The Master's Artist

Bugs In The Rice Bin

Thank goodness BJ put up such a great Monday post! I'm hoping it will make up for my utter lack of inspiration. I actually have no post. I have bugs. In my pantry. Lots and lots and lots of tiny little bugs crawling through the rice and the cereal and the flour and it makes me itch just thinking about it. And so I've spent my whole day throwing away almost everything we own. It's quite disgusting.

I also have to take my son to see the neurosurgeon today. A week ago he fell and hit his head, causing a bad concussion which led to the unfortunate discovery of a cyst on his brain. It's something that has changed our lives - his most of all, and although we are so thankful that we now know about it (apparently it's been there since birth), learning to live with the limitations surrounding this new diagnosis has been difficult, at best.

I hope you'll forgive me for being so otherwise preoccupied. I'll try to be more inspired at some later date! In the meantime, perhaps you can reread BJ's post and send her lots of comment love!

Grace,
Madison Richards

Some Questions Are Good!

For today's post I'm borrowing an article from a blog that I want to give due credit to: Ken Wilson. I found the blog because of my good friend Tom (thanks Tom - and you were right - it was right up my alley!!)

Ken Wilson has an incredibly varied Christian theological background, and doesn't mind looking at things from a slightly different perspective. I share it here as a means of discussion, as it challenged my thinking, causing my mind to wander in multiple new directions, creating questions from questions, and for that I am grateful.

new nets: bounded sets, fuzzy sets, or centered-sets?

My friend Rick pointed out wonderful summary of set theory as applied to the Christian misison in a gem of a footnote tucked away in Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, by Miroslav Volf. Volf writes from his experience in Croatia during the war there. Bert Waggoner, the National Director of Vineyard USA told me (if memory serves) that Volf has a Pentecostal background.  Not your typical ivory tower academic.

Let My Life Be Like A Love Song

There's a song I like to sing sometimes.

It's got a few poignant lines.

But it's the chorus that gets me every time.

"Let my life be like a love song...Let my life be like a love song...Let my life be like a love song...To your heart."

It always makes me think:

    If my life was like a love song, what would it look like?

Location, Location, Location

They are, as we know, the first three rules of real estate:

1) Location
2) Location
and
3)...well, location...

The reason it's stuck all these years is that it's true. But, location is about a lot of things, and some of it is objective. There are good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. Some areas hold their value better than others, and some are just downright overpriced! However, much of the location equation is very subjective. Anyone who's watched HGTV knows that one man's dump is another man's castle! One man's "great deal" is completely out of the question for someone else.

All or Nothing

Many of you know me as an "all or nothing gal". This is often true in my writing. I tend to take chances, push the envelope - especially in my developing fiction. It's always a tough balance to ride the line between good enough and truly surprising.

This is why it was truly surprising when I took a good hard look at my current WIP and found that the entirety of my first rough draft was little more than a character sketch. It made for nice bones, but my skeleton was gaunt. Flesh would have to be built layer upon painstaking layer. Of course, layering takes time. It takes energy. It takes persistence. I had to ask myself if I was content with good or if what I was shooting for was more along the lines of really surprising.

I'd often heard the expression: "Love is a decision". Did I love my story enough to decide to dive deeper? In order to touch the hard places I would need to disregard the bruising. If I was going to press into the sharp places I'd have to ignore the deep pain of repeated puncture wounds.

Why? Because that's when it gets good. That's when the writing really begins to show itself–when flesh touches bone in a way that makes it impossible to separate the joints and marrow. Beauty isn't found on the surface of a thing. It is found between the layers of the deep.

A Snippet of Something

Today I thought I would share a little poetry. It doesn't have a title. I found it in my archives. Apparently I wrote it early in 2007. I think it speaks to the longing we all have to know and be known, to understand and to be understood.

Enjoy...

God. Is. Good.

I live in a house that is infested with scorpions. In fact, it's not uncommon for me to find and kill as many as five in one day. You heard me right - five a day - like the vegetable servings on the new food pyramid. They are equally ridiculous, and by the way? This really freaks me out. But even though it freaks me out, God is not surprised by this trial. I'm pretty sure he knew it was coming.

Whenever something is freaking me out, the natural question that always follows is:

God? What are you trying to teach me?

I've come to the conclusion that this is a lesson in two parts. Maybe three.

The Power of A Narrative

I recently followed a link on Twitter posted by an editor friend, and landed at an article that got me thinking about how faith is intersecting culture these days.

The article addressed different aspects of our changing cultural environment and the way we write, but it began with a story about a teacher who one day took her students to lunch. When she found all their heads bowed, she assumed they were praying. On second glance, however, she found that they were texting!

Initially dismayed, she suddenly realized this rather profound truth:

"Their cell phones are the place keepers in the narratives of their lives".

Coincidentally, she was speaking at a conference on "Narrative in the Age of Twitter" at the time, and she went on to say that cell phones and texting help her students tell the story of their lives.

"It keeps them connected with friends, even across vast distances."

One of her jobs as a teacher she said, was to encourage her students to find a story big enough to save their lives.

"Pencils Down"

I can't imagine there's anyone reading this post who hasn't at one point or another taken a big standardized test. You know, the ones that are proctored by a stern looking teacher and you have a certain number of minutes to complete each ridiculously difficult section? These are the ones that make you sweat. The ones that seem to carry your entire future on their tiny little paper-thin shoulders. They're often difficult. And almost always annoying. 

Life is full of tests. Some are small and some are big and some are just between you and God, but none are inconsequential - especially the private ones - the ones that are just between you and God. 

Have you ever had one of those days? Well, I'm having one of those years...

I Run To You

A couple of weeks ago the worship leader and a teen aged girl sang this country song at church. They simply changed the "baby's" to "Jesus" and made it into a worship song. I'd heard the song before, but I never knew the words. I'll share them with you in a minute. First I have a confession to make:

I judged them. I sat there and listened to the intro and thought patronizing thoughts. I thought about how much I hate it when people remake a secular song into a christian one just by tacking on a few "Jesus-es". It wasn't until just today that I saw the other side of things.