the experience up to this point.. wonderful, challenging.. and i am an a-hole. (more on the a-hole later)

jason and i got to willow got checked in and had no idea what to do with ourselves, so we stood by the doors to get in as early as possible and check into some front row type seats. not bad there. jason spotted mark yaconelli for me, so i chased him down. said our hellos exchanged some conversation where i told him, "i suck." which i’ve been saying for awhile now. no surprise to me. we tried to find brian mclaren, then charlie hall kicked in. said our byes.

i love charlie hall‘s music, though i’ve never seen him live before. my favorite song i don’t expect to hear played. it’s rather slow moving and has a violin accompaniment. possibly next time. haha!

brian kicked into high gear early, so i bet many people were left in the dust. the whole idea of empire and that we are the current empire that Christ spoke against or had an active resistance against is a tough pill to take. check out my parallel. so if people were not able to gather that quickly then they might have had troubles. a lot of the message is what is highlighted in "everything must change." tim, took some good notes. me, i txt’ed my twitter with notes. so check that out. there is some banter over at the out of ur blog on this sharing. they have posted this highlight of brian’s talk as well.

mark yaconelli was up next. mark was wonderful. many of the words i needed to hear. i made sure to thank him afterwards. he told me that at least he knew he was talking one person. i believe he connected with just about everyone. tim, again, has really great notes.

i took some prayer time after the session. i let morning prayer slide, as i so often do. so taking some moments while everyone was standing in lunch lines. not a bad decision. prayer time was really good for me, though, as with many times it is a struggle to rest. it takes about 4 or 5 days to get to that rest spot for me. however, it was nice to be. i didn’t want to leave so i read this letter that was written to me two weeks ago. i have been carrying it since i received it. it is from an older gentleman in our congregation. in it he shared his snapshots into his story; foster care, childhood, the army, a suicide attempt, redemption & a commitment to sharing his gift for drawing and art with others. this is when i felt like an a-hole. i’ve been holding this for days now and wouldn’t give myself the time to be inspired and connected. i highlighted this from a newspaper article about his work drawing pictures for newborns in the hospitals.

"The simplicity of strokes, that’s the secret to make something look real with the least amount of work. That’s the secret to creativity."

i like that.

after that lunch break. willow has a large cafeteria typed area. i had a very ‘hit the spot’ braut.

back into session with shane claiborne who shared many stories of loving thy neighbor. lifting up & caring for those in need. i think he wrote this before, but i heard it again and it struck me.

Jesus did not talk to a prostitute. because, Jesus did not see a prostitute. only a child.

that i liked as well.

ps: i’ve got some killer pictures to share. but this hotel wi-fi won’t let me upload to flickr. so look for those at some point.