Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Thinking of Moving the Blog Check out the look over at jeffberryman.wordpress.com. It's easier to manage, has a little more room, and it's free. So what do you think? The only problem is that I can't move my archives with me. That bums me out, but still, I think it's time for some new digs. I'll let you know when (and if) I make it permanent. ...maybe I'll blog more... 4:04:08 PM    comment []

Springtime We got sunbreaks today, and after I went to the store, I stopped by the zoo, the section outside the fence directly to the south just off of Phinney and 50th. I'd been wondering what I'd find to take photos of that would stand for the arrival of spring. I've never been so aware of its arrival. Trembling, buds everywhere crane their necks toward the sun, hoping to finally put winter behind them. Daffodils clustered in bunches caught my eye as I turned onto 50th and I immediately pulled into a space on the street. I grabbed my camera, hopped out of my car and jay-walked. I was hoping for something besides daffodils, but then I thought, let's just pay attention to what's here. Ever noticed (I'm sure you have) how these poor flowers just can't hold their necks up? Beauty is just too heavy to manage. As buds, all floral in potential, they stretch up straight with all the hope of youth. But give them their full clothes and they can't help but lean over, stooping like sad folks at sunset. Today I got the feeling they were watching cars going by, thristy to drink in all they could before the weeks withered them. "Even when it[base ']s here, it[base ']s going by." That's a line from David Wilcox, and I think of it often. The Bible says our lives are like grass, like vapor. And watching the dawn of Spring both thrills and sobers me; I have seen the winter. I know these beauties are here only for a season, and yet, Solomon wasn't arrayed like one of these, either. Yes, I know Jesus talked about lilies, and I'll go find some of those for Easter, I suppose, but just now, I'll bet Solomon couldn't stand up to these either. ...I love yellow... 3:50:22 PM    comment []

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Artists Gathering One bespectacled gentleman got a great deal on a drum set. A pair of married collage artists are waiting to hear back from a local artwalk show about their respective entries. A young blogger wonders whether anyone is bothering to read her stories, personal journeys culled from journals of years ago. An actor puts a brave face on his deep fatigue, weary from a week's worth of travel and performance. What might a gathered people need to say to God, a songwriter asks, sharing his constant search for a phrase or word that might spark people into dropping their inhibitions, catching fire enough to actually put their minds and hearts where they need to be in worship. Another actor celebrates a coming marriage and yet, the complextity of change fully employed, mourns the loss of old community, old safety. "Done is beautiful" describes another's process, the man chronically shouldering a titan's load of work, a man who inspires me with his grace and kindness and willingness to serve. These people draw girls in dresses, drum Sunday praises, write dramas and live them, too. We make leather and recordings, do graphc design and music, and blog, blog, blog. We are makers of things, sometimes for money, most times not, and what binds us is that we all agree that our making is a gift, hardly of our own volition, at least not in its orgins. The urge to shape form is a card we've been dealt, an ace in our DNA, and we can only respond by pocketing it, hoarding it, thereby lettting it die, or we can throw it out there, play it in hand after hand, hoping someday it combines with the rest our living, our other cards, to finally get a hand that does us and somebody else some good. We laughed, we cried, we told stories of plays and commerce and travel. We wondered how to tell the truth about our work and what to do when we would no doubt be judged and condemned. We wondered what the constants would be in our work, the palette we would continually return to, the stories we would tell over and over. We dipped chips into cowboy caviar and cheese, made faces and cringed as the host harassed folks with his camera, and we prayed. We prayed about our pride, our hunger to do good work, our desire to know what in the world God was wanting to be about in our lives, and we asked Him to please get on with it, this business of leading us, changing us. Finally we trickled out the door, one and two at a time, some three hours after we'd arrived, and then the house was empty, except for a wife, a husband, and a son, gathered in the kitchen, and still, the talk goes to music and dancing and auditions and the return of my daughter-actress this next week, and finally it's time for lights out and welcome sleep. What happened last night means the world to me. How do we grasp the kindness of this God who masks so much in seeming darkness, in impenetrable mystery? Creation, the making of a thing, the shaping of a form that somehow captures my heart in that elegant move of thought we call metaphor...it is nothing but the gift of God. In the end, what we said to each other in our gathering was simple. ...make something... 8:45:22 AM    comment []

Friday, March 9, 2007

Coffee, Resurrection It's Friday morning. I'm sitting at my coffee shop, Javasti's on 5th Ave. NE, enjoying the noisy banter of the morning crowd. Someone stole their newspapers this morning, and I've heard they're giving free scones to people who ate one yesterday, something about dumping salt into the batter with predictable results. Too bad I didn't get one yesterday--I'd been enjoying a freebie today. Mark the day. It was on this day 2007 that the birds in Maple Leaf decided they'd had enough of Winter quiet. As I sat in my office starting my bleary meditation, I heard them talking--the birds, that is--speaking their foreign language, testing throats too long silent. Spring's here, I guess, and as I walked up the dark street toward Javasti's, they sang me right along. Where were the crows? Still in bed, I guess. Lent is a challenge, but life for me is in such flux, it seems pretty normal. On Wednesday, I saw Tsotsi, a gorgeous gem of a movie about a South African hoodlum who wakes up via one of the great waker-uppers in the world--a baby. The final image of Tsotsi, his hands held high in a haunting image of yielding, has stuck with me. Then there was the episode of Heroes I missed Monday night, and watched Wednesday as well. Peter Petrelli getting his head carved up, screaming, and I think...you know, there we are. Yet, I just know Silar is the Evil guy, so he just can't win. The interesting thing is not whether the world will be saved--it's how. The people involved in the Arts Ministry at the Northwest are going to gather at my house tonight. What will we do? I'm not sure, really, but we're going to look each other in the eye and ask what we're up to, and we're going to care about it. Beauty is arriving in the world even as I write this, and our assumption is that God has drafted us, either explicitly or implicitly, to join the team responsible for various assignments in the necessary midwivery. Nikki and I talked yesterday of frames, empty and filled, and that perhaps we are to be nothing more than frames into which God can pour Himself and the resultant images, love, and life. Makes sense to me. Truth is, I'm moving through one of those periods where life is alternately transcendent and frightening. It's a bracing thing, to walk a street, to write a word, to take a picture, and think God is here on the tip of my breath, waiting for a single word of permission to release resurrection into the world through this moment, this very one. Abstract? Sure. But I believe the concrete finds its origin in an idea, an image, a way of seeing the world. The concrete reveals us to our selves, our world, and our God. You reading this is concrete, as is Your mulling of where resurrection is inside you, and if you will give that word of permission or not. What if Jesus had refused? ...let third days be our daily bread... 7:04:05 AM    comment []

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Decisions...On The Other Hand Just a short follow up to yesterday's post regarding decisions: I referenced those decisions which come at moments of crisis, but I also mentioned decisions I'd made as a child that could not be traced to particular moments. This morning, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and we were talking about the awareness of change. I was saying how I can feel something moving inside me, changing, but that whatever decisions that might entail were still in the future. But then I remembered those childhood decisions, and wondered out loud if a day might come where I simply woke up and knew the decisions were made some time ago, and that I'd missed the moment. Then we talked of seasons, and how understanding can change in an instant, as in epiphanies, and how it can also change over a lifetime, a process of slow, incremental evolution. Seasons are marked by specific days on the calendar, but Spring arrives in the air over time, each new day insinuating the slow exit of Winter, and one day you're walking the block around your house, and the color bursts into your awareness and you know Spring has been coming for some time. The calendar date is not useless, but it is a minor theme in understanding the coming of a season. I wasn't sure Winter would ever end. ...I think it might... 1:16:36 PM    comment []

Monday, January 22, 2007

In Pursuit of Focus Focus is always the problem. Years ago a songwriter friend of mine sat across a Sunday afternoon dinner table and lectured me sternly on the need for focus. I knew he was right, and I just couldn't do it. Well, it's time. And the winner is...writing. I told Taproot Theatre I would need to turn them down about a couple of shows in their upcoming season so I could focus on the writing. The first priorities will be finishing and publishing Hunting Grace, and then the completion of the first major draft of the as yet unnamed third book from the world of Cyrus Manning. So let's talk about blogging. This time around (yes, I know there have many of these pauses in blogging over the years) I'm simply wondering what I'm doing with this bit of cyberspace. Am I trying to be a cultural critic? Am I working on a particular philosophical approach to art and beauty? Am I providing some kind of ministry to anyone? What is, in short, my intention? And I'm not blogging because I can't answer those questions with any definition. Which sucks, I know, but there it is. So for the moment, let me just offer a brief report of recent doings. A couple of weeks ago, I got stranded in Abilene, Texas, where I had gone to teach my annual January Class at Abilene Christian University. The class is called The Arts and Culture: A Christian Aesthetic, and it mostly gives me a chance to wax on about my various curious notions concerning beauty, imagination, and pop culture. It was a great class this year: the students were engaged in the material, we screened three episodes of Friday Night Lights, the films Whalerider and The Station Agent, and in the end, we all left with a greater sense of responsibility about the use of our imaginations. Even though I got stuck in Abilene for two extra days due to the icy weather there (the airport was closed for two days), it gave me a chance to beat my Mom (one game only) in gin rummy. I'm back in the saddle here in Seattle now, working again on the rewrite of the second novel concerning Cyrus Manning. Early feedback on the book is that it's strong writing, but again, the story may be a bit slow, especially since the content is going to be on the heavy side. So I'm looking at the character actions again, looking at how to pick up the pace, keep the pages turning. At the same time, I'm going to be looking for an agent this year. Any prayers would be appreciated. On other fronts, Amy continues to do well at the University of Cincinnati, where she is studying acting. Daniel just finished a Thespian competition in which he received very high marks in various solo and duet competitions, both in musical theatre as well as straight acting. And my time is split between the book, the arts ministry at the Northwest Church, and trying to figure out just what to do with this blog. One thing I'm thinking of is moving the blog to Typepad, where the various pieces of technology there will be much easier than doing all this formatting with Radio. I'll leave this one up for a while, but after a couple of months, I'll close it up and you can find at a new address. I'll let you know when the move comes. ...for the moment, just reporting... 11:01:37 AM    comment []

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Creche Collector Design by Kent Landrum The Christmas Musical at the Northwest Church is not really a musical this year, though everyone keeps referring to it that way. I wrote about 10 different starts to songs just to see if I could get musical juices flowing, but in the end, we decided to do a straight play with some choral music surrounding it. The synopsis runs like this: When Will Callus, a seventeen-year-old foster child brings his crèche collection to the Leffermann home, Cole Davis, a cynical newspaperman with a weakness for a good story, gets curious about Will's past. As the Leffermanns and their small church community prepare for another Living Nativity, Cole traces the mystery of this young boy's obsession with Christ's birth through a menagerie of offbeat characters, and in the process finds what both he and Will have been searching for all along. A couple of rewrites later, that's the basic idea, but things have changed a bit. And as I tell them everyday, the play needs one more major rewrite, but we're out of time. So hopefully, I'll revisit it and get it right after the first of the year. But I've said that before... Rehearsals have been a real joy. I've been working with these actors for several years now, and we are starting to see great improvement in the ability to speak and play action. The set design has created a bit of a stir just because it's a thrust stage that takes up a huge amount of room, costing us chairs in the audience, but in the end, the relationship between actor and audience is going to be pretty magical because of the space. We run December 7, 8, and 9, with both a matinee and an evening performance on the 9th. Evening performances are at 7:30, and the Saturday Matinee is at 2:00. Come if you can, but get there early, because seating is going to be somewhat limited. The Northwest Church 15555 15th Ave NE. Shoreline, WA I think it will be worth your time. 8:22:01 AM    comment []

Thanksgiving More dessert than we needed... Just a note about Thanksgiving: we were missing children for the first time. Amy and Ryan weren't there. These things are inevitable as time rolls on, but it was odd at the annual gathering of the Atkinson/Berryman families to be missing two of the Pacific Northwest clan. Amy was in Cincinnati having Thanksgiving with my sister Jody, while my nephew Ryan was in Florida at Embry-Riddle University. We celebrated the usual birthdays: Dick, Meghan, but we didn't do Ryan's because..well, obviously. We missed our friend Phyllis, too, but sometimes you just have to work. But Nikki was there, and this year, her Mom was in from Cleveland, so she graced our table as well. We ate a lot, didn't watch the Cowboys (we never do--I've gotten used to it), and laughed, traded stories, and everyone was gracious as they suffered through hundreds of Germany pictures. My niece Anna spent six weeks in Germany last year so it was fun to compare notes. What bounty. We had enough pie to serve an army, and a huge birthday cake besides. It is coming home with more and more force how wealthy we are, average American family that we are. Is there anything to be but thankful? And yet, the world suffers under poverty, war, spiritual emptiness, and all manner of evil. But grace surrounds us here, and we are called in some fashion to respond to both the Maker and Giver of that grace and His suffering world. I hope Advent brings some wisdom... Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above... 8:05:43 AM    comment []

Snow A rose hanging on... We were in the middle of the costume parade for the Christmas play at church, when someone threw the door open and said, "Look." The snow was coming down hard last Sunday afternoon as we went throught the first act, and when 4:00 o'clock came, most people headed for home before the streets got bad. Which was a shame, because 4:00 o'clock was when we'd scheduled the annual hanging of the greens to begin. A small crew got busy hanging the wreaths and the garland, arranging the various creches on the stage, and as 6:00 o'clock approached, more folks headed for home, including me. Snow is fairly rare here in Seattle, though the surrounding mountains get their share. It always gives me a sense of magic and wonder that then morphs to melancholy. I took my camera out to the backyard on a whim, and saw this little rose blithely standing there. It was a little worn, as you can see, but still...the yellow against the white, spring against the late fall, something hanging on against the cold... Late yesterday, I headed for the Cash and Carry in Shoreline, patches of blue sky over my house as I pulled out of the driveway. Five minutes later, headed down an east west street in Shoreline not more than two miles from my house, I was driving in a blizzard of ice. I could still look over my shoulder and see the blue sky behind me. This is one of the things I love about Seattle, rain sparkling in the sun as it falls, snow cascading right in sight of blue sky. We cancelled rehearsal, or as everyone at church says, "play practice." Sure enough, it was smart to do it as side roads apparently became ice rinks. Predictions are that it will stay frozen today and tonight, with new snow tomorrow. Maybe we'll have to cancel tonight as well. I hope not, though the play's not in bad shape even now. He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. ...wash me, and I will be whiter than snow... 7:38:33 AM    comment []

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Germany The Cathedral (Berliner Dome) in Berlin I took almost 700 pictures. It was the first trip to Europe for Anjie and I, and we took advantage of it, adventuring from Bremen to Berlin to Rothenburg to Munich to Salzburg. The first week was a real treat: the Willow Creek European Leadership Summit held in the northwestern town of Bremen. Willow has a long term commitment to Germany and has been hosting these summits for the past ten years. Over 5000 church leaders gathered to hear Bill Hybels, Gordon McDonald, Jack Groppel, Rick Warren, and Bono. Yes, Bono...last summer, Bill Hybels sat down with Bono and did a long interview with him which they broadcast at the Leadership Summit in Chicago in August, and they played the interview in one of the sessions in Bremen. The Leaving Ruin experience was awesome and humbling. As a result of the already demanding schedule for their technical staff, Willow had to bring 10 extra technicians to the conference just to do the play. They simulcast the play into their Austrian and Switzerland sites: now I can say I've done the play in Europe! The translators did a tremendous job in creating subtitles to the play, and the response from the audience was extremely gratifying. I will forever be thankful to the folks in Germany who wanted me to bring the play to the conference. What a privilege. Then Anjie and I headed to Berlin, where we saw most of the sites on the eastern side of the old wall, then on to one of the oldest medieval cities in Europe, Rothenburg, a city still surrounded by the wall that protected it for hundreds of years. Germans consider it a touristy kind of place, and it did remind me of Disneyland in it's color and form, but here's the difference: this town was a real town, with buildings dating from the 14th and 15th century. We stayed in a hotel that was once the mayor's house built over 600 years ago. Then on to Munich where we felt a little like Joseph and Mary--no room at the inn. We had stumbled into Munich during a major trade show, and there were no hotel rooms to be had, so we hopped online, and made arrangements to stay our final two nights in Salzburg, which has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Old news, I know, but still captivating, and just right to end our journey. It's wonderful to be back home, back with Daniel and the routines of our lives, back in rehearsal for the Christmas play at Northwest, and back to trying to figure what this life God has given us is all about. But what a gift the past couple of weeks has been. Here are just a few pictures, to give you a flavor. ...next up, England... 7:23:53 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2007 Jeff Berryman .