SMAC JULY 2007

Now this is something I longed for for years, and you know what? This year was the 10th anniversary of SMAC..... I just didn't look in the right direction. Reminds me of my conversation with God: He keeps on talking to me, but I just don't listen in the right direction. Happy me: I found some who dared to talk about their walk with God, so I could learn. My first learning happened within our YwaM-DTS student-team, and my second step in the learning process was during SMAC.

SMAC stands for Schloss Mittersill Arts Conference. The organizers loved it so much, that they want to go on for some other decades: THANK YOU, I love you, and I'll be coming there for ever! - that was a between brackets remark -

SMAC 2007 was my first conference with all Christians and just the arts: visual as in painting, drawing, 3D-art, film, drama and musical as in choir and percussion (the musical arrangement workshop had just 2 workshoppers, and we were send to the choir and percussion.... well, see you next year Martin M. (site in Austrian(!) and English) or maybe I'll go on with the percussion-workshop-year-two) and of course lots'a talkin'. We learned a lot about how to use art to get to the basics of live, to give others the opportunity to catch a little about the believe we have, and that Christian art has nothing to do with painting crosses or doves all the time. I learned some new rhythms from our groovin' and funny teacher Willi P. (with an Austrian website to be build, but it has at least his picture) and got to know lots of new friends! And of course (important for the percussionist in me) that 'Sing a NEW song' really does mean a NEW song. Not something old in a new jacket, although it is by then much better to digest.

The NEW in making a song is appealing to me, because I tend to write poetry sometimes: what's the difficulty of applying all the rules of songwriting workshops I had??? 'Just do it', I hear in my head. Those new jackets apply for me just to Scripture. All other old things to be made shiny again, have more to do with old wine in new wine-bags. I have a big thing in my head that could be the framework of something musical: turn the Psalms and other Scripture verses into something that can be sung in the churches. But also has potential of being used in praise-and-worship nights, or concerts of rock bands (like ours, nope, no website yet ;-D). And the best part: write that much music to it, that it makes a philharmonic orchestra sound good.... ..... ..... ..... okay, needs lots of education for me.... But hey: sometimes we need a good, big, far away goal, to remind us of our God Who is never too small, although He is too often thought of that way!! My God is bigger than my dreams, so I'll just pray, and find that Conservatory (too bad: just Dutch site) that loves to teach me after I finished my Bible school (thinkin' international, but still a Dutch site) ...

Oh, and SMAC even awakened my painting and drawing skills, and gave me the opportunity to take lots of pictures to put somewhere on my (future) websites and in my portfolio to get some freelance jobs as a starting photographer... with the Department of Agriculture in the Netherlands for instance ;-D (always start dreaming big ?)

Now I just need some more time, like 72 hours in one day or so... maybe I should teach myself to work 4 times as hard as I do now... ???

REFLECTION

Some dear friends of us (they are like a mom and dad to me) loved to see the pictures and hear the stories of our adventures at DTS 2006 and SMAC 2007, and they are not believers in Christ. That made me wonder: how could I use my arts to show them the love of Christ for them???? They already know the church-stories about believing, heaven and hell, and lots of traditions. They rejected that.

They've known me for all my life, and I love them so dearly, and still I have not been able to get to their hearts with the Good Message, and it's hurting me!

"Oh Lord, may all the dreams you gave and will give me, comfort, strengthen or affirm others, and may they even lead to salvation of some,
may my second-parents Jan & Hilda be among them, even better: be the first ones to come to You....

AMEN"

pride, prejudice and predestination?

My son got placed in a box. He is the tallest of his class, he just had his first half year of school, he is a typical wait-and-watch kind 'a guy, and he's very sensitive.
So, with all this ingredients, his teacher asked me one day if we managed to get him to the street dance lessons where we took a look once. Yeah, because he's a tall guy and he's a little different and slow in his moving skills, she said, but, hey, that's something that's more often the case with those long people.

Well, we are all long people in both our families, and we have a history of all very strong people in my part of the family. We are tall and slender, not the bigger kind with big hands and stuff. And we are all very good in fine moving skills: fine arts and the aim and shoot bulls eye kind of things. No clumsy person around (except for the glasses of chocolate milk that get launched once in a wile, but hey: all under-five-year-old's have that problem sometimes). Predestination.
And that's Jonathan too. On top of that: the teacher got by the time she made the remark, three times to check his moving skills, and after some time he got 'the moves' and was faster than the rest, because he has long legs and loves dancing. Conclusion: he is tall, a little shy, very sensitive, so he must have problems with big and small moves. -sigh- Prejudice.
So here comes my maternal instinct: my little baby is growing up to be a big guy, and I'm proud of that! He's just as sensitive as I am, as his big sis is, and as the other ones in the world who are not being understood by most other parts of that same world.

Would he suffer just like me, from his sensitivity? Predestination?
Would he turn into something he is not, because of expectations outside himself? Prejudice? Why does that have to start this early?
Would he one day find himself back in the arms of His Creator and finally know his destination, his only audience of One, his personality, again? With Pride?

I pray that he is allowed to discover the prejudice-part lots later than my hubby and I did.
I pray that he is allowed to discover the predestination-part and especially that last part a little more early than we did.


Amen.

Why is the time always gone...

nope, I wasn't dying the past some months

on the contrary:

* praying about how to end my school (dutch site): with a masters? first 2 centuries? linked with post-modern 21 century? involving the one and only communications-area that seems to be relevant in a individualistic society that's dying to know how to express themselves without getting overheated..... ? yep: ARTS! (maybe I can make a PhD out of that ;-D - as I hear some rockin' freaks yell: 'dream on! you're fooling yourself, so dream on!' (Nazareth, yeah, I know, bad me, I can't help it, I just heard that phrase in my head))

* trying to get the meaning of several dreams I had: finding a cure for me, a cream, a text, a Zoo; taking cover in a ditch, getting up in the middle of a fight and remember my destiny, be in charge of a castle/fortress, defend it with 'my' army (intriguing)



* recovering fast from our F-DTS experience: a week of Joseph Avakian in the last lecturephase of the Creative-DTS in Aalesund, lots and lots of meetings with students, staff, board, directors in Norway and the leaders of the LPC course in Restenas Sweden -> experiencing the good of YwaM (the bad and ugly have a place now, they're eaten and digested - yaharrrr)



* elected to be board member for our choir 'Sjofar' (dutch site) (okay, okay, I am the naive rookie.... let's keep it that way ;-D)


* trying to find out what's the best way to build networks in the European/World artist community, if that community even exists.... and found out that there will be a conference (6-14 of July) in Mittersill, Austria, that's exactly what we had in mind (musicians, visual artists, teachings, workshops, yummm); so now I just have to figure out the cheapest way to go there....


... and of course in the first place: trying to raise our kids in a place they can call 'home': where the 5 of us are together; raise them to be the best warriors in Gods army He made them to be; raise them to see the good, bad and ugly in the world, to support the good, work on the bad, and transform the ugly, especially in the Earthly part of Gods Kingdom so that the rest of the world has no reason at all to point fingers!
And we want to teach our god given miracles in the knowledge that the only haven they can trust is Gods, and that we as parents try to represent that the best we can.




Everyday we start with the last part, usually I quit too early, try to make a little bit of all the rest, and still I ask myself 'Why's the time always gone..?' ;-D

Free??

Last week I was still surprised that I felt free after a comment somebody made. Of course it wasn't 'just' somebody: this was somebody I deeply respect and love, someone who taught me important aspects of life, someone who would always search for the best for me, and will love me no matter what.

Isn't it strange? I have known that person all my life, I know that person's intentions, I know that person's heart, I listened to everything that person said, I thought, and I believed it. But apparently I didn't do anything with it that should impact my 'status'. Knowing that person didn't reflect in my everyday life. I still was bound and felt it that way, the older I got. Even after growing up (more or less) and setting my own rules, I thought, finding my own way in life, I thought. I held my rules and ways to the Light to let that shine through, but still I was bound. Apparently.

Because now I feel free. Almost completely free. Like a heavy burden falling from my shoulders. Knowing the fact that you are free is apparently something different than getting the exact words that tell that you are free.

I'm free!
There's no one on this Earth with the right to question me.
I have just an audience of One!
That One is most important.

Luckily for the 'little' ones around me, the BIG One told me to be really good and stuff, so that no one on this Earth could tell something about me that could fit in the newest tabloids. Okay, even better, that everybody could only speak good about me, and praise my Creator.

Right!
Let's try that again.
Coming on steam slowly, but surely; maybe one day I will be a really useful steam engine (although I prefer red, in stead of blue)

(thanx to my kids and Robbymac who remind me of those freakin' steam engines on the most strange times and in the most strange places)

Burn-out

I didn't listen to my own advice
didn't renew my decorations
did stare only to the old ones
kept on staring

My body is hurt
my mind is chaos
my emotions are exploding
my feelings are numb

I have a spirit
somewhere
but it's solid

I have courage
somewhere
but it's hidden

I have words
somewhere
without sound

I have music
somewhere
but it's silent

I have the Spirit
somewhere
I have the Messiah
somewhere
I have the Father
somewhere

He is holding me