Graffiti Board

My final class at Albright College will finish tomorrow.

I'm done classes at Albright.

Forever.

It has been quite an enjoyable "interim" (January term). As I described in a previous post, it has been a time for me to rejoice in "MJ time," celebrate friendship with others, and work on my "domestic skills" of cooking. With the exception of the cooking thing, I met my goals efficiently, and after some final presentations in class tomorrow, my interim will cease.

I'm excited about my final project. It's objective was very appropriate for the last project that I'll ever create for an Albright class. The project required us students to create anything, whether a game, poem, dance, painting, etc. to symbolize our personal growth throughout the class. Tomorrow, each student is expected to share his/her project with the class.

I chose to do some graffiti for my project.

Not real graffiti of course (I'm not that talented), but instead, I represented my feelings through an activity called a "graffiti board." This activity was introduced within our education theatre class. It's similar to a brainstorming web; a topic is written in the middle of a board, piece of paper, etc. and participants are invited to come and record words, pictures, etc. to represent their ideas about that topic. For example, if the central topic is food, one could draw a picture of a pizza slice, write "Chinese food," or do a combination of both! With the topic of "educational theatre, my final project ended up looking a bit like this:


Organized chaos at first glance, hunh? It's interesting, however, because as one chooses to admire the graffiti a bit closer, one can see that a theme of words and numbers draw itself across the posterboard from 1-15. Each of these days, separate by by different colored shapes (day 1 is a blue square, day 2 is a light blued circle, day 3 is a green square, etc.) summarizes a "theme" for what was learned that day.

What I loved about this project was that it challenged me to understand the value of moments of reflection and expressing that reflection in ways that illustrate intentional periods of growth.

I suppose that's not completely true. I've always been aware that reflection is valuable, I just never have taken the time out of my schedule to do it.

This has always been a problem in my personal journey of understanding myself and coming to know Jesus. While I've always been quick to adventure on self-discovery by enthusiastically joining clubs, meeting new people, and taking risks, I've never quite taken the time to reflect on such opportunities and experiences. Instead, I always find myself too exhausted from the day's events to record a special moment or to ponder a theme that summarizes my growth for the day.

Even more, I hardly make time to quietly sit with God in prayer or to reflect on Jesus' teachings so that I can record a special moment or ponder a theme that summarizes my growth or understanding with Him.

If you want to grow in understanding yourself and Jesus, not reflecting is not an option.

Not making the time to reflect-to record a thought, to sit and think about the day, to make quiet time for prayer or hearing from God is unacceptable. Understandable, it's hard work. Many times, whether it be before the day's agenda or after a night's activities, we're too tired to sit and reflect- it's just one more thing to do! And yet, we wonder how our life can feel so "purposeless" when we fill it with activities, service, and "good, Christ-like" things to help others comes to known Jesus.

When seeking God's word, scripture reminds us that God speaks to us in whispers.

• The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. ( 1 Kings 19:11-13).
  

I want to be okay with have moments of silence, quiet, and reflection.

I want to hear God speak to me in whispers.

I think I'll continue to jot down a word or two to summarize a "theme" for my day. I'll expect that these records will extremely helpful over the next few weeks. Perhaps some of them will appear in my blog, or perhaps, I'll have to make another graffiti board.