Rachel's Viewfinder
Rachelfinder.com has been given a facelift! While I definitely enjoyed the hand-drawn elements of my previous design, the structure left much to be desired. In addition, the focus of my website has slowly been changing over the past year. The new design is powered by Business Bullpen’s “Single A” theme.
Design Changes:
First off, the clutter is gone! As great as the old design elements were cool and hand-drawn, now there’s only one thing competing for your attention: the content. The blog itself is up and center.
Second, the extra content is organized in a new set of navigation links on the upper right. All the content in the links has been re-written and adapted as well, hopefully providing easier access to the information.
Third, my series on Arts, Faith and Inspiration is featured right on the home page. No more sifting through back pages of posts to find each post.
Content Changes:
The focus of rachelfinder.com in previous years has strictly been my mission work. Growing in the understand of my calling over the past three years, I’ve come to see that as a Christian artist, my missionary calling is an extension of my passion for art and ministry. As a result, there’s much more to be added to the conversation. The new content on rachelfinder.com reflects these additions.
In recent months, the Lord has given me a number of ideas to encourage other Christian artists about integrating the Great Commission into their artistic lifestyle. I plan to share those ideas, as well as my own experiences living out the Great Commission as a Christian artist. Also, I’m looking forward to sharing project ideas, inspiration and creativity tips, and other life-hacking skills in the coming months. Be on the look-out for the new content!
I’ll close this post with a quote from the great Mark Twain: “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why.”
One of my favorite books is “The Yankee Way to Simplify Your Life,” by Jay Heinrichs. The better part of the book deals with finding your “calling,” and weeding out the parts of your life that hinder living that calling. My favorite theme from the book goes something like this, “What would you do with a million dollars? Now, can you do that without a million dollars?” Heinrichs’ point is that if you’re living your calling, you’ll be doing it without a million dollars, or if you had the money, you’d do it anyway.
It’s January of a new year, when everybody looks at their life and realizes it’s time to make some improvements because the previous year lacked serious “progress.” Over the past few days, I’ve read the resolutions of friends on Facebook and Twitter and I wondered, “What are my resolutions?” Call me content, but I really didn’t see anything that particularly needed improvement. Sure, there’s a few pounds to lose, and organizational prowess to achieve, but all at is per the usual.
So, I thought about calling and how I’ve been living it the past year. Looking back over my journal provided me with some valuable information. Namely, I haven’t written much in the last seven months. And my blog is lucky if it gets an update once a month. With that came Resolution 1): Write more.
Examining last year’s reading list proved equally disappointing, especially from the POV of a person who used to take 20 books out from the library and read them all in a week. The other day, I read over a blog post talking about self-improvement and was challenged to read more of the classics. At this point, the quest is simply this: Resolution 2): Read more. The classics will come with time.
My final resolution came out of the creative explosion of the past few months. After hand-making Christmas presents and ornaments, I simply want this: Resolution 3): Create more.
Resolutions are the expression of a desired habit. And habits, as Heinrichs writes, are “…something you do regularly that you don’t think about; something that would make you feel uneasy if you didn’t do it. Good habits simplify. They boost you towards you goals, make your daily life decisions for you, set parts of your life on autopilot. Bad habits complicate.”
Rather than resolve this year to change the innate and seemingly un-changeable parts of me (re: achieving organization prowess), I instead want to acquire some new habits to inch me further along in my calling. As you contemplate your New Years Resolutions, I encourage you to do the same. Try to make your Resolutions simple and a part of who you really want to be. Because honestly, as Heinrichs notes, “Anything other than your calling is a distraction.”
(Note: If you’re interested in reading “The Yankee Way to Simplify Your Life,” you can find it on Amazon, here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0688163483/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_s1zdpb0YD85WW )
Over the past few months, I spent time pondering what God would have me do with this passion for Art, Faith and Inspiration. As I thought, researched and talked with other creative people, I also tried to take the time to creatively “practice.” These little forays into creative expression aren’t meant to be spectacular. They’re meant to give the brain some fodder to chew on in between bigger projects.
Back in May, these words caught me on www.writerlylife.com: “Optimism has a funny way of encouraging more optimism; creativity often works that way. The more you make space for a creative mood in your daily life, the more you’ll find that creative mood popping up in the course of a day.” (http://www.writerlylife.com/2011/05/how-to-grab-a-creative-mood-when-it-passes-by/)
The concept struck a chord in me. I was stressed from getting married, moving, work, etc. My health took a dive (see April 11 post). All my energy was gone. My schedule had no room in it for a creative mood. But my job is a creative one. Everyday, I use creative storytelling through visual mediums, primarily through video producing. For example, a 45-minute interview becomes a 3-minute video with music, pictures, graphics…whatever. Every aspect of the production requires creativity. Over the past year, my projects piled up, and work became drudgery. How can you be creative on a schedule if you’re out of juice? As I thought about being creative, I realized I couldn’t afford to skip recharging my creative batteries. If creativity begets creativity, then I needed to do some extra-curricular creation. I started thinking of other ways to be creative that were not work-related.
So began a binge of gluten-free baking. First on the list were eclairs. Next came cheesecake. Because that was so rewarding, I started work again on a piece of science fiction. And then came my friend’s wedding and her bachelorette party…after squeezing the creative lemon for my previous projects, it was a delight to make her some hand-painted underware.
Now what does any of that have to with being creatively better at video-production? Well…not much…on the surface. Gluten-free eclairs, writing and underware don’t seem to have much in common. But as a means of letting my creative brain “do something else,” it was invaluable. I found that creativity on a schedule is demanding and draining. Giving my brain the time to “goof-off” and just “practice” being creative meant that creating on the schedule was not so taxing. And that meant regaining a level of enthusiasm that was missing at my day job.
Some things I’ve learned from my “practice” sessions:
1). Do something where the hands make something: cupcakes, curtains, a new doodle for the fridge…the goal is to have the hands moving with the creative brain.
2). Think, but not too much. Start with a general idea and let your mistakes guide the finished product. Remember, this is practice, not masterpiece.
3). Work in short bursts. It’s practice. Who cares if it’s finished (if ever?).
4). Avoid passive “inspiration”; no TV watching, Internet surfing, magazine browsing. The goal is to practice doing your own thing, not copy another’s work.
5). If there’s no creative tools, or you can’t think of what else to try, give reading fiction a whirl. It engages the imagination, the creative “muscle” to stretch and develop.
One of my co-workers, Andy Caldwell, had this to say in one of our department meetings: “Creativity is not instant grits.” He couldn’t be more right. It takes time…and practice. How do you practice being creative?
(Pt. 5 in a sometimes occasional series on Art, Faith and Inspiration)
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In honor of #worldAIDSday and #endofAIDS
In 2000, MSF teams in Thailand first provided triple antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to people living with HIV/AIDS. A year later, teams in six other countries followed suit. At the time, a consensus held that treating patients with HIV was too expensive—ARV treatment cost around $10,000 per patient per year—too complicated, too time-consuming.
MSF doctors could not countenance simply offering palliative care and watching patients die, however. They resolved to find a way to provide people living with HIV/AIDS access to the same lifesaving medicines available in wealthier countries. Concurrently, MSF and its Access to Essential Medicines Campaign teamed with AIDS activists to advocate for price reductions in HIV/AIDS medications and against trade barriers threatening production of affordable generics.
The impact has been dramatic. By 2010, MSF was treating 160,000 people with HIV/AIDS in 20 countries—at a cost of around $200 per year per patient—and the international community was backing HIV/AIDS treatment programs once thought untenable. By the end of 2010, 6 million people in developing countries were on antiretroviral treatment, the bulk of it funded by the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS, and Malaria and the US government’s President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Some 10 million more people still urgently need treatment, but last year, amid the global financial downturn, numerous governments reneged on funding promises to the Global Fund and PEPFAR flat-lined. European trade barriers threatened production of generics in India, the source of 90 percent of the HIV/AIDS medicines used in MSF programs and 80 percent of all ARVs purchased for developing countries.
The progress of the past decade must be protected. “The World Health Organization now recommends early treatment with newer and more robust drugs,” says Sharonann Lynch, the HIV/AIDS policy advisor at MSF’s Access Campaign. “Treatment can both save lives and dramatically reduce the risk of transmission of HIV. MSF is providing this treatment
even in places where doctors are few and far between, using trained nurses and peer counselors. A successful model exists, and the science is on our side—now the international community needs to step up to the plate.”Photo: © Susan Sandars/MSF
(via crookedindifference)
It’s Christmas in the Media Dept! Sheila brought in her Charlie Brown tree this morning. Perfecto! Now in the words of Brian Wilson: “The Christmas spirit grows with each new day…” (Taken with instagram)
