Daily Inspiration: Meet Marc Baisden

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marc Baisden

Hi Marc, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
The Depth of Me
In my 65 years, I have had the honor to see much of this world and interact with people through traveling in many geographic regions, cultures, and communities of the United States and other countries. My journey has been remarkable and unremarkable, yet also at a cost in many ways. My family, children, and faith, at times, financially and emotionally, have suffered as part of this personal search & journey. I have gone from a child to an adult (some would say God-Forbid), student to professional, single to married, poor to rich, and back to the poor, and the list probably could go on. Through my work and experience as a son, husband, parent, student, photographer, therapist, educator, searcher, and servant, I have seen many changes to our homes, churches, schools, communities, society, government, and myself.
My father, pastors, mentors, scholars, philosophers, role models, and the Bible taught me to be skeptical yet learn to listen and observe. I have spent many years studying the so-called religions of the world and the many world philosophies with a very critical eye and heart. This has taught me that everything is based on GOD and his word, the Bible. My search for the definable question of “What is this drive and mysterious calling that so “consumes me” remains ongoing today. I will also embark upon this journey to try and find a resolution to the question, “What is the reason that people have to suffer in one form or another when they don’t have to?” “How can our systems, past and present, continue to abuse and terrify people to the point of suffering when that was not their design?” “Has our culture and society come to the point that they do not care what they do to people?” The course of the search that has been set for me includes the Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual side of life, people, and our relationships that have taken me in many directions, both geographically, philosophically, and spiritually.
This course was started many years ago when my parents opened my eyes to the wonders of our land, people, and landmarks inside/outside our borders. Though I fought my early structured education, when I finally figured out that education could open more direction and paths in the search, it also opened up for me the opportunity to graduate with my undergraduate degree (2) in 1988, a graduate degree in 2000 and moving on toward Ordination. I do not think I will ever stop learning. In this time and season of discovery and in my attempts to determine how I ought to engage these issues and questions that are formed by God and of great importance to me, I have found myself reviewing the approaches I have taken in the past and present while being mindful of the future or more accurately possibilities and probabilities. I find myself at a critical juncture between what I know to be accurate and believe, finally questioning and becoming a skeptic of the world’s view and paradigm.
My interest in the questions of the suffering of God’s people is one that I’ve attempted to explore in many ways. Some of the attempts included engaging in different areas of politics, studying the law and government, later social activism in various forms, and critical approaches to cultural paradigms through academic scholarship. These adventures have led me to my core beliefs and to be unsatisfied by the incomplete answers. The downside to this has been a sense of alienation from our world and others. I have realized that our systems’ approaches have been a myopic focus on the collective or systemic and simultaneous denial of the depth, complexity, and creative capacities of individuals and the unaccountable forces in our lives that impact and affect people daily. I have realized that the seemingly counter-intuitive and counterproductive path to the current constructs helps one reconstruct one’s sense of self.
Since our society has required people to divide and classify themselves into oblivion, apathy, and turn from GOD. Ultimately, the harsh reality is that none of the questions or paradigms would or could resolve the internal/external contradictions or the reason that “God’s Creation- Humanity” has to suffer at the hand of others.” God is the only one who can teach us to see with HIS eyes and HIS heart – “The heart knows more than the eyes can see.”

I have come to realize that life in today’s society, amid all of its violence, alienation, communal breakdown, despair, and unceasing complexity demands a creative response. By creative, I don’t necessarily mean a piece of visual or performing art, but rather an offering that challenges a reconnection with God – that specific place within the construct of all, which is ultimately yours alone, but also within every individual, community, and society. Called the Soul despite a system purporting a paradigm of “reproducibility” of itself, even though it cannot be replicated anywhere or by anyone else. Our strategy continues to attempt to reproduce itself even when it does not work in the first place.
Without God’s intervention, we are facing this erroneous idea that we can transform our fundamentally sick society without first changing our relationship with Him and with our deeply disbelieving self. For example, most understand that our collective lifestyle is ecologically unsustainable. Still, we seldom seem to discuss how we are unsustainable people and that these phenomena are closely intertwined. That is ‘salvation,’ a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. HE offers this type of creativity without regard for the misperceptions of us or others, without the need for external qualifications or permission. This kind of fearless individuality and creative sharing requires a level of self-awareness and a sense of our place with Him that our contemporary cultural practices actively attempt to undermine.
In our society, we are endlessly instructed to medicate and mediate our malcontented with every manner of addiction and distraction we can find to avoid confronting the issues that are inhabiting and reducing and sharing ourselves fully with and for others as we are called to. Meanwhile, we understand this pathological suppression of the true self. The only sane and mature way to be of the world and not in the world is to reestablish ourselves individually and collectively through a relationship with God and his people.
We need a collective reality check, and I believe we can help bring this into existence by “waging spiritual creativity” that is biblically grounded and based. I feel that the spiritual creativity supplied by God and gifted by God is a process through which we may come to experience ourselves as a gift rather than a liability. God is the most important antidote to alienation and modern despair. As Spike Lee comments in his 1992 film “Malcolm X,” “The most dangerous creation in the world, in any society, is the man with nothing to lose.” This is just one of the paradigms the world supports and authorizes. In the space of creativity, however, I believe we can experience ourselves as servants, cognizant for perhaps the first time that what we do matters to God. It took me a while to realize that my alienation came from my creation and is finally a longstanding and acknowledged challenge underlying most of my most profound personal trials and searches. The fear of being judged, of not belonging, being misunderstood, and so on often dominated my thoughts and is also the one thing plaguing people today. For this reason, I can state with certainty that without God, I can do nothing without HIM, and I am being called to a different path.
“Every morning, the Creator removes the sleep and wipes the dirt from our eyes with his grace and mercy. We see things clearly and look at the world as if for the first time. We then spend the rest of the day throwing soot back into our eyes — a dirty trick — only to wake up the next morning with a new opportunity to see and hold onto things as they truly are. It’s our job (built in God’s image) to help his people sift through their dust and help them pave the way out of their gloomy darkness — towards clarity — the same gift that we are all granted every morning. May you continue to be blessed and “called by His name.”
Respectfully, Your Servant,

Marc Baisden

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, there have been human, spiritual, ethical, medical, and family trials. Though they were all hard and emotional/relational learning. I learned from the trial at the time of the trial or later through maturity.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Military brat, career officer’s son. It’s hard to live up to an officer’s and a Genius. I was always drawn to people and their struggles. In the Air Force, you can get moved every three years. You become Nomadic. I saw things in our world and lived things I would not wish, and I wish others to experience some of the great things I have experienced.
. That continued into my own life as a competitive swimmer at almost the Olympic level, and then I joined the Air Force myself. It was a mistake as I was not mature enough at 19. My father always cammed me into a trench therapist, as he believed I saw and felt others’ struggles and pain. Everywhere we went, I saw life, death, emotional pain, rational pain, and illness of the Heart, Mind, and Soul. So I helped where possible, made mistakes, and saw how the systems were inept and met the needs. So I worked and went to school, raised a family, work hours that others would not just to help others. I live by my life calling of Love GOD, Love People & Serve. From 1979 to now, I have continued to work serving others. Whether it has been in a Psychiatric Hospital, Community Health, Jails, or Prison in the most rural areas of the Western United States, Including Alaska.. And still, today, even though I am told I am overqualified, I am a senior, and I am handicapped. People are the most important aspect of life and living. They come first over profits, status, class or anything else. Our decisions should be based on how it will benefit them. .

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I am a country boy from a small town—not a city person. I have always been uncomfortable in cities, yet I visit as needed. I have lived at the top of the world (literally), to the Southwest, and at many points in between. I have traveled to or in 42 states, seen every national monument, lived in a foreign country, and visited five others. Currently, I am enjoying Elk Grove, California. I never thought I would return here to California. Dealing with the heat in a small city next to a big city. Yet, it is a city of Sophistication without being Pretentious and Beautiful. A jewel in a state of dark Matter. LOL

I have lived in villages, Towns, and small cities, 40,000 and under, on reservations, in temperatures as low as -74 and as high as 115 degrees. So, my knowledge of likes and dislikes is somewhat skewed from others.

Pricing:

• 50-100 hr depending on time and travel
• Sliding Scale for all
• Barter for services, within Ethical Limits.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://BaisdenPhotography.youpic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcbaisden

Image Credits
Baisden Pgotography LLC
Marc W. Baisden Photographer