by Marty Coleman | Jan 3, 2013 | Photographic Sunday, Photography |
Welcome back Napkin Kin to part 2 of my portraits of 2012. Yesterday I covered the Second half of 2012, July-December. Today I am showing the first half with a bit of overlap, January to July.
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Niece, San Diego, CA, 7/12
Niece Jumping at Sunset, Del Mar, CA, 7/12
My drive down from Northern California in July ended with me at my sister’s house in San Diego. I took advantage of the opportunity to do a photo shoot of my young niece. She was quite the natural and loved posing in the backyard and on the beach where I grew up. My sister Jackie of course did a little stage mom thing, hovering, directing, etc. But my niece was a natural and didn’t need much help. She looks a lot like our late mother and that was an extra blessing of being able to photograph her.
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Julia Wade, New York City, NY, 6/12
I went to New York City in June to speak and attend Blog World. I met up with a dear friend whom I worked with back in the 80s and 90s at Eulipia Restaurant in San Jose, CA. Then Julia was a struggling student focusing on opera. I did a number of drawings of her back then in various opera costumes for a huge drawing (I never finished). Now she is now a very well known international recording artist of inspirational/spiritual music. We found some time to walk and talk early one morning before our days started. This was taken at a park right on the edge of the Hudson River. She has a blog called ‘Inspiratus‘. Check out the interview she did with me back in 2009 and then click on home to see her latest entries about her new CD.
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Meredith Wood in Blue, Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City, 6/12
While I was at the Blog World conference I, of course, needed to eat. Not knowing any good places around the convention center I did what any good social media person would do, I tweeted ‘who wants to go to dinner?’ using the Blog World hashtag. I got a number of responses and ended up going to dinner with Meredith and 2 others. Meredith is from NYC and knew exactly where to go for the best meal, which it was.
Her eyes are almost as brilliant blue as my wife Linda’s and when we returned to the conference I realized her and her eyes would stand out fantastic against the blue that was everywhere in the brightly lit lobby. The next day we found an extra 10 minutes to take some quick shots. I was up on a bench to make sure I got the best blue background.
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Michelle Linn, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK 6/12
Michelle Relaxing, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK 6/12
I have been doing a photo-collage series for a number of years now called ‘IN Public/Private‘. It is of reporters and anchors in the Tulsa area. When my napkins started getting attention and reporters came over to interview me I basically told them, ‘You can interview me if I can take pictures of you’ and that is how it started. In many cases I offered to take some ‘normal’ photos (my version of normal at least) in exchange for them posing for my collage image idea. I also asked them to publicize my project to their co-workers to see if they also might be interested in collaborating.
Michelle was very excited about the idea and we met for the very first time at Philbrook to take the photos. Here are a few of the portraits I took of her. She was an enthusiastic delight and has since become a wonderful friend. Ironically, so far her collage image ended up in a new series called ‘Visual Poems‘ not the ‘IN’ series I had intended her to be in. You can find her at work in the mornings on Fox 23 here in Tulsa.
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Renaissance Faire Kiss, Muskogee, OK, 5/12
Renaissance Faire Gossip, Muskogee, OK, 5/12
In May I led a group of photographers at an outing to the Renaissance Faire. The theme of the shoot was ‘stranger portraits’ and I spent some time before hand explaining to the group how to go about asking strangers to pose for you. Of course, at a venue like the Renaissance Faire, it really isn’t all that necessary to ask since all the participants already know they are going to be photographed and most of the visitors are dressed up and want to be as well. But it is good to know anyway because you often might have to ask them to move from where they are standing or sitting to get a good shot. Here are 2 double portraits I took while I was there.
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Caitlin’s Senior Collection 1, Waco, TX, 4/12
Caitlin’s Senior Collection 2, Waco, TX, 4/12
My step-daughter Caitlin (whose portraits can be seen in part 1 yesterday) was an Apparel Design major at Baylor University. She had her senior collection show in April of 2012 and I was lucky enough to do the photo shoot for the collection. We found one of the most beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen to do the shoot, less than a mile from Caitlin’s house. Here are two of the photos from the shoot.
We also were incredibly lucky to have our first choice of model to bail on us. It freaked Caitlin out a bit of course but the result was we got Rebekah Campbell as our model instead. She had never done a real fashion shoot before and Caitlin was a bit worried about that. Luckily we had nothing to worry about. She was fantastic in her poses, facial expressions, taking directions and overall professional demeanor.
In addition it turns out she is an fine art major focusing on painting so we had an instant connection creatively. I am encouraging her to pursue both modeling and painting as best she can, I have no doubt she will be successful in both.
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Portrait in Black and White, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, 2/12
Woman in a Museum, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK 2/12
In February I took that same photo group I mentioned above to Philbrook Museum of Art. This time the focus was on Black and White. We weren’t only going to have the finished result in BW but actually set the camera to BW so they could see what they were getting from the outset.
One of the photographers had his wife along with him but she was not doing any photography. I persuaded her, in spite of her initial shyness, that she would be a fantastic model for those of us who wanted a person in our images. She eventually got into it and it made for some great images as a result.
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If you are interested in contacting me about doing a photo shoot you can contact me at the contact page in any number of ways.
If would like to see more of my work go to my website, MAKE Studio | Marty Coleman
All photos © 2013 by Marty Coleman | MAKE Studio – All rights reserved. Sharing this page is perfectly fine but please do not reproduce individual without attribution and permission.
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 2, 2013 | Photographic Sunday, Photography |
Hello Napkin Kin! Welcome to 2013.
One of my resolutions is to mix it up a bit on The Napkin Dad Daily in 2013 and one way to do that is to add in more of my other work for you to see.
Here are some of my photographic portraits from 2012. Starting with the latest and going back to July. Let me know what you think of them, ok?
The Morrison Family, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, 12/12
Lauren Morrison, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, 12/12
Kathi Morrison and I met online. She lives in Florida but she used to live in Tulsa and we met because she saw a photo of Philbrook Museum of Art that I had taken. She particularly liked my Velveteen Women exhibition images and we made plans that if I ever made it to Florida, where she lives, we would do a photo shoot together for use in a similar type of photo collage image. I haven’t made it to Florida yet (I am open to a patron/sponsor who wants to pay my way, hint hint), but she made it up to Tulsa to visit with her family. We made arrangements to get together at her favorite place, Philbrook, and do a quick family portrait shoot.
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Courtney in Profile, Tulsa, OK, 11/12
Courtney in the Fall, Tulsa, OK, 11/12
Courtney and I are running buddies. We help coach a 10k intermediate running group here in Tulsa. She is about the same age as my four daughters and we have a similar type relationship. That means I tell what she should do and she rolls her eyes at me. After this past fall running season I did a photo shoot with her that went from inside to outside at sunset among fall foliage. I absolutely love her profile so was really happy to capture it in such beautiful light. It took a little coaxing but once she got into it we had a great time capturing the fall feel in the outdoor portraits.
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Caitlin in the Fall, Dallas Arboretum, Dallas, TX, 10/12
Caitlin in Orange, Dallas Arboretum, Dallas, TX, 10/12
This is my step-daughter, Caitlin. I first met her when she was 13 and I started dating her mother, my now wife, Linda. When she was 15 we did a secret photo shoot so we could make a gift of photos for her mother for Christmas, which she loved. Seven years later we did it again. I went down to Dallas to visit her for a fall weekend. Caitlin loves the fall and pumpkins so when we found out that the Dallas Arboretum had a huge pumpkin display going on we made that our photo destination. These are two of the images from that shoot. We gave the photos to Linda for Christmas this year and she was very happy.
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Anna Kazmi as a Vampire, Oaklawn Cemetery, Tulsa, OK, 10/12
Meera Kazmi as Morticia, Oaklawn Cemetery, Tulsa, OK, 10/12
The Kazmi sisters are famous models in Oklahoma specializing in vintage clothing, accessories and photo shoots. They started wearing vintage clothing, in particular 1940s vintage, as young teenagers. They have an extensive collection of clothing now and are asked to participate in modeling gigs, exhibitions, fashion shows and the like all the time. Their mother, Karen, always accompanies them and the family is a complete delight to know and work with. I asked them to attend our Tulsa Digital Photography Group’s annual Halloween Cemetery shoot and the happily obliged. I stylized these images quite a bit to fit the theme, with Anna making a great vampire and Meera playing a perfect Morticia.
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In July I traveled to California to attend my ex-father-in-law, Dwight Johnson’s memorial service. Since I was driving down from Northern California after the service to visit my father in Southern California I took the opportunity to contact a number of old and new friends in California to see if I could rustle up some photo shoots to allay the cost of the unexpected expense of the trip.
Amy at the Water’s Edge, Morgan Hill, CA, 7/12
Amy with her Feet in the Water, Morgan Hill, CA, 7/12
I first met Amy when I was a High School leader in a church we attended in San Jose, CA back in the 80s and 90s. She was my favorite high schooler in the group, with a fierce intelligence and a very creative streak. We kept in touch all these years and she was on the route to Southern California so I stopped by for a quick shoot. We took off for a small lake she knew of and did some images in the dappled sunlight.
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Kathy in Natural Light, Berkeley Hills, CA, 7/12
Kathy and I waited tables together 30+ years ago at Eulipia Restaurant in San Jose, CA. I had reconnected with her through Facebook and when I let her know I was coming to California she just happened to need some new business and business casual photos. We did a quick shoot at her Berkeley Hills home near where I was staying. The light was fantastic with the entire Bay Area reflecting in her incredible blue eyes.
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Susan with Dog in the Window, Malibu Pier, Malibu, CA 7/12
Susan Looking Up, Malibu Pier, Malibu, CA, 7/12
Unlike the other two I photographed on the trip, Susan and I had only met once before. We met at Blog World New York in June of 2012 at a closing party. We hit it off and later when I was planning my trip she liked the idea of getting some new, more natural portraits done of her. We met at the Malibu Inn and spent several hours there, on the beach and on the pier taking photos. She has a TV and acting background so she was delight to work with.
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That’s a fair amount for now, covering the second half of 2012. I will post first half of my 2012 portraits in the next few weeks. In the meanwhile, if you would like some photos done, you know who to contact! You can see a larger more extensive selection of my portraits and other work I do by going to my other website, http://www.martycoleman.com
All photographs © 2013 MAKE Studio | Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 1, 2013 | Be It Resolved - 2012 |
It’s with charity in my heart that I tell you it’s day #5 of Resolution Week!
Rant
You know what gets my goat? Did you even know I had a goat? I don’t so never mind. You know what bugs me? When people rant and rail against the big bad welfare recipient who buys malt liquor and cigarettes with food stamps and drives a BMW and goes on vacations to Disney World. It’s not really a specific violator but a generic description meant to enrage people that somehow they personally are getting ripped off because someone who doesn’t deserve something is getting it. In other words, they are pissed off that life is unfair. They have problems and are dealing with them, but in the meanwhile these low-lifes are living high on the hog and not facing their issues and it just pisses people off.
Heart
Part of me understands but a larger part of me sees it as a heart closing up tight. It is the heart finding reasons to not love, to not give, to not have empathy or sympathy or understanding. Because in truth, the overwhelming vast majority of people who are on welfare, food stamps, some sort of government assistance are not in that fraudulent category. But that doesn’t matter to the hardened heart. They just think everyone should be able to do what they have done, make it as they have made it, behaved as they have behaved. And that, along with them telling the fraud story to themselves again and again, give them the excuse to not care. They don’t care because they have rationalized that those people don’t deserve care.
Who Do You Know?
They wouldn’t be able to rationalize like that if they actually knew those people in need, but they don’t. They might know a neighbor who is having a tough time and say, ‘ok, but that is a different story’. They might be told by their pastor about a family at church that had a bad thing happen and they say, ‘ok, but that is a different story’. And they are right, it is a different story. It’s a real story. But each and every person has a real story, even if they appear to meet some cliche.
Charitable vs Irritable
The question is, Where is your heart? Is your heart charitable or is it irritable? You’ll be much happier, and so will those around you, if it’s charity you feel. And that charitable heart will not allow people to do bad things any more than an irritable heart. It will just allow you to approach each person with love instead of judgment.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
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Answer to yesterday’s trivia question:
Question: Who was the richest man to die on the Titanic and why was he on it?
Answer: John Jacob Astor. He was on the ship because he had married an 18 year old girl after divorcing his wife, a scandal of immense proportions in the US at the time. They had gone to Europe to escape the publicity and let the firestorm calm down. They returned when they learned his new wife was pregnant. She survived, he died. She gave birth to John Astor IV a few months later.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 31, 2012 | Be It Resolved - 2012 |
I am humbled to announce today is the last day of 2012 AND day #4 of Resolution Week!
The Naked and the Clothed
We like to clothe ourselves in many things. We have our careers, families, money, homes, cars, friends, culture, fitness, style, science, beauty, youth, and, of course, actual clothing. These things can give us the illusion that we are in control of our lives and in truth, since our lives do consist, in part, of those things, we are indeed controlling our lives. But it’s also very easy to use those same things to hide an even larger truth about our lives, and that is that we are not in complete control. Underneath all those things we can control are many more things we can’t.
The Known Maybe and the Unknown Certainty
My father, Skeets Coleman, is 94 now. And we all know his death is coming because he is old. That is known. But in spite of his advanced age he is still in relatively good health and we actually don’t know when or how he will die. And we also don’t know if one of his children or grandchildren will die before he does. It isn’t likely that will happen and we would not want it to be so but the truth is we do not know. What do we know for certain? We will die. But even that immutable truth is an unknown to us until the moment (or shortly before the moment) arrives.
What is in Front of Us?
Do you know what your life is going to be like? Do you have it planned out? That is good, nothing wrong with planning. It is ok to feel good about your life and who you are. Being humble isn’t about purposely dissing yourself to appear humble. It’s about understanding reality. It is about remembering that all the ‘master of the universe’ desires we may have and may act on will not completely reduce the unknowns. It is good to be humble as we acknowledge that the universe, god, karma, science or whatever combination of things is at work, is beyond our control.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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Trivia of the Day (answer tomorrow)
The richest man on the Titanic died. Who was he and why was he on the boat?
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 28, 2012 | Be It Resolved - 2012 |
I have diligently prepared for you day #3 of Resolution Week at the NDD. Enjoy.
Creating Self
A friend of mine here in Tulsa, Erin Patrick, has a favorite saying, ‘You don’t find yourself, you create yourself’. There is a great truth in that. Finding yourself indicates you existed before, like finding a coin on the side of the road or a lost puppy. It existed and then you found it. But the quote says that isn’t true about people. We don’t exist off somewhere in the future waiting to be found, we don’t exist at all until we decide who we want to be. We might decide unconsciously, as a matter of fact a lot of evidence in the past decade points to a huge portion of our lives being decided by unconscious elements in our history and present day.
Conscious and Deliberate
But there is still plenty we consciously decide and create. We decide to exercise or not. We decide to pursue needlepoint or painting or both. We decide to go to college or graduate school or not. We decide to wear something sexy or something dowdy. Those are all things we can, in large part, control. The main deciding factor in whether we get good at one of those things, or finish a course of action, is our diligence, our perseverance. Do we keep at it until we are a master of it or do we become a light weight diletante? Do we keep going until we have graduated or do we quit? Do we make excuses for not sticking with something?
The Life Self-Portrait
What you do, whether deliberate or unconscious, contributes to who you are to become. Being deliberate about it allows for choices and more opportunities. But what about becoming expert in things they don’t teach in school? What about being deliberate about being a lover? Can you be deliberate about practicing love? Yes, of course you can. And will become a great lover as a result? Yes you will. Practice love in it’s practical forms; being thoughtful, sensitive, kind, joyful, grateful, empathetic, patient and honest, and you will become a loving person. It’s not magic and it’s not a secret. You simply create yourself by practicing who you want to be.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who is a lover, not a fighter.
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Question of the day
What is the latin word for ‘Diligence’?
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 27, 2012 | Be It Resolved - 2012 |
Be patient, it’s only day #2 of ‘Resolution’ week!
Just Missed!
You know what is so annoying? When you are just about to tell your spouse something they do really bugs you but they tell you something you do bugs them first and then you can’t tell them what bugs you because it will sound like you are deflecting and distracting and not willing to listen to what they are saying so you have to listen to them tell you this thing that bugs them and the whole time you are barely paying any attention and just itching to tell them what bugs you!
Too Much Time Together
My wife and I had our annual ‘we are spending way to much time together and starting to annoy each other’ holiday conversation last night. It actually went well and we had a good talk, no fighting, no argument, no big disagreement (except about the nutritional value of the ‘beige’ meals we have too often). But what we did do is talk about our daughters. I have 3, she has 1, all grown up now. What we see now that they are older is the ongoing importance of having patience with them growing up, learning how to be an adult.
Young Patience
Of course when they are young we know to have patience with them learning how to do something, like build something with blocks. We know that after we do the initial teaching the best thing we can do is to stand back and let them learn on their own. We can’t help them too much or else they really won’t learn as thoroughly as they need to. Most parent know that’s how it works.
Forever Patience
But when they grow up it’s even more important to be patient but much harder to do so. We want to spare them real pain and suffering and that translates into sparing them not real pain, but just the typical hands-on life action they need to become fully functioning adults. It might be them having to get the oil changed in their car or it might be them having to navigate the dating or job world. It might be them having to learn how to travel internationally or maybe it’s them figuring out how to rent an apartment. It’s not that we don’t help with any of it, but we can’t do it for them completely. If we do we are denying them the essential building blocks of adulthood, and that is doing them no favors at all.
Are you patient, either with yourself or others? Could you be better at it? What do you have to do…I mean practically, really, step-by-step do…to make patience a more balanced part of your life?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who is pretty patient but not pretty.
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Answer to yesterday’s question of the day
Question: What do you think is the most often stated New Year’s resolution?
Answer: Spend more time with family and friends. I am not sure people say this that much right after Christmas though, do you? #2 is the one I thought would be #1. It’s to get fit.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 26, 2012 | Be It Resolved - 2012 |
Prints are still available. $25.00
Five resolutions I give to you. Here is the first.
Resolve to be kind. I don’t say ‘resolve to be kinder’ because who knows if you are even kind to begin with? Maybe you have no kindness in you or maybe you only had kindness long ago, before the world and you wore yourself down. Resolve to be kind.
Resolve to be kind. I don’t say ‘resolve to be kinder’ because maybe you already are kind enough. But even if you are kind, you still have to make a choice when the moment arrives, to show and express that kindness. You always have the choice to be mean or kind. Resolve to be kind.
Resolve to be kind. I don’t say ‘resolve to be kinder’ because that lays a judgment on the quality of your past kindnesses. Looking back and comparing is of little value. You know don’t need to be thinking about the past, you just need to see the need in the here and now. Resolve to be kind.
Resolve to be kind. I don’t say ‘resolve to be kinder’ because that can set up a competition. Can you be kinder than your wife or husband or neighbor? Can you prove to the world you are the kindest of them all? If you do, you won’t have been practicing kindess. You will have been practicing ego stroking. Resolve to be kind.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who likes to be kind.
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Question of the Day
What do you think is the most often stated New Year’s resolution?
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 21, 2012 | Sin and Science - 2012 |
An Unexpected Call
My drawing and commentary of a few days ago about the Sandy Hook shooting got a huge response, well over 60 comments so far and counting. This was due more to me harassing my friends to comment than it was to them just being cosmically led, but I will take them any way I can get them. One of my friends, Kaci Christian, a former reporter here in Tulsa who now lives in LA, took the extra step of actually calling me on the phone to talk about my post. We talked about many things but one thing I liked in particular was her thinking I could expand on the 5 elements by adding the mouth and the ear to compliment the eye. And I think she is right. There are many things to say about both but I am going to continue the track I started a few days ago and apply how these elements had a hand in the tragedy and how they might contribute to a solution as well.
The Mouth – The mouth takes in and it sends out. More than one person talked about how what we put in our body makes a huge difference in who we are, and that is true. But the immediate concern is what comes out of our mouths. This is about what we say in regards to the Sandy Hook tragedy but in a greater sense it’s about what we say any time. Do we talk with a helping hand at the heart of our thoughts or do we talk with an accusatory and judgmental gun pointed at another person, either the person we are talking to or an absent person, either an individual or a group of people.
I have many friends on both the left and right of various debates. I live in Oklahoma so a lot of my day to day friends from running, photography, church, etc. are conservative. I also happen to be from both coasts; raised in California and spending my teen years in Connecticut (not all that far from Newtown). I also am an artist who has spent a fair amount of time with other artists. Those elements lead me to have many liberal friends as well.
The big differences showed up quite angrily during the recent election of course, and there were times when I went too far in expressing myself. My words were too accusatory and judgmental. Not always, sometimes the words were needed and I don’t apologize for that. But other times I just let my anger about an issue get the better of me and I wrote or spoke words that were more of a gun than a hand.
I need to do better with my mouth and the words I let come out. What about you?
Remember this: You do have the ability to make your words be a hand that helps or a gun that shoots. Choose to speak as a hand reaching out.
The Ear – It can hear but does it listen? That is the age old question, isn’t it. Ask many married couples and you will hear stories of them not listening to each other in spite of hearing the words. The key always seems to come down to listening for what is said between the lines, not the line itself. How do we do that in the aftermath of something like Sandy Hook? When I hear a gun owner angrily defend his ownership of guns, what does he really want us to know? When I hear a friend go on an impassioned plea about mental health issues, what is behind it?
When I was first married, to both my wives actually, I heard the obvious from both of them. What they said is what I heard. Too late in my first marriage I finally heard what she was wanting me to hear, not just her auditory sounds. It’s made for a positive post-marriage relationship between the two of us, but I certainly do wish I wasn’t as dumb about it all during the marriage. The good thing is that I do think I learned something from those years and do better with Linda, my wife now. Of course, I am sure she would say I still have plenty of work to do in hearing her but I think she might also say I try hard to get to what is being said with her heart, not just her words.
How can we listen, not just hear, all the responses and feelings about Sandy Hook? We have to start with assuming the best of people. If we only listen for cliche conservative or liberal messages and respond with anger at the assumed agenda then that is all we will hear. Focus on finding out what are the hopes and fears of the person who is talking, not what is their agenda (even if they have one) and we find who they are underneath it all. Then we can listen with compassion and love, not reactive deafness.
What do you listen for?
Remember this: You have the ability to hear deeper than the words spoken. You can hear the hand or you can hear the gun, both often come out at the same time. Choose to hear the hand reaching out.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 19, 2012 | Sin and Science - 2012 |
The children and adults at Sandy Hook are dead because of the 5 elements shown above. Unless we address those five elements we will not have the change we want. Here why I think they matter.
- The Gun – Yes, the gun matters. It was a gun that was used to killed them. Those who say it doesn’t matter, that if guns were banned the bad guys would find some other way of committing mass atrocities are wrong. There is ample evidence that people will not be likely to kill another person if they have to use a weapon that demands them to be in contact with the person. They will not use a knife for example because they would have to be right there with the person and they would be afraid of having the weapon taken away and it being turned on them. They are also afraid they wouldn’t know how to actually do the killing or be strong enough. And finally they would not want blood all over them. Sick, but true. So, guns, and what type of guns are legal, matter in the debate. To say they don’t is to deny reality.
- The Hand – Yes, the hand matters. It was a specific person who pulled the trigger. He (or in rare cases she) should be held personally responsible for their actions. That is what our legal system is built for and should be used for. Training our children to take personal responsibility for their actions is one of the primary jobs of a parent, and those supporting the family. Having sane and effective consequences for the child, and, even more importantly, adults, who do not take that responsibility are essential. If we don’t include this in the debate we will not find the most effective answer to our violence problem.
- The Brain – Yes, the brain matters. I called it a brain instead of a mind because I want to focus on the reality of what happens in the physical part of the body called the brain. Mental illness is an unfortunate term in some ways because it makes us think that it’s simply about what a person thinks, not the physical structure of the brain itself. If you break a bone in your arm you don’t say you have an arm disease. When you pull a quad muscle during a run you don’t say you have a thigh disease. You call it something specific. You have a pulled quad muscle or a broken arm. People with mental illness have something physically wrong with their brain. It is harder to distill than when the injury is in other parts of the body, but it’s just as real. What that means is that it is not true that all people are in control of themselves and their actions at all time. There are things that happen in the brain that change perception of reality and make people not able to understand right from wrong, real threats from imagined ones. We are learning more about this all the time. We need to include this focus on the brain, how it can malfunction and what we can do to heal it or else we will not have an satisfactory answer to our national problem.
- The Eye – Yes, the eye matters. What we fill our eyes (and thus our minds) with affect who we are. If we spend our time watching movies and games that have as their focus the hurting of other people again and again, whether physically or emotionally, then we are very likely to start thinking along those lines. Programs, games and events that insistently show or allow us to participate voyeuristically in murder, killing, raping, terrorism, war and mayhem for it’s entertainment value do indeed move us in that direction. It becomes what we think about more than if we didn’t see or interact with those things. But I am also talking about mean-spirited, gossipy, and self-righteous programs and speakers whose sole goal is to make fun of other people, to cut them down and belittle them for being different than, and thus less than, they are. What we watch and put in our minds and hearts matter.
- The Dollar – Yes, money matters. Gun manufacturing is driven by sales, just as cars and toys are. No sales and the cars, toys or guns will not be manufactured. Vested interests, including everyone in the gun industry, mental health industry, video game &TV/movie industry, and science industry, have a right to make a living. There is nothing wrong with them arguing responsibly from their point of view but we should always understand they have a vested financial interest, even as they might be discussing things rationally. In the end, we as a nation are not primarily responsible for their industry’s financial health, they are. Our primary responsibility, foreign or domestic, is to protect our citizens. We have a right to come together and make laws that facilitate doing that. We regulated tobacco, cars, chemicals, transportation and many other things for the express purpose of protecting our citizens, even when doing so meant those industries had to change and adapt. However, the most effective voting we can do is with our pocket book. As a parent, you don’t have to buy that violent video game for your child for Christmas. As an adult you don’t have to pay to see a violent movie. As a gun enthusiast you don’t have to buy a semi-automatic assault rifle and high volume magazines. As a college graduate you can contribute to your alma mater doing research in neuroscience to help move our knowledge along in that field. As a citizen you can contribute to and participate in activities that promote safety and sanity. You have control over your money, use it wisely.
Those are the elements that matter. Those are the areas that need to be addressed. Give me a reasonable idea on how we as a nation can deal with and change our behaviors in those areas and we can start a productive discussion. What do you think?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 18, 2012 | Sin and Science - 2012 |
Blaming Sin
I have heard more than once (actually, more than a dozen times most likely) in my church life a pastor take our modern era to task for giving up on sin. They say something along the lines of ‘You know, we used to call a sin a sin but now we call it a syndrome or a condition or a societal issue. What we need to do is get back to calling a sin a sin.’ The point the pastor is leading to is personal responsibility, which is a worthy and valuable goal for ourselves and to teach to our children. Blaming others or society or anything else is often just a way to avoid taking the blame yourself in other words. But you know what another way of taking the blame off our selves is? By calling it sin.
Sin and Pride
The concept of sin is, as I mentioned yesterday, attached to ‘original sin’. It is explained by classic Christianity as something we have in us always. It’s something we can’t escape or work our way out of. As a matter of fact, many denominations have a central part of their liturgy being a recitation of how continually bad we are. What is that recitation and the underlying theology but a method of saying it’s something we are just stuck with. As a matter of fact, those who attempt to get rid of sin are often accused of being prideful.
Suspending Judgment
We can call it sin, we can say it’s from Satan if we want, but the truth is that doesn’t help us figure anything out about what to DO about it. All we really hear in church is to not do it. If we do sin then it is a moral failure. And we know how effective it is to condemn someone morally is in making them repent, right? No. So, what if we, while still using the word ‘sin’ if we want, actually start to look at what happens scientifically when someone does something bad. How about we put away the moral judgment for a bit while we investigate what is happening? What do we have to lose by doing that?
Effective Exploration
I certainly am not saying there isn’t personal responsibility. What I am saying is let’s be effective in how we figure out that responsibility. If that means we investigate what goes wrong in the synapse of the brain, then that’s what we do. If it means we explore how nutrition and upbringing effects behavior, then let’s do that. Whatever it is we pursue the answer as best we can. Our goal, after all, is to reduce ‘sin’, right? Well, since figuring out what causes it is essential to reducing it, let’s focus on how to do that instead of focusing on the judgment, which gets us no where.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
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