empty bowls, full hearts

these are simply bowls. nothing special or out of the ordinary about them. however, just over a week ago they were made into something radical!

as my friend scott and i prepared to talk to around 140 students about questions they had concerning the bible, faith, and Jesus; to our surprise Jesus was about to ask us a question. a lady walked in with a small child, explaining to me that her family wasnt doing to well in the current economy(to put it very mildly). she went on to say that she and 11 family members(at least 8 under 18) were staying in one of those day to day motels right off las vegas blvd, but were unable to sell enough of their things(mainly a tool chest today) to make rent that night. so here i am completely astonished, and think like 1,000 things: it's sunday night we cant get them a check because no one is here. where is travis? what am i gonna talk to these students about? and i cant throw these people on the street.... just to name a few. so i pulled scott into a room and told him i didnt know how but we were gonna pay for this families room tonight, he agreed and so we told them to come back at 7 and we would have the money.(wow what were we thinkin?) so i jump on stage at 6:00 and explained the situation to a group of 6th-12th graders(not exactly the most wealthy part of a church) totally unsure how they would take it or even if they could help. i shared with them that we talk a lot about loving people, and meeting folks at their greatest point of need, and this was our chance to stop talking and start doing something! i told them i wasnt 100% sure that the cause was legit, but that we were asked to judge we were asked to help, and help, we would, to our fullest. after saying this we took the bowls and passed them around. i watched through misty eyes as students emptied their wallets, pockets, and bags, it was incredible. i saw money that was "supposed" to be in-N-out burger or taco bell, money for a new album or t-shirt, money that was theirs..... but not anymore. i watched as the bowls filled with dollars and coins, yes, but also with love, hope, and another chance. 

that cold windy las vegas night some students were able to see "even greater things" they were able to become Jesus to a family who was, as my friend jake says, "hurting, poor, weak, and marginalized", "just the people Jesus chose to hangout with." they showed them that they were loved and deserved something more. that night middle and high school students gave $250 to people they will probably never meet or even see. they were the Church. they saw the BIG picture, they got it. they didnt fill bowls, they filled hearts.

i was inspired!

see ya soon

micah

things unseen

so this week i hit a milestone i meet one of my heros. his name is david molnar he is a nashville based photographer who is AMAZING (http://davidmolnar.com/). you should for real check out his work hes a baller. so back to my story i got meet david and his wife tammy, they were incredible, i mean that took great pictures and all but much more than that it blew me how down to earth they were. they honestly cared about what was goin on with me and offered advice on how i could be a better photographer, hope i have a chance to speak into someone like that! david shared a quote with me that really rocked my wolrd, and i would like to share it with you:

ludwig mies van der rohe said,

"God is in the details."

that really spoke to me. i dont know about you but i run around crazy most of the time. i would like to say im an artist(or at least one in training) so im trying to look at crazy angles and weird shapes, though, how often do i look for, as telecast puts it "the beauty of simplicity"? it is crazy to think that as life is happening all around me i stumble through and want to find the bright lights and the loud music, but completely miss the magnificent details just under my feet. do you ever think that God laughs at our prays for beauty and grace, as He says slow down and open your eyes a little more.

anyway, i recently went on a shoot of freemont st, las vegas. as i was there i tryed to see the thing that maybe went unnoticed and were skipped over. my goal was simply to see beauty like perhaps i never had before. my images blew me away! colors, emotions, angles, depth, people, they all moved me somehow tuning me into the these God sized details, it was truly incredible.

so i wanted to share my pictures with you to see if you might feel and see some of the same things i did, i hope you enjoy!

 

so could we slow down, open up, and see that God is way BIG, but also that He is in the details that often go unseen!

see ya soon

micah

all you need is....... love?

can i love?

i hear about love.

i read about love.

i watch tv and movies based all around love.

and i mean who doesn't "love" a good love song

it seems the world i live in is all about love. some dying to find it, others doing everything possible to avoid it.

where do i fit in how do i love?

can i love?

i have tried to pray lately that God would teach me to love his word like the psalmist wrote:

I deeply love your Law!

I think about it all day.  

 -Psalms 119:97

how do i love like that, can i love? how do i move pass reading and understanding to actually loving the Words of God. has American Christianity taught me its ok to simply visit and enjoy God from time to time, but not to take rest and live in constant fellowship with the Light? have i bought into the lie that living a life where im drowning in the matchless love of Jesus isnt possible, that constant walking with Jesus is out of reach?

i believe that the bible is absolute truth, and that even though i struggle to live it out, its instruction is unwavering. 

i find it hard to slow down enough to enjoy all that life has for me, and that scares me to death. as i look at the life of Jesus i see that He did not seem rushed. leadership requires relationships, relationships require time, time requires slow paced presence. 

i pray that i will slow down and drown in Jesus, i pray that God will teach me to LOVE His Word.

i can love.....can you love......

YES!!!

good ol' athens town

so it has been a whirlwind of a week. athens to cleveland to vegas. it was crazy, but also a lot of fun!

athens was a blast everything i hoped for, and way more. from the first moment i got there it was hugs and face love(a great way to begin, right!!!) i got to meet a few of frankie's friends... these are my findings.... hahaha

-i met ben, he is great. he's a musician and we had a few great talks about guitars and good bands. he is also the king of shuffleboard and corn hole(although i had never played either so he had an unfair advantage) ben is full of good times and great jokes. seriously, every moments you spend with him just incredible.(i might just have a man crush)

-i met theresa, (she was the first of many huggers) she is kinda the mom of the group. not bad annoying mom, more like, is everyone ok and happy and ready to have the best time ever mom. i dont think she said one mean word the whole time i was there, shes super encouraging and such a blessing to be around.

-i met lauren, she is a dancer who has like been all over the world, and has incredible stories to tell, and she bought this really cool lamp while i was there she even named it.(i men your lamp is pretty cool if it gets a name right) lauren also smiles and laughs all the time, dont you love those kinds of people, they just make you feel like like a million bucks!

-i met jessica the first time i was in athens, but these time was our get to know each other party. jess is amazing! i mean what should i even say? jess brings life wherever she goes, its like fun and spontaneity just follow her around. from arguing about music to late night waffle house and unexpected face love jess and i totally hit it off and had a killer time.

-i got to hangout with frankie..... where do i begin, from i second i was welcomed with a "hey dude" till our getting lost in rainy ATL i had a 24/7 smile! man hangoutin with frankie is always phenomenal. takin pictures in the coolest places, eating great food, and meeting the greatest people, time with frankie is always larger than life. and i could write about it for days, but maybe a few pictures might say it better.

i met a hungout with many more people and they were all awesome you dont even know. i love athens it is really one of the coolest place ever, its a great town with a huge variety of places to go and things to do while still be a rather small place. it the best of both worlds.

so i realize im a week behind but this has been a little about athens ga by micah ogle.

hope you've enjoyed, more great christmas/travel stories to come.....

see ya soon

micah

leavin on a jet plane

so can i start of by saying im on an airplane sitting on the way the Athens GA, which i could not be more excited about. athens is one of my favorite places simply because i have some great friends there, and by the end of these few days i hope to have many more! so on top of this im in the exit row(which is awesome, im normally stuck between the two biggest people on the plane, and behind some little kid who puts the seat all the way back and crushes my knees, but today im free and can almost dance around with all this room, its great) i have over the rhine filling my ears and im writing to you guys(ive always wanted to blog on a plane) so thats the setup....
december 16th is on my top 5 days of the year. it started at midnight havin fun talkin with jordan as i shoved way to much stuff in this awesome suitcase i found at jeff and deborahs, (i mean its amazing, it was a wedding gift they received like 30 years ago,hahaha, well not that long ago but its so cool its a samsonite and it been like everywhere. so starting now im gonna do a photo series on it and i think ill call it moving me) so as we packed and talked and laughed, we quickly realized it was getting late and we both had to get up early. but, we had a blast and it was well worth the missed sleep. so after my semi late night i work up to a cold room, you know the kind that make you run to the shower and want to stay ther all day(i love those). so it has been pretty cold in vegas lately so i add a hoodie layer to normal tee shirt and jacket wardrobe, and because of the cold ive also had o start wearing sox, which im not a big fan of( i mean i always lose one or travis steals my good ones so i just started a boycott) so i grab my things and headed out the door to my windowless jeep(if you know where my windows are please give the back im freezing!!!!!) and headed to work. i am super lucky and get to live in a nice part of the city pushed right up against the mountains to the south of the city, so i have an incredible view of the las vegas valley from my house. due to all the cold weather weve been having and the rain yesterday the mountains all around the valley where covered in snow. it was beautiful,it was as if God was just like good morning, have you noticed how AMAZING i am lately(like on a God sized billboard you know) so i get to work early and sit down to talk to Jesus and read a bit, and read about john the baptist and how he was so humble, even though he was the man, and how he wanted with his whole life to scream that Jesus is on the way. so on this day john is teaching and to some people when Jesus shows up to get baptisted. like right then john tells all his followers to leave him, and follow Jesus. I want to be able to do that, to tell the people that I have influence over to leave me behind and go after Jesus with all they have(wow). so when I got done I went in to prayer (I work at this great church and we all meet every morning for 30 mins or so and we pray, simply becuase without for Jesus we are totally incappable of anything good) so after prayer my and my partner in crime and cubical mate Scott had a great conversation about the bible and Jesus and dumb things Christians phreakout and get pissed at each other about, man I love Scott and how he pushes me to love God more. so then I had to do some stuff to get ready for the weekend because I wasn't gonna be there. then went to lunch at jasons deil and had a Sargent Peper, which is a great sandwhich along with a fabulous beatles song. then it was off tto the airport, to head to athens to see pretty much one of the most phenomenal people in the world frankie nicole porter. she is an old friend from swat, who is a just crazy and fun and artsy and loves Jesus incredibly.
while in athens i will get, for the first time really, to meet frankies friends, and can i say that im alittle nervous. i mean we kinda got off on the wrong foot to start with due to a little musical misunderstanding,hahaha, but in the last week a few of her friends have emailed me that they are super excited about me comin and cant wait to meet me, so im gonna do my best to live up to the hype.......

but I just landed and I have to go meet Frankie, and i stupid excited!!!
I'll talk to you in a bit, I have to go see her and complete my awesome day, but don't worry I'll finish this I promise, im sure ill have lots of great stories to tell tomorrow

a little night music

so welcome back! might i start by apologizing to all the people i forgot to mention formerly, please know you are loved(but to make sure i write about you remember christmas is comin up and i am not beyond bribery). well anyway i guess if your still reading then #1 wasnt so bad, or maybe you are lucky enough to know me, and couldnt help being swayed by my charm.... but your probably just board and none of your friends are on facebook so you came back to check me out..... ill take that. (haha)
so im not sure if you guys know it, but im a lover of photography. i love to study great artists, i love searching for the things that go unseen, i love walkin around with my camera even when carrying it gets on my nerves, i love loading pictures for the first time with such great anticipation in hope ill find that one shot that just wows you. that being said over the last year i have become a student of photography, learning everything i possibly can about this amazing art form.
so day 1 of my first photo class we talked all about exposures, and of course the key to any exposure is proper lighting. and as i have progressed i have learned how valuable that perfect light source can be, recently i have been shooting alot at night, trying to capture the things that go on when the sun goes off. it has been a blast to take a picture that stops time to look at the things that so quickly move past our eye, or to open my shutter for a while and see all the things that are just to slow for our busy eyes to take in. the images, however, long or short very quickly become so bizarre, as the lights, some we see and some we cant, come from everywhere and in a rainbow of colors to flood the scene. i have been shooting franticly, everything from caesars hands and feet to stars trailing across the sky have pasted through my lens, and just about everything in-between. it has been exciting to play with my camera trying to recreate not only the scene but, the feeling of standing in the middle of the desert at midnight, or on las vegas blvd's crowded sidewalks with thousands of tourist and buzzing neons.

the task has been super challenging but so interesting. i have slowly started to understand light, its power to see into dark places, its ability to be where we cant always see it, or maybe where we dont think it can penetrate, light is fast and strong and way cooler than i give it credit for.

and as i understand more and more about light i see why Jesus says we are the light of the world. man maybe its just me but as i read the stories of the gospel i cant help but see some crazy examples of light.

like as john the baptist lived a reckless life that declares "Jesus is on the way"(and i think he had dread) i guys Jesus said was like the best dude ever(thats an exact Jesus quote by the way)

rahab who was a hooker turn Jesus lover,and a woman risked her life to save some people she barley knew, thats gnarly!

david who was rugged and crazy but loved people like God does, and he kill a phreakin bear and lion and giant(like davie crockett....kinda)

timothy who didnt let anything hold him back, even his age or experience

ananias who loved a guy that hated Christians, and had a great impact on one of the most influential people in all of history

paul who wanted more than anything to lift up Jesus, no matter the cost!

peter who was crazy passionate but messed up a lot! and was still used to build the Church, even though he didnt always think things through(that gives me hope)

its insane that these people come from places so different but all wanted the same thing, to know God and make Him known. just like light, it's not till we back up and take a look there lives as a whole that we see different colors, directions, and intensities. we see the light of Jesus in a hooker, maybe a place we think it could go, or the light of God in a king who messed up, but the light didnt leave, or in a young kid who would back down. when we look casually we find light that we dont understand or dont see the point in it shining. but when we slow down we see that it makes a beautiful image, thats a bit bizarre maybe confusing from some angles but as a whole its breathtaking.

where is your light shining, where is my light shining, what image is more beautiful because of you? walk with that light!

good night

see ya soon

my first time

wow this is officially or unofficially my first blog. what in the world am i doing, how does this work, do people read this, am i interesting....

well, good or bad im gonna try this thing, but first i have to warn you i kinda suck at this or maybe i dont, maybe im just insecure. 

ok well all pretenses aside here it is.

as i sit at my desk on december 4 im blown away at the year 2008, man so much has changed. where has time gone it seems like yesterday i was laughing and watching the firework show on the strip from on top of gibson hill(my favorite view of the city) as beka yelled at me and ashley laughed with ben. 

but now here comes 2009, which makes me think what will the glasses look like in 2010? wont that be kinda wierd? oh well thats why people smarter than me have that job. im very excited about what the oppertunitys that the new year will bring, but even more im so filled with gratitude with how ive been blessed. just last weekend i was camping with my bestfriends in the world and as we sat around a camp fire in the snow at 11k feet we watched the most beautiful sunset ive ever seen. all i could think of is how i have such an amazing life(other than the fact that my toes were completely numb). i thought alot about the people who made an impact on my life, and how i am froever changed because of there love which it seems i was at some points buried under. so if you would allow me i would like to tell you about some of the most amazing people in the world 

people like:

melvin swafford- who taught me how important the bible is, and that God has a HUGE message that everyone has to hear

ron german & chuck clark- who showed me what it meant to be and athlete and still love Jesus with everything i have

robby winter- who pushed me to be a leader when i just wanted to get introuble

heath eslinger- who made me grow up and stop talkin and start fighting! he taught me how to study the bible, and use Gods word as more that a book to talk about sometimes, it is something that is to be lived out... and can i just say that i remember how much i hated heath. i can even remember hanginout with him at ihop, and everyone was laughing and having a great time and all i could think about was how much i hated heath!!! hahaha man how he loved me through me stupidity. heath took my wild uncontrolled passion and focused it on stuff that matters

stane gibson- taught me more than anyone about the kingdom of God and how its unstoppable 

jake stum- made me question what i believe about God, he told me i could change what people thought about Jesus, that i had something to offer the world and cleveland wasnt big enough to hold me, hahaha. i remember me and jake wondering if it was weird that a 19 year was hanginout with a 30 year old, but i dont remmeber what the final thought on that was? jake taught me how to love people defently and that sushi was awesome... jake also broke down alot of my christian stereotypes i would tell you how but he works at a church, we talk all the time and he says i cant say stuff or he'll get fired. jake also taught me its ok to cuss if you make this special face, you should get him to show it to you....

jon messarra- wow he is one of those guys that like has Jesus on speed dial, i feel like jon has always been talkin to God about me. everytime we talk it like he knows whats goin on in my life and how i need to respond. jon taught me Gods plans unfold alot slower that we think they should, but they are also alot better than we think they should be. and how to hug a man

travis ogle- man how can i begin to tell you what my brother has taught me about life & Jesus, really the only thing travis hasnt taught me is how to be nice.

mike mead- taught me about photography and LOVE like ive never seen before the way he cares for people and genuinely wants to know whats going and how your heart feels blows me away (man how i long to love like that!)

jeff and deborah korhenon- taught me how to give and love and share, they are the some of the greatest people i know, and ive never met anyone that thinks any different 

i am not even gonna write about my mom and dad but im blessed to call them mine!

i have the greatest friends in the world and people like logan durham, jordan goff, ben lunn, daniel griffith(we know hes useless but he can make me laugh sometimes), todd stevison, leah gibson, scott worthington(we used to hate each other),paule stippich, ryan spoon, jason cox, john gibson, melissa gilesppie, jenifer lockerman, zeke tomaselli, cameron corrnish, julie gibson.... i mean seriously i could go on and on, with people that have shaped my life but that is a good starter list

so that is my entourage i am them i dont have original thought, its all them!

man life is good i love who i am and where im at. God has been awesome to me. 2009 will be a great year, but first i have alot of 2008 to finish up. 

good new guys it christmas time ...... its the most wonderful time of the year, its the hap happyest season of all!

oh well i guess thats enough for today, this blog thing might not be so bad 

see ya soon

micah