14 pictures of the last month

what have i been doing the past month? well i will tell you i went to circle montana but i told you that so here are some pictures of the side of the road anyway.









on my birthday well two days after went to see birght eyes stopped in new salem and took some pictures of this heffer. man this thing is wierd and gross note picture number 3 for the gross part.










went to see landons art show and that was nice it was good to get away.










ate some dinner hung out with kelsey she loves people and she loves animals a lot she i a vegan. i respect her a lot.





it got kinda foggy but it was nice i like the DQ lights in the picture best. just kidding i wish that it was just scenery and no artificial intelligance.



ride home was nice...

make a list of things you need, leave it empty except for number one write love!

who is richard rohr? well i saw this dvd called crisis of faith which he put together that i thought was amazing and i want to get. also i started reading abook by him called everything belongs. i think it will be one of those books that i want to highlight the entire thing but here is a little snip-it from the first parts of the book...

*how do you make attractive that which is not?
how do you sell emptiness, vulnerability, and nonsuccess?
how do you talk descent when everything is about ascent?
how can you possibly market letting-go in a capitalist sulture?
how do you present jesus to a promethean mind?
how do you talk about dying to a church trying to appear perfect?

this is not going to work...*

*i watch how foolishly man gaurds his nothing - thereby keeping us out. Truly, God is hated here.*

*First there is the fall and then there is the recovery from the fall. but both are the mercy of GOd.*

i think this is going to be a book that i really like. it is about prayer, the kind where you are able to transcend life and see everything in christ. i am excited about reading this and about 30 other books i have started and not finished.

ill follow you into the dark...

thanksgiving, 1000 miles away from my parents and it feels like 1000 miles away from family tradition. there will be nothing that i am used to this thanksgiving, not food not people not anything really. i was thinking about one day having my own family and how it will be to try and balance the give and take of family tradition. to know how uncomfortable it is not to do things the way we always have but to have the joy of making my own traditions.

had an interesting talk with landon in the movie store yesterday. he didnt like walk the line but i really liked it a lot. i am torn though. how is it that we champion this as an amazing love story, johnny cash found true love in june carter but it was after he was married. so i hate this story cause i believe in love and i hope one day to find it. this movie plays on my emotions of finding true love but i never want to sacrafice current love for *true love* this movie propetuates the idea that infedelity is ok as long as it is for true love. the paradox of life things that amuse me and disgust me at the same time. it was a nice movie though.

just stay...

home from moscow! the trip was amazing and i should say that i got more culture in 5 days of moscow than i have in 5 months of northdakota. i went to 4 or 5 art galleries, met some great people had some great food including a pannini at a bakery, some tacos from a mexican resaurant, a greek calzone from an italian place, pizza from pappa johns!!! and breakfast at teh breakfast club! man so much good things happening in moscow. had a great time with landon and darci and am going to post some pictures up as soon as i get them developed. its 1 and i have been on the road all day so im out like a fat kid in dodge ball!!!

theres this dresm in my brain that just wont go away...

Fargo rock city! well it was nice to get out of williston. i mean it was nice to just do something fun and hang out with fun people. i went and saw bright eyes on wednesday and its was soo awesome! seriously he was so good live. i have seen him before but he was so drunk off of the bottle of wine he was chugga-luggin that he fell off his seat. fargo was different he wasnt drunk or did not appear to be drunk. he played some great songs and i was pretty surprised that he played a lot of stuff from fevers and mirrors. he even started off the show with sunrise and sunsets. there was a lot of great stuff like the lady who played the harp it was a very nice sound. also the trumpetier, it was very emo trumpeting, very good also. but my best thing had to be how happy the drummer, bass player, and guitarist were. they looked like they were having so much fun jamming up there. you know how they look at eachother and smile cause they love a certain part of a song or some thing makes them see eachother and smile its so great. it made me smile like a big 5 year old. man the last song was the best part of the show though i think the name of it was, lets not sh*t ourselves. so great and willy *nelson* mason who played first and was really great also played the harmoinica (this made me think of bri) it was an amazing ending to an amazing show and i think it was great... go see bright eyes!

thats the way i like yeah thats the way i like it...

i started reading letters to a young poet by rainer maria rilke and he is talking baout going into yourself and finding what you find enteresting about life and how to create art it must be personal and it must be enteresting to you and i was thinking about the things in life that i am passionate about and why i want to so them. i was taken back to a conversation i had once in the middle of wal*mart with jeremy about how i feel like there is so much inside of me that i want to give to my youth group kids that i just dont know how to communicate. so much love and so much joy that it is hard to express without sounding like an over emotional idiot or super cheese. but the passion is there and it is in me begging to coem out so i must figure out how to get them to fall in love with what i have loved and see the awe in life as i see it. i hope that i can share this vision with you as well. life is so beautiful and there is so much that makes it worth while. i hope that you can see the potential for joy and wholeness in a broken world that you can see that there is so much love and it heals all the pain. i love life and i hope that i can share that love with you all.

down in denver down in denver all i did was die...

my last two hours of 23 and as i refelct on the past year on this my birthday eve i am amazed as usual by the grace of God. i think about how many times i was ready to give up on God and church and life and just walk away and live for myself. i think about my exodus of springfield which much like egypt i thought it would be better to be a slave there than to go somewhere things were unsure. i think about how i could possibly end up living in north dakota and how i am still single here but some how ok with it. more okay with it than i ever have been. i think about how i am finally starting to feel like an adult and how i think i am ready to take on those responsibilities. i am getting comfortable in my skin and who i am and i like me. so here is to twenty four and all she has in store, i look forward to her and anticipate the reflection the same time next year.

i wish i was an astronaut...

finding rhythm in life sometimes seems like an impossible task. but it is one we have been given. i watched the 11th nooma video entitled rhythm last night and i am sure that i almost cried. it was just perfect. it was beautiful and meaningful and something i needed to hear. i will post some quotes for you now.

*if God can help people find things on sale, then why doesnt God spend time on things that seem more important like earthquakes, or famines, or sickness?*

* for many people their concept of God is built around a God who is outside of everything, a God who essentially is somewhere else, a God who made the world but then stands back and watches it from this other vantage point, a God who's there, and then from time to time comes here.*

*when i think of God i hear a song*

*jesus is like God in taking on flesh and blood, and so in his generousity in his compassion thats what god's like. in his telling the truth, thats what God's like. in his love, and forgiveness and sacrafice thats what God's like. thats who God is. thats how the song goes.*

*the song is playing all around us all the time, the song is playing everywhere, it's written on our hearts, and everybody is playing the song. see the question isn't whether or not you;re playing a song the question is, are you in tune?*

*there are people who talk as if they know everything about being a christian and yet they can seem way out of tune. and then there are others who would say they dont know much at all about the christian faith and yet they can seem very in tune with the song.*

*maybe you have this sense like you have no sort of relationship with God because of all these things, these ideas you have about what that means all these things that you've been told about what it is or what it isn't and an infinite, massive, kind of invisible God, thats hard to get our minds around, but truth love, grace mercy, justice, compassion-the way that jesus lived i can see that. i can understand that. i can relate to that. i can play that song.*

*may you come to see that the song is written on your heart and as you live in tune with the song, in tune with the creator of the universe, may you realize that you ARE in relationship with the living God.*