God Needs Your Art.

March 28, 2013March 30, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 9 Comments

Slipping off to adult summer camp for a week is one huge benefit of being a Christian. I came home yesterday from the Mt. Hermon Christian Writers Conference, brimming with the joy of the Lord and holding the business cards of three agents and four publishers who asked to see my book.

I had a large time.

Mt. Hermon is a 107 year-old Christian conference center, nestled among the Redwood trees, high in California’s Santa Cruz mountains. It’s a place bent on reminding weary adults how alive and organic Jesus was when we were kids. Just breathing under those giant centurions robed in red bark is a relief I didn’t know I needed, like stepping off a crowded street into a store playing Bach.

At Mt. Hermon, Jesus is taken seriously in the best way possible.

In between pitching our stories to agents and editors, we gathered to sing and pray, remembering that while we are all building writing careers, Jesus is the foundation.

At Mt Hermon it doesn’t sound weird when strangers stop you and say: “You know you’re glowing right? The spirit of the Lord is all over you.”

Nor is it strange when someone promises to pray for you, but then rethinks it, sets down her coffee and does it on the spot, praying a rangy, open-sky prayer that echoes something you were thinking five minutes before.

At Mt. Hermon creativity is treated like the gift it is. At each gathering, the person known to be the funniest delivers announcements while some marketing-department creative explodes with a little audience-participation stage art.

I’ve wandered through a lot of wilderness since I decided to follow Jesus, but at Mount Hermon, I finally found the meadow I was looking for. I was perfectly myself there and perfectly peaceful at the same time. This is no small thing.

The good news is: God is no respecter of persons, so you can do it too.

All the creative energy relegated to your daydreams is there for a reason. Use it. Or as key-note speaker McNair Wilson said:

“What if you really are as magnificent as God made you to be? If you don’t do you, you doesn’t get done and God’s creation is incomplete.”

Jesus is the foundation for everything I want to build, but that wasn’t always the case. I built many high-maintenance structures without him, but they were shifty and eventually crumbled. What I’m doing now satisfies me in ways I can’t explain without crediting Jesus. He is the reason I write.

So, what are you born to do? What daydreams are trapped by your cubicle? Need some practical tools for freeing them? Mt. Hermon gave me a bunch, I’ll share next week.

Some Thoughts on Love

March 20, 2013April 22, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 2 Comments

At the Angelus Temple last fall, Pastor Matthew made a remark that lodged in my brain.

“Turn off your tv, it’s prophesying doom over your life,” he said.

It’s true. Facebook does it too and here’s how you can tell: As you watch or read news feeds, consider the imaginary arguments you’re having with someone over something they said. Feel the churning in your gut, the shaking of your head and the pejoratives you attach to that person. Doom!

Here’s how it’s supposed to be:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

That’s why I pray and read The Bible every day now. It is one thing to dump the cold, nasty stuff out of yesterday’s cup, it’s another to scrub it clean and refill it with fresh Dunkin’ Donuts dark roast with vanilla cream and sugar. Thank God Lent is nearly over.

(Photo credit: possumgirl2)

Often, goosebumps rise on my arms as I praise God for the sunrise and pray for people I love. Joy swells in my chest and blows away negative thought loops, sending me on a different heading. This is the present-tense value of following Jesus Christ – you learn to quit seeing things like the world does and begin seeing them like God does. Go ahead and try it, your life and circumstances can’t resist.

“Well, what about all the __________ I am doing? What about all the _______I have done? What about the scriptures on __________I disagree with? What about all the __________Christians on tv?”

For a moment, please set it aside and listen to the gospel: God is holy and we’re not, so we’re separate. Jesus was tortured and died to bridge that separation. It’s a gift.

So it doesn’t really matter what you are doing right now or what you think, if you bring it to Jesus and hand it over, he will teach what love really is and then drown you in it. Out of that love you become a new creature, utilizing the purest, most creative parts of yourself – often in service of other people.

I’m hardly breaking theological ground here, people have been saying this for centuries. But when you strip away the acrimony that’s built up around the gospel, and try it for yourself, it proves to be awfully good news.

How?

As the sun comes up, grab a cup of coffee and read the Gospel of John. It was written by a man who understood, perhaps better than the rest, how much Jesus loved him.

Then let Jesus love you like that.

Fix Your Day in Six Minutes.

March 18, 2013March 18, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 2 Comments

My sweet, soulful, mountain friend Sudeep sent me this video today. She’s so good about reminding me of things.

I hope this stunning HD video startles you, like it did me, out of whatever minutiae might be blinding you to the miracles all around you. Watch it in full screen and let it change your chi.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20