Reading and Learning

I act and feel as if reading something once enters it into my brain, files it into some kind of action chip, and processes it so that I'm forever changed. Ha ha dum dum.

I need people to pray for me about what I've learned. Wounds that have been with me my whole life will not go away because I read an insightful, wise book. I have to pray. I have to seek out help everyday. Apart from a miracle God desires, it will not happen overnight.

Please

I want to have people tell me to calm down when it comes to my relationship with Jesus. I want to be radical in my walk with him. I want my relationship with him to consume every part of my life. I don't want to have compartments and settings in my life. I want the freedom that comes with knowing Christ fully.

I don't want to be known as a guy who loves movies, or a guy who works for Apple. I want to be known as a Christian, a disciple of Jesus in every aspect of life, and as a covenant member of the Village Church. May it be that I'm known that way.

And may all of that be for God's glory as, through the Holy Spirit, I share what he has done in my life, my friend's lives, and my church's life. May it be for His name and no other. God, fill me with a knowledge and a love for you. Oh, most of all with a love. Thank you for coming to get me, my friends, and my church family. God, let me not fall into the ruts of the past. Please, let me fall into the eternity of you. Please.

Love,

Kent

Love

I love my friends Geoff and Philip. They are always doing things that make me well up with fire on the inside, a fire of happiness. I find that when they do these things I want to let them know how thankful I am for their friendship, and how much I love them.

For instance, the other day Geoff was asked this question by another dear friend, "Is it possible to be too serious?" Geoff said, "I don't think anyone can ever be too serious." Now that is a beautiful response! I turned around, offered my hand to Geoff and said, "Now that's why I love you."

After I said it, in my mind I felt a hesitancy. That's why I love Geoff? That's not good. What if Geoff stops saying wise things like that? What if Geoff doesn't confront me on something even though it's hard in the future? Does my love for him diminish?

Or what about Philip? Philip is a brilliant, creative thinker that inspires me to create my own art. He challenges me in my walk with Christ in little ways every day. But is that why I love him? It shouldn't be. What if he stops doing those things?

I want to love my brothers in Christ not for what they do for me, but because Jesus loves them and Jesus loves me. Jesus loves these depraved sinners, whose hearts he sanctifies until we come to the other side of glory. I want to love them because the fruits of the Spirit show me what love truly is. I want to love them because Jesus loved me when I had done nothing to deserve it. In fact, I had done all that I could to push him away. He doesn't love me for what I do. He loves me because of who he is.

I want to love others because he loves me. That is the only thing that will never change.

Order and Chaos

Reading movie reviews cracks me up. I mean honestly. Have you ever noticed that reviewers will tear a movie to shreds for being "incoherent," "meandering," "lost," "without meaning," "inconsistent," "too many loose ends," "scattered," and "unstructured?"

These are just some of the terms I've read over the years. At the core of the reviewer's displeasure seems to always be one thing: He believes that the filmmaker did not know what he was doing. In other words, the reviewer thinks the filmmaker did not have a structured story to tell. A story with a defined plot, some type of consistent structure, and a meaning that pervades the entire movie. Things seem to be random, and without thought in the reviewer's mind, and this is unacceptable. It is poor, lazy storytelling.

Now a great movie! That is something different. The filmmaker is praised for his delicate touch. His precise strokes of brilliance peppered throughout the movie that make thematic, meaningful points hit home in the most poignant ways. The reviewer praises that one look that conveyed that specific emotion, which hit home the ironic, touching point of the whole story. Detail and the care with details the filmmaker took proves his expertise. That director knew in every frame of the movie what his vision was, and he executed that vision with a powerful certainty. His master stroke, his knowledge of all the characters, his grasp of every second of the film culminated in sheer brilliance. This, now this is a work of art by a master storyteller. Give the man an Oscar already!

So why, why I ask you, do so many of these same people believe their lives--their personal stories, their hurts, their fears, their hopes, their dreams--their land, their world, their entire universe all happened, all were created by incoherent, lost, scattered, random, unstructured chance? When everything they praise in a simple story screams the exact opposite about what they believe in their entire existence, what do they have? It seems like they have something that doesn't make sense.

Why do they want the filmmaker to know what he's doing, and the world to just happen randomly, without meaning? What in the core of their being screams at them for such structure, to the point they base their well being and career over analyzing the validity of stories based on a storyteller's vision?

There seems to be a contradiction. A contradiction between Order and Chaos. Or, if one looks at it deeper, maybe there isn't a contradiction. Maybe there is just order. A beautiful, symmetrical, visionary, brilliant, graceful order. An order to you, to me, to our land, to our world, and to our universe. A visionary story with a visionary storyteller.

Dreamtime

****Let me be clear. Some of the writings I will post on this blog are from earlier times in my life. My thoughts, or the places I am in have changed. I have grown a great deal in doctrinal knowledge (although, I have an eternity to go) This passage I disagree with in some distinct ways now. Most importantly, I want to highlight that I do not believe that Dreamtime is the only way to achieve meaning in one's life.

I believe it is a means to drawing closer to God for me, and that is why it is so powerful to me. But, it is only a means for me to hear from God, not an end in itself. I cannot be more urgent in stating this distinction between my original writing and now. I don't feel I ever thought Dreamtime was an end either, but my writing seems to indicate I do, and that is horribly wrong. So please keep that in mind while reading through this passage. I copy it here, because I believe it has value, and some insight left to give. I also feel it gives some insight into why I love movies so much.****

With no further adieu, here is a passage I wrote my friend Jonathan last year regarding Dreamtime.

These quotes are in the context of Karen Armstrong talking about the Paleolithic Period (20000 to 8000 BC). Amazing to think that in some ways these people are WAY more advanced than our culture. I think this is why I have such an underlying, deep current within me that wants to be sitting around a campfire in the woods all the time.


"It is natural for these indigenous peoples to think in terms of myth and symbol because, ethnologists and anthropologists tell us, they are highly conscious of a spiritual dimension in their daily lives. The experience of what we call the sacred or the divine has become at best a distant reality to men and women in industrialized, urban societies, but to the Australian aborigines, for example, it is not only self-evident but more real than the material world. 'Dreamtime'--which the Australian aborigines experience in sleep and in moments of vision--is timeless and 'everywhen'...

...Dreamtime is inhabited by the Ancestors--powerful, archetypal beings who taught humans the skills that are essential to their lives, such as hunting, war, sex, weaving and basket-making. These are, therefore, not profane, but sacred activities, which bring mortal men and women into contact with Dreamtime. When an Australian aborigine goes hunting, for example, he models his behavior so closely on that of the First Hunter that he feels totally at one with him, caught up in that more powerful archetypal world. It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning. Afterwards, he falls away from that primal richness and back into the world of time, which, he fears, will devour him and reduce all that he does to nothingness.

One of my favorite things to do in all the world is to just sit in front of a simple fire. Mandi's parents often wondered what was wrong with me. They had an outdoor fireplace, and during this time of year I would build a fire, and sit in front of it for 2 and 3 hours at a time. I wondered what my fascination was. Why was I just staring into this fire? Why did I feel as if I was somehow Home, and in such a peaceful, beautiful place?

Now I think I know. What can be older than fire? What can reach back farther into humanity's shared soul than sitting around a fire? I think if you just tweak the quote above a magical thing happens: "When a person stares into a campfire, for example, he models his behavior so closely on that of the First Campfire Starer, that he feels totally at one with him, caught up in that more powerful archetypal world. It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning."

I have often wondered what happens to me while watching a powerful story in a darkened theater, especially those Fantasy or Myth type stories like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Braveheart. Jonathan, sometimes, in the middle of these movies, I feel like I am heating up on the inside. I feel chills that gouge the depth of me. I feel like a spring deep within is being let go, allowed to flow in its full force for a brief, rare moment until I am a waterfall of emotion. THAT'S WHEN I GO CRAZY! Because, when its over, I come home, and all I can do is sit and hold my head in my hands. And I pray, I pray to God to let me be in that Story. I pray that I will be caught up in that Story. I HAVE to be a part of that Story. This is what always leads me to feel the need to make movies. But it is only recently, starting last year, with reading through your early journals, and then reading Eldredge, that I am beginning to understand that more than anything, I am wanting to be in a Story that I already am in.

Then, I come across passages like this and it starts to make even more sense. The puzzle moves closer to being finished. I have long thought that the movie screen is the modern day fire, and the filmmaker the modern day shaman or storyteller. How much more does that strike me in light of this understanding of Myth! How deep this thread runs! Why do I love going to the movies so much? "When a person stares into a campfire, for example, he models his behavior so closely on that of the First Campfire Starer, that he feels totally at one with him, caught up in that more powerful archetypal world. It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning."

I am modeling my behavior on the First Campfires and the First Storytellers. In this act, my soul is clutching onto fleeting glimpses of eternity. For those few moments, I am in the Lost Woods of New Mexico, a stranger in a familiar land. "It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning."


"The spiritual world is such an immediate and compelling reality that, the indigenous peoples believe, it must once have been more accessible to human beings. In every culture, we find the myth of a lost paradise, in which humans lived in close and daily contact with the divine."

"At the center of the world there was a tree, a mountain, or a pole, linking earth and heaven, which people could easily climb to reach the realm of the gods. Then there was a catastrophe...Most of the religions and mythologies of archaic societies are imbued with longing for the lost paradise."

Taken From A Short History Of Myth by Karen Armstrong

The Thunderstorm

Another post from the other site:

A thunderstorm has just hit. I stepped outside on my balcony and sat down in my favorite chair (well, it’s my only chair out there), took Shadow Forest (my iPod), and put on the playlist, “By The Sea.”

The beach is probably my favorite place in God’s creation. Close behind is the forest if you couldn’t guess yet. I find God so deeply in these places.

At the beach the wind and water mix to soothe me in ways that prove the heart of God. I can sit and stare out at the waves breaking over the sand for hours. It is magical. It is one of the places I experience, “Dreamtime”. In a future blog, I will post some words I have written about Dreamtime. In short, it is an ancient place that sets eternity in my heart.

Tonight, as I sat on my porch with Shadow Forest, I experienced a darker, but still beautiful aspect of Dreamtime. The wind and rain danced across my face reminding me of the beach. But it was the deep power of the thunder, and the intense stabs of white lightning that stunned me. A powerful blast, and a flicker of light knocked out the power in my apartment complex. There was nothing but darkness. In the middle of the sheer power of my God, I was afraid. Bono whispered in my ears:

See the stone set in your eyes,
See the thorn twist in your side,
I wait for you.

Sleight of hand and twist of fate,
on a bed of nails she makes me wait.

And I wait without you,
With or without you.

Through the storm we reach the shore,
you give it all , but I want more,
and I’m waiting for you,

With or without you,
I can’t live, with or without you.

In that moment I closed my eyes and held my arms close. I sat in awe and fear of God’s majesty. He is NOT a tame lion. If you should ever forget this, sit out in a thunderstorm by yourself in the middle of the night. Oh, the wonders I learn through his creation.

In that moment I connected with all those who have gone before me, all those who are with me, and all those who will come after me. Eyes closed, I felt the breath of God. Oh, how I long to draw close to him, and leave this world behind.

In that moment I felt a great strength well up within me. The wild heart of a daring warrior. And yet, the fear remains. The paradoxes and ironies of this existence create a circle that must have a creator--a seashell unbroken by the breaking waves.

And still the rain comes down, still the lightning strikes, still the thunder pounds, still the waves crash, still His power roams stilling and stealing my heart.

Be still. Be still in this thunderstorm.

I Can Do Nothing For God

This post and the one after it I wrote several months ago on my other site: theshadowforest.com. I wanted to post them over here since they were important points in my life.

I can do nothing for God. Wow. I know he’s been trying to get that message through my thick skull for years, but it’s just starting to sink in. (Somewhere my parents both just twitched, and they don’t know why)

I have felt for the past seven years that I had to accomplish this great task for God’s kingdom or doom and tragedy would certainly follow. I can do nothing for God. It’s like a three year old offering to buy me lunch. Or a three year old offering to do my taxes for the year. “Ahhhhh...that’s so cute Kent,” says God. “I AM. I do not need you.” (Thank you to Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Texas for this analogy-thevillagechurch.net. Actually this whole passage is inspired by a talk Matt gave on Easter Sunday of 2006)

But here’s the best part. He wants to know me just for who I am. Not for what I can do for him, but just for me. That is an amazing and freeing truth. Though, it’s a truth that is desperately hard to unearth in our modern world.

So much of what defines success in America seems to be based on what someone can do for me, or what I can do for them. It’s about the bottom line of where our relationship is heading. Naturally, I’ve transferred this fundamental base of relationships to my relationship with God.

Oh, but what a tragic misunderstanding of the ultimate, and most vital relationship! He doesn’t care about what I can do for him. He has already done it all for me. Through his passion on the cross, and his triumphant resurrection he has done it all for me. It is over, done, finished.  All there is left to do is know him intimately and personally with all my heart, mind, and soul. All else will flow from his eternal spring of living water, and quench my parched, ragged, thirsty soul forever. Thank you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

I can do nothing for God.