New Guest Post at Everyday Liturgy

I had another guest post go up today at Everyday Liturgy titled, "A Romance It Certainly Is." Here's a snippet:

We cannot avoid the reality of this world. We see its dark underbelly in everything from the news to human trafficking to the person who pushes past us in a crowd without apologizing. This world, and we people in it, are broken, cracked, and bloody.

But as believers, we have a second sight of sorts. We see this world as it once was and as it will be again. 

Check out the rest over Everyday Liturgy!

Bent Branches, Straight Baselines

It’s been just over a month now since spring began – slowly this year in Philly – coming at us in fits and starts. I think it has actually arrived now, though there are still one or two trees that are only just leafing out. But the azaleas and the dogwoods have bloomed, so I think it’s really spring.

This slow spring has drawn my attention more than once – trees that often bear the bright of yellow-green in March still showed their naked limbs well into April. It was as if they wanted to say, “See, here’s my structure. These are my bones. You may not have noticed them this winter when your eyes were cast to the ground watching for ice patches. Look up now; see my angled boughs.”

At the beginning of April, my friend David posted a short piece on his blog titled simply, “On Baseball.” In it he quickly and poetically examined the architecture of a golf and baseball, finishing with these words:

Baseball unites heaven and earth: it inscribes a pattern of clean lines, orbs, and diamonds upon the dust from which we were formed and in which we toil, and the lush green in which we find rest. Upon that heaven-and-earth field, prodigal sons set out on barren base paths; and we watch and wait to see if they will make it back home.

The words arrested me. I love clean lines. I love the straight, the symmetrical. There is beauty in a ballpark. But as the trees bared themselves, I had the realization that straight lines are a rare thing in nature. The Creator’s beauty meanders more than man’s.

And when we humans create without the assistance of our man-made tools, our creations are meandering things too, the image of God creating in the pattern of God. As I began to think it through, I realized that the straight lines and measured curves of architecture echo the straight lines and measured curves of the heavenly throne room – and our ideals of beauty find their fulfillment in the descriptions of that place.

Somehow, we find ourselves caught in the middle, loving both the bent branches and the straight baselines. Caught between heaven and earth. Redeemed yet human. Prodigal sons looking for home.

My first inspirations on this topic formed themselves into an essay for The Curator, the web publication of the International ArtsMovement for which I am now serving as an Assistant Editor.

David’s continued thoughts on the topic have been manifested in a second blog post where he says kind things about my Curator essay and much better things of his own.

When Characters Come Calling

I met a boy the other day. His name is Peter. He's about 9 years old. He has a sister named Sam, and a mom and dad. He's cautious, smart, quiet, wise. He reminds me a lot of my nephew. He loves science and he's going to discover the great world of bugs this summer. He will learn that life is not forever what it always was. He will discover that change is difficult and unsteadying. And he will learn that there is magic in the world - in the minutiae of creation, in the wonder of imagination, in the love of family.

One of the people who will speak into Peter's life this summer is a older man named Ben Palmer. I met Ben years ago when he was living a different story. He was in crisis then, and while that is behind him now, I know that much of what I learned about him during that time will be seen in his interactions with Peter this summer. He will be hard-nosed and he will be truthful. He will be deeply broken and utterly renewed. And he will speak words to Peter that "alert him to the power he was perhaps too afraid to hope was real."

Perhaps it is strange to you that I seem to know so much about Peter's future though I only just met him. Don't worry. This prescience isn't wrapped in hocus pocus.

I've had encounters like this before. I once met a young man named William, and before we finished our first meal I discovered he had a whole story to live before I was done with him. And suddenly the name William just wasn't right - not if we were to be spending a good portion of the next few years together. So decided to call him Edmund and he looked much more comfortable with that name.

In Peter, in Ben Palmer, in Edmund, I have the unique opportunity to see the past, the present, and the future all together. I'm fairly certain I know where they'll end up, but I'm not quite sure. You see, they all surprised me when they came calling at the corners of my imagination. They could shock me once again with a sudden departure.

It's an imperfect prescience. They're breathing and living within their own stories. I hope to paint the canvas for them as they take the journey they're on. But I don't yet know what every bump in the road looks like. They may trip and fall. They may meet friends and enemies who surprise me equally when they come knocking with their stories fully formed, reaching back and reaching forward.

I met a boy named Peter the other day. He trooped into my imagination whole-bodied, meditative, and staring at a blank spot on the fridge where there is no summer calendar while he ate his waffles smothered in real maple syrup.

I told you there was magic in this world.


Note: I wish to thank Sam Smith and Kristen Peterson, friends I met last year at Hutchmoot, for their contributions to Peter's existence and Ben Palmer's new story. Hope you don't mind that he's not called "Sam Peterson." You never know when your words will spark someone's imagination. See, I told you there was magic in this world. 

I Write Stories During Sermons

A couple of weeks ago my friend Thomas posted a link on his blog to an article he'd written for SermonCentral.com. The title was, "You Preach, I'll Doodle."

It is a great article that looks at preaching in light of varied learning styles and multiple intelligences. I thought it was good enough to share. I did so, tweeting it with the statement: "I write stories during sermons."

The tweet led to a "tweet-versation" with Thomas, expanding on my original statement. It culminated in a suggestion that I might write something about it as a guest post for his blog, Everyday Liturgy, in response to his article.

And that's how, today, I have a snippet of a post to share with you. Head on over to Everyday Liturgy to read the whole thing:

"I sit under the preaching of my pastor or other teachers, and I fully intend to keep my mind on what they’re saying. I have out my notebook and my pen for the purpose of recording the points and insights they plan to make from the text. But I have characters teeming inside my head at all times, paused in the living of their lives until I choose to awaken them again, just waiting for their next course of action."

The Blind Writer

I had a professor once who said, “The writer is the one who points and says, ‘Look.’” I’ve internalized that idea so deeply that I can no longer recall who said it – the words are now mine, and I repeat them from time to time when I’m called upon to say what it is I do – I point. I say, “Look.” I write.

Monday was, as Anne Shirley so appropriately described, “a Jonah day.” It started with misplacing my phone before work and having to leave without it, continued through ordering the wrong drink at the coffee shop, realizing I forgot my lunch, discovering a project at work hadn’t been completed, speaking sharply to a coworker, apologizing to said coworker, learning no contact had been made with a prospect for a book endorsement when I had requested it two weeks earlier…the list goes on. Through it all I was working on the tedious task of implementing proofreading notes on a book manuscript. I left work at the end of the day, having told my roommate I would text her when I was on the way so she could put the rice on, only to realize that was impossible without a phone, and dinner would consequently be twenty minutes later for my hungry belly.

I found myself in the car, weeping, crying out to God and asking Him why I hadn’t realized I’d been cruel to my coworker, kicking myself for how I handled it all, angry that I hadn’t followed up on the missed pieces sooner, wracking my brain to figure how I would finish all the work on the manuscript before the deadline.

Even Anne’s perfect description for my day, when it came to me as I drove, gave me no comfort. Along with it came her other thought on the topic: “Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” It’s that little word at the end that’s the problem: “yet.” It mocked me: “You’ll just do it all again tomorrow.”

The tears clouded my eyes; the thoughts crowded my mind. I ached at my own sinfulness and I couldn’t see a way out of it. The writer was blind. In such a state, how could she point? How could she look?

And then a new song started on the CD. It began with quiet strings and piano before Andrew Peterson’s voice began to gently prod,

Behold the Lamb of God

Who takes away our sin

Behold the Lamb of God

The life and light of men

Behold the Lamb of God

Who died and rose again

Behold the Lamb of God who comes

To take away our sin

“Behold.” Look.

My mind would wander back to the troubles of my Jonah day and AP would point again with that word, “Behold.”

Over and over again the phrase repeats in the song: “Behold the Lamb of God.” Look at the Son of God, Emmanuel, the hope of man. When the song ended, I went through again and again. “Behold.” Do not look elsewhere. Keep your eyes on the Lamb. Will you sin again tomorrow? Yes, and the Lamb of God will take away that sin, too. “Behold.”

When the writer is blind, who will point and say, “Look"? The voices of the prophets, of the musicians, of the artists, of all those who have beheld the Lamb and come to Him with their broken hearts, fallen far away from Him, only to see them renewed and restored by the One who died and rose again – they will echo together the call of John the Baptist, pointing and saying, “Look.”

To hear Andrew Peterson’s song “Behold the Lamb of God,” click here.

Slow Burn

It's been a long autumn this year. The colors have passed their peak (evidenced, if by nothing else, by the fact that I could barely see the lines in the parking lot at work this morning for the carpet of yellow that covered them), but only just, and they began weeks and weeks ago. I saw a flaming maple in the middle of the park at the beginning of October, all alone in its glory, the deep green of late summer still on the limbs of the trees around it. The massive maple across the street has shed most of its foliage, but others are still bearing their yellow and scarlet leaves. I saw sun light the crimson tops of the grand oaks on the front drive as I was leaving work today. Meanwhile the small oak in my front lawn rusts away quietly.

A slow-burn autumn.

My mother has nicknamed me the Dragon. It's a nickname that brings concerned expressions to the faces of strangers and raises eyebrows among aquaintances and friends sometimes. But family - and I mean that in the non-biological definition of the word - family understands the name. I love the nickname. It reminds me that there's someone in the world who knows that deep inside of me is a burning intensity that I don't let out very often, because it's likely to scorch. That there's a passion and energy there which I'm constantly reigning in just so that I can function on a day-to-day basis. That when I've found something to believe in, or something or someone that I love, I do it fiercely-if quietly, because I struggle to express its force.

A slow-burn intensity.

I write. I write because I'm a storyteller and because I have ideas that can only express themselves through story. But it takes me a long time to get it all down. I mull and mull and mull over scenes or plots for days or weeks or months (or years, sometimes) before I start writing them. I play conversations out in my head before I type them on the page. I run through three options of direction a scene could take before I choose one.

A slow-burn creativity.

I've realized that I like a slow-burn autumn. I always say that fall and spring do a lot to make up for winter and summer here in Philadelphia - they have a lot to make up for, winter is usually pretty lame and summer is stupidly hot. Fall tends to be lovely here, with brightly colored leaves dancing in blustery breezes on sunshiny days. But this slow-burn autumn makes me even happier - like all the majestic intensity of this past week when so many of the trees seemed to suddenly realize it was fall and come out dressed for the season together was made better for the wait.

And that has made me wonder if slow-burning isn't so bad after all.