One of those nights (Lots of links..)

A couple nights ago I came home with batteries for my camera.

Its an old Nikon FE, probably built in the 80's or late 70's. Its a pretty valuable cheap thing, respected but low grade.

I came home after shopping in the mall all day with my little sister and my girlfriend. Jeans and pajama's and sweaters later, I drove home, grabbed my bass and a bowl of dinner, and drove to the heart of downtown with Heather to play in the Remix - a new urban intensive outreach Mike Peace is running.

Worship was hot at the remix. God moved and spoke in the faithful way he does when you shut up, move over and let him.

Among the things I learned at the Remix were:

• Our spiritual maturity is measured by how willing we are to be used by God; how open we are to God. You can be a very old Christian and not be spiritually mature, while be a "baby Christian" and be very open to God, i.e. very mature in Christ.
  
• We are called to stand in the gap for our families, our friends, and our city.
  
• Its alright to question the things of God and be question, be secure anyways.

Ah, it was a great service. Homeless people, engaged couples, suburbs, thug, prep, all worshiping God. Quite a social scene, quite a glimpse of Heaven.

When I finally got home at about 1:30am, after country sweet chicken, I Love Lucy, and a cold front porch conversation, I put those batteries I bought for my camera in.

I only had 100 ISO film, so I could only shoot in very bright light. It was dark outside. It was 1:30am.

I didn't plan to take any pictures, really. It had already been a wonderful, long night. But while I was making hot cocoa I got inspired by the ingredients I was using: salt, vanilla extract, sugar, cocoa, and a brown tall ceramic mug to put them all into.

So I got that old Nikon FE out. I turned this funky bent clip light on that my dad uses to help him gut fish out in the sink and shone it on my ingredients. Then I just started taking long exposure pictures, balancing my camera on the kitchen counter and using the self timer so I wouldn't blur the pictures when I pressed the shutter release.

Sasha came by and sat on the edge of the sink, then lied down and fell asleep. I took many pictures of that fat gray cat of ours.

Then I at a quarter of a chocolate cake and fell asleep with my jeans on.

This is my winter vacation.