January 2011
6 posts
1 tag
I Hate the Bumpy Ones
It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years. -Fredrick Buechner, Telling Secrets
I...
5 tags
I Give Up
I give up.
I said this four separate times this week. Three times to myself. Once out loud. I said it in response to the ugly rumblings that were coming from my insides. You don’t have anything to say - certainly not enough to fill a book. I’m sorry, how will you do this and get your other work done? You have a baby on the way, now is not the time to start writing anything. Just try...
1 tag
You Have Nothing to Sell
A new friend, Jon Guerra of The Line here in Chicago, sent me something intriguing earlier today. I thought it best not to keep it to myself but to share it with you.
The following is an excerpt of Karl Paulnack’s address to the parents of the incoming freshman at Boston Conservatory in 2004.
“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies,...
1 tag
Capturing the Imagination
“I think that we Christians have made our peace, more or less, with useful culture. Especially when it can be used as a means for our own ends. If the song has Christian lyrics, if the painting has an appropriately pious subject, if the technology used to deliver the gospel - which is often itself conceived as a blueprint, a technical drawing explaining the mechanics of salvation - we are...
The Hard Work of Falling In Love Again
“It’s almost like letting yourself fall in love a little bit everyday.” - Scott Schumann, The Sartorialist
Last week was my first full week back after our Christmas break. About the second day back I noticed something strange. I was feeling terribly depressed and anxious even. This, my friends, is what you call the “post-project blues.” Has this ever happened to...
4 tags
On Beginning a Book (or at least a proposal)
Earlier this fall, Ben Arment asked if I would write an essay for the program to be handed out at STORY. After a few tumultuous days of searching for what to say, I was reminded of a phrase I had written rather cavalierly a number of months before.
“The artist is the pastor of the 21st century whether we like it or not.”
Some people took me to task since I had seemingly had no...