Portland Studios

10 Recommendations

Granted, you'd have to share my taste before I could truly recommend these songs, but I thought I'd share some of the music that I am most resonating with right now. I'm attracted to each for different reasons, but the theme is probably that that they all have a sense of sincerity and gravity. Each deals with the our human struggle. Each has expection of something good coming that's upon us, but just not quite here yet. I guess you'll see from this list that my tastes run pretty light.

"When Will I Run"
Photographs
Andrew Osenga

"I Want A Broken Heart"
I See Things Upside Down
Derek Webb

"One For Sorrow, Two For Joy"
Befriended
The Innocence Mission

"So Long, Moses"
Behold the Lamb of God
Andrew Peterson

"Jungle Trail"
Me Died Blue
Steven Delopoulos

"After The Last Tear Falls"
Love and Thunder
Andrew Peterson

"Falling"
One Moment More
Mindy Smith

"World Keeps On Spinning"
The Overflow
Taylor Sorensen

"Age After Age"
Best Laid Plans
Sandra McCracken

"She Must And Shall Go Free"
Indelible Grace III: For All The Saints
Sandra McCracken

Transparency

It seems this word is coming up more and more in my thinking and conversation. The quickest way to end transparency is self-righteousness. The quickest way to end self-righteousness is transparency. I firmly believe that if we really understood and lived out real openness about our sin and our struggles, we would take away one of our flesh's most powerful weapons. This is no new revelation to many of you I'm sure---merely something I'm personally learning a lot more about.

Cate

This is a photo that Cate, my girlfriend, sent me of herself in South Africa. I'm very thankful for her. She's become a better and better friend since I met her last March. I'll leave the personal type notes mainly for her eyes only though. :)

Clean up

Today was a pretty refreshing day. I was able to stay at my apartment for most of the day to clean up. At some point you can't let the urgent crowd out the important----like cleaning floors, going through old papers, dishes, etc...A friend of mine has wireless nearby at his apartment, so thanks to him I was still able to stay on my email (and some design work) throughout the day.

Working on my own has given me a greater realization of the importance of discipline in my life. Sometimes the discipline is created by throwing your hat over the fence. In my case, that means inviting people over---so I have to keep my apartment managably clean. That also means that in order to get up at a normal hour, I make myself meet people for breakfast. It's been great to talk with like-minded guys early in the morning about things we're growing in, our struggles, etc. I'm reading through When I Don't Desire God with Rob Elkin. We meet every Friday morning at Starbucks to talk about 2 more chapters.

Thank God for real Christian fellowship.

Nashvegas

I just got back last night from Nashville, TN, where the CBA Advance convention was held. The week was full of interesting meetings and opportunities. (I realize interesting isn't an interesting word, but I'll use it anyway.) Portland Studios (Mainly Jamin Jantz and I had the chance to meet with many different publishers---Waterbrook Press, Barbour Books, Broadman & Holman, Tommy Nelson, Standard Publishing, Kregel, as well as some other publishers and designers. Met with Justin Areyns from Rule 29 and Kirk DouPonce from Dog-Eared Design. We had just finished a project with Kirk, so it was great just talking about how that had gone, and chatting about how he works. We're working on some potential of doing a poster for Blood: Water Mission. They're seeking to dig 1000 wells across Africa in order to help slow the spread of AIDS. Clean water that people can trust is a major advance in these disease-ridden countries. The trip finished up with a quick trip to Big Idea Productions a few minutes away from Nashville. Paul Conrad was very kind to take us around the studio and introduce us to some of the artists and other employees there. We fired questions at them like,"Where did your big idea come from?, Big compared to what? Are you considering diversifying into other big areas besides ideas?, What if you come up with a bigger idea? And of course, What's the Big Idea?" They were very helpful in confiding in us with a multitude of proprietary and top secret answers that I can't divulge here. The Petersons were very kind to allow Jamin, Justin, and me to stay at their home while they were away on a mission trip to Honduras with Compassion International.

Justin Gerard just last night left on a trip to Haiti to work with his dad to help build some churches. He'll be back at work in a few weeks to continue developing his next story ideas and book concepts.