…and give thanks. A time-lapse view of earth from space.

HT: Discovery

“As the Son, though equal to the Father in all things, willingly and lovingly submits to the Father’s loving goodwill, the loving wife lovingly submits to her loving husband’s loving, good will –though she is equal to him in all things. For this is not politics, but music. Not equality, but harmony. Not justice, but love.”

Peter Kreeft

This is sweet and funny.

Image by Justin Gerard.

Here’s a section of N.D. Wilson’s excellent (and short) post on Stories As Soul Food. Read the entire thing here. This is one of the principal things God has been giving me over the last several years. I believe this kind of understanding is true, beautiful, good, and liberating. -Sam

N.D. Wilson…

A Mistrust of Magic?

Bible-believing Christians frequently have a deep mistrust of fiction. In particular, they have a deep mistrust of, ahem, magic. This is impossible for me to understand, partly because I was weaned on C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, but more profoundly because I was marinated in Scripture at a very young age (by my parents). And Scripture is full of . . . stories. More than that, Scripture is full of the miraculous and the amazing. “Throw water on the altar,” Elijah says. “Fire will still fall from Heaven.” A famous shepherd boy takes down an infamous six-fingered giant. Don’t let the long-haired man near a jawbone. Collect the animals and build a boat. Whatever you do, don’t listen to that serpent.

Bible pop-quiz: Did Pharaoh’s magicians really turn staffs into snakes? (Hint: yes.)

Christians serve the Man who walked on water. We serve the Man who could not be kept in the belly of the great fish, the Man who shattered the grave, and all alone, ripped the city gates off a place called Death.

Loathe the Darkness and Love the Light

Christians believe that this world is so much more than a mechanical soulless machine. And yet, we tend to tell our children stories that (we hope) will only speak to their intellects. We want to give them a list of facts to tick off, like we’re trying to communicate a party platform to new recruits, like they’re nothing but brains ready for programming. We feed their souls sawdust and are surprised when they drift away to other cooks (with different tales about reality).

Kids (and adults) don’t just need the truth in their heads — they need it in their bones. They need to know what courage looks like and tastes like and smells like before they ever have to show it themselves. They need to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly — heroes and villains can show them why. They need to loathe the darkness and love the Light.

“A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn’t diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent.”

Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet

It is what it is. I read it on a cubicle wall. It’s a country-craft sign with large, cursive script, a script to make one curse. Words to echo the curse. The sign is made to look like it was made on a farm, but it was made in China. And not on a farm in China. The smooth, shimmering surface lies about its age. It’s made to appear older with new-painted fading, meticulously manufactured cracks, and fabricated years. An inverted aging starlet. It is intentionally distressed and so am I. But, I suppose, it is what it is. This sign that transports me to a funeral, a child’s sickbed, an accident scene. It is what it is.

It is what it is. It is a statement of resignation. After all kinds of trouble, worry, and fear, there it sits. We can live with such a statement, but not forever.

It is what it is. Is it?

It is what it is, but it is not what it shall be.

Children will not someday die, someday. Cancer will not reduce and end us like a berserker army invading every border, swallowing our hallowed map. It is what it is, but it is not what it shall be.

There’s good all over and grace in every breath. It is today and we are alive and so we ought to happily receive these gifts all over. Gratitude should be our theme song.

Thank God it’s Friday, but Someday’s coming.

We wrestle with the Not Yetness of things. With the good, broken, incompleteness of everything. We can receive a cold valley with thanks and still long for the sun.

It is what it is. But all the same, we long for it to be different. We long for it to not be all the same. Or, we long for it to be the same, but different. Like our best friends, we want them fully themselves. We want the fully realized valley. Sun and all. We want the valley on the edge of forever to slide on over.

It is what it is, but it is not what it shall be. Some day, when Someday comes, we will slide on over into the re-Edened earth. Sunrise.

This bought by Brother’s blood,
And so our family seal,
Runs red across a guarantee,
Of Father’s glad goodwill.
From me, my sons, sin you get,
An inherited curse.
From a Greater Father, you may claim,
All of the reverse.

All of the reverse. In that day, It is what it is will be fully and finally undone, by:

I Am Who I Am.

Photo by Larry Fellows

“Being a pastor is an incredibly good, wonderful work. It is one of the few places in our society where you can live a creative life. You live at the intersection of grace and mercy and sin and salvation. We have front line seats and sometimes we even get to be part of the action. How could anyone abandon the glory of that kind of life to become a management expert? We are artists not CEOs. The true pastorate is a work of art – the art of life and spirit.”

Eugene Peterson

HT: Ken Harer

“God really believes that he is the most worthy, most majestic, magnificent, glorious, stunningly beautiful being in the universe. And he is fixated on the certainty that only he deserves worship – that to him alone belong honor, glory, and praise forever and forever. With red-rimmed, stinging eyes and burning hair, all we can say is – he is right. He is astonishingly beautiful, utterly majestic and perfect in the symmetries of justice and righteousness, knowledge, and wisdom. He is as hypnotically compelling as a surging forest fire and ten times as dangerous. He is out of control – ours, not his.”

Timothy Stoner, The God Who Smokes

via Trevin Wax

Two related quotes from N.T. Wright:

“Heaven is important, but its not the end of the world.”

“The Biblical vision is not so much concerned with life after death but about life after life after death.”