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Invisible ink of lines not yet drawn,
Stark white doubt surrounds and stares down.
Try drawing within the lines
Of a box you can not see.
it isn’t very easy .
A question posed in pencil,
Writing on the wall.
Messy colored finger tips
Calling forth beauty from
absent-minded smudges.
Strong staring towards the vibrant reflection
That blinks not once,
Fingers grasp a pencil,
Mind a thought.
Creation.
Beautiful song and blow-your-mind gorgeous choreography. I know little to nothing about dance except that this inspires me. By all means skip the hostess and go to 18 seconds in. It starts getting really awesome at about 53 seconds in.
I’ve been thinking about the power of stories a lot lately. Sooo naturally I’ve been collecting other people’s thoughts to. (one of my top five strengths is Input 
Feel free to wander down my path of pondering. I’ll try and coagulate my thoughts into something presentable within the next week.
Jesuit psychotherapist Anthony de Mello wrote that “the shortest distance between a human being and Truth is a story”
“I wonder if people will ever say, ’Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring.’ And they’ll say, ’Yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn’t he, Dad?’ ’Yes, my boy, the most famousest of hobbits.’”
—Samwise Gamgee, in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
“Don’t tell people how to live their lives, tell them stories. They’ll figure it out.”
Randy Pausch science lecturer battling terminal cancer
Attempting to tell stories through film or literature is “..mirroring and mimicry of God’s own creativity…evil doesn’t create. Our stories are impacted by evil, they are no better than we are.”
PluggedIn online article SuperStory Power
Article: “The Internet is killing storytelling”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article6903537.ece
In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “I had always felt life first a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.”
John Donne writes in his Meditation 17 that “all mankind is of one author, and is one volume.” “God’s hand is in every translation,” meaning every human life.
Could it be that our relationship to stories, our first love of the tale beyond us and the author beside us, conveys a deep truth about our own cosmic tale? Are not the very philosophies we carry attempts to make sense of the grand story of which we find ourselves a part?
…Similarly, the writer of Hebrews des cribes Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith, where ultimate significance is aptly defined as being written into the story of God. God’s Word places us in the timeline of a coherent history, delivering us from the deceptions of the enemy, telling us who we are, and where we came from, what is wrong with us, how we are made whole, and where we are going. We are placed within a story of which we know and celebrate the outcome, even as we wait for it through time and trial. In Christ, history’s outcome—its ultimate end—is revealed.
Essay “The Apologetic of Story” by Jill Carattini, managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. 11.16.09
American Christianity is beginning to shift away from the hyper-marketed evangelicalism of the past several decades, but its offspring choked for awhile on its single story—one that often urged its members to follow the cultural storyline more than a theological one. Members and non-members alike begin to believe the plotlines being read to them: evangelicals must be white Republicans, lousy artists, non-intellectuals, and Hollywood-haters.
As I see it, my children must discover how their unique and nuanced lives rotate beautifully around the fixed narrative of God. I love tethering them to the undeniable salvation of Jesus Christ and then watching their stories take them to places, possibly outside the boundaries of evangelicalism, possibly outside the Bible study bullet points, perhaps beyond the expectations of their parents and youth leaders and even past the limits of their imaginations. If God’s narrative, as set out in the holy Scriptures, is wild and illogical and intense and at times unpredictable (think Daniel, Mary, John the Baptist, Abraham, and a host of other lives who didn’t fit any fixed plotline), could not we think to wander away from the single story being laid out for us?
Conversant Life blog: 11.17.09
http://www.conversantlife.com/god-and-culture/the-danger-of-the-single-story
http://thefuntheory.com/
…this is brilliant. Honestly. watch the video about the piano stairs. As a sociologist, (if I can stretch the term to apply to a student like myself)..this fascinates me. Their theory: we can change people’s behavior for the better by making things more fun for them to do. Since seeing this I’ve been batting around random ideas with gals on my floor and other friends cause it’s an intriguing theory to ponder. (I’ve also decided to attempt to eliminate “interesting” from my vocabulary. what does “interesting” even mean any more?)
So the fun theory. I doubt I’ll actually submit anything to their contest. No time or tech knowledge. But it’s practically applicable to something in your or my daily life. …I just have to figure out what.
Loving sinful people incorrectly helps us better love a perfect God.
true? I’m beginning to think so.
Also an idiom, “If wishes were horses beggars would ride.”
Emerson says this of nature, “Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture.” (Essay on Nature) God of course, designed nature partially in this way. To stand as living metaphors for who we are and, more importantly, who God is. Emerson sadly missed that part. But the idea is gold. The Bible is full and overflowing with it. Be light. Be salt. Be clay.
Right now God’s inviting me to embody this….
….and I am wary.
God, being the Great Storyteller that he is, uses metaphors well.
What metaphor hints at your relationship to God lately?
I will read my textbooks like I mean it.
I will get out of my room to get work done and be in it to relax.
I will take spontaneous adventures .
I will drink LOTS of tea and a tiny bit of coffee.
I will learn how to lift weights.
I will listen and participate in discussions that change my life.
I will eat gelatto and study art in Rome.
I will be creative about making pretty decor.
I will go home and thoroughly enjoy it.
I will bike to friends’ houses, apartments, etc and make them food.
I will go camping as often as possible.
I will teach a class on James.
I will go to chapel, lectures, and writing seminars cause they’re good for me.
I will try numerous new ethnic foods.
I will pray often with and for family and friends.
I will try to keep my plants alive.
I will climb rocks and jump in lakes.
I will help lead the leaders.
I will graduate.
I will look to the future and explore options.
I will not be in control but I will trust my God who is.
….its the inverse of idolatry.
Just replace love with loathing.
Instead of my life paying homage, I pay horror.
Fear clings to and captures the soul the same way that idolatry does.
Perhaps there’s a reason we’re told to fear God and nothing else.
Just some’thin I’ve been thinking about.
There’s a story to the banner on the top of your screen. an epic God sized story. The vivid blue sky displayed in this lovely banner should not have been visible. Storm clouds occupied that space 5 minutes earlier. Sheets of rain drenched the ground. And we were supposed to be holding an outdoor rally during lunchtime. We drove to the school sending prayers with every mile because there was no back up plan. When we arrived to the highschool, the administration thought we were crazy for trying to go through with it. So did the rap artists who were nearly blown away by the fierce wind upon their arrival. After we all layered up with as many jackets as we could find we went to work stabilizing speakers against the strong wind and insulating them with bags against the water drops. The clocked ticked down and the wind picked up and the rain…trickled away.
The wind God sent blew a perfect circle of blue sky over the lunch area. The bell rang and we rocked a concert and announced the Christian club throughout lunch. Which is when this picture was snapped. A tree in the middle of the courtyard and a perfect circle of blue sky. Half an hour. That’s exactly how long it lasted.
The bell rang to end lunch. As we began to take the equipment down, it started feeling drops. We warned teachers headed for their vehicles they better “get out the umbrella now” cause the rain was coming back. The van door slid home and the skies opened up. It continued to pour the rest of the day.
God is sovereign. He cares about the details of our lives. It was miraculous. It happened. I am a witness. And it’s one of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever received. Share the story…. got one?
Here’s the school wide angle with the varying shades of sky. Oh and the rappers? So in awe at the power of God they gave away all their merchandise instead of selling it.
