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April 2008
10

Our money is not as cool as your money

The other day we got a $5 bill back in change, and noticed a big purple numeral 5 on the back. Sunam and I debated for several minutes whether or not it was real currency, then launched into a lively discussion of how cool the differnt Euro designs are, compared to US currency.

At work someone sent me this link http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=93 so I guess it was a real $5 bill.

March 2008
20

Michael Bierut Talks Type

Terrific video interview with Michael Bierut; topics range from Kubrick’s favorite font to the various cover designs of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. There is a link below the video to a companion article from The Atlantic

So I am not a designer by training, and this is where my ignorance and outsider status come into embarrasing play… even though I’d seen interviews with him before, until reading the article I didn’t realize Beruit is one of the editors over at Design Observer, which is a source of all sorts of goodness. He talks about his book (which nobody bought me for Christmas) here.

Nod to Tara Tallman

January 2008
11

Derrickson in Relevant Magazine

Scott Derrickson, director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hellraiser V: Inferno, and the upcoming remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, was the subject of a recent article in Relevant Magazine. Most of this territory has been covered before (like here, here, and here ), but I can’t complain about the author’s closing remark:

In fact, if our God is capable of using anything and anyone for His will, maybe it’s not too much to suggest that God can use horror films for His glory, too.

Read the full article: Can Horror Be Used For Good? at Relevant Magazine.

November 2007
14

Modern Worship Music in NYT

This is an article in the New York Times about contemporary worship music, praise-rock style, in churches. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/arts/music/07prais.html

It’s all about the heart of worship. God can enjoy a distorted guitar as well as a clean guitar. Especially when you’re playing it for him.

Nod to Catalyst for the link.

November 2007
07

Three Documentaries

Three upcoming documentaries that I want to see:

  • Rebellion of Thought — A critical look at the role of faith in a post-modern culture.
  • For the Bible Tells Me So — A look at how people of faith handle, or sometimes tragically fail to handle, having a gay child.
  • Lake of Fire — An examination of the abortion debate from Tony Kaye, the director of American History X.
November 2007
02
From Joshua in

The Role of Light

This past Tuesday at home church it was my turn to present the Phos Hilaron. Sunam TAs on Tuesday, so she walked to hX from school. I was to bring Nolan and dessert. It didn’t go well. We got there late; there was a cooking disaster resulting in a store-bought chocolate cake having to substitute for Sunam’s homemade peach cobbler; our pastor’s wife was in the ER for kidney stones; Nolan was tired and cranky; I was tired and cranky; and I forgot my notes. So my presentation of the Phos Hilaron was hardly splendiferous, but here is what I would have said, had my mood been better and my notes been present.

The solitary flame has been a symbol of our faith since the time of the old covenant. In the wilderness out of Egypt, the glory of God would appear over the tabernacle as a flame at night. The book of Exodus (Exodus 27:20-21) commands that a lamp always burn in the Tabernacle of the Testimony; in contemporary Judaism the Ner Tamid (Hebrew for the eternal light) hangs above the Torah Ark, and the Catholic church prescribes that an altar lamp burn continually before the tabernacle.

During the time of Christ, the Festival of Tabernacles (or Feast of Booths) had symbolic components involving water and light. It was during the celebration of the Festival of Tabernacles that Christ boldly claimed: “If you are thirsty, come to me and drink! Have faith in me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you (John 7:37).”

October 2007
26

Common Worship

Through a fortuitous and circuitous chain of events, I have learned that the Church of England has Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England available for download, free of charge, in PDF format. And for those who aren’t all up-ons with their Anglican lectionaries, Common Worship is an update of the Alternate Service Book of 1980, and is a companion of the CoE’s 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Our home church (hX) has started using the Phos Hilaron (AKA O Respledent Light or Hail Gladdening Light) to start out our time of worship. Each week the light-bearer bringing in a lantern, offers reflection on a passage of scripture, and then we recite the Phos Hilaron in unison. (Reflection, get it? Bwah hah hah.) Anyway, next week it is Sunam’s and my turn to be the bearers of light, so I have been researching the Phos for the last few days.

October 2007
25
From Joshua in

Contruction work in God's Kingdom

Over at InterVarsity Press, Dan Reid has a blog post about building the kingdom of God. In particular, who exactly is supposed to be building it? Hint: it ain’t us. I think he makes a good point. Read the full article at:
http://www.ivpress.com/blogs/addenda-errata/archives/2007/10/building_gods_kingdom.php

And don’t get scared off by the “that way lies pelagianism” line in the first paragraph… it is a pretty readable posting. There is a great Karl Barth quote at the end.

A tip of the hat on this one to Andy over at Think Christian. He comments:

Acts of Christian service should be understood as “signs and anticipations” of God’s Kingdom—important actions, but they do not themselves constitute the Kingdom, which is God’s alone to bring about… if you think about it, it’s a pretty important distinction: is it our job to bring about God’s Kingdom? Does that distinction change the way we go about doing acts of Christian service (and does it change the type of service we should focus on)?
October 2007
24

Why Wim Wenders believes in God

The Fall 2007 Image Journal cover story has several artists and writers discuss the question, “Why Believe in God.” Among those who address the question is Wim Wenders, who has this to say:

I’ve been away from God for a large part of my life, so I remember his absence. No, that’s the wrong way to say it. He wasn’t absent, I was. I had gone into exile of my own free will. I meandered through all sorts of philosophies, surrogate enlightenments, adventures of mind, socialism, existentialism, psychoanalysis (another ersatz religion). Some of these I won’t deny or badmouth. I’m happy to have been there—and back.

I remember how tentatively I started to pray again. I remember how that slowly changed me. I remember how I wept when I realized I had finally come home, when I felt that I was found again.

And how that feeling slowly transformed into a certainty.

Yes, a certainty.

But can I now answer: I believe in God because I remember how lost I was when I didn’t care? Or: I believe in God because I couldn’t take his absence anymore? Or: I believe in God because I cannot imagine any alternative? Or could I even conclude: believe in God because in my life God has become such a reality that the very question is like asking myself why I breathe?

Nod to Touchstone Magazine.

October 2007
17

Like Minds

Periodically I’ll see what else the Web has to offer in the “horror from a Christian worldview” arena. And there usually isn’t much new. This last week, though, I came across a few interesting blogs.

All Hallows Eve, whose author enjoys “fiction that glimpses the mysteries of grace and redemption from our universal human dilemma, and the workings of unseen metaphysical forces.” What a great way to put it. And a nice nod to Charles Williams in the blog name.

Gospel of the Living Dead, maintained by a hard-core theologian and lover of zombie movies.

The Teeming Brain, by self-described horror writer, scholar, musician, composer, teacher, and part-time philosopher Matt Cardin.

Theofantastique, an academic exploration of myths and archetypes and their expression in popular culture.

And finally, horror writer Dan Keohane has a blog. His blog has been around for a while, but he is actually posting to it these days. Keep your eyes peeled for his upcoming stories in Apex and Cemetary Dance.