My First Memory (of Librarians)

My First Memory (of Librarians)

By Nikki Giovanni

This is my first memory:
A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky
       wood floor
A line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the center
Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply
       too short
              For me to sit in and read
So my first book was always big

In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided
To the left side the card catalogue
On the right newspapers draped over what looked like
       a quilt rack
Magazines face out from the wall

The welcoming smile of my librarian
The anticipation in my heart
All those books—another world—just waiting
At my fingertips.

In the Library

In the Library

By William Stafford

You are reading a book, and think you know

the end, but others can’t wait—they crowd

on the shelves, breathing. You stop and look around.

It is the best time: evening is coming,

a bronze haze has captured the sun,

lights down the street come on.

You turn a page carefully. Over your shoulder

another day has watched what you do

and written it down in that book

you can’t read till all the pages are done.

This made me think about pentecost in an entirely new way

"Babel was about everyone speaking one official imperial language. Pentecost is about the borderless God who speaks in every language."

— Brian Zahnd (@BrianZahnd) May 22, 2013

Something that made me think

“God is not a belief-system.
Jesus is not a religion.
Christianity is not a check-list.
Church is not an address.
The Bible is not a book of doctrines.
Community is not a meeting.
Grace has no exceptions.
Ministry is not a program.
Art is not carnal.
Women are not inferior.
Our humanity is not the enemy.
Sinner is not our identity.
Love is not a theory.
Peace is not a circumstance.
Science is not secular.
Sex is not filthy.
Life is not a warm-up for Heaven
The world is not without hope.
There is no “us” and “them.”
Tattoos are not evil.
Loving the earth is not satanic.
Seeing the divine in all things is not heretical.
Self-actualization is not self-worship.
Feelings are not dangerous and unreliable.
The mind is not infallible.”

Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge

Blue Like Jazz

It's been a long time since I've read the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.  I don't remember much about it, other than that I liked his other book Through Painted Deserts more than I liked Blue Like Jazz.

This weekend, I was looking through the new releases on Netflix looking for something to watch when I ran across the movie Blue Like Jazz.  I'm not really sure what I think about it.  I don't know if I would have kept watching if I hadn't known that the author helped make the movie.  The movie didn't follow the book, but was written as a type of interpretation of the book because people didn't think that the book would make an interesting enough movie.  I know that they wanted to make a movie that was not the typical Christian movie, but it felt like they were trying too hard to go the other way.

I read an article about the movie that seemed to explain my feelings about the movie pretty well when it said,

But more importantly, in a movie that's supposed to depict an authentic walk of faith, it just doesn't feel real. From what I've witnessed—in the Bible, in my own life, and in the lives of those around me—an encounter with God elicits a desire to share the good news, not to say sorry for it. This is something Miller himself seems to understand, or at least he did, at one point. Blue Like Jazz the book does not end with an apology. It ends with an exhortation. "I want you to know Jesus too," Miller writes. That's what knowing Jesus does—it makes you want other people to know him, as well. It's a truth as old as the Bible itself, but it's entirely absent from Blue Like Jazz the movie. Instead of "I want you to know Jesus," we hear, "I want you to apologize for Jesus." It's a message that Hollywood itself could have delivered.

Every once in a while, I felt like the tone of the book came through, but not very often.  And, honestly, I'd have to reread the book to be sure, which I'm planning on doing because I want to be reminded of why I liked the book even if I hated the movie.