December 31st, 2005
Somehow, this Christmas turned out to be a mild one for the Northeast, but by a poor southern beatnik’s standards, it was cold. I had forgotten how refreshing it would be to step out into the delightfully cool Pensacola air-67 glorious degrees. Thank God for that Equator.
I am astounded by how people can live in New England. In Northeastern Mass, land is at a premium, so everyone in Haley’s extended family lives in skinny scarecrow houses that are at least three stories high. They don’t build `em out, but up. Maybe I’ll try living like that some day-maybe.
December 18th, 2005
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Haley and I are very excited; tomorrow we board an airplane bound for Philadelphia. We are going to visit Haley’s family for the holidays. During the two weeks that we are there, we plan to visit NYC and Boston as well as the simple little town of Tunkhannock. I’ll let you know how it goes.
December 16th, 2005
Chesterton described his spiritual journey in this way:
I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to
it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.
As I grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord, that quote seems to ring ever more loudly in my ears. In the brief years of my Christian experience, I have beleived virtually every tradition and variation that Christians differ on: I have gone from open theism to theistic determinism to an infant baptism advocate to baptismal regenerationist to Calvinism to Arminianism to Existentialism to…well, you get the idea. It seems that I am a restless guy theologically. I continue to wrestle with many issues within my own doctrinal understanding of my relationship to Christ, and I pray that this wrestling match will mark me like it marked Jacob, his walk forever shaped by his struggle with the Lord.
The fact is, I don’t follow Karl Barth, Erasmus, Calvin, or John R. Rice (all fantastic men whom I would love to have a conversation with). I follow Christ, the redeemer of my soul. People do have a tremendous impact on the way one views Christ, though. I was just thinking of a few significant people and the lessons that they taught me:
My father, who taught me that God was a God to be feared and served.
Steve Land, who taught me that God was a God that helps me love like I was meant to.
Dale Fincher, who flipped my brain on its side several times and taught me that God wants my mind as well as the rest of me.
Karen Dickerson, who taught me that theological theorems and postulates were important but typically fell a bit short.
Chris Rose, who helped me see that God loves art.
Kevin Deir, to whom no subject was off-limits.
Dr. William Lane Craig, who I had the opportunity of learning from in a very in-depth class while I was in Atlanta. You must check him out, friends, he is the future of Christian apologetics.
Andy Martin, whose restless heart encouraged mine to be the same.
My wife Haley, who continually teaches me how to love like Christ.
There are so many others. It would be impossible to recall and give credit to them all. Andy once described us as “cut and paste” people, and I find this to be very true. We are all products of those who we rub elbows with on a day by day basis; I thank God for continually keeping my elbows raw with challenging friends.
December 14th, 2005
As college theatre students, there was always an idea in the back of our heads. This idea was rarely mentioned; almost as if we were afraid to say it. We all hoped that we could start a theatre where we could all perform at a high level and spend the rest of ours lives with each other. (At least that was the hope that I had…does that resonate with anyone else?). Alas, the world was too much with us, and we had to go our seperate ways.
My dreams die hard. I still cling to that idea. I would love to start a classically based theatre program that is radically Christian in ideal. No, not Sight and Sound; as a matter of fact, I doubt that this theatre group would ever perform Biblical plays. I can envision performing everything from Euripedes to Beckett, using each of these plays as an opportunity to impart a radically Christian mindset on the culture we finds ourselves in.
As the days go by, my desire to do this continues to grow. I really think that I could spend the rest of my life in a black box theatre, honoring my Lord with my feeble attempts at creation.
Anyone else game? I would love some input here.,.
December 13th, 2005
The Christian community is replete with discussion of the lessons that life experience teach it concerning the nature of God. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard people discuss how becoming married or having a child has given them a different and more complete view of God’s love and desire for them. A good friend of mine has even explained to me that owning his dog has given him an understanding of how and why God forgives our most blatant shortcomings!
I do not discount these lessons, for to do so would be to discount a valuable and Godly teaching found repeatedly in Scripture. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, beautifully teaches that the marriage relationship is an image of Christ’s relationship to the church. In the Old Testament, Hosea’s relationship with Gomer is a representation of God’s relationship to Israel. It seems clear that one of the key reasons God created these tangible unions is to provide us with a better understanding of our spiritual union with Him, as well as how we might feel were we in His position.
Marriage, childbearing, and pet ownership are not the only means of understanding God’s perspective, though. Another way to gain a better appreciation of God’s viewpoint, a way that is sadly ignored in modern Christian culture, is through the participation in and enjoyment of fine art. The mystery and wonder of God are enveloped in the aesthetics and beauty of His Word and Creation, and a follower of Christ should not minimize or ignore the significance of the “creativeness� of the Creator.
I have not done a significant amount of fictional writing, but each time I have tried it, I have observed a very interesting phenomenon. As I have placed pen to paper and created characters, places, and events, I found that my creation took on a life of its own. Although I set out to create a specific moment in my reader’s imagination, as I reread my creation, I found that somehow that moment had grown beyond my expectations. I had been in control of the story the whole time, guiding events and the dialogue, yet somehow the story I produced became slightly “larger� than what I thought it would be.
Perhaps this experience only occurs when the writer is a novice, but I have come to think that this expansive aspect of art is not limited to my own frame of reference. If a musician listens to a recording of his performance, he often finds himself thinking, “Is that really me?� Although he has been in control of the notes, tempos, and dynamics of the music, when he listens to what he has produced, he discovers a new quality, a life, within what he thought he was producing.
I suspect this the reason that God took a day of rest at the end of His week of creativity. I sincerely doubt that He was tired; perhaps He only wanted some time to step back from His creation and admire the life He had produced upon the canvas of chaos. His creation had taken a life of its own, and though it was not out of His hands, He must have been captivated by the expanse of majesty that had been a figment of His imagination.
Thus, the creation of art has evoked a deeper understanding of my Creator. God has endowed each of us with imagination with the hope that we will be able to grasp some of His intangible glory. If we ignore the unexplainable part of ourselves by ignoring art, how will we ever grasp His unexplainable beauty within every fiber of creation?
