Archive - May, 2011

Relief News Tuesday: 5.24.2011

May 24, 2011 in Relief News with 3 Comments

Now Accepting Graphic Narratives, Images, and Interviews!

Issue 5.1 has shipped, and the submission period for issue 5.2 opened May 1. New work is already flowing in, meaning our editors are starting to think about all the work they have to do again.

This issue we’re excited to try out some new content, so we’re announcing here that Relief will now accept graphic narratives and images for consideration. This is an experiment, so we won’t run anything if we don’t find work that meets our standards, but we’re optimistic that through this site and word-of-mouth (that means you) we can find some great stuff.

This will make Relief, as far as we know, the only place you’ll be able to find graphic narrative of a Christian/spiritual bent. There are others doing images, but we think there are plenty more great artists out there whose work needs a home.

We will also be accepting queries for author interviews. Guidelines for this new content can be found on our Submissions page.

Significant Moments

May 19, 2011 in Faith and Culture, General, Staff Posts with 0 Comments

Bonnie Ponce

When faced with a challenge, look for a way, not a way out.

-David Weatherford

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.

-Mary Pickford

This past weekend I had the joy of watching my sister walk across a stage and receive a diploma for her bachelor degree in business administration.  I was so proud of her!  It took her a little longer than some people, but it isn’t how you start that is important, it’s how you finish.  And she finished strong!  When I think back through life, every significant moment is made up of smaller seemingly small moments.  When she filled out the application to go to college, there weren’t tons of people cheering; she was just sitting at the kitchen table filling out a form.  Each test she studied for, each project turned in lead to her walking across that stage.  Isn’t that how life is, though?  For our authors, they wouldn’t be published in our journal unless they were inspired to write, then they wrote out a poem or a story, pushing through writers block and frustrating revisions.  But the final product is to be published.

It’s interesting how all the small choices we make in life lead to the significant moments that we treasure in life.  So maybe instead of just celebrating the big moments we should reflect on the small moments, the decisions that we make every day and cherish those as well.  It is the little moments that lead us to the celebrations.  For Relief, we long for an awesome donor to write us a big check, but realistically, it is the little gifts that add up and make a big difference.  If you didn’t give during our LoveRelief campaign, that is okay because there is still the opportunity to give to Relief.  You can go to our donation page for more information, http://www.reliefjournal.com/buy/support-the-cause/.  Thank you!

Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish. She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University. After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.

Week Two: A Disturbing Exodus

May 13, 2011 in Faith and Culture, General with 5 Comments

Travis Griffith

I enjoy a challenge. I get off on challenging other people’s existing perceptions and smile when my personal views and ideas are questioned.

And so I smiled while reading a comment from reader Marcia on my last post. Part of what she said was,

you must remember as much as you would like to believe that you are coming at this reading with an open mind, none of us is capable of completely being open to ideas that challenge our current views.

While that’s a powerful statement, I respectfully disagree. Regular readers know how passionately I once conformed to atheism. Part of me (a lot of me, sometimes) still wants to cling to an atheistic view because it’s easier and more convenient and somehow rebellious and cool. However, because my mind was open to entering a new spiritual paradigm, I reject atheism yet still strongly respect those who embrace it.

An open mind led to a new way of thinking.

That is how I am approaching my Bible read. I may not want to believe it, I may point out parts that seem contradictory, but my mind is open to the possibility that the Bible means much more than I’ve ever given it credit for.

That wasn’t easy while reading through Exodus. Frankly, I’m severely disturbed by it. I naturally have more questions, some of which I’ll pose here, and hope for a discussion on possible answers in the comments.

Continue reading >>>

Face to Face

May 12, 2011 in Faith and Culture, General, Staff Posts with 1 Comment

Bonnie Ponce

We need not exert ourselves and try to force ourselves to believe, or try to chase doubt out of our hearts.  Both our just as useless.  It begins to dawn on us that we can bring everything to Jesus, no matter how difficult it is, and we need not be frightened away by our doubts or our weak faith, but only tell Jesus how weak our faith is  We have let Jesus into our hearts   And He will fulfill our hearts’ desires.
-O. Hallsby

Give us, O Lord, steadfast hearts that cannot be dragged down by false loves; give us courageous hearts that cannot be warn down by trouble; give us righteous hearts that cannot be sidetracked by unholy or unworthy goals.  Give to us also, our Lord and God, understanding to know you, diligence to look for you, wisdom to recognize you, and a faithfulness that will bring us to see you face to face.
- Thomas a Kempis

I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?
- C. S. Lewis
Till We Have Faces

Till We Have Faces is a book that I highly value.  It is the last fictional book written by Lewis and it is the culmination of his years of study.  It is the retelling of Cupid and Psyche set in a made up country and narrated by Orual, the older sister of Psyche.  She chases knowledge and facts.  Psyche is sacrificed to the gods and Orual hates the gods who “stole” her sister.  She tries to save Psyche from what she believes to be a nightmare.  Psyche is happy but listens to Orual and is punished.  Orual realizes that she has caused Psyche much pain and suffering.  She writes out her complaints to the gods and has a dream in which she is standing before the gods outlining her suffering and the injustices of her life.  But she realizes that all pretension has to be stripped away, any thing she thinks she knows is rubbish.  To face the gods, one must have to be barefaced.

I love this story because of the truths that it presents.  We can chase after knowledge and facts, even theology, but when it comes down to it we have to bear our hearts to God to make ourselves be vulnerable to Him so we can know Him and be honest with ourselves.  When we face God face to face we have to strip away all the masks and veils that we hide behind, other wise we are just standing in the presence of God lying about who we are.

Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish. She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University. After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.

Good Questions Can Help

May 9, 2011 in Faith and Culture, General with 7 Comments

Deanna Hershiser

Another suggestion or two for the newbie Bible reader.

The Trouble With Texts

It’s pretty neat that Blog Manager Travis Griffith is taking on reading the whole Bible. His eye-opening experience has left him feeling “punched in the face with these taboo topics and left wondering if folks just choose not to discuss this stuff in polite company…”

Perhaps I’m not the only Relief fan uttering a small chuckle. Welcome, Travis, to the foundational Christian writings.

The Bible is difficult. Though many consider it fairy tales for children, others find upon closer inspection a not-ready-for-prime-time experience. But read any ancient tome, from Cicero to Chaucer, and you’ll discover a lot we no longer bring up at dinner.

As Christians today, the reason for our indigestion over the Bible isn’t usually the racy content, or so I’ve found. What we shy away from is a truck load of different teachings about why the Bible includes what it does. Thousands of years after Genesis’ papyrus dried, we don’t remember what issues were being addressed or who the author was speaking to. When it comes to glimpses into the world of Moses (the probable Genesis author), most of us have no clue.

It’s as if my grandma came back to life and tried to decipher a text message from my son’s girlfriend’s phone, but everyone younger than Grandma had died, leaving no one to interpret for her. There wouldn’t be much way to understand the real gist of the thing.

I guess to take my analogy further, you could picture Grandma surrounded by people from her time — each of them with their own guesses as to the meanings of “lol,” “jk,” and “ftw.” Each would guess according to his own assumptions about context and other factors. Someone might insist this wasn’t language at all, that it was gibberish or that Grandma made up the idea that people had developed a new code for electric gizmos.

Reading the Bible, we rely on interpretations of ancient Hebrew and Greek by people with their own assumptions. Then we read the English wording according to individual perspectives. Some of us have been served portions or the whole from childhood. Someone like Travis Griffith has only heard of the Bible but has never before tasted it for himself. There are dozens of ways, at least, to begin thinking about the message between the biblical covers, and how are we really to know which one is close to the truth?

The Quality of Questions

Before despairing totally over this situation, I came to see there is hope for an understanding-related reading of the Bible. After all, people translate and read other ancient books with a fair amount of confidence. We don’t chuck everything written before the 20th century; there are proven ways to get at ancient meanings. And, yes, I’m one of those who believes the Bible is the unique book in history — the one God inspired (however that happened). But I think it was written by regular authors for regular readers. There’s more work involved in getting at original intent than I might put into reading a text message (though I’m not too good at those). But it’s a worthwhile task.

I encourage Travis and anyone looking into the Bible from new or old assumptions to start by asking good questions about the text. This idea I find explored exceptionally well by a teacher from Gutenberg College, a great books school in my town. In 2000, David Crabtree taught a recorded series on Genesis in which he proposed studying the Bible’s first book in order to begin discovering answers to basic biblical, faith-related, questions.

Dr. Crabtree’s key question for Genesis, and for the Bible is, “Why?” This gets filled out regarding God as, “What kind of being is the Creator? Who is God? What is his nature?” And regarding us: “Why did God create man? What is our purpose? Why do we exist? And what provision did the Creator make for mankind?”

These sorts of questions get at the heart of a valuable Bible read-through. They acknowledge that assumptions exist and that it’s valid to work at getting past my own. They’re close to the core of a soul seeking spiritual truth.

David Crabtree’s complete audio series on Genesis is free and available from this Gutenberg link (it lists sessions in reverse order) and at iTunesU.

Deanna Hershiser’s essays have appeared in Runner’s World, BackHome Magazine, Relief, and other places. She lives with her husband in Oregon and blogs at deannahershiser.com

Page 1 of 212»