I have no idea why I’m still up at this time of night but I guess there’s a bit of freedom in the weekends when I know that the rest of the week I’ve committed to going to bed before 11pm. So I’m surfing blogs and befriending hundreds of people on Facebook. The kind of stuff I sometimes do when I’m just waiting for myself to be ready to actually sleep. Then again, I took a 2 hour nap in the late afternoon since I was just totally wiped after biking to hockey, playing hockey for a few hours, and biking back. The temperature here is pretty friggin’ cold right now, hovering at -18C right now, wow. Blue skies permeated the day along with a blistery punctuated northeast wind.

After looking at some of her pictures, I definitely have to give kudos to Beth for really picking up the photography and not being afraid to show it. I could comment on her blog, but I figured that actually putting some compliments on my blog would be more complimentary (proper usage of the word?). I would agree that if you take enough photos, some good ones will come out. But that will not be true of anyone. Some people take tons of pictures but hardly ever get good ones because they do not ever try to get better. They do not know what looks good, nor do they try to find out what looks good. And they focus more on themselves and their role in the environment rather than on the environment and what it has to offer. That pertains to photography of landscape or portrait, it isn’t really confined.

For instance here are some helpful suggestions to anyone who wants to become a better photographer:
- yes, the rule of thirds really does make a huge difference
- once you have the rule of thirds down, don’t let it confine you, but also play with other framing options
- pursue taking photos when you know there will be great photo opportunities (ie. 30 minutes before sunset/after sunrise, children playing at regular times)
- look close, and look even closer - macrophotography can almost consume you when you realize that almost anything has interesting texture and colour
- learn how to use your camera - whether it’s film or digital, know how to focus on a specific part of the frame, use shutter-speed to your advantage, and sometimes, the shallower your depth of field, man is it ever beautiful
- don’t be afraid to crop or colour-correct your images afterwards - you can make a boring image into something absolutely breath-taking by cropping them interestingly, or blasting the contrast/saturation and vibrance of an image
- share the photos with other people so that they can provide feedback!

So that’s all coming from a dude who doesn’t regularly take pictures because his cameras are in service in downtown Toronto and it will cost something like $300 total to fix them both. I really wish I could just spend more time going into the countryside and around town purely to take photos. There’s so much out there.

Here we go, people. Something is going on inside of me. I just got back from East Side Mario’s, right before the wind picked up and is kicking snow all over the place now. The conclusion of week 2 of my final semester. And I’m starting to sort out whether I’d prefer to be full-time graphic design staff for C4C or to be part-time campus staff and part-time graphics.

Week 2: Tuesday morning - went sharing my faith with Graham, listened in on 2 great spiritual discussions. Thursday morning - went sharing my faith with Shane, engaged in a great discussion (Mac laptop guy) and listened patiently to a guy who described what he believed as he contradicted himself many times (campus photographer). Friday morning - went sharing my faith with Lucas, and explained the Four Spiritual Laws booklet (How to Know God Personally) twice (2nd year HK, 3rd year Ecology) . Friday night - engaged in a spiritual discussion with an agnostic from a Christian background (1st year CIS) before weekly meeting… eventually both of us agreeing that it is necessary to have a basis/source for moral truth. What’s funny about 2nd year HK student and 3rd year Ecology student, is that the first is a nominal Hindu who doesn’t care much about faith anymore, and the second is a Roman Catholic who believes that Hinduism is pretty close to Catholicism.

Almost every single guy I talked about spiritual things on Friday mentioned essentially the exact same questions: what about other religions? how can we know that the Bible is true? what is the basis for moral absolutes and right and wrong?

I’m only starting to understand why I love the campus. When 1st year CIS guy asked me what I plan to do after I graduate, and I explained to him why I think it is the most effective thing for me to spend my next few years on. I regurgitated all that stuff about the campus being the clear-cut fulcrum with which to change the world, the stuff about university students being idealistic, the stuff about university being the place where people form their beliefs and values that they will hold likely for the rest of their lives, the stuff about the years right out of university that can be used most effectively and relevently on a university campus. And then as I was stating these things, I realized that not only do I know how to say these things, I really believed everything I said. These reasons that I hold for applying to work as a Christian worker on university campuses, they are truly what I believe.

It’s just that this week I had such a great joy from digging deep into God’s word each day, committing the days and my actions and decisions to God, sharing my faith with others sensitively and yet boldly, and trusting that the Holy Spirit would continue to work through all those situations. That kind of fulfillment cannot really be compared to working on a design in Photoshop. It’s just different; you know that people’s minds are being engaged and people’s hearts are being changed.

Previously, I was able to say that without a doubt, graphic design and creative arts are passions of mine and they drive me. Previously, I could not honestly tell anyone that evangelism and discipleship drive me. Currently, I can honestly say that I could learn to allow evangelism and discipleship to truly drive me and be a passion. Some people might say it’s kind of like having a “Trevor Andres moment” when you realize that this would be something worth committing your life towards.

I’ll let the next few weeks to go on, with the aim that I will continuously open to sharing my faith when the opportunity comes, as well as actively pursuing those opportunities. We’ll see from there.

A few unrelated notes first: I’m nearing a wonderful cyber-event soon, I won’t mention what it is until I reach that date. I’ve decided that I’m not going to watch ‘Scrubs’ anymore because of the nature of the show and its humour. Sometimes this show is outrageously funny, and other times it is totally wrong. So because I don’t want my mind to have any more pollution than it already experiences, I’ve decided to cut Scrubs out of my life. Not that I’m an avid Scrubs fan. But a non-Christian friend of mine described Scrubs as “pornography without anyone taking their clothes off.” And I don’t want to be affiliated with watching any show that could possibly be called such a thing.

Today was the funeral for Willie James, one of the long-standing members of Priory Park Baptist Church in Guelph. He was well-known for his kindness, servant heart, enduring smile, and mo-fat food attitude. Anyone who walked into the church was welcomed by him and many would describe him as having a completely joyful attitude that reflected Christ’s work in his life. I arrived at the funeral a bit late since I had something on campus until 7pm. First Baptist Church, location of funeral, was utterly packed by members of the community, Christians from various churches, family and friends and clients from his days as a social worker. It was a remarkable experience. No one lamented that his life was ill-spent. Everyone would have agreed that although his life was cut off by disease (cancer), the effect he had on each person he met was tremendous. The singing of hymns in the full chapel was glorious. I haven’t heard so many people singing so confidently and beautifully in a long time. At first, I really needed to just shut myself up and listen to the verses of ‘Amazing Grace’ sung by others.

When I was in the Kananaskis, I experienced a Native Indian funeral for a lady who likely wasn’t a believer in Christ. The reserve has been influenced by Jesuits in the past so it wasn’t a surprise to hear a lady play the guitar and sing ‘Amazing Grace’…. but she played a single chord — E major — and there was absolutely no joy in her voice. She had absolutely no confidence about whether she’d be seeing the deceased again. In contrast, the singing of ‘Amazing Grace’ at Willie’s funeral was noticeably different. There was confidence.

One of Willie’s younger sisters played a song on the piano and sang. She was absolutely amazing. But it didn’t matter what the whole congregation thought — she was singing to God about His wonderful presence in her family’s life. I have never ever heard a Southern American (Georgia) gospel singer like this before. At the Brooklyn Tabernacle there was a large charismatic chorus, but this was straight up true-blues gospel. She had an amazing voice, I didn’t understand everything she sang because of her accent, but her piano was stellar. The song was just steeped in… soul. Pure soul. Not to mention the song was in 9/8 time or something like that. If you’ve read my previous post about a funeral, you’d understand more completely this statement: I would want someone like this to play piano at my funeral.

Willie James, now resting at the Father’s grand kingdom of glory. A life truly well lived.

It seems that now that I’ve adjusted or am adjusting my schedule so that I sleep at 11pm and wake up at 7am, I hardly have time to blog my thoughts. Without a laptop (it’s currently in service) I don’t have any way to blog on campus. And it seems all my time after supper is quickly used up doing ministry or a bit of school… well actually I haven’t been doing much school work. Also, the guelphc4c website development seems to have come to sort of a halt now that I can only do edits when I’m at home on the computer… and I don’t have much of that time. Traditionally, late night habits included web development (especially stylesheet nitpicking) and blogging. So I’m trying to find a way to adjust these habits to saner hours of the day.

One thing I have recently ranted about, out loud: Hotmail’s spam/junk mail system. It’s not a filter. In fact, it’s a reverse filter. Nothing gets through the junk mail filter, and if you want real emails to get through, you practically need to put them on your safe list by entering the sender’s email into your address book. It’s pretty incredibly reactive and non-intuitive. Good thing I don’t use Hotmail regularly. Don’t ever email me something important to my Hotmail account, I’ll never catch it in time.

Another thing I have ranted about: the way the tables are set up in the UC for Clubs Days. Traditionally, the tables were set up in long rows and the chairs behind the tables… for the club reps to sit and greet interested students. However, this is never practical since the clubs all have “science fair”-style trifold boards sitting on the tables, blocking the view of potential chair-sitters behind the tables. In response, everyone moves the chairs from behind the tables to the front eventually, and then the UC Courtyard ends up with very little space for people to walk. Congestion. Frustration. Every time. Except this time, I and another club rep told them about this illogical setup at the very beginning at 8:30am, and so they made a few changes and put rows of tables back to back. How intelligent! I never thought I would see the day when this would happen, I always thought that the chairs/tables setter uppers would remain entirely ignorant of the ways of actual clubs reps. It’s about time.

Also, in short closing, I’m really glad that today I committed the whole day to God for guidance. I ended up talking to a large variety of students and people who were interested in talking about spiritual things. Early in the morning, Paige, a former classmate, walked by and ended up taking a “Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel. A lady questioned me for almost 20 minutes and ended up introducing herself as a women’s studies and media studies professor. A few other students really just wanted to know about what we do on campus through C4C. A few Chinese guys got connected to some staff and they will likely meet more often. A Baha’i student (with apparently some skewed Christian background) got into a heated discussion with me… apparently he doesn’t believe that in the Bible, Jesus claimed to be God.

Well, if he didn’t claim to be God, then what did he get crucified for? Or, just because Jesus was a Jew, does that automatically mean that he believed in progressive revelation of every subsequent faith?

Hm, 17 minutes of blogging. I think I can better budget this into my schedule every day.

Yep, a snow day at McMaster, Laurier, and Waterloo. Guelph still running. It’s weird, because in those cities, the streets are probably plowed by now. In Guelph, we still don’t have plowed streets. Don’t even think about the sidewalks, those are rarely dealt with. This morning’s bike ride to school was definitely an adventure. Tip: demand the lane.

I think soon I will write an article on winter biking.