next month...

the ship has pulled into harbor. now in english - indianaland for a bit.

look for:

actual blog posts.
a new commitment to writing.
something of a tan.
but not too much cause im not going to be working outside much.
might not be working much period.
thus the new commitment to writing.
an improvement in spoken english.
pictures.
and new thoughts on life.

stay tuned.

travels

last boat to america. leaves tomorrow.

y en español - Oswald Chambers

"Dios nos da la visión, luego nos hace descender al valle para batirnos hasta darnos la forma de la visión, y es en el valle donde tantos de nosotros desfallecemos y cedemos. Toda visión se realizará si tenemos paciencia. ¡Piensa en el tiempo ilimitado de que dispone Dios! Nunca tiene afán. Nosotros siempre estamos frenéticamente afanados. A la luz de la gloria de la visión salimos para hacer algo, pero la visión no es real en nosotros todavía, y Dios tiene que llevarnos al valle, y hacernos pasar por los fuegos y los ríos para modelarnos a fuerza de golpes hasta que lleguemos al lugar donde puede confiarnos la verdadera realidad. Desde que tuvimos la visión, Dios ha estado trabajando modelándonos según el ideal; y una y otra vez nos escapamos de Su mano y tratamos de batirnos según nuestro propio molde.

La visión no es un castillo en el aire, sino un cuadro de lo que Dios quiere que seas. Deja que te ponga en Su rueda y te voltee como quiera; y tan cierto como Dios es Dios y tú eres tú, saldrás exactamente de acuerdo con la visión. No te desanimes durante el proceso. Si has tenido alguna vez la visión de Dios, puedes tratar tanto como quieras de sentirte satisfecho en un nivel más bajo; pero Dios nunca te lo permitirá."

Oswald Chambers quote

“God gives us the vision. He takes us down us to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don’t lose heart in the process.”

the Vision

Five years ago Pete Greig of 24-7prayer wrote a prayer/poem/prophecy on the
walls of a prayer room in Chichester, England. Since then what has been
labelled 'The Vision' has spread like a virus, because it resonates in the
hearts of an emerging generation of Jesus followers all over the world.




So this guy comes up to me and says, "What's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this...

The vision?
The vision is JESUS:
obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.

And they are FREE from materialism -
they laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix,
the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind,
they belong to the nations,
they need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free,
yet they are slaves
of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers
from every secret motive,
every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps,
their Satan games.

This is an army
that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day
its soldiers choose to loose that they might one day win the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.

They don't need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting again and again:
"COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground,
the whisper of history in the making,
foundations shaking,
revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers,
conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed -
young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts
"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Sacrifice fuels the fire
of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners.
Martyrs.
Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays
like a dying man with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting.
Watching:
24 - 7 - 365.

Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules,
shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide,
laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels,
fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve
at late night parties
before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool,
dangerously attractive inside.
On the outside? They hardly care!
They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate,
but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives, swap seats with the man on death row, guilty as hell:
a throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS.
(He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings.
They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdos!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten
with fire in their eyes!
They walk tall and trees applaud,
skyscrapers bow,
mountains are dwarfed
by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily;
it will come soon.

How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3-D.
And my feeble,
whispered,
faithless prayer
invokes a thunderous,
resounding,
bone-shaking
great "Amen!"
from countless angels,
from hero's of the faith,
from Christ himself.

And He is the original dreamer,
the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.

see?

it must be the heat that causes slothfulness here. i like the heat but it seems to correspond with low blog output. perhaps with a bit of willpower that could change...

what happened in may? well lots of things. 3 outdoor concerts were organized near the church building here. 3 consecutive saturdays. 3 consecutive weeks of lots of work. who knew there were so much content to remember? well needless to say there was a consecutive culmination. we learned with each one. by the end there was like a cumulative blessing. a core of us were involved and we did all we could to choreograph them in a capable manner. to cut to the chase i am just trying to use as many "c" words as i can in this paragraph, that is, without ceding to the dictionary. not that any of the information is counter-productive, in fact, these are all certifiable. its really what just came out. the conception of this current idea was not conceived prior to the initial c word used. it just came about.

well it was a nice experience, don't want to beat the c words to death and lose my audience... we really did have some concerts.

suddenly this is turning into a post about nothing. the heat seems to have sapped any sync i had with the words and instead of setting out what actually happened i find myself slipping back into what i have just stepped out of. relaying bits and pieces of information simply to be able to use "s" words. some would say it was silliness, others delirium. i simply attribute it to a slow salvation from the world of sweet and sour, blended into shakespeare. so please forgive my surliness and the fact that i have somehow managed to waste 3 minutes of your time as your eyes skimmed the previous sectiones...

signing off before it just gets sad...

lazy

its june now.

i feel like i need to update.



there.

a rather traditional post

how about just a normal, good old-fashioned, no pretenses, or rants to express, lighthearted but not really funny, post? not even an update. no analysis on the evolution of a blog. or humankind for that matter. although it did come up in a class yesterday. (i asked them where they had come from, meaning their house, their work, or a bar, to which one woman replied, "monkeys". fair enough, i mean, the question could be looking for the deep significance to our existence rather than the simple adquirition of knowledge about the movements of a few pupils prior a class, but anyways i am digressing! she was surprised to hear that i struggled with the concept of coming from a monkey. dirty, annoying little creatures who are far cuter in pictures than in real life. haha, perhaps i am defending the very point i was to trying to flaw... nah.) but back to the original, not really about anything post.

the weather isn't really worth mentioning. but since this is a completely non-significant post, the weather must be mentioned, because weather is neutral. needless to say, the weather in april has been better than may weather so far. its been bordering on cold as my feet could tell you. (i have been in flip-flops for the last 3 weeks due to an injury sustained playing football. flippin scab on that little knobby bit just off my big toe on the right foot. its impossible to get anything healed on a foot if you have ever noticed! nothing like the mouth which brilliantly rights the ships at incredible speeds! so to promote healing it has been flip-flops!) but yeah, cold weather.

since this is a digressive post, back to the old days, it bears mentioning that i am listening to the shins for the first time in months and months. its good to rotate music. lay it down for a while so you can go back to it and pick up back up like a favorite winter jacket that has been in the back of the closet for the summer months!

i have a mandarine sitting beside my computer waiting for me to finish this post and be devoured. i can sense it´s expectation.

been reading a little Paul Auster for the first time. i like his style. perhaps he is inspiring me to write. perhaps. one day. the one i just finished was about a writer. so it took me inside his head and made me want to sit down and put things into words. we'll see.

it'll be called a night then now.

math problem

is half of two plus two equal to two or three?

question

for all those who complain about lack of content...

is not quality more important that quantity?

the world in icons

so i found this online- Hoja de Reclamaciones. each icon represents a problem that is found in that part of the world... some of them are easy to figure out while others are more difficult...

global warming
homicide
sexual tourism
extinction
deforestation
terrorism
murder
drugs
exploitation
commercialism
pollution
AIDS
racism
nuclear warfare

thought provoking...

more thoughts on coffee

i have realized that i perhaps obsess over the idea of coffee more than the stuff itself. i think i have coffee idealized. i idealize everything surrounding coffee and perhaps it is a comfort thing.

if i do not have a coffee in the morning i will mention that very fact in every conversation that i have throughout the day. is that healthy?

i could live without coffee.

but i don't want to, because it's to me what the blanket is to Linus. it's a crutch. when i feel uncomfortable, when i don't know what to say, when i want to be liked, when i want to fit it, when i want to be cool, when i want to be accepted, when i want to fill the empty spaces, i mention coffee... without the association of coffee with my person, and i must ask this question, what would happen to it all? it would all go down. i would be uninteresting, not hip, unaccepted, and generally be surrounded by empty spaces.

so if that is what it is, would i be better off without it? and i'm talking about so much more than caffeine dependence.

loosen the grip and let go. the fall is freeing!

songs and coffee

i don't write like i used to

the names of a few songs on my playlist:

last boat to america
weary saints
speak to me gently
for who you are
does that make sense
after the rain
the cure for pain
sleeping lessons
headlights on dark roads
yesterday threw everything at me


on a different note, there is a brand of coffee here called:
Nespresso. What else?
café, cuerpo y alma


(that's coffee, body and soul in english, nice)

that was

lyrical ecstasy.

a few more fotos

sala de oración

prayer room.

last saturday we went and decorated a few rooms in the church in order to do an intense prayer day. so it went like this. we stole the idea from 24-7 prayer/international house of prayer, where people decorate rooms in order to stimulate prayer and provide an atmosphere that provokes prayer. lots of creative stuff. lots of stuff to help people enter in to the presence of God.

my world is full of need.
my country if full of need.
my city is full of need.
my street is full of need.
my life is full of need.

why not pray?

and so we did. the first room was to get things sorted between you and God. paper to write worries and things that might inhibit your ability to pray. a bin to toss them in. a clothesline to hang notes of thanks on with clothespins. the following room was dedicated to spain and extremadura. newspapers to browse through while praying. then scissors to cut out things and put them on the wall, all the while praying. to the left was more local. an interactive cd on extremadura, which loads of info on how to pray. next was the world. a huge map with little stickons to portray prayers. paragraphs written about countries in need. flags. later a room with a huge blank sheet where names of friends and family members can be scribbled down. acts of faith that God will touch and intervene in their lives. and at the end, a reflection room. where prayers, where thoughts, where praise, where anything can be written on the wall. visible thoughts and prayers. candles. red lights. cushions on the floor, you get the idea.

time well spent. eternity was affected. that day, many prayers drifted into the throne room, carrying with them a beautiful smell.

wedding

the other weekend some really good friends of mine, juli and maría, got married. happiness.


the mafia


az and abby


juli and maría

Interpreters

a prayer

You have spoken.
You have touched my heart and it pained me.
You extended your finger and it burned.
I felt dry and distant and never again do I want that experience.
You have me.

I give you my dreams.
I lay them down at your feet.
All I have is yours.
My reputation is yours.
My security is yours.
My vision is yours.
My heart is yours
I give you my hopes.
My expectations are in your hands.

I am your creation and you are my creator.
My life has been bought at a price.
I am no longer my own.
I live not for myself but for you, my God.
And I realize that all I can do is lay myself down at your feet.

ashes

.
.
a sermon on eternity
.
i judge all things only by the price they will gain in eternity. (Wesley)