Saturday, December 27, 2008

they are for me


The Gods' aren't angry...(title of a movie made by Mars Hill Church pastor, Rob Bell)

I sat with two great friends today and talked about life, dreams, and Jesus. How great are the moments when forces collide to discuss the pursuit of happiness, security, goals, and/or survival? Where do we get the strength to accept how unique we are? Where do we find hope amongst our growing lack of satisfaction?

Binding and Loosing is a term used by Rob Bell when describing the act of interpreting and better understanding the Bible for TODAY. As scripture has always pointed out: We are fighting a battle. This battle is against ourselves and our greatest allies "fear and pride". Today, freedom is sold, marketed, and tacked onto our cars with temporary stick. I watch movies such as "Into the West, Braveheart, and Dances with Wolves" and I am confronted with a pulse of freedom I have yet to fully understand. Will Barack Obama really "save" our nation? What kind of pressure are we putting on someone who bleeds just like you and I? This man has cried. This man has wounds. What kind of freedom are we seeking from this supposed "super" human? I am hopeful for change and I am excited for the new doors Obama will lead us through, however I am not content with placing my idea of freedom in someone whose insides look and feel similar to mine.

I have been every number on the "Christianity" scale (1 - being no interest and 10 - being sold out). I know what it is like to doubt and dismiss God. I know what it is like to be simply comforted by his presence...and I also know what it is like to be on my knees in honest faith and relationship with God. In my 26 years The Bible has taught me a lot. Binding and Loosing the words that were written to bring truth and meaning to life have been and will always be a part of my journey. Stretching and challenging the frequently translated original Hebrew text allows me to endure this narrow road towards inner peace.

Noise, law, religion, judgement, difference, class, and accolades will continue to flood the gates on this tiresome trek.

Can I turn off the noise, understand the law, face religion, avoid judgement, accept difference, destroy "class", and ignore the accolades?

I think I can try. "The Gods' Aren't Angry". They are for me.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

...love in family


"Be sheperds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers - not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those intrusted to you, but being examples to the flock."

(1 Peter 5:2,3)

I am so unbelievably thankful for the people in my life. I can't express how valuable it is to be present and open with the people you love.

Life is beautiful and full when you gather up the strength to step outside of yourself. I can toss, turn, dig, and dwell for so long in my mind. It is as if once I am there....the prison bars come flying in and lock me down. This mental bondage of stress and anxiety is no act of love.

I am a strong, couragous, passionate, loving, and faithful person. My weaknesses keep me humble and my strengths keep me going.

"Search me o'God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting"

(psalms 139:23,24)

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

the good consumer...?


okay. so I know I might appear to be the super "anti-consumer" with a lot of the information I post on here...

I sit in humility to the reality that I purchase all the time...I buy into the branding...and I buy things that I want.

that said....videos like the one shown at the bottom are not recommended to cast guilt, fear, or hatred towards capitalism...they are merely avenues in pursuit of reflection and/or challenge.

I think its important to check-in on capitalism.. to check-in with our values.. and to ultimately create a stronger awareness for what is good and what isn't.....

personally, I measure my morality to that of Jesus....thus, my questioning and frustration with our purchasing power rests in one question...

"does love, grace, peace, and forgiveness play a part in my spending?"

check out this video..its good.

http://www.adbusters.org/abtv/good_consumer.html

Thursday, November 20, 2008

bUy nOthing Day - nOvemBeR 28th - 2008


Yo people.

...interesting concept. i love it.

check out this video my sister sent me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zNwWrtVoCI

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

...good

"Sometimes, when I just want to quietly relax (but not necessarily be alone), I visit the old folks' home. I go to Ethel's room, and we sit together in silence for hours doing crossword puzzles. Ethel never bothers me because she's deaf.

We appreciate each other's presence. To her, I'm finally someone who isn't attempting a verbal conversation; who doesn't shy away when I can't understand her hand gestures. I can't imagine how worn out and lonely she must get, attempting to get messages and words across to people, attempting to communicate for the sake of some kind of human interaction.

And for me, she's someone who I can sit in comfortable silence with, without having to worry about what to say, or what questions I should ask, or creating an awkward silence. Someone I can have a silent conversation with by sharing air and passing time.

It's a form of human interaction in which both parties benefit and neither has to exhaust themselves due to a disability for the sake of not feeling alone. It's the beauty of understanding and being understood.

I've learned that sometimes the best kind of communication is just sitting next to someone and listening to them breathe."


- Eugenia Jobst

What an incredible collection of thoughts.

I crave presence with people.....words are great, questions are powerful, and conversation is beautiful; however,...sometimes there is nothing more peaceful than simply the beat of someone's heart or the brush of their breathe.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

"The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.

You trade in your reality for a role.
You trade in your sense for an act.
You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution,
on an individual level.

It's got to happen inside first.

You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him -
unless you take away his freedom to feel.

That can destroy him.

That kind of freedom can't be granted.

Nobody can win it for you."


- Jim Morrison

Sunday, November 9, 2008

...love pains


“I must learn to love the fool in me - the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries”

-Theodore Isaac Rubin

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

unique


vibrant color.

i often feel strange. i often feel out of place.

i crave to share this world with someone who can taste the color of every moment.

what is the meaning of this bright color?

what can i learn from its blinding strike into my eye?

i feel the pulse in my veins.

im living. breathing. dreaming.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Walt Whitman - Poet


Im doing a project for a college course on a couple poems by this great man. Check em out, and if you have time: browse his website:

http://www.whitmanarchive.org/

These are beautiful...

To You
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wwhitman/bl-ww-toyouwho.htm

We Two Boys Together Clinging
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wwhitman/bl-ww-boyscling.htm

Song of the Open Road
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wwhitman/bl-ww-openroad.htm

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Political Accountability - a must.



If you get the time...check this website out. It helps to adjust the bias we so easily take in regarding our desire to understand politics: www.factcheck.org

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Honduras...


the beauty of Honduras and the crust of Central America that surrounds it is astonishing. this place is flooding with lush forest and rich soil. i stepped off the plane and became quickly swallowed by the fog and haze of the drastic humidity in San Pedro Sula. Hector and his brother "Walter" graciously picked me up at the airport after a 2 hour delay in customs.

from romping in the rain forest, laughing with the Soto family, and tasting the surface of Honduras's deep culture; i felt taller, wider, and clearer in thought upon my return to the US.

the people in this world are so unique. they are products of something i can only brush my finger on.

joy is complex.

perspective is priceless.

learning Spanish is a must!

Muchas Gracias Honduras

There are a few more pics under fot-oze on the linx box to the right!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Oriah Mountain Dreamer



What you become is infinitely more important than what you do, or what you have. It doesn't matter to me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring in your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed for fear of further pain, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstacy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes withouth coutioning us to be careful, to be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. I want know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy. I want to know if you can see the beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the sliver of the moon, "YES!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children. It doesn't interest me who you are, or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whome you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Castle Peak : Perfect


Yesterday at around 1pm my friend Phil, his tired dog, and myself approached the rounded peak of Castle Mountain.

My first 14er climb in Colorado was full of scabbing falls, mysterious detours, adventurous glacading, and exhilarating views.

Castle Mountain: 14,265 ft. in the heart of the Elk Range.

Ahhh the mountains.

I'm addicted.

Friday, May 2, 2008

do you have 3 hours? or 15 minutes?


If you have values, morals, and a measure of desire to stimulate those:

Watch this movie.

If you can't watch the whole thing, at least try and get 15 minutes worth!

Would love to hear your thoughts...

Below is a link to watch it online for free

PART ONE
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3969792790081230711

PART TWO
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7365345393244917682&q=&hl=en

Monday, April 28, 2008


sometimes the feeling to run away hovers over me like a cartoon rain cloud.

should i?

could i?

where would i go?

how would i get there?

who would i tell?

what am i looking for?

what will i find?

what will i learn?

trusting in God can be so hard. to look to him and his strength when nothing else makes sense.

ahhh, the joys of venting to a blog.

Hold me Father as I tread in the quicksand of "pressure to be".

Tuesday, April 15, 2008



Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are.
Don Miguel Ruiz:

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Rain and the Rinoceros!


excerpt from Raids on the Unspeakable, by Thomas Merton

(the following passage is the beginning of an incredible writing A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Kentucky - Thomas Merton)

I know it seems intimidating and like a LOT of words. Trust me. It is beautiful language!!!

Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By “they” I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.

The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with insistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythms that are not those of the engineer.

I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain and toasting a piece of break at the log fire. The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hallows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.

But I am also going to sleep, because here in this wilderness I have learned how to sleep again. Here I am not alien. The trees I know, the night I know, the rain I know. I close my eyes and instantly sink into the whole rainy world of which I am a part, and the world goes on with me in it, for I am not alien to it. I am alien to the noises of cities, of people, to the greed of machinery that does not sleep, the hum of power that eats up the night. Where rain, sunlight and darkness are contemned, I cannot sleep. I do not trust anything that has been fabricated to replace the climate of woods or prairies. I can have no confidence in places where the air is first fouled and then cleansed, where the water is first made deadly and then made safe with other poisons.......





People- amazing…he just keeps going, to finish the writing go here…!
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=6rWhzqlpE2YC&dq=raids+on+the+unspeakable&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=gT1YYPsQsk&sig=MawV-jlgGbsjuF52ItX9XJsqXuE#PPA17,M1

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

it is finished.


Holding on to something that is painful seems normal...apart of us.

Numbing this pain has become second nature...daily.

There is something in that "pain" that convinces you to need it.

"You MUST keep "HOLDING" me."
"I am YOU"
"Who are you without ME"
"YOU NEED ME"

Its THIS voice that crawls beneath your skin and continues to cut away at
your spirit.


I am tired of this pain.

I am letting you go.


I will fight for this freedom....for this right to live pain free.


:)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

poster title:--> when we are already dead.


Well. People.

Last week I joined a team of designers at Metro State College of Denver in a "Social Awareness Poster Workshop".

It was amazing.

This workshop was empowered with over twenty minds cramming loads of research and ideas for three full days.

From forest fires to breast feeding...suicide to child labor...road rage to unsafe meat....political ignorance to man-made poverty......and many more.

It was a great experience ---> Furthermore, because of how good they all turned out we are having a show on Feb 14-16...not sure where...but if your in the Denver area....pop me an email! calstallz@yahoo.com and i'll give you the info!


My poster was meant to communicate the physical and mental murder we conduct when we seperate people. When we remove the humanity from a person and their life and place them in a category... (for example) "Jewish, Christian, Homosexual, Heterosexual, Tax Collector, Prostitute, Criminal, Black, Asian, Liberal, Muslim, Democrat, Republican..." this list goes on and on....and at extreme cases we face the hard to fathom reality of "genocide"...I wanted to make us aware of how we label, categorize, and to some degree ultimatley destroy those unique brothers and sisters we share this great planet with.

Monday, January 14, 2008

again...i left me heart in Ireland



Yet again, an unforgettable trip to this magical kingdom of culture, friends, and tradition.

I charged the great emerald isle these past two weeks with four great friends.

Phil Johnson, Jesse Courtney, Tim Calimlin, and Tim Wolfe all agreed to take the plunge.

Ireland is so close to my heart.

We had an incredible time and are so thankful to all the memories and hospitality shared.

I'll post some more pictures in my picture blog here soooon.