N.D. Wilson on "Lighten Up, Christians, God Loves a Good Time"

Nate Wilson continues to write books and articles that are thought-provoking, imaginative, well-stated, and enjoyable to read. His recent article in Christianity Today, Lighten Up, Christians: God Loves a Good Time, is no exception.

Here's an excerpt:

A dolphin flipping through the sun beyond the surf, a falcon in a dive, a mutt in the back of a truck, flying his tongue like a flag of joy, all reflect the Maker more wholly than many of our endorsed thinkers, theologians, and churchgoers.

[...]

We say that we would like to be more like God. So be more thrilled with moonlight. And babies. And what makes them. And holding on to one lover until you've both been aged to wine, ready to pour. Holiness is nothing like a building code. Holiness is 80-year-old hands crafting an apple pie for others, again. It is aspen trees in a backlit breeze. It is fire on the mountain.

Speak your joy. Mean it. Sing it. Do it. Push it down into your bones. Let it overflow your banks and flood the lives of others.

At his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. When we are truly like him, the same will be said of us.

Read the entire article here.

When Prose Is Poetic

Some writers just have a way with words, and N.D. Wilson seems to be one of those writers.  Even his prose is often poetic.  This was certainly the case in his 2009 book, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, and it comes out again in his most recent book, Death by Living.  To give you an example, I've taken the liberty of arranging a few paragraphs of prose from Death by Living into poetic form below so you can see what I mean.

If life is a story,
how shall we then live?
It isn't complicated
(just hard).
Take up your life
and follow Him.
Face trouble.
Pursue it.
Climb it.
Smile at its roar
like a tree planted
by cool water
even when your branches groan,
when your golden leaves are stripped
and the frost bites deep,
even when your grip
on this earth is torn loose
and you fall among mourning saplings.

Or consider the following:

This world is all incarnation.
Words made flesh.
Words.
God has seen and God has said.
His imagination is bone-shaking
and soul-shivering,
and He has never groped
for words to capture
(and be) those things.
He imagined galaxies and clogged drains
and sharks and harmonies
and emotions and running
and villains and foes and fungus
and that heavy marriage of airs
that we call water
that can skip rocks
and light and wind,
that can quench and freeze and baptize.
He imagined and felt
the ache of a mother's love
and the mortal yearning
caused by the thrust of time
and the speed of the falcon
and the fear of a hare
and minor chords
and the smell of carpet glue.
And none of these things
were any good as ideas.
They became words.
Sounds mouthed by the Infinite.
Rhythms, verbally enfleshed
and shaped by the divine.
They were spoken.