Paris: The World of the Beautifully Complex

We all have moments when things take our breath away. Or perhaps slowly something will overtake our emotions as the brevity and the beauty or the history of something settles in.  I felt it the first time i thought I was in love. The first time I saw the Rocky Mountains, caught a trout on a fly I had tied. First time I heard a live orchestra, broadway production,  or held my children, or lay on the dirt and stared at a billion stars on a moonless night. The list goes on and on for everyone differently. And again, as I took this picture of Mona Lisa above, it was another of those moments.

So i've traveled a bit of Europe, Asia, entertained a summer in Germany at a 4 star, but I've never done Paris.., till this week.
As an american, i've always felt (because of what I've read and seen) that the French are arrogant, snobby and terrible to travel around...  unless you speak French.  Like this unknown French painter of a rich aristocrat with attitude, you get the feeling you're being laughed at as "less than French", and well, ok, this all may be true.  But then, with just a few words of French spoken, most will open up and speak English enough to help you leave their presence and that's ok with me, i'm a visitor..

  Considering America now prides itself in trying to help anyone who doesn't speak our language, and most our global neighbors are generally "not" French in their desire to try to help you, much of my first statement is actually true in my experience. But, it's no reason to run from beauty, and a visit doesn't mean we have to become best friends.. There is much to enjoy in Paris while enduring the Parisian.

Now look at these legs in this picture below. The stockings and robe and shoes. Not especially attractive legs mind you,  but well adorned to be sure.  Why the French are so fashion conscious, I've yet to figure out, but, I have figured out that at best, they have a rich "history" there to be viewed and enjoyed.

Most would say,  Louis the XIV was a clinical narcissist.
Yes, Germany had King Ludwig to create Neuschwanstein and a few other castles, but Louis?  This mix of Brian May hair and RuePaul flair, had the wealth to build his vision of style. I mean you gotta be pretty secure to let yourself be painted in those shoes and stockings, pulling your robe up like a Can Can dancer to show your legs..  The buildings, designs and decorations he assembled during his time,  are simply the most beautifully feminine of all time. No wonder it remains copied in so many ways still today.
I mean Hennessy named it's top XO cognac and bottle  "Louis the XIII". 

In the Louvre I found one of Louis' early bottles that was the precursor of the most expensive Cognac in the world today for public sale. Louis' Black Pearl at $27,000. a 750ml .  And hey, when your bottles empty, you can ship it back to France and get it refilled for a discount... Now does it seem a bit funny to anyone else  that if you can afford a $27,000. bottle of Cognac, you would need a discount for a refill?

 Really?  That's like selling a million dollar Ferrari with free oil changes for a year. Laugh with me please.

  Back to Paris now.

 I remember my wife walking me up from the underground train. Telling me not to look up until I turned a corner and then,  Volia' there was the Eiffel Tower as I opened my eyes.   Cue the Mancini theme from "Charades" with Carry Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Stand motionless for a moment now. Inhale slowly and hold it for 20 seconds. Now exhale. You've just experienced another one of those moments that won't ever happen again.

This is life. Only a memory, with photos to help you remember..   And it's fleeting, and really, the beauty is for that moment only.   And so, it's to be shared, so that others can hopefully go have their own "moment". 

 Like love, you wish for everyone you know to experience it.

Like faith, you pray for everyone to embrace it.
Like hope, you have to just keep believing the best.

For beauty is such a relevant thing. And what each mortal finds beautiful, is so uniquely different.
Our five senses are affected in combinations that can only be understood by God and hopefully each of us as we grow.  From a visual sense, the Louvre, the d'Orsay & Orangerie museums give you a chance to see art in a way you just can't see in the same way or depth anywhere else in the world, period..

If you've not really had the chance to see famous original art - but only photos, I'd say you must plan a trip to do so just once.  The size of paintings is so deceptive in books and the brush strokes on real canvas changes the total feel like live music is to recordings..
There are so many paintings that are 20, 30 40 feet tall and 50, 60 feet wide. You see the photos without the frames or people for reference and you just have no idea how large they are.

This fantastic painting of a woman doing what women have always done "knock it off boys", is so detailed for such a large painting. You can sit for long periods and stare and study if you had time This painting is over 20ft. tall.....

Now Renoir has been a favorite painter of Jane and I's forever. His studies of his two daughters have been printed as much or more than any other painters in time. Such feminine and soft strokes and colors. His daughters were not really beautiful in many paintings of head shots, but his paintings of the two of them in fields and at the piano and in the gardens have been hung in thousands of  homes.  We have a canvas oil copy of "girls in the field" above the piano in our home in a hundred year old swedish built gold frame. An antique frame that used to be a knick knack two shelfed boxed frame with a glass back in my house growing up.  A frame that fell and broke the box and glass and was put in an attic.  Well, 30 years ago, I found it and asked if I could have it restored. It had gold spray paint on it.  The restoration society in Nashville called me and said under the paint was 24k gold leafing and a very old mahogany solid frame.  They suggested I blow the wad and have it stripped of the paint and hand brush reapply another coat of 24k leaf on it again.  Yea, well those were the days when I thought money was just for fun, so the frame was re-guilded and no one really knows the difference but me..  Now my  my mother in law, she has had the Renoir  "girls at the piano" painting above the piano in her house all these years as well.  And so our children will live on with an unknowing love for Renoir... This is how we pass it on unknowingly.

 

Most of the marble sculptures in Paris are of body studies or famous people of the day.  Some massively large and others to scale.  Circumcision was not sculpted,  but in some cherubs. Personally, marble sculpture is on the top of the art list for me.  It has no place for sex or erotica.  If that were it's purpose they could have sculpted many an orgy or position in play,  like the chinese had done in their ancient etchings and carvings. No my friends, nude individual bodies are meant to be stared at for all their beauty. Male and Female alike.  If that turns you on then you best stay away from the internet. If that makes you uneasy, you best go stand in the mirror naked with the morning light shining in and look at the unique beauty of you, until you can find beauty in it. Age will change it at certain angles :) but the beauty of form always remains. Stand tall, walk proud, God made you specially... you :) And if you're out of shape.. well, that's 90% of us so hopefully it will inspire us to take better care of what God made in the first place.  Guilty as charged..

Now next blog I'll talk about whatever came up on the ...

I began today with the picture of the Mona Lisa I took. I'll end today with another of the Mona Lisa.

Well, here you have it. This is really what you have to deal with 24/7 when trying to make your way to see the most famous painting in the world..

C'est La Vie

What Art Is Holy... (Good Fruit / Bad Fruit)

Have I said how thankful I am for the Internet in spite of people using it for ill gain, or falling/jumping into painful addictions online.
Well, I tripped over a Russian born artist yesterday and landed on my knees with a prayer of thanksgiving. Why are we attracted to some things and not others. I'll pass on 1,000 videos of race cars and deer stands or sports bloopers but watch 10 of an artist or musician.

  Growing up, I'd visit galleries and wonder how certain looks and styles were painted. My father was an artist, but having to work on commercial art to make a living, I never was blessed to watch him create art in multiple mediums. After his death we found multiple hidden art cases destroyed with black mold that contained art from his youth he'd painted but didn't want to display to himself or us for only reasons I could guess. "it was to painful to see his passions never realized".  Here's one of my fathers pastels that was saved from circa 1950. I cut black mold off of the corner but the face was salvageable. Did your parents have passions never realized?  Do you ? 

Like many of you who loved art growing up, when cartoons were over and black and white movie hours began,  I turned to PBS on Saturday mornings to see... art?   Now unlike cooking by Julia; which taught me early that drinking wine, or brandy, Grand M. or Pernot, or or..  while cooking is not only acceptable but comical albeit dangerous for amatures. Well in art, on our 5 channels of TV,   there were just a few paint by numbers wacko painters doing velvet elvis style art with drone voices and a pallet knife. Flailing a million palate knife pine trees with a white fan brush to follow for light or the blot blot circle brushes whirling out bad Monet-ish textures.

Now my wife and I have had the privilege over the decades to spend many days walking through European galleries. I'm sure close to 10,000 paintings easily. With that said, I still have a few etched in my head to this day.  99.9 percent I could go view again and say "oh yes, I remember  that.  But without seeing it again... no memory.  Ah yes, arn't the sorting of memories what make life marvelous or misery..

There was the basement of a Catholic Church in a small town in Europe. 5 floors down in a dark and musty room with a single light bulb swinging was this painting of "the good samaritan". No cameras were allowed in this church and I can only imagine in 400years how few people have ever seen this painting. It was painted on a wall and was perhaps 7ft wide..

 I felt led: (a spiritual justification to disobey rules)  to hold my Nikon against a wooden pole on time exposure to get this photo in this dark room when the few people coming through had left the room. I've spent hours studying this painting over the years.  It's a treasure.  The 1800's U.S. western style sky with the donkey. The wealthy (righteous man) walking by without helping. Sidebar: I'm at a loss how taking photos of art to expose it to the world is bad? But that's another issue.  And so I'm back to Vladimir Volegov (who I do not know personally) and how I see his art today as so very God inspired regardless of what Vladamir believes..

Vladimir's oils have this soft innocent beauty to them.  Another example of, "regardless of your beliefs or faith, what is inside of us is what comes out of us  in our lives and art.  And our faiths can not be a blind excuse or justification for good or bad outcomes or quality in our actions and lives".  
God has instilled gifts/seeds  in every persons life that naturally produce good fruit if discovered and allowed to grow.  I believe we then take the credit for what's given supernaturally, and we then perhaps give that credit back to whatever god form we are linked to (or not).    

In my faith, i've come to realize that there are so many gifted people who live outside of my beliefs in God and His plan for mankind in redemption through a cross. How do I reconcile their gifts as holy if my faith says they are not redeemed? Can I call this art God inspired? Can I call it worshipful if the artist is not redeemed according to the thoughts of so many teachers in the history of my faith?   

Yes I can. Oh yes I can and I do and I will.  For  God's children whether redeemed by the cross or not are still His children whether they accept Him under my understanding of Him or not.  No, I am not making a judgement either way about salvation or eternity here. Only God has that job, and His living word (as I believe it) will be finalized by our own choices and actions individually.  I only hope that my life might be some example on some days of a life redeemed through the cross of Christ instead of a selfish, narcissistic aging artist.   Can Christ teachings redeem my life enough daily to make it a life that is loving enough to make another man say "I want to be like that, I want that love".  Outside of shedding that love; His love each day, I have no claim or judgement on anything or anyone except by my own life example (which is certainly fallen).  

My faith, my ashes into beauty, my paintings, songs, writings and words are my creations and like Vladimir, an expression of my giftings to the world.  And to be sure, I believe God will judge them differently than men. 

I always relate God to our earthly fathers. If you had two sons and one was a natural athlete and one was handicapped. If you went to watch both play in a football game, which one would you be rooting for more? Even though you love them the same..  Of course the one without natural abilities who is trying his best regardless of failure.  Come on, you can do it, atta boy, atta girl, I love you, you're the best. 

Friends, God is rooting for us, each broken and blessed soul. I believe the gifts He bestows on each of us are part of our journey to find Him. To come home and say thank you dad. To learn to dialogue and ask Him questions where we are capable of understanding His answers. 

And then there are those days where I stumble over a Vladimir. And his beauty and incite to have a team that films and edits his multi tool methods of painting in new media for all to see and be inspired. To inspire new young artists in this process. 

  And although I'd tell you i'm concerned about what Vladimir believes as it relates to his eternity. I'm sure he may feel the same about me and both of us about the world.  Yet I see the beauty of God in his work and art and I thank God for His gifts manifest in Vladimir. To God be the glory for the things He has done.  Some may want to judge the fruit by the type of tree, I'd prefer to judge the fruit by how it affects my 5 senses. I may see a Large Mouth Bass under lilly pads in my sleep, but I now can imagine the beauty of this Water Lilly painting as well. Always good to have options:)

Good fruit Vlad, Good fruit!  

How do you enjoy and relate and share art based upon what you've been taught? I look forward to your thoughts.

Till next time..
Craigt

I Can't Wash This Off Of Me.

Sanitized faith, sanitized love,

Isolated by the walls that we build

And then i heard your voice

paint words on my heart

Now i can't wash this off of me

Feed the poor,

heal the broken hearted

Those without a father,

need a fathers love.

Feed the poor, heal the broken hearted

and I can't wash this off of me

© C. Olson 2014

4AM is a normal wake up call when you're involved in Sunday corporate worship. Having taken over a year off now from full time ministry, I still seem to wake up often on a Sunday morning at that same time. Half asleep, I see all the faces of all those people I love and led around the country. I think of them and pray for their families and for whomever is leading them now. 

One morning my wife was away and I was awakened at 4 during a blizzard of "way below zero". I felt led to get up and go attend a small (under 50) koinania group that I had filled in at a few times. All volunteers, no real pastor, worship is very unorganized and difficult to enter in with and yet, I love this little group of "jesus people" who want to do church like the first few chapters of Acts. 

That morning the main worship people were gone and it was a couple college age girls trying brutally to read their way through some new charts on the spot. The lead men who usually speak or have a word had invited some guy from a mission and he was pitching his 'give to the poor' canned speech.  

I'm sitting there praying "really Lord, this is what you woke me up for in a blizzard?" Sheesh. 

Then this 501c3 mission guy moves away from his canned speech and says "I took my first mission trip in the year of bla bla bla and i came home to the US and I just couldn't wash the smell of the slum villages off of me". And those words went into Echo mode in my sou

Ka-ching.. Like Shakespeare quoted in a fishing book... One line went past me and that line set the hook deep.

Out came my pen and paper and voila' my pen was empty.. Sheesh.

Out came my Iphone and I began writing the short song above.

When mission man was done speaking the group leader who was also the Aco.guitar player guy got up to close. As he walked by me he looked me in the eyes and said "have something to share?" I said "Yes, 5 chords, I'll pick a key when I get at your piano". 

And I found the key and I lay down my IPhone on the piano to read those lyrics. To play this new song for this missionary and that moment with this Ekklesia. 

After it was over, people wondered where the song came from and how appropriate and moving. Missionary man was praying through this offering time and thought it was a record being played. He asked If he could get a copy.  When I explained to all of them the song was 10min old and only written down as typed lyrics on an IPhone at that point, there were all these "deer in the headlight looks" like, you're joking right? 

Now I tell this story because I want you to know that this is an anomaly in church and it should be the norm. The Acts 2:42-47 Ekklesia. There should not be "deer in the headlight looks" when someone has a "word, a song, an exhortation, a prayer" something hopefully led of the spirit of God. 

If I had not been obedient to get out of bed and drive to this little place, then, I would not have been inspired to write this chorus. Yet, If my brother had not been open to Gods Spirit, (the Holy Spirit) to ask me "do you have something to say", All would have been in vain that morning and Jesus would have been echoing my earlier sentiments "sheesh".

 If my new friend had been afraid of "what will men think, or the elders? What is this guy gonna say? Is he gonna get us all in trouble? Will this take 20min?, Will we lose our best supporters if this guy is some flake I've just let up here? Will i get fired? Will he break the equipment? (Fear can be the greatest enemy to breakthrough).

Come on now, that could have been you or me thinkin that. It's natural. There of course has to be order. And yes, the tighter we make it and keep it, the less chance of "ooops".. Yes that's true.

But if you grew up in the Jesus movement, you know that that's also where most  all the "ahhhhh's " came from. It came in the stepping out, in the awkward and uncomfortable. In the "if I do this I'm an idiot Jesus" moments when they became our greatest stories of faith. "hey tap your stick on the ground old man". Can you imagine the chance for "fear" to silence you  being an old testament prophet and knowing the consequences of failure? Sheesh.

Like hearing Beth Moore last week tell the story of hearing the Holy Spirit tell her to go brush the long matted hair of a 100yr old man in a wheelchair in a packed airport and who was really blessed in the end?  Or an old friend of mine who just drives around at times praying and asking God to direct his turns until he's at someones house or business and he then goes and blesses them with something which always turns into a conversation that is Grace Filled with a miracle ending.

Nutty? at times, a resounding yes. And where do we draw the line on "Jesus told me to". When do we begin to look like snake handlers and poison drinkers? And should everybody do what everyone else was told to do? NOT...

Where do we exercise the gifts of and from God, and when is it appropriate and is it ok to fail? 

So many good questions and I have only opinions of what I think the Word says as i weigh all the teaching and read of others thoughts on various subjects against my own study.

For I remember once a well known songwriter/artist/worship leader singing to hundreds of worship writers from 30 or 40 denominations. And he had a "word" from the holy spirit for this group. And he could have said "thus saith the Lord" and 1/2 the group would have left the building.  But he said (as he was playing his instrument) let's pray. bla bla bla.. .and if Jesus were here this morning I really believe He would say this to us".. And he then gave that incredibly powerful "word" and it dropped everyone, and people were on the floor. He was obedient to turn from fear and share what he felt was truly coming from the Holy Spirit. And, he had the wisdom to know how to couch it and deliver it. Wow, there it was. Wisdom without man made fear. What an overlooked word today. Wisdom usually means old and boring and fear usually means a horror movie. And again I repeat for the 100'th time in blog form "It's never what you say, It's always what they hear".

So if you're in a small group, or a life group, or a bible study or a prayer group where people can be open and have the chance to fail and grow together, then, I exhort you to pray. 

Pray for Gods Holy Spirit to give you knowledge and wisdom about the gifts that abide in you. Gifts that He can and wants to use for the sake of others, if, you'll be obedient to His voice and timing. And when you fail, (and you will), just be humble and be correctable and learn as you try to be His hands and feet each day. Hey that's what the whole "pay it forward" thing really is. It's just stepping out and exercising the gift of giving. And if that's not one of your gifts, I'm sure you won't do it more than once or twice. 

In a world of bad news, more than ever we need to deliver "good news" in an honest and humble manner, esteeming others over ourselves. And gosh I say the sentence above and I see this face once more. I see this face in a world of televangelism and slick ads campaigns as one that remains relevant, uncompromising to new generations. I see this face as unconditional love in action. 

And how was she "paid". What was her reward. How rich was she. How many lives did she affect out of love.

Sanitized faith, sanitized love,

Isolated by the walls that we build

And then i heard your voice

paint words on my heart

Now i can't wash this off of me

Feed the poor,

heal the broken hearted

Those without a father,

need a fathers love.

Feed the poor, heal the broken hearted

and I can't wash this off of me

 Sheesh... I'm humbled again and I can't wash this off of me.

Black and White.. in a snowy land.

Watching "North Star, Mn Black Pioneers". on TPTL cable 13 this morning as part of my morning worship service. Better than most the sermons I can see on Cable, this humble sermon on the lives of incredible life stories of Blacks and their journeys to MN in 1800's from the South to TwinCities, Fergus Falls, Hallak, Harstad, up the Mississippi was humbling. It also made me think of my European Grand Parents and thier difficult journeys to find hope and chance for a freedom and a new life in Amercia and it's growing and changing democracy.

From all the firsts for Blacks in MN. Inventors, Dr,'s Lawyers and so much more this docu. is richly spoken by the incredible and humble articulate children and grandchildren of many famous Americans from MN.  Yet, the learning today of the horrible lynching of the three black teens in Duluth in the 20's, with a photo of the lynching selling for 5cents afterwards just wounded my heart.   Without TV and much radio, who indoctrinated this kind of hatred and fear to a small port town?  It was PARENTS who did or at least allowed it willingly or unwillingly.  Both were not acceptable.  And like the post war Germans, we better face all of our past  head on with our children and grandchildren or we will repeat . Duluth has made an effort. Has it made a difference?  Have evil hearts been changed,or have only new generations been educated differently?

 The photo was a mob of whites in glee in 1920 Duluth.
All I could think of when seeing this was the video's of the modern day muslim beheading in the Mideast and the glee in the faces of those same hate filled peoples, thinking their acts of self righteous hate (as they held heads of innocent people or mutilated or murdered women) captured in film like this.

Never thought this kind of hate was that close to home... in Duluth? And less than 100 years ago.

What we are taught by our parents, is what our neighborhoods and nation will become. There just is no place for racism or radical religious views to grow. Not even in a democracy...  And by radical, I mean this exactly, "the 1,6million radicalized muslims in the world who have no problem killing your children, you, or I. If given the chance for religious power and control, they would not think twice" .

That's not the religious right wing of the conservative party or churches of Christian faith."  That's not peace loving Buddists and Hindi's.  That's radicalized Muslim teaching in their "churches" and religious schools", and here in America and around the free world,  we just let it continue as "what can ya do?"  How do you separate peace loving religious peoples from radicals. Can you re-educate people indoctrinated with this kind of base hatred against each other around the world and here?  We have freedom of speech and religion, but when does it cross the line?  If churches say "death to  x-group if they don't accept Jesus" or organizations teach "death to group-x if they don't change?

  Can all the radical muslim groups world wide be changed?  Will they ever give up on their goal of Sharia? of death to infidels beginning with Israel? Are they lost generations, and our only hope is to find ways to re-educate their children and ours into a different and more peaceful world?
If you watch this inspiring docu. , think about those questions in the light of loving people seeking freedom contrasted by the Duluth based bigotry of an ignorant people. See how it has now changed almost 100 years later up there.  This photo (impossible to remain silent), is of those 3 young men being remembered in Duluth to keep it from happening again, and to educate new generations.  Is there hope for hate groups with murder as the solution?   For those who follow Christ and his teachings, I'd say yes. (political crusades aside from Euro history).  For those who follow many peaceful religions Id say yes. For those who follow sharia and or segregationist, superior, supremacy or (money over all) life views.... I say, not a chance for all, but only a few souls willing to get past radical and ignorant hate.

Tell me what you think of this, if you take the actual time to watch it.. Treat it like a sermon and just force yourself to sit in the pew. With the exception of Duluth... It will inspire you to see the good in people and surly recognize when culture has poisoned the rest. Hate has a face that is very recognizable. In any color or language..
HERE IS THE MOVIE