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brainstorming...

Plans...

So, my future plans may or may not involve an internship at 2100 productions, InterVarsity's production studio. Raising support will be tough. It might help me in trying to figure out how in the world God can use my skills as an animator to further His kingdom. Again, raising support will be tough. Also in the "tough" category will be my ability to see this as an opportunity, rather than a step backwards where finances are concerned. It will also mean a step away from studios and a step towards freelance and communications work.

At this point, anything is possible.

Road Trip to FL with my sister

My sister and I drove to FL in my little Kia, Matilda, this weekend. It is an 18 hour drive both ways. We made the drive straight through both times. Matilda does not have AC and her radio speakers crap in and out (they lasted 14 hours on the way down and the entire 18 hours on the way back). We ran over a full 18-wheeler tire tread that raked the bottom of the car a 1/2 hour after we left at 4 am on Friday morning (it did no damage). We got stuck in a huge traffic jam in Alabama in the heat of the day (we saw a lot of interesting characters!). A cop pulled up behind us and flashed his lights more than once (we never got pulled over). Our cd player stopped working about 9 hours away from home (my little ipod has about 9 hours of music on it).

It was a wonderful adventure and I loved every minute of it. :)

States through which we travelled - 7
States in which we decided we would never live barring the mandate of God - 2

"Caverns" advertised between Allentown and Pensacola - 10

Headlights which I witnessed flicker and go out (not my own) - 3

Close calls involving road debris - 3
Close calls involving banana peels - 1

Brothers seen - 1
Beaches visited - 1
Cockroaches sighted - 3
Cockroaches in personal space - 1
Fish caught - 0
Jellyfish stings - 0!!!!!

Times the GPS messed up - 3

Sweet tea consumed - 3 quarts

Total Hours driven between Friday and Monday - 40

I love road trips.

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God."
Psalm 20:7

Resumes

Got 'em in at 5 studios, 1 temp agency.

I'm going to Florida for a weekend to visit my brother and some family I haven't seen for a while. It's funny that I never did much traveling over the summer or breaks (missions trips excluded, of course!) and I always used lack of money or the need to work as an excuse. Now that I need money more than ever but have no job, I'm getting around more than usual! One road trip down, one planned, and one to plan.

Katlyn and Nate's wedding was this past weekend. It was awesome. I truly enjoyed it, including all the fuss leading up to it. Everything was great, from meeting new friends, the shady shopping trips, getting prepped and beautified, hanging out with Katlyn's family, the "other wedding" at the park, seeing old friends at the reception, and even the trip home. It was really a blessing just to get to see Katlyn go through the whole process, especially the day of the wedding. She was absolutely radiant. I'm not good enough with words to describe her and Nate on the wedding day. they blew me away.



Songs of the week:

Manchester Orchestra

Saves the Day
Wild Sweet Orange

Some thoughts from Basileia...

At Basileia (an InterVarsity end-of-year retreat), I was in a track where we intensely studied a portion of the book of Mark. I came home and continued my morning study of Matthew with a completely renewed perspective. The things that I got out of Mark during the week of Bas were stunning, while my new perspectives on Bible study in general led me to crave a new attitude in studying Matthew. I have begun to tell myself:

It all has to start with believing that God has something to say to you. Believe that he has orchestrated this very moment in time, everything surrounding it, and that this moment has a purpose in your life within His will. He is here with you, experiencing this moment and watching you. Enjoy what He's made for you! He's ready for you to hear what He has to say to you. Are you listening?

I think that was the overall theme of Basileia for me. "Are you listening?" And now I'm at home, forced to do nothing but wait for something to happen, for some effort to pay off, for God to reveal the next step. Will I be ready? Will I know it when I see it?

Am I listening?

"To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told."
~Oswald Chambers

ANTM

There's a girl on America's Next Top Model this season who is a Christian. She got into the semifinals and told the judges straight up during her one-on-one interview that she was a "street preacher," and gave an example of one of her "sermons." It was awesome. She says her purpose in being a model is a mission to the lost within the fashion industry. I was kinda skeptical after the first half-episode, but I've come to the conclusion that this chick is awesome. They discovered that there was one less bed than there were girls in the house, so she gave hers up to the girl that hadn't gotten one, and when everyone said she was "so nice" she insisted that Jesus deserved all the glory.

That might not seem like a big deal, but watch a season or two of ANTM and then tell me that isn't strange.

I'm SUPER excited that a Christian like London is doing so well in a setting like that. It's also rather convicting for myself, as I tend to use the setting of the art world as an excuse to slack off in telling others about my faith. It sucks, but it's true. It's no secret that most artists tend to be extremely liberal, and very anti-God. However, this is not only true in a lot of other fields, but it is also not an excuse to clam up about how wonderful Jesus is!

London is still in the running, she's in the top 7 out of 13. I don't think it matters if she wins, but it's just really encouraging that she's so out there with her faith, and attracting people to Jesus just because of her openness about who He is.

Pleasures

Do you ever have those moments within your busy and otherwise stressful life where everything is just pure bliss, and you realize, for a moment, just how much your Heavenly Father must love you in order that you would experience such peace and joy? I love when this happens. Usually, it's because I'm listening to music. I've always had a strong emotional connection with music. Whenever I get that indescribable sensation of pleasure, I think of this passage from C.S. Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters:"

And now for your blunders. On your own showing you first of all allowed the patient to read a book he really enjoyed, because he enjoyed it and not in order to make clever remarks about it to his new friends. In the second place, you allowed him to walk down to the old mill and have tea there—a walk through country he really likes, and taken alone. In other words you allowed him two real positive Pleasures. Were you so ignorant as not to see the danger of this? The characteristic of Pains and Pleasures is that they are unmistakably real, and therefore, as far as they go, give the man who feels them a touchstone of reality. Thus if you had been trying to damn your man by the Romantic method—by making him a kind of Childe Harold or Werther submerged in self-pity for imaginary distresses—you would try to protect him at all costs from any real pain; because, of course, five minutes' genuine toothache would reveal the romantic sorrows for the nonsense they were and unmask your whole stratagem. But you were trying to damn your patient by the World, that is by palming off vanity, bustle, irony, and expensive tedium as pleasures. How can you have failed to see that a real pleasure was the last thing you ought to have let him meet? Didn't you foresee that it would just kill by contrast all the trumpery which you have been so laboriously teaching him to value? And that the sort of pleasure which the book and the walk gave him was the most dangerous of all? That it would peel off from his sensibility the kind of crust you have been forming on it, and make him feel that he was coming home, recovering himself?

Well said, C.S. Lewis.

Well said.

I call out your name, but you do not hear
I dial your number, but your phone rings and rings
I shout and sing to try and block out the sound
I'm desperate
I have not slept these nights
I think of how I can get your attention
without you remembering in the morning
that I dumped water on your head
because you would not stop snoring

I love milk

Seriously, what is better than a tall, frothy glass of cold milk sometimes?

Also, it has come to my attention that I never wrote about some of the things I wanted to. Let me just say, it was bound to happen. Maybe I will get to them sometime in the future...

But for now, onwards and upwards.

As I sit here guzzling down glass of milk number 2, I find myself thanking God for the quirks of life.

For example, I've gone an entire year without a desk chair at my desk. I instead have opted to sit on a big bouncy ball. and let me tell you, I'm none the worse for it!!

On glass number three, and loving the fact that I know people who will not only allow me to dump a bowl of worms on their head, but will go and collect them for me.

also, we are in the midst of an economic crisis, leaving seniors like moi in a sticky situation. However, it just so happens that animation companies like Dreamworks and Pixar are expanding like whoa.

mmmmm milk