saturday song: i am a seed

for today's saturday song, i bring you a track from david crowder's most recent (and final [insert sad face here]) project entitled: Give Us Rest (or A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys]). 

seriously.  that's the title.  it is a hefty 2-disc project full of all the quirkiness that makes crowder the crazy-haired christian music prophet that he is. 

on this track he gets in touch with his bluegrass sensibilities, but mixes it with a rousing anthemic chorus that is sure to get your foot tapping and your soul lifted up. 

enjoy, and have a great weekend. 

new collage: lent 5 - the broken get fixed

"lent 5 - 2012: the broken get fixed"

mixed media collage on stretched box canvas (acylic paint, found papers, vintage papers, glue, marker)

march, 2012

gregory a. milinovich

 last sunday was the fifth sunday of lent, and our theme in worship as we continued our series called "upside down and inside out: the paradox of the gospel," was that "the broken get fixed."  this has always been one of my favorite lenses through which to view the gospel, because, as i look around at this world (and especially in the mirrors of this world) i see so much brokenness.  and i hate it.  seriously: i hate brokenness.  everywhere i see it, it breaks (pun intended) my heart, whether it's in reading about arson in the local paper, or in something as trivial as the neighbor's ornamental geese.  you see, she dresses them up all the time, to match the holidays and the seasons.  she obviously loves those stupid things, and puts a great deal of care into entertaining the passersby with clever costumes.  yesterday i drove by and one goose was naked and as i got closer i realized that it had a broken neck.  literally, it had a huge chunk taken out of its neck.  and my first reaction was sadness.  not for the stupid plaster goose, but for the woman who dresses them.  and as i drove on, i wanted to shake my fist at the universe and shout out: WHY?  WHY SO MUCH BROKENNESS?  WHY DOES THE PLASTER GOOSE HAVE TO BREAK?  WHY DO SO MANY MARRIAGES HAVE TO BREAK?  WHY DO SO MANY HEARTS HAVE TO BREAK?  WHY? 

and this is the question that people have been asking for, well, forever.  maybe they ask it in different ways, or maybe they get tired of asking it and assign themselves some sort of cool name to make it look like they are too detached to care, but in the end, we all hate brokenness and want things to be made right again.  we want things to be fixed.  we wants things to be aligned, to fit, to work, and to be the way they were meant to be.  we want the things we make to bring healing and hope.  we want cancer to end.  we want accidents to end.  we want disease to end.  we want despair to end.  we want addiction to end.  we want all the brokenness to end. 

and that's the Gospel.  that's it.  ever wonder how to share the good news of Jesus with others?  well here it is:  the broken get fixed.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers– all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."  -colossians 1:15-20

and so here is my collage to represent this incredible truth.  the people get fixed.  the relationships get fixed.  the broken dreams get fixed.  the battered bodies get fixed.  the plaster geese get fixed.  all that is loved and lovable and even that which is broken beyond all loving recognition, gets fixed.  ALL THINGS.  even me.  even.me.  un-be-stinkin'-lievable.  and yet it is exactly what we believe.  the paradox of our Gospel. 

peace.

random: zombies and ear infections

-why do i feel like mike tyson ate a can of spinach and pounded me about the face and torso?  oh, yeah, up with a crying baby (ear infection) in the middle of the night.  now i know what shannon's been going through for months.  i don't know how she does it because i literally feel like zombies chased me across the county during the night, finally caught me behind some old abandoned barn, and performed such heinous zombie acts upon me that they cannot be mentioned, leaving me in a worthless pile of zombie-flesh.  that's precisely how i feel.  so, shannon, if you're reading:  i'm sorry for ever thinking you should just be able to be up and cheery after being up half the night with a crying baby.  or a terrifying zombie.  whichever. 

-yesterday i finished a book i have been reading by former new york yankees catcher jorge posada and his wife laura called "the beauty of love" which is the personal story of their journey from children to adults to falling in love and getting married and then having a child who was diagnosed with a condition called craniosynostosis, which has to do with some fusing issues in the bones of the skull in young children.  it seems like a terrifying ordeal, and one that the posada's struggled through with equal parts failure and success.  the book tells the story of how they turned a situation that for a long time seemed to threaten the survival of their family into an opportunity to help others.  a very inspiring read.  we should all handle adversity with such strength and tell about it with such honesty. 

-i was also going to write a bunch more, and it was going to be powerful and poetic, possibly world-changing.  but i think i'm going to take a nap instead.  before the zombies catch me again. 

new collage: lent 4 - 2012: the dead are alive!

"lent 4 - 2012: the dead are alive!"

mixed media collage on stretched box canvas (glue, acrylic paint, found papers, printed papers, sticker label)

march, 2012

gregory a. milinovich

for the fourth sunday in lent, i made a collage that dealt with our continued theme of the paradoxes of the Gospel.  for that sunday we were looking at the paradox of how the dead are alive (those who lose their lives will find them).  of course, the whole easter story points to this, with the normal cycle of life leading to death being turned upside-down and inside-out as Jesus shows that he is starting something new in which life leads to death leads to life.  maybe this is the ultimate paradox: that death in its cold, merciless finality is rendered powerless in the face of God's love. 

i thought i would illustrate this point with something colorful and bold, playing on the famous "love" logo and using the word "death" repeated over and over to form the letters of life.  out of death comes life. 

John 11:25-26Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

mondays with max: one terrified muppet

a new feature here at agent orange records: mondays with max.  given that our dog is older than betty white, we've decided to show our appreciation of this lazy life by sharing a max picture each monday.  basically, it will be a series of pictures of him sleeping, since that's mostly what he does.  but hey, maybe we should just let sleeping dogs lie, right?  and be featured on my blog. 

here he is hugging bert, who looks terrified, if you ask me. but i guess you would be too, if you were a diminutive muppet with OCD and a paperclip collection and you were being strangled by a admittedly cute but full-sized bulldog with titanicly bad breath. 

still, so cute, right?

saturday song: turning the page

happy saturday.  today i share a song from one of my favorite musicians.  he goes by the moniker sleeping at last.  i love his emotive falsetto voice. 

this song happens to be from one of the twilight movie soundtracks.  it calls to mind the tremendous love between edward and bella.  beautiful song.  have a great day. 

colors

in case you wanted something fun to stare at today....

forked from: [BetweenAS3]uzumaki - wonderfl build flash online

steeler 4 life

i can't tell you how glad i was to see that hines ward decided to hang up the ol' helmet and call it a career, rather than trying to make one more run at a super bowl run with some other team.  he made this decision public earlier this week with a press conference from pittsburgh, in which he cited that one major reason for his decision was the fact that he had played 14 seasons with one of the greatest franchises ever, and it just wouldn't feel right to put on the uniform of another team.  i'm not sure if that's really true, or if it was just a way to cement a legacy with a team who's fans are very passionate about his career.  either way, it doesn't really matter for this fan.  all i needed was to hear him say those words.  the tears rolling down his cheeks were simply icing on the cake. 

the dude is a steeler.  for life. 

when you think of hines ward, you'll think of black and gold.  and that sparkling smile.  and vicious hits.  but all of it will be tinted in the hues of that intimidating pittsburgh steeler black and gold. 

i have written so much about him already, and don't want to bore you again.  just know this: he is my favorite football player ever.  and he is a steeler forever.  that is as sweet as his smile. 

click here for his press conference
click here for a highlight reel
click here for a good article about his retirement

happy spring!

new collage: lent 3 - 2012: the foolishness of God

"lent 3 - 2012: the foolishness of God"

mixed media collage on stretched box canvas (acrylic paint, found papers, playing cards, glue)

march, 2012

gregory a. milinovich

this was my collage for the third sunday in lent, in which we were dealing with the idea that even God's foolishness is wiser than the sum of human wisdom, and that God's truth exposes our own wisdom for what it really is: folly.  while Christ may seem like a fool by the world's standards (born in the wrong place, growing up in the wrong place, picking the wrong disciples, hanging out with the wrong people, and ultimately dying as a criminal), he is truly God's own fool, and turns the world upside down with a logic of love that quite frankly blows our hearts and minds.  we would all do well to be so smart as to begin to understand the foolishness of God. 

saturday song: give the fiddler a dram

happy st. patrick's day!  top of the morning to ya! 

for our saturday song, i give you - who else? - the cheiftians with "give the fiddler a dram" from their awesome album "down the old plank road."  it is really long.  so put on your dancing shoes, grab a guinness, and have a great day! 

soon

i just discovered this meme this morning, and i haven't been able to stop laughing.  if you serach, you can find all sorts of these, but here are 10 of my favorites. 

yellow watches and cymbalta

you've really got to watch what you say around my son cade.  he doesn't miss a thing, and he locks it down in his steel trap of a brain.  the other day he told me, and i quote:  "i like coldplay.  chris martin is a good singer.  he wears a yellow watch, and he has the same birthday as you, daddy.  para-para-para-dise." 

i'm not making that up. i don't even remember telling him about the birthday thing, so either he's reading my blog, or he heard us mention it at some point, and then clung to it as part of the data that he uses to understand the world.  we all receive all these messages all day, and as adults we get pretty good at filtering things out that we don't need to know or don't want to think about.  but kids, or at least caedmon, don't have that ability.  he just tries to remember everything he hears.

he goes around the house singing the 1-800-LEMON-LAW jingle that is on everyday while i'm watching the news in the morning.  and then yesterday he came up with this gem:  "mom, did you know that sometimes adults get cymbalta, and their heads hurt, so they have to go to the doctor.  the doctor tells them that they have cymbalta and then they start to feel better." 

too funny.  i wonder how long it is until he starts saying things at church that he heard at home.  that'll be fantastic. 

-in other family news, quin has popped his first tooth, which at least gives us a scapegoat for his recent fussiness. 

-also, today we finally finish our annual scrapbooking...err...i mean family documentation engineering project.  next year i resolve to take 95% less family photos so we don't have 65,000 picture to try and sort through for scra...family documentation engineering.  looking through that many photos to try and pick out a few causes me to say things that, well, i wouldn't want to have caedmon repeating in sunday school class. 

the results of their love

"Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!"
-Sitting Bull

(these photos are from our front yard)

new collage: lent 2, 2012 - the way of the cross

"lent 2 - 2012: the way of the cross"

mixed media collage on stretched box canvas (acrylic paint, found papers, vintage papers, glue)

gregory a. milinovich

march 2012

 so here is part 2 of my lenten collage series, done on small canvases that involve working on the front and the four sides of the canvas.  in our lenten journey at catawissa avenue umc this year we are looking at the paradoxes of our faith, and for tthe second week of lent we looked at the symbol of the cross.  even though it is a symbol that we see mostly in gold and silver, worn around necks and used to decorate ornate altars, this is ultimately a symbol of execution.  if we allow it to, it calls to mind images of death and brokenness, suffering and pain.  it is a harsh and potent symbol. 

and yet, as awful a symbol as it is, Jesus calls us to take up our cross.  so the cross isn't just some ugly blot in our rearview mirror, but a very critical part of our present and future.  without the cross, we have no path to life.  Jesus said that if you want to find your life, you have to lose it, but if you lose your life - if you are willing to loosen your death grip on it - then you will really live.  it truly is a paradox, but it is unexplicably true, too.  when we cling to our own lives, we stifle and suffocate ourselves, like trying to possess a precious plant by covering it with a barrel so no animal or element can get to it.  it will soon die. 

but if we are willing to give ourselves away in love to God and to others, then we begin to truly live in ways we wouldn't have otherwise expected.  i tried to visually express this in this collage with the images of the closed fist and the opened hands, separated by the cross.  as hard as it is at times, and as counter-intuitive, i want to live with open hands, giving my life to others that i might really learn how to live it fully.  i want to have the courage and the endurance to take up my cross and follow Jesus. 

saturday night fluids

aren't they cute?  those boys of mine?  so cute and full of squeezable cuteness and cute squeeziness?  i just want to squeeze them.  in a good way.

but that's not what i was thinking on saturday night. 

saturday nights are sort of important nights for me.  i mean, for sleeping.  see, i get up in front of my congregation each sunday morning and read the word of God and make an attempt to interpret that word for the community, to try and proclaim God's good news for our world, for our community, and for the individuals of our church while also trying to challenge each listener to renewed hope and dedication to discipleship.  it is a monumental task, at least to me, and one i don't take lightly.  which means that on saturday night, i like to prepare by sleeping. 

there is one night a year that makes this endeavor particularly challenging.  springing forward.  i love springing forward, to be honest, as i want my evening daylight, but can't we spring forward on a friday night?  saturdays just don't work for me.  i have to go to bed an hour earlier than normal and even though i try to trick my mind and body into thinking i'm tired, my mind and body are not so easily tricked, and they know better.  in order to prove this point, they both turn on the hyperdrive.  i start thinking a million thoughts a second, and tossing and turning as if the bed was made of hot coals.   so restful. 

knowing that you really want to fall asleep makes actually falling asleep that much more elusive.  can i get an amen?

ahhh, but sleep eventually won.  at some non-descript moment, my vindictive mind finally succombed to the inevitable and drifted off into sleep.  this felt like it might have been mere minutes before 1am when my alarm clock rang.  yes, one a.m.  you might wonder why i was getting up so early.  well, you see that cute blond squeezable boy at the top in the picture on the left above?  yeah, he is having some trouble getting through the night without letting loose the entire contents of his bladder.  so, in an effort to help him with this, we've been trying to get him up in the night to get him into the habit of waking up and going to the bathroom.  so, the alarm rang at 1am and i stumbled into their shared bedroom to get him out of bed.  but as i staggered towards his bottom bunk, i was slapped in the face by the strong odor of vomit.  i knew that Jack wasn't feeling too well when he wwent to bed, so i instinctively grabbed the railing for the top bunk to look over it and take a peek at him, and that was all i really needed.  instead of the feel of cool smooth varnished wood, i felt chunky, wet stickiness. 

vomit.  at 1am.  when i should be sleeping.  awesome.

jackson is such a heavy sleeper that he threw up in his bed, all over everything, and then just kept sleeping.  just to see if my night was going to get even more awesomely awesome, i checked out cade, and, you guessed it, he had already wet his bed.  i almost started crying.  instead, i turned on the light and woke them both up.  got them out of bed, and started removing every sheet, pillow, and stuffed animal from their beds.  by this time shannon and joined me in our early morning family gathering.  we started the laudry, cleaned vomit off of the floor, cleaned bodily fluids off of our offspring, and got them all set in bed again. 

after all of this, and after scrubbing every possible skin cell off my hands, i went back to bed, buy by then the hyperactivity switch had been reactivated.  so i did the obligatory tossing and turning for 20 minutes before getting up for pop tarts and milk and some batman: the animated series.  sometime around 2:30 i decided to go back to bed.  sleep came eventually.

sometime before my alarm was set to ring (again) at 5am, i woke up on my own, with a stinging sense of impending "oh crap."  i knew that shannon had been up with the baby in the meantime, but i just had a sense that something else wasn't quite right.  a few seconds later, as i practically crawled toward the bathroom, it hit me: more vomit.  yes, jackson had gone for the encore performance, and continued to sleep in the outed contents of his stomach. 

i just shook my head, and prepared to go preach God's word.  just another night in parenthood, with my squeezably cute kids and their bodily fluids. 

saturday song: background

saturday song time. 

you know, people often say, when asked about what kinds of music they like, "oh, i like everything."  sometimes, if they're honest, they'll admit, "well, everything except country."  or sometimes its opera.  or rap. especially rap.  it seems that people either love or hate rap. 

put me in the "love" category.  i mean, the genre as a whole.  there is a great deal of rap that i simply can't stand, because of what it glorifies or pretends to be.  but from a musical perspective, i love the concept of folk poetry being recited and encanted over rhythms and bits of sampled culture.  it pleases my ear, and, at its best, engages both my will to dance and my need to think deeply. 

so, today, here's a song that i've been hitting "repeat" on my ipod alot for recently.  it's called "background" by lecrae and is about the need to get our ego and self-importance out of the way, if we are really going to be who we were designed to be.  enjoy it.  or hate it.  whatever. 

so phat

my sis got me some steelers headphones for my birthday, and i put them on quin, who apparently loves them.  it made for a nice photo op, and this little neon green gem below.  that's my boy.  he's so phat.  with a ph. 

super tuesday

wow, i don't know about you, but that was a super tuesday for me.  i mean, i had a good hair day, notched my belt on the second hole instead of the first (always a good sign), led a productive administrative council meeting at church and listened to the new bruce springsteen album (SO GOOD!!!!).  totally super. 

oh, wait.  hold on a second, i'm getting some information here.  uh-huh.  oh.  i see. 

okay, sorry about that.  apparently, super tuesday refers to a political day in which states vote for who will be the challenger to the incumbent president of the united states.  so, yesterday, people went to public places and did their best to finish the great "lesser of evils" multiple choice question: who will try to wrest the presidency away from barack obama: (a)mitt romney (b) rick santorum (c) newt gingrich or (d) ron paul.  oh yay! 

so, yeah, super.  a super day for this great union. 

well, it was at least partially super.  bruce springsteen's new album came out and it is fantastic, at least at first blush.  it feels musically diverse and yet completely connected by theme and direction.  it all at once feels terribly broken and totally in touch with the tragedy of this life, and yet simultaneously hopeful, with almost reckless abandon.  it feels both jersey and global.  it feels both religious and political.  it seems lodged firmly in the run-down main streets of old mill and steel towns, and yet seamlessly connected to the sweet hereafter, where the streets are made of gold.  springsteen traverses these distances and dichotomies with great grace and gumption.  he is one of a kind, and is true to form here on "wrecking ball."  i highly recommend it. 

so, i guess it was super.  not really sure how super, as we get to continue to hear overly self-important and ridiculously rich politicians run their mouths further about why they are so great and their opponents are so stupid, until the nation finally rests on one candidate who gets to move on to the next round of knock-down drag-out, spit-in-your-face to win a vote politics.  i am SO not looking forward to it. 

maybe i'll vote for bruce and his wrecking ball.  knock the dang thing down and start fresh. 

oh well, i don't know about you, but mitt and newt and rsant have pretty much nothing to do with how i choose to live my life in this moment, so here's hoping that you, along with me, will have a super wednesday. 

peace.

100,000: the dialogue continues

we did it friends.  we hit the big 1-0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  that's right, at the end of last week we went over the 100,000 mark on my little traffic counter here on the blog.  so that means that my mom has stopped by 99, 975 times, and a couple other of you stopped by once or twice.

i started this blog in october of 2006, so i've been writing pretty regularly for nearly 5 1/2 years now.  i started writing as a way to express myself and to dare to believe that something i might have to say would be worth reading, worth speaking into the wide sea of words already written, that i might be more fully myself, and that you might help shape me with your response.  my life as a monologue didn't feel complete.  and so i began writing.  i began to tell the truth about myself and how the world looks through my eyes.  i began to ask questions that previously had only bounced around in my echo-y head, and had been held captive on the pages of my journals.  i began to flesh out my sermons, hoping that you, dear reader, might offer me some different direction, some unseen path for me to explore.  i began to tell you about my family, and to try to express the inexpressible love that burns in me for them.  i began to see how i might somehow laugh with you, challenge you and be challenged by you, and, in some way, be present to and with you across state lines, even across continents. 

in short, i am so glad i decided to start writing.  and i am blessed that some of you have stopped by to say hello, or even to watch silently from the background. 

and so to celebrate this milestone of collaboration, i am offering 40% off of every collage i have for sale on etsy right now (there are 32 of them currently).  all you have to do is enter the coupon code: 100000.  if you would rather not order through paypal, then you can contact me via my email or facebook and i will work with you to get the one you want.  the collages that are in my shop right now have been up there for awhile, and i hope to have some of my new ones up there soon. 

thanks again for reading, and for turning my monologue into a dialogue.  i am blessed to be in conversation.  with you, dear reader.