SomeStrangeIdeas Whole Shebang

As promised yesterday, here’s some of my non-fiction reading from this summer:

Linchpin, by Seth Godin
I heard from a lot of people who were challenged, encouraged, and moved by this book. I was distracted by the format which seemed more like a stream of consciousness. I thought what Godin had to say was good, but much of it compared to Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art, which I would recommend instead.

A Walk Through the Bible, by Lesslie Newbigin
Newbigin and I always get along. This short and simple book was designed as an intro to the larger story of the Bible. Like most of my favorite theologians, Newbigin takes large theological concepts and paints them in general strokes to make them available to a wider audience than academia.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, by Peter Scazzero
A follow up to Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Church, which is a valued book in my library. Both of Scazzero’s book are important because the advocate for a spiritual formation that shapes our whole life, integrating our emotions and relationships. I strongly recommend them for anyone in church leadership.

The Language of God, by Francis Collins
I picked this book up on a discounted remainder shelf at the bookstore — it seems like an overlooked book. After reading it, I’m surprised it didn’t generate more dialogue than it did, as I don’t recall hearing much about it. Collins in a respected scientist and openly Christian, and engages the two perspectives to show that they aren’t as at odds as they are portrayed to be. He openly supports evolution as a Christian and that’s why I’m surprised there wasn’t more conversation about the book.

Empire of Illusion, by Chris Hedges
I loved, and hated, this book. You have to love the subtitle (I guess you don’t have to, but I did): The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Hedges takes a thoughtful look at our cultural assumptions in the United States about entertainment, the economy and moreI enjoyed it because it has a certain “peel back the curtain and see the little man pretending to be the wizard” quality to it, but found myself squirming throughout the book — not because I often didn’t agree with him, but because I often did.

God in Creation, by Jurgen Moltmann
I’m sure I started this book before any of the others on the list, but I finished it after all of them. It’s the kind of read you have to take in thoughtful chunks. I’ve only started to read Moltmann in the last few years, but appreciate the unique voice and perspective he brings to my background. The first section of this book — the relationship between God and creation — and the last — Sabbath as an act of enjoying and experiencing God through creation — were excellent.

Christian worship is one of the primary arenas in which we participate in the practices that shape who we are. If our worship simply mimics the disciplinary practices and goals of a consumer culture, we will not be formed otherwise.” — James K. A. Smith

School started today and I’m ready for rhythm to return. Between a few trips and a handful of large web projects, it’s been hard to find rhythm. I’ve still been able to read some, but I haven’t spent time blogging about it. So to celebrate the end of summer, here’s a look back at my fiction reading this summer. I’ll follow up this week, or month, with my non-fiction reading.

The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkienn
A classic that was worth reading a second time. I remembered that this book was geared a little more toward children than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I wanted to see if my daughter, who loves the Narnia books, would enjoy this. I don’t think she would yet.

The Time Travelers Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
Often called one of the best books of the last decade, so I wanted to give it a shot. The storyline is interesting, and there is some depth to the characters, but I had already seen the movie. I think this is one of those instances where the book isn’t as good because the movie has already removed the intrigue of the unfolding plot.

Out of the Silent Planet, by CS Lewis
Struggled with this one as a kid and never finished it. Struggled with it as a grown-up too, but at least I can say I finished it. Grapples with some interesting philosophies, as you’d expect from Lewis, but I didn’t care much about the characters.

The Passage, by Justin Cronin
I heard a lot of buzz about this when it was released this spring, so I made plans to read it. I avoided knowing anything about it so I could enjoy it more. If I had know it was going to be about, um, vampires, I probably wouldn’t have read it. And I would have missed out, because I was engaged throughout. It’s one of those fiction books that stays with you between reading times, as you think about what might happen next.

The Imperfectionists, by Neil Rachman
I’m halfway through, but this is great. It is a series of short stories, each featuring a different character who works for the same newspaper. Reading this affirms two things to me: 1) character development matters to me more than anything when it comes to fiction, and 2) I need to read more short stories.

And a few I started, but didn’t finish:
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
I can enjoy SciFi and Fantasy books when I care about the characters. When I don’t, I struggle to stick with them. I know this one is well regarded, but I think I only made it a third of the way through. Stephenson unrolls a thoughtful future based on where we are now, but I didn’t care about the people who were living in it.

Perelandra, by CS Lewis
I was told that this one unpacks more ponderings than the first in the Space Trilogy, but again, I was detached from the central characters and decided to move on to something else.

As I described in the intro to this series, I have split my ideas bucket into two separate systems. It was a decision I didn’t take lightly as it violated my principle that one app is better than two for the sake of reliability and simplicity. In a later post, I’ll explain why Yojimbo is still valuable to me. But this one is really all about…

Text Files.

The intro mentions a two headed monster of Simplenote and Notational Velocity as the new addition to my idea capture system. But it’s really not about those apps so much as it is about straight text files. Those just happen to be the best apps, for now anyway, to access the data in my text files.

Here’s why I’ve started using straight text files as part of my capture workflow:

• Sync and Availability – I have already described the setup in my iPad Writing Workflow post. In short, all of my text files sit in a folder on Dropbox. This folder is connected to Notational Velocity on my Mac which is syncing it with SimpleNote. This means I can access all of this data through the beautiful simplicity of a search in Notational Velocity or SimpleNote on my iPad or iPhone. If somehow I don’t have access to any of those, I can track them down via the Dropbox website in a pinch. And because they are all small text files, sync is instantaneous.
• Accessibility – Text files are, um, files. I can find data with spotlight, and drag and drop multiple notes at once into Scrivener. And because they are files, they can be seen by more than the apps I’m using. (I’m looking forward to the release of PlainText — since it syncs via Dropbox, I anticipate I will be able to use it with this system as well.) If I wanted to backup all of it to a thumb drive? Easy. And geez, I can even load these files on any basic Mac, Windows, or Linux install without any extra software.
• Data Processing – Where the accessibility becomes important is when I can start to manipulate the data. All of these files can be sorted and searched with smart folders in the Finder that automatically update as data changes. And they are all visible to Hazel and Automator workflows for crazy possibilities. For example, I drafted this post on my iPad in multimarkdown. When I opened my laptop for final edits, Hazel had processed it into HTML automatically. I just have to open that file, add any images and post. Eddie from Practically Efficient has a helpful post on this.

So what do I use this system for?

• Drafts – I write a lot of rough drafts on my iPad, like this one. And when I open up my laptop to revise and publish, they are waiting patiently.
• Incubator – I described my incubator in the original Capture Everything series. Since I’m much more likely to review my incubator during downtime on the go, it’s now in this system. All incubator notes have ppp tagged on the end of them so I can quickly sort down to them or add to the pile.
• Reading/Book Notes – I’ve also written about my book notes before, and I’ve moved them over to this system as well. I have notes from countless books, and I often search for key terms in those notes when I’m doing research for an article, blog post, or a Bible study
• Mobile Reference – Any uncategorized notes that would be handy to have on the go get dumped in here. If I need to drop my drill off for repairs (twice already!), the lifetime warranty info is a few taps away.
• Quick, Temporary Notes – Since these apps sort by most recent, it’s a convenient place to drop a shopping list or other temporary reference. I can make a list at my desk, and it’s waiting on my iPhone when I get to the store.

Two quick tips for setup:

1. There is one small, but significant step in this setup. Notational Velocity has to be setup to store everything as text notes. This is in the preferences, where you can say where you want to store them. In my case I stored them in Dropbox. But be careful! If you sync to both Dropbox and Simplenote from multiple Macs, your files will endlessly replicate!
2. If you have notes in Yojimbo, they can be exported as .rtf files. (Again, the accessibility of text files makes this so easy.) I selected my reading notes, incubator notes, etc. and exported them. Once I dragged them into the Notational Velocity folder, they were available everywhere for me.

This might be more than you think you need, but it works great for me. I’ve not gone into detail on the setup here, but most of the links above provide more detailed explanation. And once it’s all setup, you don’t have to think about it. Just open your notes for reference, review, or capture!

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I kicked off this blog over two years ago with a series called Capture Everything. It was influenced by David Allen’s GTD system merged with my desire to have a reliable digital workflow to not lose a single task or idea. The system I described was one I’d already had in place, and it must have worked, because I’m still using it, other than a tweak here or there.

There were three core principles in place then that have sustained that workflow:

1. It has to be handy, reliable, and streamlined. If something comes to mind, I only want to have to capture it once. For example, I don’t want to write things down in a moleskine that I later have to transfer to a digital tasklist. I’m willing to spend a little time setting up a system up front if it means I can trust it across multiple locations and/or devices.
2. Tasks and ideas are different. Tasks are actionable and will be completed and whisked away forever. Ideas are concepts or reference notes that I want to tuck away out of site, but have access to for easy retrieval. And if it turns out I don’t need them, that’s okay, because they are out of site, costing me at most a few bytes of storage somewhere.
3. One app is better than two. With tasks, OmniFocus has been reliable and the only app I needed to manage tasks. (I’m giddy about the imminent release of OmniFocus for iPad.) When it comes to ideas, there is an endlessly growing list of “everything bucket” apps. All of them have strengths and weaknesses, but I’ve tried to use on app to capture all of that — Yojimbo. (I should mention that I scan and store PDFs with Yep, but that is less about creative work, and more about storing bills, statements, etc.) But, this has changed…

I’m now capturing ideas using both Yojimbo and text files via a SimpleNote/Notional Velocity waltz. The iPad spurred this change, but after trying it out, I’ve decided it’s working well enough to stick with it. Of course, I’ve written a number of posts about Yojimbo in the past, and one or two about SimpleNote, but in the next couple weeks, I will do a post on each, describing how it has found a unique place in my idea capture system…and in my heart.

(Based on comments in previous posts, I’m guessing someone will feel compelled to mention Evernote. I know about it. I think the forthcoming posts will describe this setup works better than Evernote for my workflow.)

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But according to Christian understanding, the beginning of heavenly bliss is already present — and is also already experienced — in the grace of Christ and in the church of Christ; and this means that heaven has already been thrown open here.” — Jürgen Moltmann in God in Creation

I’ve spent a lot of time this year thinking about how spiritual growth happens, and how our church community can be intentional about moving each other toward maturity. I know there are all sorts of methods and programs and models for this. Some are helpful to a degree, and some, not at all. I don’t think maturity happens through methods and models, but I do think they can create some helpful framework for dialogue. Like this one:

I found this graphic last week while reading Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. He, in fact, borrowed it from another book called The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith. It’s captured many of my thoughts over the last few days, and stirred some good dialogue with others in Mustard Seed as well.

I see a few things in this graphic that are significant:

• Those first three stages certainly seem to jive with my own journey, and with walking alongside so many others in practical ministry. And perhaps we walk along this road too well. I think much of my ministry experience has been leading people through these first three steps, but it tends to get pretty muddy beyond that. Some of that is because of:
• The Wall. This was an eye opener, but makes great sense with my own experiences. There is this inevitable wall that one hits if faith. I’ve also heard it called the dark night of the soul, or the desert experience. It might come across in many different ways: doubt, crisis, sin, apathy. But it creates some kind of tension or friction that is hard to live in the midst of, but leads to:
• Beauty on the other side. Stages 4-6 are in some ways less tangible, but stir a sense of longing for who I would want to be and what kind of people I want to be around. This is where true spiritual maturity starts to show it’s fruit.

So the question that I’m stuck with is this: How does a faith community walk people through these stages of faith? As I’ve said, I’ve seen stages 1-3 done well. They are easy to lay out for people and walk through with them. It gets a lot messier once you get to the wall and beyond. Sad to say, I think it is too common a story for people to get lost in the mix of a church when they start moving into the Wall. For a church that is focused on moving people through its stages and making its programs happen, I can see why. Life in the wall and beyond is not very efficient or measurable.

I long to live a life in the stages beyond the wall, and I want to be part of a community of people that dwell there too. But I don’t have many answers yet, other than asking the Spirit to lead the way. Which is probably the best answer of all.

This past weekend, I participated in Denver 2010 — a regional gathering for the Ecclesia Network. I was one of 12 speakers who gave 14 minutes presentations on a particular topic as it relates to mission. Below is the second half of my manuscript. Part one was posted yesterday.

First, creative work, when properly understood, takes the shape of an eschatological expression of hope. The faulty understanding of creativity as a means of expression alone is rooted in dualism. Ultimately, creativity seen this way serves only as a physical means to a spiritual end, ideally the saving of individual souls or advancement and growth of our churches.

But creativity as hope recognizes that this world is not doomed to complete destruction but to a renewal, a purging of corruption as God once again joins heaven and earth. The Bible begins with God walking among humans in a garden, but it ends with God living among humans in a city. Could it be that some of our most meaningful and beautiful artwork, songs, stories, even architecture have some kind of place in this renewed earth that we long for?

If that is the case, and I think that it is, then our creative work is co-creating with God in expectation of this final day of renewal. This is an understanding we have struggled to hold to in the west, and one where we can learn from our brothers and sisters in the Eastern church. Greek Orthodox theologian Angelos Vallianatos describes it this way:

“The human being, endowed with God-given qualities, then becomes God’s co-creator. God who is love thus demits from the right to be the only creator on earth, and in his love he calls the human being to take the “very good” world in his hands and lead it to its immortality. If the human being chooses this way of life, the whole of creation will follow it.”

For Vallianatos, as humans interact with God’s very good world, we take an active role not only in demonstrating, but in pulling the renewed and recreated world from the future into the present.

Alongside hope for a future not yet realized, creative work also serves as an act of love in the present. The very core of creative work is an act of giving of one’s self. It has a cost. Speaking specifically about writing, Anne Lamott describes it this way:

“You are going to have to give and give and give and give, or there’s no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver.”

The Creator was the first creative, and that first act of creating was an expression of love. A few years ago, I was researching for a paper on creation, and I was stunned by one shared insight that came up again and again. Theologians from all backgrounds kept finding their own ways to state that God’s work of creation was borne out of love. Here’s a sampling of what I found:

“The creation of the world was the free outpouring of God’s powerful love. The one true God made a world that was other than himself, because that is what love delights to do.” — NT Wright

“Because God is love, God is self-giving. Because God is self-giving, God willingly creates the world.” — Stanley Grenz

“But to confess that God is creator is to say more. It is to say that the free, transcendent God is generous and welcoming…The act of creation is a ‘fitting’ act of God. It fittingly expresses the true character of God, who is love.” — Daniel Migliore

“It was so much like God to create, to imagine possible worlds and then to actualize one of them. Creation is an act of imaginative love.” — Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

“God’s loneliness and God’s need for the other is the beginning of creation.” — Dorothy Soelle

God initiated this world with a burst of love. And every creative act since, in it’s most pure form, is an act of love. It is a gift to others, an invitation to life and goodness. The strokes of a pen, the dabs of paint, the strums of a guitar — any act of creativity is a partnering with God in re-creation.

So whatever role you may find yourself in, a pastor, a teacher, an evangelist, I pray you will see it as an act of creative work. The compulsion I feel, and you feel, to make something new is crying out from the core of our humanity. It is calling you to give yourself for the benefit of others. And that is why it is hard, and why sometimes you feel blocked. The part of you that is broken, the part of you that only wants to be concerned about the protection of self, is trying to hold back who God created you to be. You bear the image of the Creator.

May you be a re-creator
A co-creator
A dreamer
A maker
An imaginer
An artist
An entrepreneur

An agent of hope toward a renewed creation
And a giver of love in this broken creation

This past weekend, I participated in Denver 2010 — a regional gathering for the Ecclesia Network. I was one of 12 speakers who gave 14 minutes presentations on a particular topic as it relates to mission. Below is the first half of my manuscript. I will follow with part two tomorrow.

Two years ago, our family moved from the Seattle area to Austin, following God’s leading that had begun four years before. Austin is often compared to Seattle, and so I’m often asked just how similar they are. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that so much of what we loved about Seattle is present in Austin. I would even venture to say that Austin is a little more independent feeling than Seattle, as the university has a little more prominent role in Austin than it does in Seattle.

There is one difference however, that cannot be missed. When people visit Austin and ask what they should do, the first destinations that come to mind are all restaurants. I was hesitant to move to Texas, but there was one part of Texas culture I had no trouble embracing…the food! Austin has plenty of BBQ, Tex Mex, and more traditional Mexican food — all of these put a smile on my face. Now I have learned to see that there is more to Austin than great food, but my experience is not unique. More than once have I been in conversation with someone who tells me what dining experiences they had on a visit to Austin.

In Seattle, on the other hand, I have to confess the food was lost on me. I’ve never enjoyed sea food. But when someone asks me what they should see in Seattle, restaurants are nowhere near the top of the list. I can quickly overwhelm a would-be visitor to Seattle with a list of places to see, both in and outside of the city. I grew up about an hour north of where we stand right now, but I wouldn’t hesitate to say that the Pacific Northwest is as beautiful as it gets.

While we lived in Seattle, our dear friends Justin and Erin came for a visit. Wanting to make the most of our time on their brief visit we took them for a drive over Deception Pass and down Whidbey Island. Justin and I sat in the front, and as usual, his keen and inquisitive mind led to rich discussion. Along the way, we pondered the question of what it means to be made in the image of God. As I took in the beautiful scenery sweeping past the windows of our sporty minivan, I came to a realization that had never occurred to me before…

To be made in the image of God is to be made a creative being. I had always considered that being made in the image of God means that we have the core characteristics of God’s image imprinted on our soul, no matter how broken we may be. Every human shares God’s need to give and receive love, compassion, pleasure and relationship. Likewise, a person who makes, who creates, is a human who is straining into the image of God that sits in their soul.

Now you might have realized long ago that to be creative is to exercise the image of God within. But for me, it was a fresh, important, and empowering shift in how I view the nature of creative work. Throughout my life, I’ve been labeled as a creative, and usually it was meant in a positive way. But in this conversation, this label gave new meaning to how I viewed myself and my part in the Missio Dei. It was not just who I was, but who I am meant to be. And whether or not you’ve been told you’re creative, it’s who you were made to be as well.

I don’t know what kind of labels you might carry. Some of you might call yourselves creatives, or even artists. Others might have never progressed beyond the stick figure stage, convinced that you have little creativity, let alone artistic impulse. I’ve been in more than one church leadership context where the creative types are marginalized, characterized as the free thinkers, or even trouble makers, who disrupt the work of the pragmatists who can really get things done. And yes, I do caricature a bit, but not as much as you might think.

Often, in the church today, we settle into some kind of understanding that arts of one type or another primarily function as a means to communicate our message, wrapped around and propping up the spoken word as the primary communication of the Gospel. At best, creative work is a tool we use to convey the message. At worst, creative work is something that type A, results oriented pastors and church planters tolerate as a means to illustrate the preaching.

Everything I’ve said this far, and everything I will say after pivots on this one point — creativity is not merely an expression of the Gospel. Inviting another to imagine, to dream, to create and to make is to invite them to live into the image of the Creator God they are formed after. Creativity is not only an expression of mission, it is an act of mission itself.

It’s helpful here to give some shape and definition to mission. What is mission? How is the church to partner with God? As I define it, the mission of God’s people is the ongoing announcement and demonstration of the Kingdom of God. We are a global community offering a verbal and visual indication of what life looks like as God intends it to be.

To be creative, then, is to re-create, to put back together the pieces of God’s broken image of a creator — to live into humanity as we are intended to be. In these remaining few minutes, I’d like to offer two instances of the practice of creativity particularly serves as a demonstration of God’s kingdom.

I know that for many, Twitter has replaced RSS as their primary means of finding things to read. With that in mind, I’ve created a twitter account that will tweet whenever I blog here, as I don’t always prefer to post links on my personal twitter account. I couldn’t use @somestrangeideas — it is too long for Twitter — so I set it up as @strangeidea, since each blog post represents a single strange idea. Makes sense to me anyway.

**I’ve never really liked blog posts about what a blog is about. You might not either. But that’s where I’m going with this. You’ve been warned.**

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my online presence as I maintain this blog, Creativityist, my design portfolio, and my bio/landing page, not to mention our church site. I’m going to be merging a few of those sites into one. To be honest, I’ve wrestled what to do with this site, which I’ve been pondering life on for almost six years. It get’s much less traffic than Creativityist, and I considered dropping it. But I came to realize it is still my primary outlet for theology and I need an outlet like that.

So, I’ve released myself from a pressure to post here regularly, but will continue this blog as a means to engage the mingling of theology and culture. Reflections from what i”m reading will continue. I’d like to do more of the occasional film and theology posts I’ve done. Some of my favorite reflections here, that I still revisit, have to do with how theology shapes the way I’m engaged in the everyday of life in culture. And those are the ones I need to continue with for my own sanity.

So, follow @strangeidea on Twitter if you please. And leave me comments along the way to challenge or affirm the wonderings I have here.