REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & ART

Oooooh, crap. Seriously. You know when you get this idea in your head? And, when it's in your head it seems so great and noble and cool? But then you put it in words and try to share what you're thinking with someone else and it just seems so flat? I hate that. Stephen King put it best when he wrote, "The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings - words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out." (I think that's from The Body ... I'll have to check.) So, anyway. I had this idea. Kind of a physical embodiement of the whole "Faith & Art" thing. It started with a random comment from my mom (my mom is a great source of inspiration!) There is a building I'm obsessed with. It's in St. Bernard ( see this post to catch up on that whole thing. ) It's the building w...

Rusty and I caught part of the Narnia movie on tv the other night. It was the part where Edmund is starting to understand that the witch really does suck and he's made a terrible mistake. I so identify with Edmund. I always have. When I first read the Narnia books, when I was nine years old, I wanted to be like Lucy. I wanted to be the one who went in with everything to believe in, just happy to be there getting to experience it all. But I knew that Edmund felt more familiar. I hated that. He just seemed like such a whiner and so unhappy for himself and everyone around him! But as I've gotten older I realized I had come to like Edmund. He's just so human and when he finally is saved he is so thankful. In the book, as well as the movie, there is a small scene when Edmund and Aslan are talking. Edmund's brother and sisters come running up, having just found out he is alive and back in their camp. Aslan tells them not to speak of what had happened becaus...

Before this blog could be revived, it had to go through "The Change" - from the old Blogger template (which was nicely personalized with the graphics and pretty whatnot) to the new "Blogger Beta-that's-no-longer-beta." We are officially switched and good to go. But if you notice any quirks? Let me know, ok? "Quirks" = the layout... not my writing. Sorry.

This blog is not dead. Oh no. It was just taking a break because its author couldn't give it the full attention it deserved while packing, selling one house, moving halfway across country, making an offer on two new houses before finally buying the third that didn't have any problems with no-longer-relocating sellers or failed inspections, moving, decorating for Christmas, un-decorating for Christmas (mostly), suffering a bout of bronchitus and finally watching her body revolt and decide it's going to secede from the union and run things its own way ( see PCOS post, here. ) Aiming to re-launch in March. I unpacked my book...

I didn't forget you, my youngest is sick. You don't want details... trust me. I'm finding it harder to write what I want to about Faith and Art when I'm not really creating any art! Other than painting my house, that is. Yesterday, while my son was laying on the couch and watched movies I was browsing some creative sites online. I figured until this blog gets back into deeper aspects of art and how it relates to our faith that I can try to post what I can and today that includes links to different things that may inspire you to take a look at yourself and your life and faith and create! I'll be the first to say I truly believe in the premise of Madeleine L'Engle's book Walking on Water in which she says any art is Christian art if it brings to mind aspects of God's creation - whether that be visual or mental or emotional or whatever. One of my other favorite writers is C.S. Lewis (I debated trying to convince Rusty that we should name our seco...

Hey, people! Jodi found her "cosmos." She sent me an email saying, "You may post them, or a link...that was a ton of fun. It made me find the stuff that makes me happy now matter how messy my house is." She sent me pictures for your viewing pleasure (and to reiterate the point of this whole thing): Bulletin board in Computer room , originally uploaded by Yoda0419 . Click here to view all of Jodi's "Cosmos" photos! P.S. if the link to the "Cosmos" set wasn't working for you on that last post when I first posted it? It's been corrected.

Ok, so I didn't see many comments from the last post and I wondered if maybe I ended that last post the wrong way? I totally didn't mean to go all Martha on you and say that your homes should be "art" or that you need to work on them or make them into Better Homes and Gardens or anything. Disclaimer: I told you when this started that I'm bad at verbalizing things... I'm apparently all about the visuals, remember? Anyway , I don't want anyone to think I'm asking for photos of a "beautiful" house. I mean, you can certainly email me photos of your beautiful house if you want. I love pictures! But what I was really trying to go for was the idea of finding beauty in the common, you know? It goes back to the "Cosmos in Chaos" that Madeleine L'Engle talked about in Walking on Water and the idea that if you can find any aspect of beauty or good or peace or "cosmos" (I love that term) then that art is "good...