A knife painting

Triangular self portrait (for drawing class)

There's a place in the darkness that I used to cling to
It presses harsh hope against time
In the absence of martyrs there's a presence of thieves
Who only want to rob you blind
They steal away any sense of peace
Though I'm a king I'm a king on my knees
And I know they are wrong when they say I am strong
As the darkness covers me

So turn on the light and reveal all the glory
I am not afraid
To bare all my weakness knowing in meekness
I have a kingdom to gain
Where there is peace and love in the light, in the light
Oh I am not afraid
To let Your light shine bright in my life, in my life

There are ghosts from my past who've owned more of my soul
Than I thought I had given away
They linger in closets and under my bed
And in pictures less proudly displayed
A great fool in my life I have been
Have squandered till pallid and thin
Hung my head in shame and refused to take blame
For the darkness I know I've let win

Can you hear me?

Well I've never been much for the baring of soul
In the presence of any man
I'd rather keep to myself all safe and secure
In the arms of a sinner I am
Could it be that my worth should depend
By the crimson stained grace on a hand
And like a lamp on a hill Lord I pray in Your will
To reveal all of You that I can

-Jennifer Knapp

Show Me The Father

"The mystery of God is not what is going to be... it is now. It is highly probable that we are hurting Him by what we ask. "Lord, show us the Father." His response immediately comes back to us... CAN'T YOU SEE HIM? HE IS ALWAYS RIGHT HERE. Realize that God is here now. We wait for God to exhibit Himself to his children, but He only exhibits Himself through his children. Realize that the Lord is here now. "
-Oswald Chambers

"The one who has seen me has seen the Father." -Jesus

"In the poor we meet Jesus in his most distressing disguises." -Mother Teresa

"God has created us to love and be loved, and this is the beginning of prayer- to know that he loves me, and to know that I have been created for greater things."
-Mother Teresa

Keep Necro from performing "White Slavery" in Worchester

Rapper Necro is performing the song "Human Trafficking King is White Slavery II" - which blatantly glorifies sex trafficking - at the Palladium in Worcester, MA on May 21-22. Donna Huges set up a petition asking the Palladium to prohibit Necro from performing this song. Please sign it!

A few lines from the song are included in the petition- you can find the full song lyrics online but I wouldn't suggest reading them. They're extremely graphic and I found them very disturbing. Necro claims that the song's purpose is to raise awareness about human trafficking, but instead I think he glorifies it. He released the song as part of a video titled "Sexy Sluts: Been There, Done That".

I feel like that says it all.

art students run on dunkin

My crazy professor brought us donuts yesterday, with the condition that we paint them first and eat them later. As he sat in front on one girl's canvas and examined her painting, he announced, "I love the tympanic quality of this one! And I love my words today! Who would have thought that I would come out with something like "tympanic"?

you have to see this

Check out these paintings.

Onn has lived the story. Now she is putting it into paintings that come out of her experience and imagination. We just discovered her gift late last year, and now she is creating amazing work. We have sent a few paintings to the U.S. for sale to benefit Onn and to begin to fund an art center at The Well in Thailand. Take a look at Onn's page and let The Well know if you are interested.

grace and peace, among other things

I can't put them in order yet, but here are some notes from my pastor Bryan's words on Sunday. They are what I have been thinking all week.

-Colossians 1. All of Paul and Peter's letters in the New Testament begin with grace and peace.

-Paul changes the standard greeting in the Roman empire from one forms of the word "grace" to another. It means acceptance and favor. Be filled with joy and peace, no strings attached. It is saying that someone desires the best for you: whole life goodness. Both of these words carry depth and weight.

-How do we remember to give grace and peace to people instead of just focusing on our own agendas?

-When Paul writes about peace, he doesn't just mean happiness, but the deep sense of Hebrew shalom- peace in the world and rightness in all things.

-Genesis is the story of God's mercy- they all deserved death, but God chose mercy.

-Ezekiel 34:25-31 says, "I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert and sleep in the forests in safety. I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord. You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord."

-In order for peace and justice to exist, we have to put an end to destructive ways of being and self-seeking actions.

-The peace that Paul writes about is present now.

-He writes about peace, favor, security, and wholeness from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

-What if our first thought every day was grace and peace?

-"There is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8). This is both for us and for others.

-"It is by God's grace that we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17).

-Paul's entire meaning in life was to draw attention to and live in God's grace.

-Think of the everyday gifts of God's grace to us.

-What would it look like to be so rooted in grace and peace that you could forgive even the people who have broken your heart?

-May we be prepared to be broken bread and poured out wine by speaking grace and peace to others, even to our enemies.

metaphors in painting class

today, as he shoved a student out of the way, planted himself in front of her canvas, and grandly added a bold swoosh of color to her painting, my professor exclaimed, "I love the way this line falls apart, like my daughter's boyfriend's chair crumbling under my weight. What an great metaphor for life!"

A recent trafficking conviction in Boston

Two Boston Area Men Convicted of Sex Trafficking Children

BOSTON, MA—Two Boston area men were convicted today of conspiracy to traffic women in interstate commerce for the purpose of prostitution and transporting minors in interstate commerce for the purposes of prostitution.

Acting United States Attorney Michael K. Loucks, Warren T. Bamford, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Police Commissioner Edward Davis of the Boston Police Department, announced today that DARRYL TAVARES, age 26, of Revere, and EDDIE JONES, age 26, of Dorchester were convicted in U.S. District Court today in Boston following a 10-day jury trial.

This investigation into the sex trafficking of minors began in 2005 after a minor female victim reported to police that she had been prostituted in and outside of Massachusetts by local pimps. The investigation led to the indictment of six men on conspiracy and related sex trafficking charges. Four of the co-conspirators pled guilty to the conspiracy count prior trial and are awaiting sentencing.

The jury heard testimony from several trafficking victims, including many who were under the age of 18 years when the offenses occurred. The victims also testified about how TAVARES and JONES worked together to control the prostitutes’ behavior, switched underage prostitutes back and forth among them, and viciously beat the young women. One victim, who was a minor at the time of the offense, testified that defendant TAVARES carved her face with a potato peeler to scar her permanently so everyone would know she belonged to him. Another victim, who was also a minor at the time of the offense, testified that JONES choked her after transporting her to Washington, D.C. for the purpose of prostitution. Yet another victim who was only 16 years old when the charged offense occurred, testified that after she had run away from her pimp, TAVARES lured her back to the pimp and sat back and laughed as he brutally beat and attempted to kill her by placing a plastic bag over her head and taping it securely around her neck.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Boston Police Department. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Leah Foley and George Vien in Loucks’ Drug Task Force Unit.

on the Congo and cell phones

I just got this update from the Bondage for Freedom organization. If you have a cell phone you should read it.

"We have just returned from a research trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the stories we heard, the situations we saw and the people we met gave us a harrowing insight into a country where over 5.5 million people have been killed in the past 10 – 15 years (that’s the reported figure so potentially it could easily be double this number).

The reason for our trip was to get a first hand account of the mass systematic rape and sexual violence that happens in the Congo. The numbers are hard to gauge and unreliable - whether it is 200,000 women a year or 1 woman every 2 hours it is the fact that the armies are using rape as a weapon of war that counts.


One of the younger women we met was fifteen when her family was killed by the local militia group and she was dragged into the jungle and raped by 10 to 15 men every day for over a year and a half – when she became heavily pregnant they used knives and sticks to try to kill her unborn child and her.


A year later she is still in Panzai hospital which has a specialist unit for vaginal reconstruction. She is completely incontinent and terrified, with no money and nowhere to go.


We met incredible survivors who have set up groups and homes to save women and girls in similar situations, sometimes walking 2-3 days to find them and then carrying them to safety on their own backs.


The conflict in the Congo is complex but in large part down to economics and the fight for control of the land where mines are extracting and selling valuable minerals such as coltan to a lot of very familiar multinational companies. You've heard of blood diamonds? Well these are blood minerals and these minerals are in all of your mobile phones and computers.


We are now planning, creating, learning and gathering people to start an action packed campaign to raise awareness and to support those affected - we hope you'll get involved."

I'm eligible for a cell phone upgrade in two months, but I don't think I'm going to take it. My phone isn't very high-tech but it works beautifully, and despite a few scratches it's in good shape. Refusing one cell phone upgrade doesn't save much coltan or really have any affect on the women in the DR Congo, but it's something I can do, so I'm going to do it.

On being a doormat

“Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer- to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a ‘doormat’ under other people’ feet. Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket- to be so totally insignificant that no one remember you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be pored out until you are used up and exhausted- not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister?” –Oswald Chambers

What is the balance here? Is there even a balance? How do you care for yourself and keep from being burned out while still allowing yourself to be fully used and exhausted and drained for the service of God? How do you promote healthy relationships, both professionally in a client/social worker role, and among friends, and in spiritual mentoring relationships, and yet allow yourself to become “a doormat under other people’s feet”, if that is what God call you to?

I have been thinking a lot about this as I take social work classes and begin to understand the ethics and responsibilities that shape the profession, but also as I continue to get to know God and the things that he requires from me. I think about it in friendships, both as I give and as I learn to allow the other person to give. I think about it when I think about what I’m going to be doing after I graduate next May, and consider the similarities and difference between social work and ministry, and think about what is really important in both of those areas, to me but even more importantly to God.

Last night I went to a discussion hosted by the campus ministry I have gotten involved with here at school. They were talking about a book called God Space, and we had a whole conversation about learning to really listen to people. It involved a quiz to assess how good of a listener you are, and although I thought I was a good listener, my scores showed otherwise. One of the points someone made was that even when we’re listening to other people, our natural inclination is to think about ourselves. Sometime we think about what we should say next, or what our own experiences are, or what we think of the other person. Sometimes we just think about how long it was since we’ve eaten. But I came to the conclusion last night that a major component of being the “doormat” that Oswald Chambers talks about is not my actions but my mindset. I have to learn to cultivate a mindset that “considers others better than myself” and consistently practice dying to myself in the way that I think. My focus should be less on myself and more on the other person, whoever that person may be and whatever the context in which I interact with them.

I still haven’t figured it out. I think it’s going to be an ongoing conversation. But that was a big revelation for me, so I thought I would share it.

Immigration and trafficking in the US

I read an article in the NY Times this morning about a group of workers who were brought over the United States from India, promised green cards for themselves and their families, and then forced into abusive working conditions. When they threatened to strike, the company was told by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to fire them with no advance notice and ship them back to India. You should read it- it's good stuff to think about, and important to know about.

learning to live in intermediate drawing

my professor is wonderful. he speaks quietly and calmly, and although his students may think they are just learning to draw, he is really teaching us life.

during the first class, he said, "in this class you will struggle. what you must say is, 'struggle is my hobby.' then you will succeed."

yesterday, while explaining a new technique, he said, "this may seem too hard. too many things to think about. but it is like juggling. first, you practice with only one ball. then you will practice with two. at first this seems difficult, but soon you will be juggling five balls and reading the newspaper."

this is my favorite class.

holding the door open