Category: thoughts

My desire to be an artist

Recently, my heart has been tugged. It’s as if the Holy Spirit, called by some the Hound of Heaven, has been on my trail. He’s been giving me a desire that, at some points in my life, would have shocked me. It’s a desire to be an artist who impacts the world for Christ. I want very much for my art to communicate meaningful things and touch people’s hearts.

WHETHER I’m even an artist is a matter of serious debate, at least in my own mind. I know I create things, and I know know to execute a few techniques. But I feel an artist should have something visual to say, the ability to say it, and an audience of some kind. Thus far I’ve taken a few pictures, only one of which has achieved any significant audience or visibility. And that picture doesn’t say anything too profound. It’s just a cheese-ball crowd-pleaser. I’m not even sure that photography is my medium; lately I’ve been wanting to paint (though I don’t really know anything about painting or where to start).

But that desire is there, and it hasn’t gone away. I pray that whatever the medium and whichever the way, I’ll be obedient to God and create things which reflect his image brightly and compel people toward Him. Pray that for me, please.

What Harry Potter taught me about the Bible

I have a confession to make, though it’s not a very dirty or juicy one:  I read the 7th Harry Potter book within 48 hours of its public release.  Furthermore, I confess that I enjoyed it.  And no, I’m not about to run out and join a Satanic cult, wear black eyeliner, or start casting silly spells.  (I know at least one of you wondered about that!)  In fact, I learned several lessons about the Bible while reading Harry Potter.  Raised your eyebrows, have I?  Well, follow along as I share the lessons:

1. How to read in context

In ‘Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows,’ the characters talk about a book that’s been written regarding their friend, Albus Dumbledore.  The book is largely lies, and it’s excerpted for a few pages of the larger work, the Harry Potter book.  If you would pick up the book and read those few pages, you’d get a totally inaccurate picture of the overall plot.  Similarly, if you read the Bible carelessly enough, you’ll find that it says there is no God.  A glance at the context, though, will tell you that this message isn’t the intent of the author.  What he really said looks more like, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ (Psalm 14:1)”.  I wonder how many people are savvy enough to pick up the context clues in the Harry Potter book but still insist on cherry-picking the Bible to make it match their pre-conceived notions?

2. The power of narrative

I read the Harry Potter book on the first weekend it came out.  That means I read all 784 pages in two days.  I wanted to finish the story before I went back to work on Monday, so I read it all day Saturday and Sunday.  This left me in the interesting position of going to church Sunday morning, right in the middle of my Harry Potter weekend.  The worship and the story of Christ and his sacrifice for me were so much more meaningful, and it’s because I was tuned into another deeply-felt narrative.  The themes of sacrifice, struggle, quest and the search for truth were close at hand, since I’d been treading those paths with J.K. Rowling’s novel all weekend.  It was easy for me to turn those thoughts to the cross and the ultimate struggle of good and evil.

It’s true that these themes are more read into the text than read out of it.  But such is the result of reading with a redeemed mind.  It’s not what Harry Potter brings to me, but what I bring to Harry Potter that shapes my conclusions.  That’s why I’m not scared to read Harry Potter or any other controversial material: because I read it with a redeemed and, hopefully, informed mind.

Dorothy

I met Dorothy this morning when she walked into my studio. She wanted pictures of her hands because she says she fell on them while holding a phone. Dorothy says a lot of things. I wonder if some of them are only true in her head. She has a real eye for details, but not always the important ones. She’s hard to talk to but very easy to listen to. She was born in 1924 in Oklahoma, and all her time in California (including the 60’s in San Fransisco, from what I gather) hasn’t totally removed the twang from her voice. She’s a beautiful woman, and Jesus has a special place in his arms for her.

Salvation and Parenthood

Salvation has always been a mystery to me.  Not all of it, mind you.  I’ve long stood in awe of the poignancy of God’s provision for us.  I’ve explored the options in the avenue of my mind and can only see one way for redemption to work out: for God to sacrifice some part of himself to satisfy the wrath that his perfect holiness and justice demand.  Bt the ‘why’ part of salvation has always been a black box to me.  I can see it from the outside; rotate it around and see that it works.  But exactly why it works has been beyond my comprehension.  I can see man’s fallen-nes and God’s holiness.  I can see God’s provision in the sacrifice of Jesus.  But as I look at what God has to gain from this whole deal, I’ve been stumped.  It’s always seemed like He has a lot to lose and nothing to gain; like he sacrificed with no end or reward.

Today all of that changed.  As I sat in church and ached to hold my baby son in my arms, I finally understood.  Sometimes I hold him and he’ll look around.  In those moments, the thing I want most in the world is for him to pay attention to me.  But I understand when he doesn’t, because that’s the same way I treat God.  He holds me and provides for me, but I don’t always take time to look in his face.

We were singing a song that has the line, “You tore the veil; you made a way,” when it hit me.  God’s provision wasn’t a cold, austere one.  God was on a rescue mission; he was desperate.  He would do anything to reach out and grab his children, whom he loves so much more than I can love my own.  In fact, he DID do anything and everything when he sacrificed his own life in a desperate, half-failing 11th hour run at salvation.  And he did it all to see the look on my face.  You know the look I mean: the one that a baby has when he looks into his daddy’s face with utter ecstatic joy simply because they have a relationship.  I think I’d do about anything for that look.  God’s love isn’t a mystery to me anymore.  Now it’s real and it’s precious.  I need to make sure to take time to look into my heavenly daddy’s face for the simple joy that it will bring him.

Blogging like it’s 1999

Just for kicks this morning I checked to see if my first web site is still up. It is.  Complete with cheesy graphics, music on many pages, egregious amounts of advertising, and <blink> tags, this testament to my history on the web still stands.  It’s where I first started learning to write <html> and how to post photos online.  But it’s also where I started blogging, before the word had been created.  I called my blog posts updates, and put together a few of them.  I posted on politics, spirituality, and what was going on in my life.  I also posted writings in stilted, overly descriptive language.  I thought I was such a good writer. :-)  I also posted some photos there.  They’re photos of a chunk of my life I haven’t thought about for a long time.  Most of the photos are poor quality, but now they’re meaningful because that was my life.  I guess the old site is like an old snapshot of me.  Out there for all to see.  I thought about logging in and editing it, but can’t bring myself to do that.  Sometimes it’s just best to leave history as it was.

Their Hipocrisy, My Hipocrisy

Yesterday I spent an hour or two investigating the lifestyles of tele-evangelists and other Christian leaders. This link provides reasonably-researched information with a minimum of commentary: Lavish Lifestyles of Evangelists. (Warning: there’s so much information here that you could spend quite a bit if time reading it.  Site opens in a new window.)

I was all prepared to rail against the hipocrisy of these Christian leaders.  Since when is it okay for Pat Robertson to associate with murderous African dictators for the purposes of mining diamonds or for Kenneth Copeland to fly a fleet of jets worth $50-$60 million?  How is that suffering for the gospel?

But I stopped short.  As I wrote this blog post in my head, I realized that I have no moral authority to make those statements.  You see, I have my own sin issues.  And as much as those things make me sick, my own sin sickens the Holy Spirit.  Are there grades of hipocrisy? Is there some way I can speak out against my brothers without first dealing with my own speck?

I realized this morning in the shower that the only antidote for hipocrisy is another h-word: humility. When I before God humble myself and confess my pride, then before my brothers humble myelf and confess my sin, I earn the moral authority to grab the plank in my brother’s eye.

But then I started to question whether men like Pat Robertson and Kenneth Copeland are even my brothers.  Do they follow a God that asks for sacrifice, or just a god that asks their followers to sacrifice?  Are they committed to leaving everything to follow Christ, or are they leaving Christ to follow everything?  It’s important that I ask these questions of myself, because Jesus certainly asks the same questions of me.

For what it’s worth (rather a lot, I think), Peter writes the following in the second chapter of the book of Second Peter:  “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.”

Have these men brought the way of truth into disrepute?  Maybe.  But that’s a question I cannot answer.  Will I bring the way of truth into disrepute?  Will you?  As Shakespeare said, “THAT is the question.”

What to do about Immigration?

Note on the text: This is an old post that I never finished. The deficit of my attention-economy makes it likely that I never will. I’m publishing it for what little it’s worth. – AJS

Someone was talking generally about politics Sunday and complaining that many people are willing to criticize without offering solutions. I certainly don’t want to fall into that camp with regard to immigration. Thus far I’ve only pointed to both sides and delcared what we shouldn’t be doing. You can read those posts here and here. I’d like to start discussing solutions with you, my fair readers. But first, a few words about tone and context:

The immigration debates have fallen victim to one of the chief ills of our political system today: polarization. Any issue seems to be reduced to two sides that have positions of sound-byte depth. Each side will establish their position, then proceed to fill the air with the shouting of the aforementioned sound-bytes, never stopping to listen to dissenting voices. Those who do stop to listen hear nothing but their opponents shouting with vigor equal to their own, albeit with different talking points. Our challenge as those who seek to be informed citizens and change agents is to take a position that falls into neither of the poles, but with a depth of analysis and a solution set that will appeal to both of them.

The factor that separates this debate is the drawing of the lines between those two poles. The immigration debate is producing unlikely bed-fellows, like Big Business and the ACLU. The uncertainty over where the lines are drawn allows us a great opportunity to be the signal in the noise that breaks the polarization cycle.

Your bluetooth connection to God

I see people all over the place wearing these new bluetooth headsets. You know, the kind that lets you talk on your cell phone without having to be connected to it via a wire. Those things are pretty neat, but there are downsides to them, too. When I talk with someone who is wearing one, I can never tell whether they’re on the phone.

Our prayer life should be like that, as well. Several times in the Paul’s epistles, he tells his readers (and by extension, us) to pray ceaselessly. Praying ceaselessly doesn’t have to mean that you’re always walking around with your eyes closed or constantly muttering under your breath or moving your lips (unless you want to scare the people around you), but your mind should be continually ready to jump to prayer, to bring everything to God. Keep your spiritual bluetooth headset on so that you can be ready to pray about everything. And next time you see someone wearing one of those headsets, let it remind you to pray!

Growing old – growing bitter?

I’ve always assumed that as Christians, when we grow in age, we also grow in grace. Lots of recent empirical evidence contradicts this notion this very strongly. Throwing aside this fundamental assumption really throws into question for me the nature of spiritual growth. Will I be mean when I’m older? Is this why people stick their older relatives in care facilities and never visit them? Is living long really a blessing, or just one long chance to be bitter? I’ve never had so many unpleasant conversations in the course of two months, and they’re all with people who are older than 65 or 70. I’m really not sure what to think about that.

The power of a good story

I’ve been reflecting lately on the power of a good story. I’ve consumed several lately, as I’ve been listening to The Chronicles of Narnia on my iPod. While I stood in church Sunday morning, I found it easier to reflect on particular qualities of God’s nature because of my recent familiarity with Aslan, the Christ-type figure in C.S. Lewis’s wonderful series. And when we sing Matt Redman’s anthem-like song, “Never Let Go”, I can’t help but think back to the movie, “The Guardian”, in which that phrase is a foundation of the story. These stories help me to know about God, to synthesize the world in more meaningful ways. Take some time this week and look for a good story. Don’t let the story end with the last page, but bring it into your life and world. Let a good story make an impact on the way you see, and let it direct the eyes of your consciousness heavenward.