The Year 2011: A Retrospective

I decided to write a retrospective this year, mostly because I'm sitting around, sick with some sorta stomach thing that leads to wondrous bouts of diarrhea.

Stupid stomach, get better!

Anyway. There's been a number of awesome things that have happened this year. I guess I'm gonna list a few of the areas of my life that I think are noteworthy, and move along with that. The order isn't particular, it's whatever popped into my head before I decided I was done.


Anime
This was a pretty good year for anime. Ergo Proxy, Evangelion, Eden of the East, Requiem for the Phantom, some pretty evocative stuff. And that's just to name a few. But there's one anime that stood head and shoulders above the rest: Trigun. I know I'd just written a glowing review, but I gotta say, Trigun was my favorite anime of the year. And I'm a bit disappointed it's not on the top ten list, but I suppose I could do an official one.

Eh, already did that, whatever. I'll do another in July or something.

Point being is this: Trigun is easily one of those shows I'll probably spend a lot time writing about. I'm glad that I listened to Carpe and finally finished this show. As far as watching TV shows from Japan went, this was a very good year. I didn't think I was going to find something in even the same league as Clannad, but I'm happy to say that Trigun is that for me.

School/Psychological
I started going to Benedictine College for a Bachelor's in Art in January. It was very painful at first, because I had recently recovered memories of being molested as child, and working with art brought them back. But I've persisted through it, and am growing to really enjoy working on things just for the sake of working on them, although it'll probably take til my graduation next Fall to actually get that far.

I can guarantee that I haven't worked so hard in my life, and have produced quite a few works that I'm very proud of. My favorite icon that I did this year is Christ Bridegroom, done for St. George's Romanian Parish:

There's something serene in his face, something I really hope to keep putting in my icons. At some point I promise I'll do it on purpose. Equal to that is the Resurrection icon I did. I'll have to post a picture of it tomorrow. All in all I completed 7 icons this year, and am very proud of the work God managed to do through me this year.

What about non-icon works? Well, first you're asking me to like something I've made that's not an icon... kidding... sorta... but seriously, I'm glad for the secular stuff I've done. The themes in my secular work revolve around relationship (or the lack thereof) in anxiety, and are made as a way of processing the abuse that I went through as a child. My favorite for this year has got to be Love:

It's a bit difficult to see, and that's exactly why I made it that way. Love has a way of peering out of the most unlikely of places, particularly when part of it comes out of yourself, and the other part is directed at you.

RPGs
This has been a ridiculously good year for RPGs. My 4EMOD is running quite well, and the articles will go for quite some time (I hope). I started a campaign in 4EMOD, and am playing in a 4th edition and a World of Darkness game (run by Carpe, and played with Maria and another friend). Without having an actual position of authority I'm one of the leaders of Benedictine's RPG club, and I'm really impressed with just the sheer variety of RPGs that are being run. 4th edition, Pathfinder, Star Wars Saga, World of Darkness, Supernatural, Scion... it's really awesome to be a part of. Now I own Burning Wheel Gold, almost entirely on the suggestion of Carpe, and I'm excited to see what the game is like!


Personal
OK, so it's all personal, but I guess this is just more of a rambling of sorts. Ever since I started working through all this abuse thing, life has gotten much much better. Gosh, does it feel good to not bottle everything up and to express all the anger and hurt! Letting the anger and hurt out, however, let's everything else out. Good stuff. A lot of good stuff. I'm developing friends on purpose, seeking them out and the like. I'm not gonna lie, I still feel pretty skittish at some points, but thankfully nobody really notices that cause I'm so loud. I guess more than anything I guess what's different is that I'm actually trying.


Which brings me to the relationship I'm in with Maria (one of the former writers of The School's Trees).  There are times when people don't make sense to me, when I think they're brutal, selfish, and full of so much bullshit that it makes me want to lock myself away for eternity. But, honestly, being with Maria makes me try harder, to be a better person, to be... myself. And all of this by just hanging out and making it through life. I'm very happy to be dating such a wonderful and beautiful young lady, and I'm even gladder that the feeling's returned. I'm very blessed to have spent one year, five months, and four days dating Maria, and I hope God gives us many many more.

This brings me to my last part, on God. I've never had issue believing in a God. The reality of someone making this entire world was never something difficult for me to comprehend. The questions has always been if that God is building things for our benefit or His. Personally I've always been more of the Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God typa guy on the inside, but for whatever reason I've felt an attraction to Eastern Christianity. While I may have issue with the sickening amount of optimism that Christianity has, I gotta admit, it's appealing.

And you know what's wonderful? Slowly, but surely, I find myself believing in that. Blame it on me falling in love with Maria. Attribute it to watching Trigun. I don't care. I know someone else is behind this. I can feel it. And I know that, whoever it is, He may not be as bad as I originally thought. Who knows: Andrei Rublev might be right!

Not by me.

So, from me, Nathan Hicks of the Kitchen Sink, have a wonderful New Year!

Saint Raphael, Part 4

So a bit more work needs to be done on the face; the mouth needs to be bigger, the nose just a tad smaller. Overall, however, I really like where this icon is at for the moment. Lots of beautiful colors.

Merry Christmas!

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Trigun

SPOILERS AHEAD! Well, not really...

  

Gosh, this show took me a long time to finish. I'd watched the show's first 10 episodes about a year or so ago and then... well.. I don't know what happened. I was watching other anime, writing The School's Trees, mourning the death of my grandma, whatever the reasons were, it just amounts to this: I stopped watching.  But Carpe kept insisting that I watch the show, so I kept holding it off. I was going to get to it! Just when I felt like it, that's all. Well, I finally watched it and am done. What did I think? 

I definitely need to see this again.

I have a lot that I want to say about this show,   really do, but when I sit down to write I find that I am at a loss for words. This show covers so much in such a short time that it's a bit mind boggling to put down all my thoughts into one short review. There are tons of themes, questions, answers, all swirling around the characters who embody and channel them. I could go on and on about how Christian this show is, how full of G. K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and anyone whose thought actually matters is in here! I could go on and on. I really could, and someday I might. But, for now, all that needs to be said is this:

Trigun is a show about faith, hope, and love. Watch it if you want to see these things. If you don't, you're not human and need to leave the planet. Like, now.

Me? I'm gonna go and watch this show again. Oh, and listen to this song:



THIS WORLD IS MADE OF LOVE AND PEACE!

Our Lady of the Morning Star-Concept Sketch

Trigun Before the Last 4 Episodes

Apologies on not posting last week, but finals were in full swing, followed by a 3-day visit to my girlfriend's house. So for obvious reasons I wasn't really interested in posting anything up here. I'm back in the Chicago area for a bit, and I've gotta say, it's good to be back home for a little while. I started up my anime watching again, and am 4 episodes out from finishing Trigun, and I've gotta say, I've liked what I've seen so far.

I had heard that the manga and anime were written by a Japanese convert to Catholicism. At first I couldn't see it. I mean, where's the Catholicisty in some guy in an awesome red trench chasing skirts, screaming, and running for his life like a coward? T'was more than a bit perplexing, I'll admit.

As the show progressed, however, I started to notice the things that mark all good Catholic literature (emphasis there to get rid of all the pious trash that people mistake for our work): sympathetic people, hope to the possible point of delusion, and an evil that is so palpable and horrible that I don't think we could make it up. And Vash the Stampede, of course. While I know there are few Catholics as emotional as this guy, it struck me how familiar he felt. This irritating and immature man reminded me of a number of things. The first thing that came to mind was anything written by G.K. Chesterton. It's such a strong resemblance that I've come to believe that Vash is a pastiche of Chesterton's work, right down to wanting life to be as full and incredible as possible. But whatever it was kept poking at me, demanding that I pay more attention. Where the hell had I felt this amount raw emotion before? It hit me right in between the eyes.

Go to any well-done Eastern or Western Catholic Liturgy/Mass. 

That means go and find a church that's doing the chant, the incense, the organ (in the West, although with the Greeks that's not out of the question), and participate. Those Liturgies almost pop with an emotion that's so deep, so real, so human, that it's alien. Whether it be the joyful exuberance of an Eastern Liturgy or the profound sadness and serenity of a Western Mass Catholics have always figured out how to express themselves as fully as possible. And Vash fits right into all of that.

I'm not sure how good the anime is. With only four episodes left I have no idea if the ending will be good or not. It could go either way, to be honest. All of it depends on the people around Vash, and what they'll do as the two unstoppable forces, Vash and Knives, meet. I don't much, but I do know this: it had better be epic.

The Curious Effects of a Car Accident (On the Death of a Bishop)

God, I hated Andrew Pataki.

For those of you who don't know who he was, Bishop Andrew Pataki was one of the most controversial figures of the Byzantine Catholic rite in America. He wanted the Byzantine Catholic Church to become as Roman Catholic as possible, and went after it with a gusto that I wish I had about my own life. He was strong-willed to the point of stubbornness, and helped put through a translation of the Liturgy that still makes the Orthodox laugh because of its inclusive language. He closed churches on a whim's notice. One of my best priest friends has memories about arguing with Pataki about shaving in the seminary because clean-faced priests are Catholic, and only do those damned Orthodox have beards. Most people whom I associated with in the Byzantine Ruthenian Church were his most avid opponents and critics. Heck, when I was in high school one of my best friends had a falling out with the man over a few things and had to drop out of seminary for a short time (he is now an ordained priest, thank God!) Everything that I wanted the Byzantine Catholic Church in America to be Pataki was against. So I had a few things against the man, on a few levels. Some were quite petty, and some were ideological.

Yeah, I say I had those issues. Past tense.

Bishop Andrew Pataki of the Byzantine Catholic Ruthenian Epharcy of Passaic died in a car accident. And I can't shake the guilt.

I've only had one actual interaction with His Grace. I was 17 years old, and had just begun iconography. I had just completed an icon for my friend Chaa, and brought it to her at the ByzanTEEN rally in Maryland. It was my ninth icon, and I was so excited with it! I had learned a lot in writing and praying this icon, and I couldn't wait for Chaa to see it. Here it is:

 

Gosh, I was so proud of those robes, and I couldn't wait for Chaa to see how much I'd done. Now, I've always been a rather... precocious... person. I knew that if I was going to give something to one of my friends, I was gonna do this right. So I decided that not just anyone was going to bless this icon. A bishop would bless it. But not just any bishop, my bishop, His Grace John Kudrick of Parma! So I served at the huge multi-bishop Liturgy, and waited for Bishop Kudrick outside the bishop's "office" where they were all un-vesting. And who should poke his head out to see who the annoying half-pint standing outside was?

I think you can guess. 

He asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I really wanted Bishop Kudrick to bless my icon that I'd written for a friend. Now, this wasn't the first time I had gotten an icon blessed by Bishop Kudrick. This was actually the second icon of mine I was going to present to him. So I was totally fine with waiting. Bishops are extremely busy people. They work days that are the equivalents of our weeks, and even at seventeen I knew I was imposing just a bit by standing outside and daring to get in the way. But, see, the problem was that there was a bus I needed to catch so I wouldn't be stranded at the cathedral. So, as respectfully as I could to the man whom I couldn't stand, I asked if Bishop Kudrick could see me now, if he pleased. He grinned in an unabashed, boyish, way and he vanished back into the office. Not even a minute later he brought out Bishop Kudrick, saying that a young man wished to see him and wasn't that a beautiful icon? Bishop Kudrick smiled a bit weakly (he had just gotten out of the hospital, if memory serves me right), and he blessed the icon. I thanked them both, and ran back to the bus. I was the last person on, and narrowly avoided being left behind. When I got on the bus Chaa was waiting by the door. After a brief scolding for playing it too close she took a look at the icon and grinned. She kissed the icon (a customary sign of respect), and an entire school bus's worth of Byzantine teenagers perked up. They all demanded to see the icon, and each and every person on the bus kissed it and called it beautiful. 

It's one of my most treasured memories as an iconographer, heck, as a person. 

And I ignored the man responsible for it. 

I spent  the rest of my time while Pataki was alive trying to not hate the man, and I mostly failed. When I found out he had retired I rejoiced, and said that the Church could finally recover. I didn't consider the fact that he was in poor health, and was (reportedly) disappointed by not being able to finish the job. And while I won't deny that what Pataki did was wrong, that doesn't excuse me for hating him, or for ignoring his act of kindness towards me. Bishop Andrew Pataki is dead, and I feel pain for losing a man who did so much for me. I also feel guilt that it took until he died to remember his one act of kindness to me. But at least I have one good thing to remember him by. Funny how humanity works like that.