If you are reading this you are ahead of the internet

The internet is beginning to give some traction to the micro-giving that the internet used to deem impossible (Listen to or read this report). So if you are reading this blog, then you are ahead of the internet because a few months ago, this blog has been accepted as a content creator for the "CentUp" micro-giving project.

So you see, when you create a CentUp account, you not only get 100 free cents to share, but you also are ahead of the internet. You will be a trendsetter. You will be saying "no" to an ad based internet. You will, in a small way, be the change nudging the world into a more generous culture.

Are you willing to create an account with just $2 just to try it out? 

Stop telling stories as narratives

Storytelling is a deeply human experience. It is what binds us all together in our relationships and even though the ages. In this digital age we have feared the ancient art of storytelling will somehow lost as we now gather around our individual screens and "plug into the matrix". 

It is difficult to imagine a world where there are humans and no stories or storytellers. What is much easier to imagine is a world where humans tell stories as a narrative and thus, in some sense, loose the "art" of storytelling. 

Semantics aside, there is very real difference when you hear someone tell you a story and when you hear someone tell you a narrative. Narratives give us times and dates. They tell the sequence of events that happen. Narratives are what boring history teachers tell us in school. We are tested on narratives and narratives can be measured and assessed. Narratives can actually be quickly created and even distilled to a simple formula:

“Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.”

— The Pixar narrative formula

When we read a script there is a "narrator" part that is there to pull the story along, but as important as narration is to a story, the narrative is not the story. The story is something different. The story is the art, the discipline the practice of capturing people's imagination and immerse them into a reality they can experience with their senses.

If you want to hear storytelling at some of it's best, check out The Moth. If you want to experience narrative there is this classic narrative telling in the middle of a classic story:

Historically, preachers are storytellers. In my time being in the Church, I have experienced most preachers as narrators. We give dissertations on "orthodox" belief, give three points and a poem, talk about the history of the bible as a series of events, etc. Every now and again, preachers may use a story as an "illustration" or an "example, but the sermon itself is a narrative. Story is thought of as the sideshow to the main event of the sermon. 

One way to quickly assess if you are hearing a narrative or a story is by listening to the first line. If you hear something like, "My call to ministry began when I was at church camp at the age of seventeen." That is a narrative. Chances are the rest of what is shared will be a list of dates and events that happened on those dates, like a Sportscenter Top Ten. If you are hearing a glorified list, you are not hearing a story. That is narrative. 

However, if the opening line is something like, "I never felt I was called to ministry, until I experienced being so hungry I ate food from a dumpster." That is the makings of a story. 

I do not fear storytelling will vanish, I fear storytelling will be co-oped by narrative.

God is like light NOT God is light (right?)

There are endless metaphors about God. One of the metaphors that is very popular in the Bible is God is light. It is worth remembering that this is a metaphor. Which means, like all metaphors, there is a point that the metaphor breaks down. 

For instance, when we think that God is light (as opposed to God as light) then there is a fear of the dark. There is an embracing of all things light. We talk about that God is found in the light places of the world. God is found in the happy and the bright and sunny places. And, on the inverse, God is not found in the dark and the dark is to be feared and avoided. 

Again, it is worth noting that God is not light. God it like light.

It is also worth noting that, in the same spirit, God is like darkness. There is no place that one can be where God is not (Psalm 139). 

It is my prayer that our spirituality of the dark will become as developed as our spirituality of the light.

How do we develop our spirituality of the dark? There are others in the faith that are much more qualified to speak to this matter (Taylor, John of the Cross, Rohr, etc.) however there is one quick note about developing a spirituality of the dark - In order to see what our shadow sides have to teach us, we have to turn away from the light. 

I know this may feel like heresy. I get it. We are very convinced that God is light. But again, God is not light, God is like light. And, God is like darkness.