The Way I see it

2012-02-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

"More willingly would I have answered, ‘I do not know what I do not know,’ than cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed - and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer."

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.192

2012-02-16T06:21:00.001-08:00

One of the dumbest sports ever so of course I want to play.

2012-02-15T07:06:00.001-08:00

"The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

2012-02-15T07:05:00.001-08:00

Ohhhhhhhhhh, I dig.

2012-02-14T07:08:00.000-08:00

“Effective rebellion isn’t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don’t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.”

- David Brooks in How to Fight the Man

2012-02-14T07:06:00.001-08:00

My incredibly talented friend, who is probably going to yell at me when she finds out that I uploaded this, combined parts of Hillsong's 'Sometimes by Step' with Mumford & Sons 'Awake My Soul' to make one great worship song.
Enjoy the music, the lyrics, and us trying to keep a three year quiet and off sugar during the song!

2012-02-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

"If I could offer advice to a young rebel, it would be to rummage the past for a body of thought that helps you understand and address the shortcomings you see. Give yourself a label. If your college hasn’t provided you with a good knowledge of countercultural viewpoints — ranging from Thoreau to Maritain — then your college has failed you and you should try to remedy that ignorance."

- David Brooks in How to Fight the Man

2012-02-13T11:01:00.001-08:00

If being a travel videographer for an advocacy organisation like World Vision doesn't work out as a career, I wouldn't mind working for Red Bull.

2012-02-10T07:04:00.000-08:00

“Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life … She is clothed with strength and dignity and she laughs without fear of the future. When she speaks, her words are wise and she gives instructions with kindness. She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness … Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last, but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.”

- Proverbs 31:10-31

2012-02-10T07:03:00.001-08:00

Everything I love about skateboarding.

2012-02-09T10:52:00.001-08:00

"It's not that everything works out "in the end" - because this isn't "the end". This is today."

- Sarah Jarvis in The Unexpected

2012-02-09T07:02:00.001-08:00

“O God, I beg two favours from you; let me have them before I die. First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s hold name.”

- Agur son of Jakeh in Proverbs 30:7-9

2012-02-09T07:00:00.001-08:00

One day I'll be here (Jan2013?).
Also, booya, Palestinian Christians!

2012-02-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

“But now in writing I confess it to you, lord! Read it those who will, and comment how they will, and if they find me to have sinned in weeping for my mother for part of an hour - that mother who was for a while dead to my eyes, who had for many years wept for me so that I might live in your eyes - let them not laugh at me; but if they are persons of generous love, let them weep for my sins against you, the father of all the brethren of your Christ.”

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.145

2012-02-08T11:27:00.001-08:00

I'm really digging the simple elegance of this song right now and, based on the number of covers, it seems that I'm not the only one. Check out some of my favourite ones below:

Walk the Earth
This one has been making the rounds based on the whole weird factor, but I like their music best out of all the covers I've heard.

Ingrid Michaelson
This cover not only makes the list because I love Ingrid Michaelson, but also because the video itself is a standalone piece of art! Without a doubt some great editing!

4FRNT
Finally, if you're into the whole remix thing, this should float your boat.

2012-02-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

“And I marveled that I now loved you, and no fantasm in your stead, and yet I was not stable enough to enjoy my god steadily. Instead I was transported to you by your beauty, and then presently torn away from you by my own weight, sinking with grief into these lower things. This weight was carnal habit. But your memory dwelt with me, and I never doubted in the least that there was one for me to cleave to but I was not yet ready to cleave to you firmly. For the body which is corrupted pressed down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weights down the mind, which muses upon many things.”

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.104

2012-02-07T07:07:00.000-08:00

First off, ignore the title of the video.
The guy is an openly gay DJ and this is his interaction with one of the members of Westboro Baptist "Church."
Not how I expected that to go.

2012-02-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Two of my roommates are learning to play guitar and they found out that another one can sing. This is what the lesson turned into.

2012-02-06T07:34:00.001-08:00

“And I asked what wickedness was, and I found that it was no substance, but a perversion of the will bent aside from you, god, the supreme substance, toward these lower things, casting away its inmost treasure and becoming bloated with external good.”

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.103

2012-02-06T07:33:00.001-08:00

Bluegrass is so good that the animals just flock to it!

2012-02-03T08:27:00.001-08:00

“And it was made clear to me that all things are good even if they are corrupted. They could not be corrupted if they were supremely good; but unless they were good they could not be corrupted. If they were supremely good, they would be incorruptible; if they were not good at all, there would be nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption harms; but unless it could diminish goodness, it could not harm. Either, then, corruption does not harm - which cannot be - or, as is certain, all that is corrupted is thereby deprived of good. But if they are deprived of all good, they will cease to be … So long as they are, therefore, they are good. Therefore, whatsoever is, is good. Evil, then, the origin of which I had been seeking has no substance at all; for if it were a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance and so a supreme good, or a corruptible substance, which could not be corrupted unless it were good. I understood, therefore, and it was made clear to me that you made all things good, nor is there any substance at all not made by you. And because all that you made is not equal, each by itself is good, and the sum of all of them is very good, for our god made ‘all things very good.’ “

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.102

2012-02-03T08:24:00.001-08:00

ALL THIS LEG SHAKIN' AIN'T MONEY MAKIN'!

2012-02-02T07:15:00.001-08:00

I'm reading St. Augustine's Confessions right now and it's a strange book. As the title suggests, it is the personal confessions of St. Augustine to God. The book is an intensely personal and thorough (sometimes painfully so) account of his life to his saviour.
As I read it, I feel like that creep sitting in the coffee shop overhearing a couple break up; the guy going on about how he still loves her and the girl making up weird and vague excuses. I'm not using this as a metaphor for Augustine and God's relationship, it's just that this happened to me a few weeks back (while reading Confessions actually). Awkward.
All this said, you should read Confessions.

“I entered into my inward soul, guided by you.”

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.100

2012-02-02T07:14:00.001-08:00

This is one of those cases where I find a video, add it to my list of videos to post and, by the time I get around to posting it, it's already made rounds on the internet.
So if you haven't seen this before:
1. Where have you been?
2. Get ready for gorgeous.

If you have seen this before, deal with it because you know that it's beautiful enough to watch again.

2012-02-01T11:54:00.001-08:00

“Lord our god, under the shadow of your wings let us hope - defend us and support us. You will bear us up when we are little and even down to our gray hairs you will carry us. For our stability, when it is in you, is stability indeed; but when it is in ourselves, then it is all unstable.”

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.56

2012-02-01T11:46:00.000-08:00

I started watching this video thinking that it was all about electronic music and that it would be the stereotypical life of a musician. I was so incredibly wrong.
This video is the closest visualization I've found of what I want to craft my life to be like; a beautiful wife, wonderful children, a house I built, a garden, and a personal space to make my art. Who knows if it'll ever happen, but I sure aim to try.

I'm not the biggest fan of his music, but you can check it out here and you can read an article on the house he built for his family here. My favourite quote: "We have a no contractor rule. If we can't do it ourself than we don't do it."

2012-01-31T06:59:00.001-08:00

“Thanks be to you, my joy, my pride, my confidence, my god - thanks be to you for your gifts; but I ask you to preserve them in me. For thus will you preserve me; and those things which you have given me shall be developed and perfected, and I myself shall be with you, for from you is my being.”

- St. Augustine in Confessions p.18

2012-01-31T06:56:00.001-08:00

How I learned to cook.

2012-01-30T10:47:00.001-08:00

Unball the fist of fury
Forgive the offender's deed
Raise your eyes to heaven
Let Father set you free.

2012-01-30T07:34:00.001-08:00

This is a video I made promoting the Life Change class at my church, Northridge. While I can think of a lot of ways to make it better, I'm pretty proud of it considering it went from a concept to a film in less than a week! Not proud enough to upload it to my vimeo, but expect great things to come.

Unrelated note: This blog has officially had over 10,000 views since I started it. I know a ton of websites get 10k views in a day, but I feel like it's a milestone of sorts.

2012-01-30T07:26:00.001-08:00

"Thus I exchanged with those about me the verbal signs by which we express our wishes and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the behest of my elders."

- St. Augustine in Confessions p. 9

2012-01-27T08:21:00.001-08:00

Eight year old Juliet's first hardcore song.
Definitely worth the watch no matter what your opinion on hardcore is! So good!

2012-01-26T08:30:00.001-08:00

Birds are dumb, but this is cool.

2012-01-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

"What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds?"

- Frederick Buechner

2012-01-25T07:26:00.001-08:00

2012-01-24T06:58:00.000-08:00

"What is the most brutal reality of life? It’s this: It’s not about us. It’s not about you, and it’s not about me. If we don’t get laid or paid, it goes on in all it’s brutal beauty."

- Don Miller in Embracing the Sweet, Brutal Realty of Life

2012-01-24T06:57:00.001-08:00

To my future wife: expect something like this at our wedding.

2012-01-23T06:55:00.000-08:00

"It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another -- but that does not make your (love) less valuable and good."

- John Steinbeck on Falling in Love: A 1958 Letter

2012-01-23T06:51:00.001-08:00

I'll never be able to dance like this.

2012-01-20T07:24:00.001-08:00

"Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also."

- John Steinbeck on Falling in Love: A 1958 Letter

2012-01-20T07:22:00.001-08:00

I posted this a long time ago and just re-watched it.
I'm absolutely in love withe grittiness of it.

2012-01-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

In 1958, John Steinbeck responded to a letter that his son wrote admitting that he had fallen in love with a girl at boarding school. I'll be posting a few of my favourite excerpts from it here over the next few days, but if you can't wait, the whole letter is linked at the bottom of this post.

"First -- if you are in love -- that's a good thing -- that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second -- There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you -- of kindness and consideration and respect -- not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had."

- John Steinbeck on Falling in Love: A 1958 Letter

2012-01-19T08:14:00.001-08:00

This is a really cool approach to extreme sports filming.
Also, check out the trick at 0:44.

2012-01-18T05:28:00.001-08:00

2012-01-18T05:26:00.001-08:00

"Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."

- Proverbs 4:23

2012-01-17T09:28:00.001-08:00

"If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy, I could've won."

- Mumford and Sons in I Gave You All (song)

2012-01-17T09:27:00.001-08:00

This is made by the same guys who made the video I posted last Friday, but even better!
I'm really digging Australia at the moment.

2012-01-16T07:04:00.001-08:00

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

- Roald Dahl

2012-01-16T07:03:00.001-08:00

I want to make their videos.
I can do better!

2012-01-13T07:10:00.000-08:00

“Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do. (1) Things we ought to do (2) Things we’ve got to do (3) Things we like doing. I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of the three reasons, things like reading books they don’t like because other people read them. Things you ought to do are things like doing one’s school work or being nice to people. Things one has to do are things like dressing and undressing, or household shopping. Things one likes doing — but of course I don’t know what you like. Perhaps you’ll write and tell me one day.”

- C. S. Lewis, in a letter to Sarah, his godchild, on 3 April 1949

2012-01-13T07:08:00.001-08:00

Can it be summer again soon?

2012-01-12T06:24:00.001-08:00

"The easiest way to become invisible is to wear a day-glo vest and carry a tiny transistor radio playing Heart FM very loudly. If questioned about the legitimacy of your painting simply complain about the hourly rate."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.237

2012-01-12T06:21:00.001-08:00

Burning Man and Dr. Seuss mash up.

2012-01-11T05:34:00.001-08:00

"Any advertisment in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.196

2012-01-11T05:33:00.000-08:00

I can't embed for some reason, but here's the link for the interview with Where the Wild Things Are author & illustrator, Maurice Sendak. Check out the quote excerpt after the break to be enticed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXAjkLUv7dY

"People said, 'Why don't you do Wild Things 2? Wild Things 1 was such a success.'
Go to hell. Go. to. hell. I'm not a whore. I don't do those things."

2012-01-10T08:33:00.001-08:00

"After sticking up the picture (of a discount soup can in the museum of modern art in new york city) I took five minutes to watch what happened next. A sea of people walked up, stared and moved on looking confused and slightly cheated. I felt like a true modern artist."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.179

2012-01-10T08:32:00.001-08:00

2012-01-09T06:59:00.001-08:00

My guide: You could paint here - there are no guards in the watch towers, they do not come until the winter.
Me: (Returning to the car after painting for 25 minutes) What's so funny?
Guide: (Laughing hysterically) Of course the guards are in the towers, they have the snipers with the walkie-talkies."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.140

2012-01-09T06:58:00.001-08:00

Just all around gorgeous.

2012-01-05T06:31:00.001-08:00

Only when the last tree
Has been cut down
And the last river
Has dried to a trickle
Will man finally realise
That we cannot eat money
And reciting old proverbs
Makes you sound like a twat

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.121

2012-01-05T06:29:00.001-08:00

I would LOVE to be able to play guitar like this one day!

2012-01-04T06:11:00.001-08:00

"I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said 'that's clever it's an anagram of art' and I had to pretend I'd known that all along."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.104

2012-01-04T06:08:00.001-08:00

12 minutes of great!

2012-01-03T06:11:00.000-08:00

"Imagine a city where graffitti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.97

2012-01-03T06:10:00.001-08:00

I want to paint like this someday.

2012-01-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

"There’s no word in the Icelandic language for “please,” the Prime Minister’s number is in the phone book (listed, like everyone else’s, by first name), 20% of the population believes that elves exist, there are more broadband internet connections in Iceland than anywhere else in the world (per capita), 80% of the country’s power comes from renewable sources, and earthquakes happen every day."

- 10 Reasons to Visit Iceland

2012-01-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

Love Poem

Beyond watching eyes
With sweet and tender kisses
Our souls reached out to each other
In breathless wonder

And when I awoke
From a vast and smiling peace
I found you bathed in morning light
Quietly studying
All the messages no my phone

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.77

2012-01-02T06:26:00.001-08:00

Take some time and relax in this new year.

2011-12-31T07:38:00.001-08:00

I'll hop on the Deschanel train this time.
Happy New Years!

2011-12-30T06:50:00.001-08:00

"People always seem to think if they dress like a revolutionary they don't actually have to behave like one."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.47

2011-12-30T06:45:00.001-08:00

Top notch animation.

2011-12-29T06:35:00.003-08:00

"Policemen and security guards wear hats with a peak that comes down low over their eyes for psychological reasons. Apparently eyebrows are very expressive and by covering them up you appear a lot more authoritative. The upside is this means it's harder for cops to see anything more than six foot off the ground and maks painting rooftops and bridges a lot easier."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.42

2011-12-29T06:35:00.001-08:00

The capabilities of the human body never cease to astound me.

2011-12-28T06:27:00.001-08:00

"There are no exceptions to the rule that everyone thinks they're an exception to the rules."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.32

2011-12-28T06:24:00.001-08:00

A few days late for Christmas, but deal with it.

2011-12-27T08:00:00.003-08:00

"I got home at last and crawled into bed next to my girlfriend. I told her I'd had an epiphany that night and she told me to stop taking that drug 'cos it's bad for your heart."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.13

2011-12-27T08:00:00.001-08:00

Ryan Gosling, is there anything you can't do?

2011-12-26T06:19:00.001-08:00

"The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. The expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you're never allowed to answer back."

- Banksy in Banksy: Wall and Piece p.8

2011-12-26T06:17:00.000-08:00

My sister got me Banksy's book Banksy:Wall and Piece for Christmas and while it is primarily a picture book, he has some great quotes in it. I'll be posting my favourite excerpts here, but you'll have to get the book yourself to see all the incredible art in it!

2011-12-26T04:56:00.001-08:00

Here's some simply beautiful music for St. Stephen's Day.

2011-12-23T07:37:00.001-08:00

I hate doing stippling, but love looking at it!

2011-12-22T07:00:00.001-08:00

Summer anyone?

2011-12-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

If you haven't picked up on it from all the Searching for God Knows What, A Thousand Miles in a Million Years and Blue Like Jazz quotes, I'm a big Donald Miller fan. Just yesterday, I picked up Through Painted Deserts. I also picked up a copy of St. Augustine's Confessions mainly because John Piper once said:

"I don't think we ought to be reading new books all the time. I think we should read old books. And then the question is whether time and history has proven them. There are some books that have been around forever, and they are, generation after generation, witnessed to as being very shaping to people's lives. So I think we should constantly be exposing ourselves to those classics and not always reading the latest thing."

I dig Miller's style and value his insights, but I need to gain a deeper appreciation for the works of our Christian forefathers that shaped our current faith and have stood the test of time!

That was all a rabbit trail, back to Don Miller. I also follow his blog and, today, he wrote a few observations of a TED talk by a woman named Brene Brown titled The Power of Vulnerability. Here are a few things that I took from Miller than he took from Brown:

We are here to connect. It’s hardwired into our biology. It’s the driving force in the human personality.
People who have a strong sense of love and belonging BELIEVE THEY ARE WORTHY OF LOVE AND BELONGING.
Connected people believe that what makes them vulnerable makes them beautiful. Connected people are willing to say “I love you” first and to take relational risks. They are willing to get hurt. This is fundamental to a connected person.
We numb vulnerability because it scares us. We overeat, drink and escape the risks involved in actually connecting with other human beings. Connected people don’t numb vulnerability.

I like to think that I'm a connected person and I embrace my vulnerability.
Read his whole blog here and watch the video here.

2011-12-21T07:12:00.001-08:00

"we should tell people about Jesus, not try to build some kind of temporary moral civilization here on earth. If you want that, move to Salt Lake City."

- Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What p.188

2011-12-21T07:11:00.001-08:00

Adorkable.

2011-12-20T07:32:00.003-08:00

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

2011-12-20T07:32:00.001-08:00

2011-12-19T07:08:00.001-08:00

"A god who says everybody can do as they please would be a bad god, a bad father, giving license for anarchy. Love creates rules, and forgives when they are broken."

- Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What p.181

2011-12-19T07:02:00.001-08:00

I need spring rugby to come fast!

2011-12-16T10:27:00.001-08:00

"These days you get guys who say they are God, and the only people who believe them are the ones who are brainwashed by them in the first place. And even then the guys who say they are God always want to sleep with everybody's wife and live on an island and drink a lot of punch and drive expensive cars and do crazy stuff that pretty much proves they aren't God."

- Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What p.141

2011-12-16T10:26:00.001-08:00

2011-12-15T07:17:00.000-08:00

So if you know me at all, you've probably picked up that I'm a fan of the rustic vibe. I would LOVE my house to be similar to the below photos some day!

Thanks Ashley for finding these!

2011-12-15T07:04:00.001-08:00

"I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caeser, Charlemange, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force! Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions o men would die for Him."

- Napoleon

2011-12-15T07:00:00.001-08:00

Ouch.

2011-12-14T07:25:00.001-08:00

"Greene indicated the possibility that multiple dimensions may be laid out against each other as slices of a loaf of bread or tissues in a great brain. And while distantly scientific (strings are too small to actually see and prove scientifically and have been seen only through mathematical formulas), the theory had me pondering about the greatness or I should say the otherness, of God. I began to wonder how odd it would be if we existed in the mind of God, as Brian Greene, perhaps unknowingly, suggests. I am not saying I believe this is true, but something as radical as this, as foreign to our minds, certainly may be. And out of this other place, this existence, Christ stepped to inhabit ours."

- Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What p.122

2011-12-14T07:24:00.001-08:00

I like graffiti a lot. And even more when it comes to life!

2011-12-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

"One day, Kelley McRae and her husband Matt decided to pack up all their earthly belongings and hit the open road traveling and singing up and down the east coast."

- Matt Addington in The Duck Duck Collective's blog post about Kelley

While on the topic, check Kelley McRae out here.

2011-12-13T07:17:00.001-08:00

My friend Prisca is currently over in SE Asia working/taking photos at an orphanage for a month. She was online for a few minutes the other day and I snagged the opportunity to chat with her. I asked her how things were going and her simple response was:

"the kids give the tightest hugs and never let go!"

2011-12-13T07:13:00.003-08:00

"I know this makes God sound like a terrible narcissist, but my friend John MacMurray said to me recently that the most selfless thing God could do, that is, the most selfless thing a perfect Being who is perfectly loving could do, would be to create other beings to enjoy Himself."

- Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What p.108

2011-12-13T07:13:00.001-08:00

Just plain grogeous.