i don't have 30 minutes

Due to lack of planning, I'm not going to be able to spend a full thirty minutes typing here, not if I want to be ready in time to go on at 8:00 tonight. Still have to shower, make sure I have everything I need and, if there's time, grab something to eat. I could come home after the show, but had planned on walking down to the Southgate House to catch the Pop Empire show. We'll see how I feel after I'm done playing Bob.

ArtWalk was great today. Great group of people, great exhibits, great discussion afterwards. Definitely needed it. In the time I have left, I'm going to transcribe the thoughts I scribbled down while I was there. The lectionary passage for the day was Mark 2:23-3:-6, which is where the opening thoughts come from. I spent all my time in half of the new photography exhibit, Starburst, a retrospective of '70s color photos. I've had some other thoughts since then, especially after our discussion, which I'll post whenever I make it home. Or tomorrow.

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Lawful. What does that mean? Full of law? Fitting within prescribed boundaries? Black/White. Right/Wrong. The Pharisees were all bout the law. And loved to point out when others weren't following the rule of law. they used it as a weapon, to discredit those they disagreed with. They, to use a cliche, weren't interested in the spirit of the law, why the law was there in the first place. Their interest was in the letter of the law, in adhering to whatever the law says. Even if that meant the death of another.

Enter Jesus and His disciples, breaking the law, doing what is not lawful. And the Pharisees jump to point it out. How dare you break the law! And you call yourself a teacher, a leader. Look how you lead others astray! Jesus doesn't argue with them, doesn't say, well, it should be legal. He points to what lies behind the law.

This isn't a casual dismissal of all law, a call to anarchy and licentiousness, to only abide by those laws you feel are important. It is a call to look beyond the surface of the law, to see the depth behind it, the story it points to. Not nearly as simple as following the rules, but closer to what the Maker of Rules had in mind.

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When I was young, my parents kept most of our photos, not in an album, but in a large, topless box under their bed. Sometimes I would sneak in and pull the box out, go through the pictures, looking at these moments captured in time. My parent's honeymoon. Christmases past. Family reunions.

Walking through this exhibit is like crawling under someone else's bed, looking at their captured moments. But these are devoid of the connections and associations we have with our own pictures. We're free to create stories that may or may not have anything to do with the actual capture moment. Isn't that the dream? To write the story behind our own moments, or to rewrite the ones that already exist? To be in control of what the pictures show? Or at the very least, to be freed from the confines of what has already happened?

Æ