I Get to Imagine
The validation Bart Millard could get from his father and from the high school scene had eluded him because of damaged knees. Struck a blow by life, Bart in the movie I Can Only Imagine sounded the note he was forged to sound. Even in the extracurricular backup to which he had been relegated, he sang as he served in the sound booth of the school's musical production. The fact that the notes he sounded would strike the ears of a music teacher and launch a new dream was secondary. He sang for the same reason that he will later say he writes. It feels really good.
So it does. So, in a wheelchair, as Bart was with his football injury and with future in flux, I'm singing more often than sulking. My song wafts in cyberspace rather than acoustics. I'm enjoying writing for writing's sake. Words, contemplated and written, are my connection with my Creator. They are my sentries posted against the encroachments of my enemy, and yours, and His. Bitterness be gone. Loneliness lapse in every affirmation of His Presence. Anxiety atomizes in response to every wordsmith's stubborn affirmation of oneness, and unity, and purpose. In the beginning was Christ the Word, and words contemplated, relished, treasured, chosen, offered our confirmation that His Person and purposes are bigger than present circumstantial obscurity.
I'm keeping vivid, and authoritative words like anathema, crescendo, excoriate malfeasance, and tableau, all gleaned from 17 habitual minutes with the daily New York Times audio digest at the ready for an even higher duty than the nation's most respected newspaper offers. These are Christ's words employed by His invigorated, even enraptured, saints through the centuries, and they are still effervescent in His service. He is the Lion, and His eager scribes sometimes get to give the written roar.
Bart and I both enjoy expression for expression's sake. My particular format concurs with Phil Cooke's grateful admission that his blog has saved him thousands in therapy. I'm excited even so that greater good may come from Coming Up For Air. In the movie, Bart chafed at potential mentors who told him he was now ready for bigger opportunities. Middle-aged sages like me must save the energy wasted on defensive protests and use it to actively seek correction and confirmation both. God's goodness was to knit my neurons together in ways that soak in language and dispense it to those who were thirsty, or might, after being doused, confess to a little retrospective thirst. I'm writing more often to place dots where the Spirit impresses in daily experience, and I need your help to connect those dots. The equivalent of Bart's coaching that led to the maturing of his gifts may come from you.
I need your help as the those who wade through my words much as I now listen to MercyMe's, a little more interested because I know the story behind them. G.K.Chesterton said in Orthodoxy that it would be an amazingly daunting task to paint the world blue, but that the task would be ever so much more daunting if the painter kept switching colors. As you are gracious to read and perhaps to connect the dots of my dabbing, you may hear a theme behind the daily variations. You may discover my blue before I do, and I would be pleased to hear from you. Where, in keeping with the coaching a manager gave Bart, does my passion come through, and where does it hide to the reader's exasperation or indifference?
So it does. So, in a wheelchair, as Bart was with his football injury and with future in flux, I'm singing more often than sulking. My song wafts in cyberspace rather than acoustics. I'm enjoying writing for writing's sake. Words, contemplated and written, are my connection with my Creator. They are my sentries posted against the encroachments of my enemy, and yours, and His. Bitterness be gone. Loneliness lapse in every affirmation of His Presence. Anxiety atomizes in response to every wordsmith's stubborn affirmation of oneness, and unity, and purpose. In the beginning was Christ the Word, and words contemplated, relished, treasured, chosen, offered our confirmation that His Person and purposes are bigger than present circumstantial obscurity.
I'm keeping vivid, and authoritative words like anathema, crescendo, excoriate malfeasance, and tableau, all gleaned from 17 habitual minutes with the daily New York Times audio digest at the ready for an even higher duty than the nation's most respected newspaper offers. These are Christ's words employed by His invigorated, even enraptured, saints through the centuries, and they are still effervescent in His service. He is the Lion, and His eager scribes sometimes get to give the written roar.
Bart and I both enjoy expression for expression's sake. My particular format concurs with Phil Cooke's grateful admission that his blog has saved him thousands in therapy. I'm excited even so that greater good may come from Coming Up For Air. In the movie, Bart chafed at potential mentors who told him he was now ready for bigger opportunities. Middle-aged sages like me must save the energy wasted on defensive protests and use it to actively seek correction and confirmation both. God's goodness was to knit my neurons together in ways that soak in language and dispense it to those who were thirsty, or might, after being doused, confess to a little retrospective thirst. I'm writing more often to place dots where the Spirit impresses in daily experience, and I need your help to connect those dots. The equivalent of Bart's coaching that led to the maturing of his gifts may come from you.
I need your help as the those who wade through my words much as I now listen to MercyMe's, a little more interested because I know the story behind them. G.K.Chesterton said in Orthodoxy that it would be an amazingly daunting task to paint the world blue, but that the task would be ever so much more daunting if the painter kept switching colors. As you are gracious to read and perhaps to connect the dots of my dabbing, you may hear a theme behind the daily variations. You may discover my blue before I do, and I would be pleased to hear from you. Where, in keeping with the coaching a manager gave Bart, does my passion come through, and where does it hide to the reader's exasperation or indifference?
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