theSpark*

Phlegmatic vs. Perseverance

Well sorry guys,  it’s been a while since I’ve written anything…but reagardless of anything, God is still good. It’s been a good year of personal/spiritual growth for me. But you know whenever you make progress in God, this old carnal nature and the devil come around to push you right back to where you were. I’ve lost a couple feet for sure, but I got to get back up again. My pastor preached about the quality of patience, it is an enduring hope, a loose definition in the context of bible. I was really touched by this message, of doing the will of God and just waiting for the promises to be furfilled. I prayed about this message. I searched myself, how did this apply to me? While praying, I felt led to look up the word perseverance in the dictionary and then the thesaurus. It was powerful. God totally spoke to me in a way that I immediately recognized. In the thesaurus, before finding the word “perseverance”, I fell upon “phelgmatic”, which refers to my personality type, according to this book I read called : “Spirit-led Temperment”. I started to read the entry and realized it was really negative. So I felt pretty down, as I really identified my character to being “phelgmatic”, BTW here’s an example of being careful about mesuring your stance in God with secular teaching, in the end of it all, it should all not upsurp the authority of the Word of God. Anyway, feeling down, I decided to turn the page back, and guess what I found…the word “perseverance” exactly under “phelgmatic” on the preceding page, they lined up one on top of the other… I think God was saying: “Listen, you may have been ” detached, impassive, incurious, indifferent, insensible, lethargic, listless, stolid, unconcerned, uninterested, unresponsive, phlegmatic” BUT now I want you to be/have “doggedness, steadfastness. Perseverance, persistence, tenacity, pertinacity imply resolute and unyielding holding on in following a course of action.” Wow… God wants us to be overcomers and not give up. We can’t get in the way of ourselves, we are going through. I am going through! I am not phelgmatic, I am perserverer. 

Design? A Social Role?

click here for the original text

    I was very taken by this text as it resonates with the thoughts and my core beliefs. I am a born-again Christian and have my faith intertwined with my design practice. Early on, I felt a pull and tug of my beliefs when doing any kind of design. I try to integrate elements of my faith into my work and evidently this can conflict with the popular opinion. Frankly, there is a general anti-religious sentiment in the art world. I can understand this, there will always be a conflict between the secular and spiritual. A funny place to pursue a career no? At the intersection of a secular culture and that of a “spiritual culture”, if I can use that term. I don’t agree in sex before marriage, neither do I agree with violence on tv. Because of my opinions and beliefs you may think this to be problematic to pursue a career in design, where I will be working with a vast of array of clients, some who will more often than not have contrary morals to mine. That’s ok with me. Conflict gives way to innovation and change. Barnbrook states:

“I think there is a feeling that designers do have some kind of positive contribution to make here, and the simple thing of not having a moral position and just displaying the client’s messages has gone.”

    I feel that I have a positive contribution to make, I think that God is interested in the role graphic design plays in our society. I have understood that whatever we are constantly exposed to, whether visual or auditory, does have an affect on the inside state on an individual. An interesting thing Jesus pointed out:

Matthew 6:22-23 (King James Version)

22The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

For clarity, here is the same scripture in the Amplified Bible:

Matthew 6:22-23 (Amplified Bible)

22 The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound, your entire body will be full of light.
23 But if your eye is unsound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the very light in you [your [a]conscience] is darkened, how dense is that darkness!

    This is why I think it is very important to provide an alternative to the pervasive negative and dark visual vocabulary of pop culture. I think that there is a role for designers, I have understood that “we” are a part of a whole, and that we ought to be concerned about the consequences of making sex filled, violent, and morally destitute work. Filling souls with darkness, that’s not what I want to do.