I Eat the Stars | poet and astronomer, Rebecca Elson [SSL 220]

Today, I bring you the poetic work of scientist Rebecca Elson.

Get Elson’s book “A Responsibility to Awe” HERE


To find more about this remarkable woman by going to these extra pages: • PATREON EXTRAS: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63501562
• SUBSTACK EXTRAS: https://sparkmymuse.substack.com/publish/post/49896761

ALSO! Would you enjoy doing a wordle puzzle for this week’s episode? Find the link here.



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EPS 45: Staying RELEVANT – Guest Cameron Strang

Welcome!

This episode was originally an audio and visual conversation (on Blab- Cameron’s first!) and you can view that as a REPLAY below.

Cameron Strang is the founder of Relevant magazine and Relevant media group–arguably the most influential media forces for Christians under the age of 30 in the world. This powerhouse reaches over 17 million people per month through their various media efforts of tv streaming, podcasts, books, music, magazines, and more.

How did he do it? Why? What makes it work? What’s the future for Relevant? The answers will surprise you.

cameronstrange


New here? Well, then….Here’s the skinny….

SPARK MY MUSE is a twice-weekly broadcast!

Friday episodes are longer conversational ones with guests. Find the full list here.

Wednesday episodes are shorter, potent ones called “Soul School” with homework for you overachievers–you know who you are. Find the full list here.

Spark-LIVE: Catch some of the Spark LIVE. The LIVE discussions with friends and guests are on interesting topics about 3 times per month and they are great. Catch the Replays you miss here at the website.

• To join in for the LIVE events you Sign up HERE; (YES they are FREE). BUT! follow me on Twitter for links and info too. (This is smart because some discussions are listed elsewhere with with colleagues on their accounts.)


Scroll down for Show notes marked by the minute.

Related links from the episode:

• RELEVANT magazine on twitter
strang• Cameron Strang on Twitter

• RELEVANT Magazine website!

• The STORY of Relevant (Video)

• Reject Apathy

• Rick Warren

• Rick Warren on Twitter


 

SHOW NOTES
MIN 8: writing the business plan in college.

MIN 11: Target demo is a psyco graphic – average reader is 27 years old.

MIN 12: Reorganizing the company in 2012 – pruning process. Cutting 2/3 of staff and going from 750,000 thousand viewers to 17.3 million each million.

MIN 16: Working 8 years to get the 1st issue done. Doing a podcast for 10 years.

MIN 18: What’s next?

MIN 19:30: The surprising November (2015) cover about martyrdom.

MIN 20:30: Reject Apathy themes are not marketable on newsstands

MIN 22: What the name for the magazine “Relevant” means

MIN 24: When the church wanted to be relevant and changed it’s delivery method.

MIN 25:30 Social Justice issues / Reject Apathy, sustainable change and help for the poor, and how that began with Rick Warren.

MIN 30:30 Relevant.tv (since 2006). Moving past print and onto screens and living rooms,

MIN 32:00 Hillsong United

MIN 33:30 on pop music

MIN 35:30 Why they are based in Orlando

MIN 37:30 Where their readers are located and the surprising international readers

MIN 38: Will Relevant be translated into other languages an go into other countries?


 

VIEW THE Original LIVE conversation (replay)

Episode 19 – A Reflection on the nature of Suffering

I hope you get something helpful from this short episode. There are no typical shownotes this time.

As you hear this essay in verse, may it bring you some solace and comfort if you are in some kind of suffering, grief, or pain at this time.


 

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Is God knowable mainly in reflection?

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the sabbatical interruption ?

henri_nouwenLife is ‘a little while’, a short moment of waiting. It is to wait full of expectation. The knowledge that God will indeed fulfill the promise to renew everything, and will offer us a new heaven and a new earth, makes the waiting exciting. We can already see the beginning of the fulfillment. Nature speaks of it every spring; people speak of it whenever they smile; the sun, the moon, and the stars speak of it when they offer us light and beauty; and all of history speaks of it when amidst all devastation and chaos, men and women arise who reveal the hope that lives within them. What is my main task during my ‘little while’? I want to point to the sings of the Kingdom to come, to speak about the first rays of the day of God. I do not want to complain about this passing world but to focus on the eternal that lights up in the midst of the temporal. I yearn to create space where it can be seen and celebrated. ~ Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey

by way of an update…

I look around and I realize that I have all the fixings to get 4-5 more posts done on my series about humor. But, something is amiss. I am humorless indeed. It’s an irony not wasted on me and its own sort of humor.

I suppose when I was trying to understand humor in the first place it was to save myself from this point. But I got here anyway.

So now, strangely, I feel like I’m on a sabbatical.

I’m placed in it but didn’t choose it. The will to write feels gone, even though seeds are in my hand. 

Today, I spent the day at the Jesuit Center and found a book on Henri Nouwen in the library and it piqued my interest in him once again. 

I don’t want to have this tortured part of me that gets befuddled most Autumns and Winters but there you have it, anyhow. 

Until I get my gumption back, I’ll post the occasional pieces and bits from the scratching in the dust that I’m doing now in this arid place of the soul.

I'm not trendy

I got this as a prom gown hand-me-down.

I had a dream that I was in a candy store, and I was incredibly popular and exquisitely hip, and then I ate a enormous marshmallow.
When I woke up, my pillow was gone.

It all stems from a deprived childhood. Even if I wanted to be trendy, and I tried, I’d fail, miserably. Middle school and high school found me so often in thrift stores, it was downright scandalous. In an era of Benetton, and Jordache, it was social suicide. Oh sure, I tried to hide it. I went to Gabrielle Brothers, where clothing goes to die. I’d pick through the cast-offs to scavenge some name brands, so the girls in gym class wouldn’t give me the “stink eye,” or worse. But, inside I knew it was the shred of facade keeping me from being found out as a trendy fashion horse phony. Only hand-me-downs from a few rich kids could throw them off the scent once in a while. A saving grace perhaps.

No, I couldn’t cope with continual failure, so, I gave that up. Art Majors have a bit of an advantage here. You won’t find that I’m cutting edge. I’m not hip. Tragically or otherwise. Quirky doesn’t cut as hip. But at a mad hatter’s tea party, I’d fit right in.

The Oscars are on tonight, and it’s very important to be cool, hip, fashionable, and cutting edge. But not to be the fool. The pre-Oscar hoopla begins days in advance on television now. Oprah pimped herself to promote the nominees last night on a special show. HYPE HYPE HYPE

It all emphasizes how off beat I am, and maybe I’m not alone. Or…perhaps I am.

I realize people won’t read this blog because I know the latest on Justin Beiber, or because I’m in-like-flin with Glen Beck, (ugh) or because I just got the iPhone S, and I’m a ball of awesome coolness, because I have a app for that.

It might take a while to know what things are about here at this site. Maybe, it’ll be a while, before people can separate the goofiness, from the incised gaze at deeper being; or apprehend how those two realms can, and do intertwine.

Blogs-to be widely read-are supposed to be on the latest news, and on top of everything. They are to be authored by incredibly hip people on their way up in the world.

I apologize about that.

As a consolation, I can still guarantee there are lots of surprises and lateral, creative thinking around here. I hope that helps to soothe the pain.

Thanks for loving me, anyway. Or humoring me.

peace out, yo.