OKC Sunday - Church and Art

Sunday, August 31st we went to Cross Timbers United Methodist Church in Moore, OK where Robin, Jeremy, and Autumn recently became members of the congregation. I am glad to see they found and joined a church they like. It was very friendly and informal and very different from the Catholic Masses Frank and I are used to. The congregation gathered in a building housed in a section of a strip mall type setting. Coffee and donuts were offered, but they were available before the service. You could help yourself and take them into the service with you. Music was loud and exuberant and provided by a percussionist and three electric guitarists with amplifiers. There was a huge movie size screen where the words to the songs were projected.

I copied this picture from the Cross Timbers website.
It may have been an informal setting but I was not about to whip out my camera.

The theme of the service was communion and sharing at the table of Christ. The minister James pointed out that Christ could have done many actions to commemorate his last night but he chose sharing a meal – not dancing, not preaching, not praying only –sharing a meal. Sharing a meal is an important sign of the communion of God's creatures and at this church no one is excluded because of their lack of belief in transubstantiation or con-substantiation, or prerequisite for sacramental training, or lack of confession. A meal very much symbolizes love and caring shared at a human and not necessarily spiritual level. The communion ritual here was filing forward, taking some bread, dipping it in grape juice, and consuming it. Interesting way to look at things... Childcare was provided through most of the service but Autumn very much enjoyed the music portion and  stayed with us for that.

After the church service we went to Arts Festival Oklahoma (AFO) held in tents on the lawn area of Oklahoma City Community College. Per its website,
"Begun in 1978, AFO is a favorite Labor Day Event in Oklahoma and one of the top juried fine arts and crafts shows in the Southwest. Over 25,000 patrons attend AFO every Labor Day Weekend..." 
This next photo gives you a sense of the feel of the show, on the grass, under an array of large white tents. We walked the entire show looking at all the contributions from the artists from Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, and maybe other states as well that I do not remember.

Being under a big top while looking at the paintings, photographs, sculptures, jewelry, and leather work
leant a different air to the art experience. I am used to convention center venues.

Music is reputed to be an integral part of the festival. We could hear guitars and fiddles and singing from other sections of the grounds but never sat down to formally listen through anything specific. The music's presence did contribute to the ambience of the event, though. Food also has a reputation of being a big part of this festival; but it was so hot, we elected to restrict our festival activities to art exploration only and left to eat in a cooler air-conditioned place.

There was great food variety much like at a county or state fair but the heat of the day,
compounded by all the barbecuing and cooking booths, made us inclined to eat someplace cooler.

Frank and I were amused at the coincidence when we saw 2014's AFO public relations poster with the clock image on it and spectators looking through the clock's face from the backside.

This year's Art Festival Oklahoma Poster featured the view from within a clock tower.
Similar vantage points were featured in the 2011 movie Hugo.
Hugo had stunning cinematography and was set inside a Paris train station.

In our recent remodal of our downstairs powder room we put a very similar mural on the wall.

This six foot wide, four foot tall mural has no seams. Installing it ourselves had great potential for disaster.
But Frank and I planned ahead and did not do too badly. And we are still on speaking terms. 

Although I digress, for completeness here is the rest of the powder room. We thought it would be neat to show off Frank's clock collection and so the mural fit the theme as did the Big Ben painting. Plus, we'd get double duty out of the mural. When someone is at the sink looking in the mirror, the clock face is corrected as if viewing it from the front.

We replaced the wood with glass in the upper cabinet doors to display Frank's clock collection.
We painted the oak (gasp, horrors) to play off the color and shape of Big Ben to the right. 

In the mirror, the clock face is no longer "backwards".
Our warped sense of humor came into play. When someone is seated on the throne,
their head height is even with the spectators in the darkened portion of the mural.

Digression over, let me return to the Oklahoma activities. That evening we stayed in and played games. We played Farkle, which is a dice game I have blogged about before. Robin, Jeremy, Frank, and I also tried a new card game called AnOmia. I'd really wanted to play it. Since it takes three or more players, Frank and I could not check it out before bringing it. The object of the game is to be the first person to give an example of an item that meets a certain category. Someone reveals a card that states a category and a symbol. A player with a matching symbol then faces off with the player that flipped the card. The first player to call out an item that meets the criteria claims the card and scores a point.

It is not as easy as one would think to recall and announce a word in a certain category when under pressure.

Well, we laughed our heads off at how blank our minds could go and how tongued-tied our speech could become when we were put on the spot. We accused each other of cheating by intentionally flipping our card in such a way that we saw it before the other players - a big No-No! Picture this...

     Flip quick! Name a brand of tooth paste - now!
     Flip again! Now name a movie director...  huh? huh?
     Flip, don't peak! Name a breed of dog! No, Lassie is not a breed!

Get the picture? We played it just once. Frank was extremely tense to the point of almost being ill by the end and Robin and I both had splitting headaches from trying so hard. The laughing part was fun. It is worth trying the game at least once to see what I mean.  But the jury is still out if I would recommend this game to anyone. At first I would have said only it's only for a younger audience who do not fear that senility is sucking out their brains. But Robin and Jeremy had as much trouble at it as Frank and me. Well, maybe not. Jeremy was pretty darn good at it! Maybe it was the way he flipped his cards...

After this game Jeremy tried to get Robin and me involved in playing Star Wars X-Wings Miniatures Game, a military strategy game. He loves this game. It is so complicated. There are close to a zillion playing pieces – cards, plastic molded spacecraft, cardboard templates, specialty dice. I think he has at least four plastic compartmentalized storage cases to organize all the gaming pieces. Thanks to the Games and Tea 8/22/13 blog entry I was able to after the fact sort some of the components out.

First row: direction and distance discs, green defense and orange attack dice, maneuver templates
Second row: pilot description cards, pilot for spacecraft bases, hull damage cards

Now doesn't this sample battle field look just a wee bit complicated?

Robin and I tried hard to be good sports but had to let Jeremy down. I kept flying my craft the opposite way I intended to because I did not understand the direction and maneuverability disks and I did not have a clue about a strategy. Some spacecrafts (or is it pilots?) have more speed, others have better shooting accuracy, some have maneuverability, some have better shielding, some have bonus something-or-other. I tried to end the game more expeditiously by getting shot down sooner with strategic rolling of the green defense 8-sided dice, but Jeremy caught me. I wanted to indulge his gaming desires since he indulged mine, but I think he will need to go to their church's game night and find others in the community who want to enjoy this with him. It was too steep a learning curve for me. It had been a long day and it was time for bed! Tomorrow was Labor Day and between Farkle, Anomia, and Star Wars X-Wings we would all need a day to relax.