montreat is cool.

this place is why you haven't heard from me yet.

love it.

apologies and palindromes

first of all, terribly sorry for leaving you with a void of interesting information about my life for the past week! harry potter, serious dorking out, and a trip or two to trader joe's got in the way.

secondly, for your listening pleasure this week, i give you "crossroads" - originally performed by legendary bluesman robert johnson, recorded again as part of eric clapton & cream's blues revival, and presented here from vh1's "hard rock calling" with a host of phenomenal musicians, including john mayer, sheryl crow, clapton himself, and (my personal favorite) robert randolph! enjoy!



let slowhand and friends speak to you.

anyway, there's a lot to talk about this week, from the latest installment of the harry potter series to becoming a palindrome (no soon-to-be-former-alaskan-governor puns intended), as well as another disturbing new trend in text messaging.

first of all: the half-blood prince! clearly, the franchise is still going strong (EIGHT YEARS IN!), as this latest movie hit $158 million in its first five days at the box office. pretty amazing considering it's all about a boy who grew up in a broom closet.

don't worry about spoilers, if you don't know the series/haven't seen it yet, i really just want to talk about how incredible alan rickman is. reprising his role as ambiguously evil potions professor severus snape, he remains as mystifying as always - even knowing his true alignment, i couldn't help but question his motives at any turn. this has always been my favorite book of the series, and while no "potter" movie can beat the artistic/prophetic masterpiece of alfonso cuarón's "prisoner of azkaban," we've been given yet another gem of a summer film to enjoy.

on a side note, i love that this generation will be able to share a great work of art - one that touches on so many important themes - with the future, just as our parents shared their childhoods with us (mine, particularly, in the form of kansas and most of the subject of "across the universe."

my next point - short, not actually important, but fun!

i'm officially a palindrome! hurray! (i needed a way to make turning twenty-two sound interesting and fun). next year, the digits in my age will add up to five, and are also consecutive integers. life just keeps getting better and better.

on to a more serious note (more accurately, actually related to the subject of this blog):

beginning last week, riots began to break out once again in north belfast. for friends of the other YAVs, this is the area where lynnea, stephen, and nate will be working. over 21 officers of the law were injured by gunfire during the riots, and as of last week, two men have been arrested in connection with the violence.

what's exceptionally troubling (not that this event isn't...but this will blow your mind) is that, as stated by the belfast telegraph, "children as young as 10 have been seen taking part in some of the worst violence that northern ireland has seen in a number of years."

not only that, they're texting their friends to come join them. while this is a decidedly republican (aka: proponents of a unified ireland as opposed to norn iron as part of the united kingdom), i'm sure that this isn't an isolated thing. instant connectivity is great, yes (we wouldn't know about such things without it), but it really hits home when young teenagers (who i'm about to meet and work with) are dodging firebombs and sms'ing their friends: "come on up, it's mighty, it's the place to be."

schools teaching tolerance are being burnt to the ground, little-known republican groups are threatening more violence, and folks are passing it off as a "bunch of yahoos who came to ardoyne and left carnage in their wake." bringing it full circle, we learn a lot about folks through their actions and their words, and their contributions to the press - this seems shockingly similar to the events at the beginning of "harry potter and the goblet of fire," where rioting reminiscent of the dark days breaks out at a major public event - in turn reminiscent of years of race riots worldwide. chilling.

please, not the children. as herbert hoover once said, "children are our most valuable natural resource."


now that we've thought a lot about how j.k. rowling might actually be a prophet, go check out ginna's new blog, too, which will soon be following her YAV adventures in lima, peru!

in brief

two short topics today, both to be elaborated on tomorrow next week.

1. babies are cute.
2. HARRY POTTER!

housing update!

google earth is INCREDIBLE. i just found out the address for my flat in northern ireland (the riverdale house in seymour hills, near dunmurry), then promptly looked it up on google earth. after turning on 'street view,' this is what i found:



huge props to google for actually making it possible to search earth.

the information age just got REAL.

renovations and revolutions

attention interwebbers of america:

i need to learn how to use xml and css style sheets. they're awesome for making my blog look snazzy, but terrible when an uninitiated person such as myself tries to edit the small things in them. thus, the random failures you might see scattered around my new layout.

sorry.

to make up for it, i'll try something new: reading music! below is canadian colin munroe's tribute to u2's anthem of the troubles, "sunday bloody sunday."



lots of interesting news on many fronts today. most relevant to the actual adventure - i'm pretty sure i'm NOT working at the east belfast mission anymore. instead, i've been relocated to kilmakee presbyterian church, which i think is in lisburn, south of belfast (i'm not entirely clear on how the european address system works). i've also discovered who my roommate is, we're sharing a two bedroom flat in the area of our placements. awesome. rob, prepare for good cooking.

obviously, this doesn't change the overall mission of the adventure, but my expectations have certainly been thrown for a loop. first of all, i have to let all of the excited friends, family, and supporters know that things have changed (at least a little), not to mention change all the links on the side of this page. but more importantly, i have much less of an idea what the immediate needs of the church are...east belfast mission had a fantastic website and loads of community programs (and was in the heart of urban belfast). kilmakee has considerably less information readily available - not that that's a bad thing, just frustrating for someone like me that's preparing for a year-long job there.

i did, however, discover the blog of the current kilmakee yav, megan. it's available on the yav website, along with this special feature of her latest mission, a one-act play! hopefully, poring over megan's posts will give me some idea of what to expect. but, i also am reminded of something we talked about at our discernment event in march: each year is something new, and each yav brings individual gifts and talents to the table. rev. doug baker, our site coordinator, told me today that the church is excited to have a guy serving as their yav for the first time in a while, and have some 'special ideas' to explore, given that i'm the guy they're excited about.

interesting. in summation, as much as i can prepare for this adventure, i really will have no idea what to expect come september.

on other fronts, derek webb's new album, stockholm syndrome, was released (sort of) today! more excellent music from the former caedmon's call guitarist. he's famous (infamous, i guess) for saying exactly what's on his mind, and for an artist recording on a christian label, has a history of writing some decidedly "non-christian" lyrics. i say that very carefully, because honestly, i believe a lot of what he has to say is exactly what jesus would talk about. what i really mean there is he's not passionate and worshipful (chris tomlin), delicate and gentle (nichole nordeman), or outwardly jesus-y (third day). webb's earlier records are (at least musically) reminiscent of his time with caedmon's call, with folksy guitar, prominent vocals, and smart, reformed-tradition-inspired lyrics. there were always tracks, though, that caused a bit of a stir:

from "wedding dress"
I am a whore I do confess/ But I put you on just like a wedding dress
and I run down the aisle/ and I run down the aisle
I'm a prodigal with no way home/but I put you on just like a ring of gold
and I run down the aisle to you

So could you love this bastard child/Though I don't trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold/and with the other in your side

from "king and a kingdom"
there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

point is, he's definitely not your average christian lyricist. and he's made a lot of people angry. really angry. in fact, during one concert, that part of "king and a kingdom" caused about half of his audience to up and leave (and miss some really good music). but this new record tops them all. first, it's incredibly different musically than anything derek's released before. it sort of reminds me of the postal service, if ben gibbard suddenly got really angry at mainline christians, and wanted them to change for the better. but here's the rub:

from "what matters more"
You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
'Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak
...
Meanwhile we sit just like we don't give a s#!t
About 50,000 people who are dyin' today

he just threw all the rules about contemporary christian music out of the window. after they hit the ground, someone ran them over with a prius. i love it.

buy the album. listen a lot. share it.

love and peace or else,
andy

tardiness, apologies, movies, maple syrup

first of all, happy america day, internet! celebrate freedom from tyranny by making things explode nationwide!

secondly, sorry this post is so far separated from the promised tuesday...i was studying for exams/was at the beach/fell asleep/met an aardvark/one of my friends moved to north dakota...i really have no excuse (ps...only one of these things is actually false...guess!).

my tardiness aside, however, it's quite fortunate that i waited until today to post...i actually have something exciting to talk about! i went on a date with a certain presbyterian tonight, to kuba kuba in richmond, va's fan district, and then to the westhampton theatre to see john krasinski and maya rudolph in the new indie rom-com, "away we go."

first, the restaurant. for those you in/around/close to/visiting richmond, i MORE than recommend it. in fact, i urge (and if i see you in person, i might actually demand) you to go. it's a great selection of delicious cuban food, veggie-friendly, is very reasonably-priced, and serves fried plantains as a side dish. it's very full of life, and, surprisingly, very...richmond. i would never expect a cuban restaurant to make me feel so at home in the river city, but there i was, missing high school, yet again.

one of my favorite memories is from my freshman year, getting hopelessly lost on grove avenue with a friend, trying to direct them to my piano lesson. i think i was about 28 minutes late for a 30 minute lesson, but it was worth it, getting to know the ins and outs and one-way streets of the fan district, surrounded by an eclectic mix of architecure and people. living in the homogeneity of williamsburg (not even kidding, the website really is history.org) for so long makes me appreciate that diversity so much more than i ever did in high school. i'm might even be jealous of vcu.

maybe that's what it is about kuba kuba (and thus, richmond) that i loved so much tonight - the diversity, the energy, and the fun. sure, every city has its not-too-savory parts, i went to high school right in the middle of richmond's, but so do people - that doesn't mean we avoid them like the plague, right? there's something good in everything and everyone you meet, now matter how broken they seem.

please don't call me "that guy that reads christian blogs because it's the right thing to do" for this - i primarily do it because it's funny and makes for good thinking fodder - but john over at "stuff christians like" wrote a really awesome piece on how we (particularly the born-again christian folk) respond to the crap of life. check it out here. i may not agree with him theologically on many many things, but he makes a really solid point.

back to the real story of the day: "away we go."

what a great movie.

check out imdb for a brief synopsis (i don't want to give too much away accidentally by describing it myself). sam mendes presents a snapshot of perfectly normal, very funny people, who also happen to be portrayed by two of my favorite celebrities, constantly accompanied by the beautiful music of alexi murdoch. they encounter pregnancy, followed shortly by the crap of life, think about it for a while, and continue on their way. they're not traditional in any way, but at the same time...they're the very model of a modern major general who i want to be when i grow up - happy, loyal, and (weird, but true) a really awesome dad. watching john krasinski's character reminded me that i can do that someday, while laughing at myself.

also, if santa searches the interwebs, i would like him to know that i want a mellow acoustic-folk soundtrack for my life.

all in all, tonight was a good night, one that reminded me about the good things in life.

hooray!