10. The Rembrandt Affair — Daniel Silva

9. The Devil In The White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America — by Erik Larsen A mesmerizing convergence of murder, horror, history and architecture. It is like watching a house fire. You want to—but you can’t quit reading.

8. The Vintage Caper — Peter Mayle A delightful mystery for those of us who are wine-lovers (expert or novice) and believe that wine-making is agriculture’s highest art form. Simply fun! In Vino Veritas.

7. The Stand — Stephen King My first time to take Uncle Stevie to bed with me. The excruciatingly developed characters become like family and this book will scare the hell out of you. Consider me hell-less.

6. The Living Flame of Love by St. John of the Cross — Sensual and mystical writings about our walk with Christ. He was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered, along with Saint Teresa of Ávila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. Both his poetry and his studies on the growth of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and one of the peaks of all Spanish literature. This book combined with Bernini’s extremely sensual sculpture of the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is enough to make you want to become a Carmelite.

5. Bel Canto — Ann Patchett In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry. With the omniscience of magic realism, Ann Patchett flits in and out of the hearts and psyches of hostage and terrorist alike. Bel Canto remains a gentle reminder of the transcendence of beauty and love.

4. The Dharma Bums — Jack Kerouac I discovered this book through a comment by @keithjennings on one of my posts. I’m thinking I must be a Zen lunatic, ’cause this book riveted me. Mountain climbing, wine, philosophy, illegal train rides in the night, poetry, “yabyum,” solitude and counter-cultural freedom. What’s not to like.

3. Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia — Michael Korda How can a man with dubious heritage that stood barely 5 foot 5 inches tall change the world? As one reviewer puts it: “This is a page-turner that also helps us understand how the Middle East became the confused mess it is today.” This book had me at the title of the first chapter, “Who is this extraordinary pip-squeak?”

2. The Dance of Life: Weaving Sorrows and Blessings Into One Joyful Step — Henri Nouwen “Joy and sadness are as close to each other as the splendid leaves of a New England fall to the soberness of the barren tree.” Nouwen has provided a gentle and needed glimpse at the inner wounds and secrets hidden deep within my soul. He dares us to look.

1. Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds — Harold Bloom “This book is not a work of analysis or of close reading, but of surmise and juxtaposition,” Bloom writes, and as such readers will find it appropriately enthusiastic and wild. This is the rare book where the introduction is worth far more than the price of admission. It is a book I keep going back to re-read, gaining new and valuable insights on the creative process every time. As Bloom quotes Emerson,

“Is it not all in us, how strangely! Look at this congregation of men;-—the words might be spoken,—though now there be none here to speak them,—but the words might be said that would make them stagger and reel like a drunken man. Who doubts it? Were you ever instructed by a wise and eloquent man? Remember then, were not the words that made your blood run cold, that brought the blood to your cheeks, that made you tremble or delighted you,—did they not sound to you as old as yourself? Was it not truth that you knew before, or do you ever expect to be moved from the pulpit or from man by anything but plain truth? Never. It is God in you that responds to God without, or affirms his own words trembling on the lips of another.”

—Journals (October 27, 1831)

“…did they not sound to you as old as yourself?”

Genius may be politically incorrect, as is the sacramental in evangelical circles, but as Bloom states, “…it is hard to go on living without some hope of encountering the extraordinary.”

What was your favorite literary encounter of 2010?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

SMALL REBELLIONS
CHARLIE LOWELL: May our small, daily protests to the chaos define us as those who choose love over fear and judgment. A prophetic song of hope paired with action.
DAN HASELTINE: Any act that fights against isolation is the greatest form of counterculture. The greatest risks we take are the ones that prove we are implicated in each others stories.
STEVE MASON: This song celebrates the courage it takes as a community to change the lives of those around us with a subversive love.
MATT ODMARK: For those willing to adventure into the confinements of intentional relationship will find a richness missing from even the most charmed of lives.
CALL MY NAME
CHARLIE LOWELL: A prayer that we might know the value of each individual life- and our calling to value dignity and story as we bring God’s hope into brokenness.
DAN HASELTINE: Good community never lets us stay in its safe fold for long, rather it allows our hearts to venture out to harms way in search of God.
STEVE MASON: God calling your name means being known by the creator of everything, who redeems us and everything around us in beauty.
MATT ODMARK: To think that God knows us by name has deep and far-reaching implications. To actually hear him use it changes everything.
WE WILL FOLLOW
CHARLIE LOWELL: I love the imagery that we as a church are carrying on a pilgrimage that started in the Old Testament… wandering, straying, learning, remembering, following…
DAN HASELTINE: We may not know where we are going, we know who leads us, and thus we can sing with confidence even into the valley of death.
STEVE MASON: To make yourself available to God’s love and His people is to push against fear and offer yourself to God’s service as an ambassador of love and an agent of change.
MATT ODMARK: Nothing in our view you haven’t made, No one that you’ve touched that you haven’t saved
EYES WIDE OPEN
CHARLIE LOWELL: Our desire is to be in a conversation- about love, hope, the life of Jesus- not to figure out answers and put people in boxes. God, keep us in the process, with open eyes and hearts.
DAN HASELTINE: The issues of our time, be they moral, political, or spiritual have caused us to choose sides and draw lines that don’t help us love each other more.
STEVE MASON: I cannot make life work alone and know real freedom. God grant us vision to see the encouragement found in our collective journey as God’s people.
MATT ODMARK: An old idea. Only with each other is sobriety possible; desirable.
SHELTER
CHARLIE LOWELL: An invitation to rest, to re-learn our identity, to be refreshed- to find one another, and to be surprised at God’s provision through one another.
DAN HASELTINE: There is no power in love, no gravity in forgiveness, no consuming light in darkness, no incomprehensibility of joy if we forget we belong to each other.
STEVE MASON: We need each other.
MATT ODMARK: Come inside, sit down, Live and Rest. We are glad you are here.
OUT OF MY HANDS
CHARLIE LOWELL: The only thing we can do in response to what God has done for us, is to give our hearts away and love unconditionally, as a response to how we have first been loved.
DAN HASELTINE: We cannot save our own lives, nor can we change our own ways. God has given us to each other, failures and success combined.
STEVE MASON: It’s humbling to know in our lowest moments that God’s purposes are made complete in and through our weakness not our strength.
MATT ODMARK: Never has there been a more suffocating delusion to live under than the one that says our lives are ours to control.
NO GREATER LOVE
CHARLIE LOWELL: The simplest picture of true love- to lay down our lives for one another. Yet the toughest daily call, to move beyond ourselves and lift each other up.
DAN HASELTINE: No greater love is there but that we lay down our lives for each other. We can pour ourselves out for the sake of others.
STEVE MASON: We understand the sacrifices of living in community as we model it for one another. This is where love is revealed.
MATT ODMARK: This song is for me: Show me the beauty of a life laid down, so that I may have the courage to do the same.
RUN IN THE NIGHT
CHARLIE LOWELL: Spun out of Psalm 27, an anthem proclaiming that we are not defined by our failures, but that we are forever identified as perfectly loved children of the living God.
DAN HASELTINE: Believing that we are truly beloved and perfectly forgiven may be one of the most difficult things we try to do in a given day or night.
STEVE MASON: God’s love for us when named this way is overwhelming to believe. But it is true. And that love brings sight.
MATT ODMARK: The Power and the Beauty of the unafraid.
LAY IT DOWN
CHARLIE LOWELL: It’s in the giving up, the laying down, that we find life and purpose- not in the fixing and controlling. A continual, perpetual push against our human nature.
DAN HASELTINE: Our shoulders aren’t strong enough for the burdens we carry. Our lives are to be lived in the constant act of distributing the weight of our burdens and others burdens.
STEVE MASON: There is power in relating to each other in our weaknesses. There we can find the strength promised by God in community.
MATT ODMARK: I couldn’t be happier to have the words of Sara Groves on the Shelter. You have always spoke my heart Sara, Thanks for being Shelter to me.
LOVE WILL FIND US
CHARLIE LOWELL: God’s loving heart pervades and pursues to the ends of the earth. If you look, you can’t help but see evidence all around. God’s heart calls orphans home.
DAN HASELTINE: A prayer for the lonely, and the alone, an encouragement to keep our lanterns lit. Love is seeking us out, and will find us.
STEVE MASON: God’s love is always in pursuit of our hearts.
MATT ODMARK: “These Orphan Hearts, Will Find a Home”
BENEDICTION
CHARLIE LOWELL: Parting words from St. Teresa of Avila, to go out and literally be the hands and feet of Jesus to those we encounter.
DAN HASELTINE: Go into the world showing how much we have been loved
STEVE MASON: Love will win. All of humanity longs for and resonates with this hope.
MATT ODMARK: Whose Hands but these? Whose Feet but These? – St. Theresa of Avila

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

We Americans are reared with the adage ringing in our ears, “Curiosity kills the cat.” To that, I say an emphatic bull#@%*! In fact, Arnold Edinborough says it this way, “Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.”

An endless curiosity is essential to the life of a creative. If our lives are consumed by a search for meaning, few activities reveal as much about our quest—in all of its passion and paradoxes—than our travels. In the captivating book, The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton writes, “The French poet Baudelaire honored reveries of travel as a mark of those noble questing souls whom he described as ‘poets’, who could not be satisfied with the horizons of home even as they appreciated the limits of other lands, whose temperaments oscillated between hope and despair, childlike idealism and cynicism.” When oppressed by the atmosphere in his home town where the world seemed “monotonous and small,” he would travel. He writes,

Carriage, take me away with you! Ship, steal me away from here!
Take me far, far away. Here the mud is made of our tears!

I grew up the child of a small southern community in rural USA where most of the residents spend their life and death in a tiny sphere of several miles. Somehow, at the age of twenty-five, I escaped the confines of rural southern culture and moved to the international melting pot called South Florida. Words cannot adequately describe the culture shock of this naive Tennessee country boy and family upon encountering the perceptual view of New Yorkers, Bostonians, New Jerseyans, Cubans, Latinos and the Caribbean.

Here is a statistic that continually shocks me. Only 27% of Americans possess a passport. Americans as a whole isolate themselves from the rest of the world in the laziest of ways, reveling in cultural ignorance and scoffing at the very idea of going abroad. Many could travel if they wanted to, but they simply don’t. They willingly deprive themselves of the power of perceptual view.

The term perceptual view means gaining new insight, intuition, or knowledge by perceiving sensory stimuli. For those of us who find travel an art, the misconceptions of a foreign country are soon dispelled upon encountering the sight, sounds and smells of the people who live there. Let’s explore three fascinating aspects of perceptual view for a brief moment.

First, perceptual view provides insight. It provides the opportunity to apprehend the true nature of a thing. For example, we can be “Islamaphobes,” only until we sit on the floor and break bread with a Muslim in their country and realize they think and act just like me and you. Insight soon dawns that their perception of Americans is just as skewed as our perception of them. Also, my creative insight is never so heightened as when I travel another land. So, the West meets the East.

Second, perceptual view provides intuition. “How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.” So says Russian born American writer,  Isaac Asimov. When intuition—a knowledge or belief obtained neither by reason nor by perception—converges with insight, powerful things happen both emotionally and rationally—a multifaceted revelation occurs that produces creative capital. And, the East meets the West.

Third, perceptual view provides knowledge. Travel rewards our curiosity with facts, truths, and principles—it gives us opportunity to study and investigate. New art, food, drink, architecture, lands and people release latent layers of value. The knowledge gained may have more to do with the mindset with which we travel, rather than the destination we travel to. We must travel with receptivity. We must be perceptive to the layers of history and culture that provide invaluable gifts of insight, intuition and ultimately knowledge. And knowledge is power. Power to truly live and create. And never the twain shall part.

We need to be shaken from our passivity and isolation. If we consider our world to be boring—it will duly meet our expectations.

Travel, on the other hand, causes us to perceive and view the importance of what we’ve already seen with new eyes. As Thoreau challenges us,  “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

What would be your dream travel destination? Why?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

2. What is one thing I could stop doing, or start doing, or do differently, starting today that would most improve my quality of life?

3. What is my greatest talent?

4. How can I get paid for doing what I love?

5. Who are my most inspiring role models?

6. How can I best be of service to others?

7. What is my heart’s deepest desire?

8. How am I perceived by: my closest friend, my worst enemy, my boss, my children, my co-workers, etc.?

9. What are the blessings of my life?

10. What legacy would I like to leave?

from p.60 How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day by Michael J. Gelb

Which question most resonates with you?

I will list my answers tomorrow.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

“An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.”

To ensure your creativity survives in this world of radical discontinuity, a healthy understanding of rhythm is essential. Radical discontinuity is a fancy way of saying the world is changing so fast we can’t keep up with it.

We live in a world replete with what I call “cracks in time.” A crack in time is an event that changes the world as we know it. Historically, those cracks occurred every ten thousand years or so—the discovery of fire (200,000 BC), the bow and arrow (10,000 BC), the invention of the wheel (2,000 BC). Then cracks began to appear every hundreds of years—the Gutenberg printing press (1568 AD), the steam engine (1800), the atom (1897). And they began to snowball—the first micro chip (1958), personal computer (1975), first laptop computer (1981), USA Today (1982), first Macintosh computer (1984).

Today the cracks develop at warp speed. Consider this, Nokia’s first mobile (if you can call it that) phone was introduced in 1982, the Nokia Mobira Senator was designed for use in cars. After all, you wouldn’t want to use this phone while walking: It weighed about 21 pounds.

It’s hard to comprehend, but in 1993, we functioned somewhat normally in a world devoid of Internet, email, text messages, PDA’s, Facebook, and YouTube.

Radical discontinuity. You get the picture.

How many passwords do you have at this moment? I bet you can’t recall them all.

For your creativity to survive in this chaos, these three rhythms provide a catchy “drum loop” for life.

1. The Rhythm of Seasons — In “God’s Country,” otherwise known as Nashville, Tennessee, USA, we have four distinct seasons of approximately three months each. Winter, spring, summer and fall. These seasons represent death followed by life. An application of this natural rhythm to our physical, emotional and spiritual life provides exponential benefits.

A friend of mine would visit me a few years ago in Florida from the Chicago winter, and as we luxuriated in the endless summer, I would ask him how he survived the cold harsh winter in the windy city. I will never forget his answer. “It’s great. I hibernate like a big bear. Sometimes I feel sorry for all you suckers who live in Florida year-round. You don’t get a hibernation time. Everybody needs to hibernate once a year. It’s human nature.”

After 20 years of frenetic non-stop summer in Florida, it was a life-changing relief to experience the rhythmic seasonal changes of Tennessee.

Regular exercise, the liturgy, holidays, periodic vacations, festivals, harvest, the Sabbath, a shower in the morning, a cup of coffee on the porch before work, all provide seasonal rhythm in the chaos of life. It is no coincidence, these “seasons” result in our most creative times.

2. The Rhythm of Relationships — Even though it hurts, it is natural for relationships to come and go. In the transient world in which we live, it’s no surprise that we creatives fear cultivating deep relationships.

But cultivate we must. New relationships provide exciting and unique perceptual views. Only in deep relationships, are we able to look at the world through a new set of eyes. Healthy relationships provide not only a glimpse at the window of our soul – which in itself is invaluable – but also provide new ways of looking at the world as a whole.

And most importantly, in the dark nights of our soul, when we can’t see for ourselves, our true friends can see for us. Thus, the natural rhythm of our life is able to continue through suffering. Creatives must walk through the dark night of the soul, for it is in that crucible where sight and insight is recreated and restored. Very few people are truly creative, because they have a dearth of deep relationships, and therefore no guide through the dark night of the soul.

It is no coincidence, these “relationships” accompany our most creative times.

3. The Rhythm of Solitude — A rhythm for the chaos of a 24/7 world is solitude. The word is counter-cultural in our Western world. When a decision is made to invest in your creativity through solitude,  prepare to be misunderstood by employer, peers, friends, and yes, family.

But this rhythm is imperative in the creative life. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, “The rhythm of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

If we are truly spiritual, in solitude is where we are least alone. It is only in solitude that we confront the source of our loneliness. And in rhythms of solitude, loneliness can become not only bearable, but a wellspring of creativity.

How much time have you spent in true solitude?

It is no coincidence, that “solitude” is the companion in our most creative times.

How About You?

Do You Consider Yourself Creative?

Do you “Got Rhythm?”

What Rhythms Inspire Your Creativity?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

First, I booked a ship aboard my favorite cruise line – Celebrity and ship – Century

Second, I picked a destination and date that was sure to be warm after a cold gray winter – Jamaica & The Grand Caymans – April 2-7, 2011

Third, I asked three of the most creative and fun people I know to speak – Ken Davis, Michael Hyatt & Pete Wilson.

Fourth, I gave it a creative theme -  “The Creative Life”

- Michael Hyatt: “The Creative Life: How We Work”

- Pete Wilson: “The Creative Life: How We Worship”

- Randy & Chris Elrod: “The Creative Life: How We Love”

- Ken Davis “The Creative Life: How We Enjoy”

Fifth, I chose a cruise that is extremely affordable – Entry price is just $509. per person ($749. includes all taxes, tips and conference fee).

You can ensure the best price and a berth on this extraordinary maiden “creative” voyage with only a $150. deposit. Simply click HERE to register.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Private concerts and reserved dining for this group are only available to passengers who register through Templeton Tours Inc. A conference fee of $99 per person will be added to your statement.

I can smell the salt air now.

P.S. We will all be seated together at evening dining and we have our own meeting rooms. Here is the tentative itinerary.

P. P.S. I am also working with the Celebrity Century’s Sommelier and I will be leading an optional fine wine tasting while teaching the basics of wine etiquette.

Best of all, all the speakers have all waived their fees and 100% of conference monies will go to my favorite charity: Kalein Retreats for Creative Solitude.

Michael Hyatt (CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing) has even agreed to entertain twelve 20 minute book pitches FREE. To qualify for the free book pitch, you must register using this LINK.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. Running

2. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci- My quintessential go-to book for stirring up new ideas. Michael J. Gelb’s exercises and questions continue to prove invaluable for prompting creativity.

3. Magazines – Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and Wired fuel my creativity as few things on earth. I’m talking the old-fashioned “hold it in my hand” kind of magazine. Online is okay, but ideas really start popping while holding the slick cover in my hand, relaxing on the porch with a drink, and dreaming. Hint: The first thing I do when the mag comes in the mail is systematically tear out all the advertisements. This makes for a thinner magazine to hold and also enables efficient completion of the vital reading.

4. Oblique Strategies (now called Methodology) – Get as an iPhone app or as paper flash cards in a box. My friend Mark Lee gifted my first set and they have been an invaluable tool since that day. Methodologies are idea starters in a sentence. They stimulate writing, painting, thinking and myriad creative adventures.

5. Thinking – Speaking of thinking. It is a lost art. Our Western culture (especially my activator personality) cause us to act first and then think. Pulitzer-prize winning author David McCullough says he systematically allocates time for thinking on his calendar for each new book project. Time spent thinking results in better actions. We know this, but we don’t know it. A good idea becomes a great idea with time spent thinking, mulling and dreaming. For some reason, we feel time spent thinking is lazy or wasteful. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a huge difference between daydreaming and thinking.

What is your top tool for creativity?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.