A Prayer to God Concerning the Noisiness of Life

God is real my friends- I know this to be true. I have experienced His healing and changing grace in my own life time and time again. Occasionally I will write out my prayers to Him... it helps me to focus on what I really want to say with my heart as opposed to what oftentimes comes out of my mouth. I was recently feeling that life was becoming very 'noisy'. I'm not sure how to explain this, other than to say that if you've ever been able to identify the events surrounding your life as 'too loud', I'm sure you understand. I hope that by sharing these personal thoughts, I can be some sort of encouragement to you in your own walk... or, if you do not know the Lord as your saving Father, that this will provide some small insight into why He is the only way to salvation and peace.

Dear Father, it’s so loud right now. The decibels of life seem to be cranking up higher and higher. I confess- I miss the silence. I miss the quiet, still moments of reflection and solitude that I once knew more intimately. Noises, loud noises seem to be clanking and stirring in every direction now: discomfort, complaining, and some noises not so driven by dissatisfaction, but noises nonetheless. They feel so constricting and yet, for all their disruptive and invasive nature, they creep in unnoticed. The noises drown out vision and creativity; those voices that I rely on to speak refreshment to the soul. I can’t hear them as well now- they are indistinct, faint. I feel it almost a farce to be sentimental, sweet, or philosophical. The loud noises are unpredictable and harsh. I try to be vulnerable and speak a quiet word, but the noises glare and smash like waves of needles into the calm I so desperately strive to create. My reaction is to pull back and scream in defiance, but even my own reaction only adds to the noise. I just want it to be quiet, so I stop reacting. I just sit down and shut up.

But oh, what a bad way to approach things! It’s complacency, its indifference, it’s a releasing of oneself to defeat. This is not the way you’ve called me to be my God, this is not what your holy, quiet words have spoken to me in the silence of my mind. Your words are soft, yes, but powerful; gentle answers that can shape worlds and split open the mountains like soft wax. Your quiet words of power call me to rise above the noise, to soar on the wings of your promises and strength and to look defeat in the face and refuse to be mastered by it. God you have given me a voice to loudly proclaim your name. May I never use it to screech in protest when things seem to be shaping in a way not derived from my own sinful desires. God you are my solitude in time of winter. You provide me with a sanctuary of silence amidst the loudest, most abrasive moments of my life. You are love and justice, a great tandem of power, the like of which has no equal in this universe. Great and mighty is your name! When I cry to you, you answer me. You command your creation to be silent and know you. I love you father- may you continue to teach me to place my reliance and faith solely in the palm of your hands. Amen.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled silence with... a post!

It's a sure bet that if you aren't seeing consistent postings here on the blog, that I've got my creative juices embedded in some other project or musing. Such is the case of late. Recently I've been...

• Working on a rough script for a short film I'm hoping to create and submit to some local film festivals with some long-time friends of mine. This is still in the infant stages of creation, but so far I've had a few WONDERFUL brainstorming sessions with my fellow film cohorts. We've been making great progress in the story development department and I'm really looking forward to the prospect of being able to complete a project of this magnitude.

• Revamping the blog. I've dived into an abundant amount of materials related to blogging design, scripting, and do's/don'ts in an effort to create a blog homebase that is truly meaningful and eye-catching. I'm not rushing it though; I still have plenty to learn and many errors to make in my endeavor to better the interface and design of this blog. Thanks for your patience in enduring the violent yellow text that litters this site!

• Attempting to do a better job at keeping myself involved in local ministry and in general. It's easy to skew your priorities and blame it on 'just being too busy'. I loathe that excuse... everyone uses that excuse; very unoriginal... and yet I find myself using it all too often. We just started a new evangelism series with the college and career group that I help lead at our church and I'm really excited to be jumping into it. It's definitely a humbling thing to be leading a group in a discussion of this subject (or any subject for that matter). I find myself constantly being convicted by my own shortcomings in the areas I speak on. But then again, isn't that a huge blessing? Thank God for the conviction and humbling nature of his Word. I'm infinitely grateful to the Lord for showing me how truly weak and frail I am when my reliance is not placed solely on Him.

• Playing games. Yep, I'm not going to fib on this... I'm playing video games more frequently. I had all but given up this practice during my whole graduation/marriage/buy a house/transition part of life. I'll admit it, I'm having fun and enjoying the downtime I get to do this. It's nice to have an outlet for stress/tension... hmmm... perhaps I should channel more of that into working out... ummm... did I say that out loud?
  

Myanmar Cyclone & Chinese Quakes - A Call to Pray!

I'm thankful that I work at a world relief organization where I can be on the forefront of news regarding world disasters. I can't help but wonder though, if I didn't work at a world relief organization like this... how long would it take me to realize that thousands upon thousands of people just lost their lives on the other side of the world?

We are so incredibly blessed here in America; we have so much, and we don't even realize it. We are also very naive about events occurring that seemingly have 'no impact' on us as a country. I say this not to 'snub' America (although American's snubbing their own country does seem to be a trendy thing for bloggers to do right now... another subject for another blog), but rather to encourage us as a nation to get more informed about how we can be praying for our world. Let's jump out of that isolationist mindset and start extending the love of Christ into our actions- its not as if prayer takes a lot of effort!

Anyway, with the Myanmar death toll climbing over the 30,000 mark today (with many, MANY more missing) and the Chinese quake death toll reportedly to be in the 7,000's- this isn't just your everyday tragedy. Combine these numbers with the fact that you are looking at two governments whom are known for their pride, secrecy, and resistance to receive foreign aid, the numbers are undoubtedly going to be a lot higher when this is all said and done. Early estimates have the final combined death toll of both of these disasters residing in the 100,000's. This isn't even mentioning the global food crisis that has been slowly descending upon the world in general during this last year. Think you've got it bad with gas prices going up and stamps rising in price by a cent? Try having your main food source (rice) jump in value so high that you are being forced to starve yourself in order to feed your children. This is real people, and its happening all around the world, TODAY.

Take a minute and consider that seemingly arbitrary number for a moment. 100,000. 100,000 lives extinguished within a matter weeks, probably less.

For comparisons sake, a little over 4,000 American troops have lost their lives during the on-going war in Iraq/Afghanistan. How much media attention has this received? Daily reports on every news channel, every day for the last... how many years? I do not mention this number to dishonor our troops and what they have done (this is another area where we can be praying!). Their sacrifice is one of the most noble endeavors I can think of- they have given their lives to make the world a better, safer place for EVERY man and woman, not just American men and women.

How many of us even knew that there was a place called Myanmar before this tragedy occurred? Maybe a few of you heard about the atrocities going on here because of interviews surrounding Silvester Stallone and the filming of the Rambo movie there. There is a silver lining here though: through this great tragedy, the world's eyes have been forced to look upon Myanmar. Maybe, just maybe, now that we all have been forced to meet Myanmar, some good can come from us having our eyes opened. Do a little googling on Myanmar (or Burma as it was more frequently referred to prior to 1989 when the military junta passed laws to change the name of the country and further remove its connection to the western world), and learn more about its corrupt government. The information, you'll discover, is quite frightening. Why are people treated like this? Why does suffering and unjust actions go unnoticed?

My point is this, the world is so much bigger than our little social spheres and day to day concerns. The world and it's sinful people face insurmountable obstacles every day- things we can't possibly face as a human race on our own ability. Thankfully we have the Lord- our almighty father! As I was reminded by one of the relief workers here at Food for the Hungry- let's focus on the living right now, not the lost. There are many hurting people out there right now who need God to ease their pain. Let's petition him to move on their behalf, so that He may place his healing hand on a hurting world. Pray that He uses these events to save the lost and restore the hurting.

"He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6:8

Bragging Rights...

One of things I love about being a graphic designer, is the people I come in contact with throughout my life. I thoroughly enjoy bragging about my friends! I had the privilege of working with Drew Dunlap for a few years back when I was doing in-house print work with a company called Group Imaging. Drew is a talented sketch artist and designer. He just posted some new pieces on his blog that blend his sketching ability with his photoshop know-how. I really like the unique style and personality that he put into these. Great job Drew- these pieces look phenomenal!

Of Twitter and Good Books

You may have noticed an additional 'function' of the blog in recent days. There now is a twitter updates section located directly to the right of these blog posts. Twitter is a great little service that was developed by the same guy who originally created Blogger before it was bought by Google. Twitter's entire existance is reliant upon answering one question and one question only, "What are you doing?". The skeptic in me ignored this service when it first launched, but after hearing more and more reviews, I decided to give it a try.

Users can update their twitter accounts via the web, email, or by phone through text messaging. Every user can have a 'network' of friends who can choose to 'follow' them throughout the day. When you follow a user on Twitter, you are messaged via whatever medium you choose (web, email, phone) when one of your friends makes an update.

There are several design firms who are currently using twitter extensively in the workflow. This is useful from a corporate standpoint when you employ cell phones as the messaging agent. Rather then sending out a mass email to your creative team, you can update your twitter account and have text messages automatically deploy to anyone set to follow you, letting them know you're heading out of the office. I'm using twitter to provide on-the-fly updates on this blog using a nodule that was developed for blogger by the development team of twitter. So now, you can be caught up with all of the non-important, trivial details of my life when they happen... yes, I can hear those screams of excitement ("Oh, this is what we've wanted for so long... to be bored by more details of your impeccably nerdy life!").

I also received two books recently which I'm pretty excited about digging into. Vicente over at Xaris Studio suggested "CSS: The Missing Manual" to me as an excellent resource to help defeat my CSS shortcomings. My mom, who is a faithful reader of this blog (hooray for supportive parents), read Vicente's comment and picked up the book for me as a gift- awww thanks mom (see Vinny- I didn't even have to steal it!). I also received a book entitled "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability" from our in-house web marketing guru, Kevin, at Food for the Hungry. Looks like this print designer may have to dust off his web stigma and charge back into the world of online development.

The Comedy of Design

There is a hilarious blog post over at graphicPUSH regarding the interaction between a designer and his 'special' client. The laughter has been helping me through my day; the sad part is that clients like this exist... abundantly.

My favorite excerpt:

ME: “This is great feedback. Thank you. I really think we should avoid most animation all together. Studies have shown that it really distracts from the rest of the page and makes it harder to read. I honestly feel the blue Helvetica really conveys a sense of professionalism, which is what we want to establish with your offshore banking operation.”

THEM: “I talked to my wife and my friend and this guy I used to work with and looked at some of the drawings my son did for the website design, and I really would like the headline in neon green and set in the typefontface Comic Sans. I use if for my church newsletter and I think it would be perfect. I think it really makes a statement about the brand’s market leadership and being a disruptive post-Web 2.5 startup.”

ME: “OK sounds like you have some experience designing so let’s try the idea. Here is a new comp with the headline in Comic Sans. As you can see it really clashes with the rest of the design. I think sometimes it works great like your church newsletter, but might not be the best option for an offshore bank targeting senior Mafia members and corrupt hedge fund managers.”

And you hired a designer... why?

So...

The new blog format is taking a bit longer to get working than originally expected. I blame this mainly on two of my own personal shortcomings- 1) I keep tweaking things so that it will look 'just' right, and 2) my lack of experience in the coding and CSS styling world is rearing its ugly head. I just make things look pretty for goodness sake, what is this coding business?!? Ah, but that is the nature of the gig, you have to dive into the tools in order to get good results. Here's to hoping that I can complete a successful dive into this blog design restructure...

A couple more notes about the redesign:

I've change my mind yet again... Pulse of Thought and Vigilant Studios will no longer be two separate entities (I know, I know... how many times now has this been debated...). The current trend in graphic design seems to show that more and more designers are making their personal home pages a platform for blogging. This was something I had been trying to do for awhile, but it didn't seem generally accepted up until a year or two ago. Now graphic designers are using the blog format as a way to draw in potential clients and to share insights and thoughts with their fellow desigNERDs. All this to say, the new format will be much more 'Vigilant Studios' in theme and less 'Pulse of Thought'. Rather, Pulse of Thought will become a subtitle name of my blog which is under the Vigilant Studios name... thoroughly confused now? Good.

Two Quick Things...

1) Iron Man definitely lived up to the hype. I don't even need to say any more than that... go buy tickets- NOW.

2) The site look/feel is about to undergo major changes (goodbye yellow color scheme!). My apologies to those of you who may be viewing this site while I'm in the middle of messing with the CSS and trying some 'live' edits. This is the one big downside of using blogger as my primary interface- there is no testing environment to drive the edits on before launching them. See you on the other side...

Ironman Hype

Let me be the first to admit it- I was excited about the Iron Man movie when I first discovered that it was in production. The trailers only furthered that excitement and I have to admit that I'm partial to superheroes who are self-made, not just blessed/cursed with power. I'm also partial to those superheroes that don't get as much publicity as the 'Big 3': Superman, Batman, and Spiderman (though as an aside I must say that Batman Begins was incredible, while Spiderman 3 was one of the most disappointing, over-hyped movies to hit the big screen in quite some time).

Regardless of your perspective and biases towards certain characters, from the buzz, Iron Man is looking like it will be a noteworthy addition to the comic book movie line-up. Rotten Tomatoes has early reviewers putting this movie at the 95% mark (for comparisons sake, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ended up with a 94% rating).

My original worries were that this movie would buckle under the pressure and try to put too much action and not enough story in the mix. However, early reports seem to indicate that Tony Stark doesn't dawn the Iron Man suit until a decent length into the movie. This reminds me of Batman Begins, in that the director Christopher Nolan didn't rush the plot in order to give us Batman; he invested an equal amount of time in Bruce Wayne showed how this broken man becomes the dark knight. I love that- it should be every director's goal to get his/her audience invested in the character before we are expected to cheer for them.

Needless to say, I've ordered tickets for the first showing tonight (which amazingly starts at 8pm... a very welcome 'pre-viewing' time that breaks the traditional midnight debut for movies like this). Who knows- I may be disappointed, but its sure worth finding out with reviews like this abounding.