Sun Always Shining.

With an I heart Jesus lanyard wrapped around his neck, Kenny enchanted the audience that sat to watch his documentary, Sun Always Shining. Kenny is an artist. He paints the city of Chicago by memory. He is also most likely diagnosed with autism. He had this thing with throwing a drumstick up and down while he was walking. Everywhere he went, the drumstick was with him, twirling over the Chicago skyline.

When commenting about his stick, he said, "Some find it immature, but I don't care, I do it anyways." He laughed after everything he said and was completely engaging with one hint of a smile.

He was a janitor on the side, and when speaking about his work, he said " The Lord gives me the energy" to do his job daily. He was apparently always lifting people up, and they called him the encourager in his art studio. It was a beautiful picture of the holy spirit who had captivated a man to do his business on earth.

Kenny would walk the streets of Chicago, ride the train, and observe the empty parking lots in sight. Instead of painting what he saw, and what was real, Kenny was constantly fixing up the city through his art. He dreamed of a better Chicago, taking those empty lots and placing buildings where people could "work and live." He always paints blue skies, and stars... and the sun is always shining.

Is Kenny hoping for the New Kingdom? I think so. I think he is working with God to rebuild what is to come. He has a hope for Chicago, a new vision. Kenny gets it.

"What you do in the present--by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself--will last into God's future... they are part of what we may call building for God's Kingdom." From.. Suprised by Hope

If this is true.. if this is what the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit are all about... then we are agents of the transformation of this earth, anticipating the day when Jesus comes andhis new kingdom reigns forever!

Kenny is an agent, working for the Lord, building the new kingdom here on earth! Kenny himself said, " To me, the in crowd is the out crowd, I am not apart of this world."

How simply profound, right? How cool that we are here on earth to help God.. that are lives have purpose and meaning... that we aren't here just to die and go to heaven!

I pray I could be as real as Kenny, as devoted, and so absolutely loved.