Posts Tagged ‘Science’
Episode 65 | ‘Science Mike’ McHargue on Finding God In The Waves.
‘Science Mike’ McHargue is back on James Talks this week, to discuss his new book, ‘Finding God In The Waves’ & answer some searching questions about science, and how it connects with our spirituality. Mike talks about how he lived anonymously as an atheist for two years, being in leadership in his local church & even…
Read MoreEpisode 41 | ‘Science’ Mike McHargue on Becoming An Atheist & Rediscovering Jesus Through Science
Mike McHargue, from the ‘Science Mike’ & ‘Liturgists’ podcasts, joins me today and shares his powerful and deeply moving testimony, of how he lost his faith, became an atheist, and then rediscovered the way of Jesus in a whole new way – grounded in reason, science, logic…and wonder. We also talk about the fascinating interconnections…
Read MoreFerris Bueller, FOMO & The Truth Of Breathing
A fortnight back I attended a 2 day teaching with Rob Bell on all sorts of subjects. I’ll be blogging about it in more detail soon.
One of the issues he raised was a topic Brenda McGraw touched on last week – burnout, rest. And today I want to talk about another aspect of this – taking care of ourselves.
So naturally, there’s only one person I thought to turn to first.
I’m talking of course, about Ferris Bueller. He once said this:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”
A well known quote. And as we’ll see, Ferris nails it completely
Read MoreWhat ‘Interstellar’ Taught Me About Writing
Last weekend I watched Christopher Nolan’s new film, ‘Interstellar’. It’s a film set in the near future about a group of people who have to travel into deep space, to save humanity. It has some of the best cinematography I’ve ever seen, and a powerful, emotive narrative. It’s epic in every sense of the word.
‘Interstellar’ is a demonstration of a master at work. It’s Christopher Nolan at the absolute peak of his powers as a filmmaker. Someone with total mastery of their craft, in every possible sense. The storytelling, cinematography, soundtrack, editing, and epic size of the movie are perfectly seamless.
‘Interstellar’ is a cinematic masterpiece.
And when I watched it, and reflected on it afterward, one of the things which stuck with me purely from an artistic perspective was simply this:
My main goal in writing is to leave a positive impact on the world. To serve others. But outside of this, my biggest hope is that I can master the art of writing and storytelling, in the way Chris Nolan has mastered the art filmmaking. To have the command over words and stories which Nolan currently holds over the art of filmmaking.
It may be my biggest test as a writer.
The film also convinced me of one other, crucial fact. That to become a master writer, I must become a master storyteller.
Read More10 Life ‘Messes’ With Potential To Improve Your Life – Part 2 (Guest Post)
Today I’m delighted to welcome back Erin Brown Conroy back to the blog, in the second of her three-part series on finding purpose in the midst of our mess. Over to you Erin:
Last blog post, we talked about how writers use messes to create a good story. Messes can serve a purpose, making the Hero of a story learn, grow, and become story-worthy. The Hero’s messes can serve him well.
Our messes can serve us well, too.
Read MoreHow Not Writing Saved My Writing (& Changed My Life)
For the longest time, my identity in life was a writer. My value, worth and security was all tied up with how I did as a writer. Success in writing made me feel more valuable, and failure made me feel I’d failed as a person. Everything I was had been tied into how I performed, how much I achieved, how good I was.
Many people say writing every day is vital, and it improves you. So, as you do if you want to improve, I began writing every day.
It did improve me. But it allowed fear a route in. I become afraid to stop writing – because I thought if I stopped, I would fall behind my peers, and I wouldn’t get where I wanted to.
So I never stopped. I poured out energy every day writing. I burned myself out, and the quality of the work decreased as a result. And at the end of the day I felt a failure because it doesn’t do as well as I’d hoped, and it wasn’t my best work. I felt guilty going even one day without writing. My life had become controlled by writing.
That’s how easy and subtly these habits, roles or statuses can begin to control us.
And it comes from grounding our identity in the what we do, rather than who we are.
Which is why we need to reclaim the principle of sabbath.
Read MoreKnight Rider, Apple Watch & The Tower of Babel
In the 1980’s there was a show called Knight Rider. It was incredibly cool. And the big star of this show – and due respect to David Hasslehoff here – was the car, KITT. A self-aware supercomputer in a groovy black trans-am. And a watch which the car’s owner, Michael Knight, could talk to the car on.
Last week Apple announced the launch of the Apple Watch. A watch we will be able to talk to and command, but which will also receive and send text messages, and connect online. Technology is advancing at a rapid rate.
It’s amazing to think the first space aircraft which went to the moon were powered by as little electricity as it takes to run a kettle. The average iPhone is a million times faster than the first home computer.
Social media is already making the world a far smaller, and quicker place, changing the way we live. The next big advancement is likely to be the pursuit of artificial intelligence and research into how transfer human consciousness onto a supercomputer. A technology which may be as little as 20 years away.
But many say technology is destroying us. They say we need to stop the advancement of technology, scale back, and go back to how things ‘used to be’. According to them technology is the cause of many of the problems in our world, and ultimately damages us. They say we need to limit and control it, stop advancing.
However, this is to fundamentally misunderstand both technology and humanity.
To understand this issue further, we need to go back in time.
To the brick, and the tower of Babel.
Read MoreWhy I Want To Be Rubbish At Impersonations
I didn’t have anything to write when I sat down to write the first draft of what became this post. I was sitting thinking of what I was going to get down on my word processor, and I almost began two or three times. But what kept coming up was the same old piece in a different format.
It happens so often now it’s almost not funny.
I don’t want to go round in circles in my development as a writer and growth as a person, that I keep coming back to the same ideas every few years, or even every few months. I recognise, as C. S. Lewis once said, ‘there’s no new ideas in literature”.
But at the same time there’s always a fresh way of communicating something which isn’t repeating yourself.
Isn’t there?
Read MoreWhat Doctor Who & Sherlock Taught Me About Faith (#MythOfNormal)
Time to fess up. I’m a huge fan of the TV shows Sherlock and Doctor Who. I saw the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who in 3D at the cinema. Hands down, best two programmes on TV right now. And I’ll argue anyone on that one. Outside the sheer quality of the programmes themselves, one thing…
Read MoreThe Nobel Prize Winning Dunce (or Why Failure is Never Final)
(Picture: Hans Gertwitz via Creative Commons) “One of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential” – David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear Recently I reached the point of burn out. Saying yes to too many opportunities. Taking on too much.…
Read More