“‘Are there real fairies in the world?’

“I looked up from the mushrooms I was chopping to study my five-year-old daughter’s face. The cock of her head and squint of her eyes matched the skepticism in her voice.

Not long ago, a Christian man who my daughter loves told her that fairies don’t exist. She’s been afraid to believe ever since.

She was waiting for my answer. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. It was the truth.”

Alyssa Ramsey

Read the rest of this wonderful post here…

But I’m wondering if I was right to.

Years ago, I even wrote a simple poem to express myself.

I gave up nothing for Lent.
Not a buck, or one red cent.
Not coffee, or ten percent.
But have received:

Everything.

Maybe that’s still an OK idea in general. But as is often the case, I believe I may have generally missed the point. (It feels like many observers of Lent may have also missed the point, leaving outsiders confused and wary.)

But in recent years, I have seen more and more the value of many of the ancient practices of the Christian church. We have begun to slowly engage with that great community of saints over the ages in Advent, Christmastide, etc. I am a convert, so to speak, to the beauty and value of the Christian Liturgy. I had been more or less unaware of the rich, liturgical tradition existent in protestant Christianity. That is changing for us, and I’m very thankful for it. (By the way, Mark Galli’s Beyond Smells & Bells is a wonderful book to read if you are looking for a simple, short introduction to Christian Liturgy.) But it’s slow going.

We are tiptoeing into Lenten practice, a little uncertain. As a low-church background evangelical, I still have some trouble seeing the beauty of Lent past the many counterproductive (and unbiblical/anti-Gospel) expressions sometimes on display. I am growing to love the Christian Calender more and more, but Lent has been a speed bump on that road for me. Are you like me?

Here are some helps.

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“Lent is neither therapeutic nor pietistic. It is political. God became King in Christ, the strong Shepherd and deliverer of His people, by means of fasting, temptation, agony and passion, and by way of the wilderness and Cross. We do not share in the Father’s Kingdom — which we daily ask Him to establish on earth as in heaven — except by sharing in His means for establishing the Kingdom.”
-David Mitchell

I love that. The erroneous idea that Christians are not interested in politics is, of course, absurd. In a sense that is what we are most concerned about. If you mean we want to avoid being co-opted by the “right” or “left” in American politics, then I am with you all the way. And then some. But Christianity is political. At its core. Until we receive the gift of a particular Jewish King from the Sky, we are doomed. All the hope of the world rests on that Jewish Sky King. Really. True story. And how that came about was not the way we expected it.

For Jesus on earth, the Kingdom was coming, but there was a cross in the way.

The Kingdom is coming for us, but there is a cross in the way for us as well. The cross is the way.

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Consider reading this from Jonathan Rogers, specific for today, Ash Wednesday. I was helped tremendously by it. Here is a large portion of it, but do read the whole thing.

I love the prayer in the Anglican Ash Wednesday liturgy:

“Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wickedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”

I used to associate Ash Wednesday–when I considered it at all–with self-flagellation. But, as the apostle Paul said, it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance–the confidence that God hates nothing he has made and forgives the sins of all who are penitent.

For all my ambivalence about T.S. Eliot, there are passages in his poem “Ash Wednesday” that I just love. The lines I love the most in that poem, the lines that most perfectly capture the spirit of the day, are these:

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
but speak the word only.

“I’m not worthy.” True enough. But not the truest thing. The Lord speaks truer things into being every day.

So happy Ash Wednesday, you old sinner. You are dust, and to dust you shall return. And God loves you anyway.

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Wonderful stuff. Thanks, JR.

For us, this kind of thing always makes us try to think of how to help the kids get it, and seek the Kingdom more passionately. (That shows us the way for ourselves, of course.) Gina found this and we’re going to do something like it this season. Also this calender. I’m sure there’s more and if you want to share what you’re doing, I’d appreciate it. Our family, as I’ve said, is kind of a work-in-progress on this (and many other) fronts.

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Here’s an article from The Gospel Coalition on the value of Lent.

And here’s one from our friends in Huntington, West Virginia’s Redemption Church. It includes this excellent quotation from John Piper.

“Lent or no Lent, not doing some things you feel like doing is the daily pattern for the disciples of Jesus. Yes, daily. ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’ (Luke 9:23)

In the resurrection there will be no self-denial because none of our desires will be sinful or foolish. Till then we have sinful and foolish desires daily. Hence, ‘Let him deny himself and take up his cross daily.’”

That’s poignant to me because I was assigned to preach that passage last Sunday. It was a good segue for my heart.

OK, there’s a start. Grace and peace to you, my brothers and sisters.

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.

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.

I have been just sayin’ that I hate detest dislike this phrase in almost all its manifestations for some time. No one cares what I think though…just saying. <—Terrible, right?

Finally, some one else wrote the post going postal on this ubiquitous, iniquitous expression.

Thank you, Jon Acuff:

“One part snark + One part bitterness + Just saying = Complete forgiveness for whatever you’ve just said…”

“…It’s cowardly. I’ve used this phrase before, and the reason I did was because I was being a wuss. I had something I wanted to say but still wanted to hold on to my thin veneer of holiness, so I said something mean and then ended the thought with ‘just saying’.”

See the whole post on Jon’s 4 reasons he hates the phrase, here.

Note: I’m aware this phrase can be used innocently. Don’t get all offended and stuff. I’m just…nevermind.

This feels a bit over my head, but I’m trying to get my head (up and) around it. As I understand it, we can see a bit of this when we listen to politicians offering solutions to problems (techniques) and see how the Enlightenment has shaped our (mis)understanding of how God made the world –and how God made people. –Sam

From Peter Kreeft (with Lewis quoted within)…

If the Enlightenment helped the modern world discard notions of original sin and moral absolutes, it also uprooted the foundations of truth and goodness. Unlike the Medieval era, all we have left are vague political and psychological notions of what works efficiently. Technology has replaced religion as our civilization’s summum bonum. Naturalism has replaced supernaturalism. Subjectivism has defined a new age of moral relativity.

The Abolition of Man contains the most important and enlightening single statement about our civilization that I have ever read:

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages: for the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue; for magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men [and] the solution is a technique.

Aristotle listed technique, technical knowledge, know-how, third on the hierarchy of values after contemplation of truth and practical knowledge or knowledge for acting. Modernity simply turns this ancient hierarchy upside down.

See entire article here from Christian History Magazine.

HT: Tony Reinke

Yes, here. On earth. How big have these things (or something like them) gotten in the past? We’ll have to ask St. George someday.

When kids ask about dragons and fairies, giants and dwarves, may I recommend in the strongest possible terms we do not immediately answer something like, “Oh Dear, those things don’t exist.” I am more inclined to say they have and/or do, than absolutely don’t/couldn’t. At least, before you dismiss these possibilities outright, read G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy first, or the Old Testament. Or both.

Many adults would do better to listen to a child for an hour than the child would do listening to the adult. “We have sinned and grown old,” says Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Indeed. We could all do with a trip to “the sunny country of common sense.” That is: Fairyland.

Here’s the story from The Science Punk Blog.

HT: J. Wesley Bush

I have benefited from reading Daniel Taylor on Story, Imagination, and Faith. I just discovered his blog, which is great. And the following gem from thsi wonderful, short post.

“Czeslaw Milosz, the Christian Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner, called the poet ‘the secretary of invisible things.’ Unlike Romantic theories of creation, he said the poet did not create things so much as discover things. The poet is a prober of reality, not its maker. And many of the most important things cannot be seen or touched.”

Read the rest here.

Picture lifted from Dan’s site.

I am amazed at this work by Justin Gerard. See his gallery here. I have come back and looked at this over and over again. It is magical. Click to enlarge.

Photo by Steve Kovacs. More amazing shots here from National Geographic.

Click to enlarge.

HT: Jon Swerens