art :)

Here are a couple of my latest pieces. The first is a landscape of my backyard fence and woods area. Done in india ink wash. The second is my final project titled "Modern Day Glinda" inspired by the Musical Wicked along with a miss robert. You can check her out at http://morethancanaries.blogspot.com/

It was done in graphite and sharpie :)

thanks for checkin it out, peeps!

taDOW!

Okay okay. So today was a good day overall. However, it could have been a tad bit more productive. Story of my life! haha. I watched Pride and Prejudice AGAIN. Why am i such an anomaly of the male population? haha. Anyways, i made a trip to hobby lobby and bought some matte board to mount some of my art and such. I just recently picked back up on reading The Screwtape Letters :) Great book. I'm supah dupah glad to be reading it again!

In terms of JESUS, here it goes......This past week has been AMAZING! I've discovered so much joy that is found in Christ. Basically, i've come to a huge realization. I've recently realized that while being the total epic fail human being that i am, I'm still a work in progress. No matter how many times i ask God why He doesn't deliver me from the craziness of the world, He is still working in me and His grace is sufficient for me until that day of completion. SIGH. Relief. That's the GOD that i serve! The One that treasures our relationship. The One that, after capturing our hearts, leads us down the path of holiness, convicting us, and welcoming us in His fatherly embrace whenever we realize how helpless we are without Him. AMEN!!!!

I really don't feel like going one more day in my english class. Now it's at the point where we're just putting together some lame portfolio for the exam. lame lame lame. But oh well. My final art project got put into a show. Whoop whoop. So that's good. I posted on my other blog today as well. In preparation of this summer's musical, FOOTLOOSE, i realized that i hadn't stretched in a couple of weeks. I stretched for a good half an hour. My legs shook for about two hours afterwards! yikes. But i'm excited! My monologue is, not so ironically, about someone obsessed and intrigued with love. Someone captivated by its power but also bitter towards love of the unrequited sort. It's awesome. So i'm super pumped!

"If It Kills Me" by Jason Mraz

"Hello, tell me you know
Yeah, you figured me out
Something gave it away
It would be such a beautiful moment
To see the look on your face
To know that I know that you know now

And baby that's a case of my wishful thinking
You know nothing
Well you and I
Why, we go carrying on for hours on end
We get along much better
Than you and your boyfriend

Well all I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me

How long, can I go on like this,
Wishing to kiss you,
Before I rightly explode?
This double life I lead isn't healthy for me
In fact it makes me nervous
If I get caught I could be risking it all

Cause maybe there's a lot that I miss
In case I'm wrong

If I should be so bold
I'd ask you to hold my heart in your hand
I'd tell you from the start how I've longed to be your man
But I never said a word
I guess I'm gonna miss my chance again

All I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
I think it might kill me

And all I really want from you is to feel me
Yeah, the feeling inside keeps building
I'll find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
It might kill me "

This is one of my favorite songs. I think the basis of its appeal is mostly the reality of its content. Jason Mraz is a stinkin beast anyway. You should check it out.

flip book project!

Finally finished my flip book for ART 151- 2D Design. I used Adobe Illustrator. It was really hard so don't make fun! Oh, and i totally SUCK at actually "performing" the flip books! I think my thumbs are just ghetto or something haha

.....stress: relieved!

oooookay. So basically this past week was full of questions in my head. If you are anything like myself, you get in this slump and don't really feel motivated to seek answers for these questions. You write it off as something that you aren't "supposed to know." There are many questions that i feel definitely fall within this category. However, towards the end of the week i experienced a little something called gumption! i told myself, "Dillon, get over yourself and go to God with these questions!"

What a better place to look than one's own friends?! My bible study group couldn't have come at a more perfect time! My bible study leader just recently made a very huge decision in his life. Very huge! One that usually takes about two years to decide. He's made it in about three months. When he shared it with me and the rest of the fellahs, i began to worry. Being the child of Mona Chustz, i look at everything in terms of the consequences and i always want to make sure that the step i take is a step for the better. Nothing is insanely wrong about that. Except if you're a christian haha.

I consulted with my best friend, Mr. Smith, about the decisions and questions in my like presently. He realized how apprehensive i was to taking even the first step. He knows how i work. He knew that he would have to decompress so many layers of fear and doubt. And of course, being the genius that he is, he just plainly told me, "Dillon, if this is ordained by God to happen, then NOTHING that you do is going to mess it up!" AHH! I'm always so quick to point out if something is or is not supposed to happen; whether something is meant to be. Yet, this somehow must have slipped my mind! DUH! Of course if it's "supposed to happen" then there is no way that i can mess it up! If the creator of the universe has something in store for me, it WILL happen. My clumsiness, my accident-prone nature, my chronic case of diarrhea of the mouth, nothing can keep that from happening! Stress: Relieved!

"You care for the land and water it;

you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
to provide the people with grain,
for so you have ordained it." -Psalm 65:9

"your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be." -Psalm 139:16

Also, as Mr. Max Lucado helped me to realize, while i am going through such a confusing and frustrating time in my life, i CANNOT allow it to hinder my witnessing of grace! I can't allow these issues to take my focus away from the issues that other people are facing and how urgent it is that i go to them and be a servant!

There is no exaggeration in expressing how grateful i am to have a God and Savior who knows the plans for my life. Someone who keeps me on track even though i keep falling off of it!

I suggest two songs this week" "Your Hands" by JJ Heller and "Healing in Your Hands" by Christy Nockels :)

Below are pictures that have recently made me happy :)

undressed........

Confusion sucks. Really, it does. It may perhaps be one of the most dangerous emotions that man is capable of experiencing. It scrambles. It frustrates. It annoys. It destroys. Of this particular emotion, i am an expert.

There are two different ways to deal with confusion: Give in and give up, or Give in and push on blindly.

These can almost be considered equally bad. Giving up is obviously a foolish move. However, the thought of going into anything blindly also causes uneasiness. Sadly, the former is one of my good friends. When i'm confused i often mentally give up. I find a loophole to the problem. One thing that i've learned about God is that confusion is one of His greatest enemies. For the most part, confusion has been about big decisions, picking the right college, scheduling classes, and simply deciding which way to turn next. Confusion often hangs on you like really heavy clothing. You try to get your mind off of it and accept the fact that it doesn't fit. Yet, the folds still drag the ground, it makes you sweat, and you end up having to hold it up and carry it in order to get through the day without tripping and completely falling on your face.

What about those of us who have confusion about little aspects of God? Or even the large aspects? Let's face it. God is pretty huge. In fact, He is THE biggest thing in all of creation. And you are confused?! SACRILEGE!
It is easy to become confused when building a relationship with God. Satan uses confusion as a tool to block us from the true understanding of the love of our Father in heaven. Satan knows that the more we do not understand it, the more we will turn to things that we DO understand-the world. Not good.

I have never before considered being undressed to be a part of growing in my relationship with God. My first instinct when pursuing holiness is to put on more; to put on more and more armor so that i won't be defeated by the world. Overtime, what we may think is armor may actually be false notions that only feed our confusion.

In C.S. Lewis' Narnian Chronicle, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, young and curious Eustace wanders into a cave filled with treasures of all kinds. One treasure in particular is a bracelet that he puts on and is instantly turned into a dragon. Filled with pain, Eustace doesn't know what to do. What he thought the bracelet would bring him has only turned out to be pain, pain, and more pain. Aslan, the God figure in the Narnian Chronicles, comes to Eustace. After Eustace's numerous attempts to fix the issue himself, Aslan tells him, "You will have to let me UNDRESS you," and it says that "He tears the dragon-skin off Eustace like it's a huge scab." This makes so much sense!
Basically:
We keep trying to talk ourselves into spiritual comfort, picking our wounds of confusion, until we are covered with scabs. God calls to us. He undresses us of all of these scabs. He cleanses us. His word commands us to be transformed by the REnewing of our minds. Flush out the old notions of how you can become a better whatever. God's word tells us all that we need to be. Always look to that, and you will never be confused about such matters again. How wonderful that just the breath of our God can wash away the sap that so often keeps us stuck in one place. Pushing through blindly way be a scary thought, but it is the true test of our faith.

"Come close to God, and God will come close to you." James 4:8

christus nos liberavit

Not really sure what the above phrase means.....it's the title of a chapter of Les Misérables from which i am about to quote.

The following quote really struck me. It applies to present times as well as the nineteenth century which this novel was based....

"What is this story of Fantine about? It is about society buying a slave.
From whom? From misery.
From hunger, from cold, from loneliness, from desertion, from privation. Melancholy barter. A soul for a piece of bread. Misery makes the offer; society accepts.
The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization but it does no yet permeate it. They say that slavery has disappeared from European civilization. That is incorrect. It still exists, but now it weighs only on women and it is called prostitution.
It weighs on women, that is to say, on grace, fraility, beauty, motherhood. This is not the least among man's shames." -Victor Hugo


This past January i attended the Passion 2010 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. There were many foreign ministry opportunities for everyone to get involved with. One in particular was that of human trafficking and prostitution across the globe. Here are a few facts i learned from their representatives.

-Most "sexual markeplaces" in the middle east contain about 200,000 sex slaves. That's more than the population of Salt Lake City.
-Last year the slave trade made $32 billion. That is more than Nike, Google, and Starbucks combined.
-There are currently more slaves in the world than at any point in human history.
-A girl in Indian Brothels will undergo 12-14 abortions in two years.

Time to wake up to the presence of injustice, especially for women around the world. It is time that we accept our responsibility as to seek out the orphans and widows of the world, especially those in slavery, and give them a second chance at freedom. Check out the Passion2010 website for more information on all of the DoSomethingNow campaigns!