This site isn’t a platform to raise money.
That being said, we’re in the middle of raising money. If you’d like to hear the whole spiel, check out this page: We need your help.
If you’d like to read a more general update, check out this page: A snapshot of life and ministry in Phnom Penh.
OK, that’s about as close as I get to a “hard sell.” God bless, and happy (early) Friday!
all for ONE,
Jonathan
by Elizabeth
Only two songs have ever won all three major awards (Oscar, Golden Globe, Grammy) while being composed, written, and performed by a single artist. Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run,” the theme from the 1988 film “Working Girl,” was the first to do so.
Now, a few others have received all three awards but were co-written. One of those songs was Howard Shore’s, Fran Walsh’s, and Annie Lennox’s “Into the West,” the final song of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and an absolute family favorite. “Into the West” speaks to something so deep and true, so simultaneously melancholic and hopeful, that it’s no wonder it won all three awards.
But anyway, back to “Let the River Run.” I first heard the song not from the movie, but from my junior high choir director Mrs. Chaney (whom you may remember from last week’s musical contemplations). Simon described her song as an “anthem with a jungle beat.” And indeed it was the sound that first drew me in, not the density of the lyrics — lyrics I could not possibly have comprehended fully at the time.
Even so, something in those words was stretching out and reaching for me. And I think it’s safe to say that, having won all those awards, the song spoke to deep, cracking places inside a lot of people. Of course there are layers of meaning here — some more material, some more spiritual.
And I’m still not sure I understand the song in its entirety, but I understand bits of it. I know it’s about dreams and desires. I know it’s about longing and risk. I know it’s about waking up and about waking up others. I don’t think you have to understand every part of the song anyway. It’s not necessarily for understanding but — like all art — for feeling.
Speaking of art, you all know I am no artist; I cannot even draw stick figures. But this semester I found myself teaching an art class in our home school coop. (In actuality, I’m substituting for the real art teacher until she gets back into town.) I love numbers, patterns, and designs, so I figured we could explore the intersection of math and art together.
In preparing for this class I used some old material but also sought out new material. One of the new art projects I stumbled upon was the Pi Sky Line. While the New York City skyline (complete with Twin Towers) is the setting for the song “Let the River Run,” the Pi Sky Line is a city skyline whose building heights are based on the first 30 digits of pi.
Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. And it’s an irrational number, which means its decimals go on and on forever, never terminating and never repeating. There are no patterns to its digits, and there is no end either: it is infinity captured in a single number.
After you create your sky line, you paint or draw a background for it. And bringing this conversation full circle here, I knew I could not draw any background but Van Gogh’s night sky: “The Starry Night.” It was a painting I first encountered in Mrs. Chaney’s class. And this photo is the finished product. For me it is the intersection of art, music, math, literature and, most importantly, my soul in motion.
Educational thinker Charlotte Mason said, “Education is the science of relations,” and each week Mrs. Chaney assigned us a “Connection” paper. We had to connect something in her class to something in the rest of our lives. Every week we did this. She may not have known of Charlotte Mason’s century-old philosophy, but she knew that brain science supported the idea of interdisciplinary studies. Maybe that’s why, all these years later, the soundtrack of her class is still playing in my life.
Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.
Silver cities rise,
The morning lights
The streets that meet them,
And sirens call them on
With a song.
It’s asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.
We’re coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.
We the great and small
Stand on a star
And blaze a trail of desire
Through the dark’ning dawn.
It’s asking for the taking.
Come run with me now,
The sky is the color of blue
You’ve never even seen
In the eyes of your lover.
by Jonathan
A tiny casket.
White lace.
Autumn sun.
Tearful community.
Perhaps more than any of my other siblings, Laura Beth’s short life and early death changed mine.
The death of a little one changes things. It always changes things.
It’s a giant slap in the face, wakening those near that things are not as they should be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I slow down long enough, I begin to feel the undercurrent of real sadness. It’s there. It’s always there.
Sweet Laura Beth. I love you.
I miss you.
Yes, there is joy, there is laughter, and there is hope. There is also a deep — almost foundational — sadness.
Unanswered questions. Gaps. Unfulfilled longings. Dissipated relationships.
And sometimes the Psalm just ends.
by Jonathan
You’re probably going to leave the field.
Someday, somehow, the vast majority of us will say goodbye, pack up, cry tears of joy or sorrow or both, and depart.
How will that work out for you?
Well, frankly, I have no idea. But I do know that there are some things you can do to prepare to leave and some things you can do to prepare to arrive. And while a cross-cultural move is stressful no matter which direction you’re going, knowing some of what to expect and how to prepare really can help.
The first part of this article deals with Leaving Well, while the second part deals with the oft-overlooked importance of Arriving Well.
In Arriving Well, we’ll look at
– Embracing your inner tourist,
– Making movie magic,
– Identifying your needs, and of course,
– Grieving
We’ll wrap up with an Arrival Benediction, which is a prayer for you, the transitioner, from the bottom of my heart.
Click here to read the full post.
by Elizabeth
Rejection. I hate it. I hate the feeling. And I was feeling it again recently. In a major way. So I searched through my journals till I found an entry from over a year ago. It was the notes from a sermon Tim Krenz preached to the graduating seniors. The ideas helped me so much that I re-copied my notes into my current journal, and now I’m going to share them with you. It’s based out of the words of Jesus in Luke 10.
“Whenever you enter someone’s home, first say, ‘May God’s peace be on this house.’ If those who live there are peaceful, the blessing will stand; if they are not, the blessing will return to you. Don’t move around from home to home. Stay in one place, eating and drinking what they provide. Don’t hesitate to accept hospitality, because those who work deserve their pay.
“If you enter a town and it welcomes you, eat whatever is set before you. Heal the sick, and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you now.’ But if a town refuses to welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘We wipe even the dust of your town from our feet to show that we have abandoned you to your fate. And know this—the Kingdom of God is near!’”
Tim offered the graduates a handy little acronym for dealing with rejection: GRAD. It stands for:
GO
REMEMBER
ANTICIPATE
DETERMINE
Here’s how we can deal with the rejection we so much long to forget:
We GO out into the world like the disciples of long ago.
We REMEMBER who we are and what we have — God’s Word and God’s Spirit.
We ANTICIPATE rejection — whether it’s unfounded or not, we cannot avoid it.
Lastly, we DETERMINE ahead of time how we will respond: by shaking even the dust of that rejection off our feet. Even down to the last bit of dust, we will not carry it around with us, because we remember that even when man rejects us, God has not rejected us. We don’t call down fire from heaven on our rejectors like the Sons of Thunder wanted to do in the previous chapter (Luke 9:54). No, we do not take that rejection up: we shake, shake, shake it off.
You may also be interested in what I wrote about rejection a couple years ago.
Jonathan & Elizabeth Trotter 