Mister Wizard, Get Me Out of Here
Do people everywhere say they covet prayers?
Tolkien’s Fairy-Story Gifts: Escape
“I don’t want to analyze a story. I don’t want to find hidden meaning. I just want to escape from the real world for a bit.”
The High Calling of Bending Low
I just finished Roald Dahl’s short autobiography Boy: Tales of Childhood, which was a fine gift from Russ Ramsey last time I saw him. I closed the book with a greater belief than ever Read More ›
Why Do You Write Fiction? Part II: Things and Man and God (sorry no Latin)
In the first part (which has Latin in the title, and which you can read here, even here, I say) of this random, semi-coherent series about why I write fiction I made an inexhaustive effort Read More ›
On a Wedding
A few years back, some friends–Boris and Martha–asked me to give the charge at their wedding. Here’s part of what I said…
Working Toward Ten Thousand Hours
It’s poker night. It’s 9pm and several of my friends are upstairs having a great time.I imagine there’s at least one cigar being smoked, a few potent potables sitting around on coasters, and Read More ›
A Juggling Act
My family regularly attends children’s storytime at the Nashville Public Library where Library Pete, The Professor, and Mary Mary regale attendees with stories, rainbow drawings, Read More ›
I used to be a snob, but I’m better than that now (and better than you)
C.S. Lewis famously warned us of the dangers of chronological snobbery, and he is right on.
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Finding Criticism
While I was on vacation I got an email from my editor and sat back to consider it with suspicion. I was worried that it might contain good news and let’s face it, nothing is worse Read More ›
The Most You Can Offer
I recently came back from a conference featuring pastors/authors Rob Bell, Peter Rollins and Shane Hipps called Poets, Prophets and Preachers. It was an inspiring time and I left Read More ›
Acting Like Our True Self
As the teaching pastor of a local church for nearly five years now, I find myself repeating certain phrases or going back to various word pictures over and over again depending on the Read More ›
Tolkien’s Fairy-Story Gifts: Fantasy
I intended to continue on the Moral Imagination series by referring to portions of Tolkien’s excellent essay, “On Fairy-Stories;” but the essay itself deserves its own series of posts. I’ll Read More ›