coin laundry part deux.

here.

1 corinthians 9:26

"But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for." -Paulo Coelho
image: papertissue

image: papertissue

Yesh. oo. ah.

"You are saying about this city, 'by the sword, famine and plague it will be handed over to the king of Babylon'; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul."
jeremiah 32:36-41
image: papertissue

epic faith...

is what marks this man, James Kim. For several years now, my pastor has been telling me the story of his remarkable friend and today I found him on CNN Money. He's founding Pyongyang University of Science & Technology...the first private university in the communist country, North Korea. This is remarkable. In a country that has always portrayed the outside world as dangerous and a threat, this humble man of gargantuan faith is doing what anyone else would not dare to do. You can read the CNN article that goes into great detail of the incredible story here. The crazy thing about this man is that he would typically be considered a great threat to all North Korean principles. He's a South Korean immigrant that came to the States and found success as a businessman that chased after and abided by the ideals of American Capitalism. He's also an evangelical Christian. That's why in 1998, the secret police actually imprisoned Kim. He suffered for 40 days in the prison, being told he would die there. Now, more than ten years later...he will be founding the country's first private university that will make giant strides in opening up the rest of the world to a country that's hid itself away for decades.


Here's a brief excerpt describing the greatness of this success: "The school will have an international faculty educating, eventually, around 600 graduate students. Kim dreams ultimately of hosting an industrial park around the PUST campus, drawing firms from around the world -- a North Korean version, as bizarre as it sounds, of Palo Alto or Boston's Route 128.
There will be Internet access for all, connecting the students to an outside world that they've heretofore been instructed is a hostile and dangerous place. And among the six departments will be a school of industrial management."

What strikes me even more though....is not even the success of this University, but the testimony of this man. It's crazy.

"When James was 15 years old, he tried to enlist in the army as the Korean War broke out, but a recruiter first turned him away as too young. "I cut my finger and wrote in blood, 'I love my country,'" so the recruiter changed his mind and accepted him. He joined an army unit of 800, and by 1952 only 17 remained. The rest had been killed.

Until that point, Kim had not himself been particularly religious. He had watched his grandfather "persecute" his father for his conversion to Christianity. But on the battlefield one night, Kim read from the Gospel of St. John, which had been passed out by a U.S. Army chaplain to the troops who remained. Having watched so much of his unit get wiped out, it was verse 3:16 that spoke to him: "That whosoever shall believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Then and there, says Kim, "I vowed to God to work with the Chinese and the North Koreans -- then our enemies. I would devote my life to it, if I survived the war." "

Epic faith....57 years later...Pyongyang University of Science & Technology begins. James Kim & North Korea=David & Goliath version 2009.
photos & quote from: CNN MONEY.com; article by: Bill Powell

the hometapes house.

SXSW 2009 _ The Hometapes House from vincent moon / temporary areas on Vimeo.

life.

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!

A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life!
-paul laurence dunbar.

i would live in your love.

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;

I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads.

-sara teasdale.

volcano choir.

done for. is me.

cliche.

i went through a few months where i soaked up all of the books and songs that all kind of sounded and looked alike. they all told me how i should feel and what i should think. i nodded along and was comforted that others had experienced similar confusion and frustration...i was comforted that others had felt a similar pain. i told a friend that it was crazy how all those cliche phrases that i had once scoffed at, presently came spilling through my own lips. she told me that was the beauty of our common human experiences...that there was a reason why cliches became cliche.

and though i still think that there's brilliant beauty in that, there's something i've missed out on. i was recently sitting with my cello and wondering why i felt such a deep gratitude towards it. i realized that it's because my cello never tells me how i should feel. instead, i'm able to play what i'm not able to say. through my cello i'm able to express all those things that i don't have an answer for yet. i've realized that in the course of being comforted through other's stories, i've fallen into a well of commiserating, and in that well, i was surrendering the pen that writes my story. i was letting my story drown in the hundreds and thousands of other stories that were beautiful, but certainly not my own.

i recently saw lymbyc systym play live and realized that i like my music without words. my heart will always flutter for brilliant songwriting, but i like it when music, every once in a while, just tells me to feel & think rather than telling me what to feel & think. i've resolved in my heart to take back the pen and write my own story again.

so far...two words have been clearly written.

"practice resurrection."

image: papertissue

montreal on my mind.

Plants and Animals - A Take Away Show - Bye Bye Bye from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

proud to be a texan.

i'm contemplating a move back to Texas just to live in a home crafted by the brilliant mr. dan phillips. these homes are some of the most unique, well-crafted, and gorgeous creations i've seen. mr. phillips creates these homes out of materials that he collects in landfills and other people's waste. read the article here, and see his creations here. (take note of the cork floor, storybook house roof and the osage wood counter. stunning.)


then there's this. back in 2005, berlin artists michael elmgreen and ingar dragset had an idea to install a prada store in the middle of the west texas desert, close to marfa. the idea was for it to be freestanding in the middle of the desert and to let it stand as a relic. one of the funders noted that, "we loved the idea of the piece being born on oct. 1 and that it will never again be maintained. if someone spray-paints graffiti or a cowboy decides to use it as target practice or maybe a mouse or a muskrat makes a home in it, 50 years from now it will be a ruin that is a reflection of the time it was made."


then there's this beautiful video by la blogotheque down in marfa, tx. jose gonzalez. wow.



#SPLIT 13.2 - José Gonzalez - Storm
by lablogotheque

so in other words....texas, i kind of miss you. coming to see you soon...