This week isn’t just the week leading up to Independence Day here in the U.S. – it’s also a week full of contentious Supreme Court decisions, including Monday’s ruling regarding Hobby Lobby and the decisions that will likely result. So it seemed appropriate that Q Ideas’ weekly question is “How can we get along when we disagree?” Check out the responses for reflections from many sides of the political spectrum. Read more
I’ll confess: I’m a film critic, and I’ll watch most anything, but there’s one genre I avoid, and that’s horror. Especially supernatural horror. As I told my husband after I watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose, I don’t need to be convinced that the supernatural exists. But then again, others do – and writer/director Scott Derrickson lives in that world. A Christian and a celebrated horror filmmaker, his film Deliver Us From Evil releases this week, and he was recently tapped to... Read more
At Art House America, Mary Van Denend writes about Summer Lake in Oregon – and, more importantly, on what a trip to the wilderness does for us: The weekend before Summer Lake, I was up in Seattle visiting my oldest sister and enjoying a solo literary getaway, attending a wonderful reading and reception for poet Scott Cairns, sponsored by Image. I wore my favorite little black dress and new snappy green sandals. While there, I ate in two fashionable restaurants, and... Read more
All this week at her blog, Amy Julia Becker invited guest bloggers to answer the question, “Who is the Sabbath for?” So I began to wonder if this fourth commandment was a hinge command, a command that both linked to the first three commandments in our relationship to God and a command that linked to the following six commandments in our relationship with others. It made me wonder whether the Sabbath was somehow integral to loving God and loving neighbor,... Read more
I love this: Sarah Bessey writes at The High Calling about rethinking scarcity and living out of abundance: So from the time I was a small girl, both he and my mother have led me to believe in the core of my soul’s narrative that there is no fear in Love and we are the children of that Love. For more than thirty years now, my father has lived in the freedom from fear. He has modeled it, preached it,... Read more
I’ve worked for and with a lot of arts-and-faith nonprofits, as well as a bunch of organizations and people that are interested in how the church can better “engage” with art and artists. So, I have often heard people ask what churches can do to support their artists. I’m really glad they’re asking that question, but I got interested in the inverse question: what do artists have that they can teach the church? So we’re doing a week’s worth of answers to... Read more
Wait, what? Don’t do what you love? No, argues Charlotte Lieberman in Harvard Business Review — just do what you do: And like many, I wonder if I am “following my passion.” Doing “what I love.” I do love writing — but I’m not necessarily passionate about describing the benefits of adding chia seeds to green juice. But after my yearlong search of trying to find that one thing that I was emotionally and intellectually invested in – be it poetry or treating liver... Read more
Well, this is interesting: the actress Keira Knightley makes a lot of money, but gives herself a $50,000 allowance: While it may sound like a lot to some, Knightley’s net worth is a reported $50 million, thanks to international hits like “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl,” which earned over $654 million at the global box office. In 2008, Forbes named Knightley the second-highest-paid actress in Hollywood, after she raked in $32 million that year for her roles in “Pirates of the... Read more
At Good Letters, after the sad shooting a few weeks ago, Vic Sizemore writes about children and memory: Yesterday evening, Evan, my wife Liz, and I sat at the picnic table in our backyard near the woods. Despite the citronella candle, the mosquitos were thick, but the weather was so perfect we played out there anyway, swatting and waving as we rearranged tiles. Play was tight, jammed into the top right quarter for most of the game, none of us getting... Read more
At Art House America, a marvelous essay from Andi Ashworth about home, and finding it in your own: During this last round of talks we decided to take a weekend and try out what it might be like to live closer to the city, able to walk to coffee shops, restaurants, and even to work. We stayed in a hotel downtown and spent mornings in coffeehouses, one at Crema and one at Fido, sipping lattes, thinking, and writing. We drove... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
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