Authors – Page 123 – Lisa Colón DeLay

Announcing the Artists Advent Project

Advent is a season of expectation and generousity.

The Artists Advent Project is a kind of Do-It-Yourself artistic initiative where individuals or groups create and give toward a collective goal. This is not organization, or a formal program. It’s a grassroots effort to share art and creativity. Oh, and it doesn’t cost anything (other than your time and art supplies).

Today, is the launch of the Artists Advent Project.

What is an “Artist”?

In this case, if you’ve done something creative visually, or in writing, you are an artist. (So…you know, Everyone.)

What’s Advent?
Advent starts November 27th. Now is the advent before Advent. (Advent means awaiting. Waiting for who? Jesus! Little baby Jesus to be precise. Everybody likes babies, and everybody likes little baby Jesus. That’s a Rick Bobby reference. Here’s the video on that.)

As I was saying…Advent is a time, spiritually speaking, when millions of Christians throughout the world focus and prepare their hearts for the time of celebration during the Christmas season. It is set aside to be mindful, grateful, and worship God as we consider and meditate on the profundity of the Incarnation, when God sent his Son to earth, as a weak and helpless babe.

It is a hopeful time, expectant, and purposely filled with sacred spaces and meaningful acts meant to draw us into deeper intimacy with God, and others. That’s what the Artists Advent Project is all about.

What’s the “Project”?:
The Project is many working toward one goal.
Today, is the first day promoting the Artists Advent Project, so when the Season of Advent is here, on November 27, you’ll have something creative or artistic to contribute, or you’ll have time to select from things you already have. (Again, the specifics are here.)

On this Launch Day, I’d like to point out 2 things:

First, notice there is a new page for AAP featured at this blog. It’s a tab at the top of this page. Do you see it? Or click Here. That will work too. The specifics are there for anyone to read. If you know an artist, or are one, get in this loop.

Second, notice the snazzy Artists Advent Project Button on the Top Right. For bloggers, this button is for you. You can grab the code and paste it into an “arbitrary html text” widget (wordpress users) to support this seasonal giving effort. This button shows that you support the efforts of artists and creative people worldwide who will share some of their work freely this season, without regard to personal benefit, or monetary gain.

Thanks for your help, my friends, and for your creativity and generosity.

(Contact me with any questions, comments, or ideas on how we can spread the word.)

-Lisa

Blogs I Like

rage-kitten-480x300 — (Must be a dog blog. hum. Could this just be a kitty laughing, or must it be a freak out?)

In a previous post, I promised I would review some blogs and give a report on my favorites.

First, bear in mind that I read probably 20-30 blogs regularly, and others occasionally. For this reason, I won’t cover all of the ones I like, today. Now, don’t feel offended if yours, or one you dig, didn’t make it in. Instead, submit links of up to 3 of your favorite blogs in the comments, and we’ll visit them. I’ll consider them in a future “Blogs I Like” blog in January.

Also, I won’t cover blogs from super well-known people (think: kickin’ Alexa Rating), especially if I’ve already mentioned them in past posts.

Here are some new blogs I’ve started reading quite recently because of reader recommendations, or other connections:

Students of Jesus: Taking the Yoke of Discipleship Ray Hollenbach’s blog has a rich meditative vibe. Good content and thoughtful.

Teh=The Warwick Fuller is a bookish, 25% hipster, and an active dad and husband, who pens some worthwhile stuff. He’s fairly random with his topics, but I’m a fan. I also have a personal preference for his “Nana Stories” which are offbeat and charming.

Between the Sheets: A Novelist’s Adventures Heather Webb’s blog post are often delicious. Although I wish she posted more often, when she does she will often include amazing recipes.

Telling Stories Courtney Walsh is a scrappy author and scrapbooker whose site is awash in great visuals (photos, art, etc.), plus stories, and stuff on food, parenting, domestic diva/homemaking themes, rural life, and such. Likable!

Mom to 5: Full Time Mom, Part Time Sanity Sherri Jason has a great sense of humor, and she needs to, she’s be pregnant for years (if you add it all up). This reproductive quality is sort of a family tradition. Her sister Ginny also has 5 kids, and does guest posts on some Fridays, called Funny Farm Fridays. The antics of busy family life abound here, and many a busy parent can relate, or just be contented to know they don’t and won’t have enough children for a basketball team.

Awake My Soul Laura Crosby’s blog is insightful, honest, and nicely written. It’s a fairly recent venture (Feb 2011), but her welcome page made me realize that we’ve had the same sorts of thoughts about bloggers and blogging. So far, so good, Laura!

5 Personal Favorites:
Blogs and Bloggers for whom I make time to read…who are also not in the category of “widely famed”…yet.

These authors post with predictability (most of the time) and have high quality content. Two musts for me to be a loyalist. (Yes, the list ought to be much longer, but I’m setting myself a limit…5….because I’m told this is healthy behavior.)

Ed Cyzewski Blog – In a Mirror Dimly is one of those blogs that is just consistently top notch. Ed posts frequently, and his installments can deepen your thinking, encourage you, and offer great insights. He focuses on spiritual things, practical theology, and writing. He’ll also write on other things he likes, gardening/canning, the outdoors, and rabbits.

Caleb Wilde‘s blog Confessions of a Funeral Director: Working At the Crossroads of This World and the Next might sound, well…dark and morbid, at first blush. Death is after all macabre. What is surprising and winsome about this blog is that Caleb offers hope, as a matter of course. His unique insights on living and yes, dying, are worth the read.

Christopher Cocca: Chris is funny, quirky, and interesting–all stuff I like. He’s sort of a hippie, too, in a nice way. This makes me feel young and “with it”. I’m hooked. Another great thing about Chris is that he’s generous, and regularly shares the love by promoting other writers.

Thom Turner Writer, editor (for GENERATE magazine), poet, and soulful guy, Thom has a blog called Everyday Liturgy. It’s a perfect read for a short and potent spiritual shot in your day. Lately he’s also been blogging about Food and Christian ethics. A weird mix, you say? Maybe, but it gets you thinking. And think you should. (sorry..got a wee bit yoda on ya’ll) I’m looking forward to Thom’s prayer book project as well.

Brett McCracken This hipster-esque writer is under-rated. Though he’s written for some big outfits The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN.com, The Princeton Theological Review, Mediascape, Books & Culture, and Christianity Today, to name a few, plus a very enjoyable book…

…I get the sense that he’s not receiving the props or reader traffic he truly deserves at his Still Searching blog. It’s like a “best kept secret” type of thing. Well, not on my watch, peoples. Not. On. My. Watch. Brett writes about culture, film, art, books, and stuff you’d expect to overhear at a college coffeehouse, if erudite students were hanging out…ya know, chillaxin’ and sh–tuff (Whoops, no one says chillaxin‘. It’s long “over,” dudes.) So. Right. Brett is pensive and interesting.

Who did I miss?

“Is Mark Driscoll a Cult Leader?” (Infographic)

In the last post I talked about the qualities of a cult, or a group that has social decay (some cult-like qualities). I got some questions, such as: “So, are you implying that Mark Driscoll is a cult leader?”

Gosh… that’s awkward. Instead of making a pronouncement, I’ll let you judge for yourself.

I made this handy info graphic to make the whole thing easier to understand. Enjoy.

Cool bonus. This image may be shared. Official Creative Commons license of this work.

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Followup on “Sexy Worship” Post

By way of followup to the previous post, it’s probably wise to broach the topic of corporate and individual worship more thoroughly. Please note that the earnestness of this post topic is best served (here, in this venue, anyway) when swathed in a modicum of levity.

This time around, I’d like to discuss this, not just post my thoughts. I see a great benefit in conversation here; and saw it already and especially over at Stand Firm in the Faith: Anglicanism in America. There, Matt Kennedy covered my recent article (On Being Embarrassed When Worship Songs Seem Sexual). I appreciated reading the several dozen responses, and found most of them helpful. You can also read them here. After you reflect on this topic, whether you read the other responses or not, I hope you too will respond with your own thoughts or insights on the matter.

As I mentioned in the last post, personal worship and devotional practices, such as involvement in literature (biblical or otherwise), poetry, songs, and psalms may have a decidedly personal angle (or perspective) as relating to God. Also, it’s not just a contemporary convention that worship “songs” (most of which are prayer-like in structure and form) focus on the individual rather than, or at the expense of, the corporate church assembly.

The Romantic period gave us plenty of examples of this phenomena in art and literature. Even earlier, John Donne offered up intimate imagery within various genres. One example is his Holy Sonnet 14.

John Donne (1572-1631)

Holy Sonnet XIV:

Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

It seems, this sonnet, and countless other early examples of a similar sort, were not meant for corporate participation. This stands in contrast to the worship songs sung within church groups these days. Nevertheless, these works provide vehicles for deeper communion with God. They may easily benefit our spiritual formation.

At Stand Firm in the Faith, Carl wrote:

The Bridal Imagery in Scripture is predicated upon a collectivized image the Church. It cannot and should not and must never be personalized.

This offers an excellent point to consider. I’ve heard many minters tell their audience that church is about worship (not performances, decor, fellowship, good preaching, etc.). Haven’t you? We may quickly assume, though, that church should be about our worship experience. Instead it is centered on the Church–the people Christ has saved–offering adoration to the Creator and Savior, whether we are conscious of it, or not.

Incidentally, worship happens with Christians past, present, and future, which is another reality we miss with regularity. So, it’s a Christian worldview, not merely a reduction of that. Worship mustn’t be viewed chiefly as an opportunity of personal expression to God, Jesus…and Spirit. Therefore, if worship is selfish, it’s not worship (of God) at all.

The Christian mystics throughout Christian history may have seen this sort of intimacy differently. This will take some research for me to know for sure, but if any of you have insights here, please share them. I would deeply appreciate it.

A crucial question to ask ourselves, or to those we minister: Is corporate worship intimate to compensate for a lack of intimate personal devotional practices, and a deepening relationship with God?

What about you:
Are your times of personal devotions usually more or less intimate than your corporate worship times?

Best of…

Here’s a collection of posts you may have missed that are worth a read, a second look, or passing glance:

1. On Speaking About Gender: (A “how to”…in church this has gotten to be a sticky subject.)

2. And this too: (The poster that made me want to be a guy)

3. On Understanding the Bible: (Things you’ll get wrong when you study or read the Bible)

4. Most likely to surprise Evangelicals: Why the Rapture is garbage Doctrine.

5. On modern day Baal Worship: (Does Tech = Baal? Find out.)

6. 5 Mistakes you can make when you’re thinking about ditching your church:

7. 7 Reasons Why (Christians) Aren’t Ready for Heaven.

8. Faith and Fleecing God: (Some surprising stuff about Gideon)

9. Post with the most puns referring to the word “sharp“. (Called Like Jael, I got you so Pegged) Remember the underdog, tent peg through the head story? Tough sledding for Sunday school teachers, but enough gore to keep the adults happy or guessing. Guessing what? Exactly.

10. Taste the Sensation: The Holy Spirit is (apparently) quite a bit like a York Peppermint Pattie: This self-test will give you the scoop. (humor) I should mention that the most popular humorous self-test on this site is here: Can Your Soul Fit into a Mailbox? Find Out Fast.

11. 7 Reasons Why My Blog Will Make you Cry Less than Jon Acuff’s (humor) blog.

12. Funniest 18 seconds of video I ever shot:

I probably did a bad job with this…so maybe you can help me. What posts have you liked? You can “nominate” posts for “best of”. Think back, or Do a search, pick your favorites, and share them in the comments section. Thank you for reading.

What to promote your own favorite blog post? Leave a link.