Want to go to Paris?

One of my remarkable roommates could offer the chance you've been waiting for!

Visit www.cargoofdreams.org to get a ticket!  It's a $10 donation, designated "First Class to Paris"  Buy for yourself, for friends, for family, and tell anyone else who might be interested!

Here's some of [my roommate] Gabrielle's story:

"I am excited to say I am working with an amazing organization called Cargo of Dreams. The faith-based non-profit uses peoples talents and passions here in the US to convert shipping containers into clinics, schools, community centers, and so on, for impoverished communities worldwide. It is an incredible network of people helping people and I feel blessed to be apart of it.

In addition to taking on the role of Director of the Department of Architecture, Cargo of Dreams will be a platform to do a pilot project of the construction system that I believe God laid on my heart during my thesis year. This is an amazing opportunity to see the potential of the system as it is implemented in areas of great need, but further, a way to show God’s love in a very tangible way. The construction system is quite simple, self-interlocking metal baskets [steel cage units] that can be filled with materials from in and around the project site.

The next few months are going to be quite exciting and I want you all to be apart of it too! We are raffling off 2 first-class, round trip tickets from NYC to Paris valued at $10,000. The funds raised will go directly toward designing, testing and implementing the hybrid construction system of shipping containers and steel cage units and will further continue the work of creating better conditions for those in developing countries."

Having seen Gabrielle hard at work in the throes of her thesis, and even having scavenged for materials for the prototype of these units myself, I am SO thrilled for this opportunity she has to put her design into the hands of folks who can run with it.  This raffle makes that work possible-- AND it gives you the opportunity to win 2 first-class tickets to Paris.  Your chance to win is 1 in 1,000.  The winner will be announced December 5th. 

Who wants to be my potential travel buddy?

Consuming Catastrophe -- & Amazement at Children

“Consuming Catastrophe: The Comedy of The Heart; A Play in Ate Parts”.

Kids wrote that.  For real.  Little kids.  Titling their art show at a local (Nashville) church.  Based on the parable of the mustard seed and the kingdom of heaven.

If you're in Nashville, you should go and tell me how it is!!!  Art Crawl.  Sept. 4, Downtown Presbyterian Church, 6pm.  Isn't the title intriguing enough?

It makes me want to think and write and reflect on the depth of what they're pointing to.  Really pretty incredible.  Much of what we take in (consume) is disastrous.  The awful manufactured foods we've gotten used to eating (watch "Food, Inc.").  The stuff we use as entertainment, whether it's fear-mongering or demeaning or doubting.  I'm thinking of the news and the movies, the magazines and TV shows.  We bring so much mess into our very beings-- some inadvertently pressed upon us, but most of it a voluntary response to our gnawing hunger for connection, significance or understanding.

It's a comedy in the same way Shakespeare constructs humor.  It's ridiculous to an extent that is truly sad.  I think of "The Taming of the Shrew" (hoping to see it at San Diego Shakespeare festival in a couple weeks!), and really, it's an atrocious concept.  In desperation to marry off the eldest daughter, a father pays a man to do whatever it takes.  The suitor/ groom takes a turn as a virtual ogre to turn a shrew into a lover.  Come on, it's absurd.  It's tragic.  It's an out-and-out brawl with human hearts and sensibilities at stake.  It's also pretty funny.  So, too, are our hearts engaged in comedic consumption.  We're a mess, concocting ridiculous solutions for ourselves.  Yet, we look at that mess, and as followers of Jesus, we somehow believe that the ending turns out well!  It's even a CLASSIC comedy, ending in marriage of Christ (the bridegroom) and his Church.

Hilarious as that is, we really don't need to take ourselves so seriously.  God invites us together to play and to eat the broken bread that truly nourishes.

I wish kids wrote things more often.

Life Humming, Blog Sputtering

The sun slides down to quietly close another day.  The weather is phenomenal-- I can almost imagine the dry air is part of autumn.  Palm trees mess up that image, but oh well.

Another day, and my to-do list still looms.  Instead of becoming the rare event of the month, it's now common to have several days a week completely full of meetings: churches, pastors, co-workers, friends.  Planning, praying, talking, exploring.  Here are some of the things on the docket (and my HOPE is to offer deeper profiles and information for you in future posts)----

-City College, with InterVarsity
-Third Avenue Charitable Organization (TACO)
-City Heights charter school & community center
-Bible study with some other young women nearby
-planning & leading a weekend prayer retreat
-supporting leadership at 2 local Presbyterian churches

Continuing to watch some irons in the fire: in Tijuana, at a local hospital, and with the Global Urban Trek. And renewing my energy for raising the financial support to keep it all going!