I saw two very different football players give verbal “praise to God” in two very different ways this past week.

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Every once in a while one comes around…

I’ve been thinking about stories, in general, and allegories, in particular, a lot lately. I’ve been working on some posts that defend them in a Christian world that has come to frown upon them. I’ve been struggling to find a title for the series but that struggle ended today. I got Andrew Peterson’s e-newsletter about the release of his new book North! Or Be Eaten, which is book two of Andrew’s Wingfeather Saga (a series I highly recommend)*.

In the e-newsletter, writer/musician Michael Card had this to say in praise of the work:

“Sometimes, in order to find out who we were supposed to be, we need to get lost in other worlds: Oz, Camelot, Narnia. In On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, Andrew Peterson provides new and needed places like Aerwiar, Skree, and Glipwood-places where we need to get lost and found.” (emphasis mine)

Mr. Card summed up what was on the tip of my tongue for so very long. There are times we need to get lost. When we get lost in a story we can step back and view ourselves in an objective way. How many of us have found ourselves in stories. Who has felt the shame of Edmund? Who has felt the despair of Harry Potter. Who has felt the camaraderie of Tom Sawyer? Sometimes we “need to get lost” in order to find ourselves. I hope my posts on the matter will further your love for story, not just for the sake of story, but because of the fact that we are part of The Great Story. May we all get lost in that story!

* You can get signed copies in the Rabbit Room store, as well as discount bundles of autographed books one and two for only $20! The book is also available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,Random House and retailers nationwide.

America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. . . . Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

- John Quincy Adams’ address as Secretary of State to the U.S. House of Representatives.,Independence Day 1821.

- Einstein Bros. six cheese bagel with onion and chive cream cheese.

- Rogue Brewing Co.’s Dead Guy Ale

- Macs

- P.F. Chang’s

- my iPhone

- A good French Press pot of coffee

Music:

I used to buy into the propaganda. “Democrats kill babies.” But as I grew up and moved on into the “real world.” I started to meet some democrats. They weren’t the incarnation of evil after all.  I eventually became a huge fan of a TV show that had, as it’s main character, a Democratic President. Slowly and thankfully My eyes have been opened. And while I may not agree with some basic democratic principles there are a good many areas where the GOP would do well to sit down, shut up and take notes. As I look at Fox News and other people who represent the Republican Party (inside my family and out) I become more and more sickened. So many Republicans that claim to be so devout seem to leave their faith at the door when it comes to dealing with people with different political views. I have heard insults, lies, exaggerations and downright slander from supposed Christians that would make a sailor blush. Put it on FOX news and it must be true. Have O’Reily spin it his way and that spin must be true. Obama or Hillary said it …. it must be a lie.

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This is my first blog post from my iPhone. Now I have another way to shame myself because of a lack of blog posts.

“We are set free, but unto what? If the thing that I’ve been talking about on these records, if the message is about being set free and liberated by Christ, if that’s true, then the big question becomes, How do we live in light of that freedom? What are the fruits of that freedom? There’s a point at which the rubber of our theology must hit the road of ethics. There’s a point at which, if we pride ourselves in knowing about God’s character, our knowledge of that character must inform the way that we love and live with people.”

- Derek Webb at a show in Souderton, PA August 19

 ”One might have hoped that, with so gracious a creature as wine, even the most ardent religionists and secularists would have made an exception to their universal custom of missing the point of things . . . Consider first the teetotalers . . . Something underhanded has to be done to grape juice to keep it from running its appointed course. Witness the teetotaling communion service . . . Do they seriously envision St. Paul or Calvin or Luther opening bottles of Welch’s Grape Juice in the sacristy before the service? . . . One of the most fanciful pieces of exegesis I ever read began by maintaining that the Greek word for wine, as used in the Gospels, meant many other things than wine. The commentator cited, as I recall, grape juice for one meaning, and raisin paste for another. He inclined, ultimately, toward the latter. I suppose such people are blessed with reverent minds which prevent them from drawing irreverent conclusions. I myself, however, could never resist the tempation to read raisin paste for wine in the story of the Miracle of Cana . . . Does it not whet your appetite for the critical opera omnia of such an author, where he will freely have at the length and breadth of Scripture? Can you not see his promised land flowing with peanut butter and jelly; his apocalypse, in which the great whore Babylon is given the cup of the ginger ale of the fierceness of the wrath of God?

(Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, pp. 89-90).

( HT: Douglas Wilson  )