oooooh, Bonus!

some suprises you may not find elsewheres:

for those who find their blankets soggy:

Now I’m going to say thank you. Because you continue to be good regardless of how I feel.Though my circumstances may not be the best, I can find life in your words.
Your truth exceeds all information and databases. Your roots of knowledge go infinitely deeper than the wisdom of any man. You’ve blessed me with a mind,the next step involves learning how to make use of it.

A vent for the water on the ceiling,
A window in the midst of a moldy wall.
A lung full of second-hand carcinogens,
A wellspring of fresh air.
Your words applied then and your words apply now.

Life has called us his own, when we were holding hands with the grave. If we would be vulnerable to our new life - love, surely the globe would find itself smitten, holding the hand of a kind-hearted and sensible lover.

wohwoalsk¿who?dhfkj

Central Mosque; Selcuk, Turkey

earlymorningathens

Depart Sofia, BG: Sunday, December 30, 2007, 17:00
Arrive Athens, GR: Monday,December 31, 2007, 04:30

openyourhandwide

This was a project I worked on with Scott and Sarah Jo while we were in Turkey. While we were learning about design, we worked on making mini magazines. For these, we had to find and issue of injustice in the world, and show what the bible has to say about that specific issue of injustice. We were divided into groups of three, and after praying, our group felt that we should make a small book about poverty. It is obviously a very broad and often times complex issue, but we attempted to display God’s heart for this in as simple a way as possible. There are surely a lot of statistics out there on the state of poverty in our world, but we wanted to focus more on God’s heart that longs to care for the poor (physically or spiritually), and display in in a visually appealing way.

War and Peace: Completed.

War and Peace: Completed.

I have officially completed the novel that is War and Peace, though I must add, with a very surface level understanding. They say it is one of the greatest novels every written, and I must agree with this, as it would have taken a literary genie to develop all the characters, plots, sub-plots, and even intertwine them with one another on such an intricate level. Kudos to you Leo Tolstoy.

I did enjoy the way that Tolstoy portrayed the actions of history not to be controlled by military men of genius (Tolstoy argues that there exist no such genius’), but by something much larger than simply a single man. I think he builds a strong point (though not necessarily intentionally) for the influence of a sovereign God on the course of history, though I am pretty certain this is not the view he chooses to accept.

I was a bit disappointed this afternoon, as I found myself drowning in Tolstoy’s debate between the relationship between free will and necessity in the last portion of the book. I’m pretty sure I am in no position to comment on this last segment, but I can at least say I tried to comprehend what I could. Maybe I’ll understand when I’m older.

The book itself has done quite a bit of traveling to get to this point. It has been to Kenya, Mozambique, Hawaii, Washington, South Africa, Greece, and multiple aeroplanes in between. Just last month, I saw it necessary to perform surgery on it, as is shown in the picture (it was originally purchased in a single volume). One box of cornflakes and a few slices of duct tape later, I had two much more manageable books.

I’ll leave you with an excerpt:

Now he had learnt to see the great, the eternal, and the infinite in everything; and naturally therefore, in order to see it, to revel in its contemplation, he flung aside the telescope through which he had hitherto been gazing over men’s heads, and looked joyfully at the ever-changing, ever grand, unfathomable, and infinite life around him. And the closer he looked at it, the calmer and happier he was. The terrible question that had shattered all his intellectual edifices in old days, the question: What for? had no existence for him now. To that question, What for? he had now always ready in his soul the simple answer: Because there is a God, that God without whom not one hair of a man’s head falls (p. 1258).

Amongst other things, there exists a cornucopia of stray dogs here in Porto Rafti. It is not uncommon to hear of people going out to town, followed by 19 stray dogs. I often find it a bit unsettling, not knowing the life stories and backgrounds of these pups, but I guess they’re interesting to have around.

Now I'll be moving on to Les Miserables, when I have the time.

feed my sheep

Today I met Doreen and Charles. They live in a park. They are strollers.

They taught me something about generosity. They have so little. But they still found a way to give, even of the little that they had.

We sat in the grass, along with the pigeons. They were sitting on some pieces of cardboard, the piece beneath Charles read, “THERE’S AN EARRING IN MY SOUP.” As Charles consumed his roll, he chased it with a swig of milk that ended up messily residing at the corners of his lips. Doreen was slow to eat her Yellow Corn Roll, as she lacked teeth to speed up the process.

She says they are strollers. She says they aren’t homeless, and they aren’t beggars; they just stroll around from place to place. Every Sunday they wash windows and clean gardens for 100 Rand.

100 Rand is less than 15 dollars.

About half way through her roll, I noticed her breaking off small pieces, tossing them to the seemingly ubiquitous birds. She feels that God wants her to give to the birds. The birds can’t speak up and say they’re hungry, so she feels that she must feed them. It’s the enjoyment in her day. And she did not just to break off small pieces from the small piece of bread we had given her, but she then pulled a couple more pieces of bread from her bag to give away. To the pigeons, and at one point a large female duck.

I would have liked to cry, but I did not want to feel weird.

So this is the picture of generosity I will keep in my mind; Doreen, with a weathered hand, reaching out, lending bread to a swarm of grey pigeons.