Friday, April 29, 2011

friday photos: 2011.17

friday, april 22

i started passing out these cards explaining invisible children's 25 event.

saturday, april 23

dyed easter eggs with my mom.

sunday, april 24

one of my favorite quotes.

monday, april 25

invisible children's "break the silence" event.

tuesday, april 26

this is my typical lunch break.

wednesday, april 27

stephen kellogg.

thursday, april 28

my 6th completed book of 2011.

Friday, April 22, 2011

friday photos: 2011.16

friday, april 15

finished my 5th book of 2011.

saturday, april 16

record store day at grimey's: gabe dixon band performing, and i grabbed a copy of drew holcomb & the neighbor's "chasing someday"

sunday, april 17

photo to be revealed at a later date.

monday, april 18

another photo to be revealed at a later date.

tuesday, april 19

nature has a sense of humor.

wednesday, april 20

any day that involves baja is a good day.

thursday, april 21

rachel's response to being told not to smile.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

i'm going silent.

for 25 hours, i won't be speaking. because sometimes i speak too much.

i was recently introduced to a new "word" - slacktivism: when one says they care and are loud about a cause but don't actually do anything to help.

i'm guilty of this.

after all, the word activism begins with three letters: act. by definition, it requires action.

in this information age, one has to be rather ignorant to not be aware of the injustices happening in the world. the time for awareness is over. it's time for action.

for 25 years, the lords resistance army has been committing terrible atrocities against innocent people in central africa. after the lra was driven out of northern uganda in 2005, they have been occupying some of the most remote and isolated territories in the entire region. they are attacking communities that have virtually no way to communicate to the outside world. the cries of the victims go silent.

and so, starting at 7pm on april 24th, i along with thousands of others, join these victims in silence. for 25 hours i will not speak. we will all gather together, and at 8pm on april 25th, we will break the silence. and then we will act. we will write to congress to fight for peace. we can bring an end to this war.

this is in partnership with invisible children, which is doing amazing things to help protect the citizens of central africa. here is a some insider info from a friend of mine who is working directly with ic:

"when the peace talks between ugandan government and lra failed in 2008, the lra fled uganda. currently there is peace in northern uganda. however, they have now moved into the congo, sudan, and car. they are attacking villages almost daily because they have no funding. they need to attack to get food, supplies, etc. we are building 12 radio towers in these three countries. they will send out a broadcast twice a day to all of the villages saying where the lra has been, where they are heading, who needs help or protection, etc. also, it will broadcast to the lra. many members of the lra are afraid to come out of the bush because they fear being persecuted or being killed by their home villages for the crimes they were forced to commit. we are broadcasting ways for them to safely come out."

this is huge. and they need our help. would you consider donating even $1 or $5? you can donate directly to invisible children here:

Friday, April 15, 2011

friday photos: 2011.15

friday, april 8

i love old houses. this is my bedroom doorknob.

saturday, april 9

bon(d)fire with some of my favorite nashville people.

sunday, april 10

this was my first attempt at making a journal out of an old book. also, this is the 100th day of the year (and thus my 100th photo) - and the journal has 100 pages.

monday, april 11

spring time = spring purses

tuesday, april 12

after the storm.

wednesday, april 13

wednesday afternoon survival kit.

thursday, april 14

me: what should i take a picture of?
karissa: my shiny apple

Friday, April 8, 2011

friday photos: 2011.14

friday, april 1

tapp necklace

saturday, april 2

matthew perryman jones, sandra mccracken, andrew ripp, amy stroup, trent dabbs, and katie herzig. for free.

sunday, april 3

another sunny sunday spent at the park.

monday, april 4

apparently a funnel cloud was spotted not too far from my house. this tree, which fell on a power line and a car, is on my street.

tuesday, april 5

merry christmas from frothy monkey?

wednesday, april 6

"eye see you"

thursday, april 7

pretty afternoons are well spent sitting in the sunroom.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

these are not my words.

but they are my truth. this is taken from the end of randy's sermon this past week at midtown.

romans 8:28
"we know that all things god works together for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose." what is he saying? if you're in christ today, which i want you to hear that, because if you're new to this journey, you can be out of christ and you can be in christ. just because you come to church doesn't mean you're in christ. and if that confuses you, you need to go on the journey of answering that question. what does that mean? why did jesus come to rescue us? what did he resuce us from? but if we are in christ, if we have been rescued, what this passage is saying, that god now is working everything to your good. everything to your good.

in fact, i want to submit to you this morning that god is bound by his holiness to do nothing but work toward your good. in everything. he is bound by his holiness and his character and who he is as god to work everything in your good. see, let me explain. when jesus went to the cross, jesus took to the cross with him all of my sins. he took all the ways that i had violated the laws of god, the character of god. i am guilty of every accusation that god could possibly throw at me. and yet here i stand accused and guilty and god through jesus took all that to the cross and took that off of me.

now what does that mean? if i am in christ, meaning in christ on the cross, i died with him and then in his resurrection i rose with him, and now i'm a part of the family. and as a member of the family i am justified, meaning jesus wiped the slate clean, it's just as if i had never sinned. so when i stand before god, i stand as one that has been made pure, purified, cleansed of all my sins, i stand in the righteousness of christ, fully accepted by the father, fully loved by the father, and the holiness of god is committed to work good in every situation in my life.

see, here's what interesting about justification. jesus isn't standing before the throne of god saying, 'god, please have mercy on randy. i plead mercy, please, in all your compassion and kindness look on him, he's pathetic. have mercy on him!' that's not what jesus is doing. jesus is standing before the father in his judgment seat, and he's looking at the father and he's saying, 'father, execute all judgment on him. he deserves justice.' and what is justice? it's all been paid for. see, jesus doesn't plead mercy for me, he pleads justice for me, 'cause he paid for everything. it's already been paid for. i can't be punished for a crime twice, right? it's all been paid for. so the mercy that god gives me comes through his justice. i deserve his mercy now. that's what it means to be in the position of christ. i deserve his love now. i deserve his good now.

listen to this, later in the chapter he says, 'what then shall we say to this: if god is for you, who can be against you?' it's in the bible. it says 'he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.' god went to such lengths to put me in the position of favor that he gave up his own son for that. he says, if that's what god did for you, how will he not also, along with jesus, graciously give you all things. do you think god is limited now? no, god says i am working all things through the good of those who love him.

well i know what you're thinking, 'this is going on, and if i was god, i wouldn't let that happen. i wouldn't say that's good.' so either god is not good, or he has a twisted view of what good is. or something completely different. or maybe he sees what you can't see. and that's hard, isn't it? isn't hard when you're in pain and it seems like god is so far away. so when we're in that hard place, how do we step into truth that i just said? how do we speak truth into that? how do we join with david the psalmist when he says 'lord i will rejoice in you, i will praise your name, even though the enemies surround me, even though all is going against me, i will lift my face to you.' you know, plsam 3, where his own son rose up against him and was trying to kill him and overthrow his kingdom so that he could be king, he said 'lord, you are the one who lifts up my head.'

we do what it says here. we acknowledge, it says 'and we know in all things that god works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose and acknowledge his ways.' what does that mean? we speak truth into our struggle. i preach the gospel of christ into my life, i speak the gospel of christ into my friends' lives, i ask my friends to speak the gospel of christ into my life.

what would that look like? for me to say, okay, i'm going to put down the engine of creating and trying to get the power to get what i want, and i'm going to come over here and go, you know what? my deepest desire is not the senario, my deepest desire is to be loved, my deepest desire is to be in love, to be captured, to have power come and scoop me up and hold me within its hands. something that god wants to do with me through christ. so, lord, i'm going to put down my wants and my hungering, my lust for power, and i'm going to come over here in my desires and i'm going to let you meet me in this place. and i'm going to let you speak truth to me that you're working for my good.

what would that look like? one is, happiness would stop being somewhere other than where i'm at. happiness would stop being something over there that i'm constantly trying to get to, but it just seems to get further and further and further away from me. that happiness can be right where i'm at. the scriptures say, 'be still and know that i am god...' the second thing that it does is that hope stops being in something as shallow as what i want, or a situation, and goes to some place very deep. see, if my hope is in certain circumstances working out, or what i imagine in my mind coming to truth, i'm gonna live a life of constant disappointment... hope should not be so fragile a thing that it sets itself in situations that i can't make come true. hope should go to a deeper place.

let me explain: when maggie, my daughter, was 3 years old, we had one of those bongo bats... and my son and i were playing it, and she walked out the door just as he was swinging it, and he caught my 3-year old little girl right in the eye with the bongo bat, and just split her eyelid right open. so we rush her to the hospital, and she's bleeding and she's crying, she's looking up at me, and the doctor goes 'we gotta sew it shut. the danger with something like this, if we're gonna keep her awake, is, i'm gonna have a needle near her eye and she's 3 years old and it's hard to keep her still. so we're gonna wrap her up in a blanket." so they strapped her arms down and wrapped her in a blanket and they had to shoot novoicaine into her eyelid. here's the thing about maggie: she did not want to do that. she's 3 years old, she's like "please, no! don't wrap me in a blanket, i just want to go home, put a band-aid on it, and let's just go home." because as a 3-year old, she says that my hope is that this event is going to be over with, this stage of my life, could it just be over with, let's just go home. and i asked her to do something as a father at that moment, i said, "look at me maggie, take your hope out of the situation and put your hope in me. you don't understand what's going on. you don't understand why this hurts so much. you don't understand what could possibly be gained from you being wrapped in a blanket to where you can't move your arms and we're holding you still, you can't, in your 3-year old mind, you can't perceive it, but you can perceive this: i'm your father and i love you. and i'm asking you to look at me, and i'm asking you to put your hope in me, trust that i'm bigger than this situation, trust that i'm bigger than your pain, trust that i'm bigger than your fear."



Tuesday, April 5, 2011

a perfect weekend.

sunday night i tweeted that the weekend had every ingredient of a perfect weekend, and that i couldn't list them all in a single tweet. i typically believe that if you have something to share and can't fit it all in one tweet, that's when you need to blog, rather than send out 10 tweets in a row. so, here are the ingredients to a perfect spring weekend:

a: one night of relaxation. i found this on friday night, as i went to dinner (pizza) with my roommates, then came home and immediately changed into pajamas, ate homemade cookies (courtesy of stacy), and watched a movie.
b: a sleepover. my roommate, kirsten, is a nanny and watches a 7-year old named natalie who is so.stinking.funny. she spent the night with us on friday.
c. a lazy saturday morning. although i technically didn't sleep in (my internal alarm clock considers 7am late on the weekends, as i wake up around 5:30-5:45 during the week), i still got to lay in bed for awhile before getting up, with no immediate plans to attend to.
d. a good breakfast. kirsten made made us all pancakes, scrambled eggs, and strawberries. and of course coffee.
e: good coffee with friends. kirsten, stacy, jen and i all went over to frothy monkey for some good coffee and conversation. i think frothy is my second home at this point.
f. a productive afternoon: stacy and i did some much needed spring cleaning around the house. we aren't messy people, but our old house tends to be a dust factory.
g. a visitor from far away/catching up with old friends: our dear old friend erin came to town. erin used to live in our house (before i did), and she is one of the first people i met when i moved to nashville almost five years ago. a year ago she moved to haiti for what she thought would be a 3-month mission trip. but god had other plans when she met her now husband-to-be, born and raised as a missionary in haiti. erin is in town planning their may wedding, and it was great to catch up with her face-to-face, as opposed to the chat function in words with friends.
h. good live music. which was free, by the way. and semi-outdoors. jen and i each won a pair of passes to this year's tin pan south, and she, stacy and i headed downtown to the roof of the hard rock to see the best of the best in nashville's independent music scene: matthew perryman jones, sandra mccraken, andrew ripp, amy stroup, trent dabbs, and katie herzig.
i. a lazy sunday morning: i always wake up on sundays long before i need to be at church. i love knowing i have somewhere to be soon, but not feeling rushed to get ready.
j. an excellent church service: i unexpectedly caught myself crying in church on sunday morning. this doesn't happen often (the last time was several years ago). some truths we can never hear enough.
k. perfect weather: saturday was in the mid-60's and sunday was near 80, and the sun shone both days.
l. simple reminders of how lucky i am to live in my neighborhood. i love that i am able to walk to a grocery store to pick up some basics.
m. popsicles at the park. kirsten and i walked down to hillsboro village, picked up some las paletas, and walked over to the dragon park to read and soak in the... shade.
n. a cook-out. our chef-friend suzanne had a group of people over to her place to cook out on the deck. fresh fruit, grilled asparagus, salad, and grilled hot dogs. summer is near.
o. making new friends. while at suzanne's, i met a few new people who i'm sure i'll see again. i also got to know my future roommate a little better.

that pretty much sums it up. although "o" is a weird letter to end on, i'm not going to change it to numbers nor force myself to make it all the way to z. you probably wouldn't
want to read all of that anyway.

Friday, April 1, 2011

friday photos: 2011.13

friday, march 25

i enjoy winning things.

saturday, march 26

the swamp tigers attended taylor and kaitlin's engagement party.

sunday, march 27

abandoned crafts.

monday, march 28

wine, good tv, and a bunch of blankets are sometimes the perfect end to a long day.

tuesday, march 29

3rd & lindsley & lightning 100's birthday bash:
tyrone wells, ks rhoads, griffin house, cary brothers, erin mccarley, josh hoge, carey ott, gabe dixon, katie herzig, andrew belle, & trent dabbs.
it was way too far past my bedtime for me to care that the picture isn't great.

wednesday, march 30

i posted this on facebook, and regan was the only one to correctly guess the object of this photo: the light coming in through the crack in the doorway.

thursday, march 31

babysittin'

and that successfully completes the first quarter of the year. wow.