I was here.

Damien Rice: I love you.

Buon Natale

MERRY CHRISTMAS to y'all.

I hope you all had a lovely day. Since most of the readers are no where nearby, let me say, I miss and love you all more than you can imagine.

Well Done, Raymond and Anne-Huston

The most perfect gift my parents could ever give me was this:



352 pages all on Paul, David, Adam, and Larry. I can't express how happy I am.

It's been a great Christmas. I'll expand later.

Cheers Darlin'

Last Saturday, my aunt Kat and I ventured to Washington for a concert. It was incredible. We got there early, spent the day in the city, saw the White House and the National Christmas tree, watched people on an ice skating rink (in hopes of seeing them fall), conquered the metro system, made two trips to Starbucks, and had the most genuine and deeply honest conversations I've had in a long time.

The concert was Damien Rice, and if you haven't heard him, maybe you should. The Swell Season opened for him, whose female vocalist is from the one and only Czech Republic. Sweet. When it was over, Kat and I actually didnt speak because we couldn't describe how [insert adjective here: amazing/phenomonal/breathtaking/spectacular/etc] the show was. I still get chills when I think about it. So here's my shameless endorsement for all things Damien. Just listen, and if you ever can, see him.


>the swell season



>damien

I know I've written alot on the nature of music in the past on these posts(here and here), but I cannot contain it. Theres something contagious about music that demands to be shared. There is this incomprehensible representation of emotion and life and beauty in music, a representation of something words and writing cannot give but a shadow of a glimpse of. Words, no matter how loaded or powerful or thought-provoking they are, in and of themselves, lack a certain human quality, a rhythmic art, an almost transcendental experience. No matter how much I rewrite my sentences and choose the finest words, I know they can never achieve this. They will inevitably stay on the page, maybe thrust someone into thinking a bit more about something, but they will always remain flat. Music doesn't. However, this quality lends it to be something that cannot be described or contained or bound down into these lovely little sentences with their correct grammar usage and proper choice of vocabulary. It's like when God says "My ways are so much higher than your ways," because I know true art, true beauty, comes straight from the heart of God and that we cannot even begin to fathom that. I cannot fully understand it, because its tangibility is just out of grasp. Thats the way its supposed to be. I'm done trying to explain it, because it is just becoming such a vicious circle that always ends in the fact that music skips the head, and bridges straight to the heart.

So music keeps playing and playing and moving us, raising us up in its storm. All the while, it is leaving us in awe of such a wonder, and, at least for me, in awe of a God who had the mind and heart to create such indescribable art, such beautiful beautiful rhythms.

the gleam of your tail lights fading east

The semester has ended, finally. The last three weeks of school felt like a marathon, a non-stop test of my endurance. There was inevitable stress with finals and unavoidable sadness at the thought of so many of my closest friends leaving next semester. I don't really care about the tests, the academic work, the papers, and the grades. I've done undeservedly well in that arena and I have yet to care. However, I do care about these people more than anything else at school, and they all seem to be leaving for a foriegn land next semester. Over the past couple months, there have been very few reasons I have wanted to be at JMU, but a couple of people have kept me here, maintained my solidarity, and been a constant encouragement, even when they aren't even trying. So I'm not really quite sure what I'm going to do come January. I know that God has not forgotten, I can see how he has brought new people into my life, even over the past two weeks, and how I have a couple things to, without a doubt, look forward to in the upcoming months, but I'm still sad.

I think it just hurts because its more of the same, people leaving, distance, cold replacements for human interaction. And I'm tired of it. I'm so sick of people leaving.

But for now, I'm not thinking about that. I am home and its amazing for the most part. I love everything about Richmond. I love how when I think of my family here, my mind immediately is taken to my church, and how the two cannot be separated. Or how I can wake up early and go and get free coffee from starbucks (oh yess for connections) and sit and read. Or how I can drive downtown with some of my favorites and see all the Christmas lights. Or how I will go Christmas shopping tomorrow with my sisters. I don't like describing it because I just can't express the full weight of how much I love this place.

Orphan.

Maybe you know this, maybe not, but last Friday (being December 1st) was World Aids Day. And if you didn't know already, the ministry that I am a part of here, Justice Team, put on an entire week of events. Our campaign, that we partnered with World VIsion in, was called the "Orphan" campaign because we were focusing on helping children who are losing parents to this horrible disease. Just in case you don't know, a child loses a parent to AIDS related causes every 14 seconds. So if this post takes you 4 minutes to read, at least 16 children will be orphaned...

It all started on Monday, where we hosted a Benefit Concert with the likes of a few lovely acappella groups, and three rockin bands. We held it at our student hang out/cafe and it was a perfect atmosphere. I was blown away by the amount of people that showed up. There was, honestly, standing room only. Quite a success and probably the most fun event of the week.



Every day that week we were out on our Commons selling t-shirts as well as pictures of children who are at stake of being orphaned by HIV/AIDS. When you bought a shirt, you also got the picture which was then staked into the hill behind the commons. At the end of the week, the hill was filled with hundreds of pictures.

This is Zolisa, he was one of my favorites:


Tuesday was the showing of a highly proclaimed film documenting AIDS in a global context, who its affecting, how, and what we should do. The film is called "A Closer Walk" and I would recommend it to anyone. You leave feeling quite down-trodden but its the good kind of sadness which spurs you to action.

Thursday and Friday we had a speaker come in from World Vision. His name was Serge Duss and I want so badly for him to be my new best friend. He is the Director of Advocacy at World Vision and is simply a dynamic man. He was with us for two nights, gave one "secular talk" open to anyone at the university, and then gave a Christ based talk during Intervarsity on Friday night. I really enjoyed just being with him, and soaking up every word that he said. And lucky for us justice team members, we got to spend a good amount of quality time with him outside of his talks. It was really fun, but also really encouraging to meet a man who is really dedicating his life to the justice of God. I'm hoping to take his job as soon as he retires.

Check out all those red shirts people are wearing: [this is taken in the middle of intervarsity. oh well]


And Saturday was our final event: a 5k. And no I did not run. I was actually a "cone" with one of my friends, helping to mark off the trail. Greeat. No, it was really enjoyable, even if it was really early. Plus this was the one thing I expected no one to show up to, but I was completely wrong. People came, ran, and enjoyed themselves.

Here are the girls of justice team:

Let me introduce you to some of my closest friends: Dot is on the far left (short for Dorathy), Erin V, yours truly, Claire freakin Moore, and the always sweet Kate Joyce. Unfortunately i don't have a picture of all of us, sorry (there are three other boys who are wonderful also), my documentation skills leave something to be desired.

Whew, after it was all over, I passed out. Seriously I was out for all of Saturday. But the whole week went incredibly well. I cannot even begin to explain it. I was quite cynical about alot of things we were doing at the beginning of the week, but I was humbled, of course. Overall hundreds of people from all across campus, with absolutely no affiliation to IV, supported it, and we were able to send a really good amount of money to world vision. Yess.

Sorry this is long and actually now that I'm rereading it, I realize its also pretty boring. Sorry again. But it has consumed my life of late, so I have little other to write on. Actually thats a lie, but believe it for the time being until I have time to update again...which, in the shadow of finals week, may not happen soon. Ehh. Pray for me. And a big thank you if you actually read all this. Well done.