update

i'm currently listening to the album Team Boo by Mates of State... I have a feeling that it is going to become detrimental to my summer albums.

i bought a car this morning... so i'm half way to Nashville. I plan on getting it serviced at 7:30am on Monday morning, getting insurance, and getting the title and plates changed over to my name.

[if we stayed until after graduation, i wouldn't have a car yet and i would still be at school with a lot of people i love. its a win lose situation]

home is wonderful. i'll expound more, when i am not so here and there with car business.

and my grocery list before i leave on Wednesday consists of brown rice, shampoo, toothpaste... and i plan on making scones and maybe (hopefully) power bars on tuesday.

i will be more consistent writing when i am not worried about getting there, but am actually there. oh. and my new headphones rock.

Folk the World!

This past weekend I spent in a place that I had never spent more than a rest stop on my way to somewhere else. The rest stop that I took there was not much more than a month ago. Ironically, this place that I stepped foot on for the first time, and now have spent some substantial time there is going to be my place of living for the next four months.

Nashville caught my attention, and one way or another lured me into a deep, uncanny love with it. Ellie and I spent this past weekend there. The purpose being that I find a job and become somewhat familiar with the area. I had anxieties big and small in regards to this place that, I decided in the past two months, is where I will spend this summer. This summer that for some reason that I have yet to know has been so vital that I be there.

I became somewhat intrigued when Ellie came back at the beginning of the semester with all of her stories and insights about this place that I had never been. A place that I wasn't avoiding, but had never had a desire to go. Simply somewhere: somewhere that wasn't on my radar. I shuffled and filed it away until Casey posed the question "Why don't you come to Nashtown Kams?" This too was going to become Casey's home, but much sooner than mine. I filed away and filed away. I decided long before Christmas break even happened that I was going to figure out what I wanted to do this summer. So I searched and searched. I searched Mexico, Europe, California, Hawaii... the places I had wanted to go. Hearing from Casey about how much she loved it and Ellie's deep desires to go back (interjected with visits here and there to a place she so dearly loves), I continued to think. The files were beginning to creep out of their cabinets and walk towards the forefront of my brain. "What's holding me back?" Over and over again, Nashville keep coming into my mind and God made it evident that the only reason I wasn't going was because I would miss my family - the family that had so lovingly taken me in to live with them and be apart of their family not much more than a year ago from now. So thinking and praying Ellie said I should check out Rocketown, Casey told me of photographers that I should try and meet with and I talked it over with the Parents. They said: "It sounds like a great opportunity. If you think you should go, go. keep us updated on if you'll go or not..." So plans came together and I decided that I would live in Nashville for the summer and volunteer at Rocketown, hopefully working with photographers for most of the summer as well.

This past weekend I met some of the kids I'll be spending my summer with. I visited the buildings, the walls [coated in beautiful graffiti]. Heard bits of their stories. Connected with one, in particular, over the cleaning of bathrooms and emptying of trash. An apartment in a better area [safer and convenient], was presented to me for less money per month. Toured around the city, went to events, listened to Great music [Folk The World!], went to a church that I enjoyed, met people I will be working with, made plans for Rocketown's prom (yes, Ellie and I are going), spent time with Casey, at bookstores, etc etc etc. Cut three people's hair [one of whom is a three year old named Tristyn who now has a euro-mullet, and will soon be introduced to a faux hawk], ate Sushi, bought a pair of skinny jeans, had mint water from Publix for the first time, and saw my first ever (and brightest) triple-rainbow.

After asking that the Lord to reveal Himself to me just a week before, I saw the Lord's Hand in everything. He opened doors and is continuing to open doors as I prepare to be in this great little, almost forgotten [by me], town that I now so adore.

I will use this blog to document and record the time that I spend in Nashville, at Rocketown, with these kids, learning from them and loving each person I interact with, by the help of my Father.

I returned home to find that the next day Rocketown offered me a job teaching Photography during most of the month of June.

Codey told me weeks before visiting that "maybe you are supposed to be apart of a community that you do not know yet..." My full purpose there is not yet known, but what I do know is that I am to be an encourager to two important people in my life. I am supposed to share my story and demonstrate the love that my God has first given me.

The last two things I am waiting to be provided - a car (which Mr Maertens is, thankfully, helping me search for) and a job (which I am hoping the starbucks that is one mile from my house will hire me).

I will trust my God in all things.

Jesusland

Jesusland : [filled with misconceptions, disguises, selfish attitudes claiming the name of our selfless God] It's funny to me that several fee off of this country sits a place that is merely real and severely different. Not one individual within is putting on a mask to be something they're not. The masks are laid at the door, next to the invisible mat welcoming the world into its entry way. Here is where people are not condemned for their sins. Here is where Jesus would go to show love, to give love, that they might truly experience love and be free.

A cup of coffee that is oddly addictive, the only conclusion being that crack got added in somewhere in the mix. I sit across from my friend. He is smoking the cigarettes that are condemned. I watch. Admiring the designs the smoke is making, lingering, drifting, here and there, wherever it pleases. The smell is something familiar. I take it in, reminded of old times, and turn my head and continue to observe the regulars. Everyone accepted. The man in a navy shirt tucked into his belted pants ask if we are finished, takes our mugs, clears my friends ashtray with his tattooed forearm. Giving me a story that this man loves the sea [if only for a time when he was eighteen].

These kids love it here. Regulars. Drinking coffee that seemingly has additive Cocaine. The rings of smoke circling around them give me a different picture than the one I see from within Jesusland.

Few here don't smoke or have never smoked. I oddly enough love the smell of smoke. I always found smoking to be a disgusting habit, however, I never hated the smell like most people do. I didn't enjoy it or find it be something attractive until I liked a boy who smoked. Now, for some reason, I find it to be one of the more attractive things. Only certain people can pull it off well though. It's such an interesting process to me. Not about the smoke entering the lungs, rather about the act, the motions of it.

I want to understand things. Some of these people hate the environment, others view this as a great way to minister - to love the people of Mation. I've never been in one place for so long, in one day - in a place I've never spent time before, coming and going so many times in one day. Returning again and again I've been able to see who this diner caters to. Tonight there are kids who hate the Jesusland. Their are also kids who view this as their Jesusland - their way to love people as Jesus did.

I never realized this world that I am so close to.

I often, actually most of the time, take for granted the community that I am in. I never understood how beautiful it is because I am so used to it.

There is a woman who works here every night: Momma, or Hot Momma. Momma has beautiful hands.
"They're old.... with spots..."
"No. I think they are beautiful."
I wonder if anyone ever genuinely tells her how beautiful she is. There's evidence of a lifetime of work in spots, like freckles scattered across her hands. Knobby, bony, but they have a character all their own. A character that compliments her tall, thin body with lengthy hair. She serves all these kids on her own. She knows them by name... coming around
"More coffee Joel?" she often asks. but she has a servant's heart. She seems to thrive off these people. Young and Old. her skin tell sher age but the clothes keep her in a younger picture of herself. What is her real name?
I see a strength in her that I don't see in myself. i have the potential, just not the actual mindset. With a cigarette in hand she rarely sits. The cigarette acts as her resting. serving coffee, taking orders she takes the calm of the smoke and works vigorously with a tender yet hard heart. Loving but never taking shit.

nashville tomorrow. Jesusland has been a great experience.

half dead, half alive.

I left the conversation feeling hurt and attacked. Today I find myself wanting to be compassionate and hope that the feeling from the night before did not actually occur. I recognize that as being the part of me wanting to please a male.

My heart hurt last night, terribly bad. A sick, twisted feeling in my gut pushing my every instinct to go to the bathroom and vomit. That is the result of feeling used, for a time, to fulfill some sort of desire with no connection or care as to who I am. Merely a pawn in his game. There is no part of me that desires to be with this male, no emotion or feelings connected, but his actions are not proving well for the rest of his race.

In my eyes, he is an example of a dying race. He is half alive, half dead. With all of his beautiful qualities, he has yet to know what a man is. He holds every bit of potential to be great - to be a leader - to be a true man, unlike the examples that have hurt me the most.

I am asking nothing of him. I do not want his adoration. I do not want his love. I do not want whatever comfort and stability that he can provide. I have no desire to return any feeling of past, any inkling that I may have once said 'you could be right.' I will, however, call him to a higher standard than he may not be used to. A standard that I believe is right and not asking too much. I will ask him to not fall into the category that I have already classified him under. Unfair? Probably, but his actions have placed him there more than my words.

I trust in his potential. He holds the possibility to overcome and prove my words wrong. He has the chance and strength to take my words in pursuit of being a man. I would love to see him take from the conversation [that we will have] and push towards being great. I can't help but think that, as much as he may take away from it, he will be defensive, trying to cover his tracks. In turn, opening up the opportunity for me to feel hurt, attacked, mistreated, devalued, and wanting to run from males for a while [hopefully there will be men in the near future who will redeem them.... but no one can say], all however, with a sense of peace, knowing that I did as I should.

This situation may seem smaller to most, however if it is not dealt with it, it will hurt and possibly embitter more. Fortunately, my feelings never got to a point where this could hurt emotionally [specifically], but it has hit too close to home, entangling a potentially good friend. I do not want any more girls to feel as she has felt, as it has opened the doors for me to feel.

I have no hate for males, but I am sick of crying because of men devaluing me - men who should care and take every whim to love me. This experience at times, [accidentally or needfully] will bleed into other situations to call for responsibility.

All this to say:

I might just have to be the kicker to start the game. I will, in this situation, take the chance and try to speak truth into someone who seems to be lied to. The revolution starter [that's what I like to think of myself anyway]. I want people to live according to love. I am called to push in people, as well as myself, to love as God has first loved us.

So I ask God that in this coming conversation I speak truth, the words that need to be said. That I do not get nervous and back away from what should be said. That I speak everything in love and kindness, no matter his reception to what I say. I ask deeply for peace and calm.

[I thank God dearly for this person who is potentially a good friend, who is walking with me in this]

rejuvenation.

I haven't been excited about my art work in about a month.
Things have been going going going here and I haven't had the time, nor the energy to put into developing more creative thought. That or I have been in a desert of thought. Thinking about mostly nothing other than finishing the day, finishing the year. I haven't been living every day fully, just living to get it done with, which is certainly no way to live at all. I have allowed myself to become quite passive - caring about so many things but not putting those cares into any of my work.

I have not loved people as I should, and that makes me sad. Not that I have hated people, but I have not poured myself into people, not allowing myself to be used. That, is very unlike me.

I am sick of this desert I am in, but I feel I am reaching some sort of vegetation, lake, river, basin. Something to sustain me. The realization of where I am makes me search harder for to be in the place where I should be. I do not want to be passive any longer. I do not want to be a useless vessel - an empty one, serving no purpose. I want to be filled and travel, doing whatever it is that needs to be done.

The past two weekends I have spent not with Jer and Kirst. It has been very different, but a good different. Spending time with a variety of people allows us to grow in different ways - refreshes us in ways we may have not known we needed refreshing and rejuvenation. Variety in the people we spend time with is good for the soul. I love my friends, I cannot deny that. I miss my brothers. I miss old frendships, but I must be the one to pursue them sometimes. I miss the way things were, when I was young, but I would never change these things for the world. I love things now.

I want to love efficiently. Love the people around me as I am commanded. Love as I am loved. It is a learning process, but I am learning, changing, developing into who I am created to be.

love.