by Marcus on September 2, 2010
Tonight I’m going to St. Peter’s Upon the Water for a personal retreat. I’ve never done this before, and I’m actually a bit nervous. I’ve got books. I’ve got poetry. I’m trying not to have an agenda, but I have that too.
I told a friend yesterday that I invited God to join me, but I’m not sure what his schedule is. I suspect he’s pretty busy, and that’s okay. God doesn’t have to show up. But if he does, I am taking a deck of cards and an extra glass to pour him a Coke if that suits him. [click to continue…]
by Marcus on August 30, 2010
We are a busy, noisy society. We rush from deadline to deadline searching for significance. We carry phones everywhere, on call to the needs of the world like mini-superheroes. It is good to work hard. It is good to be productive. But rest is good too. Even God rested after he created the world. Sadly, even those of us who believe in God have forgotten how to rest. We rarely leave work at work. We rarely unplug from the media. We rarely silence our phones, much less turn them off completely.
Those of us who believe in God have forgotten how to be with God. [click to continue…]
by Marcus on August 28, 2010
This poem came from a sermon last week at church. If I could, I would post a picture here of downtown Kerrville taken by Joe Herring yesterday. You could see the intersection at Maine Street where they are almost finished tearing down the hospital.
You can still click over to Joe’s site with its great pictures. But my pictures will have to rely on your imagination.
Stand Up Straight
“Respect authority,” we say to our first
grade boys, but they know the signs
are sometimes wrong. It is not eight
miles to town but four. The measurement
of government does not match
our odometer, punched as we drove by
the boy who said, “The sign is wrong.”
Rules and measurements make sense
only when true. God only knows how
many people drive past Main Street
missing the civic life, owners waving
in their store fronts, advertising
specials and sales, and the church
signs shouting our doom in black
letters or holding up the love of Christ
like theological carrots, lures for jack
asses who think life is still miles,
at least four, away from all of this.
by Marcus on August 26, 2010
This morning, I couldn’t believe the subject line of an email from Publisher’s Weekly. “THE BEST FIRST CHAPTER YOU’LL EVER READ.” All caps and everything. Come on, I thought, what a stunt. I had not opened a PW email in some time, but I felt had to open this one just to prove the falseness of such a grandiose subject line.
It was somewhat related to my work (I’m an editor) so I opened the email and found myself reading the first chapter of Across the Universe. And reading. And reading. I’m a pretty big fan of science fiction and young adult fiction, so this was right up my alley.
How did I know it was young adult? Because the first person protagonist, Amy, is just a kid, barely old enough to have breasts that she has showed to a boy “just that one time, the night I found out I would leave behind everything on Earth, and everything included him.” It’s a coming of age novel. Also, the ad said to email yrpenguin with our thoughts. (YR = “young reader.”) Also, most obviously, the book is published by Penguin Razorbill which seems to be turning over a new leaf from its normal fare like Kevin Bolger’s Sir Fartsalot Hunts a Booger.
Though, really, Bolger’s title has some guts in its own way.
And Across the Universe was good. The “best first chapter you’ll ever read” good? I’m not sure. Tim O’Brien’s opening to The Things They Carried is probably better. The beginning of Genesis is probably better. And the beginning of John about the Word. Super cool.
But this was a good first chapter. In fact, it’s good enough that I can forgive a marketing department’s enthusiastic hyperbole.
I clicked over to the book’s website and discovered the horrible truth. The book doesn’t come out until January 2011. 138 days, 13 hours, 20 minutes, and 23 seconds from the time I’m writing this post.
This got me thinking. How would others respond to this? I posted a link to the first chapter on Facebook. My aunt liked the link, which I assume to mean she read the chapter. My community theater friend read the chapter and said, “thanks for sharing Marcus – although the tears are still welling up! – think I may have to get on my kindle2!!” When I confessed that the book wouldn’t be out for five months, she groaned, “oh my – please remind me when it does – you can’t imagine how much I am caught-up in it!!!”
I love my community theater friend for many reasons, least of all that she’s in her seventies and unafraid to use that many exclamation points.
The chapter stayed with me all day, so that I sent the link to my parents at one point. Then another editor. Then I made my wife read it after dinner while I played legos with my son and listened to my daughter practice violin.
What makes the chapter so good? I invite you to read it and share your thoughts. I think it is the growing sense of horror. At first, you aren’t sure what is going on except that it requires a girl’s parents to take off their clothes in public. Then you realize the horrible details, and you don’t understand why anyone would do this. Then you realize the potential payout and worry that it is not worth the cost young Amy will pay. Finally, the chapter ends on a plot twist with more guts than Sir Fartsalot on a Booger Hunt.
All of this works because the narrator is so unflinching and honest and trusting. The simple YR sentences work just like Harry Potter, speeding the plot along, building characterization fluidly and easily. It reminds me of books like Hatchet or The Giver. The cover looks like Twilight which I won’t comment any more about. I’m hoping this author can deliver material as complex and engaging as Margo Lanagan or Ursula K. LeGuin. That’s a tall order for a new author, but the email subject line did promise “THE BEST FIRST CHAPTER YOU’LL EVER READ.”
Finally, Penguin asked for our thoughts. So here are mine.
If Beth Revis can sustain this, the book is going to be super cool. I’m hoping she and her high school students will have a very good year.
by Marcus on August 25, 2010
A few years ago, my friend David was talking business with some friends just after lunch. David works for Foundations for Laity Renewal, the same Christian non-profit I work for. (OK, ok. David is my big big boss, the COO.) David’s friends wondered what it must be like to work at an organization that openly sought to honor God.
“It’s humbling to work with you,” they said, “because all we do is sell soap and cars. Your goals are so much loftier.”
What?! I don’t mean to be rude, but I hate it when Christians talk like this. In fact, this kind of talk allows us to separate our faith from our daily life. As if faith goals are loftier. As if faith goals include things that happen on Sunday morning and dramatic experiences of self-sacrifice that can be used as somebody’s sermon example.
Our lives can’t be reduced to a series of simple, inspirational sermon examples. I’m not even sure God wants that for us. Life is messy. Work is messy. But we struggle through the mess, and our struggle honors God. We don’t just give up. We don’t just say, “Gee, I wish my work were loftier.” Or “Gee, I wish I had a higher calling.”
The high calling network isn’t a collection of higher calling bloggers. I’m tired of that kind of competitive, comparative language. For just a minute, I wish Christians and churches could stop being so competitive. We all serve the same God. We all have the same high calling–to live in such a way that our actions honor God. Any honorable work done well is done for the glory of God.
As for the friends who went out to lunch with David, I’m afraid they’ve endured my soap box several times since they talked with David. They’re my friends, too. In fact, I just emailed them this morning. They are good, good people.
I don’t know what David told them that day. I imagine it was something like this:
“So you sell cars and soap. Great! The world needs advertising that glorifies God. Create ads that sell cars with integrity. Create ads for soap that are beautiful. Excellent work has intrinsic value to God and to the world–even if you are just selling cars and soap.”
God likes good work. Our lives can be a living sacrifice to him. That doesn’t mean we add an icthus watermark to every memo and email and report. It means we trust God to accept what we do for him–without needing to receive recognition for it.
And, of course, we stand ready with answers about our faith when people ask.
Think for a minute about your own work day–whether you receive pay for your work or not. What do you do from 8:00 – 5:00? How is your work a way of loving your neighbor? What is the intrinsic value of your work?
Photograph “Bull riding” by Jami Dwyer, used under a Creative Commons license.
