I’m Back!

I am an unfaithful blogger, and I apologize to you, the reader. It’s been six months since I have posted here or even interacted with the creative community outside of the classroom.

That isn’t a fun way to start a blog post. But in truth, I am sorry I haven’t been faithful to this project. Since the end of April, I’ve gone through something of a dry season in my creativity. The summer brought a seemingly open schedule, but a lack of creative discipline and demanding Summer courses meant that my blog suffered.

This semester brings its own share of challenges, as well. A demanding and challenging course load, immense transitions in my personal and public lives, and a failure on my part to create margin in my life keeps me going from dawn ‘til dusk, and often beyond. While I’m learning more than I ever have in college, I start and end my days often in a state of exhaustion.

However, I’m terribly blessed in all that I have. I am seeing God do powerful and challenging things in my life and in the lives of others, and I am learning to embrace transition amidst the everyday. Yes, this entire post is vague. No, that isn’t how you should style your first blog post in six months. But at this point I feel more like a construction site than a finished building anyway.

I do want to share one specific point, though. I was in desperate need of a break and got just what I needed when I joined a group of Scouts in Philmont Scout Ranch for a few weeks in August. I’ll share more about it later on, but one of the biggest take-aways for me was the need for rest and margin in the midst of business.

Philmont is not easy, nor is it all vacation. We hiked an average of 10 miles a day carrying a minimum of 45 pounds of gear and water. Most of our hiking led us up and down mountains and started early. But through it all, we were challenged to focus on something deeper than the soreness in our muscles. One of Philmont’s chaplains encouraged us advisors (adults) at the start of our trek to focus on God, whatever that might look like for us. Quite often, he said, God does something significant when He can get us away from distraction and out in the middle of his creation. I knew this to be true, but I could never have imagined what it would be like out in the New Mexico wilderness.

Every day I had the opportunity to spend time in his presence, to pray and to seek Him in new ways, to see Him work in our lives, and to walk beside Him. It sounds crazy, I know, except I experienced it myself. Since coming home, I haven’t been as consistent with Him as I would have liked, but He’s been reminding me of what it was like when I was faithful with my time. In the midst of such a busy and stressful semester, it’s important for me not only to remember all that He has done, but also to seek him earnestly and wait in anticipation for all He is about to do.

If you are reading this, thank you. Thank you for clicking the link to an obscure blog with a weird name even when I haven’t been as consistent as I should be. I hope to write more soon, and I would love to hear from you! Leave me a comment, send me a message, and let me know what’s up!

Don’t Worry, I’m a Student

No one wants to read my thirty page paper about the response of middle-income economies to water-related illnesses.

To be honest, it’s not a piece of work I am terribly proud of.  The research is solid, the prose is fairly decent (at least in my mind), but I wrote it in three weeks.  Tomorrow I’ll present the results to a classroom of college students much smarter than I, roll up the poster, and never touch the file again on my laptop.

In all, I spent close to forty hours of my life writing it.  That’s a week of work.

Unfortunately, stories like this one aren’t uncommon on college campuses.  We’re doing good work, we’re putting in our time, but we’re students.  Who’s going to read our papers?  It’s tough enough for established academics to publish their work, let alone a student with no funding and a university that technically owns everything that student produces.

For this reason, I was thrilled when I found out that my Visual Literacy class dedicated a portion of its credit hours to community-based learning.  I have my criticisms of American University and its bubble, but this is one example of the good work it can do for a larger community.

Perched atop Northwest DC, American certainly isn’t in a community thought of as ‘needy.’   But it’s part of a city with issues similar to those faced by ‘Third World’ countries.  The community-based learning program connects students and their classes to the larger DC environment.  Clients, generally DC-based nonprofits, are selected by administrators and matched with classes.  My section worked with Casa Ruby, an organization dedicated to LGBT activism and solving the problem of homelessness in the Latin@ community.

While we as a class couldn’t fulfill every need, we were able to produce brochures, fliers, videos, portrait campaigns, awareness stickers, business cards, and more all while applying and furthering the skills we learned in class.  The organization didn’t have the money to pay a professional designer, but needed the products to further its work.  As students, we were allowed a chance to do work we saw as meaningful and challenged by the fact that our work would be used to advance a larger cause.

No, we weren’t paid as designers or photographers, and no, American isn’t selling its students to nonprofits.  What’s happening here is what should be happening across the university.

Students are capable of doing good work, work that is polished enough to be presented to a client.  As an anchor institution, American has an opportunity to help the larger community while providing its students with an experience they might have in the context of a job further down the career path.  What if we thought of that opportunity as a responsibility?  And what if we took student work and directed it to where it could do good for a community?  Food for thought.

Hoodoo

A sea of peaks in an arid land stretches
before the cliff, orange and red
melding and white crumbling.
A pass of time, a flurry of sand,
the dust settles,
all is still.

Twisting pathways, the bravest descend
the solid dust wall, taking care
to avoid the misstep.
They drink from canteens and pouches,
their chins cleaned in lines of residual drops
falling down, splopping to the ground
to hold the earth in place;
a spill will wash it away.

Below them then the hoodoos
cast shadows upon the floor
to shift temperature and perception of scope,
of grandeur.

They walk on, babbling downward.

A Week of Hope

Today I’ll draw a semicolon on my wrist.  It’s not the first one of the year, I drew one on March 1 for Self-Injury Awareness Day.  But a group called Project Semicolon is organizing around April 16 as another awareness day for all who suffer from self-injury, suicidality, anxiety, depression, grief, and more.  I’ll draw mine in support of my friends.  It isn’t about seeking attention, no mental health problem is.  It’s about being okay with the fact that we all need help, that we can ask for it if we need it, that we accept the brokenness inside and are not afraid to share it.

Who can say they have never felt down, never felt anxious, never felt trapped by obligation and emotion?

But there is good news.  Even when all seems darkest, there is hope.  There are people in this world who are rejecting and defying the stigma around mental health.

For me, the message of hope this week is doubly relevant.  Not only do I defy stigma today, I celebrate the freedom I am offered through Christ this Sunday.  Relax, this isn’t a sermon.  Jesus never promises to make it easy for us, He doesn’t make me feel fantastic the second I turn my attention to Him instead of the problems I face.  But He does promise hope and acceptance.  He loves me for who I am right now, not who I want to be.

I don’t have the space to tell you the entire story, but I can tell you that some very brave and amazing people shared with me the love Jesus offers even when I didn’t want it.  They weren’t afraid to admit what they believed, they weren’t concerned with my past.  They offered me love instantly.  That’s what the mental health movement needs, that’s what the world needs.  Who can claim they carry no shame, guilt, or pain?

For me, it isn’t about being okay.  It’s about accepting that I am broken and allowing God to work in me and through me so that I can face my problems with a new outlook, one of grace and peace.  If you’re in a place where you’re struggling, where today is full of worry and tomorrow is uncertain, consider joining me in drawing a semicolon today.  It’s a small step, but it’s something.  If you need help, all you have to do is ask.  Find a church for Easter Sunday, find a counselor or someone you can trust.  There is hope in this world, and I am not afraid to admit it.

Hole in the Wall

She places the Coke back on the table
and he cuts another piece of chicken.
Leaning his head he eats, she speaks.

He chuckles smiling at her,
makes a comment she finds amusing.
She wipes the grease from her fingers
and pops a fry into her mouth.

At least one of them hopes
it’s going well.

A Short, Loud Rant about the SAT

I have a friend in high school currently taking the SAT and ACT and wondering exactly what the scores mean.  I admit that I wondered the same thing just a few years ago as I was trying to get into college.  It’s a long, arduous process that ultimately leaves you with more questions than answers, but the biggest question I still have centers on the SAT.  Why in the world did I ever pay to take that worthless test?

Back in high school, we learned that our SAT scores would significantly determine where we went to school, and that is true for many people (though I found out after taking the tests that American University offers a test-blind admission option).  I even had to take the short-fated writing potion where I was called to write a well-organized essay in a very brief period.  Apparently that section will soon disappear from the SAT again, which is a shame as it was the only valuable section at all.

I can honestly say that the SAT is the most worthless step in the college application process, just as state-level standardized tests are the least effective part of high school.  Putting every student in the country up to the same standard is a lot like ranking a barracuda, an elephant, and an ant on their swimming speed.  Plus, after two years of college, I’ve done nothing that looks at all like an SAT.  In my time as an intern, do you think I ever had to answer a page of math questions in ten minutes?  No.

The SAT represents a large element of what is wrong with our education system.  We rely on one test to measure every student, which encourages teachers to teach to the test.  This inspires a culture of test-taking, which stunts creativity.  The ability to sit in a room and stare at a piece of paper doesn’t get you very far in the job market.  However, skills like writing, critical thinking, and a command of mathematical processes could land anyone a fantastic job.  Now though, the writing section is disappearing, which is indicative of what our education system believes about creativity.

I won’t go further into NCLB or Race to the Top, but I will attack the College Board as a moneymaking scheme designed to extract money from students though useless tests that don’t measure any of the skills colleges of jobs actually look for.  Colleges themselves share much of the blame here, relying on these scores to track how a student performs.  If academic institutions truly cared about creativity, about STEM education, about broadening the horizons of the next generation, they would stop granting so much merit to an outdated test.

While there are many other complex problems in American education (including the use of STEM programs to justify cuts to the arts and physical education, which, by the way, are just as valuable as a physics course), we could fix our addiction to standardized tests quickly simply by refusing to take them and devaluing their merit through a modernized admissions process.  I don’t know the right system, and I certainly see the value of tests in assessing a part of what a student learns, but I do know that it is more important for a school to teach real, applicable knowledge rather than the ‘skill’ of filling in a bubble (make sure you have a number 2 pencil, as marks made with any other pencil may not be recorded).

Encampment

The snow holds the small fire
hidden in the wilderness.
His socks, stuck on branches,
steam as they dry.
His feet finally dry, he pulls on
another pair and ties his laces.
He gathers an armful of firewood.
The logs snap and burn,
the twigs bend and flare in the heat.
The snow melts to the dirt,
the embers roll and tumble with the growing flame.
He moves the branch
that holds his socks
and sits back in the lean-to.
He eats.

He follows his stomach
to the sleeping bag and mumbles a prayer,
the words slipping and flickering
upwards in the smoke, the orange glow.
The fire crackles, lulling him.
Sleep creeps closer and he rolls into it.
There is to gather more firewood
in the morning, but for now a few hours
of rest he permits himself to enjoy.  With warm feet
he drifts to another land as the forest cools,
the fire fades in the moonlight.

Photography can still be Art

I believe photography still has a place as art.  I do not believe the commodification and the widespread accessibility of a camera are deteriorating photography itself, unlike many thinkers and twentieth century naysayers.

Recently in a class, we read a series of articles from multiple genres about the current state of photography (current relating to when the piece was written).  Some authors decried the documentary nature of photography, others pointed to a future where images were mere accompaniments to news, and the rest snapped pictures of their dinner using an iPhone and uploaded it to Instagram.

While there are legitimate concerns in each of these views, there is no evidence to suggest that photography itself is deteriorating.  While we are flooded with pictures, commonly referred to as the ‘image glut,’ not all of these photos are very good.  In fact the majority are awful.

That being said, each person who takes a picture is, by definition, a photographer.  If photography were on the verge of collapse, then we wouldn’t have the billions of images on our phones, tablets, and laptops that we do.  What is important to examine, however, is the intent of the images.

Photography has always been searching for what it is.  It has struggled to find a particular use, touching news, art, social engagement, and documentation in different ways.  What I believe is important to recognize is that it is okay to shoot with different purposes.  The problem arises when we try to compare across those purposes.

For example, it is difficult to compare a picture of a dog doing something funny on Instagram and the landscapes of Ansel Adams.  But, then, why do we try and compare them?  Why do we complain that photography isn’t fulfilling its artistic calling when, in fact, more artists are using cameras than ever before?

We need to stop ignoring the work that artists are doing in the same way we need to give attention to the work of photojournalists.  The larger world doesn’t really need to pay any attention to the photos that appear on most social media, but when the photographer is someone we know and care about, what is the harm in observing their shots?  They clearly thought whatever the subject happens to be was worthy of sharing and in doing so, have decided to share a part of their life.

While these photos deserve little artistic credit, and their photographers certainly are not professionals (even when they think they are), they are still legitimate images.  The higher level of photography requires, generally, different equipment than an iPhone (though there are beautiful shots composed with these devices), and a mind for the image itself.  The key difference between the various methods of photography remains the photographers themselves.

So then, if a photographer wants to make art, there is no evidence today suggesting that they cannot.  We have better, more affordable equipment than ever and a variety of subjects to capture.  There may be more images out there today, but that doesn’t mean artists can’t use a camera.  Their work will be good so long as they work hard on it, and there will still be at least a few people who want to see it.

A Trip Along the Rails

Isaiah stares intently out the window of the train, soaking in the network of tracks and wires.  Another train lurches along much like his a few tracks over, beginning its journey and slowly clearing itself of the platform.  One passes in front of it, sliding over Isaiah’s line of sight as it pulls into another platform.  Its doors slide open and the people begin to shuffle out.  He turns to look back as some struggle with their luggage, others wait for their friends, and still others dressed in black and carrying cell phones and briefcases confidently stride down the concrete walkway dodging between the slower race.

Hearing the conductor approaching he searches out his ticket.  He unfolds the crumpled paper and hands it up to the man who scans it and nods, placing a card above Isaiah’s seat indicating his destination.

Now that he can unpack his things without interruption, he reaches into the bag at his feet.  He shuffles through his possessions and pulls out a leather-bound journal and a black, metal pen.  Finding his last page he flips down the tray and prepares to write.

He glances again out the window and sees the million stones beneath the tracks separating into their various lines, guiding the tracks to their ends.  The city behind them now, the train and its passengers hum along the rails into the outer lands.

For a few moments he sits and watches, watches as the evidence of the city disappears.  With each minute fewer buildings are in his sight.  He leans over his page and begins his work for the day.  His poems and musings stretch long today, almost as long as the ride before him.

As the hours pass, the scenery changes.  Isaiah looks up at the change in the mood, the change in the sky.  Out the window now sits one of the manufacturing zones, the copper and steel sprawl stretching for miles.  It came upon them quickly, so much so that he could still see the barren fields behind them.

A maze of pipes, a child’s stacking of blocks for buildings, a thousand trucks that go along, all of this and more the scenery of a civilization.  The sooty reality of the 1980s collected on the walls, while the minerals of the 21^st century spewed into the air as the goods and chemicals came into being.

Isaiah shuddered at the mess, remembering the ruin of home.  He returned his eyes to the pages before him.  But the factory would not be ignored.  A glow of orange erupted across the paper.  Startled, he snapped his eyes outside to behold a chemical flare burning atop a nearby smokestack.

The flames and smoke spread up across the sky.  Who can count the gallons of liquid it consumes?  Who can measure the minerals that comprise the factory?  How many tons of iron is smelted, how many cubic meters of zinc and tin refined?

Isaiah surveyed the car.  Everyone, the conductor too, gazed out the windows, mouths open in awe at the spectacle.  Their world sat before them, the source just a few yards beyond the glass.  Inside the car, the fruit was evident.  The car itself returned home as it slowed to pass along the tracks and survey the cargo and freight stacked aboard another train.

Terrified, Isaiah resolved to sit back and think.  He had to warn them.

A Reflection on Career

Though I’m still a sophomore in college, I find it perfectly acceptable that I think about my future.

Now I realize that future plans can change in the blink of an eye based on circumstances, tragedies, and even pure whim.  And if you told me a year ago that I would change my major to Public Health and Film and Media Arts, I would have laughed in your face.  But hey, a student can dream and wonder just as much as a kid, just as much as a dissatisfied sales representative in a dingy cubicle waiting for the big 4-0.

But as I sit back and think about what the future might hold, more and more I realize that I’m really not expecting to make tons of money just out of college like some of my friends studying business.  What’s even crazier is that it doesn’t bother me.

Hold on a second, that sounded unnecessarily self-centered.  I’m not trying to be some sort of hippie, and I definitely do not have the whole ‘metrics of success’ thing figured out.  But the internships, clubs, and classes I’ve experienced in the past few years all point to common idea.

I’m not going to be happy unless I like what I’m doing.

Now, on the surface that sounds obvious.  And some of the older readers of the blog already know this.  But for those of us who are still figuring out who we are, that’s a big concept to tackle.

The society we live in celebrates monetary wealth, possessions, luxury, and getting away with not fulfilling obligations.  That’s just not enough for me.  I’m not telling you to change your life, I’m not offering a solution.  But I am saying that I think, with the experience I’ve had, that I need something other than a job after college.  I need a passion.

Disclaimer: a passion can be paid.  I’ll be honest, I love public health almost as much as I love photography, which is a pretty big deal to me.  I’m blessed to be able to pursue degrees that allow me to immerse myself in both, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I’m finding that the more I focus on what I enjoy and the deeper I develop those passions, the more fulfillment I find in life.

Maybe you think this is ridiculous, or maybe you’re right there next to me.  But no matter who you are, you need to find fulfillment in life.  The only metric for success we should use is how we feel when we do our work, and how we feel at the end of the day.  Do we have something to come home to?  Do we have a reason to get up the next day?

I’m blessed to be able to say ‘yes’ to both of those questions.  While I live far from my family, I know that at the end of the day I have their love and support.  And when my alarm goes off at the absurd hour it always does, I’ve got a reason to get out of bed, get ready for the day, and do my best in all that I can.

I have a passion for the community I’m in, I have a passion for my God, and I have a passion for the work I have the opportunity to do.  It isn’t perfect, and this scenario has its ups and downs.  But I pray that after college that I can find a season in my life such as this.