Candid Canvas

<-au-oo-bri
(the brits can't say it)

j-gaz->
(and the new mohawk)

<-p-bone
(posing is a serious business)

chello->
(caught reading steinbeck)

those are our superhero names, of course. top secret.

some snapshots of this last week:

thursday

taking the smelly out of selly:

clean-up day, the sequel

robert hits the jackpot.

thursday night
vodbull
(joy of my life)

(just kidding)

friday night
the night we've all been anticipating,

the explosive culmination of everything we've been working for this semester, the moment of truth...

we are canvas.

(helen and i)

(transatlantic...my multitasking skills put to the test)

(wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for

the LORD. psalm 27:14)

He is risen. (He is risen indeed.)

So let me tell you how Aubri and I tried to make Easter special. Little team (Josh, Patrick, Aubri, me) was on our own; big team (Natalie, Robert, Kevin, Leah, Nathan) made their own plans and we didn't see them all weekend after the party.
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Aubri thought to make Easter baskets for the boys, so she and I bought some Cadbury chocolate and random toys and made...well, Easter pots, actually. (Who has money for baskets?) We made them for each other too; planted them outside our door Sunday morning, went and planted the boys', and came back and pretended to be surprised.

I took dinner up on my own; bought groceries and did most of the prep work on Saturday. So I was a little daunted, being in charge of a holiday meal for the first time...especially having to use ovens that don't have temperature indicators and needing onlineconversion.com (millileters to cups) during the whole cooking process. I danced in Sainsbury's when I actually found french fried onion rings after scouring the store twice over. The meal: grilled chicken breasts, fried potatoes, green bean casserole (with fresh green beans!), and strawberry-spinach salad. The plan: eat together mid-afternoon and watch Narnia later on. Even though the ovens made it complete guesswork, it was amazingly successful! But more on that later.

The four of us plus Joel (a friend of theirs from Georgia) and Sarah(Josh's girlfriend; she missed her flight that morning) went to Pavilion, our home church, Sunday morning. It takes an hour to get there after walking to Selly Oak train station (speedwalking through 30 degree wind), taking the train to King's Norton, walking around to the church, ect, but this church family has been so welcoming to our whole team. It was good to worship God together!

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A woman recruited me last-minute to help serve communion...family-style; I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily I got the wine glass, so I heard the bread boy say "The body of Christ, broken for you" and that was all the cue I needed. :) Actually, it was incredibly special to have the privilege of serving communion. Thank you, Jesus, for that symbolism that connects us with each other and with you. How precious it is! Aubri had told me about a really meaningful time she experienced communion a couple years ago in her campus ministry on Easter, so when it was her turn I changed the script to repeat the words she remembers from that day:

He is risen.

She smiled back. (He is risen indeed.)

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Now we get to the point of this long-winded telling. The six of us take the train back to Selly Oak and, naturally, in this five-minute window in this deserted student neighborhood, we run into our friend Ben. Unexpected? Yes. Coincidence? No way. We invite him over for dinner.

I run over to Tesco (our handy petrol station/corner market next door) and buy two big packs of rolls and get to cooking. Aubri picks up some unflavored gelatin and cream to make her own cool-whip (which doesn't exist here) and sets about making dessert. Ben calls--can Chris come too? The five people I was planning on cooking for have turned into eight.

Can I be honest? At this point, I'm thinking- I just wanted the four of us to have a day off! Be on our own; try and make this day special since we're obviously missing home a little; celebrate God and what He's done here. And- okay, how is this going to be enough food??

We cleaned up the cafe room and all sat down to eat together. Aubri had a piece of leftover chicken she had in the fridge so the others each had one and everybody ate plenty. No twelve basketfuls leftover or anything, but I'm inclined to think that God multiplied our food (and made it good, because it was wonderful, and I'm no pro).

Best of all...we just sat around the table together. It's a picture that will never be erased from my mind's eye, the eight of us sitting around talking and laughing...being a family.

Aubri and I stood in the kitchen with the space heater listening to Iron and Wine after cleaning up the dishes. "How do you think we'll tell this story?" "Years down the road, talking about the Easter in England...about Easter pots and no cool-whip..." (About how beautiful Jesus is. About how privileged we are to serve Him here right now. About how we're lost without Him and that's why we can never turn anyone away from our door.) And we just stood with coffee in hand while the heater tried to sweep some of the cold from under our feet, understanding deeply and storing the understanding away for later recollection.

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We joined the boys in the front room to catch the end of the football game. Ben had to leave at that point, but Chris stayed to watch Narnia with us. My favorite line comes at the end of the movie when Tumnas says to Lucy: "After all, He is not a tame lion." She replies: "No...but He is good." It's at that point that two girls from Globalscope Spain arrive (more houseguests!!) and things get chaotic, so I make Patrick rewind it and play that part again, thinking out loud that it's my favorite description of God. What a movie.
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Chaos resumes at the credits as people are hugging, making introductions, being loud and excited, and somehow in the middle of that Chris and I end up in the kitchen talking about God. Really talking. And he remarks at some point: "You know, I said to Ben earlier...it was actually really cool to spend Easter with people for whom it means something more than chocolate eggs."

What can you say to that?

Late that night...Aubri and I are sitting on my bed; I've been crying a little bit, stressed and tired from the week, missing home, feeling a little abandoned by the big team. But she brings it home for me. Because whatever our plans were for the day, they couldn't hold a candle to what God had in mind. Because what we're celebrating on Easter is actually a sacrifice that sets the example for our whole lives. Because love is someth ing that makes people the primary agenda and lets everything else go; it gets under our skin and makes us want to pull another chair up to the table and wash dishes for hours after a house party and sit on the floor so somebody can have the spot on the couch.

Love died in my place and makes me alive inside.

He is risen indeed.

(Happy Easter.)

i just love God. that is all.

And this is the week. The insane final week of term. Good Friday is the last day of lectures and our massive party (pray!!), and then a lot of people head home for five weeks or so to do the studying they've not done all term and write massive papers. Exams begin in May.

As I'm writing, the guys are downstairs playing poker. It's officially a weekly event, I guess, so pretty soon all that testosterone will drive me out of the house and to the Bristol Pear to hear some bands and see some friends.

Things have been a little packed and crazy for me the past five days, and really, it's kind of amusing--this is the life I/we live all the time in the States, and for some reason everybody's okay with it. Not so here. I've had some breathing room, some serious relationship time, and it was definitely a shock to have even a couple of days with back-to-back responsibilities and plans. It doesn't help, I guess, that last week I went to bed pretty consistently around 3 am.

So I'm a little frayed around the edges.

But this morning, little team met with Natalie and we spent some time talking through the story in Acts about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Listening to the Holy Spirit. Dang. There's just no way that wasn't an awkward way to start a conversation! Really--run alongside his chariot? This prestigious government official?

But that's all he had to do. The eunuch had the questions already, he just needed somewhere to direct them. "How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?"

So one final push this week; we're all shot, and we've got a lot of house guests this week, which makes things even more chaotic. But I want to listen to the Holy Spirit and run alongside the chariot. God will make the impression and open the doors if I'm available and obedient.

By the way...I couldn't have foreseen the amazing friendships that would unfold after only two months. There are people in my life now that will never be out of it, and I love them like crazy. Really talented, driven, goofy, wonderful people. Pray for them. Please. Because I love them and don't know how many people are going to God on their behalf.

My friend Helen tells me that I have "an infectious lust for life."

How could I not? (And how cool that she thinks so!) I have all the love in the universe listening patiently to me ramble and pouring into me (and going to the cross on my behalf...thanks, Jesus, if the word doesn't sound too trivial).

I just want that for everybody.

But wow, need prayer this week. And it's reciprocated--I know you guys are in a whirlwind of your own. I love you so much.

i thank you God for most this amazing day

It's an e. e. cummings poem.

Here's a pic taken on just such a day, at a Selly park. I was never very good at monkey bars.

I'm sitting in our cafe room, drinking decaf coffee and listening to the Weepies, staring out the window onto Bristol traffic and sunshine. It's five in the afternoon. Thoughtful.

Last night was amazing...a time to go down in Canvas history and pull out when things are discouraging. We all went to the Soak, and at some point I stepped back and realized that, between us, we knew most of the people in the pub. The usual music crowd, the CS guys, Patrick's surfer friends were there playing pool, some students Nat and Robert are friends with, and some randoms we met as the night went on. The place was packed. My good friend Jessie (and housemate from last fall) has been here a couple days on her way to live in France for awhile, which was SO great, and she took all the rest of these awesome pics. Transatlantic played at half ten; we did eight songs (a couple of mine, too) mid-open mic and drew everybody together. Really, really good set! Great reactions, as usual. I've never had so much fun.

Well, a couple of Robert's friends were there; they work at a radio station and asked us to play live next week, so that's on the calender, as well as hopefully a gig at the Gild on campus, which would be a completely new crowd of students from what we're used to.

The amazing thing is that this seems to be the connecting link between all our groups. Everyone comes together to hang out at open mic. We've been brainstorming about an end-of-term party to throw before Easter, and we've decided to try to rent out upstairs in the Pear--have TA play a couple hours, there's a bar up there, then get on the mic and invite everyone back to the house for free food. Please pray that this works. :)

Other things to fill you guys in on:

-A couple weeks ago Saturday we picked up trash around Selly Oak. We'll do it again in a couple weeks and invite people we think would care about that kind of thing...and, of course, just show the community that we care.

-Last Tuesday night about 15 guys (including ours) were here to play poker. The hallway smelled like man all night...but despite this, it was awesome. Guys met each other from different groups, they met Kevin and Robert, and some of them heard about what Canvas is and didn't freak out. Thanks God!!

-Tonight about 8 or 9 people are coming over for movie night. I'm a tiny bit nervous.

-Term ends at Easter, then students are off for 5 weeks to study and write papers until exams begin at the end of April. We're trying to plan some trips with some of our friends and definitely feeling the pressure to be everywhere all the time before a lot of people go home!

You should also know that the other day in a meeting, Natalie asked the four of us to make a list of all the students we knew between us (excluding students the big team know).

About 120.

Can someone say...God?

Happy Mum's Day

I'd better buy a card now, because they won't have any come May. Happy 18th birthday, Lauren! You're legal to drink! (well, here...)

This is a picture from the Colosseum. Absolutely insane. More on that later.

Yesterday (Sunday) morning, I went for a run. I'm greedy on sunny days, soaking in as much as possible. I took a different route, braving the rows of ugly student housing units to get to a park I knew of. There, in contrast to the out-of-town or hung-over deadness of the streets, were some families and boys playing football. Life. I was beginning to doubt. Fortunately for me, the playground was unoccupied. So I took off my ipod and played on the swings.

I think swinging might be the very best time to talk to God.

I felt at home. I pumped myself up into the clouds and watched some seagulls fly nearby; I thought: I guess if seagulls are dumb enough to make it to the midwest US, they might decide to hang out in the westmidlands UK. I thought: I guess I'm on an island, aren't I. How in the world did that happen? I thought: England really is beautiful sometimes.

I meet my days with expectations. I live them peacefully. Sometimes I do nothing important at all besides wash dishes and practice music and swing at the park. And even though I have a bad habit of letting this inner dialog run sometimes that usually has to do with me focusing on my mistakes and weaknesses, I'm shutting it off today. Forget it. That is a ridiculous waste of time.

God is present in my life when He doesn't have to be. Buechner wrote: "All moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."

I would like to shift my focus today away from myself and onto the God that shows up in the cleaning and swinging to meet with me. He makes my days beautiful. I want people to know Him.

There's no humility in focus on my weaknesses, only short-sightedness. I'm reading Daniel right now, and in chapter 10 Gabriel comes to him and says: "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them."

Self-deprication is false humility. Anything that draws my attention inward and holds it there probably isn't really pleasing to God. Maybe humility is just being so in awe of God that I forget myself for awhile.

This was on my heart today. Off to class now; I'll fill you in later on more of what's being going on and, you know, the little trip to Rome. :)