Don Chaffer of the band Waterdeep joins the show.

They discuss:

• Should we disappear in order to have Christ’s story rise to the top?
• “The Bible is the story of how God gets back what was always His in the first place.”
• Ian’s thoughts on why Jesus sent the disciples to pick up the left overs after feeding the 5,000.
• God wants to use every part of us, even the junk.
• God not wasting anything is part of Heaven’s characteristic
• Dallas Willard – What God wants done, gets done.
• Shalom is when our will and God’s will are brought into harmony.
• There are truths about God that I can’t know or fully apprehend unless you tell me your story.
• I can’t see grace unless you tell me about how God has met you in your life.
• We read books to not feel alone – C.S. Lewis
• Theology is proven in your own experience.
• AA meetings teach Ian as much about grace as Paul wrote about in Galatians.
• The Bible is more a painting than a photograph. It needs to be looked at from different angles, it wants to be interpreted, its lines are not as clean as a photo.

Running Time: 22:25
Podcast: Subscribe | Play on mobile | Download | RSS Feed

We’d love you to call in with feedback or a question about Learning To See
(615) 669-4330
Feedback@IanCron.com
Leave your review on iTunes

Don Chaffer of the band Waterdeep joins the show.
They discuss:
The revival of Ian’s book Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale in light of a recent Newsweek article’s position that Francis of Assisi can be an agent of great change to the modern church.
The mystery of the cross.
The different ways to view the cross.
The power of the Eucharistic experience.
The conviction has been growing in me that when Jesus wanted to explain to his followers what he thought would be the meaning of his death, he did not give them a theory; he gave them a meal…” In other words, Wright says, “theories about atonement are, at their very best, abstractions from the Eucharist, which is itself the grid of interpretation that we have been given—by Jesus himself!—for Jesus’ death.” – NT Wright
The contrast of the grasping of power in the garden versus the surrendered position of open hands in communion.
Jesus wants to live his life in you and through you to the world at large.
A large part of the spiritual life is accepting things as they are not as you’d like them to be.

Running Time: 21:23
Podcast: Subscribe | Play on mobile | Download | RSS Feed

We’d love you to call in with feedback or a question about Learning To See
(615) 669-4330
Feedback@IanCron.com
Leave your review on iTunes

We’d love you to call in with feedback or a question about Learning To See
(615) 669-4330
Feedback@IanCron.com
Leave your review on iTunes

Here is the first episode of Learning To See, a new podcast featuring Ian Morgan Cron.
Running Time: 25:17
 
CLICK THE BLOG TITLE TO OPEN THE AUDIO PLAYER VIEW:

Show Notes:
Why is it called Learning To See?
Barnes and Nobles New Writers
You just said something clearly that I’ve always thought vaguely.
The whole house felt humid with God.
They are experiencing the wounds of spiritual violence.
The performance based atmosphere of “you’re saved by grace” but you have to try harder.
“You’re almost there.”
There is a great gap between what we see and what is available for us to see.
It’s not about trying harder, it’s about the thrill of waking up and seeing God in all things.
The man who has made a living with spiritual ADHD.

We’d love you to call in with feedback or a question about Learning To See
(615) 669-4330
Feedback@IanCron.com

Some weeks you can’t do church. You’re exhausted, you need time alone, or your soul says a quiet walk in the woods would draw you closer to the heart of God than anything else.

If this was one of those weeks and you opted out of church this morning, I hope you did something restorative. If you’re looking for a gentle end to your day, spend a few minutes with Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche. There is a quality of compassion in his voice that never fails to renew me. Perhaps a few minutes in his presence will move you to love God, neighbor, enemy, and yourself more deeply in the coming week.

Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche

“Our community life is beautiful and intense, a source of life for everyone. People with a disability experience a real transformation and discover confidence in themselves; they discover their capacity to make choices, and also find a certain liberty and above all their dignity as human beings.” — Jean Vanier

Considered a man of deep compassion and a humble prophet in the struggle to “become more fully human,” Jean Vanier is the founder of L’Arche.

In 1964, through the influence of his friendship with a Catholic priest, Father Thomas Philippe, Vanier invited two men with disabilities, Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux, to leave the institutions where they lived and to share their lives with him in a house in Trosly-Breuil, France.

There, in that small home in Trosly-Breuil, Vanier’s initial urge to “do something for” Raphael and Philippe grew to become a commitment to “being with” and “friend to” these two men. With that shift in heart and consciousness, a core belief of L’Arche emerged: that strength is revealed through weakness and human vulnerability, which given room to grow in trust, creates community. And, Vanier understood, the desire to love and to be loved is something every person longs to experience.

Vanier still makes his home in the original community of L’Arche in Trosly-Breuil, and often gives lectures and retreats there.

(From L’Arche Website)

Mrs. Robinson

Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz

Streets of Philadelphia from Philadelphia

Hallelujah from Shrek

Eye of the Tiger from Rocky II

What do all of these movie theme songs have in common, other than making their composers supernaturally wealthy?

Each of these songs expressed the mood and the message of a film in a way that elevated our experience of watching it from great to transcendent. They captured the hearts of a nation and ensured that these films would live in our collective unconscious forever.

If the last 12 months of your life were made into a major motion picture, what song would you pick to be played as the final credits were rolling? What song captures the mood and themes of your life in 2011 like no other?

Your answer can be serious or tongue in cheek; the only thing that matters is that you are completely honest.

Here’s mine.

Books.

Don’t worry, the kids will get other goodies this year (like healthcare and school tuition, for example) but nothing trumps books.

My family also knows I probably bought their books from one of the indie booksellers near our home. Indie booksellers provide knowledgeable and personalized customer service, benefit local economies, contribute to protecting the environment, and foster community in ways big-box chains do not.

Indie bookstores also provide the natural climate in which people are most apt to ‘linger’, a re-humanizing spiritual practice in a world obsessed with efficiency and productivity. Indies get my support for that alone.

“But Ian, the header on your website has pornographically large buttons linking people to Amazon and B&N!”

Of course it does. I’m a scant known author who needs to sell books to feed his family. The sales of Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir…of Sorts didn’t suffer when Barnes & Noble named it a featured title in its Discover Great New Writers program. Trust me, I’m grateful to B&N for recognizing and honoring my work. I’m hoping big-box chains and indie booksellers will find a way to co-exist as each has their niche. Time will tell if I’m a naive idealist. In the meantime I’ll try to advance the cause of indie booksellers whenever or however I can either by purchasing my books through them or talking them up.

On that note, here’s a list of some of my favorite indie booksellers. Check them out for yourself and feel free to add the name of your favorite indie bookseller to my list. It’s not too late to visit one for Christmas.

 Diane’s Bookstore-Greenwich, CT  www.dianesbooks.com

Landmark Booksellers-Franklin, TN  www.landmarkbooksellers.com

Yeoman in the Fork-Leiper’s Fork, TN  www.yeomansinthefork.com

Parnassus Bookstore-Nashville, TN   www.parnassusbooks.net

Northshire Bookstore-Manchester, VT  www.northshire.com

Eighth Day Books-Wichita, KS www.eighthdaybooks.com

Hearts and Minds Books-Dallastown, PA  www.heartsandmindsbooks.com

The Tattered Cover-Denver, CO   www.tatteredcover.com

St Mark’s Bookshop-New York, NY  www.stmarksbookshop.com

Powells Bookstore-Portland, OR   www.powells.com

To find an indie bookseller near you, go to www.indiebound.org

A year ago Rob and I were sitting in a Starbucks in Connecticut, drinking lattes and catching up when he turned his gaze toward the ceiling.

“Do you hear that?” Rob said, his expression darkening.

“Hear what?” I said.

“Listen,” he said, glaring at the white speaker grilles above our heads. “Do you know that song?”

I closed my eyes and strained to hear the music over the hiss and gurgle of milk being steamed for someone’s cappuccino.

I shrugged. “Nope,” I said. “I can’t make it out.”

Rob threw his hands up in the air. “That’s a cut off Miles Davis’ record Kind of Blue,” he said, his voice rising with indignation.

“Alright,” I said. “Apparently this bothers you.”

“It’s MILES DAVIS!” he said, slapping the tabletop with his hand.

I’ve known Rob for 30 years. He’s talented. He’s smart. He’s not afraid to speak his mind.

“When brilliant compositions are used for background music it desensitizes people to their genius,” he continued.

I paused. “You mean familiarity breeds contempt?” I said.

“Precisely. If an amazing piece of music is constantly playing in the background your admiration for it doesn’t increase, it diminishes. It becomes no big deal,” Rob said, imitating someone trying to speak and yawn at the same time.

At the time I thought Rob’s remarks were insightful but overstated, and yet something about them rang true. They stuck with me.

Last week I was sitting in another Starbucks, this one two blocks from my home in Franklin, TN reading Max Picard’s The World of Silence and drinking coffee when I made a connection between what Rob had said and the world I live in.

Is Jesus becoming background music in my life?

No matter where I go someone is talking, singing, arguing, writing a book, blogging, putting on a conference, or making a record about…Jesus.

(Yes, I’m aware I’m guilty of doing this right now.)

Not a day goes by when I don’t see tee shirts with Bible verses printed on them or a tattoo of Jesus’ crucifixion inked on someone’s arm. Billboards with warnings about hell dot the highway. I can’t turn on the radio or television without someone talking at me about Jesus; he’s quoted (or misquoted) on bumper stickers, and recently while standing at a urinal in the men’s room at a restaurant I looked up and discovered a framed print of John 3:16 hanging on the wall in front of me. Some people don’t do subtle.

If Rob is right my experience of constant exposure to all things Jesus isn’t increasing my admiration or devotion for him, it’s diminishing it.

In Max Picard’s, The World of Silence he writes,

Today, when there is only noise in and around man, it is difficult to approach the mystery. When the layer of silence is missing, the extraordinary easily becomes connected with the ordinary, with the routine flow of things, and man reduces the extraordinary to a mere part of the mechanical routine.

How do we prevent over-exposure to Jesus and the trappings of Christianity from reducing him to “a mere part of the mechanical routine? “ Is it possible?

“I commissioned a local artist to paint an oil of the quarry on a typical summer’s day, brimming with people of seemingly every tribe and nation. If you look closely in the left-hand corner of the canvas, there are three kids in midair, holding hands. They have just leaped off the Forty. These are my children…“

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir…Of Sorts came out June 7th and since then I’ve received a number of emails from folks asking if I would post a picture of the painting. I recently gave a reading of that story at a Barnes & Noble and several attendees told me they’d like to see it as well.

The painting hangs over the fireplace and is the centerpiece not only of our living room but of the whole house. I zoomed in on the left corner so you can see my kids in flight, but you still get a sense of the painting as a whole.

Thomas Torak is the artist.

The contemporary American composer Morten Lauridsen wrote the musical setting. The English translation of the Latin text is:

O great mystery
and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord
lying in their manger.

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy
to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

My question: Can contemporary worship arouse the same sense of transcendence, awe, and mystery I feel when I watch this video? Have you been to a church that pulls it off?

I’ve never been to one. Anywhere. Ever.

One critique of worship services found in newer, start-up churches (and I founded and led one) is they over-emphasize authenticity and informality, sometimes to the point of silliness. Worship services at “hipster churches”, as a friend of mine calls them, are sometimes faulted for lacking dignity and gravity; people depart entertained by catchy choruses and earnest prayers but insufficiently convinced of God’s unspeakable majesty and their creatureliness.

Traditional, high church worship services (like that found in the video) that strive for reverence, decorum, poise and yes, even a little pageantry, are criticized for being culturally out of touch, aloof, pretentious or just plain dead. Which they often are!

Does this have to be an either/or proposition?

What do you think? What would a both/and approach to worship look like; one where a premium was placed on both authenticity and dignity?

I definitely have an opinion but I would love to hear about your experiences and your wisdom on this one.