For The Freaks

 One of the questions I ask myself before I write anything is ‘what will other people think of this?’ ‘Will they like it?’ ‘Will they think it is stupid?’ ‘Will I come across in a bad light?’ These are all the wrong questions to ask. These won’t help me be honest and they certainly won’t help me become a better writer. Should anyone? During the last few weeks when I was in counseling a lot of things came up that I realized were affecting the way I lived. An incident from my childhood was triggered in my memory that I am still peeling away the layers of. To cut a long story short, I discovered that this memory had affected me...

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Showing Up

I have been staring at a blank page for a couple of hours now trying to muster up some words, any words, they don't even have to be that coherent. But alas I have failed in my task. My masterpiece has alluded me today. My Pulitzer winning piece did not materialise. But... I DID show up. I came prepared to do the work. And tomorrow morning I will show up again. And maybe no words will appear again. But I have to believe they will. But even if not, I will show up the next day, and then the next, and then the next.... So show up today. Then tomorrow. Be prepared to work for your art. But don't worry if you fail. It will come. As long as you show keep showing up.... Your art will show ...

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PISSED OFF!

I read some advice at the weekend about not writing while you are angry. This doesn’t sound like good advice to me. If one doesn’t write while they are angry should we resist from writing when we are sad, depressed, melancholic or joyous? It seems to me the best art comes from a myriad of emotions. I haven’t written on my blog for a long while. Very sporadically actually but recently when I have sat down to write I seem to be always drawn back to creativity or thoughts on why we sit and muster up images, words or semitones in our head and I have come to the simple conclusion on why millions of us do this on a daily basis. Because you need to. You don’t really have a choice. You need to create new things. You need to continue to explore the endless possibilities that art holds.  ...

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What I have learned about being creative (without actually being creative)

This can be a scary place if you are creative. Hey....I'm down here. That's better! Yeah one of the scariest places you can be when you are creative is that blank canvas. Even before you have an idea. Even before you know what you are going to write, paint, speak about, discover. It can be truly terrifying. But it's not the scariest. The scariest is that after a while you have this. Still here. A clean blank sheet with no marks or words or pictures. Not because you can't come up with them. But because you haven't even tried. No one said it would be easy. It's not supposed to be. So stop trying to make it easy and live with it being awkward, hard, confusing, frustrating. Because only then can it be liberating. And only then can it be goo...

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Why I like being punched in the face (or just writing that to get your attention)

Writing is easy when you know what to write about. It’s not as easy when you don’t. A bit like now. Well actually exactly like now. I read a post by the very funny Tripp Crosby, one half of the twice as funny duo Tripp and Tyler that made me laugh. They are twice as funny as each of them on their own since there is two of them and two is better than one. Unless of course you are talking about punches in the face. I think usually one punch in the face is better than two. I know that one isn’t ideal but it’s better than say seven. Seven punches would be annoying. Anyway back to the point. He decided to write a post totally without planning and by just writing and so this whole post is and has been an attempt at just that. It’s good advice I think to just write when you can’t think of anything...

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Knowing God, knowing you. Aha! (Why God needs our love)

Sometimes when talking about Jesus, the Bible and Christianity we use words that sometimes seem to feel natural but when we look closely are kind of awkward. Take ‘having a personal relationship with Jesus’ for example. We tell people that they need to have a personal relationship with the Lord but we aren’t told that any where in the Bible. So why do we use phrases like this? Where did it come from? Who invented it? And if it’s not Biblical should we come up with different phrases or should we be coming up with phrases at all? But even if having a personal relationship with Jesus was written in the Bible maybe we should think more about what that means. I can go long periods of not spending any time reading the Bible. I hear someone read from it and explain what it means every...

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Wishing the Rapture Would Have Raptured the Rapture.

I for one am glad the rapture didn't happen last weekend. I have only got to mid way through Boy Meets World with Brittany and would have been pissed if I hadn't at least seen Corey and Topanga get married. Thankfully it looks like I will get there. As long as I do so before October 21st. Heaven and Hell and the end of the world and Rapture are all words that have been branded about at one point or the other in the last couple of months or so. For better or worse, there is an ongoing conversation right now all about the end of the world and what the next world will look like. Of course this isn’t something new. People have been predicting...

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Why Jim Wallis is right (and wrong) and why gay is the new love wins

I had expected it to be at least a while before us Christians started causing controversy again, after the Rob Bell/ Love Wins debate took over our lives in March. But now that we have become bored with that it seems we have now found someone else to vilify. In this case it is Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, who has created a storm by refusing to include an advertisement on their website from Believe Out Loud, encouraging Churches to be open to Gay and Lesbian people. This has caused quite a stir to many who don’t understand how an organisation like Sojourners can not include an ad that promotes inclusiveness in Church, while the board of Sojourners are afraid it will distract from other issues in which they are focused on. But who is right? And who is wrong? Or are both sides equally...

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Heaven a hard time with the afterlife?

In March Rob Bell released a book called Love Wins. The controversy around the book was, well let’s just say a little heated. In the book, we were told, Rob Bell claimed he didn’t believe in Hell (he does). We were also told that he claimed that everyone will be saved (he didn’t quite). We were also told that he had lost it and that it was time that we finally cut him loose. (Thankfully we didn’t). Everyone was reporting on it. Bloggers wrote post after post about it. (My hand is up here) Famous Christian Pastors tweeted their opinions. Every news channel in the US ran the story at one point or the other. It was even trending on Twitter. Even...

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