Also, be sure to stop by Johnna Holmgren Photography to see Johnna’s portfolio. From weddings, to engagements to “belly blooming” photos, she does it all with great care and imagination.

Ok, enough cajolery.

Check out a recent time lapse by Bear Fox Chalk.

(here’s a link to the video: http://bit.ly/JWzQpe)

(here is a link to the video: http://bit.ly/Jc1CR5)

P.S. Feel free to download and use this video in your worship gatherings.

• iPhone 4S with the Camera+ App
• Upload 146 still images from the photo shoot into Adobe Premiere CS5
• Adjust the duration of each image to 0:03 seconds
• Add a mustard yellow layer at 7% opacity
• Bump up the contrast of the images by 50%
• Cue still images to music by DJsiah
• Render

I created this video for two main reasons: 1) I’ve always been fascinated by stop motion photography and 2) I wanted people to get excited about Awaken’s Annual Business Party where we will have a limited quantity of “I Heart Awaken” mugs for sale to recoop the costs of printing and shipping.

The project to film and share her story was especially fun because we were childhood pals in France where our parents served as missionaries (but that’s a story for another time).

One of the themes that we explore in Sonia’s story is dissonance. There is a definitive tension between the glowing optimism of our childhood and the reality of pain, death and tragedy. Sonia’s unflinching honesty gives us the permission to wonder outloud:

• Is God trustworthy?
• Where is God when bad things happen?
• Can we hold God responsible when innocent people die?

Enjoy Sonia’s story.

It read, “NEED GOAT. GOD BLESS.”

Needless to say, I was pretty baffled. Why would a homeless man ask for a goat?

The man stood no more than 10 feet away. Curious, I rolled down my window and inquisitively asked with a smirk, “what do you need a goat for?”

The man said nothing. He simply opened his jacket, revealing a big tear in the left inseam.

The light turned green. As I pulled away, I realized the man had written “NEED COAT.” Not “NEED GOAT.”

Can you imagine how he must’ve felt?

He heard, “why do you [of all people] need a coat?”

To him, I was probably just another ignorant, middle-class jackass that didn’t have a sympathetic bone in his body.

Forget the fact that I didn’t give him the coat off my back right there and then. The worst part is that I made him feel like trash. I dehumanized him and did nothing to right the wrong I had created. I simply drove away, turning a blind eye to what I did not have the [euphemism] to see.

The look on his face as I drove away is burned into my memory.

A long time ago, Jesus said something especially profound. “If you care for one another, truly think of others’ needs before your own, you’ll be happy, rich even” [my paraphrase]. But if caring for the needs of the most vulnerable people in society (the orphan, widow and the foreigner) is not one of our top priorities, Jesus says, “It’s like I don’t even know you.”

Ouch. That stings a little. Actually, that stings a lot.

One of the thing that I love doing is sitting down with some one, hearing their story, and discovering what makes them unique. Over the course of the last two years I’ve had quite a bit of time to process all of my findings. It’s astonishing how many people have chosen career paths that they are somewhat dissatisfied or don’t align with what they envision themselves doing for the rest of their lives.

When I ask a person who are you? I get a variety of responses. It’s not always as simple as what do you do or what are your favorite things in life but it’s more of a question of “what is your essence?”

“What makes you…you?”

It’s quite a mystery. Exploring this question with people has led to so many “a-ha” moments not only for them, but for me as well. We are not the sum total of our activities. We are much much more.

Think about it. When a child is born, what is it made of? What makes that child distinct and what holds it’s distinctness together? What encapsulates its essence? Is it merely atoms that form flesh and bone? Or is there something hidden deeper? As if there we’re in indelible mark left on each one of us that gives us meaning. Purpose. Essence.

This “essence” as we call it not only makes up our psyche, our intelligence, our emotions, but also our strengths and unique abilities. As someone who often speaks with people about their strengths and what is in their hearts to do, I find that every one wants to be firm and they are. Right now. Not after the accolades or special accomplishments but right now.

The part of the human essence, something we all share in common, is this deep longing for affirmation.

So, be good to one another.

P.S. For those of you who are fellow philosophy/theology nerds, I believe the bifurcation of body/soul, or body/soul/spirit is an artificial line that is more of a Platonic type of dualism. Often this leads people to make some sort of leap to belief that when someone dies their “soul” or “spirit” goes to an ethereal realm that some Christians think of as heaven. That is not what I am alluding to above. Nor am I saying that we are only body and no soul. It’s more of a mystery, an art than a science. The core idea is that we are integrated beings. There is not one part of us that only fits in a physical box and another part that fits in a spiritual box. If you’re interested in learning more about how I arrive at this conclusion, start out by reading N.T. Wright’s “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.”

In 1903, Joseph Conrad published a book about an English river-boat captain named Marlow on assignment in the African wilderness of Congo. There, Marlow encounters the horrific violence committed against the African slaves at the hands of European colonists. Conrad’s narrative forces his audience to grapple with the duality of human nature. As Marlow tells his story, the weather becomes increasingly ominous. At the conclusion of the book, we find Marlow in his boat floating on the river, deeper into the African wilderness which he describes as “immense darkness.”

Not exactly sunshine, rainbows and unicorns.

This motif of light and dark is something that the author of 1st John also wants us to consider. He writes, “anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness” (2:11).

What would it take for someone to hate their own sibling? Cain knows. He was intimately acquainted with the heart of darkness. He was the first person to not only hate, but actually murder his own brother.

Where does hate come from? Psychologically speaking, I’d suggest it comes from a combination of two things: fear and ego. Fear throws us into self-preservation mode. Fear of the unknown causes us to raise our defenses and ward off any imposing enemy. Ego trains us to inflate our self-image to the max. It objectifies and demoralizes any and every thing that might oppose us. It assumes everything is a matter of dominance and survival.

Think of people like: Cain, Haman, Herod, Nero, Hitler, Ho Chi Min, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mussolini, Hussein, Milošević, and Gaddafi. These were men of unfathomable hatred and violence. Their tremendous fear of weakness combined with their uber-egos made for the perfect storm of wrathful narcissism. (Unfortunately, many people wonder if God is really like this.)

Truth is…God is nothing like this. John reminds us that the thing that is deepest and nearest to God’s heart is love. But not in the typical sense. We have a westernized, sterilized, objectified understanding of love that isn’t helping us get closer to what John is saying. Another way to describe it is “compassionate otherness.” It is communal. It is shared. It is a collective effort.

To Micah’s point: God’s position towards us has always been one of love. And he put all his chips on the table when, in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, he repurposed the cycle of violence that was created by hearts of darkness. He made a complete mockery of hatred. He made the heart of darkness look feeble.

The question(s) are begging to be asked of us:

• What is the role of the “compassionary?”
• Where does reconciliation need to happen in our community?
• What is our role in reconciliation? Is it passive? Is it active?
• What steps do we need to take to get there?

GREEN

The first is Awaken’s most recent vision video. Since the beginning of January, we’ve been  using it to kick off each gathering. I had my daughter narrate the script, which in my humble opinion captures exactly what Micah and I discussed as we were brainstorming: simplicity and innocence.

As of late, my “go-to” font, is a crisp, monospaced, intelligent font called typograph pro. Of all the bold, all-caps fonts out there, typograph pro is the most subtle, even understated. I utilized some similar stock footage of fields with trees and adjusted the RGB curves of each clip to create the same sense of safety we all felt the first time we saw the Shire of Frodo Baggins.

(no video? click here: http://bit.ly/yMt64c)

LIGHT

Another recent project that took on a life of it’s own was a bumper for our current message series through the book of 1st John. The book’s predominant metaphor being “light” allowed me to focus on branding the entire series with a single lightbulb. It may seem obvious or even obtuse to some designer’s, but my general rule of thumb is to err on the side of simplicity to establish a strong, unified theme.

(don’t see a video? no sweat. click here: http://bit.ly/zWDafa)

VINTAGE

And last but not least is the series bumper for “The Power of a Word.” A four week series designed to reinvest meaning in words like love, hope, peace, and grace. I found myself running out of time to assemble all of the visual effects that I had envisioned happening in After Effects, so I did a pre-render, played it back in Quicktime and <gasp> videotaped it on my iPhone using a great little app called 8mm Vintage Camera. I won’t go into the details, but this app allowed me to create a lo-fi, aged film look quick. This is the essence of “quick and dirty” video editing.

Here’s the end result:

(http://bit.ly/y5jmuC)

I love to create. Especially collaboratively. Sometimes it gets tricky when you have too many cooks in the kitchen, but I find that good ideas get reinforced with the right people at the table. Likewise, bad ideas get the axe before you waste too much time and energy going in the wrong direction.

At Awaken, almost everything is accomplished in teams of some sort. When we plan a new series or produce a video, it’s even more important that everyone is “fishing in the same stream.” There have been times when I’ve pitched an idea that sounded solid to me, but when I brought it to the team, for whatever reason, it is became obvious that the idea was incompatible with the focus of the project. Such is the nature of an idea.

You have to wade through them to find the ones that just leap off the page. That said, I’m currently working with a friend of mine at Awaken to collaborate on the art for the next series.  To give credit where credit is due, he did all of the work to create the scene, 3D text with beautiful shading, etc.

Here’s what he came up with:

He gave me permission (very important when working as a team) to play around with it.   So I did. It may not be the finished product, but it gives us options.                               Here’s what I came up with:

While the contents stayed the same (with the exception of the wind turbines), the effects change the tone entirely.

Final Thought:  Art is subjective. What I did, you may hate. You may love. Artistic collaboration takes three things:

1. holding your art loosely
2. humility
3. willingness to go with the better idea, even if it’s not yours

Good luck and play nice.