Youth Hostel Ministry

This summer from May 26-27th I will be in Europe traveling around youth hostels with a team of four. We will be building relationships and sharing the gospel with travelers, through word and action.

Here is our itinerary!

May      25                     Arrive Chicago, USA

             27                     Arrive Amsterdam, Netherlands

             29                     Interlaaken, Switzerland
June      2                       Salzburg, Austria

             6                       Budapest, Hungary

             10                     Bratislava, Slovakia

             12                     Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic 

             15                     Vienna, Austria 

             21                     Munich, Germany 

             27                     Hurlach, Germany
July       2                       Prague, Czech Republic

             28                     Cologne, Germany

             31                     Amsterdam, Netherlands
August  2 - 10                England
August 11                      Dallas, TX

If only it were different...

Not on the path, the homeless man feels obligated to walk on the street.  There he is a free man.  On the path he is an obstacle, an annoying disturbance, a mass of dirty jumbled together jackets that makes us walkers slightly alter our course, in slight disgust.  I can understand why this man chooses to move with the cars. He pushes his cart, which hides his entire world and belongings, just another part of traffic.  

Grass, paint, moose.

Junior year of high school I decided to take on this big project and draw a realistic picture of my senior friends for their graduation gift:

I was pleased with the end product, but it sucked out from the joy of producing art.  I spent three long month trying to depict my friends exactly as they were.  No creation was involved here, no real discovery, nothing that inspired me to keep searching for something more.  So, I really didn't draw for the next few years, except for a handful of drawings I did of hands.  Art had lost its lustre for me.  When I thought of art, I imagined being entrapped in a little room, with no one to talk to, not being able to feel the wind on my face, or the soreness of my body from doing activity ( a good thing), just simply sitting for hours. 

But then I transfered to Wheaton College and I discovered the peace and quiet of lying outside on a Sunday on Blanchard Lawn:

The grass reminded me of the grass I used to know in England, so wet and soft, so lush and green.  I imagined it wrapping over me like I was a sausage and it was the Pillsbury Dough.  And it was here, on this lawn, where I rekindled my love for art.  I spent hours lying down on a rudolph the red nose reindeer blanket, in the warm weeks of August and September, just drawing patterns, birds, hands, eyes, wherever my pens and pencils took me.

It was lovely.

The next step? I became an art major.

And I studied painting:

(This is a painting of Blanchard Lawn with cubist influences)

And I loved my studies.  I love doing with my hands: the thrill of creating something.  In someways painting has become like an archeological dig.  It is as if I know something is behind that canvas and I have to discover it.

But sometimes I have to wonder.... Did I fall in love with art? Or the joy of sitting outside on Blanchard Lawn, feeling the wind blow my hair from side to side, the cool wet grass on my dry skin, and the sunshine so hot on my legs.  Perhaps one love has grown into two.  Perhaps I have just abandoned my love for the outdoors for too long and need to get my body out of the studio. 

I wouldn't mind seeing this out my back yard:

(Seen near the Grand Canyon summer 2010 with my parents)

My modern dance class is more about learning how to use your body, then actually dancing in the common sense of the word.  We have especially focused on learning to move slowly and to gravitate away from our bodies learned and natural movements.  Have you ever consciously taken 3 times as long to walk from A to B as you usually do? Perhaps you should give it go.  I was amazed at how much I noticed about the movements, the sounds, the people, and the nature around me.  It forces you to be more aware of your surroundings.

Puddles

This week has been full of wonderful old and new sights, smells, and physical sensations.  Rain.  Ah, I love the smell that it gives, the budding life that it reveals. It makes me come alive.  It makes me do things that I wouldn’t usually have to do.  The drainage system by the 904 College Avenue Building is pretty pitiful.  When it rains, water just rests in a large area about 15 feet from my door.  I either have to take a detour to get to my apartment or splash through the puddle, as water sloshes up the side of my white leather flats and sneaks into the insole.  Sometimes I just shrug and keep on with my day, other days I am frustrated that I have to walk around in soggy shoes.  But regardless it makes me feel alive, makes me feel a certain way that I only experience as a result of splashing in a puddle.

Some Summer Poems

It is as if I am floating

Like a footnote

That’s not really noticed

As the reader continues to gloat

Over all the sumptuous

Imagery.

-------

I feel here

But queer. 

Alive

But not satisfied

By this lackadaisicalness

That I feel engrained

In this mess

Of chains

That trap me from reaching

Those dreams.

--------

It is like a jumble of 16^th notes.

Can I find the melody, the coat

To tie it all together?

Dreams
Streaming sunbeams
Amongst the regimes
Like inseams
That only I seem
To see and deem
Beautiful and Necessary.