Highway 1 is the best road in the world. #vscocam

#vscocam (K, so Portland picked the worst time to go all record-breaking heat wave on us, so we’ve been hopping from one air-conditioned building to the next and been trying to move our muscles as little as possible. Summer sucks.)

Who are you creating for? Why are you creating? How do you create in a way such that your art is used as a celebration of life rather than twisted for mass consumption?

Made plum cobbler, then ate it with ice cream, shirt tucked in, bare feet, sittin’ on a pile o’ hay, and listening to Andrew Bird. Good vibes were had. ::@stevepickens:: ::@joepickens:: #vscocam

Camp is always so refreshing. God is always so good. #vscocam

Worship music bugs me. Sometimes it’s just too happy. Or too fake-happy, or something. I wish more faith-based bands wrote songs like the Psalms. Where sometimes David really does sing the praises of God, and really is genuinely happy. But other times his songs are filled with doubt and uncertainty and crying out for help. I understand singing worship songs in church, kind of as a pick-me-up, but listening to them at home feels so inauthentic sometimes, because sometimes I don’t feel the happiness or the belief that the songs sing. The song “Casimir Pulaski Day” by Sufjan Stevens is by no means a worship song, but in some ways I feel like it sounds more like a Psalm than anything worship artists are putting out. It ends with “He takes and He takes and He takes”. It’s important to know that other believers are feeling doubt and anger too. Because we all feel it, and denying that is lying to the entire Church. Anyways, that rant was probably way too long, but it’s something that’s been on my mind.

Watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” over the Atlantic Ocean, I cried.