Food, Creativity, and Technology

Over the years I have always been amazed at how many creative/tech people I have run across that also love using their creativity in preparing food. When I watch Oprah shows that talk about overweight people eating to cope with some deep emotional scar I’m always thinking that’s not me. I just love to eat good rich food! I love butter and cream and gravy and butter and meat and…

Screw the process

Not long after we moved to Chicago, we got a call that my Grandmother, age 74 at the time, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Her and my Grandfather had decided not to treat it. So began the inevitable process of saying good bye. We made several trips back to Tulsa to visit her over the following 2 years. Every time we were there, she seemed to…

What’s moving me.

Yesterday I posted about The Autumn Film. They double as Page CXVI, a project that’s vision is to make Hymns accessible and known again. The first time I heard the track Joy I was very moved. It’s not what you think when you click on the track, it takes bit to figure out where they are going with it. By the end you are moved. I have always believed: That…

What’s inspiring me.

I downloaded the latest album, The Ship and The Sea, from the band The Autumn Film last week. This music is creative food for me right now. The lead vocal is haunting, clear, and emotional. The arrangements are fresh and classic at the same time. The lyrics thought provoking. Download the album here.

Pursue | Connect | Invest

As a church, we launched the initiatives to help people engage in the long term spiritual growth plan that we put together. We called it Pursue-Connect-Invest. Pursue Take the next step in. Make the move, take the initiative. Pursuing means you’re taking ownership for your spiritual growth and making steps forward on your spiritual journey. Connect Get plugged in. Connecting means you’re doing your spiritual journey in community. Whether you’re…

[IN]VEST | MEDIA

For the Invest series, I wanted the media to look and sound different. I wanted to tell stories in a different way. This proved harder to coordinate than I initially thought. I came up with the concept of just showing peoples lives instead of having them do a talking head testimony. We would send out a camera man and he would just document a day in the life of. Then…

[IN]VEST | stage

We launched a capital campaign in March. Tim Schraeder, Park’s communications director, blogged about the communications side of it here. I had not planned a set change for the series as it backed up to our Good Friday and Easter services, but.. I was walking thru the gift shop at the Museum of Contemporary Art and saw a mobile that you could clip your photos on and inspiration hit. I…

Resonance

When it came to defining the sound to our Good Friday service, we were inspired by one of the musicians in our church. Christian Larson had recently stepped up and started serving in one of your bands. While driving to work one day, I saw a dance in my head to go along with one of his songs. The story was about something beautiful and pure being destroyed and torn….

7 Sayings of the Cross

We decided to use the seven sayings of the cross as the framework for our Good Friday service this year. I had the idea to have a local poet, John Shirk, take them and re-write them poetically. I had an actor friend of mine, John Dowd, do the videos. I shot the videos with a ring light in a tiny room. It was the most intimate video shoot I have…


Life Behind Art – Sorry no pictures

Posted 23 Jan 2010 in Art,Life
I usually only blog about art and technology. Often times you look at an artist and think their life revolves around the creation of their art – you forget they have lives as well. Part of my challenge of working in the Church technology world, is finding the balance of work, community, and family. Often times in the Church world these lines get blurred to the determent of many people. I said all that so I could give you a glimpse into what was my life Friday morning.

Since Simone started working part time (so we could put Jazz in the school that we felt would best benefit him) and Paris started another school across town, life has been CRAZY! Just when we feel we have a handle on it something comes along and disrupts it…
This is one of those weeks, a day off for MLK threw the whole process into turmoil. Today was the pinnacle of the chaos. On Fridays, we leave the house at 7:20 to get Jazz and Simone to work and school by 7:30. Except we had not been to the grocery store so our children had nothing for lunch. Well that’s not the whole truth… we had dinner at Whole Foods the night before and failed to purchase anything for lunch.
So, after dropping them off, Paris and I ran to Jewel to purchase 2 lunchables, 2 Red Bulls (for mommy because that is the kind of week it has been) and “something to chase them with” which ended up being Snapple raspberry ice tea.
Paris was complaining about having to go the the bathroom but had admitted she only was saying that so she could get candy from the principal of Jazz’ school. So we dropped the supplies off and went on our merry way.
Once we got across town Paris started FREAKING OUT that her stomach was hurting. I HATE having to take her into mens public restrooms, but she cannot pee in a random ally like Jazz can! Nothing with parking (something that plagues city life) was open so I had to drive a bit with her crying in the back seat. We found a Starbucks (clean restrooms) and that was done. Got some coffee and headed on our merry way.
We arrived at her school 5 min early. Parent Volunteers help children out of the cars on the street along the school. We pulled up and were just hanging out there Paris had taken her seat belt off and had put her back pack on, all ready to get out of the car. 30 seconds before she was to get out of the car she said “Daddy don’t be mad at me” I said “Why?” she said “Don’t be mad at me. I think I pooped my pants”. I said “Turn around.” I then pulled up her coat and pulled her tights and panties away from her body which exposed… let’s just say it was FULL!
I think I held it together, only future counseling sessions will expose some deep emotional scar that I inflicted today! I quickly pulled away from the curb, so not to have to explain to the volunteer why Paris could not get out of the car. Found a place to pull over so I could get her backpack off and get her seat belt back on. It was a painful experience to watch the expression on her face as she sat in her booster seat with a full panty for the 20 minute drive home. She was disgusted to say the least. I felt really bad but there was nothing to do.
We made our way back home once back in the loft I had the unpleasant task of undressing her and showering her off… and I mean unpleasant. After finding her a new school uniform and a new pair of tights we were back on our merry way to school. That all happened while a little bit of chaos was going on at work I was on the phone having to arrange for people to come in at an unexpected time. I was totally spent after all of that the rest of the day I just felt like a zombi.
And what was the reason the school secretary wrote for her late? Personal.
Posted by jasonwidney


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