Engagement Party

 Love is a splendid thing isn’t it?  When you look into the eyes of someone and somehow you know that you wouldn’t want to spend the rest of your life without this person beside you.  It’s smiles and laughter but also fear because you don’t ever want to loose what you have found.

I walked through the door and felt the warm air surround me. I could hear the loving chatter and the aroma from the kitchen was intoxicating.  I was greeted by the soon to be bride. She led me to the back room where I could put down my equipment, after which she introduced my to the family and of the soon to be groom.

Karolyn and Dan started dating there senior year of high school and have been together ever since, five years, and next November the will exchange vows. Tonight was there engagement party, full of wine and appetizers. Everyone was dressed in formal entire and the fine china was placed on the well-decorated tables. 

They first served their guests vegan soups with rich taste.  After the soup was eaten the introduced the wedding party and gave them T-Shirts that had there wedding title written across the front, best man, maid of honor, and so forth. Next on the agenda was the main course, which was vastly similar to a Thanksgiving feast. 

The night seemed to flow freely after the desert was served. There was laughter, games, and posed soon-to-be-family portraits, the night was as planned and joyous.

Esterlyn

“I will not fear
I will not hide Your love, your love
All of my life
I can not deny your life

And everything comes alive
In my life as we lift You higher
Let Your freedom arise
In our lives as we lift You up
Sing it out
Freedom is here

Your freedom is here
Freedom is here
Your freedom is here”

The song came to an amazing finish and the crowd went wild in approval over Esterlyn’s hit Christian Single Freedom is here.

Coming from Boise, Idaho Esterlyn is a Christian worship/independent rock band that came to Turning Point Open Bible Church for a private concert for the youth group. 

The four handsome band members include Luke Caldwell (vocals and guitar), Tommy Torrez (guitar, keyboard, and vocals), Shawn Myers (bass), and Ryan Tomlinson (drums). In 2006 they signed to Rooster Records where they have recorded their first three albums Lamps (2008), and Mending the Meaning Acoustic EP (2009), and Call Out (2010). Mending the Meaning actually entered the top ten on Itunes! There first hit “We All Need”, has been played on major outlets such as fuse TV, JCTV, 1 Cubed, TVU, The Zone, and MTV’s Latino America. They have toured with Kutless, Disciple, Stellar Kart, and Thousand Foot Krutch (TFK).  Needless to say they are a talented group of musicians.

But back to the night of the private concert, I was tapping my filled moneybag to the beat of the drums in the other room. I was selling tickets at a mere five dollars for those who wanted to see Esterlyn live.

Luke Caldwell

After a while I was released of my duties and rushed to grab my camera so the real fun could began.  Because I was staff I had access to whatever angle I wanted. So I found myself hovering around the stage like a manic fan.  I watched as they sung with passion and true joy. You could tell by the way Luke swayed with his guitar and closed his eyes that this was his passion. He sung because he had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and he wanted the world to know where he came from. The crowd smiled and listened to the power of his lyrics and began to raise their arms in praise.

Half way through their set, Tommy stopped to talk about his life. The crowd clung to the words coming out of his mouth.  Tommy talked about how he always had a plan for his life and this old girlfriend of his who he was going to marry but it didn’t work out. He said he never thought he would be doing music but he let God change his heart and his life.

Once Tommy was done speaking the band sung a few more songs and then concluded by talking about their merchandise that was for sale. The crowd applauded and screamed as they walked off stage.

Tommy Torrez

As the room emptied and they came back in to pack up. Their wives came in with there kids and it was adorable to see that there wives traveled with them and how excited they where to be with their family’s. I was staking chairs and cleaning garbage during this team and even though the members of the band seemed tired they were full of smiles and kind words.

It truly was a great experience to see a band live, yet see how they were after the concert, and they were genuine, and that is what matters, at lease to me. 

FX Link

The room was empty black chairs and a creative looking stage but loud children’s music was playing to the unfilled room. It was a quarter after six and two boys entered the room and walked up on the stage there they began to practice a simple comic skit that would later be used in the midweek children’s church production. 

Around six thirty kids began to check in and made themselves at home with playground balls and hula-hoops. The laughter and all around craziness of a child’s joy was enough to bring warmth to your heart.  The two boys who had been practicing the skit began to play with the kids or rather the kids began to pull at their shirt tales begging them to pay attention to them.

Around seven o’clock the shorter on the two boys, who had a black foe hawk and may have been Hispanic, gathered all the kids to have their seat.  All the giggling kids ran to the seats and after a few minutes settled down. The Hispanic boy, Tim, told the kids it was time dance and sing, so he asked the kids if they wanted to volunteer to be on stage to help him show the kids the dance moves. The kids’ hands shot up in the air and he picked four people to help him, three girls and one boy, and for the second song he choose three boys and one girl. Tim, the leader, had a big grin on his face exaggerating his movements to excite the kids. The kids laughed and so did he it was obvious that he enjoyed working with kids and his job. It only took me a few seconds before I caught the joy fever and had a smile plastered to my face.

After the kids had sung two songs and danced, Tim had them settle back down and sit in their chairs. At that point he went behind stage and the taller boy, David, went on stage and greeted the kids. Every month they teach the kids a certain virtue and try to instill that value in the kids. This month the virtue was gratitude. David explained what gratitude meant, he said that it was letting others know you see how they’ve helped you. Right after David finished explaining the virtue Tim came out from behind the stage wearing a white karate robe.  And the skit that David and Tim had practice earlier was now in motion. It was about how Tim wanted to take revenge on his coffee barista because he didn’t leave room in the cup to add sugar so he was practicing karate to get back at him. During the skit Tim ever pretended to break a concrete block (which the kids thought was hilarious). But during the skit David reminded Tim that the barista made his coffee everyday and that he never messed up before, he also asked Tim of he was thankful anytime before when the barista made his coffee. In the end Tim remembered that he should be thankful for all the times before when the barista didn’t mess up his coffee and forgiving for the one time he messed up.

After the comic skit the children watched a movie about gratitude and then broke off into small groups to discuss the meaning of being thankful and forgiving.

It was fun to be able to watch this event and see what churches and teaching children today. And what do you know? I too was reminded to be thankful and forgiving.

Halloween with Great Grams

She had spent all day preparing for the trick or treaters and her great granddaughter to come over for dinner.  She put the candy in the bowl counting twelve suckers and twelve boxes of milk duds for exactly twenty-four trick or treaters to come knocking on her door. She cut celery and spread peanut butter on the celery sticks; she also cut up carrots, made her great granddaughter extra cheesy macaroni with fun noodles, and even took the time to bake some lemon bars. It was a wonderfully great effort for a woman in her eighties.

She is my great grandmother, Ardyce LaBrie, she has lived in the house right off of Mission Road since she moved to Spokane from North Dakota many years back. I have so many memories of sitting in her living room as a young child, a living room that has ceased to change.

My great grams gave me a phone call the week before Halloween inviting me for dinner and I offered to help her pass out the treats to the neighborhood kids.

My mother told me that as far back as she could remember my great grandmother loved to have trick-or-treaters come knocking on her door. Seeing all the cute little kids dressed up in their funky costumes and counting how many T&Ters she would have.

After we ate the very special dinner we sat in the living room catching up on life, comparing churches, and reliving old memories. My great grams and I would see the kids through the giant portrait window coming down the street in packs or with there parents and then we would here they famous doorbell ring. Grams would smile and say someone was at the door and I would hand out the candy. One of the neighborhood boys, who happens to be my professors son, takes out my great grandmother’s trash and when he came to the door with his sister she was so excited to see them. It is amazing to see how much joy a kids could bring. Seeing my great grams smile only brought joy to my heart as well. 

Without much candy to give we had to close up shop early but that was fine because it gave us more time to chat without interruption.

Halloween is supposed to be goblins and mischief but for me it was just a humbling time exchanging conversation with the women who is the reason I exist. 

Questions In The Cafeteria

Have you ever seen a movie where the main character is sitting in some crowded place for an extended period of time and while the main character stays stationary the people surrounding him are constantly moving and interchanging?  The filming is done in some sort of time-lapse trance and it is usually when the character is dealing with something.

I hope that makes since and that you can get a visual in your mind because today that character was myself.

I sat in the back left corner of my colleges’ school cafeteria on a ugly purple couch. I watched people walk in and walk out, some alone, others in groups, some franticly scarfing there food, others calmly doing there studies, it was interesting to sit there for a few hours just watching the come and go of it all.

When I walked in and sat down with my coffee I had no intention of photographing what I saw but with my ear buds blaring in my ears I escaped into the depths in my mind and I watched the people and there lives and my hands took over and I was capturing what was there in front of me.

Where is the story in this? Why is this important? If you’re taking the time to ask those questions why don’t you ask yourself why it isn’t important?

I became overcome with thought, the realization that life was happening and it wasn’t stopping, not for me not or for anyone was intense an feeling. It wasn’t stopping for the mother who wanted to further her education to perhaps better enhance her children’s future. It wasn’t stopping for the coffee maker that has worked in the cafeteria for countless months. It wasn’t stopping for the boy and girl sharing the first of many cups of coffee together. Life was around me and the difference in us all was undoubtedly there.

 

It was crazy to think we all inhabited the same room but at the same time we were just bodies filling up a room.

What connected us?

I imagined myself fading into the couch and I wondered if I disappeared if any head would turn. Would the almost couple beside me stop laughing or would the young boy in front on me look up from his text?  I also wondered the same thing about a girl wearing a cute brown jacket to my left if she faded into her bench would I have looked up and noticed?

In life weather we are munching on an apple under a tree or in a cafeteria do we ever take the time to step outside our minds and look at the world around us. I wondered about all the lives around me and I pondered at what made them tick or laugh. Could it be like a child in a sandbox who offers a shovel to the child beside them and suddenly they’re playmates for life… Could I go up to the girl in the cute brown jacket and ask to join her in this culture? Is friendship that simple as the sandbox effect when we grow older?

I walked out of the cafeteria looked over at the girl and thought about commenting on her outfit but in the end, a creature of habit, I simply walked out and carried about my business.  

Maybe next time…

If she has a next time…  

My Great Aunt's Place

Friendship Park

Friendship is such an inviting name for a park. The name gives you this preconceived notion that upon going or hanging out in this park that friendship will happen. If you were honest with yourself you would admit that if the park were given the name “Nemesis” or “Antagonist” it would not have the same curb appeal.

When I first saw the brown wooden sign that supported painted gold in all capped letters, FRIENDSHIP PARK, I thought to myself “what a silly name for a park!” But as the days grew into nights the park remained the same busy place and I began to spend time there. I watched as the basketball players played ball, the soccer players chasing the ever moving checker patterned blur, spaced out/over worried parents watching there kids on the playground equipment, the dog walkers, the runners and power walkers, old couples hand in hand, and young couples kissing.

This park, undeniably, was a place of friendship.

Winter turned into spring, spring to summer, and summer into fall, but no matter the season the flow of people in the park was always consistent.  I kept wondering what the park was like at night.

Was such a friendly park inviting at night as well?

So, a few nights back I packed up my camera gear and jaunted over the few blocks to the park from where I live I sat and I watched the mother’s talking life, kids screaming, skate borders…the park seemed full of life and zest, noise and familiarity, but as the sun went down, the park emptied one by one. It was sad in a way, watching as the wind swayed the empting swings back and forth.  The once lively park now seemed vast a desolate. The sound of the basketball players in the background seemed far away and cold. I was surprised to feel this way.  It simply felt wrong as I sat on the bench and observed what was happening, I could not leave so I lay down and watched the stars above wondering if life was on pause or if the isolated playground was simply asleep.

I stayed like that for a time, but then I walked around. Feeling the cold metal bars, the pinch of the chains on the swings, the rough bark laying still on the ground, a smile came across my face as I recognized that the park was not desolate or sad instead it was full of friendship and life just in a calmer way. I was still at rest and the weight of my world had somehow left.

The park had done its job, once again.

A park is there for the end of a chapter when you need a fresh beginning. It serves the purpose its called for, weather its for play, practice, or contentment. Weather its for a mass amount of people, young to old, or for one girl in the heart of night.

A park could just be a park, a place that was built for no other purpose then to be built. But what if we all took the time to see the beauty in what always seems so common? What if we found purpose in the ordinary?

I found it to be extraordinary.

My Neighborhood My City

Upon being asked about my neighborhood I found that I had trouble defining what neighborhood meant to me. Is it the place where I rest my head at night? Would it be the place I spend most of my time? Or, perhaps neighborhood is a place where you find rest and comfort. But in the end the answers to those questions did not satisfy me.

So what is neighborhood to me? As a twenty-one year old college student I find this question troubling. I have moved several times since high school from Seattle to Montana then a summer in the US. Virgin Islands, back to Montana, and here I am residing in Spokane Washington. Thou I live in a small basic apartment building now I am moving in a few weeks to a different part of Spokane. I hope you can see now why defining neighborhood is hard for me, a frequent mover.  I never stay in a place long enough to build a community and to create my neighborhood.

However, this past weekend I found myself walking around downtown Spokane with a friend and I realized that the city is my neighborhood. I saw the zeal of angry protesters and thou I didn’t understand fully what they were protesting for I was smiling because I was proud to be part of a passionate city. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was where I should be. I was no longer a wonderer but in a communal environment. I made friends, I have grown closer to my family, and I find that I am building my adult life, here. The scars of my past do not haunt me here and I am free to be the “me” I was always afraid be.  I have lived in the city of Spokane for almost a year and I can already tell that though I may switch apartments from time to time I wont be leaving Spokane for a while. While unrestricted, and free to do as I please, I have chosen to restrict myself to a place that I perhaps belong, at least for now.

The apartment I am at now is on the corner of one of the most dominant streets in the city, Division. I live behind a grocery store, my building is adjacent to a fire station, and I am in walking distance to a family park, the local Costco, and my favorite place to eat Noodle Express. I see people walking down the street and they smile or they look down but either way I feel close to them in some small way because I know that we are sharing more then just a walking place but a city and a home.

At times I will place my ear buds in and listen to my IPod while walking around the area. The church across the street usually has a steady flow of bodies coming in and out. On Thursday nights it’s a pack of giggling middle-aged women that must be leaving a Bible study.  A few blocks down the road is an elementary school and last night I saw a preteen girl face plant off her scooter I stopped to see if she was okay but by that time she was happy-go-lucky again and scooting along and a chuckle came from my lips as I shook my head. The fire station is always blaring the sound of rescue and behind the grocery store is usually a stack of busted shopping carts in pills of creative looking garbage.  

Maybe neighborhood is not that standard assumption that it is the houses around us or the white picket fence perhaps it is simply just where you are at when your restless heart begins settle. And here it is fall and the leaves and turning there colors and crumbling to the damp cold ground and I could not imagine being anywhere else. I am content.   

We Are Family

 

Something that will never go away is the love of your family members. Sure there are fights, disagreements, and sometimes even raw uncut hurt but somewhere in your heart you will always have a special love for them (even if it is way down deep).  

 

I found that in life I can always count on family for love and support especially when everything seem to fall apart. They offer smiles, laughs, and good conversation.

This past Sunday my family gathered together for lunch at the home of a very close relative, my Aunt Trish. It was a simple time some drank their beers and I drank my Sprite, they had their hamburgers and I had my veggie-burger.  

It dawned me as I sat in the corner of my aunt’s house that we would all be nothing without family. I smiled when I saw the ketchup hanging in the corner of my uncle’s mouth. Just beyond my uncles unattractive eating skills were my cousins tossing grapes on the floor with joyous grins; while my aunt’s and my grandma engaged in casual conversation about work stresses and the madness of life. Of course my grandpa was just silently watching as usual with a parma-grin on his face occasionally adding his funky little chuckle.

I realized that whether we our cutting up onions, talking over drinks, laughing over spilled grapes, we are a family. Maybe this concept seems natural to you but for me it is a reality that is slowly seeping in. I was raised in Montana and thou I always knew my family loved me I never really had a deep connection with then until I moved to Washington a year ago.  

My aunt took me under her wing and she became my sub-mamma and my uncle invited my to take photograph’s of the Combat Veterans Association, a group he is involved with. He even gave me a fishing vest with my biker name patch, ShutterBug, on it. It is beautiful really when your blessed enough to have your family become your friends. I know that with every graduation, death, birth, barbeque, we will always have each other.

I believe it is safe to say that Sunday was a darn good day!     

Happy 20th Birthday Jes

My best friend lives in PA while I live in WA so I decided to walk around downtown to ask if people would wish her happy birthday!

Restless

Lately I have been thinking about life and the value of it. We are all sitting in our own world fighting our own demons and weather we admit it or not we are usually thinking about ourselves. I know that some mornings my alarm buzzes (or if you prefer the term “beeps” my alarm beeps) and I stare at the neon green light silently screaming 5:45 am and I want to close my eyes and sleep away the day. Roll over on my side and take the day off to deal with all my crazy. But I just shut my eyes tight and say my prayer “Lord, help me make it through today.”

I make it sound as if my life is terrible when in fact my life is quite blessed. I intern at a church doing what I love, photography. And not only do I get the chance to photograph but I also get to explore graphics, web design, videography, and learning the life of ministry, everything I love wrapped up in one program. I have amazing parents, great friends, and food in my vegetarian stomach. But sometimes the past plays games with my head and I forget who I am now and how much I have overcome.

About a month ago I was driving to Safeway when a song came one the radio. It was the kind of song that makes you pause in your car on a busy day. The band Switchfoot calls the song Restless. So for a month I waited for the album to be released so I could analyze the song as well as the rest of the album (yes I am a music fanatic and have a vast collection on Itunes).

A few days ago the album was released and I have been listening to it repetitively.

I discovered that the album has powerful lyrics about life.

Pushing through the ceiling
Until the final healing
Looking for you

Until the sea of glass we meet
At last completed and complete
The tide of tear and pain subside
Laughter drinks them dry

I’ll be waiting
Anticipating
All that I aim for
What I was made for
With every heartbeat
All of my blood bleeds
Running inside me
Looking for you
Looking for you

I am restless, I am restless
I am restless, looking for you
I am restless, I run like the ocean to find your shore
I’m looking for you

I realized that I felt restless looking for something beyond myself and I couldn’t help but feel like we, as a population are restless as well. We are unsatisfied and searching for something real.

The lyrics from the song Thrive stuck to me as well….

I know that I'm not right
A steering wheel doesn't mean you can drive
A warm body doesn't mean I'm alive

No, I'm not alright
I know that I'm not right
Feel like I travel but I never arrive
I wanna thrive not just survive

Wonderment came over me and I kept wondering if I was thriving in my life or was just settling for the mundane? Am I restless and searching or am I thriving in my life?

I was still pondering this when I received an email from a young girl I mentor who has been dealing with cancer not once but twice in her intermediate family. I realized that we are stuck here on earth weather we like it or not and there will be things that knock us down, cause us to stumble, and there will also be joyous circumstances that happen.

I suppose I have felt the call to thrive in a life I feel restless in and when my alarm buzzes (beeps) tomorrow morning I will open my blue eyes and pray  “Lord, may you help me thrive today. I want to be all that I can be.”

I guess the question I am posing to you is: Are you surviving or thriving?