Because everyone loves a good story
I’m Gonna Let It Shine
You thought I forgot about this blog, didn’t you? Well, I didn’t. I’ve been busy getting ready to sell some handmade stuff at a craft show, but I’m not too busy to check in with you and tell you what I was thinking about this morning. And no, it’s not the beginning of the promised discussion about story writing. For that, you’ll have to check back next week.
This morning I was reading in Luke 11, and among many other marvelous truths packed into that chapter, God was showing me one powerful truth through two great analogies. (Did you ever notice that God loves analogies? He packs so much into one little comparison, communicating much more than is stated. I think this is one of the reasons our hearts resonate with stories.) For example, check out this passage in which Jesus is talking to a crowd that followed Him:
Did you ever notice that God loves analogies? I think this is one of the reasons our hearts resonate with stories.
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”
All right, that’s actually one of Jesus’ analogies that gets confusing by the end. If you’re anything like me, you start out tracking along just fine, probably humming “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine.” But then the analogy changes from lamps to eyes, and all of a sudden you’re wondering how things went from “Hide it under a bushel? No!” to some person with a bad eye and a body full of darkness.
Now, I’m sure that real, live Bible scholars would have much more to say about this passage, but I just wanted to remark on one little facet that God showed me today, and it is this: Jesus is the Light. I know that’s not profound; you’ve probably heard it before. But in this context, it means everything.
In the first verse, it’s an external factor that would prevent you from seeing the light: the lamp is hidden under a basket (which seems rather dangerous to me anyway.) But in the rest of the passage, there’s an internal factor that keeps you from seeing the light: your own eyes, in this case representing your spiritual perception.
Think of your eye as a window into your body. If the window is clear, the light can come through and illuminate you. It is true, pure, unpolluted light. But if the window is clouded and dirty, any light that comes in will be dingy and tainted. If you’re used to looking through dirty windows, you won’t even notice that the light coming through them isn’t pure. You’ll think your semi-darkness is light. There is a conclusion to be drawn here about our need for an objective standard for truth and beauty, but I’ll save that for another day.
If you’re used to looking through dirty windows, you won’t even notice that the light coming through them isn’t pure. You’ll think your semi-darkness is light.
What seemed important to me this morning is that none of these conditions affects the light itself. My dirty window doesn’t make the sun dimmer. My belief or lack of belief in God does not change His essence. My skewed perception or lack of faith only prevents me from perceiving and enjoying Him myself. I want to make sure that I’m keeping my light on a table so everyone can see it, but I also want to make sure my perception of the Light is pure. The only way to do that is constantly to check my beliefs against the Word. When the Sun starts looking dim to me, I know it’s my window that needs to be cleaned.
Because the Light is going to do what He does best: He’s gonna shine.
What Is This Blog Even About?
If you’ve been keeping up with my blog since its auspicious inception about a week ago, you have probably been wondering what in the world this blog is even about.
That’s a fair query, and I’d like to give a brief answer so that you know what to expect. Personally, I love knowing what to expect, even if it’s bad. But this isn’t bad. It’s good, I think.
I have a passion for stories. I mentioned this in my very first blog post, but I am quite serious about it. For me, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien have been two of the most influential thinkers and storytellers, so they will appear frequently in this blog as well. But I am also passionate about Jesus and the meaning He gives to existence. Therefore, this blog will be about Story and stories (both the general concept and specific examples), and it will also be about Jesus and the way He often figures into the stories of literature and life.
Now, if I lost your attention on both of those passions, then there is a slight chance you won’t find this blog as thrilling as I do. But hey, stick around and see if I surprise you! I will definitely throw in a curve ball article whenever it pops into my mind. But if one or both of my passions appeal to you, then I truly hope you’ll keep coming back for more. Because trust me—there’s more.
For example, I’ve been working on a series of posts based on the book The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler. His book describes how many stories that we love progress through twelve stages of action. It is the unique use of these stages that make a story believable, relatable, and enjoyable. I’ll be tracking his method through Tolkien’s The Hobbit so you can see how it looks in a real story! I’ll also be writing about whatever God is teaching me at the time, including books and verses that have meant a lot to me, so I’m very excited about that. I’m sure I’ll write many things that don’t necessarily fall into those categories, but my goal is to post one literary article and one other article each week.
So with all that information in front of you, I’d like to make a quick appeal: Would you consider subscribing to my blog and recommending it to a friend who would enjoy it? It sure would make my day!
Thanks so much for taking time to read this informational blurb. I hope not to be this factual again for a long while. Until next time!
Satisfaction in the Mundane
Everyone wants to live a good story. And lately I was thinking about that while chopping a heap of vegetables.
No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Boy, today I’d really love to do a string of necessary but inconsequential tasks that consume my time from now until I flop back into bed.” But let’s be honest—on most days, we may as well have thought that. Then at least we would have had an accurate picture of how the day would feel.
No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Boy, today I’d really love to do a string of necessary but inconsequential tasks that consume my time from now until I flop back into bed.”
Does this sound familiar? “Choose 7 inane tasks, put them in order, and write them in your schedule. You may choose from the following tasks:
“Pack lunches, spend time in traffic, vacuum the floor, attempt to use frustrating technology, wipe soap scum and toothpaste from the sink, send emails that will probably never been read or applied, forget you had planned lunch with so-and-so, sit through a pointless meeting, shop for groceries but fail to find the one ingredient you really needed, reply to one million people who need you, walk the dog, change a very grievous diaper, spend more time in traffic, make a palatable dinner, clean up, fix the broken this-or-that, do homework, brush teeth, put kids down, and crash in your own bed.
“Now cross through the 3 that you accomplished today. Re-write the remaining 4 on tomorrow’s schedule along with 7 new tasks. Repeat process.”
If that sounds depressingly familiar, I can relate. I mean, I don’t have children yet, but I’ve closely observed humans who do. I’ve also been on both ends of the productivity spectrum. I’ve worked a very busy job, and I’ve been a stay at home wife. Every calling comes with a unique set of challenges. But what isn’t unique is the universal desire to matter, to do something that isn’t pointless.
All this I thought about while chopping vegetables, perhaps one of the most quintessentially-mundane tasks. (My apologies to all you foodies out there. I love the result but never the process.) But it got me thinking about a little booklet I read by a seventeenth-century monk named Brother Lawrence. The book is called The Practice of the Presence of God, and while I would perhaps disagree with some of his theology, he had much to teach me about satisfaction—even joy—in the mundane.
Every calling comes with a unique set of challenges. But what isn’t unique is the universal desire to matter, to do something that isn’t pointless.
Brother Lawrence was the cook for his monastery. But instead of feeling ripped off that he had signed up to meditate on God and instead found himself pulling a Nacho Libre, he chose to meditate on God while he cooked! Check out this portion of a prayer that he wrote:
“Lord of all pots and pans and things…
Make me a saint by getting meals
And washing up the plates!”
For real, Brother Lawrence?? And take a gander at this kick in the pants: “…Our sanctification [does] not depend upon changing our works, but in doing for God’s sake [that] which we commonly do for our own.” But isn’t that great news? Finding satisfaction and sanctification in our daily lives requires not a change of vocation but a change of purpose. Looking for ways to love God and love others in our daily tasks could redeem whole hours, days, and eventually years.
Finding satisfaction and sanctification in our daily lives requires not a change of vocation but a change of purpose.
So next time I find myself chopping vegetables begrudgingly, let me view it as a way to love my husband and offer thanks to God for His provision of all good things. Let me remember that a wasted day is not one spent in small tasks, but in the words of Brother Lawrence, “Believe me, count as lost each day you have not used in loving God.”
A Meditation on Lift-the-Flap Books and Jesus
I hope you had a lift-the-flap book when you were little. I hope you had several, in fact.
Remember the magic of lifting a flap and discovering a little critter hiding under the bush? Or pulling a paper tab to the left and seeing, like an x-ray, the straw bundles of the first little pig’s house shifting aside to reveal the chubby little porker underneath, momentarily satisfied with his home’s construction? Or—best of all—do you remember the books that expanded into a whole three-dimensional scene when you opened them? Turning a page and seeing a whole glittering kingdom rise up off of the paper was pure magic.
I don’t know what started me thinking about this topic today, but for some reason, lift-the-flap books reminded me of Jesus. Now, I’m not usually one to come up with far-fetched analogies, stretching my comparisons as thin as the gum on the world’s largest bubble. (Just kidding. I did that one on purpose.) But as I thought about these books in relation to Jesus, it rang true in my heart that this is one way I’ve encountered and enjoyed Jesus.
Turning a page and seeing a whole glittering kingdom rise up off of the paper was pure magic.
So here’s what I was thinking: Have you ever been reading the Bible, say in the Old Testament, and come across a story or a passage that was familiar, maybe even a little (dare I say) worn out? I know I have. I tend to skim through stories like that a good deal faster than I should. Why? Because I already know what I’m looking at. It’s a guy who has to build a very big boat. It’s a super long instruction manual for constructing a tabernacle. It’s a fearful leader who blows a horn and knocks down a wall to get into the promised land.
But what I’ve come to see through the years is that those are lift-the-flap moments. When I take the time to let the Spirit tell me the story, I see that there’s much more going on than I assumed. Behind the door of that ark is Jesus, the One in whom we take refuge from the floods of judgment. Behind the curtain of that tabernacle is Jesus, the One who allowed his flesh to be torn so that we could stand in the holiest place before the Father. Behind that fearful leader is Jesus, the greater Joshua, who knew the law of Moses could never grant access to the promised rest, so He led the way Himself.
Behind the door of that ark is Jesus, the One in whom we take refuge from the floods of judgment.
Now, I’m not saying that every nuance of every passage has a one-to-one correlation with Jesus. It would be very tedious indeed to read the Bible through that lens. But I am saying that God is the greatest Author, and what He writes, He writes with intention. He does not overlook details. He does not drop plot points. And he certainly does not belabor his analogies like bubble gum.
So next time I come across a passage that I’m tempted to skim over out of familiarity, I want to stop and look for Jesus instead. The more I track him through the Old Testament, the more I will appreciate Him in the New.
And when I get to Revelation—well, let’s just say that’s a full-page pop up of the place my heart is longing for. And I already know Who I’ll find inside.
What Does Your Brain Look Like?
Gears and ivy.
That’s what my brain looks like. If you could peek into my head (which I strongly advise against), I think you’d see cogs and gears—antique and tarnished but still madly churning—with tendrils of ivy growing on, around, and within the machine.
Why gears and ivy?
I can’t be sure, exactly, but I feel like C.S. Lewis is to blame. He is what John Piper called a “romantic rationalist.” His logic and analysis were impeccable, thanks to his voracious reading and his classical education. (I’m lookin’ at you, The Great Knock.) But he also saw life through the eyes of a dreamer and a lover. He peopled (or creatured?) his literary world with characters from mythology and his own imagination. Even his mundane experiences were shot through with rays of joy and longing. Yet somehow he seamlessly blended these seemingly-incompatible tendencies.
Now, hear me, and hear me good: I’m not comparing my brain to Jack’s. He’s as far out of my league as Aragorn felt to Eowyn. All I’m saying is that, because I’ve steeped my brain in so much Lewis, I feel like my brain has started to acquire some of the same rudimentary components. My gears are antique and tarnished—probably brass—because any reasoning I know I learned from “old dead dudes.” I’m an old soul trapped in a body that will catch up soon enough, I’m sure. My cogs and gears are churning madly, albeit inefficiently and smokily at times, overanalyzing the snot out of most things. Think along the lines of:
“Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it.
“What do you mean?” [Gandalf] said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
My poor husband.
But there is ivy abounding in my brain, green leaves of dreams, tendrils of fantasy, and sinuous vines of darker things—fears, quirks, and sadness. It seems like these would overpower the workings of the machine, bringing rational thought to a screeching halt. But it doesn’t. Somehow, the gears and the ivy can coexist. And for that, I blame (and thank) C.S. Lewis.
And Tolkien, too. I’m sure you’ve already suspected that based on my allusions here, but I wanted most of the credit to go to Lewis because he was my first love.
My poor husband once again.
But that is quite enough about me! What about you? If I could peek into your mind, what would it be made out of? Don’t be shy, and don’t feel obligated to write a novel about it. Just jot down whatever you think, because I’d love to hear from you!
Blog Post the First: Being a Declaration of Intention and Desire
Edmund Spenser was preparing to write an epic.
Back in the day, it was customary for someone that audacious to declare his intentions in advance by writing something a bit more manageable first. For Spenser, this was a series of 12 pastoral poems called The Shepherd’s Calendar. (Actually, it was called The Shepheardes Calender, but I didn’t want to frighten you with archaic spelling right off the bat.)
Anyway, it was a collection of twelve poems masterfully crafted in different styles in order to showcase his mad poetic skillz. He was imitating the example of earlier authors like Virgil and Chaucer, hoping to drum up some interest for his own upcoming epic. I think this declaration of intention was actually a way to test the waters, a thermometer stuck under the readers’ tongues to see if they had caught Spenser fever and would, therefore, be lining up to purchase a special-edition collector’s copy of his epic when he finally published it. Well, it must have worked. He is considered one of the greatest English poets of all time, even though he tragically kicked the bucket after writing only half of his epic, The Faerie Queene.
I think this declaration of intention was actually a way to test the waters, a thermometer stuck under the readers’ tongues.
I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.
Epics will kill you.
No, that’s not what I was driving at. The takeaway from this, my first blog post, is that I’d like to write a book. Actually, I’d like to write a fantasy trilogy and then many more books after that. But I’m a nobody, and I don’t think I’d do a good job of writing 12 fancy poems to try and change that fact. So even though I had lots of reasons not to start a blog (who would care about my posts, wouldn’t writing a blog take time away from writing a book, what if nobody reads it, what if somebody reads it, etc.), I still had one reason to start it anyway: I wanted to connect with you and declare my intentions.
So hear ye, hear ye: I intend to write some books, and I hope you’ll join me in my journey. In fact, you’re cordially invited to follow my tragedies and triumphs (even if the ratio is top heavy) because I need you. I need you to give me feedback, advice, questions, and occasional swift kicks in the pants when I slack off. And in return, I hereby do solemnly swear that I will write about a variety of subjects (not just literary stuff), that I will make the blog as interactive as possible, and that I will not write blog posts that take an hour and a half to read.
For those of you who know me, that last one should come as a surprise.
I need you to give me feedback, advice, questions, and occasional swift kicks in the pants when I slack off.
So I leave you now not with a pastoral poem of outstanding beauty but with an original poem nonetheless. I penned it just for this occasion. I hope it suffices.
A writer there was—unenthusing—
whose poems were hardly worth using.
As a serious verse
you could scarcely find worse,
though she hopes you find lim’ricks amusing.
Thee Ende
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