Lots-o-Links 4.9.08

I have now won the second blog voting contest!  That has picked me up, between the two contests, $175 in online bookstore gift certificates: $50 for Westminster Seminary bookstore, $50 for Amazon, and $75 for Eisenbrauns.  Woohoo!  I will order The Reason for God copies from Westminster and Amazon.  Eisenbrauns was a late addition to the first place prize and doesn't carry Keller's book, so I will be picking up some books for my personal library.   Thanks for all your effort!  And thanks to Scot McKnight for his effort to find some votes for me.

On a side note, the total official vote count for all blogs was "666" as you can see by the screen capture.  While some might find that a bit off-puttin', I think it's awesomely hilarious.

O Lord, let there be a blog contest for the cost of hotel, airfare and conference fee for the Total Church North America Conference.  I WANT TO GO!!!

Carolyn Mahaney: How to Help Your Husband When He is Criticized

John Piper on C.S. Lewis on writing.

Al Hsu on "The New Suburbanists."

Scott Hodge has some advice for those who are thinking about change.

Makoto Fujimura: A Wedding and the City.

10 Questions Every Leader Should Ask

Growing Sustainable Suburbs

Top 10 Myths About Networking

Joe Thorn is now making my voicemails on his cell a matter of public consumption.  I want to be upset, but it represents such a positive side of me that I can't help but propagate it...

NPM: 22 Contemporary Poets

Karsten Piper has listed 22 contemporary poets worth reading, via Abraham Piper.  Well worth checking out.

NPM '08: Remembering Mom

Anyone who has been reading my blog for the last year year may remember the poem I read at my Mom's funeral.  Mom died a year ago today, April 3rd, 2007.  Here is "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins...

"The Lanyard" by Billy Collins (NPR)

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.        

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

NPM '08: Fire and Ice

"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

It's National Poetry Month!

Throw some confetti and blow a shofar...it's National Poetry Month!  Love this time of year, when all things are becoming new again, when the doldrums of winter are washed away by April showers, and when poetry is in the air.

Far too many of us weren't raised on a steady diet of poetry, except maybe in the form of popular music.  But that isn't usually very good poetry.  Some of us have been introduced to poetry by an artsy parent, a literature teacher in High School, or maybe we discovered it much on our own.  Regardless, poetry is a powerful and beautiful thing to discover and something we should continue to rediscover for the rest of our lives. 

Over the next month I'm going to post poems, info on poets, poetry websites, thoughts on writing poetry, and more. Whether you are a poetry lover or not, this month is for you.  Let's begin by watching a video from a prominent U.S. poet, Dana Gioia as he gives a commencement speech at Stanford last spring.  He speaks of the loss of recognition of art and artists in our culture...

Lots-o-Links 3.21.08

I'm trying to make time to blog on the changes coming in my local church, and especially focus on some evangelism stuff I'm working to begin soon.  Sorry it's taking so long, but it's been a nutty last few weeks.  Maybe I'll blog on the nuttiness as well.  Might be therapeutic for me.

"Alcohol, Acts 29 and the Missouri Baptist Convention" is a bunch of information put out by some Missouri Baptists that has finally proven, without question, that some people will never get it because they spend all their time trying to get worked up over extra-biblical issues.  It's actually a very funny read for those of us who see how ridiculous it all is.

In Timothy Keller news, the Washington Post's Michael Gerson has a review of The Reason for God.  It's a good one.  USA Today quotes Keller, Driscoll and others on "Has the 'Notion of Sin' Been Lost?" (via Stet)

"Parks and squares aren't a luxury, but an essential feature of the urban infrastructure."

Bob Franquiz is looking to only work 4 hours a week.  I've perused the book, and it looks interesting enough.

Speaking of books, how about the 2008 Christianity Today Book Awards.  I picked up the "The Church/Pastoral Leadership" category winner The Call to Joy & Pain by Ajith Fernando at last year's Desiring God Conference.  I like Ajith's writings and the topic was intriguing.  It got buried in a stack of books, but is back on my "to read" shelf.

This looks VERY interesting to me: The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures.

The top 80 church websites (because 80 is a nice round number). :)

Oh that more of us would do what they are doing in Austin for city-wide church planting.

It won't be Longfellow until National Poetry Month.  It's my Gioia to blog on poetry every April.  Keats your eyes open for more very soon.

Lots-o-Links 3.2.08

Quick God Story: My family is still sick, sick, sick.  Unbelievable virus we are dealing with.  We were all feeling better and now most of us are getting symptoms back.  Our youngest now has 103+ temp again.  Ugh.  But all praise to God for this story.  Saturday afternoon my debilitating fever and aches stopped and I had tons of energy Saturday night and plenty for the task this morning.  I mean I went from the worst day so far on Saturday morning, and then full of energy and vigor Saturday evening.  Then soon after gathered worship today my fever came back as did my aches and terrible cough (I didn't cough once during the sermon).  There may be some medical explanation for why I had such a dramatic health hiccup, but I know WHO is getting the credit.  I was truly singing this morning, "How Great is Our God."

Speaking of how sick I am, it would really help me turn this frown upside-down if someone would present me something this awesome with Joe Thorn's likeness on it.  It would make my year! (HT)

When was the last time you wondered how Michael Foster would approach church planting differently?  Exactly.  And he promises to elaborate.  I'm demanding he gets on it asap.

You need to make your way to the Vintage Jesus Newsroom, where Steve Camp goes for his devotional time.

Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, online free.

PastorHacks is into Jott (and Pinger).  I've been using Jott for a while now with great success and productivity.  I think Joe Thorn told me about Jott (I had to say that because he will speak harshly to me this week if I don't mention it.  I don't like it when Hobbits get mean, especially when I'm sick.).

I may have mentioned this before, but Piper/Bethlehem's accountability stuff is worth checking out. 

You should check out Abraham Piper's crazy little experiment of a blog.  Alas, he is his father's son.  (Only four more words.)

Speaking of numbers, Baptist Reformed types will probably not like Scot McKnight's new article, "The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel."  Why?  It's one short.  I actually haven't read it yet, but McKnight is always worth reading (even when tragically wrong!).  No heckling me please.  I'm sick.

Here's Eugene Peterson at the 2007 Writer's Symposium by the Sea (isn't that where George McFly first kissed that chick from Howard the Duck?).  The story he tells about Bono is worth the whole thing.  (HT)

Lots-o-Links 1.31.08

Doug Wilson on how friendship evangelism is really about your money and material possessions...

Friendship evangelism rests upon generosity, sacrifice, kindness,openness, hospitality, goodness, and open-handedness. That is to be the texture of your life, and non-believers are welcome to come along with you. In short, is your evangelism giving or taking? Are you a benefactor or a salesman?

Alex Chediak is working through a pre-publication copy of Tim Keller's new book, The Reason for God.  (Amazon)

Steve Ogne on mobilizing leaders (from GCA conference).

Whiteboard Sessions website is up.

Mike Cosper is Worship and Arts Pastor at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY.  In 2006 Mike gave Acts 29 talks on "Missional Strategies for the Arts."  Both messages are here.

Mark Batterson - Four Dimensions of Courage.

Timmy Brister interviews Mark Dever on Richard Sibbs.

I've been looking forward to Son of Rambow for over a year now.  It's finally coming out in May.  Here's the trailer...

Lots-o-Links 11.15.07

Me and a certain pastor friend are going to see this tomorrow.  I'm pumped! 

-Bob Hyatt is good reading, as usual.  80-20 and the Organic Church Part 1 and Part 2
-Harry Potter as "Shared Text"
-Seth Godin's "Unleashing Your Ideavirus" (Part 1 and Part 2) was an excellent and thought-provoking read.  It's not very new (2000), but it was good.  More Godin here.
-I really dig this creative photography of kids.
-Must reading for those mashing the Thanksgiving potatoes.

Challenging Pleasures vs Easy Comforts

Dana Gioia, American poet and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, delivered the commencement address at Stanford in June.  Here's an excerpt, but you should read the whole thing...

Marcus Aurelius believed that the course of wisdom consisted of learning to trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones. I worry about a culture that bit by bit trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment. And that is exactly what is happening—not just in the media, but in our schools and civic life.

Entertainment promises us a predictable pleasure—humor, thrills, emotional titillation, or even the odd delight of being vicariously terrified. It exploits and manipulates who we are rather than challenges us with a vision of who we might become. A child who spends a month mastering Halo or NBA Live on Xbox has not been awakened and transformed the way that child would be spending the time rehearsing a play or learning to draw.

[...]

Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world—equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being—simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, "It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget." Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity. You don't outgrow art. The same work can mean something different at each stage of your life. A good book changes as you change.

(HT: BHT)

New Billy Collins Animated Poetry

Good news.  I've just heard that some new Billy Collins Animated Poetry (older stuff linked here) should be online in the next month. You should subscribe to JWTNY at YouTube in order to get an update when the new stuff goes up.

Here's the newest put up last week, "The Country."

National Poetry Month Posts

Since April is over I thought it might be helpful to list all of my National Poetry Month posts for your convenience.

It's National Poetry Month!
Mom and The Lanyard
Can Poetry Matter?
Poetry Quotes
Men and Poetry
What is Poetry?
Billy Collins, Animation
National Poetry Map
Billy Collins Poetry Reading
On Reading American Poetry
A Few Poems
On Writing Poetry

Let me also add the podcasts that I failed to mention.  I listen to some writing and poetry podcasts worth looking up: Writers on Writing, Poetcast from poets.org, Writer's Almanac from Garrison Keillor, and Poem Present.

NPM: On Writing Poetry

Poets.org has a nice page of essays on writing poetry and the writing life. 

What advice can you get from Edgar Allen Poe or Ralph Waldo Emerson?  What do rhyme, meter, metaphor, elision, and free verse mean?  What is a haiku, a limerick, or a sonnet?  Check these resources out.

NPM: A Few Poems

A few poems to continue with National Poetry Month.

Czeslaw Milosz (found in)

"A Confession" (via)

My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman's body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man? Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me? For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress's neck.
Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness,
Able to recognize greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.

Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass. 

Haiku from Billy Collins (first two via, third via, found in)

Mid-winter evening,
alone at a sushi bar—
just me and this eel.

Awake in the dark—
so that is how rain sounds
on a magnolia.

Moon in the window—
the same as it was before
there was a window.

Robert Frost

"The Road Not Taken" (via - with audio, found in)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

NPM: On Reading American Poetry

On Thursday during the question and answer time with Billy Collins he gave some great insight and advice on poetry.  I thought his comment on reading American poetry was worth repeating.

87% of American poetry is not worth reading.

Wow. 

NPM: Billy Collins Poetry Reading

It's not everyday a world renowned poet, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, and the author of the poem you read at your Mom's funeral comes to your hometown.  So I just had to go see Billy Collins (via poets.org, bigsnap.com, bestcigarette.us) author of "The Lanyard," when he came to Woodstock today. 

We didn't know he was coming until a few days after Mom's funeral.  So I immediately contacted the Woodstock Opera House for tickets and learned they were sold out.  That was disappointing.  But I talked to a friend and Opera House employee about it and he called the next day with the news that some tickets opened up.  We picked up two.

This morning we dropped off the two youngest at a friend/church member's house and went to see Billy Collins.  He read poems for about an hour: a sonnet or two, a handful of haiku, and the rest his typical, informal-style poetry.  He was funny, thoughtful, and engaging.  The crowd clapped and laughed, and even gasped at insightful lines.  It was brilliant, just brilliant.  I can't believe anyone can think poetry is over their head if it comes from Billy Collins. 

I have three of his books and wanted them signed, so I got in line and met Billy Collins.  I told him I read "The Lanyard" at my Mom's funeral.  The lady next to him (I don't think I've ever met her before) said something like, "Are you the guy with the Woodstock blog?  I was telling Billy about what you said on your blog."  How cool is that?  He was very personable and showed real concern.  He asked how well I got through the poem, you know, without crying.  I told him I did fine.  So then he signed my three books, including just above "The Lanyard" poem, and then we posed for a photo via my hot wife.  He said the photo would probably end up on the blog.  He was right. 

I think Billy Collins has become my favorite living poet.  Watch his animated poetry, buy his books, listen to his live readings, or attend a live reading.  Here's a big archive of Billy reading poems.  I think you may just learn to love poetry, or love it even more.

NPM: National Poetry Map

Man, this is so cool.  Poets.org has a National Poetry Map so you can click on a state and find out about local poets and poetry, the state Poet laureate, literary organizations, poetry friendly bookstores, writers conferences, etc.  For example, when I click on Illinois I find out that Li Young Lee is one of our local Chicago poets (already knew that) and that Kevin Stein is our Illinois Poet laureate (didn't know that).

This is a great resource for finding local stuff as well as expanding your horizons.  The more I use Poets.org, follow their RSS feed, and listen to their Poetcast (podcast), the more I love this site.  Get on it.

NPM: Billy Collins, Animation

These Billy Collins action poetry videos are just fantastic.  Brilliant.  He is the dude who wrote "The Lanyard" and is speaking at the Opera House here in Woodstock on Thursday.  My wife and I have tickets.  Enjoy these wonderful short videos.  (Videos not available to embed are "Men in Space," "No Time," "Today" and "The Country."
.

NPM: What is Poetry?

The spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollected in tranquility. –William Wordsworth

The art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors. –Thomas Macaulay

What ideas feel like. –Karl Shapiro

The art that offers depth in a moment. –Molly Peacock

Memorable speech. –W.H. Auden

Perfection of form united with a significance of feeling. –T.S. Eliot

Poetry essentially is figurative language, concentrated so that its form is both expressive and evocative. --Harold Bloom in The Best Poems of the English Language

This, I believe is the ultimate direction and goal of poetry, metaphor, and symbol—to express what is inexpressible, to fuse together what still remains separate. --Robert Siegel, The Christian Imagination, 351

NPM: Men and Poetry

If you are interested in taking online poetry writing classes, you may want to look at Zarafa Tutorials.  I haven't used them, but like where they are coming from.  They link to Douglas Jones' interesting, short article "Men Hate Poetry."

...if you hate poetry or don't have the time or are just indifferent, consider that this might be symptomatic of some deep failure in you instead of in the poetry. And then, don't just admit to the failure and go on hanging your head. Hunt for beauty. Track it down. A passion for beauty certainly is characteristic of those great men in the past whose lives were characterized as after God's own heart. Remember David's psalms and Beowulf's celebrations, full of life and faithfulness.

I also recommend looking at the articles on poetry over at Credenda Agenda (where Jones' article is published).  If you search for poetry on their site, you get many articles.  Check them out.