While there are differences in culture and time, it’s amazing how many theological and life questions read the same. Some passages I’ve read are not much different than what I might read, or write, on a blog.

I’ve read lots of Christian books by modern writers over the years, but there’s something special about connecting with words from over 1600 years ago.

Poorly written novels—no matter how pious and edifying the behavior of the characters—are not good in themselves and are therefore not really edifying. Now a statement like this creates problems. An individual may be highly edified by a sorry novel because he doesn’t know any better. We have plenty of examples in this world of poor things being used for good purposes. God can make any indifferent thing, as well as evil itself, an instrument for good; but I submit that to do this is the business of God and not of any human being. (O’Connor, 174)

In context, in this essay from Mystery and Manners, O’Connor is talking about Catholic writers and what they choose to write about and how they choose to portray reality. She makes the point that portraying real people accurately may mean writing about behavior that is non-edifying. She then questions how some well-meaning Catholic writers may write unbelievable stories for a given agenda, and thus try to reflect God with untruth. She then makes the statement above.

There are a lot of ideas that could be unpacked from that. She alludes to standards of literature and what makes a good novel in her statement about a person ‘not knowing any better’ than to like a sorry novel. There are concepts of conveying truth in fiction and of being believable that writers and literature types talk about. The idea I want to focus on has to do with grace.

Having gone to a Christian liberal arts college, I’ve been a part of lots of discussions about Christians and the quality of our work, whether art, writing, or even jobs. I like these questions and think they are good ones to ask. I think quality does matter, not just intent. However, just because a Christian (or Catholic, or whatever) produces poor art doesn’t mean God can’t use it, or that He won’t use it.

I used to listen exclusively to Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), otherwise known as music primarily produced for a Christian audience. Oh, I know, lots talk about using it for evangelistic purposes, but it’s Christians who primarily buy and listen to it. In the years I listened to it, The quality of the songs (as I don’t believe in separating lyric from music, they both make up a whole) has improved over time, but the songs were never considered as good as a whole compared to the mainstream music industry. I heard a number of Christians speak disdainfully about the quality of the CCM over the years. Still, I’ve seen God use it to his glory.

I’ve had times where I wasn’t particularly focused on God but He used my petty efforts to positively affect people’s lives for Him . I’ve seen prayerful efforts fall flat. Maybe they were to His glory to and I was too upset to see it or be affected by His grace. Sometimes we are just too expectant of the result based on our efforts. Sometimes we are too judgmental of others based on what we think of the quality or content of their work.

Having the word Jesus in a song doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good, but we should be equally humble about our masterpieces and how we view trite work, because God’s grace extends to us all, and He will use whatever He chooses to glorify Himself. Standards of quality are useful to have, and I think lovingly challenging one another towards excellence is also important, but part of the wonder of God is that He is God, and we are not, and so our standards and our formulas aren’t much in light of eternity.

I need to remember that God’s grace is at work around me and in me, and God will work through all of our efforts, and then I need to extend that grace. I’m thankful to Flannery O’Connor for the reminder.

I cannot live in a world where everything is predetermined, an ant world in which there is no element of choice. I do believe that we all have a share in the writing of our own story… Sometimes the very impetus of overcoming obstacles results in a surge of creativity. It is in our responses that we are given the gift of helping God write our story. (L’Engle, 192)

I find Madeleine L’Engle really insightful, and in looking at my collection of notes from Walking on Water, that quote seemed a good one to start the year with. A lot of people enjoyed Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, where Miller muses about thinking about his life as a story and what kind of story he wants it to be. I liked the idea of thinking of my life as story. I’ve read some books about fiction writing since then, and will be starting a fiction writing class next week. Stories are on my mind.

I chose a path last year that made my own story more interesting to me. I moved to Southeast Asia for an indefinite amount of time. I met some fascinating people who have amazing stories. I applied to grad schools and got accepted, though I ended up not going. I took multiple classes. Though it wasn’t part of the original plot, I went to India and Western Europe. I also read a book on optimism, one that thoroughly changed my perspective of life for the better.

There were obstacles. There always are. Some I enjoyed overcoming. Others blindsided me. Some of my own expectations hit a wall. My plan A, which included pursuing a Masters in International Human Rights at DU, crashed to the ground, leaving me wondering what was to be. Lots of traveling left me exhausted for months. And while mostly feeling up, I’ve had a few moments of frustration and doubt the last 5 months in the states.

Despite those moments, and the challenges still to be faced, I feel like the protagonist (me) has grown quite a bit on this journey, and that overcoming obstacles has helped me to feel like more is possible. I don’t know where the story is going though. I used to struggle more with this ‘hope’ thing. Now, I’m more at peace with realizing that I don’t know the future, and that good things can happen. Like, I don’t know if I will ever get married. I’d like to, but not to just anyone. Earlier in life, I would get down about it, almost in a despairing fashion. Now, I am hopeful that it could happen. It may not, but it can. I’d like to embrace that a lot of good things can happen in my life story, and in the stories of people around me. I wish you all hope in the coming year, and that your stories may be full of life.

With any hobby I try to pursue, there are those moments when I ask myself why I am pursuing it. Sometimes, motivation is far away. I find it easy to write, like I am right now. I enjoy it for its own sake. I expect that I’ll continue to dabble in paint and pastels, but there is the question of What?

As I’ve been writing this post, I starting pondering the idea of trying to paint scenes from fiction books. That might be an interesting exercise, though I’d still like to hone my skills more. What I think I want to do is to go outdoors or to different places, and to try to capture a scene. I like the idea of Impressionism, but I also would like to paint a scene I find interesting. Looking at a photograph, even my own, just isn’t the same. It being winter here, painting outdoors would be a bit challenging, so I might wait till spring when I can more easily be immersed in a scene.

I’m curious what motivates other people to paint or draw. Why do you do it?

And he looks just like Tim from BBC’s The Office. That’s because they are both played by Martin Freeman. I enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and enjoyed it more than I expected too.

The Hobbit, for my tastes, is an okay book. It’s worth reading, but I think it’s a silly tale, a more juvenile tale. The Lord of the Rings book, in contrast, is a more adult tale, though it has it’s share of silly songs and other lite fare. I will say The Hobbit is an easier read, while TLOTR can be tedious at times (the old forest, anyone?).

In celluloid form, The Hobbit doesn’t take itself too seriously and ended up being a lot of fun for me. I saw it in both 2D and 3D. The second time, I took more notice of the scenery, taking myself out of the movie and thinking about how it was New Zealand, and comparing it to what I saw when I was there. I remember being at Rivendell, though there wasn’t much left of it at Kaitoke Park, aside from a sign.

I questioned the viability of splitting the book into 3 parts, but I’m happy with Part 1, and think having 2 more films in Middle Earth will be great. There are tie-ins to TLOTR films not in the Hobbit book. I’m okay with that, and I really liked the scene with Galadriel, Saruman, Elrond, and Gandalf. There is a lighter tone in the movie compared to TLOTR, while still being dark moments. There are moments children could enjoy, but there are also moments that are violent and scary enough to not be good for young children. Overall, it’s also not as heavy an experience, and it’s nice to see some jovial elves.

The Hobbit, like TLOTR, is set in a world of Tolkien’s creation, where there is applicability to our situation, but where it isn’t an allegory of Christian faith, like The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It is Tolkien’s myth of England, based on his study of language in written historical sources. That is what makes his stories so impressive to me, that they are based on the root meanings of words, that there is a certain plausibility to it based on historical language.

The films are another matter. They affect me deeply because I lived in New Zealand for 8 months, because I attended the TROTK World Premiere, and I saw film locations. And with The Hobbit, what can I say, I’m happy for Tim.

Tomorrow, we will likely know who the next President of the United States will be. It’s not an unimportant election, and one candidate will be better than the other (opinions differ on who that will be). But this I know. As our pastor, Darren, put it, the Kingdom will still be moving. God will still be at work, and this, no matter who is elected.

Fear is part of the propaganda of any election. So is hope. Fear what the other person will do. Hope for what this one will do. And for some, the country, and perhaps world, will get worse no matter who is elected. I’m not optimistic that one candidate will be substantially better than the other, but I am optimistic that good things will still happen, and that there will be some things that get better, and that God’s Kingdom, like a mustard seed, will still grow. Sometimes you have to look for it, but it’s there. The narrative of despair is not the whole story.

I’m not saying that we should just sit back and do nothing because there is hope. Quite the opposite. I’m saying we should be active in making the world better because there is hope. The story is still being written. Our story is still being written. My story is still being written.

I forget when I first heard about Flannery O’Connor. Flannery was a well-known writer who was both Southern and Catholic. Her faith was an important part of how she saw that came through in her writing. I finally read a collection of her short fiction called A Good Man is Hard to Find and other stories a few years ago. I wasn’t a big fan of the stories, but I did appreciate her depiction of flawed people experiencing moments of grace.

I really liked Madeleine L’Engle’s nonfiction book Walking on Water, and didn’t realize Flannery had any published nonfiction. I just finished Mystery and Manners, and found Flannery quite insightful, such as:

Much of my fiction takes its character from a reasonable use of the unreasonable, though the reasonableness of my use of it may not always be apparent. The assumptions that underlie this use of it, however, are those of the central Christian mysteries. These are assumptions to which a large part of the modern audience takes exception. About this I can only say that there are perhaps other ways than my own in which this story could be read, but none other by which it could have been written. Belief, in my own case anyway, is the engine that makes perception operate. (109)

I really like how she thinks and how she sees.

Monet’s paintings were derided as unfinished by the artists of the Salon in Paris. My copy of this Monet Gare Saint Lazare painting is even more unfinished. I’m a beginner, so I’m happy enough to start with resemblance.

I knew almost nothing about Impressionism before spending time in Europe this summer. After seeing a lot of religious paintings that had very similar themes, Impressionist paintings were a nice visual change of pace. Standing close gave one appearance, while standing far away gave a different view.

In trying to paint this one, I realized just how many different tones made up Monet’s painting. Flannery O’Connor mentioned that she knew writers who painted as a way to learn to see. I like that. I don’t always see the world as it is at first glance. Trying to replicate what I’m looking at shows me just how much detail I miss. I think I’m going to enjoy the process.

Now that I’m back in the states, I’ve decided to explore the creative arts more so I can be a better designer, but also so I can learn to see in a different way. This is my 2nd acrylic painting, and one of the few paintings of my adult life. It’s not a good painting, but I did enjoy creating it.

Earlier in my life, I was tentative when I tried to draw or paint. Like many people, I felt I had to get it right out of the gate. After taking pastels class several years ago, I learned that I needed to just start drawing, and that there was room for adjustments as I went along. I did that here. The only notion I had as I began was to draw a mountain. The sky went from red to black to blue. There sphere was a moon, and then a sun, and finally, I wanted it to be either.

I don’t aspire to draw or paint to sell or exhibition, though I will share what I do here. I want to share the journey, not because I’m good, but because I’m not, and we’re all works in progress. I didn’t paint this to worship, but I want to create as an act of worship, and I’m still learning what that means. For me, it’s not about the result or what’s seen, but about what’s unseen: what’s in my heart and an awareness of a God greater than me.

Does anyone have any thoughts about creating as an act of worship?

When Christ came with His blazing spiritual penetration and His fine moral sensitivity He appeared to the Pharisee to be a devotee of another kind of religion, which indeed He was if the world had only understood. He could see the soul of the text while the Pharisee could see only the body, and he could always prove Christ wrong by an appeal to the letter of the law or to an interpretation hallowed by tradition. The breach between them was too great to permit them to coexist; so the Pharisee, who was in a position to do it, had the young Seer put to death…

The imagination, since it is a faculty of the natural mind, must necessarily suffer both from its intrinsic limitations and from an inherent bent toward evil…A purified and Spirit-controlled imagination is, however, quite another thing, and it is this I have in mind here. I long to see the imagination released from its prison and given to its proper place among the Sons of the new creation. What I am trying to describe here is the sacred gift of seeing, the ability to peer beyond the veil and gaze with astonished wonder upon the beauties and mysteries of things holy and eternal.

The stodgy pedestrian mind does no credit to Christianity. Let it dominate the church long enough and it will force her to take one of two directions: either toward liberalism, where she will find relief in a false freedom, or toward the world, where she will find an enjoyable but fatal pleasure.

But I wonder whether this is not all included in the words of our Lord as recorded in the Gospel of John "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you" (16:13, 14).

To possess a Spirit-indwelt mind is the Christian’s privilege under grace, and this embraces all I have been trying to say here.

The full essay is part of a collection of essays by A.W. Tozer called Born After Midnight.