October Update.

I just spent the past few minutes gazing out the window, watching the changed leaves fall and blow about, while listening to Händel. The furnace is rumbling and creaking and the house is warm. The sun is shining and the sky, blue. I am thankful for Fall, and the regeneration and refreshment it provides.

Well, the fact that I’m enjoying Fall may lead one to presume… I’m back in Washington State! It’s a shocker, believe me, I know. I came back at the beginning of September after spending a total of about 6 months in Louisiana [the 3 months previous to that I was on the Big Island of Hawai’i doing a Photography school]. Some background just to catch you up: The first four months I was cooking for a relief organization on the North Shore of New Orleans, living in an RV in the back of a church parking lot. At the end of July, I left the organization and moved into the city itself, to the Ninth Ward; a somewhat notorious part of the city, known for it’s destruction from Hurricane Katrina as well as for it’s poverty. Some friends from Washington have a house there and offered me their basement, and I snatched it up! It was a great time being with them in their awesome home, but lack of transportation and lack of means for attaining transportation caused a bit of a dent in my chrome wheels of immaculate ability in planning-the-future. I initially intended on remaining in New Orleans until Spring 2009 but, in a rather rapid way, God placed the option of leaving sooner before me – not that I was intending on pursuing that option. But due to finances, some dreams, and lots of praying and some good bouts of affirmation, I realized I needed to move back to be with my family, to get myself out of my own financial poverty, and to work through some things. As a friend of mine put it, it was ‘time to unpack the past two years.’

GUSTAV
Before I came back however, I found myself in the direct path of The Storm of The Century [as they were calling it], also known as Hurricane Gustav. The family I lived with, along with myself and about 70 others from their church, were invited to a church in Birmingham Alabama, to take refuge from the storm. So, the day before Gustav made landfall, under mandatory evacuation of the city and with contra flow, we packed up both cars, two dogs, three adults and the baby, and caravanned the 11 hours to Birmingham – normally a 5 hour drive – within the mass exodus of thousands of evacuees. There we were greeted by the famed Southern Hospitality. Birmingham was great – clean, hospitable, a high standard of living, and an immaculate fully-stocked Wal-Mart..?! We’d landed on Mars. We also promptly decided Louisiana was the armpit of America.

After about 5 days of sleeping on the floor of a gymnasium and after being served so well by Mountain Brook Church, ‘my family’ and I left at about 4am, to get back to New Orleans the day the city reopened. Yet again, the five hour drive turned into 13 – but that would be without mentioning The-Adventures-of-a-short-stop-in-Mobile-that-turned-into: a bolt in the tire, a shattered back window, a fussy baby, melted food, a free steak meal, an offer to use a man’s shower, nearly being hit by an old man on his way to a buffet, an incredible amount of ChaCha questions, and a generous $60 from a lady in an Escalade.
It was a long day.

The city had hardly suffered from Gustav [south of New Orleans however, is another story] and our home sustained little damage. The power was on and we hadn’t been looted! Hooray! But we had no food. And with Hurricane Ike on the way, the grocery stores weren’t particularly thrusting themselves into ‘restock’ mode – nor into ‘open’ mode either as a matter of fact... So obtaining food was an adventure for anyone whom had already returned home from evacuating Gustav. We were fed however, like the birds of the sky, so no worries.

While in Birmingham however, I did make the call to the Daddy-o to purchase
the one-way ticket to Washington. Talk about a spoonful o’ motivation.

WHAT’S THE UP NOW?
Currently I’m not going to school, am living at home with the parents, and working part-time at a coffee shop [that line gets me a lot of dates]. I have a few photography deals planned and am enjoying some stability. I’m totally digging my family and am love-love-loving fall! I’m also back near a computer that can be called ‘my own’, with Adobe programs too, so photography/art is much more accessible, which I’ve found the means in which to create is key for my internal organs to function properly. But that also means there’s some new clutter up on the flickr site, so check it out.

So, that’s me. How’re you?

[PHOTOS] .:. [PHOTOS] .:. [PHOTOS]

++++++

‘My God, I give thanks to you, my source of sweet delight, and my glory and my confidence. I thank you for your gifts. Keep them for me, for in this way you will keep me. The talents you have given will increase and be perfected, and I will be with you since it was your gift to me that I exist.’
-St. Augustine, Confessions

random invasion

President George W's helicopter flying down the street.... kinda.

Zack and Alysha working at Rock of Ages Church.

Alysha with some of the kids around Rock of Ages.

Evie being so cool. She's nearly one!

The summer 'young' staff for Crisis Response. Trailer folk, ya know? :)

Evie [housemates daughter] is pretty hilarious.

There are awesome Live Oaks and apparently ones that spring up through the asphalt... with sweet swings to the left.

Katie and I!

We've got a pretty sweet four-level house.

It rains a lot. perhaps tina fey will bring more!

Good Vs Better [x-ed]

How do I avoid the Good in light of the Better?

When I come upon a fork in the road, and am greeted to my left with Good and to my right with Better, how do I find myself avoiding choosing my right over my left?

I feel as though this calendar year has been one of Good*.

Yet no matter how grateful I am that Good is not Bad, I have found myself in a cerebral convolution and amongst the tortured souls of those whom have chosen Good over Better. Those who find themselves being gnawed away by Potential, by the what could have been, by the foreboding knowledge that there once was a choice that could have taken them in a direction of things much more profound then where they find themselves now. For they have found themselves among the Good when they knew they were destined for the Better, and they know the only one to blame for such a unsatisfactory transition is themselves.

But once the deed is done, once I've already chosen the Good, how do I avoid the torture of the impervious agony in its form of guilt and discontentment? (And how do I welcome humility and meekness in it's place?)**

For I find myself going left, and with each pace away from the increasingly distant fork in the road where Better once stood, I feel the weight of my chest increase. It takes more energy for my heart to beat as strong as it once did, and yet the energy isn't available for it is now being distributed in a sparring manner to all the faculties that now desire it, to figure out how I allowed myself to give up Better to begin with.

'You've made your bed, now lie in it.'

I'll tell you where I am; I'm staring at my bed.

Discontent and heartbroken at what I've made; not because it isn't good, but because I know I could have had Better.

'People will always let you down.'

I suppose it was my own turn.

There is this overwhelming blanket atop me that screams worst intentions. That chokes with every Better I compromise.

I do not know how to let this go.

'From where I'm sitting these shoes ain't fitting and I'm going nowhere, killing time.' – Something Corporate

-------

* I can't help but correlate Good with complacency, and cannot help but feel as though I've cheated myself by allowing Good.

** King David made many mistakes, and the consequences were brutal, actions whose re-actions reached the point of Death. I'm not alone in this, I know that – but no matter how humble I wish to perceive myself as, this human faulted ability to fail and be completely wrong is a slap in the face and a painful realization. No matter how much I know I am not alone in my faults, I also know that that doesn't alter the overwhelming feelings of being so, nor does it lift the unwavering guilt and depression of failure. Yet I am told at this point is where I understand that I am nothing, and within that epiphany I realize the paradox; that this nothing is worth His Everything.

/////

I’ll move from my 1978 RV known as ‘The Swinger’, in all of its glory within suburbia, into the city of New Orleans in just under two weeks.

My season with Crisis Response is done and it is time for me to move out and move on.

I’ll be renting a room out of a friend’s house in the city, and will be pursuing ‘normal’ life for a little while, appreciating the subtle luxury’s I give up seemingly often enough (a bathroom within 30 seconds distance, television, a real house, pets, income, etc.).

Prayers for a job, transportation and the transition in itself would be incredibly appreciated.

I’m looking forward for some time to relax and recoup a little after a long first half of 2008.

Love you all. Like – a lot. :)

K

-----

‘Some of the best letters come from prison.’ – Rob Bell

‘The Master said, Be of unwavering good faith.’ – Ancient Chinese. Analects.

‘Hateful to me as are the gates of Hades is that man who says one thing, and hides another in his heart.’

– Greek. Homer, Iliad.

‘The foundation of justice is good faith.‘ – Roman. Cicero, De Officiis.

‘A sacrifice is obliterated by a lie and the merit of alms by an act of fraud.’ Hindu. Janet, i. 6

‘Courage has got to be harder, heart the stouter, spirit the sterner, as our strength weakens. Here lies our lord, cut to pieces, out best man in the dust. If anyone thinks of leaving this battle, he can howl forever.’ - Anglo Saxon. Maldon.

‘Natural affection is a thing right and according to Nature.’ – Greek.

‘I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue but should fulfill both my natural and artificial relations, as a worshiper, a son, a brother, a father, and a citizen.’ – Greek.

‘Did not Socrates love his own children, though he did so as a free man and as one not forgetting that the gods have the first claim on our friendship?’ – Greek. Epictetus.

‘Is it only the sons of Atreus who love their wives? For every good man, who is right-minded, loves and cherishes his own.’ – Greek. Homer, Iliad.

‘The union and fellowship of men will be best preserved if each receives from us the more kindness in proportion as he is more closely connected with us.’ - Roman. Cicero, De Officiis.

chewy.

...Or, quite to the contrary, might this faith, which apparently is still able to stir the masses, be an option, a way out, a promise; might it be able to solve the hopelessly tangled problems of our society, which no longer knows which norms to obey, in which rules to place its faith - in short, what might save it from itself?

These questions arouse an anxious curiosity. This curiosity is invaluable. Anything that prompts people to a deeper understanding of the Other is excellent. But there is also the danger that it will stray in the direction of false answers.
[pg. xlvii]





There is not reason to think that disillusionment, disappointment and tension can be avoided. There is no reason to think that people here, any more than elsewhere, will not be gripped by the temptation of what might be called - in the broadest, almost romantic sense - bourgeoisism, that satisfied mentality which delights in having, a mentality disastrous in its consequences, particularly in the blindness it causes. One can forecast as well a destructive turning to nihilism on the part of the dissatisfied.
[pg. li]




excerpts from Muhammad by Maxime Rodinson

TRIAL

test –noun
1. the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of anything is determined; a means of trial.
2. the trial of the quality of something: to put to the test.
3. a particular process or method for trying or assessing.
4. a set of questions, problems, or the like, used as a means of evaluating the abilities, aptitudes, skills, or performance of an individual or group; examination.

+++

At one point recently, I came to a conclusion that trails were a good thing… that I’d come to accept and appreciate them for their attributes of pressing me closer to God. That they were nearly almost enjoyable because I knew that when they came, in their abundantly nefarious ways, that it meant God Time! And I love that. So I was starting to love trails for what good they had in store with all their bad. A masochistic relationship of sorts I suppose.

But I realized tonight, that the image I had conjured in my mind of trails, was this ‘trial utopia’ where they would always come about in the same way, always stretch and push similarly, and be hard, yet mildly beneficial. That they’d all look the same. And because of that, you’d get used to them. Ahh yes, Trial, I remember you. You and I have business to do again, eh? Well alright then, I am ready. How has your wife been since we last saw each other?

Oh naïveté! Alas, we’ve met!

I look at a young teenager… they’ve reached an end, an edge to something more, and the trial bears it’s claws. They’re torn about it, and come for advice, and I look at them somewhat mockingly and tell them to ‘Get over it. When you’re older, you’ll realize that this isn’t even a big deal.’
Lame. That is part of getting older… that’s a trail, and the state of their maturity will match the difficulty of their trial, and as we grow and become more mature, the trials will become harder.

{No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course
of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God
will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit;
he'll always be there to help you come through it.}
1 Corinthians 10:13

It’s like a video game – if you’re new to a game and you’re immediately placed in the hardest level in the final battle with the most powerful boss, you’ll lose. I don’t care if you’re a cat with 9 lives, you’ll lose them all! You have to go through the levels, and the stronger handle you get on the game, the harder it becomes. The further you advance, the more you become involved, the more the plot unfolds and thickens and the more skills you pick up on the way, the more directly you’re challenged.



To think that it will always be easy, that the more mature we become the fewer will trials spurn us, that as we engage into newer depths, we will be left alone, is idealist. Idealism is not per say wrong, but realism may prove more merit in dealing with what we are. That trails come and go, but as they wax and wane with time they also wax and wane in difficulty.

I cannot look at Trial the next time he comes about and nod to him, conduct a business transaction, feel some pain, and smile as we bid each other well until next time.

It is trial.
It is test.
It is fire to purify.
It is meant to hurt.
It is meant to grow you.
It is meant to sometimes sweep you off your feet, to blindside you and to knock your breath away.
To feel like drowning.
To feel like God is the farthest thing away.
To be completely at unrest, disoriented and anguished.
To be made ill by it.

Not common. Not the same ol’. Not utopia. Not always recognizable.

It is designed with intentions to knock you off the track hard enough to kill what it can.
And the stronger you are, the worse it may be.


+++

Trial, this game you play, it was not made for me. But Trial, I will take up arms, and I will man my ship upon this sea. For my God will not leave me be, and if perchance you kill, I will still be free. Trial, you and I, I cannot claim to foresee, but Trial, if you must come, know I will endure it for His glory.

+++

Be well,
K

der·vish

I’ve been listening to a lot of Celtic/Irish folk radio [www.liveIreland.com] and a band came on titled ‘Dervish’. So I looked it up and learned something new.

der·vish
1. A member of any of various Muslim ascetic orders, some of which perform whirling dances and vigorous chanting as acts of ecstatic devotion.
2. One that possesses abundant, often frenzied energy: "[She] is a dervish of unfocused energy, an accident about to happen" (Jane Gross).

Contemplation ::.

con·tem·pla·tion –noun

full or deep consideration; reflection

These are things I've been contemplating for the past few weeks. Thought I'd share.

+++

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5.4


Matthew, in recording Christ's teaching, chose the strongest Greek term in all his vocabulary when he wrote mourn. It is a heavy word - a passionate lament for one who was loved with profound devotion. It conveys the sorrow of a broken heart, the ache of soul, the anguished mind.
Charles Swindoll, Improving Your Serve, pg. 103


///


First and foremost in the life of an authentic servant is a deep, abiding dependency on the living Lord. On the basis of that attitude, the kingdom of heaven is promised.
Charles Swindoll, Improving Your Serve, pg. 103


///

Boundaries don't keep others out, they fence you in.
Grey's Anatomy

///

Fear has in interest to subdue and domesticate.
idea derived from Maxime Rodinson

///

Wounds from a sincere friend
are better than many kisses from
an enemy.
Proverbs 27.6

///

[Many practices and ideas were the same. An entity of this type, bringing together individuals and peoples who have in common a substantial bundle of cultural traits, can be called a civilization. This civilization deserves the name of Muslim by virtue of the fact that the basic cement of its unity, the ideology that imbued these individuals and peoples, was Islam.

But it must be understood that all the common elements of this culture did not simply devolve, as the naive religious idealists would have us believe, from the dogmas of the Muslim religion professed by the majority of the people inhabiting this zone. Of course the Muslim ideologists, with the support of the political establishment, made enormous efforts to truly 'Islamize' these peoples and their culture. They sought to reach and to impregnate every facet of life with the values of their religion, down to the most trivial aspects of everyday conduct.]

But they were not much more successful in this than the Christian ideologists of the Middle Ages, who, in a comparable effort, tried to make all Christian societies practice Christ's message of love and goodness.
Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad, pg. xxxv

The Jesus Lizard

Jesus bless the crocodiles, forgive the cobras and all the snakes
Open up your arms to carry all of our mistakes
Forgive the basilisk, forgive the moccasins and adders too
Have mercy on each alligator that never lived for you
I myself hatched from an egg, no white light from above
Just another ancient serpent that never earned your love
But still you find me underneath the rocks and in the ground
I cowered there just short of air and never made a sound
It's true that I'm in love with you, and even in my shame
You wipe away the imperfections and take away the pain
You wrap your loving arms around this wretched thing called me
Your love is all I'll ever need, your love has set me free

-Showbread, Age of Reptiles

Katrina danced with Louisiana

Hey everyone!
So it has been awhile since an update for a few reasons, part of it is because I was waiting to get some things rolling but since some of those elipitcal objects have begun, I will elaborate for you what I'm up to:

I finished the School of Photography I was doing in Hawaii about three weeks ago on March 26th.
That night myself and two fellow photography students, Jim and Cliff, flew out of Kona Hawaii and enjoyed some non-existent airplane food as one last hurrah before we departed ways in Phoenix. From there I ended up in New Orleans Louisiana.

Let me tell you a little about why I'm in New Orleans before I tell you what I'm doing...

The summer before Hurricane Katrina hit I ended up going down south to Baton Rouge for a Christian youth conference and it rocked my world. Basically, at that point, I fell in love with the south, and specifically with Louisiana.

And then, a few months after, the Hurricane's hit. First Katrina, then Rita.
And suddenly, for whatever reason, it became very real to me. The tsunami had hit eastern Asia just shortly before, and natural disasters had ravaged many a countryside and destroyed many a life previously throughout my 17 year existence, but this one, this devastation, came alive. It was unfathomable to me that life just continued in the United States 'as normal' when such an incredible blow to our kinsmen had just been dealt. I was glued to the news. I'd come home from cross country practice and watch the TV and get online and read the news and find out any and everything I could about what was going on in Louisiana.
I could. not. take it.
It ate at me, gnawing and provoking me.
I announced at dinner to my parents one night, that although I was in the beginning of my senior year, captain of the cross country team and making headway on my senior project, I had counted the cost and was willing to enroll in summer school to get my GED, because the pain that was happening only a few days drive away had become unbearable to me and I had to go help. There really wasn't an option any more. I had to go.

Now, parents have a way with wisdom and timing and all that organizational-planning stuff they do, and told me to buckle down a little [go figure!]. However, my Dad was feeling the pull too, and we eventually summoned a team of about 10 people from Cornerstone Community Church in Pullman that headed down to the New Orleans area to do relief work in January of 2007, four months after the hurricanes.
Let me tell you, it was a phenomenal sight.

It seemed [but not just seemed, nearly quite was] as though the only difference in four months from the days the hurricanes hit until then, was that the flood waters had receded and people had piled up all of their [now destroyed by water] belongings into huge piles 8 feet high in front of their homes. A few FEMA trailers had been sparsely distributed but there were still fields that went for miles and miles, full of trailers that would never be used due to ridiculous laws and simply unfulfilled words.

It was a good time, we gutted homes and heard stories, discovered devastation and renewed hope.
But part of me was left there and I desired to go back, knowing that there was still incredible need.

And that brings us to today.
Pursuing my options for after my time in Hawaii was complete, New Orleans popped back up into my mind and so I sent a brief email to some friends that had ended up moving down there after having gone on that trip with me in January. They responded that there was a need for me to come help in the relief work they were doing, and in about a week everything fell in place, me taking that as a sign that God wanted me to get through that door! So away I went!

So basically here's what's what:
I moved down here to the suburbs of New Orleans at the end of March and I live in an RV in the back of a church parking lot.
The church has become a hub for Compassion ministries since the hurricanes, and more specifically, EFCA Crisis Response.
I am a cook.
Sometimes the days begin with cooking at 5:30am and don't end until 9 or 10pm. Usually it's only from 11am until 9pm however. Generally not any less than 40 hours a week [ideally I get a few days off].
I travel into the city on Mondays and help their inner city extension cook dinner, and head down there whenever else they need extra help.
There are missions teams that come through weekly from all over the country to help rebuild homes in the New Orleans area. They are housed at the church [imagine 60 guys sleeping on the floor of the church sanctuary and the women overtaking the youth room, makeshift shower buildings and two washers and dryers, and a normal kitchen with two normal sized ovens and a normal sized sink - they have transformed the normal with God's grace to be able to handle an extraordinary amount of traffic].
I have joined two other amazing women that cook for these teams as well as for the staff that happens to be around.

So with that said, it's a busy time, and a great time and I'm enjoying being able to meet the need they have for kitchen help and am thankful to be here - God has shown me much in the past three weeks that I'm quickly noting are solid foundations.

So that is where I am and what I'm doing! I'm in the process of applying to be on staff with EFCA Crisis Response for a little while, and am a cookin machine livin in an RV. :)


If you'd like to help me out financially, I'd love for you to be able to do so. There is a PayPal link set up here: LINK
[If you're uncomfortable with PayPal, you can do the snail-mail thing here: PO Box 974, Pullman WA 99163-0974]

If you'd like to find more out about the EFCA Crisis Response that I'm with here in New Orleans, follow this link: LINK


Much love
Kaarin

Conspiracy

I think Pullman is a mock city.

I think it's an entire society built up around the college, so that it isn't just some kids in school in the world, but it's some kids in school in a city that they could potentially have a say in.

Like, a land that isn't really true, but builds up confidence to make one believe that they actually could do something if they tried.

Take Wal-Mart for example... how long has that little battle gone on in Pullman for now? Why doesn't Pullman ever grow? Why doesn't the business district grow beyond the local?

Control.

About 15.3% of families and 37.5% of the population are below the poverty line [wikipedia.com], so how is it sustained as it is? Schweitzer Engineering Laboratory and WSU bring in the revenue that the city lacks in funding this controlled environment 'project' of theirs. Perhaps Schweitzer produces what it does for other things more than we know... actually, haha, in all honesty, I've never been told exactly what Schweitzer produces and what it's for. Anyone I've ever asked only vaguely knows it's production of do-hickeys and engineering of stuff.

The students at WSU get to think they have a say in something, that the town is there for them. A 'real place' where they can put into practice what they're learning, a school project, a learning exercise, on a massive scale. They can run for mayor of it, can have a say in the politics and in the business development. And they can. And they do. Only because the city is there for the college. The college isn't there in a city, but the city exists because the college does, and otherwise would have just remained a small farming community amidst a sea of wheat fields.

Alcohol remains stocked to keep some sense of city life alive, and the university provides structure and day activity.

This city knows all of these authority systems are based off of respect and/or fear, but that the former runs itself along a thin line of choices on each of our parts.
That we play a game. And as long as both teams continue to agree to play, things will run relatively smoothly.

Even if one side isn't aware the game isn't real, or that they have a choice to play or not.


Unhealthy.



It's an incomplete conspiracy theory [just for fun].

+++

Religiosity.

[So I just went through and read people's comments on the blogs from the past three months because I think I forgot that people could do that. So side note, just wanted to say thanks for those of you who have commented. :) I appreciate it lots.]

We've had a lot of talk about having a 'religious spirit' lately on base, [ps: a 'religious spirit' is a bad thing, it judges and condemns when it should not nor does it have the right to, and is all around a negatively associated spirit] and as I was just going through some of my old things I found some notes I'd written down while I was reading Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. And it fully plays in with what's been discussed recently, and I really love Bonhoeffer's thoughts on things.

Snippets from Dietrich:

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Christians always see other men as brethren to whom Christ comes; they meet them only by going to them with Jesus. Disciple and non-disciple can never encounter each other as free men, directly exchanging their views and judging one another by objective criteria. No, the disciple can meet the non-disciple only as a man to whom Jesus comes. Here alone Christ’s fight for the soul of the unbeliever, his call, his love, his grace and his judgement comes into its own. Discipleship does not afford us a point of vantage from which to attack others; we come to them with an unconditional offer of fellowship, with the single-mindedness of the love of Jesus.

When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.     

If the disciple makes judgements of their own, they set up standards of good and evil. But Jesus Christ is not a standard which I can apply to others. He is judge of myself, revealing my own virtues to me as something altogether evil. Thus I am not permitted to apply to the other person what does not apply to me. For, with my judgement according to good and evil, I only affirm the other person’s evil, for he does exactly the same. But he does not know of the hidden iniquity of the good but seeks his justification in it.

To everyone God is the kind of God he believes in.

Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings. but only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me. If I withhold my judgement I am not indulging in tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner and confirm the other person in his bad ways. Neither I am right nor the other person, but God is always right and shall proclaim both his grace and his judgement.

Judging others makes us blind, wheras love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

Christian love sees the fellow-man under the cross and therefore sees with clarity. If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves, for we are seeking to escape punishment for our own sins by passing judgement on others, and are assuming by implication that the Word of God applies to ourselves in one way, and to others in another. All this is highly dangerous and misleading. We are trying to claim for ourselves a special privilege which we deny to others. But Christ’s disciples have no rights of their own or standards of right and wrong which they could enforce with other people; they have received nothing but Christ’s fellowship. Therefore the disciple is not to sit in judgement over his fellow-man because he would wrongly usurp the jurisdiction.

But the Christian is not only forbidden to judge other men: even the word of salvation has its limits. He has neither power nor right to force it on other men in season and out of season. Every attempt to impose the gospel by force, to run after people and proselytize them, to use our own resources to arrange the salvation of other people, is both futile and dangerous. It is futile, because the swine do not recognize the pearls that are cast before them, and dangerous, because it profanes the word of forgiveness, by causing those we fain would serve to sin against that which is holy. Worse still, we shall only meet with the blind rage of hardened and darkened hearts, and that will be useless and harmful. Our easy trafficking with the word of cheap grace simply bores the world to disgust, so that in the end it turns against those who try to force on it what it does not want.

[bold emphasis mine]

++++++

blech.

i feel like my last post was titled 'blech'.

welp, this one is too.

tuesday turned in the final project, friday had an exhibition, saturday shot a wedding, today got some sweet sun with some sweet people at the beach and was attacked by a Portuguese man of war jellyfish. when people say they get 'stung' by a jellyfish, that's what they mean. it just stings and stings and stings and keeps stinging, even when the tentacles are off of you. blah.

tomorrow our class is commissioned at the community worship meeting in the morning, have a love feast brunch after, and work on wedding shots and burn back up dvds the rest of the day. tuesday we clean up the classroom, wednesday i have a final meeting with the school leader and get on an airplane with classmates Jim and Cliff and make my way to Louisiana. 

what happens in Louisiana is a little up in the air at the moment. so uhm. i'm... traveling? and in the process of becoming staff with ReachGlobal Crisis Response for hurricane relief just north of New Orleans [but it covers a large area]. 

so i don't really know what i'll be doing quite yet. so is how i go, hey?

those that know my brother, he's coming home in mid-may and I'm stoked about that, not that i'll necessarily be around, but i'm excited to be on the same continent again, so we can phone and text and do those 'normal' things. and my parents church is moving into a new building hopefully this week, so that's an exciting thing. those in the area should go check it out, across from cougar country. :)

in other news, i hope you're all sleeping well and listening to ghetto 80's music.

mahalo.

K

Move.

Basically, I love the people I'm surrounded by.

Here's a little look into what it's like to be in this sort of missions situation as a family, and as a bored father.   :)

+++

This is a video Malachi made the other day of his daughter Hannah. Malachi's wife Pranee is in the school with me. 

Jim did a photo story on our classmate Amy's husband Phil. He shot it, edited and made the movie all in one day. This is what a photo story is and these are the amazing people I'm blessed to be with.

At the same time, Ashley and I are listening to Becca.

Phil and Amy's website/Phil's blog: link

Jim's flickr.com account: link

Becca's music: link

my photos: link

much love...!

blech.

Classmate Johanna and I had a sweet photo shoot.

The final project is due today, in 15 hours. 

60 photos, most of which are to fit into specific categories [i.e. color harmony, b+w landscape, portrait beyond likeness, something portraying a Hawaiian family, etc.] to be shot, exported and burned to disc and 13 of which are to be printed with top quality, 3 of which to be matted, by ourselves [not by Wal-Mart].

Our exhibition is Friday.

Multiple prints set out on display for a few hours for the public and then torn down that night.

I shoot a wedding on Saturday.

Early afternoon including going back to the beach in the evening for sunset shots.

[I've been praying for a wedding! YAY!]

I move/travel on Wednesday.

Mmmm stress.

At this moment I have two more prints to make, 13x19" and I need to re-burn my images to DVD and matte 3 of the prints. I told a friend I was about 90% done, but maybe that's more like 80%.

I like Jesus. A lot.

I figured you should know.

Basically struggle sucks. It does. But at the same time, I completely hesitate in going so far as to say it 'sucks' because I think I'm beginning to like it...

I know that sounds perhaps somewhat masochistic but it's not. 

Before, when struggle and difficulties would arise it was like "Alright God, I'll lean on you, I need you to get me through this because otherwise all this other crap is going to happen, and frankly, simply, I need your intervention and grace."

But right now, right in these past weeks, the struggle has been hard. Really hard. I'm so broken down and weak. Talk about an [internal] convoluted mess on the floor and there you'll find me.

But I'm stinking falling in love.

None of this crap about "I don't regret anything because I've learned from it all and am a stronger person because of it."

Yah right! I used to subscribe to that magazine.

I regret things. I regret decisions. I regret words I've said.

I don't wallow in it, but I'm also not choosing to pretend everything is better off because of 'lessons learned'.

And really? Are we really supposed to become those stronger people? ... That's another discussion...

But hot dang, if these things that have been tormenting me hadn't been, Jesus and I would still be on the same little road that we were. Which was nice and all, but the place we're at now? SO MUCH BETTER. It's like when something is so good that you're reminded of every reason why you whipped your life around it to begin with.

Like take music for instance.

I won't have been to a concert in months and it won't ever really cross my mind, but then I'll walk past a building and hear the soundcheck of the drums of some concert inside and this insane thrill goes through me and it all rushes back, and I remember how much I love being in those rooms with those dimmed lights with those sweaty people's backs in my face with the fight of keeping my ribcage from being crushed. I remember why I love it. And then I love it all over again.

Or like listening to the same bands over and over and then suddenly you're introduced to a new band with a new style in a different genre and it flips your world and you can't get it out of your mind and the lyrics are revelatory and you go to sleep at night singing those songs and you wake up singing in the same place you feel asleep at and you love it no less the more it is. And it reminds you why you loved music to begin with. It's fresh air to a stale room.

And both of those analogies don't really compare, and quite honestly I've been reading a lot of Shakespeare and I want to link it to his sonnets and how he talks about how if he wrote more eloquently and used all the words possible to describe his love, it would all just deface it because none of it would do it justice, and they'd just be words for words sake. And so he won't say anything because not much needs to be said. Because it is that good. It is too good to compare, too good to describe. Even the most exquisite poetry would devalue it. It just is what it is.

Jesus and I aren't that good, all the time. I mean, come on, it's a relationship, but it's also not a 'normal relationship' because it's not fallible human to fallible human, but fallible broken me to God. But what we are, isn't really describable. And I'm not saying that to be all 'out there' and vague, but how it is to me are like images in my head and it's hard to describe that. If I had words to use, I would. But I don't really, and I apologize for that because then this is all like a tease, "look what I have! But I wont show you!"

Lame.

So, uh, struggle isn't fun. I wouldn't call it that. 

But I'm closer to Jesus because of it. But it's not like a pre-requisite either. It's not like "fine I'll go through this to get closer to you." 

It's like "I want you."

That's it.

Those times that freaking sucked the worst in the past few weeks, I'd sit with him. And we'd talk. And I'd tell him things and he'd tell me things. And just naturally, when you spend more time with people, you get closer to them, but when you spend more time with people when you're going through a rough patch, you get way more close to them.

I'm not just being reminded of how much I love him, but I'm falling in love again and deeper.

And so I'm getting to this point, where when I see struggle, I kinda bypass it. I don't really see struggle. I go through it, I experience it still, but it's not really what I'm looking at anymore... I'm just seeing Jesus and I'm just looking forward to knowing him better. And looking forward for him to know me better. 

And yah.

But I mean, even still, if you felt like it you could pray for me because it still has been rough and I still am freaking weak and I still am human and therefore fallible in all ways. But rough doesn't necessarily mean pray for smooth, and weak doesn't necessarily mean pray for strength. Those aren't particularly what I need. 

In other news, the table discussion tonight was about various people's supernatural encounters and I'm gonna say that nothing is impossible with God. Like, quite seriously, nothing.

I want to know Him more. I want more of this.

And I know I told you I move/travel on Wednesday [26th] and didn't tell you where or why or for what. I know I didn't. It's coming.

I'd really like a home cooked meal. Breakfast actually. Crapes, or ableskivers. 

Mmmmmm... 

:)

+++

"But it's not like what to do next, it's just like when to do all the rad options God has for me that I could do!" 

- Brad, DTS student a few hours post-outreach, tonight.

3 weeks, teaching.

my staff Ashley and me in the studio, photo by becca

Cliff, myself and Jim out on the lava rocks next to the rising ocean tide with Kona climbing up the mountain to the left, 

the stars to the right. 30 second exposure. Jim was doing his 'location lighting' assignment.  Jim's photos.

I'm watching a video by a band named Cornelius called Fit Song.... and it's ridiculous and I can't watch it anymore because it's THAT absurd. 

The past three weeks have been rather intense.

They began with Gary S. Chapman teaching us on photoshop and stock photography, and getting the ball rolling with our guest speakers. At the beginning of that week our school leader was gone to Pennsylvania to take care of things after his mother's passing that weekend. So Gary and his wife Vivian were here and it was amazing and encouraging and all things good.

Then directly after Louis DeLuca came and spoke to us to teach us on photojournalism. We had to do a photo story on someone/thing and some of my classmates stories were above and beyond what was expected - yet again, it just showed how much talent I'm surrounded with and how powerful our gifts are when utilized, with growing potential. 

This week we had Stanley Leary come speak with us on business and studio lighting. It was really good just to know how to budget what you do and see realistically what you'd need to charge to be able to just have enough to live. It really hit me, the correlation of how valuable our gifts are, are intertwined in our own personal value. Even to the point of when people have mindsets that what you do is not worth much monetarily, that that even reflects your own personal value and how that has played a role in my own perception of my personal worth, aside from the addition of gifts in photography etc.

I'll be honest, I was a little ticked off the more I realized that what we do is a luxury, and that people are expecting to trade a Chrysler in for a Bentley. And by luxury, I mean that you don't need a photographer to get married or to graduate high school. You don't need flowers, you don't need rings, you don't need much at all but a bride and a groom, witnesses, a license etc. You don't need a gown or tux. You don't need a photographer. You don't need photos to document your event. Quite simply, you don't. You don't need music or musicians, you don't need a caterer or food.

Basically I was ticked off at how walked over we can be, how "I need a photographer at my wedding, you need to do it for cheap."

Sorry princess. I have to live too. I don't just spend 6 hours with you for one day, I have a lot more work to do once I get home. I don't expect to go to a movie for free because I have the mindset that you made that movie just to entertain me, and that there is no trade off.

I don't like talking about money, so I'm stopping this here. Just know that when you ask someone to do something like that, don't do it expecting it for free or for cheap. One, your Grandmother will tell you that's rude. Two, respect the people around you and what they have to offer you, for it is a gift that they hold, not just addressed to themselves, but to you as well.

Yet that doesn't mean they won't give you a steal of a deal sometimes... :)

All in all, these past three weeks have been good yet tiring. These guys are the top of their leagues and I don't think that's something we quite realized. Gary is at the top of his medium and there are very, very few people in the world who are good enough to make a living doing what he does. Louis is a senior photo editor for The Dallas Morning News and has consistently been at the top of photojournalism, competing with the best in the world in photo contests and has won many prestigious awards. 

Stanley is one of the head go-to guys in the industry for lighting and business and plays a pivotal role in the South Eastern Photojournalism Conference and Christians In Photojournalism. 

All three of these men are humble and have great hearts, are solid teachers and are eager to lift others up where they can. 

Stanley was saying today that he doesn't know if we realize how high the bar has been set by our school leader on the kind of people he brings in to speak and teach us. The bar is Pulitzer high. There are top university photography programs that don't teach business and don't teach lighting and who's students come out with a degree but no portfolio. He definitely wanted us to realize and see what we are in fact being offered here. 

12 weeks, no debt... life is good. :)

These men practice what they teach and are eager to release us into bigger things then they've done themselves.

That my friends, is a blessing.

+++++++

WE'RE TRAVELING TOMORROW!!

Tomorrow, Tuesday, we will begin our trek around the island! Now really, if you've driven for 2.5 hours at the legal speed limit around the island, then you're already coming home, but we're taking 2 days to take it all in. Stopping at some waterfalls, stopping at various places, staying the night in a military camp and we'll get back Wednesday at 9 or 10pm. 

So, EXPECT PHOTOS!

At the same time, I'd really really really like to ask for prayer for protection and safety on this trip. This island has a phenomenal amount of auto accidents due to drug and alcohol abuse and we will be traveling around in two 15 passenger vans for two days.

Prayer that the drivers would be alert and that protection would be over us would be an incredible blessing to me.

Much love and hope you're well 

-K

[ps: just because this isn't an email, doesn't mean you can't respond or reply... so.. ya know... do it if ya want.]

this is a teaser to make you go to my flickr.com account to see more photos :)

[link]