John Farkas — Creating Culture — johnfarkas.com

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:47:24 -0600

Wow, I am not sure what has possessed me but here I am writing a blog entry. It has been a long time. The pause has been very intentional and I am easing back into it but I feel like I have something for the first time in a long time.
I was on the way back from a trip a few weeks ago and had a long layover. I had been carrying a Netflix copy of “Exit Through the Gift Shop” for a long time and I decided to watch it. I was glad I did. It has inspired me on multiple levels in very unexpected ways. It is a quirky somewhat backward documentary that takes us into the secretive world of “street art”. Not performers standing on street corners but tag artists who create their visual art on the canvas of the city. I don’t want to say much more. I want you to see it and come back here and tell me what you think. If you have seen it what were your impressions?

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Something unexpected from Oswald Chambers

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:39:38 -0600

I plan on returning to this blog as some of the dust settles in my life. I have much to write about but I am needing to do more listening than speaking at the moment so I am quieting myself. This quote however, forwarded to me from a friend this morning was just too good not to highlight.

If the imprisoned soul of sound makes the human spirit weep tears from too deep a well to be reached by individual suffering; if music turns the human heart into a vast capacity for something as yet undreamed of till all its being aches to the verge of infinity; if the minor reaches of our music have awakened harmonies in spheres we know not, till with dumb yearnings we turn our sightless orbs, "crying like children in the the night, with no language but a cry"; if painters' pictures stop the ache which nature started and fill for one amazing moment the yearning abysses discovered by the more mysterious thing than joy in music's movements--it is but for a moment. And all seems but to have increased our capacity for a crueler sensitivity, a more useless agony of suffering. But when God's servants guide us to His heart, then the first glorious outlines of the meaning of it all pass before us.

From:
THE DISCIPLINE OF DIVINE GUIDANCE
By Oswald Chambers

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

PEACE

Tue, 9 Dec 2008 16:08:24 -0600

Jan Williamson knew the moment I asked her to create a piece for our advent liturgy that she wanted to explore “peace.” Last Christmas Jan wrote a beautiful poem that was featured on Fellowship’s Christmas project:
“Ring the Bells”.

This year, Jan teamed up with her daughter Kara to compose this remarkable song. Thanks Jan and Kara for this beautiful offering. It left me with out words.

— John Farkas

_________________________________

VS 1

If somehow I knew
I was leaving earth today
What would be the last words
I ‘d want to say?

I would reassure you
That when winter winds blow
It takes the chill of winter
For the deepest roots to grow

Just before Jesus
Rose to heaven’s throne
Blessed words of comfort
He left for His own

Peace I leave with you
So do not be afraid
Stay ever resting
Resting in Jesus name

CHORUS

Though kingdoms rise
Though kingdoms fall
There is an earthly kingdom
That knows peace and calm

It is the quiet heart
By the Christ-Child filled
Where Emmanuel
Whispers, Peace be still….
Peace be still

VS 2

We are gripped by fear
We argue and we fight
Over whose rule is wrong
And whose rule is right

Now let Bethlehem’s Promise
Soothe the people’s cries
All government rests
On His shoulders so wide
Yes, all government rests
On His shoulders wide

CHORUS

Oh blessed state
Oh blessed wait
For Christ’s return
Our souls to liberate

Yes! A Prince of Peace
To us is given
And of His kingdom
There shall be no end!

by Jan Williamson and Kara Tualatai
Christmastime 2008

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Thoughts on 44 Years

Tue, 2 Dec 2008 08:24:36 -0600

Today is my 44th birthday. Don’t tell anyone. I keep telling myself I am 27. It occurred to me this morning as I was working out, that there is a reason that I have held at 27 in my mind; 27 was the year I started seriously riding my bicycle, I had a new house, a young son, Renee and I had found some traction in our relationship and were enjoying an apparently fruitful, successful ministry at FamilyLife. It was the year I exceeded goals and expectations that others had set for me and I had set for myself. I kept hearing things like “you have unlimited potential” and “you are only 27?! You have wisdom beyond your years.” (that is particularly funny to me now) .

As I rounded the top of that hill two years later I found myself in a spacious corner office, leading and managing men 15 years my senior, attempting to balance a huge budget, setting goals and determining strategies to help families out of the clutches of the looming treacherous dangers of the world.

It was all good, right? I remember one afternoon after a particular stressful meeting with one of my subordinates, walking into my office, shutting the door and collapsing on to my chair, my head in my hands and the weight of the world on my shoulders. In that quiet moment I was able to admit to myself that I absolutely hated where I was and what I found myself doing. I was dying inside. How did this theater, and english major, right-brained creative, end up in this corporate, ultra conservative ministry setting, wearing a tie, managing budgets and grumpy old pencil pushers who resented my existence? How could I continue to tolerate upper level management who really had no idea what to do with this quietly subversive, apparently arrogant, creative who managed to produce results through often openly defiant unconventional means? Sounds toxic eh?

I was dying and I need to get out. So about 18 months later that is just what I did. I am so thankful I had the courage to move, and while I moved into a job that did fit me better, I was a long way from knowing and understanding myself. I was still a mess and the next several years as I embarked on my career in the church, all I did was spread the mess around the floor a bunch.

I suppose I covered it up reasonably well ( I was a theatre major after all) but my anger, discontent and victim mentality continued to build, started to ooze out the edges and at times worse. I was telling myself that I was angry at my circumstances. Really, I was mad at myself but didn’t possess the tools to understand or reconcile it. It all came to head about two and a half years ago through a series of crazy life experiences where I found my need get some help to uncover the mess I had made, own it and begin to clean it up.

This season can best be described as a season of lament. I have spent a fair amount of time mourning lost years and feeling sorry for myself but a lot of energy and prayer asking God to help me grow up and discover what it means to be honest with myself and who He has created me to be. My entry on “Dreams” is born out of the dialogue I have been having with the Lord recently and the hope I have found there.

You know what? I may just turn 28 this year — and I am actually looking forward to it.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak. Eccl. 3:1-7

a time to be 27 and a time to be 28
— maybe even 44 : )

John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Introducing By/For.org

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:56:18 -0600

Artists creating by the church for the church.

The scenario: By/For assembles a group of churches willing to fund the creation of something;
it could be music,
visual art,
video,
poetry,
anything really — then someone is designated to assemble a group of qualified artists who join together in a collaborative setting to create the commissioned work ideally under a creative commons license so it can then be published and distributed freely. In the case of visual art the artists may create a themed exhibit that tours the patron churches for a season, then is sold to raise money for a specific cause.

I love the concept.

By/For is the brainchild of Lance Mansfield who spends his days as developing software product solutions for the healthcare industry but his heart beats to see art — great art — in the church.

Check out the By/For website and stay tuned for more about By/For in the days to come.

—John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Deep Enough to Dream

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:39:36 -0600

Deep enough to dream in brilliant colors I have never seen. Deep enough to join a billion people For a wedding feast. Deep enough to reach out and touch The face of the One who made me. And oh, the love I feel, and oh the peace. Do I ever have to wake up?

— Chris Rice: the chorus of the song “Deep Enough to Dream”

A couple of years ago, in the depths of the struggle I was wading through, my wife Renee gave me a little metal sculpture for Christmas that formed the word “Dream”. I remember feeling some shame and perhaps some fear at the “suggestion”. At that moment my world was extremely heavy and it was difficult to imagine the end of the day let alone envision the future. That sign now sits in my office where I consider it often. It has been a gentle reminder of the importance of keeping my eyes above the din of the world that surrounds me and remember that there is something greater.

I have been considering the idea of dreams a lot in recent weeks —and the importance of anchoring my dreams in the truth. In so doing I have been meditating in and around Psalm 139 ; an intimate look at how wonderfully the Creator has fashioned us.

Because we are created uniquely, there is a specially formed place in this world we were meant to inhabit. Something we alone were created to do. As we endeavor to love, enjoy and explore God, we gain a clearer picture of the form, essence and nature of our place. It’s in that dialogue and relationship that true dreams are born.

Enter the challenge: The Fall (our desire to live independently of God’s design) dropped a bomb on this world and we live in the murky, desolate ruins. It’s broken, and no matter what we do and how hard we try, ultimately we can’t fix it. Oh, The modern world tries, working feverishly to mask the ruins with any number of formulas or distractions, determined to keep us from facing the truth of the situation, and our own need for deliverance. For this season our planet has been allowed to be taken hostage by the enemy of our souls. Scripture points out that it prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. I believe it has a special appetite for the dreams of God’s children because those dreams realized, become signposts to the world that is to come.

The enemy wants us to think that we can make this world work but we were never meant to inhabit ruins. Eternity is in our hearts. That is what we were made for but the moment we think we can make this world work, we become distracted with the things of this world, and our dreams sink their roots into the world. We think of things we could buy, the house we would like to live in, the car we would like to drive or the vacation that would be the perfect end to our year. They may be good things but they are not true dreams; they are distractions that lure us away from living in light of the bigger story.

Each one of us was created to bring something unique and wonderful into the needful yearning of this place. When we do; when we initiate something wonderful that God has uniquely created us to do and introduce it into the emptiness in this world we:
join God in his creative, redemptive work
we become a healing force in our culture
and we create a signpost to the world that is to come.

Recently, I rediscovered this quote from “Letters To A Young Poet” by Rainer Marie Rilke. He writes:

You ask me whether your verses are good... You have asked others before. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are disturbed when certain editors reject your efforts. Now... I beg of you to give up all that. You are looking outward and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you. Nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all - ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple 'I must', then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it...

The encouragement to “Go into yourself. Search for the reason...” when applied to the heart where Christ resides, implies a deep dialogue with the lover of our souls who desires to see us healed, wholly restored and empowered to create into our culture.

When we walk in what we are — what we are uniquely created to do, it is beautiful — and when we bring something beautiful and place it in midst of the ruins of this world, It reveals Christ’s work of redemption — and ultimately reveals a glimpse of the world that is to come.

So the question I have for you is this:

Do you know what you were created to do? and if so are you doing it?

It is hard to do good in this world. The world easily accommodates and even actively encourages mediocrity. Try to do something beautiful and you will find yourself dodging sniper fire, even full on attacks. It won’t be easy but it is what you were meant for.

Invite your Creator — the lover of your soul to dream with you. He will lead you on a path that will
allow you escape the gunfire of the fall,
understand His redemption
and join Him in pointing others to the glory of the world that is to come.

That is a greater story.

—John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Timely Perspective from G.K. Chesterton

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 18:30:55 -0600

I wish our candidates would lead instead of pander. I wish they would discuss real issues rather than fabricate reality. I wish they would tell the truth rather than — not.

I am so glad that my ultimate hope lies in a reality that transcends this world.

I ran across this gem today. It was published April 19th 1924 (which made me laugh) in the Illustrated London News:

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”

— Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

The Eye of the Storm

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:38:26 -0500

This week I happened across Mako Fujimura’s essay written in response to Mirosla Volf’s the lecture I was responding to in my entry last week. It was interesting for me to see his perspective. Here is the essay in it’s entirety:

———————————————————

There is creation in the eye

-William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Art reconciles materials, such as paint, body movement or sound. Artists, therefore, are naturally involved in a reconciliation work. But, of course, in the current cultural paradigm, artists have become known as the leading instigators and agitators.

Dr. Miroslav Volf stated at our recent conference that “art (of modernism) is fundamentally transgressive: religion is fundamentally conservative. So the two are often at odds with each other. “ It is important to recognize that any work of true reconciliation involves a recognition of the divide, and perhaps even the impossibility of that work in light of these conditions: in other words, we cannot begin on the road of a healed relationship, unless we admit the failures in ourselves. Reconciliation is ultimately a work of the Spirit, and our nature is at odds with the Spirit’s work (Galatians 5:17, “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit”).

Dr. Volf, in the same speech, advocated for the creation of “porous, good boundaries.” These are creative boundaries that allow adversaries to hold onto their stated zones, and yet be flexible enough to allow the other party to “invade” certain aspects of your domain.

Artists can play a crucial role in this “porous” boundary making. Artists have the instinctive and trained ability to create boundaries, and to break boundaries at the same time.

Being a Storm Chaser

The Discovery Channel’s documentary “Storm Chasers” describes scientists who actually fly into the heart of a hurricane so that they can measure the eye of the storm. From the data they take, they can predict how far the storm will go to help the coastal inhabitants know what to expect. These scientists risk their lives so as to save lives. I have begun to overlap this image of a storm chaser to the creative process of peace making.

Artists, too, are natural storm chasers, forcing encounters of opposing and often warring elements. And this temperament can be an ideal catalyst for creative acts of peace making, and to create “good, porous boundaries.”

Ken Sande, author of “The Peacemaker” (Baker Books) created three categories of responses to conflicts, or storms of life.

1)Peace fakers
2)Peace breakers
3)Peace makers

It’s my experience that the church, in general, tends to be peace fakers. They would rather avoid the storm, and create shelters as far away from it as possible. Everyone is asked to smile, or worse yet, ignore the troubled realities of the world. I consider my natural temperament to be a good peace faker…and perhaps it’s my Japanese pacifist nature.

Artists tend to be peace breakers. They are the first to ride into the storm, and often the first to be destroyed by it. They are the “antennae of the race,” the “canary in the mine” of culture, as Marshall McLuhan has stated. They are the first to smell the poison, and sing. To understand 20th Century art, to understand culture, is to understand that peace breakers do shape the world, for ill or for good.

International Arts Movement calls all of us to move beyond peace faking and peace breaking. It’s helpful to note that we need to be peace makers, and not peace keepers. Peace making is an active, creative process that draws us to the eye of the storm.

Jesus stated “Blessed are the Peacemakers.”(Matthew 5) He was the true peacemaker, and he is the “eye.” And in the middle of that eye of the greatest storm of life, stands the Cross.

As we embrace Jesus, and as we embrace the Cross as Christ suffering for us, we embrace a path that leads to the Resurrection, Easter morning. We become ambassadors of God’s peace. We have been delivered from “our bondage to decay, and brought into the freedom of the Children of God” (Romans 8) And we are called to walk with the Great Artist.

And furthermore, we are called to represent the Great Artist by our humble acts of creation. We are artists with a small “a”.

That’s why we need to be trained, go through a discipline of learning a craft of painting, dancing, writing or movie making. It’s like a Storm chaser, a scientist flying into the eye of the storm. He/she has been trained: to fly, to know how to get to the eye, and to measure the eye. That information can help to evacuate people and save their lives.

Have you experienced being in the eye of the storm? Like in the movie, “Perfect Storm,” the eye is calm, it is most forbiddingly beautiful, and the only safe zone in a storm. If you stray from the eye, you will be destroyed. The storm of life is raging all around us. The storm of culture is causing havoc inland in the cities and counties. We need to cling to Jesus, residing deep within the heart of the storm.

But International Arts Movement also believes that “There is creation in the eye.”

The 21st Century is predicted to be a Creative Age, when the traditional boundaries of arts, sciences and business will be more blurred. We have a window of opportunity today to begin a movement of creative individuals who lead creatively, to create peace. But in order to do so, the peace fakers have to work with peace breakers. In order to do so, the church has to be reconciled with artists: and artists to the church.

To the churches I ask: “who is closer to the eye, peace breakers or peace fakers?” The answer is “Peace breakers.” If the artist types are closer to the eye, why are we not pouring our resources into them, to get them on board the “storm chaser” rescue planes? They are trained to read into culture, to alert us to the poison in the air.

To the artists I ask: “have you found the eye of the storm? Have you found Jesus?” Not just intellectually giving assent to Him, but receiving Him as the source, the only Source of your creativity and life. If you keep raiding the storm, you will be destroyed by it.

The Fifty-Year Vision for the Church

I have a fifty-year vision for the church that I have been praying about. If you ask someone sipping a cup Starbucks coffee today, “what do you think of first when you hear the word ‘Christian Church’” You can imagine what the answer would be.

"political extremism..."
"It's where I find the most segregated group of people..."
"It's where people boycott stuff they don't agree with..."

Or maybe for a few...

"It's where I found salvation in Jesus..."

I am praying for that in fifty years, people would say:

"The Church is the source of my creativity, and it's where I experience beauty both in art and in my life." and for the blessed, "and I found the True and only Life through her in Jesus."

Now, my eldest son is 17, and in fifty years he will be 67 (and I will be, if I am still around, 95)! So this is certainly beyond our immediate influence. Which is why I like praying for something beyond our time. This means that we will have to train future leaders to think and teach this way, and that their off spring will be the one to see it happen.

I am praying that out of the generation to come, will emerge the next Michelangelo’s and Bach’s, so that in 500 years, we can look back and say “21st Century was truly the Creative Age. It’s when a long-lasting vision was laid out by artist/peacemakers.” Because the nature of the work is to chase storms, it is dangerous work. One must count the cost. It is also a generational work. We must be patient. Much of the work will be invisible to the public eye.

We have been speaking of reconciliation throughout our conferences. Reconciliation of any kind is a supernatural work of God. It requires a miraculous intervention. So don’t be disappointed if you fail, over and over, in your attempts to be reconciled. But be faithful in small things. Reconciliation is a generational work: any view of reconciliation that does not have a 50-500 years perspective is unrealistic. Your mustard seed of faith today is going to lead the next generation to be freer and allow grace to enter into their lives.

We need to create and live today in light of that covenantal promise. I am a product of many lives dedicated to breaking down racial barriers. If it were not for my parents, and Judy’s parents to be willing to have a multi-racial marriage, our children would not be here.

They are the fruit of reconciliation of two nations, Japan and US, nations once at war. Because of their sacrifice, we are able to have a healthy marriage and creative lives. Our children represent the advent of reconciliation of nations whose divisions include the atomic destruction of 220 thousand people.

Each generation should leave more breathing room for the next generation to experience joy and peace. Seeing the church be reconciled to the arts, therefore, will be for the next generation. Seeing the transformation of culture, and building of the shalom of God in seeing cities reconciled with nature may be witnessed by generations after that. This reconciliation was planned a long time ago, as God created Eden in Genesis.

But the storm generated by the failures of humanity to keep God’s covenant, marred the Creation. This storm, magnified by our Atomic capacities, twisted by our knowledge of DNA manipulation, grows and rages all about us today. The earth is full of “ground zeros”.

But just as in any storm, there is the “eye.” And the Great Artist resides in that calm, forbidden beauty. There and only there, huddled together in God’s protection, being washed anew by the blood of Christ, and smelling the aroma of Christ, we can ask deeper questions. And we can ask together: What is Beauty? What is Truth? What is Justice?

Because “There is creation in the eye.” The “eye” is the only place from which we can truly create. True creativity cannot in the storm itself, nor by running away from it. “There is creation in the eye.” We need to be creative storm chasers, willing to live out our lives in the “eye.” We need to all be “ground zero” residents in that sense. We need to plant seedlings in the ashes of the ground zeros of the world, to seek restoration with our children holding the seedlings with their supple fingers.

T.S. Eliot, in the Four Quartets, concludes his artistic journey as seeking the “still point of the turning world.” He desired, at the end of his journey, to move through the “Wasteland” and enter the eye of the storm, and to create out of that eye. We need to do the same.

The International Arts Movement is a “movement of still points.” Our creation, our art, our music, our poems, our marriages, our churches, our businesses, our scientific inquiries, our public service can reflect that presence of God’s shalom and the stillness of Jesus. There is beauty in God’s moving still points. Like those bioluminescent phosphorescent plankton moving in and out of waves, appearing and disappearing, we can “Be Still and Know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) It is God’s Spirit that ultimately creates the “good, porous” boundaries, allowing all of us to create from the eye of the storm. Without God’s intervention, true reconciliation is an impossible task. Without God’s Spirit’s intervention, true art is not possible.

— Makoto Fujimura

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Artist of The Week: Arne Quinze

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:38:52 -0500

Arne Quinze was born in 1971 in Belgium He is an artist, self-taught designer, visionary and businessman. Because of his provoking designs and and shall we say —exuberant lifestyle, he has been dubbed the "rockstar of the design industry. But in 1986, Arne Quinze was a homeless graffiti artist, hanging out with a motorcycle gang and living in the streets.
As a designer, he is perhaps best known for his Primary Pouf, a simple and colorful seating object and side table solution, and developer of QMFoam™, the material of which most of his first furniture collections were (and are currently) being made of. Quinze designed furniture for a broad range of projects for leading architects an d his work can be spotted in some of the most iconic modern structures in the world including such as the Seattle public library designed by legendary archiectect Rem Koolhaas.
As an artist and visionary, Quinze made an indelible mark when he set fire to Uchronia: A message from the future, a 30m high and 60m wide wooden sculpture at the 2006 Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada.
His website is must see internet viewing. Be prepared to spend some time there.

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Perspective on Life & Loneliness

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:49:42 -0500

A friend forwarded me this quote:

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same."

— C.S. Lewis (The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis: The Pilgrim's Regress, Christian Reflections, & God in the Dock (Inspirational Christian Library) Hardcover Book)

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Blueprint for a Personal Revolution

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:31:25 -0500

(Continued from the previous entry-Sept 23)

Okay so I am lonely. What does that mean?

Without a doubt, my primary community is found in my workplace. I have other significant friends, and other places that I intersect with people, but my workplace is my primary people connect. I really like the people I work with, I really do. But as I sat at that table at that planning meeting it became abundantly clear that I am alone. I bring a perspective to our process that is unique and is generally appreciated but I am almost always different, fringe, off-step or contrary. If I am not voicing it I am thinking it.

What I bring is important, but it is rarely easy. I am usually trying to convince, teach, prod or confront — and because I have deep convictions and am what some would consider sensitive : ) — those confrontations cost me a lot. There are many times I hold back, bite my tongue and don’t bring an Idea to the table because I am just to tired to do what I know it will take to paint the picture in a way that other people will understand, appreciate or accept — OR I am not prepared to stomach the jeers or wide eyes that my assertions can sometimes hasten.

I feel like the quintessential salmon, swimming upstream. At the end of the day I am tired, I spawn and die; the problem is that I get to wake up and do it again the next day. Now before I paint this gloomy, “doomy” picture let me point out a few things:
• The people I work with are not out to get me and I know they appreciate what I bring (feel free to set me straight on this guys).
• It is a free country. I choose to do this. I could do something else.
• I believe I am called to be in the position I am in and it is often wonderful and terrifically gratifying.

It’s just — lonely.

What do I mean by lonely? It is the realization that there is no one “around the table” that totally understands where I am coming from. They may get parts of it — enough to reach an agreement on a course of action — but they don’t get all of it — they can’t and I don’t expect them to (anymore).

Now it is my guess that there are two fundamental groups of people reading this; Those who are sympathetic the gravity of what I am communicating, and those who are saying “So... Nobody is ever totally understood, Farkas. Get over it.” For those of you in the latter group, don’t worry, I am over it — well wait a minute, that is not true. I don’t think I will be over it this side of eternity but I do think I have it much better perspective than I used to. You may want to read on because it may help you understand your “fringey” neighbor a little better. For those of you in the former group, I hope this will offer you some hope, perspective and an idea or two.

The ideas communicated in the next few paragraphs are a mixture of my musings integrated with ideas presented in a lecture I heard nearly nearly 3 years ago by a man named Miroslav Volf. Volf is an influential Christian theologian and currently the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale University Divinity School and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. When I initially heard the lecture I must admit much of it flew past me but in the midst of this little crucible, I went back and listened to a recording of it and was overwhelmed with its pertinence.

Volf entitled his lecture “Artists as Reconcilers” He points out that the world is a complex system of boundaries that define social norms and interaction and that art is fundamentally transgressive, that is - it is art’s job, to cross, move, push, change or otherwise challenge those boundaries. I am an artist. That means that by nature I am a transgressor. I stir the pot and endeavor to make people see things differently. It is what I am created to do.

Here is my challenge and my lesson:

I am not created to be an indiscriminate transgressor. Without boundaries there would be chaos. Art, when given to the gravity of this world can be hideously harmful and offensive. Much of why art is seen as such a threat in institutions is due to the of frequency of indiscriminate transgressions. The call of the Christian artist is press through the transgression to be a catalyst for reconciliation and redemption. That is true art.

Look at the fundamental nature of the first creative act:

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. (Gen 1 3-5)

The first thing God did was to draw a boundary and all His subsequent acts of creation introduced an increasingly complex system of boundaries, into which man eventually enters. Volf points out that “in order for artists to function as a reconcilers we need a strong doctrine of creation that celebrates goodness of boundaries; while at the same time taking seriously the doctrine of the fall which understands that since creation man has managed to introduce many boundaries that have been drawn incorrectly to exclude, demean and dispossess. In the name of well drawn boundaries we need to call into question the wrongly drawn boundaries.”

He continues: “The artist who wants to be a reconciler also needs to have a strong doctrine of redemption. The ability to say “yes” to something and “no” to something else.” “It is what we see instantiated in the person of Christ; the ability to say “no” to human sin and at the same time be able to say such a fundamental “yes” to sinners that one is willing to sacrifice one’s own life on their behalf... the ability to tear down or name what needs to be torn down and yet to profoundly stand in solidarity and love with those who may be on the receiving end of what needs to be torn down.”

“If we don’t have love of enemy if we don’t have the the grace of generosity where we give a little bit more than we expect to receive; if we don’t have the grace of forgiveness where we don’t count against somebody the wrongdoing they have committed against us; we can have negotiations, we can have settlements, we can have pacifications but we cannot have true reconciliation.”

Finally we need a strong doctrine of consummation: We need a goal in front of us, the goal of redeemed community so that we can have the courage to go on the journey with those who we are walking with in the process of reconciliation. We need to have our eyes focused past the challenge of the immediate conflict toward the greater goal that is to come. It is what Christ did on the cross, it is what enabled him to submit to the nails being driven into his wrists and still be able to say “forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”

Volf asserts: “Something like that needs to be possible for us as we engage those with whom we are in conflict for redemption to take place. Why would I go on such a journey? What would secure my own identity if I take such a journey?” It is our decision to entrust our lives to the Spirit of God which leads this world and us in this word to the final consummation.”

You have likely noticed that here Volf has highlighted the work of the trinity in our lives: the God who creates, God who redeems and God who brings all things to fruition. (What I really want to do is transcribe his whole lecture but I guess you will just need to go get a copy HERE or you can borrow mine.)

Okay, so my goal is the reconciliation of what our culture would define as “artists” or “art” itself to the church. Churches are fundamentally conservative institutions. Oh don’t get me wrong, I think our church is pretty progressive but it is a church and thus inherently fraught with boundaries; most good and necessary - but not all. More boundaries - more opportunity for bad boundaries. More boundaries - more opportunity for transgressions. I have spent my whole career transgressing in boundary laden environments. Sounds like fun eh?

Much of what Volf outlined in his lecture were things I had at some level had contemplated before but 7/8 of the way through he said something that hastened this little revolution of mine. He said if we are going to be successful as a reconcilers we must care for our souls. “There is a spiritual commitment... a spiritual struggle in order to engage - truly - in reconciling activity and it is imperative to have a place to stand outside of the stream of conflict in which one finds oneself. Outside... of the stream of culture which one inhabits.” It is only when we find that place, and not only find it but truly spend time standing — resting there, that it is possible for us to be reconcilers. It is only when we find that safe place outside the stream, that we can genuinely, somewhat objectively and critically reflect on what is truly happening in the stream.

This was my revelation that predicated my revolution. I have incidentally and occasionally happened upon those places of oasis in my life but it has been accidental; fortunate and wonderful, but not something that I had intentionally initiated or intended for the care of my soul. What Volf is pointing toward is not personal time of reflection and retreat, although that is obviously of great value. I believe what he is outlining is the need for a table to draw in to where we are understood, a community of like or similarly minded thinkers. Not sympathetic lemmings but people who understand me well enough to legitimately challenge my thinking or encourage me where I need to be challenged or encouraged.

Even the thought of moving in this direction has been hugely encouraging and some of the preliminary steps I have taken have been wonderful. Something I am going to do, potentially pertinent to any of you in the Nashville area, is to host a book discussion group. The first book that I am targeting is “My Name is Acher Lev” by Chiam Potok — one of the never ending list of amazing books that I have yet to read. We will meet @ 7:45 Thursday mornings starting in November. Interested? E-mail me and let me know to expect you. Feel free to invite others. The only requisite is that they have read the last two blog entries.

Swim well!

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Prelude to a Personal Revolution

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:04:33 -0500

It is amazing when God’s voice is so loud that you can’t miss or ignore it; The last 24 hours have been an interesting little crucible in that regard.

Every Monday morning I attend a regularly scheduled meeting with a group of people responsible in for planning and carrying out our weekend worship services at Fellowship Bible Church. We debrief the past weekend and plan for the weeks to come. Throughout my tenure, that meeting has taken several forms, involved different people and varied widely in it’s effectiveness and dynamic. It has been a forum for great encouragement and celebration as well as the most intense confrontation and conflict. Currently it is probably as healthy and functional as it has ever been (a very subjective statement), but still it is a meeting I don’t generally look forward to.

This week I understood more clearly than ever why that is. It has been a sort of epiphany but as I begin to write this, I am really not sure why. I am not about to divulge or describe new information that has just now hit my radar; it’s just that a particular sequence of events have combined to bring things into better focus than I have ever enjoyed.

Here is what happened. Over the last couple of weeks I have been leading the design process for a stage set to accompany a new series of messages we are teaching around our churches mission statement. Due to some factors outside of my control and irrelevant to this discussion, we were running late and had a very small timeframe to design and implement the project but through the cooperation of a great team we assembled a really wonderful set that serves the series well. Or so I thought.

Without going into great (boring) detail, as we pulled into our Monday planning meeting this week I was anticipating some kudos' and compliments but as we gathered and settled in it was pretty quickly apparent to me that all was not well. There were some compliments but the tide quickly turned to critique as a concern was aired that came from an email from someone in the congregation who was offended by an image contained in the set.

If you have seen the set you maybe able to guess which image it is. It is offensive. By itself, it represents one of the darkest parts of human history. In the context of the entire composition however, it very deliberately points to the sovereignty of the Godhead. I saw this as a terrific opportunity to dialogue with our church about the tension created but long story short, the decision was made to replace the image.

I understand the decision. I don’t necessarily agree with it — but I do understand it and I am not writing a reaction to this decision. I am writing about what I observed and understood about myself louder than ever in the context of the meeting and the events that subsequently occurred.

After the discussion I found myself despairing. Really despairing. I had to get up and leave at one point because I was overwhelmed with something —but what was it? I didn’t know and I couldn’t identify it. I was intensely restless. I talked about it later with some people on my team, I tried to vent, I prayed, I talked to Renee about it when I got home, I felt like I was going to explode and I really didn’t know why.

After dinner I went out to my garage to finish the mammoth job of cleaning it after our bathroom renovation project. I reached to turn on the stereo and It was if I heard God’s voice say “Stop!”... so I did... and really without thinking about it i sat down on the floor and told God that I would listen to whatever he had to say. Almost immediately He said:

“You are lonely.”

The statement rang true in my ears. I sat there and waited and listened....... that was all I heard.

Okay — so — there was great relief in those words because it did identify the seat of my despair — but I still had lots of questions.

Like: “What do I do about it?” I went inside and wrote a few thoughts in my journal and that precipitated an interesting and I believe inspired progression of thought that pulls together much of what I have been observing, thinking and dreaming about over the last several years. It is really interesting stuff; okay honestly, to me it is HUGELY significant stuff! To you it may be a major yawner but that is part of the issue.. Fun.

My next entry will begin to unpack this suitcase.

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Hauling Toilets out of a Ruined Mansion

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:10:01 -0500

This blog is serving it’s purpose because I can honestly say that I would not be sitting down to write this morning were it not for the ounce or two of obligation I feel to this... whatever this is.

I have been obsessed, for better or worse with this silly bathroom remodel I am in the middle of. The trouble is it’s a bathroom remodel not a rec room. There is some real urgency in making this happen quickly seeing as how the function of our home has been severely compromised, so it is a quasi utilitarian obsession as opposed to an unhealthy mania.I am approaching the last lap or two and I am really glad.  
There is a story that unfolded amid all this that has had a profound effect on how I have viewed my life and my focus and I thought I would share it with you.

You may know that I have this strange routine of teaching spin classes Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 5 and 6 am. I have maintained this regiment for years and have taught for the last 6 years at the Brentwood YMCA. One of my most faithful class members who has been working with me since day one, is a woman named Jane Ann.

Jane Ann is one of those rare humans who appears to incessantly radiate kindness and joy. She always has a good word and her disposition doesn’t need coffee to function before the sunrise. Her husband Mike is a partner in a very successful accounting firm in Brentwood and they have been blessed financially beyond anything most of us will ever experience.

A few weeks ago Mike and Jane Ann lived through a horrible nightmare. They recently built a beautiful 2.5 million dollar home in a prestigious neighborhood in Brentwood. They had just moved in and had been there for 2 weeks. There were rooms in the house that were still packed and furniture that had never been used. Some contractors were adding some insulation to the attic when a fire broke out and within minutes the house was fully involved. Jane Ann was there at the time and watched from the driveway in horror and disbelief as the summer sun and afternoon heat welcomed and encouraged the blaze faster than any fire department could respond. It was soon apparent that the home would be a total loss.

News helicopters circled overhead, new neighbors gawked and some introduced themselves for the first time. Some people just followed the plumes of smoke and drove by to see the drama unfold. It is a curious thing to see something that formidable burn. It burns just like any other pile of wood. The bricks just serve to hold the heat in and make it a little more intense.

Somehow I missed the news reports and I learned of the ordeal when one of my class members asked me if I had heard what happened. Imagine my surprise when Jane Ann walked in. Smiling — just like every other day. I was amazed.

The night before I was up late working on our bathrooms and as I started the class, I mentioned what I had been doing confessed my fatigue. Jane Ann’s ears perked up and asked above the din of the music if we needed a vanity. I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. I thought maybe she was joking or maybe I had not heard her correctly. Later that day she called me and explained that there was a wing of the house that had not been too badly damaged by the fire. There was a vanity that she had custom made that she wanted me to have. The insurance liquidators were not interested in messing with it and she had made sure it was okay. She told me to see when I was there if there was anything else I could use. I borrowed a friends pickup and went over to assess the situation but I didn’t prepare myself for what I would experience.

I wish I had brought my camera because I want to retain what I saw. Functionally, the house was a total loss but it did not burn to the ground. The second floor was gone but the first floor was an odd mix of charred destruction and tainted grandeur. The house was beautiful —it was apparent even through the mess — but it was a corpse. Everything it was and represented was gone. Walking through it was a surreal, sobering, poignant reminder of what is truly important in this life.

I wandered around and found the pool house where Jane Ann had described it. It was away from the main part of the house and had all but escaped damage save smoke and water; neither of which harm stainless steel, concrete and porcelain. I was able to disconnect and load up the vanity and a couple of nice Kohler toilets which according to Jane Ann, had never been used. As I loaded the pick up, I was overcome with the irony that the toilets were practically the only salvageable part of this great home.

You can draw your own conclusions.

I’ll just say I will be thankful for the daily reminder they will afford.

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Cool Science

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:30:00 -0500

Anrica Debn of the Associated Press just issued this report:

July 30, 2008 -- A team of European scientists unveiled on Wednesday a new method for extracting images hidden under old masters' paintings, recreating a color portrait of a woman's face unseen since Vincent van Gogh painted over it in 1887.

For years, art historians have been using X-rays to probe artworks hidden underneath other paintings, a technique resulting in a fuzzy, black-and-white image. But Joris Dik, a materials scientist from Delft University, and Koen Janssens, a chemist from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, combined science and art to engineer a new method of visualizing hidden paintings, using high-intensity X-rays and an intimate knowledge of old pigments.
The pair used the new approach on "Patch of Grass," a small oil study of a field that Van Gogh painted in Paris while living with his brother Theo, who supported him.

While not exact in every detail, the image produced is a woman's head that may be the same model Van Gogh painted in a series of portraits leading up to the 1885 masterpiece "The Potato Eaters."

The new method will allow art historians to obtain higher quality and more detailed images underlying old masterpieces. In Van Gogh's case, it could reveal details of works that were painted over. For other works, it could provide new insights into the studies that the artist built a painting on.

Dik and Janssens used high-intensity X-rays from a particle accelerator in Hamburg, Germany to compile a two-dimensional map of the metallic atoms on the painting beneath "Patch of Grass," which is part of the large Van Gogh collection in the Kroller-Muller Museum in the Netherlands.
Knowing that mercury atoms were part of a red pigment and the antimony atoms were part of a yellow pigment, they were able to chart those colors in the underlying image.

"We visualized -- in great detail -- the nose, the eyes, according to the chemical composition." Dik said. Scanning a roughly 7-inch square of the larger portrait took two full days.

Though his paintings are now worth millions, Van Gogh was virtually unknown during his lifetime and struggled financially before committing suicide in 1890. He often reused canvas to save money, either painting on the back or over the top of existing paintings, and experts believe roughly a third of his works hide a second painting underneath.
The painting under "Patch of Grass" adds weight to the theory that Van Gogh mailed paintings from the Netherlands to his brother Theo, and, after moving to Paris to join him, found the old works and painted over them.

Teio Meedendorp, an independent Van Gogh expert in Amsterdam, said the underlying woman was probably painted between November 1884 and March 1885, while Van Gogh was living in the Dutch village of Nuenen. In that period he painted a series of heads in what Meedendorp called "oil lamps and candlelight," followed by the famous "Potato Eaters" of April 1885.
Both Dik and Meedendorp were excited about the prospect of using the technique to probe paintings by Van Gogh and other famous artists such as Rembrandt and Picasso.

"I was really surprised by the quality of the image, which is really promising for the future of research," Meedendorp said.
However, scanning other paintings may be difficult since the technique requires a particle accelerator, and few exist in the world and none in the Netherlands.

Dik and Janssens' scientific paper was published online Wednesday in the Journal of Analytical Chemistry.

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Lessons from the Bathroom

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:20:50 -0500

I am not at rest in my life unless I have some project going. I suppose it is some sort of mania yet to be officially labeled. It is becoming a joke around our dinner table — when I complete a project our kids have grown to know to ask what’s next. At this point our entire house has been completely redone with the exception of two bathrooms that we have wondered what to do with for years. A couple of months ago Renee and I agreed on the redesign and decided to go for it.

The remodel required a total demolition of both rooms (which share a wall) and as is always the case, the demo uncovered several surprises. One surprise was the sheer amount of stuff the demo produced. I ripped out a window in one of the bathrooms and created a garbage shoot so we wouldn’t have to carry the junk through the house. Load after load of drywall, tile, insulation old fixtures and wood were thrown out the window. Over 600 cubic feet of very compacted garbage came our of a space that is maybe a total of 150 square feet of floor space.

Then there was the structural issues. 2 undetected, slow, plumbing leaks had taken a huge toll on the flooring system, requiring near total replacement of the subfloor and substantial repair of the floor joists. So a 2 day demolition became a full week of labor just to get to the point of being able to think of rebuilding — much of that time was spent in a cramped dirty 2 foot crawlspace. So after a week of itching from old fiberglass, squeezing my 6’-4” frame in a space never meant for human habitation and effectively destroying my house, I was tired, discouraged and sleep deprived.

Then something happened. I crawled back down under the house and removed two air vents that needed to be repositioned, cut the pipe to the new length, cut holes in the floor at their new positions — and — installed them. After a week of destruction and repair the project turned the corner. I was amazed at the instantaneous effect that simple change in current had in my spirit. Even though there was still an overwhelming amount of work remaining, the opportunity to do something constructive — something generative — was powerful.

Obviously, this bathroom remodel is not significant in light of eternity but even in this simple, small, relatively inconsequential endeavor, I experienced life when I was doing something generative. It makes me want to explore more of what God may have for me in the context of the greater story.

I was created — each of us were created to be creative; To speak generatively into the destruction of this world. When we do, something resonates deep within us that evidences our relationship to the One who created each of us uniquely to shine our unique light into the darkness.

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Stephen Hawking in Space

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 21:34:41 -0500

Few people have done more to contribute to our modern understanding of the universe as Stephen Hawking. I thought I would share this video with you. It made me smile : )

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Bringing Light into Darkness: Creativity and the Meta Story — Part 2

Mon, 7 Jul 2008 10:07:28 -0500

Creation — Fall — Redemption — Re-creation
Link to Part 1
Every time we create something beautiful and introduce it into the void of this world — it points to Christ.
This was illustrated last October when my son Luke and I joined a team from our church on a mission trip to a “suburb” of Lima called Comas Peru. Comas is a desperately poor desert community (all of Lima is considered desert). The focus of our trip was the development of arts in the context of the church. I had been to Peru several times previous and it felt strange at the onset of the trip going there to do something other than to help with housing, clothing or feeding the millions of people there who struggle to meet those needs every day. It didn’t take long however, to see the value in what we were bringing.
Part of our trip was coordinating an art camp in which we partnered with a school that our church works with in Comas. Many of the kids who attended the camp were from extremely poor homes and many of them had never had the opportunity to play with any art supplies let alone be instructed what to do with them. Watching their faces throughout the week was an amazing portrait of the power of creation. At the beginning of the week their faces were sullen and skeptical. That quickly changed as they began to explore expression in the various media.
The highlight of my whole trip was the art exhibition that we held at the conclusion of the camp when the students displayed their work in the main hall of the school. Many of the students pulled me over to their section and eagerly showed me their work. Their smiles and excitement brought me to tears. Many of their teachers explained that they had never seen such life in these kids. One teacher went farther when she explained that it wasn’t “just life” but it was a deep joy and satisfaction. Then she said something (through the interpreter) that I will never forget. She said “It’s like they found their home.”
Why is that? What is that familiar feeling we get when we experience beauty?
Look at Genesis 1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
When I read these words in preparation for writing this entry, it occurred to me that I have seen this scene enacted (or should I say re-enacted) hundreds of times throughout my life. I have even directed productions that mimic it. Think about the last concert you went to - the lights go black, there is a moment of silence and then a faint note begins, maybe a familiar melody by a solo instrument (the spirit hovering over the waters) then a faint light pierces the darkness somewhere, anticipation builds, the crowd begins to stir maybe starts yelling, begging for what they know is coming — then it all erupts in to a furious-glorious explosion sound color and light - CREATION!
The first 2 lines of recorded history — The first thing we know that happened — was that God created into the void. He is God. He could have started the Bible with a nice comprehensive, autobiographical sketch about himself to help us us see why we should “listen up!” No, He wanted us to know FIRST that He brings light into darkness and form into void. He has created us to do the same. When move in that direction, when we introduce form into the void, we sense deep within ourselves that we are doing what we were meant to do. We are moving toward what we created to be, we are moving toward home.
Next we will look at how this theme resounds throughout the New Testament and Christ completes the work started in the garden.

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Artist of the week: Chris Jordan

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:39:08 -0500

Photographer Chris Jordan trains his eye on American consumption. His 2003-05 series "Intolerable Beauty" examines the hypnotic allure of the sheer amount of stuff we make and consume every day: cliffs of baled scrap, small cities of shipping containers, endless grids of mass-produced goods.
I don’t necessarily agree with all of his social commentary but I cannot argue with his bottom line - we can’t keep doing what we are doing and expect not to experience consequences.
His latest series of photographs, "Running the Numbers," gives dramatic life to statistics of US consumption. Often-heard factoids like "We use 2 million plastic bottles every 5 minutes" become a chilling sea of plastic that stretches beyond our horizon.

detail at print size

Check out his website chrisjordan.com (PG-13) for some chilling statistics in some penetrating representations. I applaud Jordan for an extraordinary effective method of bringing his issues to light.
"As you walk up close, you can see that the collective is only made up of lots and lots of individuals. There is no bad consumer over there somewhere who needs to be educated. There is no public out there who needs to change. It's each one of us."
Chris Jordan on Bill Moyers

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

The Gravity Surrounding Narcissism

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:15:40 -0500

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,  This other Eden, demi-paradise,  This fortress built by Nature for herself  Against infection and the hand of war,   William Shakespeare, "King Richard II"

This is my second installment examining narcissism in the church. I wrote the first introductory installment over two months ago.

So why am I writing about this? I am a recovering sycophant. A sycophant is a servile person who works hard - in his own self interest - to win favor one or more influential persons, often at the cost of his or her own personal pride, principles, and peer respect. It is related to “obsequiousness” but in some situations it can have a strong symbiotic relationship when (as is frequently the case) the dominant “idol” happens to be a narcissist who enjoys and feeds on the attention offered. He creates an idolatrous culture around him where his needs are met by the likes of me. So I am the simultaneous enabler and victim of a horrible system that I desire to bring to light.

This dynamic is particularly dangerous in the church because the aggressive, charismatic, narcissistic leader is often in a (or the) position of spiritual authority in the church. When that authority is exercised by a person obsessed with self, things can get real bad. When the disorder spreads to include an obsession with the acquisition and maintenance of control and power the results can be devastating.

People caught up in this storm elect to believe the lie that the narcissist is able to speak for God and their ability to discern God’s voice is not as keen accurate as the idol’s is. Followers may become content not to try to hear God’s voice at all, relying on the all-to-willing authority to discern for them. The indignity in this system is enormous. In this scenario God becomes a narrowly defined, judgement drenched ideologue ready at a moments notice to dispense with any number of well structured formulas through which to achieve life in godliness.

Over the course of the last few years I have begun to understand this disfunction and how it has influenced my own faith practice. I have been a flagrant idolater. I am working diligently to reconstruct my very damaged understanding of Christianity with Christ as the unfiltered focus.

Show me a modern, evangelical, mega-church and I will likely be able to show you a church built on a blatant or thinly veiled idolatrous system where individual dignity and relationship with Christ are sacrificed on the alter of control.

Okay, now I feel like a kid who just slid a lit firecracker under the teachers desk.

Stay tuned.

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Who Will Rule The New Internet?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:42:39 -0500

Take what man makes and use it, But do not worship it, For it shall pass.

Yesterday’s much anticipated announcement of a the new iPhone 3G by Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent shock waves through the world of technology. There is no doubt that this device will quickly frame how we relate in our culture. If you don’t understand how that can be then you are likely over 30 an don’t have a facebook page — yet. In fact, if you don’t have a facebook page don’t bother reading further and just go ahead and do it HERE. If you don’t know much about it you can read more HERE or HERE. Facebook is to now, what email was to 1999.

The following is an interesting article I just read in June 16 issue of Time Magazine. The article is by JOSH QUITTNER: and outlines how the internet Tech Trinity of Apple, Google and Facebook are positioning themselves for the future.

——————————

Take what man makes and use it, But do not worship it, For it shall pass.

An anonymous wit scratched those lines on the side of a junked car door and lugged it to a trail near my home in Northern California. The middle of a pristine, ancient redwood grove is the wrong place to find a rusted-out car door, but the words magically transformed the thing from an aggravating piece of junk into art. I Googled the quote as soon as I got home, of course, but found nothing. (Thanks to Google, we live in a world where "I don't know" has become an unacceptable response. So my inability to identify the author there is driving me crazy.)

My town is pretty close to Silicon Valley, and most of my neighbors make their living in technology, while I make mine writing about it. All of us, though, worship at the altar of bright and shiny things. These days, it's the impending launch of Apple's next-generation iPhone that has the faithful davening. If the whispers of pending miracles are to be believed, this new phone could end up becoming the next big "platform."

A platform, to computer people, is the software code on which third-party applications function. There are scores of big platforms out there—something like three dozen in the international mobile-phone business alone. But a truly successful one can extend far beyond its immediate group of users and effectively create and control an enormous market. In the computer industry, IBM dominated the first commercial platform with its expensive mainframes and operating systems, aimed at corporate users.

Seemingly overnight, IBM was supplanted by Microsoft and its Windows operating system as the PC revolution took hold. Windows, in turn, is now losing its power as the Web—owned by no one, accessible to all—becomes the dominant platform. (Yes, the Web is nothing more than a big layer of code; all those websites we visit are merely applications that sit atop it.)

Every major player in Techland wants to create the next great platform, of course. What's new here is that it's possible for any number of them to succeed. "Among the things that are different from the old status quo is the idea that one will win," says Marc Andreessen, who helped write the first widely adopted browser, Mosaic, which popularized the Web. The Internet is a much larger playing field than PC operating systems. "Trying to decide which will win," Andreessen adds, "is kind of like debating whether beef, chicken or lobster is going to win the market for food."

Still, for wonks like me, it's been riveting to watch three of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley—each representing a fundamental phase of the information era—battle it out. Apple, Google and Facebook are, respectively, an icon from the pioneering days of personal computers; the biggest, most profitable company yet born on the Web; and a feisty upstart whose name is synonymous with the current migration to social networks.
In many ways, these companies are technology's standard-bearers, though their guiding philosophies differ. Google, for instance, advocates an "open" Web and tends to push for open standards and alliances among developers.

Facebook, with its gated community of 70 million active users, offers a more controlled experience and, so far at least, wants to keep its users safely within its walls. Apple comes from the old world. Its elegant products cocoon customers from the chaos of the information age, but the Apple experience tends to be highly controlled, with Apple hardware at the end points and Apple software and services, like the iTunes Music Store, in between.

The winners of the platform wars stand to make billions selling devices, selling eyeballs to advertisers, selling services such as music, movies, even computer power on demand. Yet the outcome here is far more important than who makes the most money. The future of the Internet—how we get information, how we communicate with one another and, most important, who controls it—is at stake.

Why Facebook Opened Up The word platform reached buzzword status a year ago when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the start of a movement. "Social networks are closed platforms," Zuckerberg told a gathering of about 800 developers in San Francisco. "Today we're going to change all that."

You can watch the video of the speech, as I did, by Googling the name of the developers' conference, "F8." What made F8 significant, historic even, was that it was the first time the Facebook platform was thrown open to developers. Anyone who knew how to write applications for Facebook was invited in. Andreessen says an open-coding environment is key to any successful platform because the easier it is to use, the more developers will be drawn to it, making the platform that much more powerful. Facebook also gave developers free distribution. Users who want to add a new app can do so with one-click simplicity. All this, says Andreessen, who is rumored to be considering a seat on Facebook's board, has helped make Facebook compelling: "The point of being a platform is you can enable creativity on the part of thousands or millions of other people who you don't have to pay and who have ideas that you wouldn't have thought of."

That's precisely what has happened at Facebook during the past year. A kind of gold rush took hold as developer after developer started writing simple applications. As of June 1, some 24,000 programs—ranging from simple social gestures, like the ability to virtually poke a friend, to fully formed games like Scrabulous—were available to Facebook's users. Expect loads more. Facebook has given out its API keys—the code that developers need to access Facebook's platform—an astounding 400,000 times, many more than even Zuckerberg expected.

Zuckerberg, 24, is a hot ticket on the conference circuit, and when I spoke to him, he had just returned to Palo Alto, Calif., from a major tech-industry event near San Diego. There he had been grilled yet again on whether he'd sell Facebook to Microsoft, whose minority investment gave Facebook a $15 billion valuation. (Microsoft, which tried and failed to buy Yahoo!, could use a new platform itself.) Yet again Zuckerberg said no, he's not selling out—he's just trying to build a great and viable platform and that takes time.

Zuckerberg speaks in a steady, mellifluous tenor; he has a long neck and tends to point his chin upward, as if aiming the bell of a saxophone. "A lot of the last year in developing the platform has just been keeping up with the runaway success there," he says.

That's what happens when you create a successful platform: a virtuous circle blooms, with a mass of users attracting a horde of developers who build fun or useful stuff, which in turn pulls in even more users. Needless to say, there are some pretty worthless and annoying applications too. At Facebook, app writers' income is derived from advertising based on the number of people who install their programs, and a bunch have adapted in intrusive ways. Facebook has taken flak for applications like FunWall, which made it easy for users to accidentally spam their entire friend lists with e-mail invites to install FunWall. Zuckerberg says Facebook is tweaking its platform to help the most useful apps to spread while squelching the junk.

I ask Zuckerberg about the theory that closed, proprietary networks like Facebook could stifle the Net's innovative spirit. That idea is the subject of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, a new book by Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He argues that the rise of gated, closed communities like Facebook, the advent of the iPhone and even the seemingly innocuous standards-setting of Google could draw nerd talent away from the disruptive kind of innovation that occurred on the wild and woolly Net. Zuckerberg pauses for a minute to think, then says, "I generally agree with those principles and think that type of openness and portability is extremely important." Great platforms are often closed when they start and open up only as they mature and can handle the load. He adds, "We're kind of leaving that initial phase now and moving to a more open phase."

In fact, last month Zuckerberg announced Facebook Connect, which would allow users to take their contact lists with them to websites that add a snippet of code. Over time, it will be possible for, say, a blog owner to embed a Facebook-style "wall" on his or her site, which would allow one to read only the comments scrawled there by friends. It's a very cool idea. Facebook everywhere! But there's only one problem. A few days after Facebook Connect was announced, Google launched a nearly identical plan called ... Friend Connect. And if there's anything that could slow Facebook's frantic pace, it's Google.

Google Tries to Connect The first phase of the web's growth was all about putting information online and giving people a way to find and connect to it. The second and current phase is all about connecting people to one another."Social is the new black," says Joe Kraus, who oversees Google's efforts to build out a social layer that runs across the entire Web. In this, as in all things that Google does, Kraus' strategy has been to create an alliance of social networks that will use open standards rather than Facebook's proprietary network and coding language, so that developers can spread their applications.

"Google has relied on an open Internet to make its entire business," he tells me. "It has a genetic predisposition for openness." That's partly because Google's core business, search, depends on openness. Google can't find the things you want on the Web—documents, music, images and so on—unless they are open and accessible, Kraus says. The richest Internet company on the Fortune 500 (it's ranked 150, with $16.5 billion in revenue), Google has a business plan that depends on the Web being used by as many people as possible. That's why the company spends so much time and energy building new applications that make the Web more useful or fun.

Social networks are a threat to that business; users tend to stay within their network and communicate among themselves or simply fool around with apps. When Facebook's users are playing Scrabulous or tagging photos, for example, they're not using Google. Indeed, they're more likely to discover new things via friends or in-network applications such as iLike, a service that matches your friends' musical tastes to your own.

So Google retaliated last November with OpenSocial, an alliance of Facebook's competitors—MySpace, hi5 and Google's own social network, Orkut, among others—to try to create a write-once, run-anywhere application platform. That means a developer, with only modest tweaking, can build an application that runs across all the major social networks except, of course, Facebook. "When you talk to developers, most of them don't have 50 people; they can't write their applications 50 different ways," Kraus says. "They really want to write their application once and get as much distribution as possible."

He definitely has a point. But I wonder if Google is too late—and old—for the social-networking party. "Google recognizes it needs to become more people-oriented, but it needs to add that to its existing platform. It's not at all native," says my neighbor, Seth Goldstein, who runs SocialMedia, an advertising network for social networks. "Facebook was designed from the ground up to render these complex and nuanced social relationships."

Why the iPhone Matters Apple's calculus is much simpler: it doesn't matter who prevails online—Facebook, Google, both or someone else. Steve Jobs simply wants to ensure that you use his devices to get there.

To that end, the new iPhone, which is expected to be announced on June 9, is "hugely significant," says Andreessen, who now presides over a company, Ning, that allows anyone to build his or her own social network. "The iPhone, a lot of people around here believe—and I think this is true—is the first real, fully formed computer that you can put in your hand," he says. "It has all the requirements it needs to be a viable platform."

Matt Murphy—a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers who oversees the $100 million iFund to seed start-ups that build great iPhone apps—goes even further. He claims that the iPhone will "absolutely be the driver of the post-PC world." Murphy points out that the kit needed by developers to build iPhone apps has been downloaded more than 200,000 times, and he estimates that about 1,000 applications will be available to consumers when the iPhone-apps store launches with the phone. "If you look at so many of the constraints that have held back the mobile ecosystem, Apple basically takes all of those away and provides an open platform, a great device and a user base that's rabid for these new kinds of applications," he says.

Jobs' great skill has always been integrating cutting-edge technology and making it accessible. Flat-panel monitors, moviemaking software, wi-fi, digital-music players, touch-sensitive screens—these have all been out there over the past decade or so in ragged and unpolished ways. His genius was finding and repackaging them, making the technology work to delight the masses. Similarly, Apple's iPhone 2.0 will popularize "geo-location"—think of the satellite-based navigation systems in many cars—as a way for people to communicate wherever they are.

Yet again, Google, which is fighting the platform wars on multiple fronts, could be Apple's stiffest competition. It is leading another coalition to build an open-operating system called Android that will work in the next generation of cell phones as well as other consumer devices. The Open Handset Alliance has 34 members—mobile-phone carriers as well as handset makers, including Motorola, LG Electronics, Samsung, China Mobile, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. Though Google ceo Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board of directors and Jobs saluted Google as a partner whose apps were on the iPhone, Apple is notably not in the alliance.

This appears to be a case of—in Valleyspeak—"frenemies," companies that work together in some businesses while competing in others.
The first Android-powered phones will arrive, Google says, in the second half of the year, possibly around the same time as the new iPhone. At a recent Google developers' conference, the company showed off, for the first time, a generic cell phone running the operating system. Touch sensitive, with an onboard, motion-sensing accelerometer that can also place a user precisely on a Google satellite map, the device resembles nothing so much as an iPhone. Android, explains Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms, is an open platform for developers la Facebook; the code is theirs to modify. He says developers have so far written more than 1,800 applications, which could be distributed on a Google site arranged according to popularity, as YouTube is. "There's some pretty innovative stuff there," Rubin explains. "This is merging the handset and the Web and coming up with something completely new."

To spark development, Google held a competition that will ultimately seed 10 application developers with $275,000 for the best apps. Robert Lam, whose Eco2go was named last month as one of the 50 finalists for the top prizes, says he decided to develop his application, which helps users compute and reduce their carbon footprints, for the Android platform rather than the iPhone because it's so much easier. Developing for the iPhone "would have cost us an annual fee to list our application, and we would have to share 30% of our revenue with Apple as well," Lam says. That said, Lam is already looking into porting the app over to the iPhone after Eco2go is established. The iPhone could end up being enormously popular, and at this stage of the game there's no sense in foreclosing options.

I agree. Like him, I'm rooting for everyone in this war because it sounds as if—the concerns of Harvard's Zittrain notwithstanding—we all win here. Andreessen is right when he says the Web is so vast that it defies attempts to control it. With Google riding shotgun, it strikes me as unlikely that Facebook or anyone else can pull too far ahead. Also, I believe Zuckerberg when he says Facebook will continue to open over time. It's the smart move, and he's a smart cookie. Finally, I want to get my hands on the new iPhone. Its time will come and go. But for now? Great technology, today as always, renders us as gods.

RELATED TIME ARTICLES

The Future of Facebook
In his first interview with TIME, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat down with reporter Laura Locke to...
Google Wants to Facebook Friend You
Thanks to a new Google project, soon any website can be its own Facebook. Related Articles G...
Google’s Art of War — With Facebook
I don’t know anything about art, but I know a little about Google. And I Googled this: Jeff Koons . ...
Suffering From Facebook Fatigue?
It started innocently enough: last month a friend sent me a virtual lily plant on Facebook and invit..

Back to top Creating Culture Archive

Creativity and the Meta Story — Part 1

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 16:12:08 -0500

Creation — Fall — Redemption — Re-creation
Over the last several months in our church we have been frequently encouraged to view life and God’s Word in the context of the Meta Story — The story God has been about since the beginning. So I decided to explore some thoughts about creativity and culture in light of this and I though I would share them with you.
I want to start by telling you a story that I think highlights the plight of man in this world, then we will look at the story in light of the greater story; God’s story and we will examine God’s Word to look at some of the issues that are raised and it is my hope that that examination will lead us all to an understanding of why we were created and what it is that each of us has the opportunity to create.
So now for the story: a very brief biography of Van Gogh:
In 1853 Vincent van Gogh is born in Holland, the son of Theodorus van Gogh - A Dutch Reformed Pastor. His birthday is one year to the day after his mother gave birth to a first child, a stillborn son — also named Vincent.
Vincent's brother, Theo, is born when Vincent is four years old. At 9, Vincent attempts his first drawings.
At the age of 16 he becomes an art dealer apprentice. He spends a good deal of time with his brother, Theo. At 20 Vincent experiences his First love, Caroline— His feelings are unreciprocated. By the time he is 22 he is devoting an extraordinary amount of time to Bible studies and by the age of 23, he has fully committed his life to Christ and decides he wants to be a minister. He sits at his desk night after night and copies page after page translating verses from his native toung into English, German and French. He writes “I read the Bible daily but I should like to know it by heart and view life in light of its words”.
Enter Vincent's CRUCIBLE
He attempts to go to the equivalent of seminary but stumbles with the original languages and frustrated, he quits. He would later describe this period as the worst time of his life. He is now 25.
Determined to serve God the only real way he had ever known, he convinces the church to allow him to pastor parish in the coal-mining district in Belgium. A terribly cold distant undesirable area abandoned by all those except those sentenced to eek out their existence mining or supporting those who pulled coal out of the earth.
Vincent is not a gifted preacher, but he loves the people he gives them his clothes, his food and his money. His religious enthusiasm and drive to help the impoverished miners eventually attracts the attention of his superiors who feel that Vincent's behavior is too extreme so they fire him. This leads to a deep depression.
From what we can tell at this point, he is largely without constructive input. His 27th year hosts an unfortunate turning point in Vincent's life. He abandons his religious pursuits and devotes himself exclusively to painting. Theo begins to financially support Vincent, which is a situation that would continue until the end of Vincent's life. He experienced a series of failed love relationships one of which was with a prostitute; his relationship with his Father begins to crumble and then later in that year his father dies.
At the age of 32 he paints what many consider to be his first great work, The Potato Eaters. About this time he attempts to go to art school but it is a disaster and he leaves in a frustrated, misunderstood huff. His life and mental state fluctuates wildly over the next four years yet he is super prolific in his work. His brother Theo invites Vincent to come live with him and Vincent agrees. During this time Theo introduces him to the works of impressionists Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas and Seurat. Their work has a profound influence on Vincent.
During this time he becomes friends with painter, Paul Gauguin, It is a turbulent relationship that would later prove to be another turning point in Vincent's (and Gauguin's) life. He is now 34. He dreams of setting up an artist community with Gauguin and he invites him to do so. Gauguin agrees to join him. It proves to be a tense and often turbulent relationship and eight months after they began working together, Vincent attacks Gauguin with a razor.
Fortunately, van Gogh’s attack fails but Immediately after the debacle, in the story we all know, Vincent loses all reason and cuts off his left earlobe. He then wraps it in newspaper and presents it to a prostitute at the local brothel he frequented. He is subsequently institutionalized and shortly afterward Theo arrives from Paris to make arrangements for Vincent's care.
Throughout this time in his letters van Gogh often writes about his struggle with understanding his purpose in this world and his relationship with the Creator. The year is now 1889. Vincent's mental state steadily deteriorates throughout the course of the year, But his work is finally beginning to receive recognition in the art community. The year concludes with one of his worst attacks, in which he tries to poison himself, and he is once more incapacitated.
On July 27 1890 Vincent goes for a walk on one of his favorite paths and shoots himself in the chest with a pistol. He manages to stagger home late in the evening, but tells no one of his condition. He is eventually found, a doctor is summoned but the bullet cannot be removed. Theo joins him at his bedside. Vincent's last hours are much like the last two years of his life —varying from complete mental anguish to seeming contentment. He dies, with his head carefully cradled in the arms of his faithful brother.
He was only 36 years old.
We have nearly 900 of his letters, over 2000 paintings, and a bunch of unanswered questions — most of mine start with “Why?” or “What if?”
A little more than a year before he died Vincent wrote this in a letter to his sister Wilomina:
“As for me, I am rather often uneasy in my mind, because I think my life has not been calm enough; all those bitter disappointments, adversities and changes keep me from developing fully and naturally in my artistic career.”
I need to tell you that when I first read this letter and ran across this quote I ached inside I ached because I could relate to van Gogh. I am very familiar with the effects of the fall—
• I enjoy building things, I noticed a couple days ago when I put a piece of wood up on my chop saw to cut it that I could not see the intersection of the saw blade and my measure line like I could a a couple of months ago.
• Every time my 9 year old daughter Lauren plays in our yard she gets bit by chiggers.
• My Dad just got handed a cancer diagnosis.
• Our community is grieving with Stephen Curtis Chapman and his family over the loss of his youngest daughter who was killed when his son accidently backed into her in their driveway.
• Depleting oil reserves and increasing shortages are severely threatening our economy.
• Over 90,000 people are dead or missing after the earthquake in China.
I am well aquatinted with the Fall. It is everywhere and I am reminded of it every day. So when I hear van Gogh lamenting:
“those bitter disappointments, adversities and changes that are keeping him from developing fully and naturally” I can understand it...That is where I live and I am guessing that is where you live too.
But what if?
What if when van Gogh was in his 20’s and his heart was awakening to the grace of God through Christ... what if someone had come alongside him and explained how to reconcile his amazing giftedness as a painter and an artist with the needs of the world he so strongly desired to answer and the love for Christ he found in his heart? What if someone showed him how his painting could bring hope and life amid death and despair? What treasures would he have brought to our culture?
We will explore that question and it’s relevance to each of our lives in coming days.

— John Farkas

Back to top Creating Culture Archive