“The night air gripped my face tightly. Alone I walked back from ______. Just as I came around the corner a _______ brushed passed me. _________ I cried!” Question: what would you have put in those blanks? Whatever you put in, you inserted your own meaning and allowed yourself to dream just a little bit. What…
I came across this little cartoon while checking Facebook today. It caught my eye, I like to see positive messages being shared on the Web, since so often its a pile of crap. So, anyway, I clicked on the link which brought me to the larger version of the image, which showed also the bottom…
In The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul delineates the essence of modern society’s relationship to technique. Ellul writes from a French culture bombarded with consumerism during the Cold War. His prophetic text analyzes culture and reveals a seemingly unavoidable conclusion – humans have become subject to technique. What is technique? He describes it as “the ensemble of…
Lessons to Learn I chose to read a compiled work called For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision of the Arts. This book focuses on the purpose, problems, misunderstandings of art in the church setting. The contributors range from Christian artists, to pastors, to lay people who appreciate art. Each contribution focuses on a…
Hip Hop, is known by some as the small genre that encouraged black and brown teens from the Bronx to speak out against injustice. To others the industries new cash cow, or if you’re a black history major you might say it’s the new Black face American for woman and African American entertainers. Yet, some have found…
A Change in Choosing and a Change of Heart Although my navigation skills are slightly below average, there are several places I can drive without confusion. One of these places is the library in Lowell, Michigan. During my middle school years, the shelves in this library were familiar territory. I repeatedly returned to these shelves…
Apparently, somewhere over the mountains and the sea, God has a river flowing with love. And, when they are truly in a state of worship, a person can actually feel a God-song rising up in them. While it would be nice to know the location of such a river or the sensation of a “God-song,”…
Beginnings: Art, along with the artists producing art, should be at home within the community of the Church. More than that, the community that the faith of Christians calls them to should provide valuable collaborative community so strong, sure, and beneficial that the Arts Community will turn to it for salvation from the harmful production…
“What exactly did David do in South Africa?” I asked my mom. “He built radio towers so the Bible could be broadcasted into remote areas,” she answered. “So did he preach to the locals or lead any other ministries?” I asked. “No,” she said. “He did work with some locals, but that was in construction…
Upon reading Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, one is immediately struck by the entertainment necessitated culture in which we exist. Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985, yet its prolific themes make it exceptionally applicable today. Postman begins his book by explaining the media as epistemology and what typographic…