Art.

This is going to be the title track of AP’s forthcoming record. See his fascinating, postpartum thoughts here.

“A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent”

William Blake

“I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the gospel as some bigoted persons pretend, but would willingly see all and especially music, servants of Him who gave and created them.”

Martin Luther

This is the last straw. I take my last sip of this last straw and am officially fed up (good meal) and am ready to rail against the problem of beard-shards-in-eye syndrome.

We’ve all had it happen, and it happened to me again today. I was trimming down my Al-Qaeda/wizard beard back to societal norms when a shard from this beard struck me in the eye-ball area of my ocular cavity. It hurts, Mister President. It hurts.

We can no longer stand on the sidelines and let history remember us as the people who failed to act. The Government must fix this.

I am calling on The Government to find a solution. We need:

1. Warning labels on beard-trimmers and on beards.
2. And eyes.
3. An agency dedicated to keeping my eyes safe from my beard when I’m trimming it.
4. A blue-ribbon panel to do research and make recommendations to The Government.
5. An oversight committee to oversee the blue-ribbon panel making recommendations to the agency.
6. Training provided by The Government to people on how to trim their beards without the shards flying into their eyes.
7. Lawyers to sue every company that has made beard-trimmers. What’s John Edwards doing?
8. A pair of safety glasses issued to each thirteen-year-old boy in the nation.

It is time to act. Let not history not not say that we did not fail to fail to act. Act, do not not act.

…of her old website home.

Go visit her new web home at www.ginagsmith.com. Be friendly, say hello in the comments section.

I love the new look. And I love her.

That is all you get, nosy people. Go thither, post haste.

“In short, I think there are powers and mysteries at work in the world that can only be expressed through fairy tales. Fairy tales allow us to cast nets into mystery and catch things that are otherwise inexpressible. Tolkien said that fairy tales can give us a glimpse of our eventual redemption in a way no other story can.

At its best, fantasy provides us with an escape from the narrow, restrictive perspectives of modernism. And with its emphasis on the primal, it returns us to engagement with the elements, with the stuff of rocks and trees and fire and rivers and mountains. Since those elements of creation “pour forth speech,” according to the Psalmist, we’re able to hear some things more clearly when we meditate there.

But fantasy can be destructive, too. I’ve seen people who are dissatisfied with their lives attracted to the violence, to sorcery, to the ideas of tremendous power that are celebrated in some fantasy stories. I’ve watched people become severely irresponsible, abandoning engagement with their own world in order to indulge in fantasy role-playing games or non-stop fantasy media. Fantasy is dangerous territory and it demands discernment.”

Jeffrey Overstreet

From this excellent interview, by Jenni Simmons, with this outstanding author.

Raven’s Ladder releases today! Go here to buy this book. I loved it, for what it’s worth.

Note: If you haven’t read the first two books, Auralia’s Colors, and Cyndere’s Midnight, get them first.

Great News! Exclamation point. Eric will be playing in Beckley, WV on Friday, March 5th at United Methodist Temple.

Facebook Event here. Other news here. Nothing at all here. Enjoy his new song. It has the words “Ha, ha!” in it.

You have to love this guy. It’s the rules.

Also, he has a new T-shirt for sale. Get that.

“The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.”

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

HT: Ron Block

Andrew Mackay has some excellent thoughts (and chats up the cool film: Primer) answering the question: What should the quality of a movie that reflects/supports/advocates/illustrates a Christian world view be like?

“…You see this in Christian movies, too. If you look across the bulk of the movies made, they are shallow, filled with superficial “tragedy” that in every case resolves perfectly, helping the protagonist to more exciting faith.

This is why so many believers who are artists choose to do art outside of the community of faith — or on the outskirts of it. You can communicate harder things, deeper things, if you’re not constrained by an industry that doesn’t want depth, preferring an easy sell. So, you get a movie like Primer, made by a Believer, that explores hard questions about man’s nature and does it interestingly (time travel and the relationship dynamic between best friends). This movie would be a hard sale into the Christian art buying community (Christian bookstores, web stores, etc). But, ironically, it found an audience with thinking people in the general industry. And it was better done than any Christian movie I’ve ever seen.

So, one thing that Christian art must have is depth.”

Read the whole post.

“The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present, the exact present, that is unbearable. Remember one is given strength to bear what happens to one, but not the 100 and 1 different things that might happen.”

C.S. Lewis, Letter to An American Lady

HT: B. Smith