Patriarchical impressions

Posting here has gotten real light lately. It's all pretty picture stuff. Time to change that around.

So, Fergus took up the bible-in-a-year challenge his church launched. He's maintaining a somewhat daily journal to record his journey and because there are usually doodles involved, I read his entries. Naturally, I've started to read the corresponding Bible chapters for that day too.

I’ve just finished Genesis and it’s been a thought-provoking journey. We talked a lot about the Patriarchs and I don’t think I’ve ever evaluated and reacted to them as much as I just have. Of course they’re very familiar ground - from Sunday school stories to the regular love affairs my church pastors have with them - I've heard how their life stories pan out and expositions of the virtues they embodied many, many times.

So with that, it’s unexpected to find myself actually getting upset over the glaring moral failings these heroes of faith had. Jacob in particular offends my sense of justice. He's deceitful, cheats to get what he wants and comes across as a hapless, self-pitying, no-good parent (check out Gen 42:36 - "You have deprived me of my children....Everything is against me!", and his inability to maintain the peace among and be equitable towards his many sons). Yet, he gets rewarded for all that by receiving an awesome deathbed blessing, great prosperity and being chosen to spawn the nation of Israel and establishing the Messianic line.

Another thing I noticed is that Joseph, usually held up as an example of forgiveness and grace, set up traps for his brothers, yanked their strings, sent them back and forth from Egypt to Cannan, worried the crap out of them and got them to bow face down and beg for their lives a couple of times BEFORE saying “Hey bros, it’s me and I’m actually all cool with you all.” Which, while I'm not going all out and saying was a form of revenge, must have at least made it a little easier to let them off the hook at the end of it all right? Yes, I've heard it said that he was just testing them to make sure that they had repented of the wrong that the did in the past, but humour me here please.

So. These are just some hastily-collected impressions from Genesis. On to Matthew now.

(For additional reading, check out Fergus' impression of the Patriarchs.)

DIY round up

So I recently learned that you can carve your own rubber stamps out of erasers. A-ma-zing!! I've had a very short-lived flirtation with stamping before, but it got frustrating because I couldn't figure out how to produce consistent, even images and my stamps have been untouched ever since. But this looks fuss-free and besides, it'll be more fun to carve any motive I want instead of searching for it in stores.

Source: Herbal Tree

You can also make a tube dresses out of an oversize-tee. Easy peesy! I don't wear tube dresses, but I reckon that this might be useful at some point in time.

Source: Project Muff Stit

To DIY: Memory clock

Clock from Dutch by design [Seen on tea for joy via design*sponge]

In my head, I imagine this to be the centerpiece of a living room, and each frame will hold a highlight from its corresponding month - a doodle, photograph or small trinket. At the end of each year when each frame is filled, a photo is taken to commemorate that year and starting from January, each memento is replaced with a new one.

Stop motion elegance

Her morning elegance by Oren Lavie [Via design*sponge]

I don't like posting videos here, but this is the best music video I've ever seen. Such amazing execution - the concept, song, styling and actors all come together so perfectly. Please, please watch it.

By an unfortunate coincidence I was toying with the idea of experimenting with stop-motion just the day before. Now I'm not sure whether to be inspired or intimidated.