this artist life

conflict

One of the things I’ve become pretty good at in my life is avoiding conflict. I think this is an example of what I like to call “learning in the wrong direction”.

Avoiding conflict, being passive, is ultimately being unfriendly. It doesn’t reall build community, or grow the possibility of new relationships. In fact I think it tears these things down.

I think it also tends to mean sacrificing one’s self-respect. It is difficult to take a person seriously when they are in a constant state of avoidance. On the the other hand, it’s also difficult to approach a person who is always in a state of confrontation.

As peacemakers, which is what adherents to the Christian faith are called to, how do we ethically pursue conflict? It might first mean changing our perceptions of conflict away from negative connotations (I know for me the first word that comes to mind when I hear conflict is “war”).

Conflict doesen’t mean expressing negative force or emotion to fix a problem (if this were the case arguments would only ever be won by the person with the angriest or loudest voice). It means seeking to admit that there is an issue, then attempting to repair the issue. Solving a conflict isn’t about winning the argument.

Conflict, then, has to become the act of waging peace. It is seeking to build relationships, whether the deeply personal (friendships, marriages) to the casual (meeting strangers in the city for whatever reason). Then there are the more complex relational conflicts (relationship with one’s country, the relationship one’s country has to the rest of the world).

On a deeper level, choosing to approach conflict instead of avoiding is seeking redeem conflict. I don’t know anything about war, just that it is waste. If there is a better way to expend our resources, even if this means years of difficult and exhausting political reconciliation, finding that way is a necessity for the sustainability our humanity.

I hope you’ll forgive all the words ending in Y.

theadamroper@gmail.com

cover this

So, I started working on cover versions of Dangerous, She Wolf, Party in the USA, and Umbrella- truly some of the enduring songs of our generation.

The novelty might eventually wear off, in which I case I’ll start working on Blackbird, Freebird, Tiny Dancer, Faith, or Down On The Corner.

too much

cynicism: the art of trying to hide what is really going on with a deconstructive sense of bitterness towards outside influences, objects, concepts. for me it’s been with relationships, christian music, the church. cynicism is a damaging habit of tearing things down instead of exploring the act of redemption, or trying to see how God is building a working narrative.

what is worse, cynicism is an excuse- rather than seeking to openly admit, and journey through, pain on one’s life cynicism causes a sort of bitterness that the pain exists, expressed outward. again, the damage does not benefit anyone.

being able to heal from this would be a welcome change in my life. or having some consistent habits of relational connection; a lifestyle of prayer, a readily available source of affirmation when I’m in a lonely place.

a speaker this week said that low-self esteem is also a form of pride, because it focuses too much on the self. I hate finding myself in this place, but it is where I’m at. there has to be a better way.

theadamroper@gmail.com

oh hey

Today was a really good day. I love it, but I’m a bit suspect. Days this good seem too out of the ordinary, unless of course I’m entering a season of many days just like this. That I wouldn’t mind.

road regret

Lately I struggle with the question of “where do I find myself”? It seems funny that in order to find myself I have to travel across the world.  “Wherever I go there I am”, as Seventh Day Slumber once put it. So, if I’m honest with myself, my desire to travel isn’t about trying to find myself.

I’m trying to escape myself. If I haven’t discovered who I am yet the fault clearly falls to the inadequacy of my current choice of circumstances. So I have to get away from “myself”.

Or else I’m trying to change myself, convinced that the change will not occur until I’ve discovered a profoundly moving experience or place. That change can’t possibly occur in Abbotsford. It feels too familiar and the buildings are boring. It has to be a place I can’t go to every day.

Why do I want to travel? Because I want better stories. I want to feel as though I have more authority as a person, having spent parts of my life gaining wisdom through direct experience, as opposed to becoming a shallow version of myself that only wishes I had traveled more. My greatest fear is that my character will become easy to summarize.

There must be a more optimistic way to look at this, instead of the deconstruction approach I’m used to taking (a friend pointed this out to me last week). What do you think?

theadamroper@gmail.com