For those of you who don’t know already, I am currently making a film that will hopefully grab a considerable amount of attention. After trying to explain in multiple times, I think I’ve finally come up with a solid description:
…shhh is a provocative critique of the church. It is addressing the fact that in order to be accepted within an institution whose mandate is grace and love, we must first hide our deepest secrets and darkest sins.
These are some images that provided me with the creative inspiration. Keep close watch here for the internet debut of ‘…shhh’
Filed under: Uncategorized
Originally uploaded by cloughridge.
We the dirty downtrodden students, the ruling and raging faculty, and the evermore bitter staff of Providence College have all made it to exam week. This lovely little girls name is Madison. The expression on her face encapsulates my spirit at this point: confused, upset, staggering, beaten and bruised.. but I’m still standing
The last two weeks have been some of the most confusing times of my life. There are a few reasons for this, but right now I’m going to explain what I am was feeling.
My head is heavy
My mind is slow
My hearing is fuzzy
My appetite is small
My verbal filter is non-existent
My self awareness is gone
My back is in pain
My homework is late
My fear of failure is shining gloriously
My eyes are tired
My being is numb
My motivation is gone
My passion is fleeting
My love is strong
My will remains
Filed under: podcast
This is an experiment to combine old mediums to create a new experience. This is the poem blogged on October 30. If you click on the link you can listen to me reading the poem, and there is music as well. Reading the poem with this in the background provides a new experience and better conveys the message of the poem.
To hear me read the poem, click this link. Another window will open, where you need to click ‘download’ to listen to the file.
Filed under: video
Every few weeks I am violently reminded that in order to maintain both an academically rewarding lifestyle, as well as a sense of sanity; I must sometimes be an idiot. I’ve discovered that I have to balance my long hours of intense study with long hours of something useless… like videogames. Time spent on useless things can sometimes be productive in different ways, for example writing poetry. Poetry produces no tangible useful result but is not useless; it cathartic for me, as well as a creative outlet. On the other end, running around dorm with a couple mostly naked guys is less productive, but is nonetheless useful to maintain a healthy balanced mind.
This video is an example of how some friends of my in Sem-house 8 balance their lives.
Filed under: video
Many people have already seen this video, but it is important to notice. I have been challenged recently by my involvement in the media. I see how certain mediums manipulate and distort truth in everything they do, which essentially creates lies. The lies highlighted here are obvious; sense of beauty and the empty promise that the mascara used will make you look like a supermodel.
The lies aren’t always that obvious, and in this example it assumes that the ‘final product’ woman looks better than the ‘pre-altered’ woman. At least I can say that the ‘pre-altered’ woman was far more attractive. At least for me that means she is honest, accesible, and an actual human being.
As much as I wish it weren’t true, we have to be ultra-sensitive to almost every image we consume, and make sure we know when we are being mislead.
Filed under: word
Jealousy is a difficult thing to experience. Some get it worse than others, but there is no one that doesn’t get jealous. You may be wondering why such a personal thing like jealousy can fit into the Providence theme of this blog. I can assure you that an emotion /feeling/sin like jealousy can have the potential to consume a person’s life. Example: My life at Prov. I hope you can catch the rhythm of the rhyme, and maybe feel the emotion.
Green
There’s a pent up ball of distress that continues to press firmly and squarely and directly on my chest.
This constriction moves through my head with a pulsing irritation of dread that doesn’t seem to leave, even after I’m dead.
My eyes are open, my nostrils cleared, my fists clasped tight and his death sentence neared. The muscles in my arms are eager to jump and pound and punch and kick that punk out. Every part of my body is filled with jealous rage and I can’t wait to bust out from this obnoxious Christian cage.
Let me express my anger with raw, uncensored violence, and don’t hold me back or you too I will silence.
I’m glad that I’m mad but I still know its bad, so then I get sad, because you are the one who’s upset when I’m bad.
Because it’s for you that this heart of distress is beating and pulsing and does not rest, for you I’ll hold back my unrestricted mess of rage and hate and violence and stress.
Help me turn it to you so my soul can rest and my heart and my mind will continue to press for a hope and a passion to know you the best that this human body can possibly possess.
Filed under: life
There is an ongoing issue at Providence that most aren’t aware of, and of those that are, they don’t talk about it. The challenge is merely being a Christian College which facilitates the growth of (mostly) young Christian people while allowing them to create their own opinions about how they should live their lives.
There is a certain model portrayed at Providence College of what a ‘good Christian’ looks like. This image is reinforced in different ways, but I think it is fair to say that the influence of the Student Life department plays the primary role.
The two primary ways I see this is in the student leaders, and community life standards set by that department. The student leaders at providence fit into a very specific mold – these are people who seem to have it ‘all together’, who don’t smoke, drink, touch drugs, have sex, use profane language, eat with their mouth open, or say the wrong thing at the wrong time. This has the image of perfection, pure-as-white with no really big problems. I personally know most of the students currently in leadership roles at the school, and I know that perfect is the last word to describe them, but still they still seem to fit into this image.
The other rienforcer of this limited mold of Christianity is the community life covenant which is presented as scripturally based and therefore as the way things should be. I don’t have the time here or, more importantly, the effort to comb through the covenant, but I trust you can find it through the Providence link on this blog. With these criteria, the definition of a good Christian becomes very firm and solid. This is in no way the way God created us to be. We are immeasurably unique, and so is our Christianity.
Through my experience with the Faculty at Providence, I have observed (and they have affirmed) the idea that what Student Life department implies as spiritual maturity is not what they advocate. I’m still unclear about what they consider to be a ‘good Christian’ but I get the impression that they don’t have a solid definition. In light of the uniqueness of God’s creation (us), I believe this is a more accurate idea to hold rather than trying to force ourselves into our ‘perfect’ molds.
I must admit that I am a student leader. Too many, if not most, I appear to fit into that mold. There was a time when I tried to fit my big, awkward, unacceptable parts into the ‘good Christian’ mold, but I’ve since realized that isn’t possible. Even still I sometimes feel the pressure to ‘tow the line’ of the image of perfect leadership in public. If you are or have been a student leader, or a student who has been lead, then please share your thoughts, opinions, objections, and offensives.
Filed under: photo
(Click picture to view full size.)
What do you think?
Filed under: word
Poetry:
You know that feeling you get sometimes, ‘cause everybody gets it sometimes that feeling of utter exhaustion. It comes when you have pushed your mind and you body to the maximum and then the steam runs out. You know that feeling when the will, the drive and the passion are all present, but the strength isn’t. Like a 9 year old boy who thinks he’s the strongest man alive. But this isn’t just the body, no no, that’s just too easy, it’s the mind too, the mind continues to race harder and faster then ever, chasing something unknown. The soul is running next to your mind on that unending treadmill chasing what you don’t know, reaching so hard for what is unreachable. There is nowhere to escape from the running of your mind and soul, it doesn’t leave when you sleep, it doesn’t leave when you read, and it doesn’t leave while you’re watch this…You know that feeling?
But hey, you know a better feeling? The one that comes a little after that last one.. you know it when for whatever reason, whatever you are chasing is no longer so important that you get it. When in the morning when you rise, you can feel it in your bones, that feeling of relaxation, and relief, and respite. There’s something about that day when you wonder what exactly you were chasing after for so long and so hard.
The point is it doesn’t matter because, because it doesn’t matter because now you can breathe with ease, you can sing and laugh and love, and delight in the beauty of the trees. This is a wonderful place, at a super slow pace, with a stupid sappy grin on your face. This is nothing less that the best, what doesn’t matter is how your life is messed, because in the face of it all, you have found rest.
