Or those, like me, who wish they could write but don’t have anything salient to write about. ;)

I’m trying to go regularly to Monkey Speak, the Flying Monkey’s monthly open mic for writers. It’s each first Friday night, so that means this coming Friday December 7. Anyone want to join me?

Garrett loaned me this great book that I’m reading. One of the book’s reviewers at Amazon (johnw from Dallas) does a good job of encapsulating its’ content. I’ve emphasized some of his points …

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“1. It is uncompromising, both in its descriptions of the artist’s mind, dreams, and motivations, and also in its exacting analysis of what it means to be a Christian. Turner pulls no punches in describing the incredible dichotomy between the gift of new life we have been given as a result of faith in the death and resurrrection of Christ as atonement for our sins, and the very emotions, dreams, insecurities, and passions that drive the artist in his or her creative endeavors. It is true, at least in my experience (and as Rory Noland has written in his very good book, “The Heart of the Artist”), that Christians in the arts are often more prone to temptation since they allow their feelings and passions to not only enter in to their work, but to drive it.

Carrie Hunter muses about taking back the arts. A southern baptist, Carrie offers that we need “be out in the forefront in the world of film, music, literature, photography, painting, even dance!”

Yup. I’m singing in the rain …

Bob
Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Time is one of the surest judges of the worth and quality of one’s artistic endeavors. How much of our contemporary music do you think will still be played and heard 300 years from now? Here’s a great article from Reformation21 that presents Johann Sebastian Bach as a model for cultural change through the arts. He is held as an example of how to fulfill the calling of an artist from a biblical perspective and how to engage the world.