Find yourself in a better story
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“too heavenly minded”?
For much of my life, a pallor has been cast over my spiritual aspersions by this insidious little whisper, spoken by some persnickety church person in the general ether of evangelical life: “She’s too heavenly minded to be any earthly good!” Why does that whisper manage to come in and cripple my prayer life, my…
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thoughts on the ascended Christ
God ascends to shouts of joy, alleluia, alleluia. The Lord to the blast of trumpets, alleluia, alleluia. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, God ascends to shouts of joy, alleluia, alleluia. A while back I bought a prayer book which, among other things, notes the days of the…
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questions and constancies
No one who lives stands still. One begins to ask questions as soon as one can speak. Indeed, my first utterance, if I am to believe Mother, was not a single word but a coherent question: “Where’s Daddy?” I must have wanted to know. The young, at least, always want answers . . . The…
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soaking, and why social media is bad for our brains
Socrates said, famously, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Sheldon Vanauken, less famously, wrote, “Examination of one’s life goes hand in hand with contemplation: first the seeing it as it is and then the thinking about it.” Solomon saw, and thought, and wrote, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all…
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Interview with Jeffrey Overstreet (CSFF Tour, Day 3)
“It’s too late . . . I’ve come this far, and I’m not giving up now. Beauty is leading us home.” “You may find nothing at all. Or else a tyrant who takes away your freedom.” “And I may find the freedom to choose what is best and go on choosing it. All the time.…
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The Ale Boy’s Feast: My Review (CSFF Tour Day 2)
He tightened his picker-staff grip, desire rotting into resentment. Most creatures of the ground had vanished from the Expanse, caught by the underground menace or fleeing its clutches. Krawg had pursued that rusty-hinge chirp, compelled by hunger and, even more, by a longing to see feathers lift a mystery into the air, to hear a…
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CSFF Tour: The Ale Boy’s Feast (Day 1)
In this, my first CSFF tour in quite some time, I am proud to feature Jeffrey Overstreet’s The Ale Boy’s Feast, easily my favourite novel of the year. In the next two days I’ll be posting my review, and interview with the author, a book giveaway, and quotes from The Auralia Thread itself. Today, the…
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Review: Wake Up, O Sleeper!
Jack Wilson’s life is marked by disappearances. First, his entire world disappeared in a moment when the bombs fell and Americans were taken to plastic-wrapped, regulated cities where they’ll be safe from radiation, poisonous air, and freedom. Ten years later, just before his nineteenth birthday, his best (and only) friend, Lori, disappeared when she was…
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Review: The Map Across Time
This second book in C.S. Lakin’s “The Gates of Heaven” series follows The Wolf of Tebron with an adventure tale that echoes the tone and tropes of many a classic fairy tale—with a lot of ancient Hebrew and a little Dr. Who thrown in for good measure. The kingdom of Sherbourne is under a curse.…
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Depicting Christ in Fiction (Wolf of Tebron, Day 3)
Recently, Stephen Burnett wrote a post on SpecFaith about how we depict God in our fantasy. Entitled “Fighting man-centered monsters in fiction,” it used the recent Voyage of the Dawn Treader film as a jumping-off point to address man-centeredness in our fiction: I won’t say names here — partly because, sorry to say, the titles…