Look! It's my childhood!

We had at least one outing as a family at Fisherman's Bastion when I was little. I found this randomly on YouTube, and decided to share this with you.

Canyon Love (Grateful Tuesdays #20)

Dear God,

Thank you for N. T. Wright and for the statement he made about how you plan to enact reconciliation "right through the cosmos". Thank you for what that word "reconciliation" means. Thank you for how it means me coming up, out of the water half-drowned and gasping for breath, but alive. Even though, as my friend Tim mentioned today, our emotions won't sit still and it (sometimes) seems like we humans get the short end of the stick what with the weights of pain and love and emotion and awareness we bear.

Still, with all this, there is no way I'd give up being human! I love being made in your image, God. I love human interaction, even with all of it's complications and misunderstandings.

So thank you for all this, Lord.

Thank you for my dear friend Fidgit and how you are strengthening our friendship and using it to make us both more like you. I thank you for what you teach me through people, God. I thank you that you teach me at all! You could just leave me alone, but you don't! You care for me, and you love me. You are more loving than any person I have encountered.

The only thing with that being that I wish I would open myself to love you more! I get a picture of a dam holding back an ocean, waiting to pour itself into a canyon. My heart is a big, open, empty canyon, Yahweh, ready for you to pour your love into it. I'm ready for you to make me complete.

Thank you for Sense and Sensibility and for humor. Thank you for Bill Mallonee. For Jeremy and that we are able to work side by side, also for all the other guys (and the occasional girl) who I get to work with on a regular basis.

Thank you that I have a sister I can have fun with. Thank you that my brothers are so nerdy.

Thank you for my WorldView family, the blessing of getting to be with them everyday is greater than the hardship that sometimes comes with having to share my real family with them.

As I thank you for people, I'm beginning to see that I could keep on going into the setting sun. I'm so grateful for all the people you put in my way (as my mom would say). Thank you for how I know you better through them.

Thank you for sun shining through raindrops and the sound rain makes.

Amen.

Knights! Epdisode 2 is up!

My friend Jeremy just finished the final cut of "The Forest of Mirthwood". Enjoy!

Things You Should Know

My Dad has a blog and has had one for a while. Shame on you for not knowing. His name is, apparently, spillandspell, and his blog can be found here.

My sister is good at describing things. You can observe her words in action here and here.

The Queen of Arts and England has been busy since I was last at My Old Sketchbook (which, admittedly, was awhile ago). Take a look at her beautiful work here, here, here and here.

I think that, occasionally, when enthusiastic bloggers say things like here, here, here, and here it can end up looking kind of goofy. I would never do that.

Why (my bruder) is learning a lot at school! But not nessesarily related to the subjects he's studying.

I am taking one class at the NW Film Center's School of Film. I win.

Let's Share!

Hello, friends. You may have noticed that I have been scarce of late. Well, that's partly (no, mostly) due to this man and his friends (normal procrastinating tendencies aside, of course):

That's right! It's fall again, and that means it's time for a new kid's club series. Knights! roughly parallels the story of David in the Bible (very roughly) and is intended to give our kid's club speaker a good lead-in for his talk. This is the first episode and the only one completed so far; I'll hopefully be able to post the rest up as they are completed.

Pray for those of us working on this series, if you would. That we would be creative and humble as we work together and work through problems that present themselves in the creative process and, most of all, that God would glorify Himself in the end.

Thank you for watching and for supporting us!

Well Worth Watching

My brother showed me this trailer for the new Sigur Ros concert documentary, and I loved it. Now that I'm starting to get my act together online, I'm finally getting around to showing it to you.

Oh, and keep a lookout for a theme in this trailer that might attract me to the film beyond the beauty of the photography and the music.

Yahweh (Grateful Tuesdays # 19)

Dear Heavenly Father,

I love your name, God. I love the name you gave Moses when he asked who he should say sent him when he got to Egypt.

You are completely self-sufficient, God. I am not. I can be having a perfectly wonderful, normal conversation and everything will change, like a cloud going over the sun.

How scary it is when I feel those big, black oceans welling up inside me, their waves slapping the shell of my soul and threatening to burst my very self like the wineskins you talk about. They come so suddenly and unexpected. Thank you for loving me through these times.

Thank you, God that my friends will be coming up in a few days! I love getting to see these people, and I've gotten to see them a surprising amount these days, which I'm really grateful for.

Thank you that I got to talk with the Queen of Arts and England today. Thank you that we get to share our thoughts with each other and talk together about what's going on in our lives. This is all such a gift.

Thank you for the William Hung Tribute Band and how much fun it is to play such crazy music with such wonderful friends.

Thank you for loving me through all of my changes, all my shifting shadows. Thank you that the laser beam of your love shines steady right through my mountains and valleys.

I love you; may you continue to draw me to your steady, changing self.

In Jesus' Name,

Amen

His Precious Blood (Grateful Tuesdays #18)

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for light. Thank you for it’s warm, friendly penetration into rooms and into life. For how it turns everyday things like dust and fog and pollen into messengers of unspeakable beauty.

Thank you for the art and friends that you have gifted me with who are like light. Who shine through the basement windows of my soul, turning all the dead, dry things into things much more like fairies.

Thank you that you are providing for Ben right now. I am so glad he’s doing well at school.

Thank you for communication, God. The messiest thing ever, but how unimaginable life would be without it! Thank you for letting me be human, God. It’s funny to say, but I suppose I could have been anything or just not exist at all. I’m glad I exist. I’m glad I get to experience life, even with all its messiness, heartbreak, boredom and confusion. I’m glad I get to love people too. Even though love will always, eventually lead to hurt.

In the movie I’m watching right now, the camera has a lot of moments where it just sits and all you see is, say, a room. But the room is so beautiful that it strikes something in me when I get to see it. I so desire to make a movie like that. Something big and beautiful and perfect. Maybe precise would be a better word. A movie that we’ve thought through every single element of the film and know it so well when we are done that we feel as though we have spent our whole time maybe with a person. I want to make a movie that pulls rugs out from under the people who see it. I want people to be extremely surprised and maybe a little perplexed and sore yet extremely glad about where the film is going and where it ends.

God, this may not seem to other people to have much to do with you, but I’m only describing the story you wove. And the more I think about it, the more I can’t wait to see the ending of it! You’ve hinted at some pretty outrages things. Beyond moons turning to blood and horseman and flashes of light and trumpets, I’m thinking of every member of humankind all bowing to you and saying your name, and agreeing that your name is above every name. What will it feel like to see something so clearly that there will be only one course of action that I even consider taking? And for all of humanity to see the exact same thing and all respond the exact same way and for the same reason.

We will all agree — no doubt about it — that you are Lord and that your name is above every name.

Lord help me to live in that knowledge right now.

Amen