In Praise of Gamaliel

So I’m wrapping up this 601 Leadership Course for my Strategic Foresight degree. I was discussing with a fellow student Paul’s leadership style, and my colleague suggested that Paul learned many of his leadership traits from his Pharisee tutelage under the rabbi Gamaliel.

…and, we’re back!

Earth’s Mightiest Alternative Christian Links Portal suffered a setback this weekend, as its owner (ie, me) failed to secure its three-year domain name renewal. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time, as I was in West Virginia with my dad visiting relatives post-Thanksgiving, a family tradition.

Atheist Affirmation, Golden Compasses, and #!@* Mass-Forwards

Don’t you hate spurious email forwards, like how Bill Gates is giving away $400 from Macys if we can strike down Madalyn Murry O’Hair’s beyond-the-grave attempt to ban religious broadcasting, and forward it to all our friends? I know I do. But recently the senders have been getting more sophisticated, and doing something that I’ve long suggested that anyone do when faced with email-forwarding temptation: Look it up on Snopes.com

So now Philip Pullman‘s His Dark Materials novel trilogy is being adapted for the big screen, and because American Christians are borderline illiterate (it seems), now the hubub ensues. The warn-ers are taking us straight to the source. (You’ll have to click the link and read it yourself; Snopes is difficult to copy & paste excerpts from, possibly by design.) In the copy of the email I got, there was a preface:

Cosmic Dance Comic Fumetti!

After running my APB for some comic artists for my upcoming publishing project, my buddy Andrew Tatum alerted me that Greg Boyd was working on his own graphic novel project–a cosmological tour-de-force that’s technically fumetti. Behold–The Cosmic Dance!

Now Boyd’s theology and political outlook are uber-controversial among many. I, personally, love one of his areas of emphasis and have serious questions about the other (and I’m not tellin’ which is which, so there!) But anyone working on such an innovative project deserves major kudos and attention from this comics afficiando.

We can look for The Cosmic Dance this summer. Greg, let me know if you need a publisher!

Dreams Deferred and Trees of Life

I’ve been revisiting Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes‘ brief-but-powerful poem “Dream Deferred.” It evokes so much for me in this season, from marriage to eschatology to relationships to community. I’ll let it speak to you:

What happens to a dream deferred?

 

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

 

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

 

Or does it explode?

Dreams need to be translated into fulfillment, into reality, before they simply die, or worse. Mr. Hughes echoes the proverbial wisdom “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but fulfilled longing is a tree of life.”

So to all my friends who are hurting and hoping: Here’s to sweet dreams, and the salty journeys that evoke our thirst for fulfillment–only in sugar and salt can we be parched enough to drink together of Life’s Common Tree!

Three Comic Book Artists Wanted!

Update: This Artist has now been found. Thank you for your interest!

…or it could be one, I suppose, really diverse artist. I’ll probably need a letterer too. Here’s what’s for: A book I’m wrapping up, a Christian spirituality book, a kind’ve memoir-ish title with some far-out ideas. I’ve decided that I want three comic-book interludes, in three distinct styles. They’d be 4-6 pages each in length. I’m not rolling in dough or anything but I’m willing to pay (flat fee) a competitive rate. We can negotiate whether you’d keep the originals; I’d probably want to hold onto at least a page of each, with “first buyers’ rights” on the rest.

Okay, here are the three styles I’m looking for:

Style One: An indie comix Daniel Clowes style.

Or Evan Dorkin:

Or maybe even Paul Pope:

…anyone who can carry and make interesting ordinary conversation with splashes of magic realism, in black & white.

Style Two: Manga!

I want to do something fun and flashy for this one interlude. You don’t have to be Tintin Pantoja…

…and it won’t be as in-your-face as this:

…Jesus will be making an appearance.

Style Three: Chick Tract!

This one could be the most fun, a satire/tribute to the most incendiary “Christian” comics of all time. I’ll be summing up the message of my book in a kind’ve self-deprecating, ironic way vis-a-vis the Chick style.

So there you have it: Three styles, short stories, we’d write ‘em “Marvel style.” If you’re interested drop me an email at zoecarnate [ampersand] gmail [dot] com and we’ll talk details–you show me your portfolio, I’ll show you my manuscript, and we’ll see if we’re a good fit for each other. Feel free to post this link around the web and help drum up interest. I’m looking to commission this work around December. It’s gonna be an awesome book.

(Note: I didn’t mean for this to be a re-publish; its just as well, though, as I’m narrowing my search. New content coming soon!)

Shake, Flickr and Roll – Soularize 2007

My, there are a lot of Soularize pics online. (Pic courtesy Jordon)

Arc of Time

What do I do when I’m a lazy blogger? I post a video from YouTube to discuss. Bright Eyes. Arc of Time. It’s good. Discuss.

PS: I’m not lazy, not really. I’ve been a very busy boy. One who is learning time-management skills, slowly and surprisingly painfully.

Whoever Said “The unexamined life is not worth living”…

…needed to take a Valium. Or a jackhammer. Sometimes, self-reflexive consciousness sucks. Hurts even. I mean, how does one even begin to know if the examinee’s vantage point is sound or $#!tty? Why can’t we be comfortably numb to the consequences of our actions in the kosmos?

Richard Rohr shared some prescient insights at Soularize regarding the inner witness of the Holy Spirit and our human spirits in contemplative spaciousness. He warned (in a life-affirming and non-gnostic way) against over-identifying with our thoughts, emotions, or the swirl of life’s circumstances. Sometimes I want to be lost in the contemplative love of God, and extend outward to every animal, every stream, every bush. Some days, I just want to disappear.