Salvation Mountain avec Leonard

There are times when you are forced to make decisions. Sometimes those decisions are right in front of you, but don't seem so clear. Is there a timeline for growing up? Where do we all fall on that line? What causes us to skip a few steps or stay in a spot for a while? I bet Mark would know just what to say right now.

We went to Salvation Mountain a couple days ago. I was completely amazed by the hand-made mountain and its unique beauty. A man named Leonard suddenly emerged from a truck buried half a foot in the sand a littered with paint. He shook our hands and quickly directed us through his creation. We walked into what looked like something Dr. Seuss would dream up. A wall of adobe trees inside of a man made mountain with windows beaming in the sunset quickly drew your eyes up and around. Walking in and on his life's work was something out of a fairy tale. From one glance at this world, you knew what this man stood for. When he spoke, he talked with conviction and strength about the need to love and care in order to change the world. Thousands have visited him and he had given them all their own personal tour. Humbled by the dedication, we stood in awe and listened to him pour into us. "We have to love each other" Leonard would necessarily repeat. Such a simple concept, yet so powerful. Accepting his words is an easy task for anyone caught up in the painted surroundings he carved and sculpted. But, putting his words into use seems to be the next greatest challenge for our world and ourselves alone. Leonard is sitting in the middle of a desert inspiring and making drastic change in our world today. What is keeping the rest of the world from taking the step?

There comes a point in our lives where we have to make decisions. We have a couple different ways we can look at a situation and they can decide the rest of our lives. We can see the beautiful landscape in the background, or the dirt built up on the window in the foreground. I'm not sure it matters which you see, just what you do with what you do see.

Desperate Housewives

Tonight Kristie, my amazing teammate from Uganda, opened up to me and told me of her true loves. She called me on my cell phone (while upstairs) to tell me that she needed me for something of great importance. I ran upstairs to see what she might need from me. Maybe some water or just some man muscle? Maybe she was hanging outside of the window by two fingers and needed me to lift her up to save her life? Maybe she just invented a time machine and chose ME to come along with her back in time to see Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock. As I scurried into the door my expectations lined up with actuality. She had just popped in some Desperate Housewives and desperately needed me to understand her addiction through five minutes of uninterrupted D.H. Five quickly turned into ten, which quickly turned into half an hour, which quickly turned into showing me another amazing show; Legend of the Seeker.

From what I gathered from Kristie, The D to the H is about a bunch of women who get married a lot and have husbands who go blind... but only temporarily. Legend of the Seeker mostly involves magical lesbians. Magical in the sense that they shoot green fire at dudes. Yeah, Kristie loves it.

I think what I learned today was, when you are close to someone and you care about them so much, you love what ever makes that person truly happy. You love them so much that you sit in her room watching it for an hour... so much love. Just... love it. Yep.

Well, good luck to all the teams. Hope all is well on your journeys thus far. If you need any updates on Desperate Housewives, we have our team cell phone that you can call at anytime. Thanks.

A million stones, a million bones

Today I stumbled upon my good friend Stuy Lewis' blog. He's from Savannah Georgia and happens to go to school with an old friend of mine, Jeanie. What are the odds? Anyways, I was captured by his words and how they dragged me into an abyss of memories from the short few weeks we have experienced here. "Experienced" is a good word to describe it. I agree with what Stuy writes about, we can't explain what happens and the relationships created here. But, we really want to. So, I thought, "how selfish of me to not try".

I have never been a person to blog or journal, but my friend Tessa, from 4-5 hours north of San Diego, has explained several times to me how necessary it is that I do document my time here. She has been with Invisible Children for quite some time now, so I cling tightly to the wisdom she shares. Funny story about Tessa, I went to bed one night and found a seemingly empty brand new journal sitting on my bed. I first thought it must have been someone else's, do to the fact that I share a room with sixteen people, but as I flipped it open, there was no writing. As my mind raced its inner routes hoping to find some explanation I jumped on the conclusion that Tessa, the only person I've talked about journaling with, had generously given me this amazing journal by placing it on my bed. So, I pretty much had a heartwarming moment where I thought I had just gotten to coolest gift anyone could give me. Keep in mind I'm a foot away from Bryce snoring like Golem speaks, and Jacob slowing rolling closer to being on my bed. So, my heart warming moment wasn't exactly picture perfect or movie-esque. I quickly fell asleep dreaming of what I'd be journaling about for the next few months and how I was going to thank Tessa for her absolutely amazing gift.

I woke up the next day and reached for my new journal to write in. I flipped past the first few pages, the only ones I had looked at previously, and found some very personal writing about someone's relationship. It turns out every person in the room had thought it was someone else's journal and it was being passed bed to bed until in the safe hands of the owner. I'm an idiot.

I often share my most embarrassing stories, so I told Tessa and a large group of people the next morning. Tessa quickly ran upstairs and grabbed an extra journal and gave it to me. She's pretty awesome. I hope I didn't somehow guilt her into that, but... I had to share such a ridiculous story. I mean, how dumb do you have to be to not flip beyond the first few pages of a journal and think it's yours?

Point being, don't think something that is on your bed in a sixteen person bedroom is yours, regardless of how many times you have talked about it with a great friend.

All that being said, I'm surrounded by an amazing group of people that can only be assembled through something unique. Invisible Children is that something. We are a family unlike any other, we are unique, we are strange, we are incredible, we are hard to describe, we are 65 people living in a house with 3 toilets. I love it.

There are so many amazing people in this house and this organization. I think my form of blogging is going to be a bit untraditional. Vulnerability breeds vulnerability, so I think I've got a plan on how to best keep these friendships burning so brightly. We shall see.

I am a simple man

I love this song by Graham Nash so much. Bon Iver apparently shares the same feeling so they covered Graham's song, Simple Man. Check it out.

You did know

"Today-Live by Jeremy Larson"

The video is one I've watched for years. I always share it with people because it's incredible. -Spencer

This Too Shall Pass

This Too Shall Pass by Tim Gray

I've been a long time fan of Tim and everything he does. He was actually playing at the show where I was first introduced to Invisible Children. So, this brings me full circle. His music and vocals come across with an honesty hard to compete with. This is my favorite track of his. Hopefully you can invest some time in his music and come out the other end with a refreshing perspective. -Spencer

If you want a couple other good songs that you can also download for free go here:

Purevolume.com/timgray

Hints: Hope for Tomorrow & The Least I can Do

Home is the right first word

Winters of My Life from Jonathan Burhop on Vimeo.

First week working for Invisible Children. We're all working incredibly hard to achieve all of our goals and be prepared to hit the ground running across the country. With the common goal to end this war, a different world is created within the walls of our sixty-five person house. Hopefully I can portray the growing strength and friendships that flourish here through this blog. Hope you enjoy. - Spencer