Recently, a friend asked me, “Are you frustrated with God?”
Always. Part of it is a frustration with myself for not having the discipline to listen for him more. But then I think, I am a disciplined listener. I’m good at listening to people (good compared to some, anyway).
But listening to God is different. HE DOESN’T TALK BACK. Not like a regular person. And I get frustrated with that. It’s probably tied up with freewill in some complicated philosophical way, but I just want God to cut through the crap at some point.
I know, he cut through all of the mess in a powerful way when he sent his son 2000 years ago. He still does this through his Word. Through his Holy Spirit.
But darn it. You can’t touch the Holy Spirit! I want to put my hands on it. I want a Holy Spirit hug. A Jesus kiss. I won’t say all of the things I want because they feel a little shocking, suffice it to say I get tired of faith sometimes. I want a real connection with God, but it always eludes me. At night when everyone is asleep, sometimes I’m just a little suspicious that the whole thing is a self-delusion and a scam.
Like my friend said. I’m frustrated. I want agape love, and I don’t know how to find it.
It’s a long dark night, “without light or guide, save that which burn[s] in my heart.” When? When? Will the night ever join Beloved with lover?
Here’s something for poetry Friday. Hat tip to Steve McCoy one of our authors at TheHighCalling.org for pointing me to Billy Collins on YouTube. (Here’s a link to Steve’s articles at THC.org.)
Just found this via a Twitter from Michael Hyatt. It’s five parts–and he spends the intro of part one centering everyone on the reason for the industry with bits and pieces of his personal testimony. “At 16, I found religion… and became an atheist… It was my first faith experience–being an atheist.”
Later he gets into a list of specific things in the industry that encourage him. As he says in part 5, “It’s easy to complain about your industry, but some retailers are experiencing real growth.” You can read a summary of the presentation at his blog.
As the Senior Editor for HighCallingBlogs.com, that question really interests me. Don’t worry. We’re not looking to rule the world or anything. But a self-sustaining model of non-profit entreprenuership would be nice. If you’re in the network, I promise not to pull any kind of Facebook stunts. You’ll know well in advance if we cook something up.
To that front, I’ll leave you with this quote from eMarketer:
eMarketer anticipates US user-generated content advertising revenue will reach $824 million in 2012, up from $162 million in 2007.
Just saw this on Publisher’s Weekly. It was announced yesterday. That’s right. Thomas Nelson will no longer attend the primary CBA tradeshow, ICRS. I’m not sure whether this means they are leaving the Christian Booksellers Association, or just no longer attending the tradeshow.
Update: Michael Hyatt weighed in on this in the comments. They aren’t leaving the CBA, just no longer attending ICRS. He pointed people to a Q&A about this specific issue on his blog.
At any rate, you need to know this stuff. So keep reading and be sure to click through to the articles as well.
I’m updating our Odd Job page as quickly as I can, remaining committed to annotating each post. As my regular readers know (both of them), I don’t believe in trading links without also trading conversation. Neither does Robert Hruzek, but he’s a lot faster at this than I am! At any rate, we’re up to 31 posts now, and I have 15 or 20 more to add.
Lately, I’ve been writing hard, more professionally than years past, which means also a bit more mechanically. Some words are needed, so I crank them out.
GoodWordEditing.com (which I have tabbed as GWE in my browser) is one of my few places where I can still play. Play is so important. Like I’ve said before, this is not a subscribe to me kind of blog. I’ve thought of posts this week, I might write–about the twenty-two-thirty rule of engaging readers that I learned on Tuesday, about the scene and plot things I’m learning in my own writing, about how to carve out writing time when you have a family and a career and a church and dogs that need someone to throw the frisbee, about how to use tools like Plaxo to follow other bloggers, about how to use Twitter as a method of social note taking, even a spiritual analysis of Battlestar Galactica Resistance clips showing where that series does a good job of opening the door to think about faith and religion as something to be taken seriously.
Except for Battlestar Galactica, those things don’t feel much like play to me. Even Battlestar doesn’t feel as playful when I’m analyzing it for scene structure, character motivation, and theme.
But poetry is so useless, it’s only good for play. The movement of a poem isn’t going to take me anywhere in particular. I’m just here swinging with the words. Up and back. Up and back. Or maybe kayaking around Serenity Island at one of our city parks. (Yes, I live in heaven.)
And earlier this morning, I finally found this poem. Or I should say it found me. People kept sending it to me. Quoting it back to me. And I realized it was time to climb on the swing, time to get in the boat again.
Don’t forget to check back in two weeks for Part 2 of the interview! I like the second part even better personally. That’s where he really gets into the nitty gritty of faith and fantasy, stories and adaptations, art and commerce.
In our newest interview at TheHighCalling.org with Micheal Flaherty, we talk about the upcoming Narnia flick, Prince Caspian. How to market to churches–without losing your integrity. Fantasy and imagination and faith. As well as some tidbits about future projects like Dawn Treader and The Screwtape Letters!
GO READ IT! And leave a comment, purty please? If you love me.
Talking with Jeffrey Overstreet this morning about Narnia and Walden in general, I thought I’d post some nostalgia links: Overstreet’s original review of Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe from Christianity Today Movies.
Another Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe review from Steven Greydanus at Decent Films Guide
Now, just for kicks, here is an interactive widget from Walden and Disney:
Recently, a friend asked me, “Are you frustrated with God?”
Lately, I’ve been writing hard, more professionally than years past, which means also a bit more mechanically. Some words are needed, so I crank them out.
In 
I'm Senior Editor for 
