The Art of Avoiding Vertigo

(To link to the home site of this art go to: http://www.brickels.com/index.htm )
True vertigo, from the Latin "vertere," to turn, is a distinct, often severe form of dizziness that is a movement hallucination. The dizziness, is a symptom, not a disease. The term vertigo refers to the sensation of spinning or whirling that occurs as a result of a disturbance in balance (equilibrium). The body cannot find it's "center" in much the same way that a compass cannot find north, a scale cannot calibrate accurately to zero, or a piano tuned to middle C. Some things have to be tuned, centered, adjusted or they spin out of control, lean, tilt, crumble, flatten, and falter. This past year has been one of faltering, a year of moral vertigo. I do not mean to pick on just 2007, It's just that as the news media reviews 2007 there is little good news. The popular media my Generation Y students consider their "daily bread" would have made my mother blush, at best, it only makes them shrug. They are jaded by life already for the most part. These are the offspring of corporate scandals, single parent homes, the war in Iraq, school shootings and nuclear insecurity. They have the capacity to smell a phony and a fake a mile away and are looking for adults who are living the faith authentically. The idiom, " A divided against itself cannot stand", was coined by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address. It actually refers to the words of Christ quoted in Matthew 12:25, 'And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand'. The illustration I present to you today is this image of the "vertigo house" by American ceramicist John Brickels. The link to his site to view more of his delightful work is supplied here. Brickel's vertigo house serves as a visual metaphor for the state of the interior life of the soul manifest in many. A confused potentate, Pilate once asked Jesus, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" JOHN 18:37, 38. May this be a year of tuning to C, finding true north, and standing tall and upright in the Truth.