Not Quite Finster
There we were, just taking the scenic route, over White Pass, through the Wenatchee Forest, when we came upon the unexpected.
There are times when I find whimsy in the unexpected and nonsensical. This wasn’t one of those times. “STOP!” I say to the driver, my husband, as he cruises by, purposefully oblivious.
“What?” he says. “What?”
“Turn around, right there,” I say, pointing to a store nearby. “I want to see what that was all about.”
“You want to see what what was all about?”
“That place back yonder with all the signs,” I reply.
He pulls into the store, turns back around, lets out a long sigh. This is his punishment, he figures, for marrying the Southern woman. The one he thought so charming all those years ago but who just wears him out now with her “Looky-See” ways.
“It’s like finding Howard Finster in the foothills of the Cascades,” I say.
“Not quite,” he says, pulling the car into the Post Office parking lot. “Finster did art. This isn’t art. “
“Okay. You’re right,” I agree. ” This might be the West Coast version of Wildman of Kenneshaw, Georgia instead. C’mon.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. My husband has a fear of flag-waving nutzo who post signs that say NO TRESPASSING and THIS PROPERTY PROTECTED BY GUNS AND GOD.
“Well give me some money,” I say.
“What for?”
“I might need to buy some art.”
“You have a credit card.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the sort of place that accepts credit cards.”
Sure enough there was a CASH ONLY sign hanging among the other signage.
I walked around by the back door. Whoo-Hoo! Whoo-Hoo! I called.
Nobody answered when I called out. But then again, nobody shot at me either. I accepted that as a good sign.
If I lived alone in the country, I’d fancy myself a word artist like Finster. I’d plaster my yard and house with word art.
When Faith moves out, worry moves in. When Faith moves in, then worry moves out. What the World needs is Faith, Finster said.
The world is full of words. Words plastered on Facebook. Words on blogs like this one here. Words on the back-ends of vehicles. Words tattooed on people’s backsides. Words on Twitter. Words on Instagram. Words on Reddit. Words on YouTube.
People shouting.
People proclaiming.
People congregating around words like dead bodies needing tending.
Such worrisome words coming at us, a barrage of gunfire all day long.
It’s easy to forget that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh.Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
It’s easy to disremember the power of the Word used correctly.
To create.
To give life
To provide light.
To inspire.
To invoke toward goodness.
To encourage.
To build up
To be a salve to the wounded.
To rally.
To exhort.
To say to another, let’s move beyond our hurt, our anger.
To say to yourself, forgiveness is mine.
Karen Spears Zacharias is author of Mother of Rain.
6 Comments
Tim
about 9 years agoAnd no sign (pun intended) of whoever owns that place? Please tell me that's another blog post! Loved the juxtaposition with Finster too. Nicely done, Karen.
ReplyKaren Spears Zacharias
about 9 years agoThank, Tim.
ReplyClaudia
about 9 years agoFunny and beautifully written, Karen. Your "words about words"; so touching. That's why I write :-)! Blessings, Claudia
ReplyKaren Spears Zacharias
about 9 years agoThank you, Claudia. I am blessed to know writers like yourself, like Ann Voskamp, like so many others who write truths that encourage and inspire. Deconstruction has its place in writing but hatred should not be a part of that. This place we found in the backwoods of Washington State was awash with hateful words. Hating takes so much life energy and it gives nothing back. It's like a slow death in quicksand.
ReplyAFRoger
about 9 years agoThe past seven years of ministry among people experiencing homelessness, poverty, mental illness and substance problems have opened my eyes to a startling observation. This is not the result of decades- long controlled studies, just my own experience in ministry while simultaneously still working in industry. So far, this observation has held true in both worlds: I have met many sane, healthy, educated people who are atheists. I have never met a mentally ill person who is an atheist. I have also been given essays, letters, even research papers by people who are dealing with severe mental health issues. Sometimes, they are meanderings that fail simple tests of logic and grammar. More often, however, they are articulate, intelligent and grammatically and logically intact treatises revealing a world of great internal anguish and persecution. Careful observation and fact checking usually reveals the plotting, the sinister forces, the threats to be "in the person's head" and not based in facts as we would understand facts. Yet to the person experiencing, all is as real as sunshine and the earth we walk on. It is their world. It gives me appreciation for the enormous pain many people carry, for the endless, endless energy that must be expended in order to keep up with and process all the external threats. Look at the signs above. They are all about external threats, plots, faults that exist elsewhere. What does that say about the author and the world the author lives in? One of my guiding lights in life, Joseph Sittler, wrote these words several decades ago: Evil is never more quietly powerful than in the assumption that it resides elsewhere. So far in life, I have found that observation to be dead accurate. Perhaps it is why Jesus cautioned us to not spend our time judging but in knowing and loving. How do I love the person who is before me? That's the challenge. And how much of religion as we have seen it preached and practiced over the last two millennia borders on mental illness? How much is a healthy and empowering force for love and redemption and the relief of suffering? How much energy that could have been channeled elsewhere was expended in the painting of the signs--and the thought process leading up to it? How can I direct my life to avoid doing the same?
ReplyKaren Spears Zacharias
about 9 years agoInsightful observations, Roger. Wonder will the atheist consider this as further proof that those of us who follow after God are indeed mentally unstable? Or whether we can conclude that the mentally unstable are somehow connected in ways the rest of us are not? Yes, I think about how much energy it takes to hate. I would feel imprisoned by the Word Art depicted in the home pictured above. Words can transform us, or they can slay us.
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