Peace, perfect peace.

I love photography! This is one random picture from the family photos I shot for the Estes' recently. If you'd like to see all of the them click here. We had a great time romping around the Bishop Arts District. The boys were great because their personalities are so uninhibited and they shine through so evidently in the photos.

While in Rwanda it struck me that Americans are obsessed with looking ridiculously happy in photographs. How often is that display of happiness a lie? I only say this because it's a struggle of mine. I like people to think that everything is great and wonderful and exciting. To display that my life is constantly those things is a complete lie. Let's face it, I'm just not that exciting! However, I find great peace in knowing that God is equally present in all moments of my life. He doesn't care if I'm grinning like an idiot or bawling like a baby. He is there. He is present. He is truthful. I want to be those things. Present and truthful. No masks, no fake outs. No smiles to hide the imperfection that is my humanity... that is our humanity. PEACE, PERFECT PEACE.

I am a tree.

I have not posted in a while because my life is in transition as we speak. Summer is coming to a close and the school year is darkening my doorway. Not that I mind, but let's be honest... having free reign over your days and nights is quite the perk to say good-bye to. Tandy's wedding is also fast approaching and that's keeping me busy as well.

However... I did complete this sculpture today at in-service. It's about my personal identity. I felt like a tree growing out of a box is a good representation of me because I am always struggling to live "outside of the box" (i.e.- societies expectations). I am limited in my human thinking, so rather than obliterating the box completely, I believe God is currently allowing me to grow from the box. I painted the tree white to represent purity and the way God views me. It's made of Styrofoam insulation board and acrylic paint.

Current Creations

I stumbled upon the blogs of some artists who were posting "a drawing a day", and I am an advocate of stealing good ideas...

The paintings are for Olivia Rodriguez's nursery and are not finished yet. However it is one of my goals to start documenting works in progress so I can be more aware of my creative process. Enjoy.

Possibilities (for REAL this time).

I attended a introductory meeting for something called Landmark Forum. Bonnie and Frank had attended the previous weekend, and their forum ended last night as well. I invited Katie to go with me because she one of my "yes" friends. I'll explain "yes" friends in a future post.

The woman who presented to our group was wonderful. She had lots of energy and she was very authentic. It seemed she became more authentic as she continued to speak, because honestly at first she struck me as somewhat awkward, as thought she was trying too hard. I'm going to explain the steps of the activity that she lead us through and I encourage you to give this a try:

1. What's working in your life? Make a list of things that seem to be working well in your life (ex. finances, work, relationships, health)
2. What's not working in your life? Again, make a list, duh. (ex. planning for work, relationships family/male)
3. Area you are working on.Choose the item that is most important to you from your list on step 2.
4. Probable almost certain future. This one is tricky. It has three parts. First, write what you already doing in regard to your response on step 3. Second, write what you already have in regard to step 3. Finally, write what your are being in regard to step 3.
5. What is missing? Write what you think it would take you to get to the next level in the area you're working on. For me, it was lesson planning for work. I decided I was missing passion. I am not passionate about writing lessons or planning ANYTHING for that matter. Therefore, many times my teaching is missing passion. Mainly because I'm conforming to a way of teaching that does not suit my personal style or way of thinking.
6. Invent a new possibility. I love this one! This is the freedom part. This is the creative part! Instead of conforming to the standard, I am going to have a classroom where I present information that I am passionate about. I know that will give the students a more authentic learning experience in my classroom because I will no longer be straining to do it another person's way.

I went into more depth in my own responses, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with ALL the scattered thoughts in my head. Try it out and let me know what you think.

I personally think it is a sin to let your creative abilities go by the wayside. Why should we abandon the ability to invent our own future (and even our own present!)?

Possibilities.

Ok, this is random and has absolutely nothing to do with the title of this post, but I can't stop laughing about it!

So, when we were in Africa we hired drivers to take us from here to there. We had some drama maintaining the same driver week to week, and so for each of the 3 weeks we were there we had a different driver. The last week we had a driver named (grrrr, I can't remember her name. It will come to me). Anyhow, she was not actually a driver by trade, but rather her brother Jamada was. He was the person we contacted initially, but he was already driving for someone else. He asked his sister to drive for us as a favor to him. In Kigali it is very uncommon for women to be taxi drivers or to drive at all for that matter, so we enjoyed the experience.

Try to visualize this as I explain the experience. There were 4 of us on the team and so our taxi was completely full. The cars there are generally small, thus three of us were packed into the back seat. Because I was significantly shorter than all of my team members I usually sat sandwiched quite snugly in the middle with the shoulders of my teammates framing my head. It was an interesting perspective to have. This particular day Chuck was sitting in the front seat where there was actually breathing room. Our driver decided to make conversation and and with her Rwandese accent exclaimed, " Jamada sends his greetings." I personally didn't catch what she said at first as the sound waves were blocked by the previously mentioned shoulders. Apparently, Chuck did not understand what she said either, because he immediately responded, "Who's mom?"

I was driving to meet my friend Katie, who was one of my teammates on the trip, and the memory of that exchange popped into my head and I was literally laughing out loud as I drove through rush hour traffic. If you have not experienced foreign travel you must try it for the exciting experience of language barriers.

I'll post about "Possibilities." tomorrow. : )