Seth Godin has so much wisdom for artists and entrepreneurs of all kinds. I appreciate his books. I don’t see how this interview is anything but helpful. Am I missing something?

via Ariel Hyatt

HT: Chris Yokel

“In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like a night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.”

C. S. Lewis

via

If you’re like me, you didn’t know the story of this attractive message. Here it is.

HT: Denny Burk

That’s how I describe my politics (not original with me). But maybe I should say “North” of Arthur? Kingdom come.

Meanwhile, I do vote and am not “completely turned off” by politics in the U.S. I’m just turned down to a very low flow (like the showers some politicians insist on). So, there is voting going on these days and this humorous expression of exasperation cropped up on Facebook. I have no idea where it originated, but my friend Andrew Preslar made me aware of it.

We love, love, love this song. Sara Groves is wonderful.

Thanks to Dave at Under the Radar for this video. If you aren’t familiar with Under the Radar, check them out. Great music and an outstanding mission to support the best, oft-overlooked singer-songwriters.

Russell Moore pens a must-read article on our life, and the life of the universe, as a long, Christ-shaped story. This has been the insistent theme for me the last few years, thanks to many different sources. And here is a Baptist adding his well-said words, like another log on the fire. Please read the whole thing, but I want to highlight a few parts. –Sam

“The gospel of Christ is indeed the reversal of sin, and of death and hell. But without a broader context, such teaching can treat Christ as a means to an end, a step from the alpha of Eden to the omega of heaven. In a truly Christian vision of the kingdom of God, though, Jesus of Nazareth isn’t a hoop we jump through to extend our lives into eternity. Jesus is the kingdom of God in person. As such, he is the meaning of life, the goal of history, and the pattern of the future. The gospel of the kingdom starts and ends with the announcement that God has made Jesus the emperor—and that he plans to bend the cosmos to fit Jesus’ agenda, not the other way around.”

“Everywhere he went he announced the kingdom, and demonstrated its arrival by turning back the curse in all its forms. He is unperturbed by evil spirits, natural forces, and biological decay—they retreat at the sound of his voice. Why?Because, as he put it, “if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28). As the King, Jesus reestablished human rule over the angelic and natural orders by living out the destiny his fallen ancestors had forfeited. He established himself as a wise ruler with dominion over his own appetites, with a will, affections, and conscience directed by his Father instead of the “god of this age.” Free from the one power evil spirits have over the image-bearers of God—the accusation of sin (John 14:30)—he walked through human suffering, temptation, and the curse of death itself to wrest humanity from the Accuser’s fingers.”

“Jesus fulfilled both the hopes embedded in human psyches everywhere and, more specifically, the kingdom promises God made to the people of Israel. He applied that nation’s imagery—of temple, vine, shepherd, light of the nations, and so forth—to himself first, and then to those who are found in him. God’s purposes for creation and for his people are found in Jesus: cursed and condemned and handed over to Satan, but raised from the dead and marked out with the Spirit (Ezek. 37:1-14; Rom. 1:4). His teaching prepared his people, through stories and pictures and signs, for life in his new kingdom. And then he ushered it in as “the firstborn from the dead,” the “first-fruits” of God’s new creation project.”

“What is the world? What is it for?
It is an art. It is the best of all possible art, a finite picture of the infinite. Assess it like prose, like poetry, like architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, delta blues, opera, tragedy, comedy, romance, epic. Assess it like you would a Faberge egg, like a gunfight, like a musical, like a snowflake, like a death, a birth, a triumph, a love story, a tornado, a smile, a heartbreak, a sweater, a hunger pain, a desire, a fulfillment, a desert, a waterfall, a song, a race, a frog, a play, a song, a marriage, a consummation, a thirst quenched.
Assess it like that. And when you’re done, find an ant and have him assess the cathedrals of Europe.”

N.D. Wilson, Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl

Alan Jacobs on how “…The ability of writers to feel offended or persecuted is pretty close to unlimited…”

One of my favorite stories about writers concerns John O’Hara, who long ago wrote the book for the musical Pal Joey, based on his own novel. When the play was making a big run on Broadway, two friends of O’Hara’s bumped into him on the streets of New York. “Oh John,” they cooed, “We just saw Pal Joey again, and we enjoyed it even more than the first time!” O’Hara snarled, “What the hell was wrong with it the first time?”

The entire article is about digital publishing and, like everything Jacobs writes (that I have read), it’s good.

And I’ve written about P.W.S. (Pathetic Writer Syndrome) before, here if you wish to see. Hug a writer, people. Believe me, we need it.

This is helpful and doesn’t have the peculiar smugness so common among Grammarnazis.  Well, not too badddddddd.

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This is from Ira Glass.

It’s worth watching if you are struggling to work on a creative craft, where discouragement and surrender are so inviting. I have posted some of this from Ira Glass before, at more length.

HT: Zack Smith of The Walla Recovery (great band)