All That Glitters

Deanna Hershiser recalls the "joy" of being humbled. Even melancholy writers like me can have a positive morning. At such times everything shines like my golden ideas.

But I’ve learned to feel suspicious of their glow. I guess we all have to do that. Bask for the moment, sure, but later test new paragraphs, stanzas, or stories for actual quality. Why is it, the more fantastic they seem when they arrive, the clunkier they can rattle out of my brain? I don’t often comprehend this until I receive negative feedback or continued rejection, or both.

An essay I once started had all the markings of a hit. My daughter and I ran through the neighborhood for the first time at her request. Who could fail to tug heartstrings, I thought, describing their child’s interest in exercise? I read a rough draft sometime later to my critique group, and one lady asked what I was trying to say.

An innocent question, and a good one. But I felt derailed. I talked back (something our rules said not to do), defensive. Maybe it was the way she framed her question. Maybe I had eaten too much chocolate after lunch. Anyway, I returned to my essay, and what once had been golden felt like lead. I slogged through editing the piece and sent it out to face the inevitable—it was never published.

My next attempt grew from scraps jotted in my journal about running with my little dog. I tried writing it different ways, wary of sharing it anywhere. If no one appreciated my mother-daughter bonding tale, who would like this motley adventure?

In my humbled state I found some encouragement. While I considered doggy jogging mundane, I saw I was writing a more genuine anecdote. I liked running. So did my dog. My daughter hadn’t wanted to do it again after her first try. She had been the one to suggest I run with our pooch to start with, and so I mentioned my gratefulness to her in the essay. Finally, I arrived at an opening image for the story, based on what I had learned about myself. If only my dog and I could voice our imaginings, we would rather be an Amazon-type athlete racing her Malamute in the Iditarod, than a 30-something woman out circling the sewage treatment plant with her raccoon-sized dog.

This lowly image sold my essay. I had discovered how to smile at my own shabby efforts and see beauty in ordinary moments. Readers related to this story and contacted me to share some of theirs. It was an honor to have struck a nerve.

Since then I try to remember, when writing, running, or falling down, there’s no shame in not shining all the time.

***

These days Deanna Hershiser jogs on her treadmill when not out fishing with her dad. She has had work published in Runner's World, Relief, and Long Story Short. She blogs here.

Photo Haiku Wednesday 2.10.2010

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday? Email your photos to Michelle: photohaiku@reliefjournal.com

You'll get a photo credit link here on the main blog and you'll also be entered in the drawing for the Quo Vadis Habana journal and bottle of J. Herbin ink the week your photo appears on the blog!

Photo courtesy of Michelle Pendergrass.

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday? Get ready! Starting next week, you'll be able to submit your photos to Michelle.

Directions:

1. Enjoy

2. Write a haiku inspired by what you see

3. Post the haiku in the comments for chance to enter

For extra chances to win:

4. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

5. Follow @Quo Vadis on Twitter

6. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!!

The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

* * *

Winner will be announced via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every week for Twitter Super Bonus Points.

Relief News Tuesday 2.9.2010

A Note from the Web Editor

Normally I don't write the news blogs in a personal way, but with all of the great (or not so great) speeches that have been given in the last couple weeks, I'm now giving a State of the Website address. (Not to be confused with a State of the Website Address address where I mention changing our web address from ReliefJournal.com to StressJournal.com so we can advertise anti-depressants in the margins.  It is at this point that I would like to apologize for my unnecessary digression.)

Settled In

For the last four months, we've been calling what you are looking at right now "The New Website."  But as of right now, I am forever changing it to "The Website."  "The Olde Websyte" will always be the old site, but this format is no longer new to us.

Why does that matter?

Since we are no longer considering this a "new" website, we are very welcome to any suggestions to changes or corrections that can be made.  Before now, we were still testing things out to see what we liked.  We will always be trying new things, but we're pretty happy with what we've got right now.

Also, since this isn't new, we will be doing our best to develop the site by creating a Staff page, a Blogger Columnist page, and by updating the donation page and our shop.

With that said, we do need some feedback.  We don't plan on changing the colors or our logo, but making sure the site is easy enough to navigate is very important to us.  If you've got a suggestion, leave it in the comments.

Enjoyment, Experience, and Reading

Stephen Swanson, prompted by a recent colleague's sharing of the "Read a Book" rap and expressing a desire to show it to their students.  Without getting into issues of race and class, what is the problem with the "reading issue" a bit more broadly?

Nothing New...

There's nothing new about a general frustration of an older generation of educators complaining about the lack of preparation of the future generation and a fear of a disappearance of books or quality books or the right books, and so on.  It seems that every year a cycle of e-mails make the teaching rounds of century-old quotes that sound just like our feelings of today.

It's Not that I Don't Like to Read, but...

What I've noticed might be changing is that while my students (both young and old) have less experience reading things on their own, they often express a desire to read more and learn to read for pleasure.

In fact, this week, one of my lit students commented during break, "I really like how we are thinking differently about this book, but I also wish that we could take time to enjoy it.  I don't even know how to do that anymore."  At first, my hackles raised, and I wanted to reply, "Well, that's because you're learning to REALLY look into a book and figure out how it means."  Fortunately, I stopped myself and thought for a second.

Why shouldn't we take time to teach/give credit for reading just for enrichment or pleasure?

Part of it is probably because the people teaching are often the one's who already love reading and take that as a given.  As can be seen by the launch of the iPad, an understanding of contemporary society must take on the growing assumption that things should "fit me".  On a certain level, this is pure hubris and entitlement, but "it is what it is", as they say.  Like it or not, people have less time for traditional "reading" and when one is not introduced to reading very early in life (Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone advocates that an interest in books should happen in the first 3 years), then where else will you get it?

It's Important, Really, but Don't Make It Too Important.

An NEA study from 2007 found all the usual suspects.  Reading is falling, and it is becoming more important for work.  However, what really gave me pause when this student asked her question was that the immediate assumption that emerged that one must justify reading in terms of educational, and primarily economic, reasons.

Would reading really not be something to teach if it only offered another way of enjoying oneself and connecting to other people, ideas, times, and places?  Looking at the books and movies selected for awards or even just for small, local book groups, one would assume that loving books means loving stories about the deaths of young girls, loss of innocence, or big, historical epics.

In writing this, I've often devolved into a screed against the focus on quantitative educational goals, but I need to keep deleting them and move on to the bigger points.  Reading is more than enjoyment, as I teach in my literature and rhetoric classes.  Reading is also more than analysis and critique, which is not really taught or encouraged anywhere, and I think it needs to be.

Why Can't I Stop Being Serious?

I'll give you a personal example of how difficult this is for me to accomplish.  A couple weeks ago, I was meeting a friend at my favorite bar, and I brought in the genre novel that I was reading at the time (Bounty-hunter Witch Lives with Vampire and Struggles for Her Identity).  After a while of sitting at the bar, a patron asked me, "What are you reading?"  I turned the cover so that she could read the title and author.  She inquired, "What's it about?" "Well,...[confused retelling of backstory]," and I immediately felt the need to point out, "Well, I study genre narratives, especially those about detectives and detective-like characters, and especially about individual morality and ethics."

Immediately after the addendum, she smiled and said, "Cool.  That's awesome that you study something that you love."  It was to this moment that my mind jumped just this last week when the student asked about reading for pleasure.  I do love the literature that I teach, well most of it, but I've loved it for so long that I forget what it is like to learn to love something.  That "learning to love" is a slow process, just ask my wife about onions, but it is a worthwhile process to learn, just ask my wife about onions.  It is something worth putting some time, effort, and reward into sharing with others, if for society in general, then at least for individual, selfish reasons.   While I am loath to say it, learning to love something might even prove useful for one's future life and career, but don't tell anyone I said so.

***

Stephen Swanson teaches as an assistant professor of English at McLennan Community College. Aside from guiding students through the pitfalls of college writing and literature, he spends most of his time trying to remain  aware of popular culture, cooking, and enjoying time with his wife and son. He holds degrees in Communications (Calvin College), Film Studies (Central Michigan University), and Media and American Culture Studies (Bowling Green State University. In addition to editing a collection, Battleground States: Scholarship in Contemporary America, he has forthcoming projects on Johnny Cash and depiction of ethics in detective narratives.

Sightings

1983: In the third grade, my religion teacher, Mrs. Brandstetter, tells me a story during Tuesday night CCD class about a  woman in Mexico whose taco meat, after falling out of her tortilla at lunch, miraculously formed itself into a silhouette of the Virgin Mary. The image my young mind instantly created: small individual crumbly rounds of ground beef mysteriously and reverently moving themselves across a piece of Mexican hand-painted ceramic ware, one grainy chunk of meat at a time coalescing into feet, a robe, veil, nose and eyes. On the side table by the couch in the living room of my childhood, a small, engraved photo album. On the first page, a photograph of oil-stained window panels on an office building in Clearwater , Florida, that looked remarkably like a profile of the Blessed Virgin. A miracle on display wasn’t at all strange to my devoutly Catholic and generally superstitious family—why shouldn’t heaven and earth somewhere converge?

Once a year, we made it a family pilgrimage to gather with hundreds of people at the Holy Spirit Center just off the Norwood lateral about twenty minutes from our house to say the Rosary from lawn chairs on a hill while waiting for Our Lady of Light to make her midnight appearance.

Skeptic’s Dictionary: Apophenia (n): the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data, the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness." May be linked to psychosis or creativity.

2005: Hundreds gather at the Fullerton Avenue underpass on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. They’ve come to see the Virgin Mary in the salt run-off. That same year, a pregnant couple sees the face of Jesus during their ultrasound at a hospital in Toledo. A concession clerk sees him in a nacho pan. He also appeared on the tinted windows at a hardware store in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, and, shortly before that, in a pecan tree to a Louisiana man who was barbecuing in his backyard.

We are programmed, Carl Sagan says, born with a propensity to identify the human face. It’s for evolution’s sake, so that we can make out faces from a distance using only minimal details. This is why we can recognize faces before putting in our contacts in the morning.

At the stroke of twelve, church bells rang, cameras flashed, we waited and waited.

But I saw nothing.

Type I Psychological error: (false positive, false alarm, caused by an excess in sensitivity): Often used as an explanation of some paranormal and religious claims, and can also be used to explain the tendency of humans to believe pseudoscience.

I saw nothing but the moon.

I saw nothing but the moon hanging heavy in the sky, so full that it made a glow behind the backs of the pine trees on the horizon.

*          *          *

Michelle Metcalf does believe in miracles, especially moonlight illuminating the trees. She lives in Cincinnati, OH and sometimes still prays Hail Marys out of habit, even though she is no longer a practicing Catholic.

The Psalms as Poetry

Heather Cadenhead unravels Psalm 77 and looks closely for the all of the great poetic bits within it.  She also examines her own personal poetry for the same "beautiful truth" she has found in the psalmists verses.

The first time I heard someone refer to the Psalms as a book of poetry, I was considerably moved.  As a creative writer living under the grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the idea of God speaking to me through a book of poems was an altogether beautiful notion.  I imagine that it's the same sort of feeling that Johan Huibers, a Dutch contractor, got when he was able to recreate Noah's ark using the exact measurements given in the Old Testament.  There is a sense of wonder in meshing God's perfect truth with the things we most love to make with our hands, whether that is something functional like an ark or aesthetic like a poem.

As of late, I've loved the poetry in Psalm 77 because it seamlessly weaves together three elements of poetry that I believe to be crucial to any completed work of verse.

• It uses metaphor skillfully: "The waters saw You, O God; / The waters saw You, they were afraid; / The depths also trembled" (Psalm 77:16, NKJV).  Water, as an inhuman thing, cannot feel the human emotion of fear; however, water is at the mercy of God's hand.  Knowledge of God's mercy over us creates a fear of the Lord, making the line "The waters saw You, they were afraid" an appropriate and beautiful metaphor.
• It uses beautiful imagery and shows a strong command of language: "Your way was in the sea, / Your path in the great waters, / And Your footsteps were not known" (Psalm 77:19, NKJV).  The sea imagery here is not only lovely, but succinct: the Psalmist's verse isn't wordy and he doesn't use unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. In fact, the only adjective in this verse is the word "great" to describe "waters."  The phrase "great waters" serves as a synonym for "sea" here. So, the adjective isn't meant to be flowery.  It's a necessary description.
• It conveys truth in a chilling way: "Your path was in the great waters, / And Your footsteps were not known" (Psalm 77:19b, NKJV).  I discussed this verse in the last point, while talking about imagery, but it also conveys a bone-rattling truth: God can perform the greatest of miracles without even being seen.  If He chooses, He may roam the sea without leaving a single footprint. It's an entirely chilling and beautiful truth conveyed skillfully in the Psalmist's verse.

As a Christian writer, my goal should be to write beautiful truth. By beautiful, I don't mean to imply that our poems should read like textual versions of Thomas Kinkade paintings.  Far from it.  I mean that we should write poems that sound good; we ought to choose strong words (not necessarily concrete words over abstract words, but concrete words to convey abstract ideas).  A well-written poem is, to me, a beautiful poem. It isn't related to the content. Psalm 77, in fact, has a few bleak moments: "Has His mercy ceased forever? / Has His promise failed forevermore?" (Psalm 77:8, NKJV).  It has moments that stop you dead in your tracks: "I remembered God, and was troubled; / I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed" (Psalm 77:3, NKJV).

By truth, I mean that our poems as Christians should convey what is true, what is real.  In Psalm 77, I find two truths: one is the truth of man's frailty ("My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; / My soul refused to be comforted" [Psalm 77:2b, NKJV]); the other is the truth of God's sovereign grace ("Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; / Who is so great a God as our God?" [Psalm 77:13, NKJV]).

***

Heather Cadenhead’s poems "Embalming" and "Bone Collection" were published in Relief Issue 3.2.  Her work has been featured in Illuminations, Arbor Vitae, The Ampersand Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and other publications.  She recently won the Editor’s Prize for an upcoming issue of New Plains Review.  Heather lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with her husband, Tyson, and their dog, Arthur.  She is the senior editor of The Basilica Review.

The Intersection of Faith and Art

Jeanne Damoff joins the blog as a guest looking into the union of Faith and Art. When Chris Fisher first suggested I write a guest post for Relief, I asked if he had a topic in mind. He said, “Anything you want, really. Some kind of faith/art angle would be good.”

(Aside: I wanted to insert an “angle” joke here--maybe something about my being too “obtuse” to understand what he wanted--but I couldn’t come up with wording I liked. Feel free to give it a shot. And remember, if you make me laugh, you’ll earn valuable points.)

As I pondered what I might write, the phrase that kept coming to mind was “the intersection of faith and art.” The more I thought about it, the more I liked the images that phrase conjured. An intersection is a place where two distinct things collide or cross and, for a defined space, become one. Where any two roads intersect, that square of pavement is as much one as it is the other. My perception of it depends entirely on the direction I’m heading.

Who Are You?

Suppose you’re creating a personal profile for some networking site, and you’re given the prompt, “I am a ___________.” Most of us could answer that question in numerous ways. Relationally, I am a wife, mom, daughter, friend, aunt, mother-in-law, etc. Vocationally, I am a writer, speaker, musician, choreographer, photographer. Philosophically, I am a Christian, a creature, an eternal soul. I’m also a cook, maid, laundress. Mentor, counselor, confidante. Fitness nut, dancing fool, laugh-aholic. You get the idea. But what if I have to prioritize? Which identity should come first? I have no problem with folks who choose the Sunday School answer. But I also have no problem believing faith can be as much a part of a person as their humanity, and as such, needs no name tag. Perhaps I’m an artist who recognizes my gifts are just that--gifts. They were given to me by One who delights in my embracing and using them, and I delight in being who I was created to be. To call myself “Artist” is to accept my Creator’s design for my life and therefore one of the highest compliments I can give Him. To insist that I always use the “Christian” qualifier--or, for that matter, that all my art deals with overtly Christian subject matter--is to greatly limit the scope of the gift.

I’m going to assume that many of this blog’s readers consider themselves both Christians and artists. I also assume you’ve most likely encountered some incarnation of the “Christian artist” or “Artist who happens to be a Christian” debate. Some folks get their bloomers in a pretty tight wad over this, but I can’t help wondering if it ultimately boils down to which road you’re driving on when the two collide. And does it even matter? Either way, the intersection makes them one.

Where do Faith and Art Intersect?

Main Street and First Avenue intersect in cities and towns all over the world. Likewise, the intersection of Faith and Art is found everywhere. And, if you’re like me, it often sneaks up on you. You may be worshiping God with no thought to your art, when a glimpse of His goodness, mercy, intimacy, or grace inspires you to create. Or you may be playing the piano, photographing nature, ballet dancing, or painting a portrait of your child, when suddenly God feels nearer to you than you ever thought possible.

Those times may take us by surprise, but they’re not particularly surprising. Wherever beauty is found, faith and art commonly intersect. But sometimes the two collide in unexpected places.

Sorrow.

Injustice.

Tragedy.

Betrayal.

Faith is stretched to its limits, and art seeks to understand.

Art depicts darkness, and faith cries out to God in response.

These intersections can be full of potholes and blockades. The way is slippery, steep, and full of shadows. When we finally come out on the other side, we’re older and wiser. Our faith purified. Our art refined.

It makes no difference if we approach the intersection on Artist Avenue or Faith Lane. Once we enter it, the two become one. And that’s where the magic happens. Whoever you are and whatever identity you claim, I hope your road leads you to that intersection again and again. I hope the same for me.

***

Jeanne Damoff is the author of Parting the Waters: A True Story: Finding Beauty in Brokenness and her work can also be found in Relief Number 2.  You can visit her website at jeannedamoff.com and her blog at jeannedamoff.wordpress.com.

Photo Haiku Wednesday 2.3.2010

It's Photo Haiku Wednesday!  The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!! The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

Photo courtesy of Michelle Pendergrass.

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday? Get ready! Starting next week, you'll be able to submit your photos to Michelle.

Directions:

1. Enjoy

2. Write a haiku inspired by what you see

3. Post the haiku in the comments for chance to enter

For extra chances to win:

4. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

5. Follow Quo Vadis on Twitter

6. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

Winner will be announce via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every single week for Twitter Super Bonus Points!

Relief News Tuesday 2.2.2010

Relief Panel at the Festival of Faith and Writing

In case you missed it in yesterday's post from Editor-in-Chief Chris Fisher, Relief will have a discussion panel at Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing in addition to our booth.  It's just another reason to make it out to Grand Rapids, MI in April.  If you still need to sign up, click here.  If you are going and would like to volunteer to help Relief with our booth, please contact chris@reliefjournal.com.  Relief also needs to raise money to purchase prints of the last two issues to sell at Calvin.  If you feel that is something you would be interested in, contact Chris.

Photo Haiku to join Facebook

Starting tomorrow, we will be posting the Photo Haiku picture on our Facebook page as well as the blog.  This means that Facebook viewers that participate are open to receive the prizes associated with the Photo Haiku.  See you tomorrow!

Getting To Calvin, And How You Can Help

Your Typical Anecdotal Opening

This past December I discovered that, as with many high-tech toys and devices, I despise GPS navigation systems.

The university was closed for winter break and I didn’t have to teach again until mid-January, so Jen and I decided to take a short anniversary trip—our thirteenth. We chose Richmond, Virginia, for the Edgar Allan Poe museum, the many antique and book shops in Carytown, and because it’s close to Jen’s parents (in other words, free babysitting for our four kids). The in-laws’ Honda is much too small to carry our abundant progeny, so it seemed only natural that we would swap vehicles for the weekend. My father-in-law, being the considerate man that he is, even programmed his GPS to direct us to our hotel. “Just follow the directions,” he said. “You can’t miss it,” he said.

But after thirteen years, I guess he doesn’t know his son-in-law as well as he thinks. Coming into the city, I followed the sweetly feminine computerized voice, at the same time keeping a careful eye on the car’s odometer.

“Turn left 3.2 miles.”

Okay.

“Turn left onto I-95 North.”

Done.

“Exit point one miles.”

No problem.

“Recalculating. Recalculating.”

Wait a second. Didn’t she say---

“Recalculating.”

One wrong turn, and we were lost in downtown Richmond. And not the “good” side of town, either.

Now I’d looked at a map before we began the trip so, after half an hour of turns and double backs, we finally stumbled on Cary Street, and I had a vague idea where we were. I turned off the GPS and headed west. Ten minutes later we arrived at our destination, exhausted and completely stressed. All because I trusted that wicked computer wench.

Just thirty seconds with a map, and none of this would have happened. Thirty seconds with a map, and we’d have already been checked into our room and opening a bottle of wine.

The Real Point

All of the above is just to point out that I'm the type of person who likes—no, needs—to plan ahead. To me, the phrase “fly by the seat of your pants” has never sounded remotely fun or adventurous but…well, quite painful. I won’t even sit down to write the first sentence of a book or a short story until I’ve worked out the ending in my head. I may not know every detail of the journey (whether literal or narrative), but I know I’m wasting my time if I don’t at least know where I’m going before I start trying to get there. So though it is not until this coming April, the staff at Relief has been for the past six months making preparations for quite a showing at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing. And these preparations are really starting to speed up.

This year we will have a booth in the exhibition hall to sell recent and back issues of the journal. With some help from Midnight Diner Editor, Michelle Pendergrass, and authors Michael Snyder and J. Mark Bertrand, we’ll also be presenting a panel discussion during the concurrent sessions. There will be lots of games and giveaways and a circus monkey performing Glenn Beck impersonations. (Okay, I lied about that last part, but if we find one, we’ll make it happen.)

What Does This Have To Do With You?

And yet, all our careful planning aside, there are three specific things we need to get to Calvin. First, as I’ve learned since taking the Editor’s chair, what Relief and probably any journal needs more than anything is people who are willing to actually do things. In this case, that would be little things like helping to man a book table, or passing out flyers, or just spreading the word about the journal. So if you’re going to the Calvin Festival and you’re interested in being a Relief volunteer, please contact me at chris@reliefjournal.com.

Second—and this one is tough for me to even bring up—the Calvin Festival is, essentially, a book fair, so Relief will obviously need books to sell. And books cost money. The last year has been hard on businesses nationwide. Much more so for non-profit Christian literary journals, many of which have folded since the last Calvin Festival in 2008. Relief is fortunate to even still be around, and more fortunate to have completely sold out of Issues 3.1 and 3.2. But that good luck leaves us now with no inventory of our most recent books, and Issue 4.1 may not be complete by April. In short, we need to print another run of 3.2 before Calvin, and we’ll have to get on that very soon. If you are interested in helping to support Relief by donating to put a few books on our table, email me at the address above for details. Your donation will go much further than you may realize, and we will welcome and appreciate any gift, no matter how small.

Third and final, I’d like to ask you to pray for the Relief staff over the next couple months. We are volunteers ourselves, most of us working full-time jobs and then some, and then putting many extra hours of our precious little free time into this journal simply because we love it and the authors we publish. Prepping for a conference like this is a big undertaking, and it only heaps more onto a very tall mountain of things to be done. So please mention us to the Father when you can.

A Tough Few Months for Populists: The Loss of Howard Zinn and Ray Browne

Stephen Swanson departs from initial post on the meaning of “union” and various queries into whether it has “a state” regardless of speeches in order to highlight the passing of some ones who have been vitally important in shaping his beliefs about voice, art, and culture: Ray Browne and Howard Zinn.

The losses of Ray Browne, who died last October, and Howard Zinn, who died on Wednesday, provide me with a chance to write something that’s been on my mind for three months. Zinn and Browne shared a view of America starting at the bottom and working up, rather than the more traditional top-down. It’s so often that we highlight the fastest, biggest, richest, most beautiful, and most powerful things as the best, but these men made their lives’ work emphasizing the popular, average, and normal, and turning those words in assets not reasons for derision.

Ray Browne, it’s Ok to Study the Popular…

Calling Browne the founder of popular culture is a misnomer. People have been interested in and examined popular things for some time, but Browne, at least in the American academic system, pushed for the acceptance and respect for popular culture in academics and criticism. For example, his book on Lincoln, Lincoln-Lore: Lincoln in the Popular Mind, argues that understanding Abraham Lincoln as a literal, real person limits the citizen’s understanding of the role that Lincoln has come to hold in American minds, words, and ideals. And that one must examine thing of Lincoln that reach beyond facts and words of him as a man. His work and the works of those who he influenced have spread to the point to almost make what was once unthinkable, almost normal, that we can and should think about our common world and the things we “like” as a part of our intellectual lives.

Howard Zinn, We Must Listen to the Popular…

I am in no way the most devoted to Zinn of my friends, in fact one of my cohort literally made the movie, and so must leave detailed discussions to them. In almost everything Zinn wrote over the past 30-plus years, he emphasizes the need for citizens of America to seek out and actively listen to the voices of the average Americans from throughout our history and through all points on the political spectrum. During the times of my post-secondary education (1997-2007), American popular culture has trended toward the assumption of a nearly blind acceptance of authority that we agree with and rejection of those with whom our beliefs conflict. This period has shown increased reliance on pundit/mediators to break down and keep the gates of our physical, intellectual and spiritual lives, and regardless of whether one agrees with Zinn’s politics, the need for a citizenry to educate themselves on the realities of our collective histories and current place presses on my mind daily as I encounter students with huge gaps in the most basic geographical, historical, and cultural knowledge necessary to make even basic political opinions.

To Me…

The underlying assumptions in Browne and Zinn’s works revolve around a respect and need to understand those that have been labeled mundane or ordinary. These days it grows harder and harder to convince my students, and even my peers, that they have something worthwhile to learn, consider, evaluate, and express, and that they should not also look to the simple or obvious sources for these knowledges but should dig deeply and sift carefully, testing themselves and their environments throughout their daily lives and into their futures.

***

Stephen Swanson teaches as an assistant professor of English at McLennan Community College. Aside from guiding students through the pitfalls of college writing and literature, he spends most of his time trying to remain  aware of popular culture, cooking, and enjoying time with his wife and son. He holds degrees in Communications (Calvin College), Film Studies (Central Michigan University), and Media and American Culture Studies (Bowling Green State University. In addition to editing a collection, Battleground States: Scholarship in Contemporary America, he has forthcoming projects on Johnny Cash and depiction of ethics in contemporary film noir.

The Old Blog Is Back and Coach Retires

The Old Blog Lives Again!

For those of you who were pining for the days of old, for the old Relief blog, I have good news: it's alive again. You can click on this picture of it to jump over there:

Sorry it took so long. I think Ian The Web Editor will be starting to move content from the old one to this site before too awful long.

Coach Retires from Relief and The Diner

So most of you already know that the Diner is good hands with the new Editor-In-Chief, Michelle Pendergrass, and I'm also retiring from Relief as well. Oh sure, I'll still be around in case something blows up, but Relief is in good hands with the crew we've built.

I'm going on to other ventures, and you can watch those ventures unfold over at CoachCulbertson.com. and TheBasisCourse.com . I'm moving into the public speaking world, and into the apologetics world, giving Christians and pre-Christians answers to their biggest questions from a more logical, philosophical, and sometimes even scientific perspective. Should be big fun.

And oh yeah, I'm still refining the Write A Book in 30 Days Video Coaching Course over at WriteABookIn30days.com.

It's been a good run, and I've learned a HUGE amount of stuff, and made connections with amazing people that I never would have been able to know otherwise. I'm deeply grateful to all of you, our staff, readers, and authors, for allowing this radically different approach to Christian publishing to exist.

Keep the dream alive, gang!

Your friendly neighborhood tech guy, Coach Culbertson

Photo Haiku Wednesday 1.27.2010

Photo Haiku Wednesday is back and there's good news! The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!! The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

Photo courtesy of Michelle Pendergrass.

Directions:

1. Enjoy

2. Write a haiku inspired by what you see

3. Post the haiku in the comments for chance to enter

For extra chances to win:

4. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

5. Follow Quo Vadis on Twitter

6. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

Winner will be announce via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every single week for Twitter Super Bonus Points!

Avatar: What's the Big Deal?

Travis Griffith finally buckles under pressure to see Avatar, and shares his reaction to the film and its implications on spirituality.

My brother called it a "life changing experience."

My mom said it was "an amazing insight into spirituality."

A friend said it was just "a remake of Dances With Wolves."

The pope called it "simplistic and sappy."

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said the film "gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature."

Then Avatar won for best drama at the Golden Globes and now is a favorite at the Oscars, so I decided I had to experience the film for myself, make up my own mind and then share my thoughts with all my Relief friends. The overall take away: What's the big deal?

James Cameron, the film's director, said,

Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other and us to the Earth. And if you have to go four and a half light years to another, made-up planet to appreciate the miracle of the world that we have right here, well, you know what, that's the wonder of cinema right there, that's the magic.

Of course, that's why the Vatican says the film supports a worship of nature and neo-paganism (which obviously is bad for business).

Here's the deal: Avatar does indeed support a worship of nature. It also supports a love for one another and the importance of not judging other people, regardless of race or beliefs. In the movie, the Na'vi people have developed a vibrant, complex, and sophisticated culture based on a profound spiritual connection to their planet, one another and the encompassing spirit they call Eywa. The operative concept for the Na'vi is balance. Their lives express this balance in body, mind and spirit.

A review at movieguide.org said,

In reality, you are connected to the earth by gravity, not by spirit. The Bible tells us the earth will be burned up and there will be a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness reigns. We are stewards of the earth and its creatures, not brothers. We are accountable to God for what we do with the resources He's given us.

The spirit world is not something in need of balance. It is a war zone where evil spirits want to drag you into lust, greed, anger, and depression while the Spirit of God seeks to rescue you from darkness.

So the hard-line Christians blast the spirit world with their "reality" of fire, fear and brimstone while lauding heaven as God's Kingdom. Pagans reject heaven and revel in the universal energy of the spirit world. Who is right?

What if the Christian heaven and the pagan spirit world turned out to be the same place behind the veil, just with different marketing here on Earth?

Yet, the Vatican tries to protect its stake in religion while belittling messages like the one in Avatar. It would have been great to see the Vatican lead a discussion towards a more loving and accepting version of spirituality instead of calling the film's relevant message "simplistic." Some might even call the type of spirituality portrayed in Avatar as more advanced when compared to the archaic beliefs and practices of Catholicism.

In the end, all Avatar asks us to do is love each other and our planet so humanity can evolve into a place of unconditional bliss. That, after all, is the same ultimate goal many of the world's religions have, they just all seem to call it something different. Catholics call it the Kingdom of God. Buddhists call it Nirvana. Avatar called it Pandora. Same damn thing, just with different paths that lead there, all as valid as the other.

As long as beliefs are based on love, who's to say who gets to claim the correct one? I say choose what feels right to you, without fear of being judged for your beliefs by someone else.

If you've seen the movie and want to share your thoughts, or care to challenge anything I've said here, I'd love to have a discussion with you.

Love... to all.

***

Travis Griffith, who left behind the corporate marketing world, choosing family and writing in lieu of “a comfortable life” financially, is a former atheist trying to define what leading a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. captures only a fraction of his passion for fatherhood.

Relief News Tuesday 1.26.2010

Blog going double time in February

Starting next week, the Relief blog will be attempting to update two new posts every weekday.  One will go up around midday and the other will go up in the evening.  These new posts will feature the blogger columnists you've come to know and love--like Deanna Hershiser and Stephen Swanson--as well as guest bloggers--like Heather Cadenhead and Michael Snyder.  So be ready for double the material with the same insight and quality that you've come to expect from Relief.

Special Message

Coach "Coach" Culbertson will be putting an update on the site very soon.  It's got a couple surprises in it, so be sure to check back to see what Coach has been up to!

On Writing Groups and Muddling Through

Last summer, my husband’s friend posted on Facebook: “Are there any serious writers in Seattle who are interested in a writers group?”  My husband replied that I was, and then he asked me what I thought.

He was right.  I was interested.  I was still working a couple of part-time jobs, and I was considering pursuing my M.F.A.  The thing about these writing programs though is that they require a writing portfolio and I hadn’t done any significant poetry writing since 2007.  Writing is a lot like exercise: once you stop, it’s really hard to get started again, and it’s easier to do if you have a buddy.

Writing Groups of All Shapes and Sizes

As a writing major and an English teacher, I have a long history with writing groups.  I learned how to give and receive critique from my high school English teachers who both modeled effective critique and created workshop space for us to interact with each other’s work.  It wasn’t until I began teaching that I realized how rare those creative writing classes are in high school, and I have yet to work at a school that offers that same opportunity.  By the time I graduated from college, I had come to depend on feedback from my community on my writing, and I found it harder and harder to come by.  My teacher friends didn’t often offer the same depth of critique—perhaps because it was simply relief to be reading something beyond the average eighth grade poem—so when I came upon my first writing group in Portland, I felt relieved to know that my writing was once again in good hands, with people that would neither praise it excessively or tear it down needlessly.  I found this particular group through my church: it was small, met biweekly, and while we each had different poetic styles, we were able to provide solid feedback to each other.  Either that, or we just said, “Dude, I’m not sure what to tell you.  This is beyond me.”  Being in a small group gave us space to focus ample time to each piece on those rainy winter evenings.

That group broke up about six months after I joined it as people moved and life happened.  About a year later, I was asked to become part of the leadership team for a larger writing group, and I found that to be much less effective.  We only met monthly, so I frequently found myself either throwing something together before rushing out the door (a great leadership model to be sure) or not bringing anything because I knew there was no way we would get to everyone.  While I received some good feedback on the few pieces I did bring, I was exhausted, leading in too many areas of my life that year.  I was not sad to step down.

Despite the overwhelming sense of relief after leaving the leadership team, I effectively stopped writing poetry a few months afterwards.  It seems I am not as self-motivated as I would like to think I am.  So when this opportunity opened to join a new group in Seattle, I jumped on it despite knowing no one in the group.  I have found it’s often best if the people in the group form their relationships around the writing; it’s easier to stay on topic that way, and it’s easier to be honest—both in your writing and in your feedback.

Since those initial summer conversations, we have met a handful of times.  We are still figuring out our rhythm: how often to meet, how to prevent procrastination, what size is best.  Perhaps most significantly, we are working through how to give feedback on significantly different kinds of writing.  Out of the four women, each of us is working within a different genre, and I find myself a little disoriented jumping from one genre to the next, in and out of my expertise.   Yet there comes a point when good writing is good writing, and it’s something you recognize in prose or poetry.

Muddling Through (Or Um, What Now?)

However, it is hard to be an active member of a writing group when I am not producing much new poetry.  I’m out of practice; I’m not seeing or hearing things like I used to.  Last week, I had about two hours to write a poem for the upcoming meeting.  Nothing happened.  I read some poetry.  Nothing.  I found some of my old work.  Nothing.  I finally decided to take the old work to the new group since they hadn’t read it before in hopes that it would spark new ideas and ultimately new poems.  So far, nothing.  The issue is not so much getting back into writing.  Those of you who read my personal blog know that I participated in National Blog Posting Month in November where the challenge was to post every day for thirty days.  This commitment catapulted me back into writing regularly; it’s the best thing I’ve done for myself in some time, but the poetry remains stagnant.

Right now, I am waiting.  While I am still planning on pursuing my M.F.A. after my husband completes his graduate program, I am not sure where I’m at as a writer right now.  And I believe that’s okay.  There’s something to be said for the discipline of writing, for surrounding yourself with good art and thoughtful people, for giving yourself deadlines so you actually produce work instead of just telling strangers over appetizers and small talk that you’re a writer.  Yet it’s not instant, there’s no formula, and you must learn to listen well—even when the silence uncovers more questions (like which genre to pursue and when).  In the end, the process will yield the art, and right now I am trusting the journey.

***

Kristin Mulhern Noblin is a veteran English teacher who enjoys good coffee, watching football, and using her red KitchenAid mixer.  She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and looks forward to the day they will have a dog.  When not wrangling middle school students, she is busy standing for truth, beauty, freedom, and love.

World Peace: All Figured Out

Travis Griffith has a surprisingly simple plan for World Peace. Would it work?

Guess what I did this weekend?

Well, aside from watching my Cardinals get spanked by the Saints in the NFL Playoffs, I figured out the way to world peace.

Yeah, I know. And it wasn’t even that hard.

First, I was thinking about the reasons why humans on Earth fight with each other. The biggest reason, though certainly not the only one, is this: faith. Why? Because when humans have faith in a god alone, it makes them crazy. It makes them believe their way is the only right way, and others should believe it too.

Here’s a simple example that boils down the history of faith-based fighting into a brief exchange between characters. Imagine these people sitting in a beautiful café at sunrise, enjoying a latte and talking about faith:

The Christian: Jesus is the Lord and the only true path to God’s Kingdom. The Jew: I don’t believe in Jesus. The Christian: You are going to Hell unless you accept Jesus into your heart. The Jew: That’s why we don’t like you very much. The Muslim: Just don’t come to our land and say Jesus is Lord. Allah is the one and only God. And we’ll fight to defend Him. The Christian: Christ is the world’s only savior and those who don’t believe will burn in Hell. Elsie (the pagan): Enough with Hell. Just love and worship the planet, and the people and nature around you. The Christian, The Jew and the Muslim: You’re crazy. That’s worshipping a false deity. The Muslim: You’re no better, Jew.

Pretty soon, the peaceful little café erupts in a firestorm of punches, hate, judgment and lots of spilled coffee.

Isn’t faith crazy?

Now, what if each of these people had faith in their gods, but also in each other? Maybe the conversation would go like this:

The Christian: I’m curious about what you guys believe. The Jew: We basically believe what you do, but without the whole Jesus as savior thing. The Christian: Fascinating. Tell me more. The Muslim: We believe in a peaceful planet, ruled by one God, who we submit ourselves to. The Christian: Sounds lovely. Elsie (the pagan): We worship our Earth and respect our gods and goddesses while exploring spirituality. The Christian, the Muslim and the Jew: Still crazy, but hey, that’s cool. The Christian: I’ll tell you what, I’ll pick up the bill this time. Nice chatting, friends.

Now the café is a place of love and acceptance. Everyone’s beliefs are still intact and each person had the opportunity to gain some knowledge. Would it really be that hard to expand this little café scene to the entire world?

Granted, on the world scene we’re dealing with spilled blood instead of coffee, but the solution is the same. Love each other. Keep faith in whatever gods we choose, but while working to restore faith in the humanity that surrounds us.

Why is it so hard for humans to accept people with different beliefs? Could love and acceptance truly be the keys to world peace? I have faith that they are. What do you think?

Love... to all.

***

Travis Griffith, who left behind the corporate marketing world, choosing family and writing in lieu of “a comfortable life” financially, is a former atheist trying to define what leading a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. captures only a fraction of his passion for fatherhood.

Photo Haiku Wednesday

Photo Haiku Wednesday is back and there's good news! The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!! The  weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

Photo courtesy of Michelle Pendergrass.

Directions:

1. Enjoy

2. Write a haiku inspired by what you see

3. Post the haiku in the comments for chance to enter

For extra chances to win:

4. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

5. Follow Quo Vadis on Twitter

6. Twitter @reliefjournal with your  haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

Winner will be announce via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every single week for Twitter Super Bonus Points!

Relief News Tuesday 1.19.2010

Photo Haiku is Coming Back!

Starting tomorrow, Relief will resuming Photo Haiku Wednesday.  Not only will it be back in all of its glory, but Michelle Pendergrass has seen to it that we will have prizes!

Thanks to Michelle and the great people over at Quo Vadis we will have a Quo Vadis notebook (that's a picture of it on the right) and a bottle of J. Herbin ink.  Michelle wrote a great review of Quo Vadis products, and you can read it here.  After that, make sure you check out their website (http://quovadisplanners.com/) to see all of the cool stuff that they make--some of it is really awesome!  After that, make sure you follow them on Twitter (http://twitter.com/QuoVadisBlog).

Don't forget about Calvin!

Relief is going to be well represented at Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing April 15-17.  We're working on something special for the festival, and we would love to see you there, so make sure you get your tickets from their website (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engl/festival/).