April 23rd, 2007 — blogtipping, faith and work, speculative fiction, thehighcalling.org
Are you making a difference or are you earning a check? That’s the key question we ask readers at one of the sites I edit: TheHighCalling.org. And its something I’d like to think about philosophically for the next few days as part of the High Calling Blog Tour.
We just went live this weekend with our new design, and I have to say I am just pleased as punch that this thing is off the ground.
April 19th, 2007 — blogging, faith and work, faithintheworkplace.com, thehighcalling.org
After a year of hard work, we are finally launching our new and improved TheHighCalling.org. I’ve put together a little social media press release as best I can to help everyone out. Find out more about it at my new page: High Calling Blog Tour.
Obviously, anyone and everyone is invited to participate. You don’t get anything except a whole lot of related link love, and a chance to create some community over the next few days.
Although I have to say that the audio embed is pretty darn cool.
Let me know if you are interested.
March 15th, 2007 — editing, faith and work, publishing, thehighcalling.org
I want you all to know how much I value you—not just as a resource for TheHighCalling.org and FaithInTheWorkplace.com—but as writers and poets and prophets and visionaries who challenge this thing we call church in America to rise up and act more like the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes I know you may feel like I am a hard master with your essays. And a lot of you think I am way too young to be pretending to be a master at all. You’re right.
But listen, this is the task I’ve been given.
January 16th, 2007 — blogging, christianity, faith and work, parenting, publishing, writing
My alarm goes off at five. I get up. Flip on the coffee, stumble to the computer, and blink myself awake while the computer hums through its startup. I read a little of my work from the previous day and begin to fall into the clicking rhythm of creation.
When the coffee burbles, I go fill a mug and find my daughter standing in the hallway.
“Daddy, I’m scared,†she says. “Can you lay with me?â€
There are two kinds of writer’s block. Internal blocks and external.
I have external writer’s blocks. One of them is five years old.
January 9th, 2007 — faith and work, thehighcalling.org, writing
Writing is like every other job. It is about relationships.
I was emailing a writer today with under the auspices of my official editorial duties for TheHighCalling.org. And I just stopped mid email. I was suddenly overwhelmed by how much fun it was to work with this writer. He works hard, pursues excellence, and lives with integrity. He doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t get defensive. But he’s not spineless either. He is so giving. He is so gracious with his work.
As an editor I love to work with writers who are generous like that.
That’s when it really hit me. Good writers give themselves away.
January 3rd, 2007 — christianity, faith and work, faithintheworkplace.com, publishing, thehighcalling.org, writing
So here we are. The earth returns to approximately the same spot in space each January and begins a new trek around the sun. And we all say to ourselves, “This year, I’ll get it right.”
We’ve got a clean slate. A blank page. A new accounting register. And we’ve got plans to make the world work a little bit better. This year we’ll finish that novel. We’ll submit until our tongue bleeds from licking envelopes. We’ll walk step by step through Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method.
It’s a good time to remember Proverbs 21:31.
December 27th, 2006 — christianity, faith and work, laity
Today, in honor of President Ford, I went through our old audio archives here at the H. E. Butt Foundation to review some speeches he gave with us. The search started after my daily dose of Scot McKnight. I wanted to comment and throw in another cool President Ford quote–and I knew we had these speeches that few people have heard. For example, in the late 1970s at the Congress of the Laity, President Ford spoke about issues of faith and work.
Betty and I have discovered personally that the things of this world which we consider important are fleeting. A man can hold high office, command great powers, be hailed as the leader of the world. But when his time in office is over, he must be prepared—mentally, emotionally, spiritually—to relinquish that power and prestige and acclaim and focus on what lasts forever.
December 22nd, 2006 — christianity, faith, faith and work, poetry
So Christ has come. That’s what Christmas is all about, right? What happens after he comes, though? How are we supposed to respond?
The magi responded by going to find him. If you haven’t read T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi,” go read it. It’s short and highly accessible on a first read. (For those interested in poetry, this is a dramatic monologue. Robert Browning has many poems like this and they are great for studying voice. You can read more analysis here.)
Christians believe that seeking Christ is the journey of our lives. I’m a Christian, and I believe this. Like the Magi say, it is a hard journey. It is a journey of birth, but also a journey of death.
December 16th, 2006 — faith, faith and work, kingdom, parables, responses
This in response to Ted Gossard over on the Jesus community.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a journal that a man kept for many months and set down on the trunk of his car to help his father bring in firewood.
The journal was filled with his poems, notes, thoughts, stories, letters from his children, artwork they had drawn together, pictures they had scribbled on notecards taped lovingly next to scribbled lists of words that rhyme. But he forgot to go back to the garage after carrying the wood. And instead his wife drove to the bank.
So he searched and searched, retracing her route, finding scattered pieces of paper that he recognized as ones he’d intended to tape down later. But no journal.
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