update... busy

i've been pretty busy with
LOVE PROVIDENCE
SANCTUARY
AFTERSCHOOL ARTS
and that whole getting married thing.


i'm hoping to write more here soon. 
in the mean time facebook and the sanctuary blog are the best places to catch me.


hope you are warm and loved,
andrew

advent 1

Advent says hope is real. It drives us to look for it. To find it in the everyday. To find it the unexpected.

Advent is a season of expectation—of arrival. In the Church calendar, the four-week Advent season is the time in which we anticipate the coming of Christ into the world. It is a time in which we look to find hope, peace, joy, and love.

Yet, “the world must be experienced as it really is and not in some pretended way.”*

Advent confronts the cynicism of the heart with the insistence that God has not and will not abandon the world, hope is real, and something is coming.

And so each December we enter into a season of waiting, expecting, and longing.  We open up and turn our hearts  in the direction of that day. That day when the baby cries His first cry and we, surrounded by shepherds and angels and everyone in between, celebrate “Love come down.”

We really get into creative liturgy around this season at Sanctuary. We have some orginal readings based on the next four weeks, some interactive art pieces, a new film, and lot’s of music.

Sanctuary will start quietly and reflectively at 6:30. We will spend the first 20min or so around the theme of Advent before engaging in our ongoing teaching series through Matthew. Excited to be with you during this season.

hope and peace to you.

- graphic by jeffrey bondorew / * Quote: W. Brueggemann in The Message of the Psalms /  Mars Hill thoughts

the reality of pornography

be honest.
bring your issues into the light.
tell someone.
seek accountability in community.
you are loved.

[click the image to read]

a sabbath

it's saturday. 
i am preparing for my monday sabbath. 
when do you stop?

the story of st. patrick

the historical, faithful man behind the legends, parades and green beer.

Four years ago, I was able to cross an item off my do-before-I-die list: I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland—Dublin to be exact. And I was a little disappointed.

After shivering in the drizzle/snowfall for a few hours with thousands of other St. Patrick’s Day fans from around the globe, my friends and I witnessed a sad little parade. There were a few dance groups, a couple of bands, and some weird bobble-head creatures walking down the street. That was the parade. In Dublin. On St. Patrick’s Day.

[click the title to read full article]

records and being fully engaged

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I think we’re seeing a counter reaction to impersonal social media.

The New York Times reports that vinyl record sales are up again. Why? Because you have this object in your hands. You place the record on a phonograph. You sit down and listen and there’s this total experience that engages you.

If bands are selling less music, what do they do? They go out and tour. This is the power of flesh and blood, the power of holding something like a record in your hands—it’s very attractive.

The power of an actual room of people with a real human being up front—that’s exciting. As things get more and more virtual in our world—the live, real experiences we can share will become all the more rare and unique and important in our lives.

[amook & rbell]

friends = live your love, sri lanka

my good friends jasmine and jeremy dean are leaving for SRI LANKA today. i've attached there latest newsletter below. it's beautiful whats going on.

[i also just finished designed the beginings of a website for them: go to liveyourlove]

NEWSLETTER:

Live Your Love Tea & LLC
In early December we became an official Limited Liability Company. Part of the LLC will be branding our own Live Your Love tea that we will sell in the states and on our website. The tea will give us the opportunity to share the vision as well as raise capital for current and future projects. Each box will have a little blurb about the vision of Live Your Love as well as a link to our website so people can learn more or buy more. Thank you to our wonderful lawyer friend Dave who did all the filing for us!


Back to Sri Lanka in February
We are flying back to Sri Lanka February 10th, 2010 and will return on March 3rd. During this short trip we will meet with the tea company and talk about getting our first shipment of Live Your Love tea this year. We will travel to the south to visit the widows at Smile Lanka that we began to partner with last year. CLICK HERE to see 2009 photos We will also travel to the east to revisit some incredibly impoverished communities that we hope to be able to help in 2010.

Landon & Stacie:
Within weeks of moving to Seattle in July, we met Landon and Stacie Snoddy who had also just moved here from Louisiana. Since then, they have jumped on board with the vision and mission of Live Your Love and have been a big help to us as well as becoming great friends! Landon and Stacie have committed to joining us on the February trip to Sri Lanka to see everything first hand and fully experience the vision. We are over the top excited to get to share Sri Lanka with them!

Needs:
The cost of this trip is over $3000 and as we set up our first tea purchase that will be a big investment. Help us in getting Live Your Love off the ground in 2010 with any kind of donation you can! You can send checks to our Seattle address and until we have our tax ID they will have to be personal checks. Someone will deposit checks weekly while we’re in Sri Lanka.

Jeremy and Jasmine Dean
215 2nd Ave South #205
Seattle, WA 98104

Thank you.

diva is a female version of a...

the infamous mary b has made providence monthly's most eligible singles.

there isn't much online yet, so please visit your favorite newstand to read her likes, dislikes, and favorite divas... ha.

.

most importantly though, listen to the b's music.

MARY B's MUSIC

open

there is fight in us

we're stronger than before the strain had broken us,
and there is fight in us, i know
that it will take more than a heavy rain to silence us,
when there's so much for us, i know

/////////////

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

. . .
[New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. ~Mark Twain]

mhmm

watch it through...

to do

to be present.
to sing for Your ears.
to write and not listen to the inner critic.
to balance dream and discipline.
to serve kindly.
to think deeply, but not drown.
to cut the lag time between honesty and action.
to believe that you mean well.
to be beautifully angry about the right things.
to feel, face and embrace inner fears.
to speak to you, not about you.
to criticize by creating something beautiful.
to choose love over being right.
to choose love over my rights.
to be quick to encourage.

this is to seek first the kingdom.

serving.loving.mission

i'm not sleeping too well tonite - this mostly happens when i have a barrage of questions twisting through my head.
i've been rereading some books/thoughts/notes from the past.
i love these questions.
they challenge me in the best sorts of ways.
what sort of man am i?
what sort of man am i becoming?

to a woman:
What kind of man is he?
Does he demonstrate that he's the kind of man who would die for you?
What is his posture toward the world?
Does he serve, or is he waiting to be served?
Does he believe that he's owed something, that he's been shortchanged, that he's gotten the short end of the stick, that life owes him something?
Or is he out to see what he can give?
Does he see himself as being here to make the world a better place?

Does he have liquid agape (love, period) running through his veins?

These are the big questions that you need to ask yourself.

[these are questions i continually need to ask myself]

The point of marriage isn't marriage. It's a picture. A display. A window that you look through to something else.

A marriage has a mission.
Our world isn't one.
It's broken, shattered, fractured, with pieces lying over the floor…

A marriage is designed to counter a the ...hurt. Not to add to the brokenness of the world but to add to the ‘oneness’ of the world.

This man and this woman who have given themselves to each other are supposed to give the world a glimpse of hope, a display of what God is like, a bit of [oneness] on earth.”
Sex God, Rob Bell, p. 152-153

all the best to the married, dating and single friends of mine (that about cover everyone i suspect) - my prayers are with ya.

just thinkin...

[somethings i was thinking about - put in a tidy fashion by some unknown writer. you can click on the image to read it. ]

bike rides turned prayers

i was riding through the neighborhood on the way to church.

i was thinking about how these troublesome and dangerous streets seem so peaceful and full of potential first thing in the morning.

potential for new life.

for new beginnings.

everything is calm.

the light starting to touch every crack and alley way.

bike rides turn to prayer on mornings like this.

He changed sunset into sunrise. ~Clement of Alexandria

nana hooka

a thousand words.

the last week of an empty blog

hipster - the beat and the beautiful

last week i picked up the new adbusters magazine. the cover pointed to a scathing article of the hipster subculture which as many of you know has been influenced greatly by the providence art/music scene (the prov-scene has been influenced by hipsterdom as well)

if you're a bit confused by this term hipster this helps (a little) - hipster wiki

in so many ways the article said everything i've ever wanted to say about the trend. as Sage Francis puts it - "Trustafundian rebel without a cause for alarm, Cause when push turns to shove You jump into your forefathers arms..."

it's really an old story of image based on perceived depth (anti consumerist, anti image, anti corporate art, anti "the man," communal) - but seems to have more to do with v-neck t-shirts than anything else.

- it's a great article - please read it. but....

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization
We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality.


...i did take issue with the essay:

I think that though adbusters perfectly capture the archetypal skinny denim and flannel clad hipster sporting wayfarers on his fixed gear bike, their critiques are one sided. I can recognize that within the group there is a burgeoning homogeneity despite the fact that its respective members seem to pride themselves on their individuality. I think this is a result of the hipster scene becoming increasingly mainstream.

With the mainstream comes people trying to capitalize on the niche, marketing, and then finally people who just buy into the aesthetic; posers. In the past, the transition into the mainstream has killed many counter culture movements. It seems like an inevitable cycle, so to target hipsters seems unfair. When the beat movement went mainstream, it too seemed to lose its spirit, and it consequently received similar criticism to that which you direct toward this generation. But there are some admirable facets of this group that adbusters seem to write off as insufferable.

What's wrong with riding bicycles when there is an environmental crises at hand? What's wrong with choosing to wear American Apparel (besides the ads) because it is manufactured in the United States by workers who are not subject to the terrible working conditions of sweatshops like those elsewhere, who are not receiving unfairly low wages, and who are not children? What's wrong with supporting the arts even if it is only through a 'loose association.' Sure an increasingly gigantic cross section of this group is comprised of posers, and its always a drag when something cool is killed by a bunch of trend sluts, but I don't think its fair to condemn everything about it.

happie birthday hannah

below is one of the many pieces hannah has written that i adore.

[Yesterdays Manna] (gluten free manna that is)

Your condition surprises you? Overwhelmed by weakness and fatigue, sorrow and desperation, you have questioned your restlessness? You have questioned your disinterest? This bread, stale and eaten by curling worms, does not appeal to you; the crumbs you gather from it do not fill you. But you try to feed on it and are surprised that it makes you sick. You are afraid, weeping tears of discontentment, crying out in frustration, in longing, ill and empty, hungry and too weary to gather food.

Have you been trying to live on yesterday’s manna? Have you let the memory of its freshness make you think it is enough for today? Are you hoarding yesterday’s wisdom, forgetting that there is more, in abundance, for the present? Are you clinging to the knowledge that sustained you in the past and forgetting the call to increase your wisdom, running without food and wondering why the exertion makes you dizzy?

You ask yourself: where is my love? where is my grace? where is my joy? But are you eating yesterday’s manna? You who have tasted, taste again. Go to the fields; they are abundant with promise and full of sustenance. The word you were given yesterday was enough for that day. But there is a new word for this day. A new command. A new promise. A new blessing. A fresh remembrance that will set your soul at peace again. Each look upon God reveals a new side of His character, a new reason to cry “Holy.” Go again to the fields and gather fresh manna.

Labor to maintain a sense of thine entire dependence upon the Lord’s good will and pleasure for the continuance of thy richest enjoyments. Never try to live on the old manna, nor seek to find help in Egypt. All must come from Jesus, or thou art undone forever. -Charles Spurgeon

--Hannah Clarkin

honey-locust-lightning

[pictures by hannah clarkin]

as always the with abandon blog brings you the real news first. before it's hits the kent county daily times weekend addition we bring you breaking news from coventry before anyone else.

the beautiful honey locust tree of western coventry was hit during wednesday nite's lightning storm along with four pine trees and a pepsi machine. the infamous honey locust tree is nearly 400 years old.

the five trees
splintered down the middle, and the pepsi machine
stopped working.

the end.
-
(from sources inside the coventry news illuminati)