Sabbath Reflections: I Am the Lorax

No, I do not have orange skin and bright yellow hair, as does the title character of the new movie The Lorax. I haven’t even seen the movie, but I’ve read the book, a Dr. Seuss story about a creature who “speaks for the trees,” trying to defend them from others. As I thought about the movie and how many people are annoyed at the preachiness of its message, I realized that I have my own truffula trees to defend.

A really smart guy named Albert Borgmann talked about what he called “focal practices” – the practices that require time and interaction with other human beings. In a world where technology distracts and multitasking is a high priority, we’re letting the focal practices slip away, he said.

“Not on my watch,” I replied, striking an epic pose to make myself seem way cooler and tougher than I really am.

Anyone Can Build a Theme Park

When I was a kid, we did not have cable T.V., so we only got five channels on a sunny day when we adjusted our bow tie reception-thingie just right. We didn’t subscribe to any magazines except Reader’s Digest, which I never read, and various Focus on the Family publications. My friends were not rich. And I lived in the Midwest, about as far from any ocean as possible.

Translation: We did not get the Disney Channel, our magazines never had ads for theme parks of any kind, very few of my friends ever took a vacation to Disney Land or Disney World, and we lived much too far away for billboards for these attractions to reach us.

But I still grew up knowing that an essential part of childhood was wanting to go to Disney World.

Before I actually visited myself for the first time when I was sixteen, I had a vague impression of what Disney World was. Those huge Dumbos flying in the air, and enormous teacups spinning you until you got sick. Little kids grinning as they hugged Mickey and various other impersonators. Overpriced souvenirs. Fireworks. A giant castle in the background.

Now, that may not seem like a detailed impression, but think about it for a second: I had virtually no contact with any kind of Disney advertisements, and yet I was able to construct a fairly accurate picture of what Disney World was like.

Sabbath Reflections: A Character Study with Micah

No, Micah is not a kind, bearded psychiatrist with a C.S. Lewis quote on his wall and calming music playing in the background.

He’s an Old Testament prophet. (Although he probably also had a beard. Or maybe that’s just my stereotype from too many flannelgraph figures and coloring pages where all the men had beards.)

One of my all-time favorite verses is Micah 6:8, which says, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

There it is. So simple. If you want to know where God has gifted you, why you struggle in certain areas, or why other people act the way they do, just look at this verse.

One kind of strange-sounding way I’ve applied this to my life as a writer is to use it to analyze my characters. Out of the three categories on this list, what comes easily to them and what does not?

Find a Place to Play

Writing is work. Writing is hard. Writing is a business.

All this is true. But most people, especially those who aren’t writers, read these statements as: “Writing is boring. Writing is intimidating. Writing is for a select few who are smarter and more talented than me.”

I talk a lot about the discipline of writing, because I know a lot of writers who struggle with that. Hopefully, I do it in an encouraging way and not in a way that makes me sound like a bossy, egotistical kill-joy. Because I can totally pull off that image in real life. Not.

Sabbath Reflections: Tips for the Prayer Civilian

I am not a prayer warrior. I don’t have a lot of discipline, so my prayer time is loose, unstructured, and hey-look-something-shiny in nature rather than a focused, prolonged time of bringing a list of requests before God. I’ve skipped merrily away from any mention of prayer meetings or extended times of intercession during Lent, because God doesn’t believe in drafting people into places where they’re not gifted, right?

Well, not really. Obviously, as believers, we’re all called to pray as part of building up our relationship with Jesus and responding to the needs of others. (This also applies to areas like hospitality, evangelism, and service where the “I’m-not-gifted” excuse tends to come out.)

But what if that’s not your comfort zone? I’ve always found it very difficult to pray for the world, at least once I got past my second-grade, “And God, please help all the missionaries” phase.

Five Mountain-Climbing Strategies

You’re trekking up a steep, snow-covered mountain, and your only goal is to get to the summit (although getting down alive might be nice too). This is something you’ve been working toward for a long time. All of your friends are cheering you on from the bottom of the mountain, although you can’t hear them anymore.

In fact, because of the wind, you can’t hear much of anything. You can no longer feel any major part of your body, and you’re so tired you ache. It’s getting hard to breathe, and your movements slow. Just when you think you can’t take another step, you see something jutting out of the snow in front of you.

A slide.

That’s right. One of those colorful plastic tubes, like at McDonalds playplaces. Only this slide is a monster, wrapping its way all the way down the mountain. It’s also got built-in heating jets, and shoots you down to a spa/massage parlor at the bottom of the mountain.

You have a choice. Are you going to take the slide, or keep climbing up the mountain?

Sabbath Reflections: Why I Am Not Writing a Blog Post

I know what you’re thinking: this looks like a blog post to me. No, in fact, it is not. (Silly reader. If I can read your mind, don’t you think I know a blog post when I write one?) A blog post is a self-contained reflection based on the writer’s extensive knowledge and wisdom. This is an explanation of why you won’t be reading one of those today.

I’m going on a retreat with my jr. highers tomorrow, so I felt pressure to write a brilliant, witty, wise blog post after a marathon, mind-frying homework session.

This is not that blog post.