Author Q&A: What chickens can teach us about creativity

Architects, surgeons, sculptors, poets, chefs, and knitters all practice creativity in their fields of interest and expertise. Historians, novelists, landscapers, and nurses find creative ways to put their skills into action. Creativity lives in all of us and reveals itself in uncountable variations and configurations.

For my friend Ann Byle, it was a flock of chickens that set her on a path of creative discovery. Her book Chicken Scratch: Lessons on Living Creatively from a Flock of Hens(Broadleaf) launches today! This little, accessible hardback book offers a link between backyard hens and the God-given creative impulses we all hold. My older sis raises chickens, and she tells me they have distinct personalities. Ann apparently sees the same phenomenon and connects the world of chickens with creativity—one of my favorite subjects. You don’t have to be “a creative” to qualify as creative. Here Ann answers questions about creativity, chickens, and living a creative life. 

Q: Chickens? Really? What about chickens sparked your creativity to write this book?

A: One day I was working on my laptop at a table on my deck. Up popped a chicken who stared at me over my laptop and seemed to ask, “What are you doing, Ann? Can I help? Got any snacks?” I started posting pictures of them on Instagram and people liked it. Pretty soon I was discovering how creative chickens really are, and how we would all do well to mirror that creativity in our lives. It was an odd and funny juxtaposition—chickens and creativity—but it worked. I had originally planned to do the book just for writers, but my publisher asked to expand its audience to all creatives. A creative and brilliant idea. 

Q: What are some of the characteristics of a creative person?

A: Creatives are curious about the world around them and, particularly, about the field they work or play in. Knitters are curious about new yarns and patterns. Bible scholars are interested in the newest research and archaeological discoveries that impact Scripture. Architects are curious about new design tools or materials. Gardeners are curious about new types of flowers or vegetables.

Creatives are also courageous explorers, willing to step outside boundaries to find new ways to work and live. With that comes the ability to say no to negative self-talk and to ignore what others say about their art, plans, dreams, and goals. Their ultimate authority is God, not others; they move forward with God’s pleasure in mind. Another thing creatives do is nurture their creativity through things like reading widely, exploring outdoor places, visiting museums, going on retreats, unplugging tech, tasting new foods or going new places. Creative people are always looking at new ways to do things, asking new questions, trying new things.

Q: In February I ate a grasshopper. For sure that was a new thing. What do you mean when you say that all people are creative in some way?

A: I’m convinced that God has gifted everyone to be creative in their own way. I have a friend who makes the most glorious purses, totes, and wallets with leftover fabric and a sewing machine. Another is an entrepreneur who can see the big picture and moves forward to change our community for the better. Whether we are bankers or elder care workers, therapists or builders, each of us has a level of creativity that we can nurture and explore in our jobs or our personal lives. Whether we choose to develop that creativity is another story. So many people think they aren’t creative, but we all are if we can find our creative niche and get over our fear. 

Q: What did you learn about yourself as you wrote this book? 

A: I learned that my inherent nosiness about life and people is about being curious, and that my role as a journalist and writer is part of that. It’s okay to be a little nosy—despite what my kids used to say about not talking to any of their friends. Also, creativity is fun. I loved learning how to play the ukulele, decorate a cake, knit, and draw chickens as part of writing this book. Being creative is about living life fully and using all of our gifts well.

Q: Random: Tell us some trivia about chickens that we can use at parties?

A: Chickens are smart animals! They can learn and remember things, communicate, and express their opinions. Also, who knew that the color of the egg is most often determined by the color of a chicken’s ear lobes? Our hens have red/brown ear lobes and lay brown eggs. White ear lobes? White eggs. 

Yup. Definitely did not know about chicken earlobes. 

Ann Byle is a freelance writer and book author who lives in West Michigan with her family and a variety of animals including three chickens. Find her at annbylewriter.com.

An Untidy Faith: New from Kate Boyd

Kate Boyd is one of my travel buddies. We've been to Kenya, the UK (photo of us at Dover Castle below), Italy, and Mexico together. And she's the author of An Untidy Faith (Herald Press, April 2023)—which launches today! The host of the Happy & Holy podcast and a seminary student, Kate helps weary and wounded Christians rebuild their relationship with Scripture and community and to love God and their neighbors with their whole selves.

In the wake of scandal, culture wars, and abuse, many Christians wonder whether the North American church is redeemable—and if not, whether they should even stay. While many are answering "no" to those questions, An Untidy Faith is for those who long to disentangle their faith from all the cultural baggage and recapture the joy of following Jesus.

Through personal anecdotes, encounters with the global church (some of which we experienced together), deep dives into Scripture, and helpful historical context about Christianity, An Untidy Faith takes readers on two journeys. The first journey lays out the grand vision of Christianity and the legacy passed on to us by the early believers in hopes of renewing readers' belief in the church writ large. The second journey helps believers understand why they feel distant from their church settings and provides a reorientation drawn from Scripture of God's vision for community.

A gentle companion, Kate Boyd walks alongside those who have questions but can't ask them for fear of being labeled by or cast out of their communities. An Untidy Faith is a guidebook for those who want to be equipped with practices to rebuild their faith and shape their communities to look more like Jesus. Here's Kate in her own words:

Q: What gave you the idea to write An Untidy Faith?

Over the last few years, I have noticed an uptick in the Christian community of conversations around “deconstruction.” In listening to those conversations, I realized that there was a segment of the population who are working through their beliefs that did not seem to be represented. Most were talking about their deconversions or how people shouldn’t be deconstructing at all, but there were people like me who had walked through a season of renovating belief and practice while still remaining committed to Jesus. As more and more people were beginning to ask questions because of the many scandals and idols within white American evangelicalism that have been revealed over the last few years, I realized that because I had walked through this journey before that I may be able to create a space to meet those like me there and provide guidance to the way of Jesus and a bigger faith full of joy.

Q: Who will benefit from reading An Untidy Faith?

My initial audience tends to be people like me—millennials raised as evangelicals. However, as I have been gathering a community and writing the book, I have found that as often as someone in their 30s or 40s resonate with these topics, I also find those from older generations who are walking through the same journey now or trying to understand their children’s current journeys. While I also am generally focused on lay people, I think it will also be a helpful tool for church leaders to understand the mind and desires of those who are deconstructing or disentangling their faith.

Q: Why do you think this book is important for right now?

An Untidy Faith is important for this moment because deconstruction is not going away, and we have reached a point where many who were tearing down parts of their faith are looking for a way to rebuild a faith that is holistic, authentic, and joyful. Many lack the vocabulary or resources to go about creating a new theology and practice that connects to global and historic Christianity while existing in their current context. An Untidy Faith connects the readers to stories from the global church and examines some of today’s most relevant topics to provide a way for rebuilding and reshaping ideas about them in order to live out a faith that looks more like Jesus and that works for every time, place, and people.

Q: What are some of the topics An Untidy Faith covers?

An Untidy Faith covers a wide range of topics with intention. I wanted to help people process by example and provide information related to the topics that are being widely discussed today. The book then covers how to adjust one’s relationship with the Bible, the relationship between righteousness and justice and what that means for how we love our neighbors, the ways we have misused and misunderstood the Kingdom of God, how the end of the world is discussed in the Bible and how it changes how we relate to all of creation, what to look for in leaders and discipleship that lead to healthy and whole disciples, and reframing the work of evangelism and missions in today’s world.

Q: Which chapter did you most enjoy writing and why? 

My favorite chapter in the book is chapter 11, “In Spirit and In Truth.” I think this may be my favorite because it draws on themes very close to my heart as to how we view the purpose of church and how we frame worship. In some ways, I think it is at the heart of all the other topics—how our entire lives fit together in worshipping God every moment of every day. Situating worship within the context of all we do rather than in a few hours we spend per week has changed how I approach all of my life as a follower of Jesus. I think it is one of the most impactful ideas to grasp for the church writ large today.

Q: What do you want readers to take away from An Untidy Faith? 

At the end of An Untidy Faith, I hope that readers find the permission they seek to ask questions, rework big ideas, and find joy again in their walk with Jesus. I also hope they find new processes and perspectives for engaging with those questions and finding their feet in their faith again. Most of all, I hope they walk away seeing that Jesus is better, and walking in his way is how we give hope to the world.

As Kate and I have traveled, we have often joked in litotes—or massive understatement. If we eat an awesome bowl of sticky toffee pudding or see a view of the English Channel on a gorgeous day, we'll say, "This does not suck." So here is an endorsement of her book: This does not suck! (Also, what Kaitlyn Schiess said in the banner ad above. It’s a much needed work.)

Want more from Kate? Find her here:

Website: kateboyd.co

Instagram: @kateboyd.co

Twitter: @thekateboyd

Untidy Faith Newsletter: kateboyd.co/newsletter

Podcast: kateboyd.co/podcast

5 Trends in the Self-Publishing Book Market

I just finished teaching a week-long course in self-publishing for ministry. As I teach it every year, I watch for trends, and here’s what stuck out this year: 

• The continuing rise of audio. As demand continues for audiobooks, it also gets ever easier to produce audio versions. Writer’s Digest says “Audiobooks are the fastest growing format in publishing.” By 2027, projected income is in the billions. Creating an audio version of your book means more listeners, from commuters back on the road to parents scrubbing floors needing free hands to the visually impaired. Podcasts are up; so are audio books.

• More iterations. We used to think of self-publishing in terms of either print-heavy e-books or stacks in the garage of print-heavy print books. Now we have gift books. Workbooks. Print-on-demand books. Books with black-and-white photos. Books with color photos. Audio books. And so many more.... And let’s not forget comic books and graphic novels. In fact, let’s talk about the latter. 

A graphic novel is a narrative or collection of comic stories, often hand-drawn and separated into panels. Maus (Pulitzer and American Book award honors) and American-Born Chinese (National Book Award and Printz Award honors, plus a Disney+ series) are both excellent works that have helped take the graphic-novel genre mainstream—along with some help from Manga, once a niche genre. Newsy.com says the sub-genre of graphic novels saw a growth of 171 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, and that amounts to a little more than 24 million books sold last year. The self-publishing market has continued to expand to accommodate writers and visual artists who, in the past, had a tougher time publishing. Demand has driven invention.

• More data journalism. One of our speakers, Brandon Giella of Giella Media is an expert on data journalism. He showed us this holy-moly graphic on five megatrends in data journalism. Visual storytelling is hot. And it’ll reach boiling as we continue to shift away from words toward visuals. The graphs in this blog post tell stories at a glance. People love sidebars and graphs, narratives in visual form. Even a Bible study can include a graph—like the number of times the apostle Paul uses gunh to mean "wife" instead of “woman” (more often). I’d love to see a Bible study that includes a word cloud showing how often the word “love” shows up in Ephesians 5.    

• Continually growing global reach. Here are the number of internet users in a sampling of five countries with large English-speaking populations: 

1. Australia, 21 million

2. Canada, 33 million 

3. Kenya,  46 million 

4. USA, 288 million

5. India, 749 million 

Internet use means demand for downloadable information. E-books can go where it would take months to deliver a physical book, even if people could afford to order them. So e-book publishing companies increasingly pitch their international reach as a reason to publish with them. 

• More library distribution. In a New Yorker article last September, “The Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books,” author Daniel Gross said, “Increasingly, books are something that libraries do not own but borrow from the corporations that do.” Instead of selling e-books and audio books to libraries, publishers sell digital distribution rights to third-party venders like OverDrive, which sells lending rights to libraries. Often expiration dates accompany those rights, making e-books more expensive than print books for libraries. But that development is great for writers, because it gives our publishers more power over prices. That higher price tag has actually not discouraged libraries from buying, as they see such demand for e-books. According to Gross’s research, in 2020, the Denver Public Library increased its digital checkouts by more than sixty per cent, to 2.3 million, and spent about a third of its collections budget on digital content, up from 20 percent the previous year. Libraries now join an elite group when their "borrows" reach the benchmark of more than a million e-book downloads. What that means for my students: When considering which self-publishing companies to select, writers are more apt to look for distributors such as Overdrive on a list of publisher’s partners before committing. And often they find it.  

At one time, people said e-books were dead. They also said that about print books. Want to self-publish a book? What are you waiting for? 

Was Abigail Right to Go Behind Nabal's Back?

One morning after I taught a women’s Bible study on the life of Abigail—wife of Nabal, a woman hustled over to me, elbows swinging. Seeing her body language, I braced myself.

Her argument about my teaching went something like this: “You're wrong! Abigail was most definitely not righteous. By taking matters into her own hands, she shows what happens when a wife steps out from under her husband’s ‘umbrella of authority.’ If Abigail had submitted to Nabal rather than intervening, David would have felt guilty for killing Nabal, and that guilt would have kept him from killing later."

I’d heard this interpretation already—from Bill Gothard, among others.

So how do we figure out how to interpret this story? Was Abigail good or evil? The text itself provides the needed clues.

We find the "Abigail and David" story in 1 Samuel 25:2–43. The narrator begins with his assessment: “[Abigail] was both wise and beautiful.” In contrast, of Nabal the storyteller says, “But the man was harsh and his deeds were evil” (v. 3). The first clues about how to view this story appear at the beginning.

Now, Nabal was filthy rich, and David’s men had treated Nabal's servants well. But when the time came for Nabal to reciprocate, he screamed at the king’s servants: “WHO IS DAVID, AND WHO IS THIS SON OF JESSE? This is a time when many servants are breaking away from their masters! Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers and give them to these men? I don’t even know where they came from!”

Whoa. As they say in Texas, “Them’s fightin’ words!”

The reader knows David is God's anointed, but Nabal has no respect. And when David heard how Nabal had dissed him, he rounded up four hundred men. His plan: wipe out Nabal and every one of his children and slaves. Nabal was totally outnumbered.

Fortunately, one of Abigail’s servants told her what Nabal had done. This slave provided her with the backstory about how David’s men had treated Nabal’s servants with utter kindness and deserved better from Nabal. This servant needed Abigail to intervene or he would die along with the rest of the innocents.

Abigail chose to act. But it wasn’t just her own neck she sought to save. It was hers, and her kids', and her servants'—and even her evil husband's.

Abigail was no rebel. She was a peacemaker—in the best sense. And as such, she put together enough food for the army and sent her servants ahead of her. But she temporarily withheld her plan from Nabal, who would have tried to stop her, and a lot of innocent people would have died.

Riding on her donkey, the equivalent to a Mercedes in her day, Abigail went down to meet David and his men. By the time she arrived, David was good and worked up over Nabal's insults. The future king planned to kill all the men in any way associated with Nabal’s household

When Abigail met David, she showed the humility her husband should have exhibited. She “got down off her high horse”—or donkey, threw herself to the ground, fell at David's feet, and pleaded with him. Notice how much she talked about the Lord: “Please forgive the sin of your servant, for the Lord will certainly establish the house of my lord, because my lord fights the battles of the Lord. May no evil be found in you all your days! When someone sets out to chase you and to take your life, the life of my lord will be wrapped securely in the bag of the living by the Lord your God. But he will sling away the lives of your enemies from the sling’s pocket! The Lord will do for my lord everything that he promised you, and he will make you a leader over Israel. Your conscience will not be overwhelmed with guilt for having poured out innocent blood and for having taken matters into your own hands. When the Lord has granted my lord success, please remember your servant.”

Did you catch that? Abigail was focused on God. And she considered it evil to “take matters into your own hands”—the very action for which she is accused by contemporary critics. So…either this story is full of extreme irony or Abigail is a model of righteousness. Textual clues suggest the latter.

Now, notice the future king's "God talk." He says, “Praised be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you this day to meet me! Praised be your good judgment! May you yourself be rewarded for having prevented me this day from shedding blood and taking matters into my own hands! Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—he who has prevented me from harming you—if you had not come so quickly to meet me, by morning’s light not even one male belonging to Nabal would have remained alive!”

David saw Abigail’s actions as preventing him from sin, as wise, and as guided by the Lord himself.

A less honest wife would have hidden her actions from her man. But once Nabal sobered up and the danger had passed, Abigail summoned the courage to tell her husband what she'd done. And he flipped out so intensely that he had a stroke. Literally. Utter rage exploded in his head, leading to his death.

And again David saw the circumstances as being from God. When he heard about Nabal’s death, the future king exclaimed, “Praised be the Lord who has vindicated me and avenged the insult that I suffered from Nabal! The Lord has kept his servant from doing evil, and he has repaid Nabal for his evil deeds.” David was so impressed with Abigail and how God used her that he sent for her to marry her.

So how do we know how to interpret this story? The text itself gives us the clues we need to see the point-of-view of the narrator: Abigail was beautiful inside and out, and the hand of the Lord was on her and on David. As is often true of Bible stories, the text interprets itself.

Aside from learning hermeneutics in Abigail's story, we can also learn from Abigail's life. Although suffering in an abusive marriage, Abigail protected others—and herself—from harm rather than thinking only of herself. She refused to cover for Nabal's sin, and she retained her voice in the situation. Sounds like a timely message, huh?

Photo:  "David und Abigail," Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie

Permission granted for non-commercial use. Permalink:  www.khm.at/de/object/ac796a52db/

https://blogs.bible.org/was-abigail-right-to-go-behind-nabals-back/

Happy 75th, Dolly Parton!

I asked my student, Misty, to share with my readers some of her vast knowledge about her shero, Dolly Parton, who turns 75 today. Misty's mom went to high school with Dolly, and when Misty asked her parents to host us in their home this past fall, they pulled out the yearbooks. That's Misty's index finger on Dolly's senior picture. In the group shot below, we show off the "What Would Dolly Do?" t-shirts Misty (second from left) gave us.

So now from Misty Hedrick I give you...

Five Reasons to Love Dolly Parton

1. Billboard estimates Dolly's current catalog at nearly 5,000 songs. That makes Dolly Partonthe most prolific living songwriter. She writes poetry, screenplays, and Broadway musicals, and she starred in hit movies like 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias. And Dolly now churns out Netflix specials based on her songs, like Jolene and Two Doors Down.  

2. From farm-raised to superstardom, Dolly probably never worked 9 to 5 a day in her life. Actually, she recently stated her day begins at 3 AM. Dolly’s business acumen speaks for itself. She owns a publishing company and the rights to her songs. Her award-winning theme park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, attracts 4 million visitors a year while providing four thousand jobs and invigorating job growth in surrounding communities. Although she visits the park often, she never rides the roller coasters. 

3. Dolly Parton gives back. She raised $9M for victims of wildfires that swept through the Smokies in 2016; and she donated $1M to Covid-19 vaccine research. But the real jewel in her generous crown? Dolly’s Imagination Library sends books to children ages birth to 5 years (130 million books at last count). She credits her father, who could not read or write, as the inspiration behind Imagination Library and her title “the Book Lady.”

4. Dolly loves her husband. She met Carl Dean, her husband of 54 years, at the Wishy-Washy Laundromat one day after she moved to Nashville. They eloped two years later, though her new record label wanted her to stay single. At 50 years, they renewed their vows, prompting Dean to dub Dolly his second wife. He stays out of the limelight, but Dolly says they enjoy road-tripping in their camper, and he loves her fried chicken.

5. Dolly Parton loves Jesus. Her faith shines through in her grateful, humble attitude, hard-working spirit, and ever-inclusive soul. Her songs speak of prayer and the power of the gospel to help her through hard times. Dolly’s latest hits include God Only Knows with For King & Country, and There Was Jesus with Zach Williams. Although she calls herself a “Backwoods Barbie,” Dolly always says, “where it counts, I’m real.”

Why Write?

Why Write?

Back before I’d ever published anything, I used to think about all the books in the Library of Congress or even just look at all the books on the market. And I'd think, “Do we really need another novel?” “Why yet another book on marriage,” or “Why would someone want to publish another Bible study on Sermon on the Mount?”

What I came to know years later was that each author has a unique perspective on his or her own era. It was said of the men from Issachar that they “understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron. 12:32).

Each author also has a unique sphere of influence, which provides a platform through which some readers are more apt to hear from that author than from others—even if the others are more eloquent. So, there will always be a need for more books, new books, even on “old” topics. Richard Baxter wrote wonderful stuff about spiritual formation for Puritan audiences, and it stirs me when I read his words today. Yet, I still love reading about the same topics covered by Eugene Peterson, Calvin Miller, and Ruth Haley Barton. Not only have these people lived in my own time, but I have also had the honor of interviewing both men and, well—Ruth painted my toenails on my wedding day before slipping into her bridesmaid dress. 

My mentor, Dr. Elizabeth Inrig, now living in Redlands, California, is someone whose name I might never have heard had she not served our church in Dallas. Yet having sat under her teaching and seen the way she and her husband, Gary, live out their faith—and cared for me through some difficult days—I approach her written works with a particular openness to learn.

Because of this, every year I exhort my students to go ahead and write on topics that interest them or in the genres they love, even if someone else has already written something better. 

Several years ago, after hearing me talk about this, one of my students showed up the next week with a quote that I have since cherished. It’s from St. Augustine in his De Trinitate (On the Trinity), translated by Edmund Hill: 

Not everything … that is written by anybody comes into the hands of everybody, and it is possible that some who are in fact capable of understanding even what I write may not come across those more intelligible writings, while they do at least happen upon these of mine. That is why it is useful to have several books by several authors, even on the same subjects, differing in style though not in faith, so that the matter itself may reach as many as possible, some in this way others in that.

My advice, then, if you are at all inclined to write, is this: Do it. Don’t let that voice telling you someone else has “already done it better” hold you back. Perhaps that better-written book will never make it into the hands of one of your readers, and you will get to be the fortunate soul through whom someone’s life is forever changed.

Layer Your Literacy

This piece was first published at Fathommag.com.

My earliest memories include visions of my mother reading to me as I sat on her lap. Once I would memorize a story, she’d tease me as moms often do with their repetition-loving youngsters. She’d change one word and wait for me to object.  

When I grew a little bigger, Mom read to my little sister and me nightly from her chair next to our bunk beds. One of the books she read was Winnie-the-Pooh. I still have my original copy of A.A. Milne’s masterpiece. It’s in a state of disrepair, but I prefer it that way. Like the velveteen rabbit whose realness increased as his “skin” grew threadbare, the my Pooh book also grew more real with wear. And upon reaching adulthood, I smiled when I re-read the story, as I caught entirely new layers of meaning. White had written a book for children, but he tucked inside some rewards for the bigger readers too.

My father also contributed to our love for reading—I would often see him with his nose stuck in a National Geographic or American Heritage magazine. In fact, his literacy extended further than I realized, as I would find out later. Much later.

Whenever Dad faced the occasional toilet overflow, he would grab the plumber’s helper and dash into the bathroom calling out, “Double, double toilet trouble! Come a-runnin’ on the double!” I found his trochaic tetrameter clever, and I was also glad that the same man who tossed a wrench when the car gave him fits could so good-naturedly face what I considered a far less agreeable task. I had no clue that he was quoting—or rather, misquoting—anything. 

Nearly four decades later, however, when doing my Ph.D. work, I took a course in Shakespeare tragedies. One evening as I was reading along in MacBeth, I came upon something in Act IV, Scene I that shocked me. The witches bending over their brew were chanting, “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.” 

I burst out laughing.

For years, decades even, I had quoted my dad’s rhyme without realizing he had based it on some of the best-known literature in the English language. I had lacked the background to appreciate it. Yet that deficiency hadn’t kept me from enjoying it at an elementary level. Still, further knowledge added—greatly added—to my appreciation.

Lifelong Journey of Literacy

The road to literacy is paved with many such layers.

I had a similar experience with Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. When I checked it out from the school library in the sixth grade, I knew little of the Bible. So when I read in L’Engle’s pages the concept that “perfect love casts out fear,” I thought she had coined a beautiful saying. Only when I read the same phrase in the New Testament several years later did it dawn on me that L’Engle had borrowed her profound concept straight from the elder John himself. Both revelations—the initial discovery of the idea and the later realization of its literary source—delighted me.

And the revelations keep happening.

In the early 1990s, one of my creative-writing professors assigned his graduate students to read Annie Dillard's Pulitzer-winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Then we had us write something that mimicked her style. And, frankly, at the time I could hardly stand the book. I wanted Ms. Dillard to get on with something, anything, other than what I considered endless ramblings about nature. Still, the class’s results proved interesting, even if for some (myself included) Dillard’s work provided nothing more than an opportunity for parody.

Fast forward a few decades, and I’m a writing professor teaching the same class in the same institution. So, a few years back, I gave my students the same assignment. And I re-read Dillard to refresh my memory. I wanted to be able to catch my students’ allusions, sorting through what they borrowed and what they created.  

And to my utter surprise, I loved the book.

Whereas in the past I had read too little of Shakespeare, Thoreau, and Pliny to appreciate Dillard’s references to them, now I understood. And whereas in the past I had read too little history even to know what “anchoresses” were, this time when I found them in Dillard’s similes, I caught her meaning. I found myself glad to have yielded my youth to years of learning.

Whatever level of literary understanding we might have achieved, we are always becoming better readers. It’s a lifelong journey. We start out on the dirt path of plain understanding—“my father made up an amusing rhyme”; “L’Engle has a wonderful idea”; “Dillard writes only of nature.” Yet as we reread texts, we find that children are not the only ones who grow in literacy.  

And those of us who make our living using the word to communicate the Word—we of all people can and should aid our readers in their multi-layered literary journeys by ensuring that whatever we offer them is legible, readable, and accessible on many levels.

The Greatest Book Ever Written

It is also why we must read and reread the Bible. We benefit from the way different truths touch us at different times, depending on what God is emphasizing in our lives in the moment. And we equip ourselves to notice when authors are borrowing from its pages.

Consider what John Steinbeck did with Cain and Abel’s story retold as East of Eden. Or what Melville did with Moby-Dick and Jonah. One does not have to know the underlying story to appreciate the conflict between brothers or the joy of triumphing over a whale. But a thoroughgoing understanding of the Genesis story or of Jonah’s voyage adds to the reader’s appreciation of the author’s genius. Think, too, of how Dickens used the idea of substitutionary sacrifice in The Tale of Two Cities. Or how Lewis’s Narnia adventures retell the greatest story ever told.

The Bible itself is our example here, as it speaks to multiple audiences.

Consider that “in the beginning” we have a beautiful garden, but the man and woman choose to sin in a little matter about a tree. In the Gospels we find an innocent man hanging from a tree. And in Revelation we find humanity restored in the garden and invited to eat—you guessed it—from a tree. We can appreciate the wonderful ending in John’s apocalypse without knowing about the first two trees. Yet how much more meaningful the story is to the reader who has journeyed all the way from Eden to paradise restored.

We can read the book of Hebrews and catch the idea that Christ is supreme without knowing the story of Israel carrying around a tabernacle in the wilderness and what all the accessories symbolized. Yet Hebrews makes more sense, holds more meaning, as we grow and find layer upon layer of literary allusion. 

Think of Jesus on the cross crying, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” The words and the angst behind them are clear enough. Yet consider the even more powerful punch they pack when the reader knows the Son of David is quoting his ancestor King David right out of his Hebrew Bible.

As people of the word—and as publishers, writers, and sellers of books—we depend on the communication of words for life, both temporal and eternal. And the path to aural and written literacy is a lifelong road with many layers from the dirt path to the highway. 

The best works, the books destined to be classics, the books our readers deserve, get better and better as we grow.

Interview with Jenny McGill, author of Walk With Me

Meet my friend Jenny McGill (PhD, King’s College London), a pastor’s wife and university dean who loves to explore countries and cultures. She has a new book out that I endorsed—heartily!

Tell us a bit about the book and its intended audience.Written as a series of letters in a conversational tone, Walk with Me: Learning to Love and Follow Jesus is an interactive tool designed to help those in a spiritual mentoring relationship. It summarizes four areas in following Christ: the beliefs of a Christian, living like a Christian, habits of a Christian, and exploring the Bible. As a ministry leader and pastor's wife, I want to encourage and bolster women in their Christian faith, addressing some difficult subjects in a down-to-earth fashion. Walk with Me is a discipleship guide for all believers, no matter how long they have walked with Jesus.

Why a book on discipleship?Sadly, because I see few churches discipling their members in a systematic way. I was discipled through the Navigators and Cru, which are para-church ministries, but I believe it should ideally be emanating from the local church. Also, I wanted to give an overview of what discipleship entails. Many claim faith in Jesus; fewer are discipled. While not comprehensive, my book is a starting guide. Third, I wanted to write a simpler guide that is not too lofty in its descriptions to explain the essentials of our faith and translate it to everyday life.

How would you define discipleship?Discipleship refers a process of how we mature in Christ, how Christ is formed in us—in our thoughts, actions, and lives. Discipleship is a walking together for a period of time, discussing life’s challenges and God’s answers together, with accountability. Discipleship is not church attendance or Bible study or BFFing. Some folks who have gone to church their entire lives have never been discipled. Take me. I went to church for almost twenty years before I was actually discipled.

How did you come to arrange it as a series of letters?I was discipling a young woman, Annie, at the time and was struck with the thought of what would happen if we weren’t able to finish meeting. I decided to write her letters expressing the rest of what I would want her to know. After a year of writing, I realized I had a book and a unique Christmas gift for her.You can connect with Jenny at www.jennymcgill.com and @drjennymcgill 

On Narratives and Central Propositions

Someone asked me this question recently: "Do authors (of classic literature, broadly, and the Bible, specifically) have an agenda/thesis/big idea/etc. in mind before/when they write? Or do they start writing and let an agenda emerge?"

And I said I think it depends on the genre.

If someone picked up a modern hymn book and tried to find a thesis, they’d be hard pressed to do so. Yet they would find a certain organization. I think the same is true with the Psalms. The psalms are a collection. Same with Proverbs. People look for outlines and central ideas on those books and…nada. That may even be the case with Song of Songs. For sure I think those who see a beginning-middle-end structure to Song of Solomon are pressing a later Greek storytelling structure on a 10th-century-BC book that was more likely chiastic if there is actually even a story to it.

I think the apostle Paul did have an organization in mind with the Book of Ephesians. In that book we see such a clear difference between the first half and the second. There's almost no application in the beginning; but it flips and then there's almost no theory at the end. Rather, application (second half) seems to flow from theory (first half).

The Book of Job seems to answer whether there is a clear cause/effect relationship between sin and suffering. (Often not.) But the work addresses a whole lot of other stuff too. Who knows how mountain goats calve? Who names the stars? Who keeps the ocean within its border? Whether the author set out to demonstrate that God is beyond us or whether he wanted to demonstrate how stupid our arguments can be when we accuse the suffering, there does seem to be an argument going, but not a sole argument.

Luke seems really into the insider/outsider emphasis, preparing his readers starting with Gentile women in Jesus's genealogy to accept that the Gentiles are “in.” Then he tells us about Jesus's encounter with the Syrophoenician woman. And the Roman centurion. He emphasizes believing Gentiles in a way we don’t see in other Gospel writers. But I’m not sure that means he set out only to do that when he puts together his history for Theophilus.

I think in Genesis, we’ve missed the boat by going with an "Abraham - Isaac - Jacob - Joseph" outline. If we replaced Joseph with Judah, we’d see that the author following the Messianic line from Genesis 3, and we’d no longer view Tamar’s story as a weird interruption to the Joseph narrative. Instead, that story serves as a pivot point between Judah selling a brother and Judah offering his life for a brother. Wow. Something has changed! This Gentile woman ("outsider") who was not supposed to give a rip about the Messianic line apparently values it more than he ("insider") does. He is ready to do an honor killing when she is actually the righteous one and he is the one deserving death. And in a O'Connor-misfit-like moment, Judah sees himself. Joseph's story then fits how God is preserving that Messianic line, but the focus is on the line. So yeah, I think Moses was going somewhere and not just telling a general history of humanity and then switching to follow Jacob’s family. From the beginning he seems to be tracing God's hand as he keeps his promise to save humanity through the seed of the woman.

Some classic texts have a concept. Tale of Two Cities…tells the story of a substitutionary death for love.  But that does not mean every chapter has that idea.

Even J. K. Rowling said early on that she was a member of the Church of Scotland, and that if people knew that about her, they might figure out where her series was “going.” But not every chapter has a central idea/thesis.

Many writers also sit down with some characters in mind, and they don’t know where the story will take them. I didn’t write my novels with a central idea in mind. I wanted to “explore” some “themes.” Most stories are wrecked with too much of a didactic thrust.

I do think we do something bad to great texts when we dissect them to find only the ONE thing. When we re-read the Bible in different seasons, different truths jump out. Okay, I do think it’s doing violence to the text to make the stones in the Goliath story = faith, hope, and love or something that has nothing to do with the actual story. Or to make the story of Lydia only a treatise on women in the business world—which is not how her story functions at all in the Book of Acts.  But still, I might identify with the Prodigal’s older brother in one season and with the father in another. And with the prodigal himself in yet another. Jesus told that story to tell listeners something about God and grace, but he also did it in the presence of Pharisees. So the point of view we bring to a story might give us a different take-away from what someone else takes, or even what we ourselves take away in a different season. That is part of the beauty of story.

The beauty of a “Who is my neighbor, Good Samaritan” narrative is that it does way more than provide a dictionary definition of "neighbor." If Jesus was so set on the one thing, a Webster’s definition would have done a better job of closing the gap of potential for “missing IT.”

What do you think? How would you have answered?

Fathom Magazine interview w/ me about Vixens

This interview with me ran in the latest issue of Fathom Magazine.  Today we’re happy to have as our guest Dr. Sandra Glahn. Sandi earned her ThM at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) and her PhD at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) in Humanities–Aesthetic Studies. A professor in the Media Arts and Worship department at DTS, she teaches courses in writing, medieval art/spirituality, gender, and sexual ethics. She is the author of more than twenty books, including the Coffee Cup Bible Study series. But today we want to talk with her about her latest book Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting the Sexualized, Vilified, Marginalized Women of the Bible (Kregel Academic), which just came out.

Tell us about Vindicating the Vixens.

Vindicating the Vixens has been on my heart and mind for more than a decade. As I studied history and cultural backgrounds at the doctoral level, I ended up revisiting some of our Western-influenced interpretations of the biblical text.For example, the woman Jesus met at the well in Samaria had five husbands, true enough (see John 4). But why do most people assume that means she was faithless and immoral? Women in her time and place did not divorce husbands five times. The man with the most recorded divorces had only three. If a woman did initiate legal proceedings, she had to do so through a male. Women could not simply walk into a court of law and speak on their own behalf. So, it’s unlikely that “the Samaritan woman” had divorced five husbands.Additionally, when we read that this woman’s current man was not her own, we assume she was living with some guy. Because that’s what it would mean in the West. But in her world, it is far more likely that she had to share a husband in a polygamous relationship in order to eat.Put these factors together, and you realize this person was probably not a beautiful young woman with loose morals. More likely, she was an older woman who had endured the death of a husband several times (war was the number one cause of death for men), been dumped a time or two, and consequently having to share a husband in order to survive. Additionally, the text says she was waiting for, looking with hope for, the Jewish Messiah (4:25).So we have, probably wrongly, assumed this woman was guilty of sexual promiscuity, and that Jesus was confronting her about her sin. More likely, Jesus was bringing up her greatest point of pain before revealing to her that he is the very Messiah for whom she has been waiting. For everyone else in Jesus’ world, the Lord seems to subtly veil who he is. But with this broken woman hanging on to hope, he comes right out with it.This woman is one of many whom the contributors to Vindicating the Vixens reconsider in light of what we know about cultural backgrounds, not only from new data but also from having more varied “eyes on the text.”

You’ve been known to talk about the importance of having varied eyes on the text. What do you mean by that?

Scholars from underrepresented groups looking at the Bible see what many of us in privileged positions have missed. They have brought to the text observations from a powerless perspective, which is the perspective of the typical person to whom Jesus ministers. (Like this great message from the perspective of those who are hearing impaired.) The body of Christ is made up of many parts that need each other to function as a healthy whole. But we’ve missed out on what some of those parts have to offer.In our book the contributors look afresh at Eve, Hagar, Sarah, Tamar, Rahab, Deborah, Ruth, Huldah, Bathsheba, Vashti, Mary Magdalene, The Samaritan Woman, Junia, and even the Virgin Mary—who gets marginalized by Protestants. And we look at them through the eyes of sixteen biblical scholars, each of whom hold a high view of scripture. And they all hold at least one advanced degree in Bible and theology. They are men and women; complementarian and egalitarian; American and Australian; black, white, Arab, and authors of books like Discipleship for Hispanic Introverts. Their varied backgrounds mean they bring insights in the text that the majority culture in North American has often missed—and exported. And as a result, the authors’ combined efforts provide a fresh look at the kindness of God and his heart for the vulnerable. (You can watch some of them talking about this book.)

What made you decide to do this project?

First, I believe men and women—not just husbands and wives—are supposed to partner in ministry. The church father Jerome had Paula partnering with him, though many think theologically trained women are a recent innovation. They are not. A greater emphasis on social history (as opposed to studying only troop movements, kings, and empires) has come from the academy due to women’s greater involvement in higher education in the past half-century. Trained social historians bring new ways of culling out data from the text—like what I just said about marriage practices in the Near East.But also, my deep friendship with some international students, especially those from Mexico, combined with travels to several continents told me we needed more than a Western perspective when doing observation, interpretation, and application.Additionally, part of my job used to involve serving as editor-in-chief of DTS Magazine for Dallas Theological Seminary, and I also teach theologically trained writers. So not only have I spotted some great writers, but I learned of projects people were doing that needed greater audiences. Sometimes the great writers were those doing this work.As a sampling, there was the student doing a thesis on Bathsheba (Sarah Bowler); a scholar who wrote a book on Arabs in the Bible that changed how I saw Hagar (Tony Maalouf); and a whole corpus of work on Bible stories that included women and men in need of vindication (Carolyn Custis James). For ten years or more I’ve been keeping a mental note of how these all fit together, and I could hardly wait to coordinate it.

What do you hope to accomplish?

Originally, I hoped only to help us read the Bible more accurately as we read about these women. But a happy result of the project was that the team of scholars went beyond simply exonerating those wrongly vilified or marginalized to explore what we have missed in the larger story by misunderstanding the smaller stories and how they fit into the whole. Now I see how the Tamar-posing-as-a-professional-sex-worker narrative fits into Joseph’s story in Genesis—which scholars have often assumed she merely interrupted. What emerged from all these micro-narratives was and is a clearer vision of God’s heart for the vulnerable in the meta-narrative.Before even writing, all of the authors agreed to donate profits to the International Justice Mission. So in a tangible way, we also hope our scholarship will lead to lives changed for the better for “the least of these.”

Read the chapter on Rahab by Eva Bleeker.

You can read an excerpt from Vindicating the Vixens about the context and cues from one of these heroines, Rahab.

In terms of ramifications for scholarship, I hope readers will see the absolute necessity of inviting to the table a more diverse group doing translation and interpretation than what we have typically had. I hope that we will never again see a translation of the Bible published that has only men or only women or only people from one “camp” looking at the text, but that we will instead celebrate our differences and seek diligently to include a variety of people due to our belief in God’s love for unity in difference.

Where can we find Vindicating the Vixens?

You can find the book at Amazon, Christianbook.com, and at the Dallas Seminary Book Center

Interview with a Charlotte Pastor/Author

I'm happy to have as my guest today pastor/author Winn Collier, whose writing I love. His latest project is an epistolary novel—that is, a story told through the medium of letters written by one or more of the characters. It’s titled Love Big, Be Well: Letters to a Small-Town Church.

SG: Did you have in mind any specific congregations as you wrote?

Winn: I carried all the people and churches I’ve been part of my entire life. And of course, All Souls Charlottesville, the people I serve now, is so interwoven with my life that they are always with me.

SG: Charlottesville has been at the epicenter of America’s culture wars in recent months. How has your church continued to be a voice of hope in the midst of such toxic events?

Winn: The Klan rally in July, then the Alt-right rally in August, were horrific. I've never encountered such evil so in my face. And the aftermath is far from over. Although many of the agitators were from outside Charlottesville, the evil messages tore into racial wounds and sins in our town that we've never dealt with properly. My prayer is for genuine repentance and restitution. Through all this, though, my conviction about the unique and subversive way of Jesus and the Kingdom has been radically renewed. The way of Jesus is in some way contrary to (or a corrective of) every other power structure, politic and ideal. To stand with the oppressed while loving the enemy—that's a strange thing. Justice really does need Jesus, and our church is trying to learn how to be people faithful to the strange way of Jesus.

SG: In the letter called “Whiskey and Biscuits,” your Pastor Jonas character speaks a word to anyone who has ever grown weary of the church's liturgy. Jonas views liturgy as a gift: “What a relief it is to know we don't carry this faith alone. Liturgy allows us to affirm truths we might not even believe just yet, or truths we're simply too exhausted to hold up with our own weary prayers.” What did you have in mind when you wrote that?

Winn: Our church sings a song that our worship leader wrote called “Our Salvation is Bound Up Together.” I think our communal existence, the fact that we require one another to live well and whole and that we are all bound up in the life of the Trinity means that as we come together with our bodies and our voices and embody the love of God in our liturgy, grace happens. Sometimes we think that it’s disingenuous to enact things we don’t “feel” at the moment, things that aren’t existentially potent for us. But I think that showing up (in our marriages and our friendships, as with our church) is exactly the sort of thing that makes up what we call faith. It’s doing what we can’t see (or feel) just yet. This is our work. And over the long story, the slow work of the gospel will create and remake and heal.

SG: I’ve appreciated your non-fiction. What made you decide to write a work of fiction this time around?

Winn: A dear friend of ours in Colorado asked if I had any advice for her church that was searching for a pastor. She was on the search team, and she sounded exhausted. I've been on both sides of that search, and it exhausted me just thinking about it. I remembered all the shenanigans that are so often tied up in this song and dance. So after sending her an email that I'm sure was mostly unhelpful, my mind and my pen went to writing a story. And Love Big, Be Well emerged. When I’ve told some folks about the book, they’ve assumed that I was using the medium of fiction as a tangential vehicle to only deliver a message (and I can understand the confusion). I think that would be a disastrous way to have written this book, any fiction really. I don’t know that my story succeeded, but I do know that I’ve tried my best to give it a chance to stand up on its own.

SG: Why did you decide to tell the story through letters?

Winn: Maybe it was partly because the whole thing started with a letter to me, but also because there’s something deeply human about a personal letter, the time it takes to write it, the care that’s given in thinking about the person(s) you’re writing to. I wrote another book called Let God that was reworking some of François Fénelon’s (a 17th century French Bishop) letters to spiritual friends in King Louis’ court. I think I’ve always been fascinated with letters.

SG: What authors have shaped you as a writer or as a pastor?

Winn: Certainly, Wendell Berry, with his fictional town of Port William has given me a wide sense of place and the beauty of ordinariness and the sacramental nature of our common lives. Eugene Peterson has influenced my understanding of ‘pastor’ and ‘church’ more than any other person. Barbara Brown Taylor and Fleming Rutledge are wonderful pastor-theologians who take words seriously. And Will Willimon – he makes my spine straighter whenever I hear him preach.

SG: What is your biggest hope for your book?

Winn: I'd find real satisfaction if people put down Love Big, Be Welland felt a renewed hopefulness. There's a lot of despair and sorrow overwhelming us these days—and for good cause. Yet I believe that hope and goodness are the truer story. I think friendship is truer than our sense of isolation and estrangement. I believe that God’s love is more powerful than all our hatred piled up together. I believe the church, for all our ills, really does—when we're true to who God has made us to be—exist as a community of love, hospitality and healing.

"No Greater Love" film headed your way?

NO GREATER LOVE—the first theatrical documentary filmed and directed by an active-duty soldier—brings to vivid life the battles of the “No Slack” Battalion of the famed 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan. And the battles he shows us didn't just happen in the field. They continue after soldiers return home.One of the coolest parts about this for me is that its writer and that active-duty soldier/producer was one of my writing students.Friday, Nov. 10, for Veterans Day weekend, his multiple-award-winning NO GREATER LOVE premieres in select cities nationwide. NO GREATER LOVE, after one round of cuts, is still a contender for Documentary Feature in the 2017 Academy Award®.You can bring this excellent film to a theater near you. It takes less than 30 seconds to put in your request:REQUEST THEATERS TO SHOW NO GREATER LOVE IN YOUR AREAThe film will help raise awareness about PTDS. Consider that:

• Every day, 20 U.S. military veterans commit suicide (Suicide Data Report, Department of Veteran Affairs, Mental Health Services, 2015)

• 20 percent of veterans suffer PTSD (Litz BT, Schlenger WE. PTSD in service members and new veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: a bibliography and critique. PTSD Res Q 2009; 20(1):1-2.)

• Among incarcerated adults, 10 percent served previously in the military (Blodgett JC, Avoundjian T, Finlay AK, et al. Prevalence of mental health disorders among justice-involved veterans. Epidemiol Rev 2015;37. 000–000.)

• Of the U.S. homeless population, 12 percent are veterans (Tsai J, Rosenheck RA. Risk factors for homelessness among US veterans. Epidemiol Rev 2015; 37. 000–000.)

Most Americans are unaware that U.S. military chaplains carry no weapons, even in battle—and it’s true that while deployed in Afghanistan, Roberts initially had no plans to make a film. The courage around him, however, spurred him to ask: “What drives men to commit acts of valor and sacrifice?” (As “No Slack” won decisive, strategic victories in intense battles, it also suffered multiple fatalities, returning home with more than 200 purple hearts.) Roberts also interviews Gold Star family members.“The only way a person can really come back from war is with love,” Roberts said. “And it has to come from friends. It has to come from family members, neighbors and the people you were fighting for, and from each other. That is the only way we can fully come home.”NO GREATER LOVE producers hope the film will motivate theatergoers to get involved and support veterans in their local area. Ever wonder what you can do to help vets? Help bring this film to your city.SaveSaveNo Greater Love Movie

My Colleagues and I Talk Art & Creation

“All Saints” Film Spotlights Church of 12 That Aided 65 Refugees

By Michael Foust

When sixty-five refugees from Southeast Asia started attending Michael Spurlock’s tiny church in Smyrna, Tenn., about a decade ago, he welcomed them, even though the struggling congregation was on the verge of closing its doors.Still, a question lingered in his mind: If the church of only twelve members couldn’t pay its own bills, how could it meet the needs of others? The answer, he says, came from heaven.Spurlock was walking through a large field owned by the church one day when he sensed God telling him, “I’ve given you land, and I have sent you farmers from the other side of the world. Get to work.”The solution seemed simple enough. The Karen refugees who fled Myanmar (Burma) had extensive experience in agriculture, and Spurlock’s congregation—All Saints Episcopal Church—had plenty of property. It even was adjacent to a creek. Church members and the Karen people could partner to grow vegetables, which could then feed hungry mouths or be sold to raise revenue.The plan exceeded everyone’s expectations; by the end of the first summer the group harvested twenty thousand pounds of produce.An inspirational movie based on Spurlock’s story releases in theaters today. Called All Saints (PG), the Affirm Films/Provident Films movie also follows the struggle to oppose an order to sell the building and a battle to save the 2010 crop from a once-in-a-century flood.The film stars Emmy and Golden Globe nominee John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Northern Exposure) as Spurlock, and Screen Actors Guild winner Cara Buono (Stranger Things, Mad Men) as Spurlock’s wife, Aimee. Comedian Chonda Pierce also has a role.“What drew me to welcome them was my understanding of Scripture, which commends hospitality to strangers, and helping people in need,” Spurlock said. “I did hesitate, for a moment, because I feared my already vulnerable church didn’t have the resources to really help the Karen, but I couldn’t reconcile myself to turning them away, either. So, I told them that I didn’t know how anything would work out, but for them to come to church and we’d try to figure things out together.”Even though the Karen had extensive experience in agriculture, Spurlock did not. “I didn’t need it,” he said. Yet he quickly learned about planting and harvesting, not only from the refugees but also from the county’s agriculture department.He also faced less resistance from those around him than he expected. “When I began sharing the news that God intended for us to start a farm, I kept thinking someone would bring me back down to earth and tell me I was crazy,” he said. “But everyone, from my congregation’s leadership to my bishop to experts in agriculture kept telling me how exciting this was, and kept asking how they could help.The “only real resistance,” he said, came from “two or three members of the congregation.” They eventually left the church.Spurlock wants moviegoers who watch All Saints to see God’s power at work. “God directed us, provided for us, encouraged us, and in the end salvaged a situation that we were, at one time, prepared to write off as a loss, but God saved us,” he said. “I want people to leave the theater with a renewed sense that God is alive and well, and still working in His world today,” he said."All Saints" is rated PG for thematic elements. Learn more at www.allsaintsmovie.com.

Michael Foust is an award-winning freelance writer and father of four small children. He blogs about parenting at michaelfoust.com.

Last Week

It was a fab trip. But the guy next to me on the 10-hour flight was hacking, and I think he shared his germs. Ugh. More coming after I recover.

Two Exhibits in Dallas

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition Reopens

Thirty-four photographic reproductions of art from the Sistine Chapel have returned to the Dallas Women’s Museum and will be on display through January 8, 2017. The exhibit features enormous panels that allow viewers to gain a close-up view of Michaelangelo’s masterpieces. The most famous of these are The Creation of Adam and a 40x41-foot rendition of The Last Judgment.The photos were taken by Austrian-born Magnum photographer Erich Lessing during the 1980–94 cleaning and restoration of the chapel. The now-enlarged images, exhibited on brilliantly illuminated panels have outstanding resolution, clarity and color.To aid viewers’ understanding are fully narrated audio tours (available in English and Spanish) that provide narrative and insight behind each panel on display.Nov. 1, 2016 through Jan. 8, 2017 – Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.Adult tickets – $16 eachChildren 7+/Students with ID/Seniors – $12 eachFamily 4-packs – $45 per familyGroups of 10+ – $10 per personAll Children 6 and under – free admissionAudio guides available at Box Office for $2 per personThe Women’s Museum building is located at 3800 Parry Avenue, Dallas, Texas, 75226 (map). Parking is available outside the fair grounds on the west side of the Music Hall at Fair Park through Gate 3. More information is available at www.chapelsistine.com. 

Art and Nature in the Middle Ages

December 4, 2016 to March 19, 2017

Chilton II Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art

Spanning the 12th to early 16th centuries, "Art and Nature in the Middle Ages" explores the diverse modes of expression and variety of representations of nature in European medieval art, whether plant or animal, sacred or profane, real or imagined, highlighting the continuities and changes. The exhibition, organized by the Musée de Cluny, musée national du Moyen Âge, Paris, and on view exclusively at the DMA in the United States, presents more than 100 extraordinary objects, rarely before shown in the United States, that reflect the wide range of styles, techniques, and iconography that flourished during this period. The featured works of art—which include an astonishing array of media, from stained glass windows to illuminated manuscripts—emphasize the fundamental bond between humans and nature, and nature’s constant presence in the immediate environment and spiritual life of men and women in the Middle Ages.Art and Nature in the Middle Ages will require a $16 special exhibition ticket.  

New Film: New Life

So I made a list of things I miss in a lot of movies these days. Many films have one or two of these elements, but why can’t I have them all? A story that makes me want to keep watching. Good acting. Realistic dialogue. Meaningful content. Solid cinematography. Realism that doesn’t constantly push the envelope of decency. The absence of clichés. Married people who actually love each other, even if they have imperfect relationships. Timeless themes. Racial diversity. Older people who aren't portrayed as complete idiots. The absence not only of gratuitous violence and sex but also of gratuitous religion. I know—a tall order.Still, it's possible. I was delighted recently to find them all in a little gem that releases today, “New Life (Nouvelle Vie)” starring Erin Bethea and Adelaide actor Patrick Moore.When a newcomer from overseas, Benjamin Morton, meets the little girl next door, he has no idea how much she will affect his life. Ava turns out to be the girl of his dreams. From the innocence of a childhood friendship through adolescent attraction, their love grows. And grows.And they end up needing all that love for what life throws at them.“New Life” explores the ups and downs of love and commitment, showing that in good times and bad we can face our circumstances with hope and even anticipation.

Introducing "Fathom"

Recently some former students launched a terrific new site called Fathom. I wrote an article, "In the Spirit of Thomas," for their inaugural issue. It's for those like me who have wrestled with existential doubt. It's a tough topic with some gritty details, but I hope it blesses you.

Calvin Worship Symposium

The annual Calvin Symposium on Worship is a three-day conference sponsored by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Center for Excellence in Preaching. The conference brings together a wide audience of artists, musicians, pastors, scholars, students, worship leaders and planners, and other interested worshipers. People gather from around the world for a time of fellowship, worship, and learning together, seeking to develop their gifts, encourage each other, and renew their commitment to the full ministry of the church. This is not your typical conference. Attendees also experience much of what they study. You can see one example of the conference's ramifications in the video above.The program for the 2017 event has been posted, and presenters include N. T. Wright.I plan to take a group of students for graduate credit (additional readings and some written assignments required in addition to attendance). We rent a house, share meals, and talk about what we've experienced. Dates are January 26–28, 2017 (we fly out on January 25 and return on January 29, weather permitting). Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan.

A Great Film

Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War tells the story of a US couple’s courageous private war against the Nazis in 1939.The Sharps, a Unitarian minister and his wife, are two of only five Americans honored as Righteous Among the Nations in Israel's Yad Vashem. You can watch their story online at PBS until October 5 by clicking on the above link.This film is the latest from Ken Burns, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs in documentaries. Defying the Nazis is an incredible story of great personal sacrifice.In this film you will see many similarities to the current social environment in America. How does an unlikely candidate rise quickly to power? How does racism thrive? Why don't people care for refugees? Is national security more important that children's lives? We've been here before.When you finish, read Auden's poem, September 1, 1939. We must love one another or die.