in the open space: God & culture

There are days when the momentum of the train I’ve been riding has come to a crashing halt and it’s all I can do just to get it back on the tracks, much less moving again. Days like today. Days of no great tragedy or woe or wrong-ness, but days of life piled high in laundry, dishes, dog-haired floors, paper piles, growing weeds, aching tiredness, hinting revelations lost in weariness and cloudy but rainless skies. A sense of this-is-not-the-way-it-should-be. Days of longing. Days where I turn off the TV (even the muted Weather Channel), take out Andrew Peterson’s The Far Country and crank it as loud as I dare in the suburban neighborhood in which I dwell. “They did not receive the things promised,” Peterson cites from Hebrews in the CD jacket, speaking of the faithful who came before Jesus: They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their ow...

The January 2008 Smithsonian has an interesting article about an exhibit of correspondence from Vincent van Gogh to painter Emile Bernard. Portions of the letters Van Gogh penned are mixed in with the article, and as I read through them I felt like I was getting a lucky and intimate glimpse into the man who created some of my favorite paintings. Near the end of the article, I stumbled across a couple of things that yet again may go a long ways toward explaining why I am so drawn to this man’s paintings. In this letter from October 5, 1888, he discusses the importance he places on form in his painting: I mercilessly destroyed an important canvas—a Christ with the angel in Gethsemane—as well as another one depicting the poet with a starry sky—because the form hadn’t been studied from the model beforehand, necessary in such cases—despite the fact that the color was right . . . I’m not saying that I don’t flatly turn my back on reality to turn a study into a painting—by arranging the co...

"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if Lucifer had won the war. I mean it’s not like he drew us to his side with promises of an evil empire and eternal suffering. All that came later after the Fall. I’ve tried my best to make up for what I’ve done. To help the humans defend themselves against what I helped to create. But, I mean, there’s just as much hate in the world, just as much suffering. More, even. So, have I atoned for what I’ve done? I don’t know. I just know I wanna go home." These words are spoken by a beautiful but fallen angel in the opening scene of the second two episodes of the Fallen trilogy , a tale of Aaron Corbett, who discovers on his 18th birthday that he’s really a Nephilim —half-human, half-angel—complete with a prophecy that predicts he’s the one who will redeem the "Fallen" angels who rebelled against God to their former glory and send them back to heaven. Aaron can sense whether a Fallen’s request for redemption and forgiveness is g...

I just couldn’t resist this week’s challenge from Sally at RevGalBlogPals : “I have spent the week at Summer School studying the Gospel and Western culture, we have looked at art, literature, music, film and popular culture in their myriad expressions. With that in mind I bring you the cultural Friday 5: Name a ____________ that has helped/challenged you on your spiritual journey:” 1. Book. Pick one?! Oiy. Dark Night of the Soul was one of the first “older” books that spoke to me in a profound way. I was struggling through my own Night , and I just couldn’t get over how someone who lived half a millennium ago could express so well my own experience. It not only aided me in my Night, it illustrated how much we—and God—remain the same over the centuries. I must also add that He Loves Me (first edition available as PDF at no cost) by Wayne Jacobsen was also a book that moved me into another part of my journey—experiencing the incredible overwhelming fact of God’s love for me. Update: ...

photo: mine A few weeks ago, I was driving through the church parking lot looking for a parking space before the late afternoon worship service. Just about the time I saw a spot close to the building I also spotted another car at the far end of the lane turn in and come up the row towards me—and my parking space. Two thoughts went through my head in that second: I saw it first. Then: Wait. You’re at church. Let them have it. When both of us drove by the spot and left it for the other, I could only laugh. Only in a church parking lot. But as I pulled into another space an aisle over, another thought went through my head: Why don’t you do that all the time? This wasn’t the first time in the past few months that I’d been confronted with the uncomfortable realizations that my attitudes and outlook on life needed some adjustment. Frankly, it’s been a rough year, and for the last few months it’s felt like I’ve been crawling out from the under the weight of it. Several close family ...

From " Lay Me Down ," a song on Andrew Peterson's The Far Country : I believe in the holy shores of uncreated light I believe there is power in the blood And all of the death that ever was, If you set it next to life I believe it would barely fill a cup . . . . When you lay me down to die You lay me down to live To hear most of this song on YouTube, go here for a live recording/video. It's not the best sound, though. (Image: mine)

Andrew Peterson makes, writes and sings some of my most favorite music--and he just happens to be a follower of Jesus. Tonight I was listening to his Far Country CD whilst googling for his web site (again--you'd think I'd bookmark it), thinking I might post some of his lyrics as " food for thought ", when, lo and behold, I ran across his blog . Heh, who knew. Anyway, if you're interested in the music process and some glimpses into the mind of musician (and his cohorts), take a look. Blessings.

There is more More than all this pain More than all the falling down And the getting up again There is more More than we can see From our tiny vantage point In this vast eternity There is more --from “More”, on Andrew Peterson's , Far Country One of the central aspects of human experience is grappling with whether there is something more or Other to the universe—and, if so, what is that Other like? After last night’s finale , we now know that Battlestar Galactica comes down firmly on the side that there is indeed a higher power or an Other, not only in BSG ’s universe but in our own as well—and there is a lot about that Other that I find surprisingly and satisfyingly familiar. (Warning: there be major spoilers below.) After seeing the finale, I am more convinced than ever that BSG ’s Other leans towards benevolence. It deems life sacred. It wants Cylon and humanity alike to survive—and it intervenes in order to make sure that happens. Life, at least in the larger sense of hum...

Sally: Forty years ago, that interstate down there didn't exist. Lightning McQueen: Really? Sally: Yeah. Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way. Lightning McQueen: How do you mean? Sally: Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time. I really like Sally's words, not because they call us back to better time (does such an animal exist?), but because they echo a call to a better life --one that moves, falls and curves with land in which it finds itself. A life that lives not to get somewhere but to experience the journey. It's a truth of which I often remind myself as I walk with Jesus and those whose paths I cross. It's not about arriving anywhere; in fact, I'd almost go as far as to say that walking with Jesus and others is the "arriving," only that's an arriving th...