Something Johnny Said.

I have to share just one of my favorite insights that Johnny wrote in his autobiography.  It reveals such a sweet simplicity in an otherwise complex human existence.  I love this.

“…I don’t believe there are any people on earth who, properly sheltered, don’t feel the peace inside a summer rain and the cleansing it brings, the renewal of the earth in its aftermath.

 For me such moments are open invitations to closeness with God.  Nature at work isn’t itself God, but it is evidence of Him, and by letting myself be drawn into its depths and intrigues, I can come near to Him: see the glory of His creation, feel the salve of His grace.”

 

Cash.

I actually finished a book this evening.  A painstaking monthlong journey through the autobiography of Johnny Cash.

I’m not a country music fan, but the richness of the culture behind it, the struggles of the sharecropper in rural Arkansas during and immediately after the depression, have brought me a new appreciation of it. 

More than that, I have a whole new understanding of the man behind the movement.  I not only feel like I know him, but I feel like we’ve been sitting on the porch evening after evening, deep in conversation.  It really was an amazing experience. 

As I continue to reflect on what I have read, what I have “experienced” in Johnny’s own words, it strikes me that Mr. Cash was the quintessential human being.  The embodiment of that daily struggle between good and evil that is the definition of being human.   I have never identified so closely with a person whose life was so fundamentally different from mine.  He was a man at war with himself, as we all are on a daily basis.  And he came out the other end with a grace we should all hope to achieve.  He could have been another Peter, or King David.  Heck, we all could.

I won’t call him my hero, because he would refuse to accept it.  But there is little I wouldn’t give just for one of those porch conversations.  It may sound strange, but I really miss him.

 

sir francis said it best.

“Knowledge is power.”  Sir Francis Bacon, late 16th century.

 I posted this quotation on the wall of the my media center, along with James A. Garfields “Ideas control the world.”  This is why I became a teacher.

If I have learned anything over the past decade, it is that information changes the world.  The more you know, the more you change.  The more you change, the more others change.  Exponential change, person-by-person.  Society by society. 

Add to that that information has never been more accessible to the person on the street.  Technologies and media have enabled us to become the most informed society in the history of the world, and any person can find any information within a matter of seconds.  It’s not just for scientists and scholars anymore–now a grocery-store cashier can go home to find the latest information on climate change, genocide in Africa, or the plight of emperor penguins in Antarctica.  You cannot be exposed to the wonders, miracles, and tragedies of this world without being changed in some way.  Then what do you do?  You share it with others.  Send an email, put it on your blog, make posters, or hold a rally.

So I have created a new page here, websites of mass instruction, on which I have posted several websites I visit often in order to stay informed.  Take a look if you want.  Or don’t.  It’s up to you.  That’s the thing about education; no matter how easy it is, it still requires action to seek it out.

 

naked. (same day, different post)

Speaking of Ted Dekker, I spent some time on his website earlier today, which I subsequently added to my blogroll. He’s got some interesting insights and observations about present-day Christian culture (a term with which he takes issue, interestingly enough, insofar as “Christian” is used as a label to differentiate certain aspects of our lives from the “secular”), as well as a follower of Christ’s role in it.

For a taste, check out his blog entry “Get Naked and Save the World.” This guy reads my mind.

 

my own private fight-club.

I love to read. But as books go, I’m a bit random. I tend not to have much patience for books that don’t punch me in the face, and out of the 13 books I’ve started this summer (NOT an exaggeration), I’ll probably only finish one. That tends to be my literary “books begun: books finished” ratio. In fact, I could probably count the number of face-punchers I’ve read in my life on one hand.

Fatherland by Robert Harris (multiple bloody noses from this one… gets better each time I read it)
Waking the Dead by John Eldredge (perhaps the only non-fiction book I’ve finished of my own volition in my life. I love non-fiction, but after 3 days of one topic, I’m interested in something else… there is just TOO much to learn out there!)
Black/Red/White trilogy by Ted Dekker
Bride of Sforza by Miranda Seymour (which launched me into an historical fiction frenzy in college that continues 10 years later)
Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

So there’s my one hand.

Here’s the thing though–finding these books is a random, frustrating process for me. In the case of John, Ted, Miranda, and Robert, I made it through a few of their other books, and found some enjoyable, others not so much. No more socks in the gut though. Sarah wound up being a dead end–Venus was an aberration in a series of frothy, poppy mysteries (BIG disappointment).

Okay, a 6th finger–
The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle. Again, I enjoyed a few of L’Engle’s other books, but walked away rather untouched.

So I’ve come to view it as an act of God (literally, not in the homeowner’s insurance sense of the word) when I come across something that I am compelled to read in every waking moment, when I can’t wait to get home so I can curl up in bed and dive back in. I guess it’s a good thing, though–without the droughts, I’d probably never leave the house.