spent today with the family. my sister and her fam drove in to hang out at with my bro and new family. my mom & dad drove up as well to hang, but they are staying with us. for what has been a real trying week, personally & spiritually, this is a fun way to spend the easter weekend. got some fun pics from our weekend.
attended the spring semester hendersonville high school select chorus coffee house tonight. always a good time as there is a lot of talent in this town. traditionally a bunch of our youth community contribute to these events making them a lot more fun. if you care to check them out i've got a new flickr set. too bad my camera battery went dead at the end of the night.
update: this a group of my guys (johnathan & payton left and middle, it's matt on the right) singing a sarcastic love song called "beautiful girl" apparently in the later show they dedicated this song to taylor swift, whom i bumped into on the way out, but didn't realize it till my youth in line pointed her out. oh well. she's just a normal person, not like bumping into some huge football player. anyways, i was saying to erin that if the guys dedicated that song to taylor it'd be a classic moment, sure enough, they did.
these are some pics of our opening night of "the last week" our first eikon arts gallery. it was an interesting mix of reactions, all positive, but in different ways. some sat and stared, some cruised around, some found funny alternatives to the photos (which were really quite funny and creative), and some just stood proudly over their one or two photos. we had a discussion at the end over what prints were meaningful or made you think more, what interactions did you have with a photo, etc. that type of stuff. in all, it was a bit more expensive than i would like having to get a bunch of frames, blown up prints and a few odds and ends, but it is so far a wonderful experience in spiritual practice that is priceless.
if you are in the hendersonville area, or up for a road trip to the 'ville, next week. we will be offering our artistic meditations on "the last week" of Christ. i am pretty stoked for it. directions and such, www.hfumc.org.
finally got around to updating my project 365.. or i guess it is project 366, but why get difficult
today started out with snow, but in true tennessee fashion, it is all pretty much gone now. still, it was enough to close all the schools and suspend church activities tonight, which i wasn't all that opposed too. i took some pictures this morning when it was all nice and pretty.
had a whirlwind trip up to the ski slopes and back again. due to some other events we moved our ski trip to a new weekend with a new format. we left friday after school, and did a little late late night skiing, off to bed and then back again in the morning for a full day, then drove home. it was a great trip. the 22 youth and leaders had a great time all were worn out, some bruises, and a ton of stories.
i've posted pictures from the trip into this flickr set.
revmommy has done it again. caption contest? winner gets something..
though all made me laugh.
caption: Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Salvage -- the United Methodist Church of Tatooine. via revmom
i am still recovering from being ill this week. mustered some strength & went over to hendersonville to watch the guys, and one girl, playing basketball. the first game of the season tourney. a number of our youth have never played formal ball (actually our girl is the only one who has played) a few have never played at all. so record wise, we don't do too well, but they play hard, have a good time and they were able to win a game this year. the hope was that they could get a win today and move further into the tournament. didn't get a win, but some good stories as kyle here got a busted nose while jumping around for a rebound.
it has been awhile since i intro'd a new blogger on ye' ole blog.
a number of years ago jonathon & i took a retreat down to Saint Bernard Abbey in cullman, alabama. there we met brother david. it was kinda odd finding such a young person in the monastery, but we got all jazz up talking websites, music, climbing & rappelling, and taking hikes through the woods. we have returned to the abbey a few times and hung with him again. the oddest thing was running into him randomly at opry land hotel in the late summer. he was there for the knights of columbus gathering and selling candles. now i see he has a flickr portfolio and is blogging as well, for the monastery of course.
so my illness has continued into today. it hoped to shake it yesterday, but we ended up having our wednesday night programming so i was at the church through the day. no rest, but we did have a small, but good podcast.
i went to the doctor today. got me a steroid shot, which i asked if they wanted to administer it baseball style or in my arm.. the needle was apparently long, so they opted for my hip. i did get a chuckle from the doc with my comment.
directions from there, rest, drink lots of fluids and stay away from people. so what is a blogger person to do while they are napping away the day and not hanging with people? upload pictures of course.
so i've been uploading pictures from last weekends retreat. i posted yesterday the videos that we had created from the retreat.
i started reading "the misunderstood jew : the church and the scandal of the Jewish Jesus" by aj levine, which, so far, i really like.
pictures are starting to show up on flickr of last nights tornado storms. this one i liked the best, reflecting the chaos. this might be a good look at one of the storm clouds. this might be the best look at a tornado in memphis.
hahaha! i am laughing hysterically as i check out this flickr group of people that are not happy with the idea of microsoft buying yahoo and thus getting their grubby hands on flickr. i must say, i am not too pleased with the idea. though i wasn't please with yahoo purchasing flickr either, but they atleast kept out of making drastic changes, only a yahoo log-in over the flickr log-in. highlighted is, so far, my favorite or biggest chuckle of the creative anti-microsoft image uploads.
tip techcrunch
i am felling all normal after spending the night at the church with the fellas of room in the inn & our youth super bowl party. it is a sacrifice to each year say yes to our group hosting the room in the inn guests and not just doing some larger group party at someones home or even leaving the day open as a personal day, but when everyone shows up i am thankful to be the innkeeper for the night. i decided to plug one of the pics of the night into my project 365, the rest i have put on the youth ministries flickr pages.
i am not used to getting up at 4am, especially after only getting to bed at 1am, but it all works out after a nice afternoon nap.
fun. this group of folks has done up some pictures in the nature of google earth shots, but they go back to biblical times. this one is the parting of the red sea. tip to john
so i have this issue. some part of the electrical has gone out in my car. i can't get my car to fail or pass inspection because. so i take it to the service department where it is under warranty. the diagnosis.. "this is some computer thing that you will need to take to the dealer to get fixed."
beautiful! thus goes my day
further adding to my project 365
tonight we started "eikon" an arts initiative within & outside our youth community. eikon, we hope, will become small communities of artisans that help us to practice a medium as well as frame our art as spiritual practice. tonight we started our photography community with around 20 youth & adults. i was pretty stoked for the number, but mostly i was stoked for the people that showed interest. i thought i'd share some of the why behind "eikon" since it was apparently asked about around the gbod.
To be an Eikon means, first of all, to be in union with God as Eikons; second, it means to be in communion with other Eikons; and third, it means to participate with God in his creating, his ruling, his speaking, his naming, his ordering, his variety and beauty, his location, his partnering, and his resting, and to oblige God in his obligating of us. Thus, an Eikon is God-oriented, self-oriented, other-oriented, and cosmos-oriented. To be an Eikon is to be a missional being - one designed to love God, self, and others and to represent God by participating in God's rule in this world.
-a Community Called Atonement, by Scot McKnight
i thought this did a pretty good job of defining some group identity
i am pretty stoked to see what God does with this grouping
the youth and i spent the day green. playing in front of a green screen. this wasn't my normal youth community. this was my communications committee for our upcoming event "warmth in winter." we do the videos throughout the event. this year's theme is "eye of the storm" so our charge was to do a bunch of weather related & news room stuff. luckily one of our kids has an unusual amount of filming equipment, green screen, lights, boom mic, all that.
now we will have to get to work on the finished product.
i've added this pic to my project 365 which i have now updated as far as monday. more pictures of this day on our youth flickr site.
update: i have become a caption contest
classic! revmom has too much time on her hands today. she's doing her ministry of assimilation which john started.. nothing good comes of stuff that john starts. i'd say she is much better with the photoshop than my youth community.
i guess after going emo it is easier to assimilate.
we are back. the wife and i had a great time chilling out and relaxing while being carted around the eastern caribbean. regular life begins tomorrow; some working, posting, picture uploading and who knows what else. until then i've updated my project 365.
before i leave for a week. i give you.. my haircut. it is always a anxiety driven time in the richardson household to see how the mop of hair reacts to a trim. not really the highlight of my day, but i figure a couple of head shots will be fun for the project.
i have been inspired by friends who have attempted the project 365 in past years to go for it myself. i will be loading them onto my flickr, with a regular random posting to the blog. this is my first day of the year. follow on my project365 flickr set to see the regular updates.
i am not the person that cares to personalize a license plate. seems trivial to put together a message in less than 10 characters. i do enjoy deciphering others creative ideas of messages. some people are creative in, some not. some are annoying.. some i just do not get. like this one. what are you trying to say brother?
i am here.. been here actually.
somewhere last night when i got home from church just close to 10pm, hadn't packed a thing, hadn't cleaned the car i decided that i wasn't going to rush down here. i am not sure why i was in the first place. if you followed my twitter posts, which i was doing (and will continue to do) via txt message, there was a stop by the dentist, a lame lunch from arby's, a few hours at sewanee & monteagle, then met up with mike at the 296 waffle house.. the cell phone went dead shortly after that.
we finally got to the gwcc. i had been traveling for about eight hours, which was cool. i wanted to do the exploring thing. if i could have i would have stopped by rock city just for kicks. it was starting to get dark when i got to chattanooga so i passed on that one. mike & i got separated in atlanta traffic. mostly due to, what i think was, a hawks game. still, atlanta is not the most intuitive driving city.. there is a bunch of construction stuff happening too that doesn't help. we found our way to the same parking garage, but still couldn't find each other. i blame mike for that one.
everything was over and the expo area was closing soon. the only reason to get there was to meet up with our friends at upperroom/abingdon/youthworkermovement. like it is with an event like this (and pretty much why i enjoy coming) is that you have run ins with folks you didn't expect to see. first off was eli. i was wondering if there was an overlook area of the expo to get a picture to show the craziness that it can be. i saw this guy who looked vaguely familiar at a table top working on a laptop. at first glance it looked like he might have been working on blogger (such a nerd to recognize that). i say something to the effect of "there's someone blogging" (confirmed by his account). take a couple of pictures and then go over to talk to blogger person. turns out it is eli, fellow blogger and twitter person. actually, he's the reason i thought to twitter this, cause i saw him mention it. we chatted, took the proverbial blogger picture, talked wi-fi in the gwcc and headed off. met up with charity, our wonderful interlinc person. hugs and pleasantries around then we found our destination peeps. then we all got kicked out of the convention center.
other peeps, met a fun fella from saint petersburg in the mass of people walking out the convention center. for the life of me i can't remember his name, started with an "l." he's a trevecca grad, so we talked nashville stuff. good guy. then someone asked me directions to get somewhere.. i laughed, not at them, but because i thought it funny, i hadn't a clue as to where the mass of people were going. chatted a bit, then she turned around and went another direction. smart not to follow me.
evening dinner at ted's. i'll have to figure out the link to give credit, but someone i don't know in our group bought dinner. thanks!
ran into eli again, this time i think he had his wife. talked up a dude at the bar about the football game, apparently ryan leaf's little brother made it into the football game (which is crazy to me that oregon lost).
tucked away in the room now.
top highlights!
check out my updating flickr set : nywc07 pilgrimage
follow the picture for more pictures of french army thermonuclear tests. it is weird to see this is beauty and know that it is killing of beauty. tip jordon cooper
erin & i returned with all our little children in one piece, maybe not without some scrapes, but still good, yesterday afternoon. it was a good time, some interesting moments as many were outdoors for the first time. did some waterfalls, a rock jump or two, swimming, and a lot of hammock time.
check out my flickr or the youth flickr
kyle, one of my youth bloggers and sometimes photographer has had two of his pictures picked as feature pictures by the tennessean in some photo contest. one was picked for their "winner" category, which is a cool window view shot he took when he was up in the smokies last year and the other is from the "scenery" category and is a cool sunset from probably the same trip to gatlinburg.
i am pretty stoked partly because his pictures are actually of tennessee which i love. it shows that with an eye you can find equally amazing images to those from around the world (other pictures in the feature are of deserts or fantastic world stops). to find amazing in the ordinary is just the coolest in my opinion.
as a ministry i'm stoked for kyle cause i have encouraged his photography and the creativity that God has given him. he takes some cool pics, it is nice to have outside entities to recognize his gifts.
yesterday a couple of us met for a worship planning session for the upcoming festival of homiletics next week. we are doing an "emergent" & "traditional" worship for the thursday speakers. just call us team jv.
during our time i let grace, jay's daughter, take my camera and take some pics. this is how she sees the world, at least for that one hour.
i don't know if you have heard of this site, but you can make all kinds of cool little products with your flickr photos, or any pic you want to upload to a project. i am still in a sentimental mood, so mine isn't particularly funny which would be my norm. i propose a blog challenge for most creative motivational poster! tip to youthblog
when i went to pied piper creamery with jonathon & the norman children i never would have imagined i would see such a sight. is this bad fashion or genius? i am just not sure
did i mention? this is taken from the old camera phone. so you might not be able to see too well, but he's cut off the toes of his socks. that's why i think it might be genius
i don't know the name of this tree outside our window (but we have our suspicions). but it is wonderful to sit and look at in our side yard. it is also on the street & apparently the neighbors like to look at it in bloom as well.
i took this pic while doing some youth stuff downtown last month. i know you have seen this before. not to take anything from someone with a handicap, it just seems rather odd to me to see a handicapped tag on a sports car. but maybe it is just me
these are just some of the views i had from warmth in winter through the lens of the camera. check out more of our youth group experience here.
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