novel: done…
Um…
Rough draft of outline.
Yes!
I completed the rough draft of my outline. Yea! Now I can finally begin writing…
by writing out samples of the first chapter to discover the voice of the book. And once that’s over then it gets really exciting.
quote: john piper & oxygen
“You can succeed in holding your breath forever if you are spiritually dead.”
John Piper on how the word of God is oxygen to our souls. Breathe it my peeps. Breathe it in and then breathe it out in prayer & praise to God.
Piper, John. ”Receive with Meekness the Implanted Word.”
Desiring God. Sermon preached on 02/07/10.
reformed rap friday: to live is Christ by trip lee
Rapping Philippians… you don’t even know how awesome this is! Or maybe you do, I don’t know. Holy Hip Hop baby. Spit it my brother!
c. s. lewis and john piper
John Piper gave an awe-inspiring lecture, on how C. S. Lewis has impacted his life, at the Desiring God Pastors Conference (February 2, 2010). I was not there, but the manuscript of the lecture as well as the audio are available at Desiringgod.com. I have provided the link below.
Folks, I’m serious. I don’t say this lightly, I read the manuscript and listened to the audio and it was awesome. Take the time to read it or hear it; your ears, your eyes, your mind, your heart, and your spirit will be blessed. Here’s a taste:
Lewis’s pursuit of Joy by means of rational defenses of objective truth has had (a) liberating effect on me. He freed me from false dichotomies. He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise, penetrating logic is not inimical to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively imagination. He was a “romantic rationalist.” He combined what almost everybody today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination. In shattering these old stereotypes for me, he freed me to think hard and to write poetry, to argue for the resurrection and compose hymns to Christ, to smash an argument and hug a friend, to demand a definition and use a metaphor. It is a wonderful thing when a great man shows a struggler how to be himself.
Love and Truth, Grace and Truth, Spirit and Truth. Both/And. Not either/or. This is what I most love about John Piper and Spurgeon and Augustine and C. S. Lewis (even if he got some major doctrines wrong).
The link: Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul.
Note: the manuscript and the audio are a bit different. I would encourage you to listen to the lecture and then to scan the manuscript as a follow-up if you so desire.
s. d. smith
This wiffle-ball star has a cool site. In truth, he is also a writer. He has a good sense of humor and seems to love the word of God too. Cool.
I’ve linked to his site under “Lit Links” as well.
j. d. salinger
J. D. Salinger passed off into eternity recently. He wrote the book everyone reads in High School: The Catcher in the Rye. The New York Times has a nice little article about his life after the book:
J. D. Salinger a Recluse? Well, Not to His Neighbors.
Read it free while you still can!
al mohler and the shack
Al Mohler reviews evangelicals reviewing The Shack by William P. Young:
The Shack – The Missing Art of Evangelical Discernment.
And yes, The Shack has become my personal whipping boy. For better or for worse, ’til death do we part.
But the article is quite good, which is why I’m bringing it to your attention. It’s more than just The Shack, though it’s not less.
Peace to my peeps.
morality: get outta my face
Tony Reinke at his blog “Miscellanies.” has posted a sweet quote by C. S. Lewis on morality, Tyndale, and the Puritans:
It’s a pithy quote, so it won’t take long to read, but I think it’s worth reminding ourselves, because it points us back to our reliance, our help, our refuge, and our salvation which is in Christ alone.
Not in me.
Or you.
reformed rap friday: ladies n fella’s by j’son
Go ahead, try and find a similar song with this much depth on marriage in the mainstream “Christian” music. I dare ya. I’ll even turn the comments on this post on, to prove me wrong. Please, prove me wrong. That would be great.
Also, I would switch out some lyrics. Love is what we do, but we do it because we feel it. If we don’t feel love then something is wrong. Sometimes we do something without feeling the love, but we do it with the hope and trust that the feelings will come eventually.
So love is both feeling and doing. It is the genius of the AND (as Jim Collins likes to say). Not the tyranny of the OR. Peace to my peeps.
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