Today was a lot like yesterday, with an early start at the Peninsula Rescue Mission. Then we again sang as retirement centers, but only two today. The students did a great job, though their voices were struggling by the end and Keith had to bring in the big guns… of course he only had me, so I sang with the group at the last center. Thankfully, as one man mentioned following the song with sign language, we were “at the right place if we wanted to sing to deaf people!” We also drove past the coal “volcanos” (as Caroline Deckle called them) and they students were fascinated [randomly, life boats have really developed, and look more like subs]. We also drove in a tunnel under the Chesapeake Bay, where we all thought sprinkler should be installed to occassionally spray down water on the passing cars… chaos ensues…

[rockyou id=138550366&w=500&h=375]

If you want to save one of these pics click on the tab “View Show”. It will take you to a page with the slideshow and the invididual pictures laid across the top. Click on the one you would like to see (or you can scroll through the large size pics).

                                                                        

Here is another video. This one came from the game before the Sunday School lesson at North Riverside Baptist Church. It is also a little chaotic… but that middle school life.

                                                                        

Isaiah 55:3-7 (Click here for the scripture)

Hey there mister can you tell me what happened to the seed I’ve sown
Can you give me a reason sir as to why they’ve never grown
They’ve just blown from town to town
Till they’re back out on these fields
Where they fall from my hand
Back into the dirt of this hard land
  ~ “This Hard Land” [Springsteen]

   

“My child could do that!” ~ Aelita Andre has just turned two and is an aspiring abstract artist. Of course I can vouch that all two year olds are abstract artists, my own little Ivy specializes in water colors. Still, it is rare that their work would find its way into an art gallery (some of Ivy’s are on the Taylor fridge gallery…), but little Aelita’s work did and some are now being sold for thousands of dollars!

Which begs the question, for how much would Clark’s masterpiece sell? He gave it to me and for multiple thousands I might be able to part with it…

 Often the church stays inside working on deeper theology, cooler programs, better buildings, smarter sermons,  hipper Bible studies (look at this bloom’n book!), greater music… Inside we grow content with a child’s work of art, but when we strive to live the life of Christ outside of our cave it requires a masterpiece. A cave doodle does not liberate. We must imagine a life that resembles Monet. Then we should live the life that leaves people awed, as though they have been standing in front of Water Lilies (which I have seen—it will mesmerize you, even in sheer size!).

                                                                       

 

David ~  The boy who beat Goliath, the king who had an affair with Bathsheba… Who is David? That question is too big, but God made a covenant, a promise, to David: “I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations” ~   Psalm 89:4 (also 2 Samuel 7). Of course the kingdom of Israel was split and then destroyed, but the promise of God was not void. Jesus came from the line of David…  

                                                                       

 

IMAGINE: The gallery owner who first showed Aelita’s work did not know she was only two. How must he have felt when it was discovered he was hanging a toddler’s artwork in his gallery? ~ If your relationship with Jesus was art would God be proud to display it in His gallery?…

 Most of us declare the world is far from godly; but, rather than work for change, we conform—why?