July 7th, 2008 | link
Mackenzie, like I wrote about earlier, is in Mexico right now studying photojournalism under Mary Ellen Mark with 9 other people.
Budapest, hungary
July 7th, 2008 | link
We set out for Romania thinking we could make it in a day from Slovenia. We were wrong. We stopped in Budapest (one of my favorite cities in the world) for a night.
Parliament Building
Here’s me/Timmy shooting my Hasselblad. Lauree took this photo. My back is sweaty.
Here is the hostel we stayed in for a night. La Citadella Hotel is one of the best hostels I’ve ever stayed in. 25 euros a night and you’re at the top of the city.
I’m writing this in Arad, Romania. We’ll be here all day tomorrow, and then the day after that we start driving toward Rijeka, Croatia, where we have a few days off. I’ll write more from there.
Ljubljana, slovenia
July 6th, 2008 | link
Those three shots are from Ljubljana, and the one below is from a small town called Bled.
Today we’ll do some more shooting at a camp, and then load up the Skoda and drive 8 hours to Romania via Serbia, where we’ll spend one day shooting. After that, it’s back in the car to drive back across Serbia to Rijeka, Croatia.
And my iPod broke on the plane. Convenient. If I squeeze the bottom right corner of it, it’ll work, but the second I let go just a tad it fizzles out. Looks like we’ll be listening to a lot of Eastern European radio (read: 1992 American radio). One can’t have enough of Celine Dion.
on the road
July 5th, 2008 | link
Got to Ljubljana, Slovenia last night, met Lauree, and then hit the road this morning.
Here’s our Skoda Fabia,
our lame “Rent Me” sticker from the rental place,
and Laurde peeling the sticker off, because who wants to drive around with a sticker like that? It’s almost as bad as having Student Driver plastered on a sign on the top of your car.
And here is how one gets by day to day while traveling across Eastern Europe:
Nutella ’til I die. Of Nutella.
July 3rd, 2008 | link
Leaving for a month. 15 countries in Eastern Europe. We’re renting a Skoda.
Photos and stories will be here as time allows.
Tonight I fly to London, then Frankfurt, and finally to Slovenia.
I will also Twitter while on the road. Instant updates! And how!
July 3rd, 2008 | link
(photograph taken by Kenz)
Mackenzie is in Oaxaca, Mexico for 2 weeks to study under Mary Ellen Mark, a brilliant photojournalist. M.E.Mark is holding a 10 day workshop for 10 photojournalists from around the world, and Mackenzie got to be one of the 10.
She’ll be writing about her experience here and putting up photographs as she goes.
You can look through Mary Ellen Mark’s work here.
The wine & the bread
June 30th, 2008 | link
My faith is not firm.
I doubt. I wrestle. I get angry. I don’t understand. I get frustrated.
I yell at God. I curse. I weep. I walk away and stumble back.
Sometimes I think God wants me to put up my fists and challenge him to a fist fight.
Maybe God wants a fight. Wants to wrestle. To be questioned. Maybe God wants people to deeply struggle with the text and with relationship between God and humans.
And for me, there is a holy reverence to challenging God to a fight.
In college I was told You just have to believe, and I don’t buy it, nor did I buy it then. I don’t have to believe. I have the choice, and I don’t think I’d love a God who didn’t allow choice.
I heard a pastor I respect once say that he didn’t know if God found him first or if he’d found God first, meaning that he wondered if he would have possibly followed another religion if he had found it first. But he didn’t; he and God met before that could happen.
I like that story. I like the choice that it portrays.
I can’t say much about the Christian faith, for there are too many things I do not understand. My irreducible truths are few.
But I can say this: Every week I come to the table with my friends at Wits End. We take the wine, take the bread, and eat and drink together to remember the redemption. And every week I sit there with tears in my eyes as I think about the absurdity of the incarnation, the death and the life, and the beauty of the story I find myself in.
I bring to the table the anger, the questions, the fighting, the cursing, the tears. But then I take the wine and the bread, and for a peaceful moment in time God and I weep and feast together.
