(Everyone, please, for the love of all that is good, go download this entire cd right now for free from JoshGarrels.com)
I will arise and follow you over
Savior please, pilot me.Over the waves and through every sorrow
Savior please, pilot me.When I have no more strength left to follow
Fall on my knees, pilot me.May your sun rise and lead me on
Over the seas, savior pilot me.O Lord, O Lord!
Hey all!
It’s been a great year or two, but due to lack of recent comments from people other than ourselves and the fact that all of us have been crazy busy, we’ve talked and decided to deactivate mere at the end of next week. Sorry, guys! It’s just taking up too much of our time!
-Zach, Eric, Trey, and Riley
from Rebecca Reynolds over at The Rabbit Room. Check-enzie out: “The Hymn of the Crabapple Tree”
This is something that Andrew Peterson posted in a recent blog post over at The Rabbit Room, and I thought it was so brilliant that I had to share it:
“I am convinced that poets are toddlers in a cathedral, slobbering on wooden blocks and piling them up in the light of the stained glass. We can hardly make anything beautiful that wasn’t beautiful in the first place. We aren’t writers, but gleeful rearrangers of words whose meanings we can’t begin to know. When we manage to make something pretty, it’s only so because we are ourselves a flourish on a greater canvas. That means there’s no end to the discovery. We may crawl around the cathedral floor for ages before we grow up enough to reach the doorknob and walk outside into a garden of delights. Beyond that, the city, then the rolling hills, then the sea. And when the world of every cell has been limned and painted and sung, we lie back on the grass, satisfied that our work is done. Then, of course, the sun sets and we see above us the dark dome of glittering stars.
On and on it goes, all the way to the lightless borderlands of time and space, which we come to discover in some future age are but the beginnings or endings of a single word spoken from the mouth of God. Some nights, while I traipse down the hill, I imagine that word isn’t a word at all, but a burst of laughter.”
If you don’t know who Andrew Peterson is, then open iTunes right now (or whatever you use to get music) and buy his album, The Far Country.
For even in my failures
When I turn to gratify my flesh
I simply still am only yours
And my thirsty soul you quench.
Though I all too often look back into death
For life, ironically, to find within
Your common grace is here to bring me comfort
Your sacrifice to bleach the stains of sin.
For just as there are warm reminders
of summer in the dead of winter
You show deep mercy, grace, and love
In the darker hours to this sinner.
Amen.
Here’s what I enjoy about Ted Dekker‘s Circle Series and what I think makes it great. It meanders a little, but that’s how I do, so enjoy:
I started this series in my second semester of eighth grade, and finished the last book (Green) a few days ago.
I’m 20.
Which means I’ve been reading this series on and off for 8 years, haha.
Granted, Green was released long after the rest of the Circle Series (Black, Red, and White) but still. This is a hefty series. With two other multi-booked sections that take place in and relate to the same timelines as The Circle, to get all of the intertwining plot lines and character arcs, you have to read at least 13 books*. But they’re worth it, because they’re great.
Dekker writes books like they’re movies, in that all of the action happens fast and on top of itself. They are intense thrillers that keep your attention.
Anyway, The Circle Series is a quadrology (?) in which the main character, Thomas Hunter, switches between two parallel worlds when he falls asleep. One is set is the current time, and the other is set 2000 years in the future. My favorite part of the series is that the future world is a physical representation of the spiritual climate of the current one, while the entire plot is a loose allegorical account of Christianity’s history (and I mean all of it). I really enjoyed seeing that aspect of the plot come through. Also, Black, Red, and White are all sections of the same story, which Green is both the end and beginning of. It has been labeled as book 4 and book 0, because toward the end of it, it begins to answer questions and establish plot lines that make the whole series fit together. It’s crazy and exciting.
Anyway, I would seriously recommend this series to anyone looking for a fast-paced sci-fi action thriller, or just an interesting story.
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*The books are as follows: The Circle (Black, Red, White, Green), The Paradise Novels (Showdown, Saint, Sinner), and The Lost Books of History Chronicles (Chosen, Infidel, Renegade, Chaos, Lunatic, Elyon). If you want to read them all, I suggest reading them in this order: Black, Red, White, then The Paradise Novels, then The Lost Books of History Chronicles, then Green. If you don’t read all of them, then at least read The Circle! And maybe The Paradise Novels.
I’ve wanted to post something here for a week or so, but I haven’t had anything good enough to post, so instead I will share what has been encouraging me recently, and maybe all of those things together will make an interesting enough post! And maybe you’ll be encouraged as well.
This is a video that Riley showed me about an artist named Makoto Fujimura who is working on some abstract paintings for an edition of the ESV Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that are being published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the KJV Bible. It discusses a little bit of the art/faith things we’ve talked about here before, plus the paintings are beautiful. It’s worth the 8 minutes.
I think my favorite thing about this, though, is that he is effectively making contemporary illuminated manuscripts, which is what the monks did when they copied down the Bible before the printing press was invented. They would use colorful paint and gold, silver and bronze leaf to embellish the first letter of paragraphs, and make really intricate borders. It’s kind of a cool parallel.
I came across this article from the gospel coalition about Jesus’ Prayer for us to God really interesting and encouraging.
Also, there’s been a fantastic song by Andrew Peterson stuck in my head for the past week. It’s called The Good Confession (I Believe) and it’s wonderful:
Download a .pdf of the chord chart here. I love his writing. If you don’t listen/watch to the whole thing (which you should!), then at least start from 2:55. Then you’ll be convinced it’s worth it and start from the beginning anyway. So you should just watch the whole thing 
Hey guys, today is Epiphany! It’s a feast day that celebrates the incarnation.
“Epiphany means ‘to make manifest.’ By the fourth century, Epiphany was a major annual celebration for the church. It is a season when we see Jesus’ divine mission revealed when the magi visit him, and then we remember his baptism, miracles, ministry, and his call for us to follow.”
Just something to think about. And maybe pray about?
Have a great day, friends!
That gets me all in a tizzy.
(By the way, if you don’t want to read all of my babbling, then just read the last three paragraphs, I make the most sense there and spent the most time writing those. Plus, that’s basically where my thesis is.)
I often consider if other people view art the same way that I do, and I must say that it doesn’t seem like that’s the case. For example, I don’t understand how there were such defined periods in art history. I don’t understand how each art movement had such specific styles of art churned out during it. Is it art if it is not made to express something inside the creator? (For that matter is Graphic Design art if I’m just making pretty things to suit the desires of others? But that’s another subject entirely.)
I mean, I can see how people can express themselves in a specific medium when there isn’t much else available, but what about now? Now, when there is everything available? (Generally speaking, of course.) Is someone an artist when they don’t utilize the best material for what they are trying to say in a specific instance?
I guess what I am trying to say is this: I think a true artist has to consider not only what they want to say, but what rules of art they are following only because those are the generally understood guidelines. As in, am I painting this piece in an impressionist style because paint is the best way to express this idea, or just because everyone is painting like this lately? Am I writing this in free verse because free verse best captures the feeling of looseness (or, in Trey’s case with his recently posted poem, the feeling of not having even the will to make rhymes or a specific meter), or because I just kind of always write in free verse? Am I writing this music using a piano and guitar only because these are the generally used instruments of the time, or because the capture the essence of the feeling of this song better than, say, strings or random claps and a kalimba.
Of course, all of this is pretty relative. It’s just something I consider a lot.
Why does a basic band consist of a guitar, drums, vocals, bass, and some sort of piano?
Why are art and science the opposites of religion? (They used to be thought of together!)
Why do I only paint/draw nature lately?
Why are today’s trends pleasing now and not in 10 years?
I hope any of this makes sense.
In my Conceptual Art class, the professor says that true art is the expression of an idea, no matter what it actually looks like or how it happens, and references artists who have people cut pieces of their clothing off as performance art and draw/paint/photograph disgusting things that I do not want to see and praise the “shock factor” as being something that is jarring us as humans from our complacency.
Well, I am not okay with that. I feel like artists should be open to using the best medium necessary to carry out their idea, yes, and I think that art should evoke change in a human’s life, yes, but I think that the great goal of art is not to just jar humans out of some abstract complacency, but to change people for the better, to glorify God, and to remind people that there is something else besides themselves.
And just to clarify, I don’t think glorifying God with art necessarily looks like a cross or Bible verses with filigree all over the place. I think art can be glorifying to God without have Christian icons in it. After all, God’s creation tells of His glory.
