Posts Tagged: "Erika Morrison"

imagination post

Maybe We Need To Recover Our Imagination

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

*photo above: Scott Erickson painting during his one-man show “We Are Not Troubled Guests” at NWLife’s Together Night

 

Sometimes I wonder, have we lost our imagination?

Stewart Henderson, in his poem I Believe says,

‪Propagandists are

excellent mimics

But don’t expect them to say anything original.

I believe in doubt

I believe doubt is a process of saying

“Excuse me, I have a question.”

Propagandists hate questions

and in so doing

detest art.

I believe in art.

We are so easily tempted to mimic, copy, follow, and accept status quo as reasonable and good enough.

In the church it happens like this: we look to another church in some other part of the state or country that is considered successful because of one or more of the “B’s” – buildings, budgets, and butts-in-seats.

We esteem these other churches as having or being something that we also should have or be. We podcast them. We fly over to them and scribble notes about everything we see and hear. We meet with their leaders to get their secret recipes. And then we bring it home to our state, city, neighborhood.

This whole thing reeks of a lack of imagination to me.

What ever happened to… Read More

anthropologists

Are You Prepared To Be A Kingdom Anthropologist?

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

I see that all are carrying the weight of their own histories—an entire world riding piggy on each back. They’re all fighting their own battles, wearing their own scars, bleeding from their own wounds, pushing through their own struggles.

We’ve all got chains and walls and masks and metals. We’re all haunted by devils and ghosts and lies and losses.

I see that you and you and all of you are bent with your own heaviness, just like I’m doubled over with mine. I see humanity has seven billion different molecular codes informing their responses and reactions, comebacks, knee jerks, wisecracks—persuading the spectrum of their emotions and decisions.

I see the guy who seems whole on the outside—his features are symmetrical and his clothes are pressed just so and his teeth are advertisement white—but his soul limps half-cocked like a zombie, diseased and mostly dead.

I see the one in the dark-alley shadows who perpetuates unspeakable evil, and I look at him extra long, taking the time to trace his life backward in my imagination with the hope of understanding what… Read More

imagination

Have We Lost Our Imagination?

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

I recently said, “I think compassion is a muscle and the church has atrophy. Time to build some muscle.”

Another muscle withering away due to neglect is imagination.

We have lost our imagination.

I think this happens because we are so easily tempted to mimic, copy, follow, and accept status quo as reasonable and good enough.

In the church it happens like this: we look to another church in some other part of the state or country that is considered successful because of one or more of the “B’s” – buildings, budgets, and butts-in-seats. We esteem these other churches as having or being something that we also should have or be. We podcast them. We fly over to them and scribble notes about everything we see and hear. We meet with their leaders to get their secret recipes. And then we bring it home to our state, city, neighborhood.

This whole thing reeks of a lack of imagination.

What ever happened to… Read More

do you remember who you are

Do You Remember Who You Are?

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

Do you remember who you are?

I mean, the real you – deep down inside. The you created in God’s image and likeness. The you who is God’s masterpiece. The uniquely gifted you. The one and only you, free from all the comparisons and advertising and marketing and demands and peer pressure and…

Do you remember who you are?

The essence of you. The you that only you can be. The you that God saw necessary to… Read More