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"...Star differs from star in glory..."

(Vincent Van Gogh, "Starry Night over the Rhone," 1888)

I Corinthians 15:40-44:

"There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body."

I had a magnificent set of evenings over Memorial Day weekend sitting out among the moon and the stars--even sleeping out all night in my yard one night, it was so glorious--and seeing the lightning bugs begin their summer debut for the season. It was simply a magnificent weekend to be a speck in God's Universe. The sheer size and awesome timelessness of the "big" things in nature--the sky, the stars, the ocean, just to name a few--have always been the major spiritual grounding rods for me, my entire life. People just don't do it for me the way nature does.

I looked at the stars these last few nights and pondered the paradoxical dance that "people" seem to occupy in my existence, thinking how each star, in its own way, is its own "person." How like the stars in the sky, we are called to community, and how each of us in our own way feels called to individuals in that community. Yet for me, the paradox has always been nothing gets my goat like people sometimes. I can only handle people for so long, and then that secular monastic in me takes over and I retreat to my safe hermitage of my country life. There is my daily retreat from work, as well as "add on" forms like my occasional "silent Saturday morning," and my "stay-cation retreats where I never leave home." Yet I never feel "un-called" to be a part of a community. When I am home alone, after a certain amount of time enjoying my alone-ness, I think of what it is I am supposed to "do next" when I enter back into community. When I am in that community, after a while I start daydreaming of what I want to do next in my "alone time." Each needs the other, and truthfully, each feeds the other.

On one of those nights, I sat out and thought about different people with each star--what they were experiencing in their lives, and how it is that I am supposed to combine with them to light up the sky, yet maintain my own individual "star-ness." Each one of us with the incarnational light of God within us, but manifested in so many unique ways.

There seem to be at least three kinds of stars in my life experience. Most valued are the "stars I can always see"--for instance, in the winter, I can always find the constellation Orion, and in the summer I can always fix my gaze on Scorpio. They are like the people in my life who have now been my friends for three decades or more. How we relate to each other has changed drastically over the years--sometimes not even close to the roles in which our relationships started out--but we somehow can always adjust. Sometimes their light is very intense and intimate in my life, and vice versa; other times, the light is dimmer. But they are constants. They are appreciated for both their longevity and their versatility.

Then there are the stars that once were a major focus, but I now no longer pay much attention to. I really don't pay much attention to the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, or the North Star itself, per se. But there was a time I always looked for them. They are like the people who were once very involved and intimate in my life--old lovers, intense best friends, etc.--and somehow no longer figure much into the tapestry other than to be a thread once cherished, but no longer. Some of these fizzled out in a supernova of conflict, whereas others just sort of atrophied and slowly burned to extinction. Sometimes their light returns--but it is almost never of the same intensity that it once was, nor does my need to tend to that light return with the same intensity. I appreciate those stars for the history they have given me, even if it includes hard lessons.

Finally, there are the stars I just got around to noticing, like the time I first recognized all of Ursa Major, rather than just its "dipper." The first time I realized the dipper could be converted to a bear, it was an exciting time. It made the sky seem a little bigger than it used to be. I think about the gifts and talents in people I just now got around to appreciating in people who have been around me all along, or about the new people that come into my life over the years, and something about them challenge me to tend their light and let them tend mine. I appreciate those stars because they represent hope and promise.

Even the stars are perishable--which enhances my knowledge that people are perishable. It makes me understand the urgency of the Gospel of Mark, and in Paul's letters. If even stars are perishable, then people definitely are. Yet timelessness and infinity rides within all of them. What a beautiful, but messy, dance it all is!

Contemporary Tibetan Art - An Exhibition

I am certainly not knowledgeable nor particularly interested in Tibetan contemporary art but the Rubin Museum of Art in New York is mounting an exhibition that opens in June. An artist represented in this exhibition (with three large canvases) happens to be a very good friend of mine and I would be remiss if I did not take the opportunity to promote him and his art. I think his art is very, very, good.

I for one am quite tired of some contemporary Tibetan art where it is a simplistic tracing of a Buddha image or the overdone juxtaposition of the Buddha and Mao, and I understand that art has always been a vehicle for politics just as literature. However, sometimes I just want to see good art masterfully done, creative, interesting, refreshing and new that makes me smile and engages me visually. I want to see a work of art where the more I look at the piece the more I see, and the more time I spend with the piece, the more time I want to spend - like a visual feast. I want to feel it from the inside and if someone has to explain it to me - then I have obviously missed it, or maybe it wasn't there in the first place. For me, art that has to be explained in order to be understood and appreciated is not great art - it is only a visual-intellectual statement.

Another artist, more familiar with contemporary art than me, I think says it best, "WOW, Pema's painting you included is KILLER! as soon as I saw it (the second one) and started reading your article, I was hoping that it was one of his! A lot of contemporary art I've seen by Tibetan artists is so predictable and lame, if not cheap and exploitative. It's great to see Pema's work - beautiful, thoughtful, and sophisticated! It's so great to see a work of contemporary Tibetan art that doesn't make use of the tired silhouette of the buddha! In fact, there really isn't much in Pema's painting that relates to (or falls back on) his identity as a Tibetan or his Tibetan ancestry. It's refreshing to know there's at least one Tibetan contemporary artist who's moved beyond that! perhaps there's hope after all...." (Currently anonymous).

Pema Rinzin is one of the only Tibetan artists that I know who has trained in the traditional way of 'tangka' and mural painting and that has also successfully transitioned into contemporary painting while still creating and teaching the so-called 'traditional' art.

The first image above is a small detail of a large painting that will be on display at the Rubin Museum of Art. The second two images are from the Joshua Liner Gallery where Pema exhibited in the early spring of 2010. He exhibited three paintings in that Chelsea New York show and all three sold. The second image (above) - that painting sold the first night of the Joshua Liner show. Aside from the RMA exhibition opening in June, Pema has another group show coming up in August - again in Chelsea. There is also talk of a solo show in the near future. (See Artist Biography and New York Tibetan Art Studio. For more information on the RMA exhibition see the link below).

Tradition Transformed, June 11, 2010 - October 18, 2010.

"Tradition Transformed: Tibetan Artists Respond marks the first exhibition of contemporary Tibetan art in a New York City museum. The nine Tibetan artists featured each explore contemporary issues--personal, political, and cultural--by integrating the centuries-old traditional imagery, techniques, and materials found in Tibetan Buddhist art with modern influences and media. (More info)."

Pema Rinzin was an artist in residence at the RMA for three years and produced a number of works during that time. The drawing of Himalayan 'Animals, Foliage and Landscape' was done in the gallery space during the highly successful 'Bon, The Magic Word' exhibition in 2007. The painting (below) of the Four Guardian Kings was the first painting that Pema completed while at the RMA. It was also first displayed in the RMA exhibition 'Big!' also in 2007, followed by the Trammell Crow museum in Dallas in 2008. I believe his three special skills that set him apart from the rest are [1] drawing, [2] composition and [3] colour balance.

The Fight Continues

The battle is sporadic. Mostly waged in the wee hours of the morning. The exchanges can be brutal and emotionally traumatic but the fight goes on. I have employed a new liquid deployed as a spray against large areas of the room. It is called Bed Bug Patrol and is a completely natural product with a strong hint of clove oil. The ground up sea bug dust, Diatomaceous Earth Dust, has been dispersed to the most important areas in need of defense - cracks, crannies and creases. The idea is to begin to limit the active area where the bugs - little bastards - are able to mount an attack, corral them into a small defensive zone, and then crush them with a final lethal blow.

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That Mysterious Critter called the Trinity

In that odd way that only people who have worked around a hospital can appreciate, I have found the fact that Trinity Sunday coinciding with Memorial Day Weekend (Or, as I like to call it, "Opening day of major trauma season,")--rather amusing.

I've got a confession. I find thinking about the Trinity too long, rather traumatic. My clergy Facebook friends find preaching about the Trinity on Trinity Sunday rather traumatic. Most of them refer in some way that it is a week where they feel compelled to teach those in the pews about the Trinity, and have to admit they really don't understand much about the Trinity.

Now, I can handle the diagram above. It's pretty straightforward and simple. I recognize God is in all three entities, and each of the three entities are not in each other--well...sorta. One person told me in a recent discussion, "I know I'm not my brother and I know I'm not my sister, but the family DNA is in all of us." That is kind of what the diagram parallels. I agree with all of that. But that's where it ends.

Here's my heresy...

I have this nagging feeling that the Trinity is a representational being--like the wave or particle theory of light. Although I would be the first to tell you that the Trinity and the statements in the Nicene Creed (well, except for that add-on about proceeding from the Father AND the Son--the Son half of the filioque was tacked on later to the Creed) are "true," I would tell you I think the reality lies behind the Trinity, and the Trinity is what we use to explain what is actually a single entity made of infinite parts.

For instance...

Light, in some ways, behaves like a wave. In other ways, it behaves like a particle. Odds on, it's something that is neither or both a wave or a particle. But we can function in our world, make great discoveries and inventions involving the spectrum of light, by acting like it is a wave when it's useful and convenient, and acting like it's a particle when it's useful and convenient. The fact that it probably is NOT exactly what we theorize it to be isn't relevant. We don't sit and bemoan that it's not "true." Truth is perception, more than anything.

But the fact that the Hebrew Bible has between 40 and 70 words (depending on which rabbi you consult) that describe one aspect of what Christians attribute to a function of the Holy Spirit, or God the Father, or the Messiah, makes me suspicious that the Trinity is to Christian thought what the wave or particle theory is to light--a representation we can wrap our brains around, at least to a basic degree, that allow us to be connected relationally to God, and not just function in that world, but imagine, invent, and share with others in community.

Did you ever notice humans, by and large, no matter what their culture, like "threes?" We like to think bad news comes in threes. We tend to use threes in literature, in our phraseology. Many things in science, if you repeat them three times, creates a greater than two standard deviations level of confidence, statistically. We tend to only start to "get" things after the third time we've experienced something. We say, "three's a charm." I used to think that was a function of Judeo-Christian culture, until I learned that many other religions--Hinduism, Buddhism, Paganism, ancient Celtic religion, ancient Norse religion, etc.--also have many examples of the significance of the number three.

My theory--and that's all it is--is that for some reason, humans brains are hard-wired to be ok with three. Maybe it is because it's simply one more than what we can grasp in our own two hands. It's manageable. So when the Trinity was being "figured out," people like the folks who came up with the Nicene Creed sat there pondering this God with infinite faces and forms, and gravitated to explaining it in an iconic representation that is the default human level of understanding--three.

So for me, the Trinity is simply a three-pronged representation of an infinite concept--and here is where some people are going to shove me into the Express Lane to Hell for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway--the Trinity seems to me to be more of a functional theory than an actual fact. There is truth in it, but the truth actually lies BEHIND it, not IN it, and I am willing to accept the "model" because it allows me to function in my world of "understanding my relationship with God." To accept the Trinity as "truth" also means I must accept the mystery that it is a representation of a bigger reality that I cannot possibly understand.

It's why I don't trust anyone who claims he/she can "explain" the Trinity to me. I think part of accepting the truth of the Trinity is to also accept that my brain, in my living human form, cannot possibly understand it, but I can understand enough of it to function as one of God's children within the confines of what it represents. To say "I believe in the Trinity"--to say the Nicene Creed and mean what I say--means I believe the reality it represents is only fully fathomable in the next world.

I'll be honest--this is a hard realization for me. I like to think I'm smart enough to "figure most everything out." But to accept that I cannot possibly figure this one out, is to accept another part of my life as a child of God--faith. Faith that this representation can take me everywhere I need to go, to live in service to God--and in that, I believe.

Yes, I was bit!

Two bites last night around three in the morning. I will have to re-double my efforts. Needless to say I didn't sleep much after that. Have a look at this link about an apartment building in Princeton, New Jersey http://bedbugger.com/2010/04/03/bed-bugs-in-princeton-apartment-building/. It is a good example of the communications, exchanges and lack of them between some landlords, tenants and the health authorities. I am sure that the laws in New York State will be somewhat different from New Jersey. One problem with landlords and owners is that they often think that the regular pesticide company that comes once a month and sprays for cockroaches, silverfish and mice are up to the task of eradicating a bedbug infestation. It is a little bit like thinking that a regular doctor, a general practitioner, can perform complicated heart surgery requiring specialized tools and equipment. Bedbug extermination needs experts. Without recognizing this then the problem just returns again and again and the landlord spends more and more money. More tenants leave and the apartment building has a high turnover. The rent starts to go down and the place is of course already beginning to be rundown. Finally it ends up being a skid row apartment (or house). That is the life cycle of an untreated bedbug infested dwelling.

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The Calm Before the Storm

No bites last night and none the night before, this of course means that they, the 'bugs', have been well fed. I have to be extra vigilante tonight because they are undoubtedly getting hungry 'on the move' and I am the only thing on the menu. Buckle up. It's going to get bumpy.

I have been informed by the building manager that the next bedbug spraying of the apartments won't be until the end of next week - plenty of bug breeding time in there between now and then. I am not yet confidant that the building owners are treating this matter with the seriousness and urgency that it requires. Regardless of that, I am on the offensive and have scoured the internet for reviews and anecdotes of bed bug sufferers and information on various products. I have also ordered a variety of different sprays, dusts and environmentally friendly concoctions - no DDT. I will let you know which items work and which do not. I am taking the battle to the bugs.

Yet, all of that being said, I figure even if the exterminators get the things out of my apartment I still have no control over the apartments of anyone else in the building, and they may be lazier than me, stay infested, and spread the bugs back to my apartment yet again. So, in other words, I am at war with both the bedbugs and with anybody who doesn't have the resolve and strength to get rid of their own damn bugs. To that end I must turn the apartment into a fortress surrounded at the outer edges with a series of ditches and tank traps filled with diatomaceous earth dust. Then, a film of poisonous enzymes - organic warfare - followed up by regular preventative spraying with a variety of lethal cocktails - striking randomly. However, none of this advanced arsenal of weaponry has arrived, as it was just now ordered, and until then I will continue to do battle with the enemy using rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle as my front line weopon. That is the strategy, that is the resolve - let the final battle for the apartment begin.

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Commercial Sniping - In a few steps

This is my newest contribution for The Circuit Magazine to accompany part 3 of 3 articles on the history of sniping. After staying relatively loyal to the concept for the first 2 articles I got slightly more adventurous for this one, as you can see. Although the weapon is the British Army's L96A1 sniper rifle!

Anyhow, I just thought I'd post a few shots in progress of my process for creating this piece to accompany the ScreenCast I recorded of the illustration (which you can see on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojPjantpr5Q )

Step 1 - Initial concept thumbnail.

After playing around with a few poses I decided to keep as much relevance to the subject and article as possible (considering the lack of it in the character) I went with the traditional prone position but still wanted to emphasise the characters seductive curves, which brings the focus directly onto the buttocks!

Step 2 - Defining the Character

Next I decided I wanted an exotic looking female and used photo reference of beautiful curvy women of Caribbean origin. and penciled out my idea and scanned it into photoshop at 600dpi before reducing it to 300 at the painting stage. Notice, I don't really go over board on the sketch and prefer to build it up as I progress through the painting stage.

Step 3 - Colour Flats

Using the pen tool to create selections of anatomy and accessories I fill them all with the paint bucket tool and keep th

em on independent layers to give me greatest flexibility later on.

In addition I paint in a rough background to link it together and in preparation for choice of light direction.

Step 4 - Airbrushing

Using the selections I'd made earlier by keeping all opposing areas on separate layers I use a large, soft edged brush at a low opacity to first apply shadows and then highlights to pinpoint light direction and start to brin

g depth to the illustration.

Step 5 - Background

I now decide its time to build up the background and I virtually spin it around and paint it in reverse to the original concept. Again using the pen tool to build the basic structures and then an airbrush to lay colour and light direction down fast before using a more hard edged brush to add some texture. I also work in some accessories such as the goggles on the helmet, the drink, dossier, bino's and ammo tin.

Step 6 - Fine details/finishing touches

I finish off the painting by adding a few layers of a deep bronzing, orangey colour to the flesh areas. I paint in shadows, foreground foliage, slightly alter the expression and finally add some highly effective camouflage paint to her skin. Now she's hot and ready for action.

Acquire, Aim, Squeeze, Kill, Mojito to go!

Constant Vigilance - The War of the Bed Bugs

Every night is potentially a battle although depending on the infestation the bugs may only feed every three or four days. Depending on their number they might need to feed every night. While waiting for the third spraying of the apartment which is usually five days between sprayings I have resorted to a spray bottle and alcohol. No, not for drinking - for spraying the wooden bed frame and then the area of the floor under and around the bed. This seems to work for a few hours at best. The alcohol kills the bugs, babies and eggs on contact - but only on contact. If they are hiding around a corner then they are safe - the little bastards.

I learned early on while staying in India in the 1970s that neither the Geneva Convention nor the Bodhisattva Code of Ethics need apply to bed bugs. They are a serious health risk and can spread salmonella and other diseases. I am also investigating other treatments such as natural products that destroy and keep the bugs at bay. Let it be said that the 'battle is on.'

My allies, the apartment management company and their hired mercenaries have not been overly successful in the battle but it is still early and there are many more days of fighting before this campaign is done.

In the end either I will be Lord of the apartment or the bed bugs will.

You might be Episcopalian (the sequel)

I was thinking just the other day, I had for some reason been getting a lot of hits on this old blog post, so maybe it was time to add to the list of obscure things that would say "You might be Episcopalian..."

You Might Be Episcopalian...

...if you know what Whitsunday is, and that the church paraments should be RED.

...if your Shrove Tuesday fundraiser in the undercroft features beer.

...if you visit someone else's church in March, see a vase of flowers behind the altar and think, "You don't do flowers in Lent!"

...if you have a very distinctly fixed set of songs in your head that qualify as "processional hymns," and you complain that anything outside that list causes you to remark, "That's not a processional hymn."

...if you've watched a podcast of a bishop being ordained, and raved about how cool it was.

...if you know what the sursum corda, the Sanctus, the Anaphora, and the Agnus Dei are.

...if you have a preference of Eucharistic Prayers A through D.

...if you know what The Book of Occasional Services is, as well as what EOW stands for.

...if you can point to the narthex, the nave, the sacristy, the chancel, and the undercroft.

...if you give directions of where to put things in church as "The Gospel side" and "the epistle side."

...if, when someone tells you they read the Bible every day, you respond with, "Oh, I do the Daily Office, too."

...if you've ever wondered why you kneel in Eucharistic Prayer B, when the line says, "worthy to stand before you."

...if you are absolutely certain that some parts of the Nicene Creed are "just not right," but say it anyway.

...if you have a strong personal theological opinion why the announcements are at the beginning, the middle, or the end of church--or not have announcements in church at all.

...if you've ever refered to a regular household activity as the "sacrament of," or the "liturgy of," such as "The Saturday Sacrament of the Laundry," or "The Liturgy of the Nap."

...if you know the names of at least ten bishops, and in which diocese they reside.

...if, in true "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon," fashion, you brag that you are three degrees from the Presiding Bishop...but when you get to thinking about it, all your Episcopalian friends are three degrees or fewer from her, too.

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The Inevitable

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time, inevitable. When you live in a tenement flat in New York City, over a hundred years old, with porous walls and floors, and people coming and going, moving in and out - it had to happen. BED BUGS!!! BED BUGS!!! BED BUGS!!!

The question now is what to do about it and - not too patiently - watch how the property management company deals with it. Will they be aggressive in extermination or laid back and fight the scourge topically. The next two or three weeks will tell the story. One thing I already know for sure is that I cannot live with bed bugs.

All of my New York belongings which are basically clothes and books are wrapped in plastic bags and fill the middle of the apartment in order to facilitate the exterminators and their need to spray the corners of the apartment, walls, ceiling, etc. The wooden bed frame has been sprayed and the entire floor has been sprayed over the course of two extermination visits. Between the first and the 2nd visit (2 days after) I was bitten and after the second visit (2 days after) I was bitten again.

The exterminators are scheduled to return this coming week - Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Somehow I don't think that will be enough. I was told that in the building on the floor below me there was one filthy apartment that was overrun with bed bugs similar to the image at the bottom of this post. It was said that if you moved any item of furniture or lifted anything at all in that apartment then dozens of bed bugs would scurry in all directions.



Feeding Habits of Bed Bugs (from Wikipedia): "Bedbugs are bloodsucking insects. They are normally out at night just before dawn, with a peak feeding period of about an hour before sunrise. Bedbugs may attempt to feed at other times if given the opportunity and have been observed feeding during all periods of the day. They reach their host by walking, or sometimes climb the walls to the ceiling and drop down on feeling a heat wave. Bedbugs are attracted to their hosts by warmth and the presence of carbon dioxide. The bug pierces the skin of its host with two hollow feeding tubes. With one tube it injects its saliva, which contains anticoagulants and anesthetics, while with the other it withdraws the blood of its host. After feeding for about five minutes, the bug returns to its hiding place. The bites cannot usually be felt until some hours or even days later, as a dermatological reaction to the injected agents, and the first indication of a bite usually comes from the desire to scratch the bite site. Because of their natural aversion for sunlight, bedbugs come out at night.[8]



Although bedbugs can live for a year or eighteen months without feeding, and purportedly up to three years in the case of the species Oeciacus vicarius (the cliff swallow bug),[9] they normally try to feed every five to ten days. Bedbugs that go dormant for lack of food often live longer than a year, while well-fed specimens typically live six to nine months.

At the 57th Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America in 2009, it was reported that newer generations of pesticide-resistant bedbugs in Virginia could survive only two months without feeding.[10]

Low infestations may be difficult to detect and in the early stages, victims may not realize they have bedbugs. Patterns of bites in a row or a cluster are typical, as the insects may be disturbed while feeding. Bites may be found in a variety of places on the body."



I will look into some Tantric Buddhist texts to see if there are any special practices, charms, talismans or mantras for eradicating these bugs. Bed bugs were well known to Tibetans who called them 'demon lice'. Mipham Rinpoche had numerous techniques for getting rid of a wide range of pests from mice, to rabbits, body lice, rabid dogs and more.

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