In a movie theater we all stare straight ahead And wait for something to happen. Some need to be fulfilled, Others just want to be accepted. I think we’ve all seen this one before. It stars that insatiable hunger for what is yet to come, Directed by that unintelligible twitch in our brain Which says…
Diary
But for you who fear my name
But for you who fear my name, The Son of righteousness will rise With healing in his wings. And you shall go forth again, And skip about like calves Coming from their stalls at last. Excerpt from the song But For You Who Fear My Name by The Welcome Wagon, written by Lenny Smith. Painting…
The Most Foundational Discipline
“Solitude.” “It is the most foundational of the disciplines of abstinence, the via negativa. The evangelical passion for engagement with the world is good. But as Thomas à Kempis says, the only person who’s safe to travel is the person who’s free to stay at home. And Pascal said that we would solve the world’s…
The Cult of Achievement: Why EQ is Better Than IQ
“Another problem with the cult of achievement is that it places so much emphasis on developing a child’s IQ that an equally crucial aspect is totally eclipsed–what psychologist Daniel Goleman, cofounder of the Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning at the Yale University Child study Center, calls “EQ” in his groundbreaking book, Emotional Intelligence: Why…
Glimpsing the Invisible
Tentatively enduring each agonizing gasp, you force your lungs to work but your eyes don’t blink. They finally called your name and you did the very thing you told yourself you wouldn’t do. Two steps ago you were safe in your chair. Now you’re that much closer to that fast approaching future you thought you’d…
I know we’ve only known each other four weeks and three days: Steve Martin, Rob Bell, Aions and Aions
[Speaking to Marie in bed while she sleeps] Navin R. Johnson: I know we’ve only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like…
There Can’t Be Spring if We’re Stuck in Fall: Rob Bell, Death & Life
Jesus talks about death and rebirth constantly, his and ours. He calls us to let go, turn away, renounce, confess, repent, and leave behind the old ways. He talks of the life that will come from his own death, and he promises that life will flow to us in thousands of small ways as we…
Love Is A Little Weird
We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness, we call it love. –Dr. Seuss Illustration above by Mayumi Otero
When Is A Masterpiece Really A Masterpiece?
“What makes a work of art unique isn’t its color or composition or subject, it has nothing whatsoever to do with what we see. Why are some paintings masterpieces while others, perhaps even more competent, are forgotten? Why are some symphonies still beloved hundreds of years after the composer has died?” Gamache thought about it….
Why I like Hardcore Music: Art, Morality and Catharsis
The philosophical debate over the moral effects of the arts is hardly new; we can trace it back at least as far as the writings of Plato (ca.428–ca.348 bce) and his most famous student, Aristotle (384–322 bce). Plato argues that we should be suspicious of the so-called “imitative arts,” because they arouse our passions—“Frantic tick…