Sulfur & Magnetic Resonance Poetry

New poem. I liked the way the words of the title sounded, so I made a poem [series of poems/I'm not sure what this is now]. This all has come out of reflections based on the last couple months in PhotoGenX. I would love critique/constructive criticism.

Sulfur & Magnetic Resonance Poetry

1.
She sat across on a hardback cushionless wicker
chair, wanting just to rest for the night, staring into
a white-light square with wide open nighttime eyes.
The cups standing on the shadowy floor
compete for my attention in magnetic compulsion
to pick them up. So I comply. She doesn’t move
her eyes from the glow; I scoop up one
cup, another cup, and shuffle them to the barren
sink. The dishes will wait for the sun.

2.
You say the words slowly, annunciating each
syllable, waiting for the timing to be right.
The way the S rolls off your tongue reminds me
of other S words, like sexy, or sycamore,
or pseudonym. The sulfur tattoos your tongue and lips
like a tribal design, the meaning unclear to everyone
including the owner. But it looks cool.
I know your meaning when you say sulfur,
that I smell dead, or that I have strength.

3.
Did you ever want to run away to Paris, Lady,
and live homeless under the Eiffel Tower
in the afternoons and live at cafés for lunch
and dinner? We can sleep through breakfast
together. I’ll whisper French words in your ears
while we wait for lunch time, and you won’t know
what I’m saying, and I won’t know my words either.
Poetry without translation is often the easiest to swallow
and believe with open ears.

4.
I write about you often, in my notebook &
in my dreams. I talk about you when I write.
You are not the same, today, and you will be
someone else, tomorrow or next year.
I don’t know who you are, & you are me
sometimes. I love when others write of you,
after I get over my jealousy.

5.
Resonance draws her fingers across the white–
washed walls ringing with the tone to take
my feet as captive dancers, drumming down
my spine, up my brain stem, simply spinning
some beautiful beats. I lose thoughts before
I can convert any music to memory.
Why don’t you play Authority Song
as you tell me everything I’m not scarred of
anymore.

Portraits

I wanted to share a few portraits I've shot so far. Hopefully, more soon...

This is my friend (and staff worker) Layne Greene.



This is my friend Jo Svensen.





Hope you enjoyed! Grace and peace!

Chris

Thoughts

Today I got a message from someone who is an alumnus of my high school. She graduated before I began high school, and I have not met her. She said she’s very excited about what I’m doing in South Africa and wants to help, and offered to do a bake sale to raise funds for me.

How awesome is that? A stranger contacts me to ask if she can raise money to give me toward the work I have been called into. God is good.

Since seeking God’s heart for love and justice and mercy and grace and peace – essentially for the reality of God’s presence to come into lives where He is most needed – blessings seem to have been piling up on me. In my mind, all I have been doing was living out what God speaks in His Word in the specific context He has called me to. It’s obedience. It is doing the right thing at the right time. There is nothing special about me. This could be anyone doing the same things.

And all I can think is, This is grace. It is gift. It is kindness. It is joy. It is a favor done without expectation of return. And I love it.

And it is good. I have people asking to bake for me. And really, it isn’t about me. It is about the thousands and thousands of women living in shame and humiliation and silence because they have AIDS and feel they cannot speak because they do not want they families and friends to cast them out of their community.

Thank you, friend I have not yet met. And friends I have met, feel free to hold a bake sale to give money for a cause that seeks God’s love. Organize a (non)talent show. You all are more creative than I am. So go use your gifts.

•

A friend of mine from Canada has been trying valiantly to raise support to pay for school costs and the price of an around the world plane ticket so he can do the two year PhotoGenX program. Bless his heart. The exchange rate is not in his favor. In the last few days, he has received a couple thousand dollars. God has shown His faithfulness to my friend to provide for his needs, to give him the things he asks for. God has shown His faithfulness to me in the last few days in a huge way. Praise God! And He has shown His faithfulness and providence of many, many students and staff in our group.

But what about the people for whom nothing has happened? For whom there have been no breakthroughs in money they need? Does God care less about them somehow? Have they not done something so God will do something for them? Is grace, this gift, not broad and powerful enough to extend to them?

Of course I do not think they have done something wrong or not done something. But why me? Why have I seen the blessings, the grace I have?

I pray it’s to be a blessing. I don’t know what I can do right now. I need to pray. I always need to pray. Mostly I need to listen more closely than I have been. But I also want to listen. I want to hear God’s word and obey in gratitude and joy…

I hope to have good news to share about my friends soon.

•

Why is it that in the accounts of Jesus’ life He talks so often about things related to money? And Jesus doesn’t say things that make sense to me or most of my friends, at least not with the way we have been taught to understand economics. Jesus talks about not making a fuss over paying taxes to the Empire that was occupying Israel (Matthew 22:17). Or earlier in Matthew, Jesus says not to be anxious about food or clothing because God will provide it (Matthew 6:25). Typically food and clothing have to be bought. And they cost a lot of money as your family grows. The two are connected in a fundamental way. There is freedom and release from anxiety about paying taxes to Rome – and Jesus says it’s Caesar’s money anyway – and freedom in knowing and trusting that God will provide the very basic needs out of His generous loving nature. Which is good since tax collectors working for Rome took much of the money anyone had. Jesus essentially says, “That coin with an inscription of a man? That’s human way of understanding and doing provision. God’s way? Well, God has put his inscription on the flowers.” What can you say in counter response to that?

And then there are stories for illustrating investment in the Kingdom of God. Lessons on giving, and supporting. Stories of financial sacrifice. Which makes me think that the issues I’m dealing with involving money aren’t new… =P

•

I guess my point was sort of that money, as one of the most looming concerns of YWAM students – and I think missionaries more generally – is not limited to myself, and is a hard thing and difficult to understand why it’s different person to person. But I think it’s clear that God cares. I do not even know how He could possibly be indifferent.

After all, God has made wildflowers to look more glorious than even the wisest, possibly wealthiest man ever.

From the grace that has been given to me, in God’s rich love,

Chris

The Battle Is Won…

But the war is still going. The biggest obstacle so far has been my outreach fee, which is finally covered. The total cost of the PhotoGenX DTS was over $10,000, which I saw provided in less than three months. God is good. The biggest battle is won and finished.

Many, many people, many of you, have shown great generosity and encouragement and belief in what I’m doing. You have put up with dozens of my annoying emails asking for financial support. You have not sent me any hate email in response. You have been patient with me. You have read my update blogs, the good ones and the poorly written ones and the rants (which maybe shouldn’t have happened…). You are reading this right now. Thank you.

As much as I have already received, I want to ask boldly for a little more. The money I have received so far has gone completely to my fees for training and outreach in South Africa. I still need to buy supplies for the trip, like a backpack to carry my camera and photography gear, an external hard drive to back up images and important files, gear and basic necessities I will have to buy. I am hoping my costs in total will be around $500 to buy all the gear and things I will need. I am not sure how much the costs will end up being.

So, you know now the expenses for the outreach trip are done. If you would still like to support me financially, the money will go toward the most important and costly gear I need, hopefully a camera bag first, then an external hard drive, and smaller things like travel towels and toothpaste last. Or if you have equipment/gear/supplies I may have use for, email me to see if I could use it and you could ship it.

Snail mail to Hawaii is slow and seems a little unreliable. My mom helps with my finances my depositing checks into my account so I can pay my YWAM bills. Checks made out to me can be sent to her at my home address. Or if you use Paypal, I have a donate link set up on my Blogger update site (you're on it!) that goes to my checking account.

Thank you all for all your prayers, all your support, and all your encouragement. I have my outreach fees paid! This is an investment into what I plan and want to become my lifelong work. I want to use photography for the rest of my life to see and show the world through different eyes, and to validate people who have never been validated. I want to use photography as a tool to pray for the people I meet. For the rest of my life, I want to use photography to inspire others and to be a voice for the voiceless. I am doing that and will continue to do that for many years because of your support and coming alongside me. And this is an investment into lives of beautiful valuable people, whom the world has condemned as ugly and worthless. I will help reverse those lies. Love always wins.

Thank you for your love. You are helping the winning side.

Grace and Peace! With much love,

Christopher Wolf

What Does the LORD Require?

With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

– Micah 6:6-8

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." – Matthew 9:10-13 (quote from Hosea 6:6)

What if God wasn't about getting people to be afraid of him, but to love him and love people? What if he wanted people to love each other because they are created in his likeness, because they bear the "divine spark" from the creator of the universe? What if God wants mercy and justice and love because he understands that fullness and life only truly come through community and right living with each other, because God is in community from before time?

Does all this make sense? I know I have trouble comprehending the implications of these ideas. I believe God wants us to give/be mercy and grace and peace and love and life to each other. I believe God wants to be loved as the Father he is in creating people in his likeness, whom he calls children. Even assuming these things might be true is a radical step and has serious, world changing implications.

So, how does this apply to PhotoGenX?

What if Christians were to live out the words of Micah and act justly and seek justice in the world? Or what if Christians were to do as Jesus says and practice mercy, not to give people the things they deserve, to forfeit the right to harm or punish when it is within their rights? (And why did Jesus focus on mercy when he quoted this verse?) What if Christians were to walk humbly with God, starting out of acting justly themselves, and forgiving and extending mercy when wronged, knowing they don't know the whole situation like God does?

The first command, act justly, has been most heavy on my heart. I want to see justice come where there is injustice. I want there to be light and hope where there is now darkness and despair. I want to see the oppressed go free.

But there is something important at stake here for the oppressor too, isn't there? The things pimps and crime lords and rapists and people behind genocide and every kind of injustice imaginable have done, I can barely conceive forgiving them, giving mercy. But that is what God wants.

God is interested in freedom for the oppressed and the oppressor.

Because justice can only truly come when the oppressed and set free amends made, and when the oppressor no longer does injustice against anyone. And both parties, on either side of injustice, need to walk humbly with God,

to avoid becoming proud and arrogant,

to keep from condemning themselves for what happened,

to know they are created in the image of the God who created the universe, and he loves them.

That's really what justice, and mercy, and humility are about, right? Knowing the truth of God's love.

χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη,

Χριστοφόρος