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December
Advice
I Love You

November
38. Bald is beautiful
37. Fire
36 Sleep
35 Music

October 2006
34. Stupidity
33. Painting
32. mmm Pasties
31. Built to last
30. Phlegm

September 2006
29. Meetings
28. Crime thoughts
27. Colours
26. Unwanted guests

August 2006
25. Comparison
24. Waterproof Mascara
23. Tasty MSG
22. Helplessness

July 2006
21. Attraction
20. Hair
19. Hero
18. Laughter
17. Factoids

June 2006
16. Voiceless
15. Bruises (ouch)
14. Sunburn
13. Mistakes

May 2006
12. Arms
11. Willow Tree
10. Eurovision
9. Chicken
8. Addictions

April 2006
7. Age
6. Celebrities
5. Language

March 2006
4. Commonwealth Games
3. Decisions
2. Drizzle
1. Trelawney

Painting 

This week is half-term. I guess most of you know this, but it’s always worth repeating. A week of no school or clubs, lie-ins, bad weather and alien painting. “Huh?” I hear you say (not that huh is a word, more of a sound – so can you say sounds or are they uttered, grunted or groaned??). Yes most people think that half-terms and non-school days equate to time off, but for me I spend most of the school holidays working, and this week is no different. 

These last few days, whilst the wind has blown and the rain has fallen, I have stood outside with paintbrush in hand, muddy puddles underfoot, and I’ve graffiti-ed! Now before you call the police to report my vandalism you should know that it was a police box that I have defaced. Oh and I was funded by the council to do it! I know, I know, my job is awesome! 

Basically the Local Authority had some spare cash and thought what could be better than to give it to a group of young people from Portobello (a council estate I work on), for them to decorate the temporary police box on the estate. This box is nothing like the Tardis-esque police call box but more like a shipping crate-box-thing you see on the telly. It is hideous and yellow and even has a cell in the back. But it’s useful to local residents and is now looking a little brighter! 

My group came up with a space theme and so covered the box with aliens, stars and ironically enough, a Tardis! Now I’m no expert, in fact I’d go so far as to call myself an artistic dunce (my brother got all the Husk artistic ability!), but I think the box looks pretty cool from a distance. But when you get up close you realise that the star is really more of a blob, the supernova looks like a doughnut and the things dangling from the alien are not legs, but drips! Gloss paint is hard to use, especially in this rubbish October weather, but even so some of the pictures look like I could have done better – and I’m artistically dyslexic!  

I asked the artist, who has helped us with this project, if she sometimes feels like she wants to paint over and start it all again. Horrified she said no (and made me feel like a heartless idiot for asking!) but after the kids have finished she will do some clean-up work – removing some of the drips, defining the outlines and generally tidying the artwork up. She never changes the ideas, the creativity, the heart of what the young people have painted. The project isn’t to produce something that looks perfect but it is to get the young people involved, enjoying it and creating something that’s theirs. Looking at the spacey mess now I see a new kind of beauty – I can see the passion, the laughter, the imagination and the heart of the youngsters of Portobello. 

Some people think that becoming a Christian means that you change who you are – becoming boring, no fun and ‘nice’ and bland. But I don’t agree. Yes, we need Jesus to help us to clean up our mistakes, to tidy up the things that hurt others and ourselves, but like the artist He doesn’t change who we are – our ideas, our imaginations, our passions, our hearts – into something else. God never created us to be perfect, He created us to be us. Oh and He thinks we are beautiful. He thinks you are beautiful. Despite the imperfections, the drips and the smudges, God thinks you are beautiful. 

And if you should ever find yourself on Portobello, look out for the giant strawberry alien – it’s tremendous! What imagination!