spring cleaning: shaking off the dust

I have not been writing for a little while.  I wanted to give an opportunity to some of my friends who had some thoughts to share and it has been a refreshing time for me in one regard... So, thank you to all of you who participated as guest bloggers, I deeply enjoyed your entries.

I have also seen that in an absence of writing i feel a little stale... It is almost as if my thoughts have been blocked up and it might take a little bit of time for the wheels to start turning again.  I should have kept writing, at least keeping a back-log of entries or maybe writing things using those primitive hand tools that mark paper that seem increasingly rare to stumble across.  Will kids in twenty years even know how to create basic characters using a pen and paper?

just a thought.

here is another...

I want to believe that there are things that each of us have that when we continue to pour time and energy into, they will somehow fill us with a greater sense of joy, accomplishment, satisfaction, fulfillment in life.  Maybe these things are linked to deep desires that we find inside of ourselves.. maybe it is a piece of who you are that is so essential to your being, that once you stumble across it, or pull it out of you, or have someone else stumble across it and pull it out of you... you will continue to crawl back to it, even when exhausted and empty, and surprise yourself with how valuable it is to you... not just because you "like it".. but because your health and balance.. your stability is dependent upon it.

I think the specific manifestations of these core desires are not as important as what is at the center of it.. like a spectrum of color breaking uniquely from a single source of light, we will find different representations of those deep longings inside of us.  Why are we compelled to move forward?  Why do we continue to create art and music?  Why do we still find our breath leave us as we witness the sunset over the ocean, or flowers breaking through the dirt, or a heart piercing string ensemble, or as we look deeply into our lovers eyes?

I feel like my wheels are spinning but I don't feel like I can control where they lead me... or maybe I just don't want to.  I feel a need to move, to live, to create, to experience, to share in my discoveries and to challenge others to do the same.

Could it be that we are compelled to pursue these longings because after we have come to the end of the road a hundred times over we will continue to come to the same conclusions but that they give us life?  Will the pursuit of our hearts really bring us to one final answer to our longings?

it might.  but my experience has been that once you arrive at the ends of these various roads you reach the source of true life, love, joy, and inspiration... more roads... and they send you even deeper into the desires of your heart.


I find it sad that we are willing to give up what brings us to life for what we feel we need in order to survive... don't allow your violin to cover with a shroud of dust or for your callouses to go soft... continue to rediscover who you were created to be and run after that until your heart explodes.

raindrops and metal: ride the spring showers

Before writing this, I had just got done driving a motorcycle through the rain.

This is something that you typically try to avoid doing, especially if you aren't wearing any rain gear...

As I walked outside and saw the ground covered in water and the small collected pools rippling as rain drops met them I briefly reconsidered driving the motorcycle and just waiting an hour or so until the rain went away...After all, I am sure that the rest of the day will be covered with beautiful rays of sunshine and the air filled with birds singing.

I had never really ridden through the rain though.. I mean, I've had a few drops come down on me.. but nothing like what I was about to experience.

What pushed me more than anything was looking off in the distance and seeing some blue sky breaking through the storm in the direction I was about to travel... I had this picture in my head of driving through a short amount of harsh weather and into the bright and warm paradise awaiting me.

So I rode....

The raindrops turned to razors trying to tear the flesh from my face as I picked up speed... Visibility decreased as the fine mist from the road was picked up by less than cautious drivers... I could feel the collected raindrops filling up my boots as the drops collected together and marched to the rhythm of gravity's tune.... and I rode.

The clouds did not part... the rain did not cease... the sun did not break through.. but still off in the distance remained the blue sky and it's promise of serenity.

I eventually found myself at my destination... rain still falling and blue sky a vague memory.

I did feel pretty BA after arriving.. although I also felt drenched....

Looking back, the ride was worth it in spite of the lack of a blue sky arrival.. or maybe because of it...

You see, often times we have a vision, dream, hope, or blue sky that is off in the distance.. and often times we say that going through the trouble, sacrifice, hard work, or rain is worth it IF it means we end up obtaining this goal... although, often times we fail.

cartoons for adults: guest blog five

I wasn’t allowed to watch “The Simpsons” growing up. Not being “allowed” to watch the cartoon was a bit redundant being that my small hometown in southern Minnesota didn’t have FOX as a broadcast network and we never had cable. It wasn’t that my parents were very conservative and objected to the social and religious content of the show; my mother (a single parent) objected to Bart being a brat. In her mind bratty kids are among the greatest scourges on the face of the earth, on par with the Black Plague and tapeworm.

I never saw the ban on Homer and Marge’s family as any great loss. Sure, there were socially awkward moments as friends shared inside jokes referencing the show and I didn’t get it, but when compared to the rest of the gauntlet that is adolescents, it was minor.

Now, from time to time I do enjoy The Simpsons and their genre of cartoons for adults, I’ve even caught a few episodes of South Park in syndication (still no cable). I recently found myself following the dust-up around their 200^th episode in which they depicted Mohammed, in a bear suit.

My supervisor at the parcel delivery service where I work part-time is Muslim. We have conversations pretty frequently but rarely about anything of substance or consequence, until I asked him how he felt about this particular South Park episode. He was offended by it, which surprised me. His fondness for porn and the timeless conversation starter, “who would you rather…” lead me to believe he wasn’t particularly devote to any religious practice. (By the way, I’ve discovered a number of fun and creative methods for escaping these conversations if you’re interested.)

While he wasn’t particularly concerned with the specific religious prohibition on depicting Mohammed, he was offended by satire directed at religious beliefs from those outside the religion. I disagreed. I contended that the satire offered by those outside our communities of faith have the potential to give us perspective on the ways we have wrongly communicated or misrepresented our faith.

It was easily the most substantive and meaningful conversation I’ve had with this co-worker and has provided a framework for us to have subsequent conversations about the convictions, expectations, and historical contexts of our respective faiths.

Thank you South Park for starting conversations.

(written by Isaiah Allen)

throwing logs: guest blog four

I once heard a story about Elvis Presley. When he was young he was a part of a church. He wanted to sing gospel music, and he wanted to do it in new and creative ways. He wanted to bring a new style to worship music. But the church said no. The church said we don’t do it that way. The church said it went against tradition.

So Elvis left, and took his music elsewhere.

That breaks my heart. I won’t speculate about his life and what could be different. But it makes me think. Why does the church so often stomp on the new creative ideas people have? For the sake of tradition, what are we missing out on?

We are made in the image of a creator. That means we are supposed to be creative. Yet somehow creativity and new thinking has been frowned upon in the church. We don’t do it that way. That’s different, we don’t want to change. We’re comfortable with the way things are. New things fly in the face of what we believe to be the right way to worship God, the right way to represent God, or the right way to express spirituality. But really, how much are we missing with that kind of thinking?

We think to please God, we have to eradicate all of self. We must get rid of who we are, and that is what God wants. But God created us to be who we are, he placed things within us. We pray “None of me, All of You, God.” But is that really how God wants it?

I think the church, in an attempt at devotion to Christ, has taken away people’s God-given gifts, talents, and desires. Frankly it makes church boring.

Living in Christ should never be boring. We are made to be creative beings, and to use that creativity to meet the needs of the world. Yet because we’ve adopted a wrong line of thinking about what it means to be a Christian, and what God expects of us, we’ve muted our creativity and tied down our ability to bring the goodness and love of God to the world.

Bill Johnson, the author of Dreaming With God writes, “When unbelievers lead the way in inventions and artistic expression, it is because the church has embraced a false kind of spirituality. It is not living in a true Kingdom mentality, which is the renewed mind. The renewed mind understands that the King’s dominion must be realized in all levels of society for an effective witness to take place.”

God has been teaching me a lot over the last few months. One of the big things I’m learning is how much God loves new creative things, and how he wants me to be someone who encourages the people around me. I spent a week in Romania recently, and the big thing I heard God speaking to me that week is that I need to be someone who throws logs not water onto the fires of people’s dreams and ideas.

What if the whole church did that? What if we all encouraged each other’s creative new ideas? What if when Elvis approached his church they put logs on his fire, instead of throwing water and turning him out?

Awesome things happen when people are released into their God-given abilities and dreams. That’s something I want to support in every way I can, cause I want to see the world changed.

(written by Bethany Nagan )