...who read blogitch with thanks to the Grace and Truth to You blog of Wade Burleson. It's almost nine minutes long but worth every second.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
I Am Regularly Amazed...
...by the consistent depth and breadth of quality of thought and writing exhibited by Michael Spencer at his blog, internetmonk.com.
Here is a kicker of a paragraph from a recent post.
Remember that Jesus was a teacher, but he never dismissed class. Life was his classroom, because he refused to isolate truth into compartments. He had no intention of producing a disciple who was an expert in theology but useless in a hospital ER. He had no plan to allow the specializations we use to excuse ourselves from what it really means to be a Christian. Carrying the Cross and Washing Feet weren’t talks. They were your life.
Here is a kicker of a paragraph from a recent post.
Remember that Jesus was a teacher, but he never dismissed class. Life was his classroom, because he refused to isolate truth into compartments. He had no intention of producing a disciple who was an expert in theology but useless in a hospital ER. He had no plan to allow the specializations we use to excuse ourselves from what it really means to be a Christian. Carrying the Cross and Washing Feet weren’t talks. They were your life.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Yom Kippur for All: A Writer's Wisdom
Jim Sollich, a writer from Cleveland, Ohio, has an article in today's WaPo entitled A Day to Edit Our Lives. The money exerpt:
Writing is a process of making choices. Thousands of them. The act of writing an opening sentence is the result of more choices than I can count. Every word a character speaks or swallows is a choice. Every action or inaction, more choices. It's so easy to get them wrong. Or at least to see that another choice would have made more sense.
The best writers are usually the best revisers, and they learn to look forward to the process. Revision gives you a chance to get things right. You learn to ask other people for suggestions. Your narrator may be omniscient, but you realize you're not. Suddenly, the writing isn't yours alone anymore. You see that it affects people differently from the way you intended.
On Yom Kippur, we are given the chance to understand that our lives are also not ours alone. Our actions and choices affect others, often in ways that we don't intend. If we cling to our vision of ourselves too fiercely, we blow the chance to gain insight.
Yom Kippur is not a holiday for the young. Judaism requires only adults to fast while they reflect. Nor is it a holiday for the weak of heart. Revising yourself requires you to do something almost psychologically unnatural -- stop narrating the story of your life the way you always have.
The British novelist John Fowles said that people under 40 should not attempt to write novels because they lack the wisdom to do so. I think he may have meant that they lack the ability to revise. Living, like writing, requires no wisdom. Only revising does.
Writing is a process of making choices. Thousands of them. The act of writing an opening sentence is the result of more choices than I can count. Every word a character speaks or swallows is a choice. Every action or inaction, more choices. It's so easy to get them wrong. Or at least to see that another choice would have made more sense.
The best writers are usually the best revisers, and they learn to look forward to the process. Revision gives you a chance to get things right. You learn to ask other people for suggestions. Your narrator may be omniscient, but you realize you're not. Suddenly, the writing isn't yours alone anymore. You see that it affects people differently from the way you intended.
On Yom Kippur, we are given the chance to understand that our lives are also not ours alone. Our actions and choices affect others, often in ways that we don't intend. If we cling to our vision of ourselves too fiercely, we blow the chance to gain insight.
Yom Kippur is not a holiday for the young. Judaism requires only adults to fast while they reflect. Nor is it a holiday for the weak of heart. Revising yourself requires you to do something almost psychologically unnatural -- stop narrating the story of your life the way you always have.
The British novelist John Fowles said that people under 40 should not attempt to write novels because they lack the wisdom to do so. I think he may have meant that they lack the ability to revise. Living, like writing, requires no wisdom. Only revising does.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Vote Today!
The man who bought Barry Bonds' record-setting baseball says he did it for you. Fashion designer Marc Ecko paid $750,000. He wants you to vote by Internet on what to do with the ball. You can send it to the Hall of Fame, or brand it with an asterisk, or put it on a rocket and send it into space.
Vote here today.
Vote here today.
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