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Artistic Expression and Faith

A few days ago, I came across a post called Of Books and Faith written by Beck at Frog and Toad are Still Friends ( The best blog name EVER to my mind.) She writes about how the Christian market is saturated with mediocre books. How few fiction authors there are who really grapple with the messiness of humanity from a Christian perspective. I agree with her whole-heartedly. The Christian life does not come with the lack of conflict and the happily-ever-after resolutions that I find in many books of this genre. It's funny that I came across that post because I had been thinking similar thoughts about another form of Christian expression. Art. Christian art is often either poorly rendered or is just too pretty. It lacks creativity. It doesn't engage the mind. Remember when I made that long trek to Hobby Lobby for stencil supplies? That was where this idea started to form. I spent a few minutes flipping through posters. Flip. Glowing Jesus in a meadow. Flip. Glowing Jesus surr...
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The Ice Cream Parlor

The Tooth Fairy doesn’t come to our house. Not because of any deep seated anti-Tooth Fairy angst. I'm just a tradition rebel. When each child looses his first tooth, we leave the rest of the pack at home and take the newly toothless one out for ice cream. This was easily accomplished when all of the children were young and the ice cream parlor was ten minutes away. We realized this simple tradition had become more complicated when Claire’s first tooth came out in my palm. The big guys don’t need a baby sitter. The little ones do. Kid combinations are such that we can’t leave them all home alone without outside supervision. Add in the drive time to and from the nearest soft serve establishment and we’re looking at three hours. Just for a quick trip to get ice cream! What to do? “I know, Mama! We can drive to the grocery store and get ice cream and eat it in the car!” “I don’t know. The thought of eating cold ice cream in the car in a hurry in January isn’t my idea of a da...
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Potholes

We were driving home on the back roads between The Land Flowing With Milk and Honey (where the Wal-Mart is) and Smallville . The Suburban dipped and swayed through the tight curves and potholes. Lots of potholes. Asphalt sprayed the car’s undercarriage. “Tink. Tink. Tink.” The children were oblivious to the dipping and swaying but the noise caught their attention. They looked out the windows. “Hey Mama, didn’t they just fill those potholes two weeks ago? Why did they have to fill them again?” Good question, kids. Instead of hiring the Fix It and Forget It Construction Company , our county employs Larry, Darryl and Darryl to maintain our roads. Larry drives the pickup. Darryl shovels a bit of asphalt off the back and the other Darryl tamps it down into the hole. Week after week they fill the same holes. Week after week our wheels grind away their efforts. Potholes. We all have them. Places in our lives that just can’t seem to stay filled up. Holes that consume great quantities of love ...
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