Doug is Messing About in Boats

I was loving this post by Doug Jackson. There are times when I read very good writing and a joy fills my soul. Today was one of those times, and so I thought I’d share an excerpt and entice you to enjoy the rest of it at the link below.

(the image is of a fishing boat from Palestine in 1st Century from in 1986, and nicknamed “the Jesus Boat”)

cenboat

Thursday: Messing About in Boats

excerpt:

I thought about my car, a quarter-century old Toyota Corolla of indeterminate color and inelegant pedigree. It isn’t quite as long or wide as the Jesus Boat. Dog hair flecks the threadbare upholstery. A neighbor told me he always knows when I head for work or return home by the choked grumble of my engine. It is small. It is old. Is it also an opportunity for the mighty works of Christ?

And, of course, if this is true of that disreputable beater I drive, it is also true of the disreputable driver. A tiny life, a fool’s motley of patchwork parts, unshrunk scraps that have pulled great gaps where unwashed wisdom met threadbare experience. Throughout my days I have tinkered with the finicky mental mechanism, duct-taped the physical dilapidation, rerouted the spiritual wiring and generally tried to get ‘er to crank over for one more commute. One of these days the thing will flat refuse to run and the cankering rust won’t hold up to bolts or solder. I’ll just shove the whole concern into the high weeds and walk away. ~Doug Jackson, from Israel

 

Read the rest, I implore you! HERE

The Wet Dog Diary: Introducing LUNA

LUNA
Luna, our chocolate lab

When I decided to adopt Luna, a five year old chocolate lab 2 days ago, I knew I had to jump in with BOTH feet.

You can’t halfway care for a dog and love it halfway or something bad can take over. Resentment.

The truth is that dogs smell really gross to me. Their fur gets on to everything and they’ve seem ridiculously emotionally needy to me. The constant caring for them can feel like such a never-ending  chore. But the reality is also that they need people. These pack animals get neurotic and socially dysfunctional without a predictable caregiver who serves as pack leader. (Yes, I’ve been learning for the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan.)

They easily sense apprehension. They need a non frustrated, calm leader–and I admit when she shoves me out of the way to barge out into the rain after school kids I get tense!

Having grace for her problems and retraining her to be a better fit in our family is the new mission of The DeLay Pack.

I’ll keep you posted. Soon.

In the meantime, what good advice do you have for me?

 

Protected: Discernment Series: 5 Insights from Peter Kreeft

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In Defense of the Weird

Just a short a reflection on the nature of weirdness, today, from the jumping off point off…

Photography.

(You thought I was going to say Vice Presidential debates, right?)

It’s occurred to me that with copious current technology (like iPhones, and Instagram, etc) all of us can be photographers.

Not good ones, necessarily, but we can all attempt to capture a real life image to keep for later.
Photos are plentiful. So, what rises up above the noise?

Two things:

1. A unique or usual perspective

2. Weirdness

What is meant by the word “weird” anyway?

It’s something that catches off-gaurd or seems “not quite right”. Weird can be interesting or ghastly.

Most of all, weirdness provokes thought or response. It engages us somehow.

We need it. As people and as artists. Otherwise we somehow fall asleep…in all the wrong ways.

At the Story conference in Chicago, Erwin McManus said poignantly,

You don’t have to have hope to create art, but you have to have hope to create beauty.

Art can be both weird and beautiful.
Sometimes art needs to be ugly. It serves an important purpose. But in “ugly” themes we shouldn’t stay put, because then we arrive at inaccuracy. Lasting and excellent art (and creative expression) is where beauty and accuracy intersect. Not asethetic beauty, mind you. Something more. Something deeper that exposes underlying ideals of goodness or truth in its many facets.

Tell me…What was the last WEIRD thing you created or found?

Also…what do you think about the featured man-dog photo? weird? cute? funny? creepy?

(photo source)