The Child and the Pharisee
“The child within is aware of all his feelings and moves freely in the Spirit to express them. The Pharisee within closes off feelings and makes a stereotyped response to life situations. The child represents the authentic self and the Pharisee the inauthentic. The child is fresh; the Pharisee stale.”
-Brennan Manning, Souvenirs of Solitude
The Poet and the Logician
“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion . . . To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything, a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
-G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
The Waterfall and the Machine
“Life is art. And art demands creativity; it cannot tolerate formulas. Building a good marriage is art. Handling relational conflict is art. Trusting God with your sexual addiction or depression or fear of disapproval is art. God doesn’t provide recipes to cook up a delicious life because He can’t. Machines aren’t beautiful; waterfalls are. We’re not machines. We’re more like waterfalls, waterfalls who are persons.”
-Dr. Larry Crabb, Real Church
When I’m living like a pharisee, a logician, and a machine, I can feel it in my chest, the tightness in my jaw, the pain between my shoulders. I feel that way a little today, if you want to know the truth. But I know the new way, the small way, the light way of Jesus. And it sounds like a lyric, not a list.
I’m holding on to that today.
Here’s to the poets, the children, the living waterfalls.
We Want to See Your Art
To celebrate the end of our 31 day series, I’m going to host a link up on Thursday, October 31 inviting you to share words and/or images that represent the art you’re making with your hands or your life right now.
There will be a giveaway of some sort, just so you know.
So take your photos and write your words and have them ready to link up here on Thursday. I can’t wait!
This is day 29 of 31 Days of Living Art. Click here to see all the posts in the series. If you would like to have each new post delivered into your inbox for free, simply enter your email address here and click blog posts.
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