s post includes the drawings for weeks 1 and 2.

Week one helped us define what it is about starting a new year that inspires us to make resolutions in the first place.  A new year marks an opportunity for a new beginning, the slate of the earlier year wiped clean and we have the opportunity to write a new chapter of life making necessary changes.  Like a snake molting its outer layer of skin, we molt the regrets we hold, the choices we made, the events we celebrated during the year on December 31 and store them deep in our memory. We awake fresh on January 1 in a new, unblemished layer of skin to wear and protect over the next 365 days. Our goal is admirable, guard this new coat better than in previous years; keep   this year’s outer epidermal layer free from cuts and abrasions by promising behavior modification. The thing is, you’re human, I’m human, we inevitably slip up and scrape our knee on the playground. So if its nearly guaranteed we’re going to break our resolutions, why bother making any? Grace.

Grace from God and grace from yourself gives you the opportunity to try again, to experience December 31 and clean the slate all over again. Grace does not give us a free pass to sin, it’s contingent on repentance. Grace is when you’re given what you don’t deserve, mercy is when you’re saved from getting what you do deserve.

This year, focus on a single word to become and apply through your life, but remember it’s a learning process that needs grace for a do-over or two before it sticks.