Street art aka August

Like I mentioned in my previous post, Brianne and I are doing a 12 month picture project.
The theme for August was street art. We are each taking turns picking what the themes are and Im so stoked on street art right now that that was odviously my choice.
Although, Calgary doesnt have a very strong street art culture and I really felt like I was out of the city most of August, my "street" art ended up at camp... I got the kids to do "moss grafiti" which is a street artform. It was fun! so thats how that one panned out

feet in the water aka July

Brianne and I have had some pretty good ideas over the years, but I think one of our best and one that im super duper excited about is our recent "12 month" project. It was inspired by a blog we mutually read. We have come up with 12 themes and each month we are each going to take a picture that goes with the theme and mail them to the other with a letter. I think we both plan on making scrapbooks at the end of the year with all the pictures, This project is also something I hope we do forever! We have just finished our first month and this feels like such a precious thing, Brianne lives in BC and we call and email and stuff but this just feels like a even more special way of sharing our lives.

July was "feet in a body of water" I plan on sharing the photos and maybe parts of the letters in my blog every month.

New journal day

Every 2 or so months I get to have the lovely experiance of "new journal day"
Today is "New Journal day" and I am very happy. Its a wonderful feeling to put the tattered, FULL (in more then one sense) book on the shelf and pick out the clean blank yummy new one!

just thought I would share that...

Mortson

So if you recall my journal project where i randomly leave handpainted journals all over the place you may recall part of what i write in them. The second paragraph usually has something that says "make your life a story worth telling"

switching tracks. Tonight God was with me in a more tangiable way then ive felt lately and it kind of makes me want to weep.
When i look down at my life and my interactions at the shelter i am astonished that this is me...that I am blessed and get to do this job.

Its weird for me to go into details about stories of people in the shelter on my blog but....tonight was just so surreal!
Sitting and making this incrediable connection with a 22 year old male who is in a gang, who recently stopped selling crack and crystal meth, who tells me "i can only really handle being friends with people who are fucked up"

so...Make your life a story worth telling but tonight i also learned that sharing your story can bring so much worth to it.

a friend of mine recently put a story in his blog with this quote " It’s time we gave up a little piece of who we are, so that others can become who they are supposed to be" and as scattered as my thoughts are right now i feel it goes with this.
(you can read his blog posting here)

broken pieces

"“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” – Mother Teresa"

I just spent a long time asking God to use me this way...tonight i feel like a story collector, adding stories of broken-ness and dead ends to a pile that i have stored in my mind.
Beside this pile of broken-ness and dead ends there is a doubting thomas asking me so many questions "how could these things happen?" "where is God in all this?" "God IS love right? i didnt get that wrong did i?"

This is where i will be tested, in these stories, in these stories of devastating self destruction, of pain i can not understand, in these stories of being hated and stepped on.
These are the stories I will ask Jesus to come and sit with me after hearing...and although i have this doubting thomas whispering to me, his doubts were eventually proved wrong, that is what will happen with all this....I know that much.

worrrddd

yesterday i was going through an old journal of mine and i found this quote

"a good conversation is a process where we give each other life and meaning to go on, to celebrate together, to be sad together and to inspire one another..."

and then yesterday this quote just came to life in my goings on...

"where we give each other life and meaning to go on"
when i got to work i was able to sit down and talk with one of my co-workers that i never see who is very experianced at the seed, i was able to vent some of my frustations and he totally encouraged me...even just the fact that i was able to vent was awesome but then that my ventage was met with actual wonderful advice!

"to celebrate together"
over my one hour break i spent a good deal of time looking at plane tickets for my next adventure...im pretty excited even though its a year away. But when i came off my break i spent some time telling my co-worker about it and we were both excited!

"to be sad together"
we were short staffed and i had to do of some of the things day staff do, so im running around the mat area and then I see a guest who had just spent her first night at the shelter and she is sitting on the floor bawling. I go and sit down beside her and ask her whats wrong, she replies with "i dont want to be here" and im thrown back to the place i always am where i just feel absolutely useless with words.
"we still have hope...you still have hope..." i tell her "i will pray for you...and thats not just something im saying to you...i will pray for you...legit"

"and to inspire one another..."

im on my way to bed but im feeling pretty inspired....

To do list...

so i have a "bucket list" although i hate calling it that cause then it seems like something inspired by that silly movie...so i just call mine my "to do list"

I have a bunch of things on it and recently i realize i havent been actively going about accomplishing them because most of them are big things like...go to india, visit a skate park in jeruslam, see the northern lights...etc. But i went over it today to pick out the things that i can accomplish in the next little while and this is what i found

-donate blood
-go to a concert of a band i've never heard of
-plant a tree
-Knit Jay Bakker a scarf
-Go to a monster truck Ralley
- take a course on the Bible

When i was in Vic with Brianne i told her that i want to take on more projects These are going to be my "projects" for the next little while till i find something worthy of being called a "project"

anybody interested in doing any of these with me?