First I encourage you all to read this blog post:
http://africalu.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-goin-gets-tough-tough-gets-goin.html
Wow- I don’t even know where to begin with this story. It just reminds me of my senior project and how we seem to forget we are all human. Why is that? Why do we disregard people around the world as if they for some reason do not deserve the same acknowledgement as ourselves?
I love when the Olympics are going on. I am one who will sit and watch every country walk into the stadium at the opening ceremonies. It is so beautiful to me to see all these different kinds of people with different fashion styles, different faces, hair color, eye color, mannerisms, languages, everything is different but yet everything is the same. As a WORLD we forget about all the fighting and disagreements and enter into one stadium as one world. To me the Olympics is a glimpse of heaven when we all will stand before an awesome God as one body, with one purpose.
We think being American is some sort of pass to anything unjust or unfair. That when faced with a difficult or uncomfortable situation that saying, “well I’m American” will radically change what happens. I admire Lulu’s honesty in her writing and most likely would have felt the same way. Sometimes I wish I was not born in America. Not born in a country that is viewed as being so blessed with all its accommodations, but in fact it is blinded because of them. Blinded to what it truly means to depend on a Mighty God for food, shelter, and hope that this life is worth living. But I must not question Gods placing- its like Lulu said, “I don't know why I was born somewhere with so many accommodations... but I do know that everything I have received needs to be given back two fold to others without.” I cannot let me bitterness keep me from giving from the abundance I have been placed in.
All of this has reminded me of my current investigation of bees. Bees work as a hive, as a team and share their good findings with others and communicate to one another by dancing! How romantic…bees communicate that there is food, there is hope, there is a chance to survive another day through dance. As Americans we should constantly be dancing with those that are in need because we should be sharing our good findings. We can give hope, we can show them that there is a chance to survive another day. Americans view of survival is being as comfortable and efficient as possible. The definition of survival reads:
the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances.
- Psalm 150:4 (ESV) "Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!"
- Ecclesiastes 3:4 (ESV) "...a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;..."
- Jeremiah 31 (ESV) Read
Do we know what it means to survive? Do we know what it means to live simple?
Being in art school we are consistently told, “find a style, create a body of work, get your name out there…” its tiring and daunting because I have never felt like I would find a style, and I have not desire to get MY name out there. Through the process of creating my senior show I have realized what I would like to accomplish as an artist. I want my art to speak of something bigger than myself; I desire it to cause people to take action on issues that are affecting our world. I would rather people walk away from my art talking about how they can help than the aesthetics of my art.
As Josh and I begin to talk about our future- we keep going back to the book “Crazy Love” that we just recently read together. It speaks about not letting ourselves get into the typical American rut of living out our faith in a lukewarm fashion. Christ called all of us to live the radical life. It is not something Josh and I need to wait to do when we are married- we, like so many other Christians, need to reignite the fire and live by the Word.
