1 00:00:01,240 --> 00:00:03,640 Welcome to the Imagination Redeemed Podcast. 2 00:00:03,960 --> 00:00:06,480 I am Brian Brown. You might have noticed we 3 00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,360 haven't recorded much lately. Well, we've got more in the 4 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:12,600 works in the near future, but in the meantime, I wanted to draw 5 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:15,320 your attention to an episode of another podcast. 6 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:19,560 I was recently interviewed by Shane Morris on the podcast 7 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:22,520 Upstream, which I highly commend to your attention. 8 00:00:22,520 --> 00:00:26,630 Shane is someone who cares deeply about the things that the 9 00:00:26,630 --> 00:00:30,310 Anthem Society does, and his show focuses a great deal on 10 00:00:30,310 --> 00:00:33,950 questions related to how we can see heaven in the things of 11 00:00:33,950 --> 00:00:39,110 earth and live accordingly. This conversation is about our 12 00:00:39,110 --> 00:00:42,710 new book, Why We Create, which I encourage you to go to Amazon 13 00:00:43,030 --> 00:00:45,390 and buy. But in the meantime, you can 14 00:00:45,390 --> 00:00:48,470 enjoy this conversation in which we talked about what the book is 15 00:00:48,470 --> 00:00:51,630 about, where it's headed, how I hope it will be helpful to 16 00:00:51,630 --> 00:00:54,360 people. So listen to the episode, buy 17 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:57,320 the book if you enjoy the episode, and I encourage you to 18 00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:00,640 go and subscribe to Upstream with Shane Morris wherever you 19 00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:04,800 get your podcasts. Welcome to Upstream, where we 20 00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:07,800 make your worldview bigger and older by taking hard questions 21 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:09,720 to the head springs of Christian wisdom. 22 00:01:09,960 --> 00:01:12,480 I'm Shane Morris. My youngest son, Peter is in a 23 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,240 wonderful phase of life. I've always loved to draw, paint 24 00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:18,020 and sculpt. And although it's been a while 25 00:01:18,020 --> 00:01:21,260 since I've had much time for either, Peter has naturally 26 00:01:21,260 --> 00:01:24,340 inherited the ability, both from his mother and me. 27 00:01:24,660 --> 00:01:28,300 Peter regularly brings me drawings to appraise, his face 28 00:01:28,340 --> 00:01:31,780 eager and his eyes keenly watching for my sincere 29 00:01:31,780 --> 00:01:34,260 reaction. He presents carefully sketched 30 00:01:34,260 --> 00:01:37,740 dinosaurs, birds of prey, Star Wars Clone Troopers and 31 00:01:37,740 --> 00:01:40,180 Mandalorians, spaceships and sharks. 32 00:01:40,540 --> 00:01:43,180 Some of them are direct imitations of things I've drawn, 33 00:01:43,260 --> 00:01:45,340 others are entirely his own creations. 34 00:01:45,780 --> 00:01:48,750 He wants my reaction. And instruction, because he 35 00:01:48,750 --> 00:01:52,030 looks at his father as the original artist, the one who 36 00:01:52,030 --> 00:01:56,110 filled his world with tokens of creativity and from whom he in 37 00:01:56,110 --> 00:01:58,950 part gets his. I think all of us are in much 38 00:01:58,950 --> 00:02:01,150 the same situation, whatever our artistic medium. 39 00:02:01,230 --> 00:02:04,270 Only it's not our earthly parents, but our Heavenly Father 40 00:02:04,270 --> 00:02:06,710 whom we have to thank for our drive to create and the 41 00:02:06,710 --> 00:02:09,910 abilities we employ to do so. And like my son, we ought to 42 00:02:09,910 --> 00:02:12,710 feel the urge to take our creations to our father for his 43 00:02:12,710 --> 00:02:15,030 approval and pleasure. But what does this have to do 44 00:02:15,030 --> 00:02:17,550 with the Christian worldview? What does it mean for our 45 00:02:17,550 --> 00:02:20,230 relationship to matter? Time and space? 46 00:02:20,430 --> 00:02:23,910 What attitudes and values do we need as we create? 47 00:02:24,070 --> 00:02:25,670 And what if we're just no good at drawing? 48 00:02:25,830 --> 00:02:28,110 To answer these and other questions, today I've invited a 49 00:02:28,110 --> 00:02:31,950 friend of mine who's just coedited an eye opening book on 50 00:02:31,950 --> 00:02:34,550 the topic. Brian Brown is the founder and 51 00:02:34,550 --> 00:02:37,270 Executive Director of the Anselm Society, an organization 52 00:02:37,270 --> 00:02:39,950 dedicated to a renaissance of the Christian imagination. 53 00:02:40,230 --> 00:02:43,230 He also serves as Vice President of Programs at the Coulson 54 00:02:43,230 --> 00:02:44,670 Center and has become a source of. 55 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:48,000 True inspiration and original thinking for me, especially as 56 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,120 I've posted this podcast. Together with Jane Charle and a 57 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:54,720 host of distinguished authors, he edited a new book called Why 58 00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:58,400 We Create Reflections on the Creator, The Creation and 59 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:02,960 Creating Brian Brown. Welcome back to Upstream. 60 00:03:03,320 --> 00:03:06,160 Thanks for having me on. Well, creativity, having known 61 00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:09,040 you for a couple of years now, is something that you and your 62 00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:12,990 family live and you can see it. Are there in your house, the 63 00:03:12,990 --> 00:03:14,950 house you and Christina have set up together? 64 00:03:15,270 --> 00:03:17,550 It's a beautiful place, and we've talked about that before 65 00:03:17,550 --> 00:03:19,310 on Upstream. How did all this start for you? 66 00:03:19,310 --> 00:03:21,670 And what's the origin story of your creative impulse? 67 00:03:21,670 --> 00:03:24,470 Because I I look at your bio and you have a background in 68 00:03:24,470 --> 00:03:26,790 politics and law. It doesn't seem like the kind of 69 00:03:26,910 --> 00:03:29,270 the kind of background you'd have with the kind of house you 70 00:03:29,270 --> 00:03:30,550 have. So what was the spark there? 71 00:03:31,150 --> 00:03:34,710 Think less of politics and law and more of culture broadly. 72 00:03:35,070 --> 00:03:37,550 My backgrounds in in Christian political theology, which is a 73 00:03:37,550 --> 00:03:39,900 fancy way of saying the the things. 74 00:03:39,900 --> 00:03:43,580 That's the great thinkers of the faith have written over the 75 00:03:43,580 --> 00:03:47,940 years, grappling with the question of how we do 76 00:03:48,460 --> 00:03:53,060 Christianity, how we do living as humans, who serve the God who 77 00:03:53,060 --> 00:03:57,580 made us the Creator, who made us not as individuals but as groups 78 00:03:57,580 --> 00:03:59,900 of people, as communities and as societies. 79 00:04:00,180 --> 00:04:03,420 And that has everything to do with how we structure our 80 00:04:03,420 --> 00:04:06,580 societies, but it also has everything to do with what we do 81 00:04:06,580 --> 00:04:08,460 with our time in those societies. 82 00:04:08,980 --> 00:04:12,460 It seems like there there's a premise that I have, you know, 83 00:04:12,460 --> 00:04:15,740 baked into that question, but I I did so deliberately because 84 00:04:16,060 --> 00:04:18,180 most people I think will share that premise. 85 00:04:18,180 --> 00:04:22,940 And that is that creativity artistry as one category of 86 00:04:22,940 --> 00:04:26,300 creativity, right, which is what I alluded to in the opening, is 87 00:04:26,380 --> 00:04:30,340 a discrete thing from politics, right, which is the ordering of 88 00:04:30,340 --> 00:04:32,620 our lives together. In a very basic sense, it's. 89 00:04:32,990 --> 00:04:36,390 It's fulfilling part of that, that mandated creation to have 90 00:04:36,390 --> 00:04:38,470 dominion, right? Well, part of dominion is 91 00:04:38,470 --> 00:04:40,990 actually setting up jurisdictions of of government 92 00:04:40,990 --> 00:04:44,070 where where there's rulership and an order toward the common 93 00:04:44,070 --> 00:04:46,190 good. And and these things are not 94 00:04:46,190 --> 00:04:48,790 responses to the fall, right. This is part of creation. 95 00:04:48,790 --> 00:04:51,750 It's built into creation and therefore it's a it's part of 96 00:04:51,750 --> 00:04:55,190 the creative enterprise or the fulfillment of that mandate 97 00:04:55,390 --> 00:04:57,350 that's rooted in who we are as human beings. 98 00:04:57,790 --> 00:04:59,510 And that's that's an interesting. 99 00:04:59,790 --> 00:05:02,830 Breaking down of barriers to me, because that's exactly what this 100 00:05:02,830 --> 00:05:05,670 book does. It's not just about drawing and 101 00:05:05,670 --> 00:05:08,030 painting and sculpting and writing poetry and music and 102 00:05:08,030 --> 00:05:10,510 stuff, as as great as those things are, right? 103 00:05:10,510 --> 00:05:14,270 There's figure in heavily here. The the Theology of creation 104 00:05:14,270 --> 00:05:18,150 that Tolkien draws on himself figures heavily in in here as 105 00:05:18,150 --> 00:05:21,750 like a backbone of the book. But there's a lot more going on 106 00:05:21,750 --> 00:05:23,630 too. There's discussions of time, 107 00:05:23,630 --> 00:05:25,430 There's discussions of our relationships. 108 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:29,040 With each other of the food we eat and how food can be 109 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:30,920 artistry, things, things of that nature. 110 00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:34,560 And and it makes you question, I guess that assumption that we're 111 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:37,160 talking about the John Jay Institute or something, that 112 00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:41,080 something in your background that there's not also creativity 113 00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:43,080 there. That there's not the fulfillment 114 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:46,680 of an act and a nature that we were supposed to exhibit from 115 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:48,940 the beginning. As human beings, well, there is 116 00:05:49,060 --> 00:05:50,980 and there are connections there. It's not to say everything's 117 00:05:50,980 --> 00:05:53,340 art, but it seems like to me. And then I'll shut up. 118 00:05:53,980 --> 00:05:57,060 It seems like to me there is some deep connection there that 119 00:05:57,060 --> 00:05:59,900 we need to tease out or or or at least question the dividing 120 00:05:59,900 --> 00:06:00,900 line, right? Yeah. 121 00:06:00,900 --> 00:06:04,700 And let's set aside the word art entirely for for for a moment 122 00:06:04,700 --> 00:06:08,420 from the idea of creativity, because I get that sometimes 123 00:06:08,420 --> 00:06:10,620 somebody will say something like, oh, I'm not creative, I'm 124 00:06:10,620 --> 00:06:13,940 an engineer. Yeah, Which is baffling to me 125 00:06:14,100 --> 00:06:18,020 because what they're trying to say is I am not an artist in the 126 00:06:18,140 --> 00:06:20,500 technical, paintbrushy kind of sense. 127 00:06:21,460 --> 00:06:23,900 I'm an engineer. Of course they're they're 128 00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:26,020 creative. When you're making decisions, 129 00:06:26,020 --> 00:06:29,220 you're being creative. When you're looking at something 130 00:06:29,220 --> 00:06:32,180 that doesn't exist and you want it to exist, you're being 131 00:06:32,180 --> 00:06:34,820 creative. Whether that is a thought or a 132 00:06:35,140 --> 00:06:39,660 book or a some kind of scientific endeavor or even 133 00:06:39,660 --> 00:06:42,930 cleaning house, reorganizing your room is an act of 134 00:06:42,930 --> 00:06:45,850 creativity. The process of looking at 135 00:06:45,850 --> 00:06:50,610 something and wondering could it be different is a creative act, 136 00:06:50,610 --> 00:06:53,770 and it's one of the most fundamental impulses that's 137 00:06:53,770 --> 00:06:58,050 baked into us, that's built into us as as humans, to look into 138 00:06:58,050 --> 00:07:01,850 disorder and speak order, or to look into to chaos and speak 139 00:07:01,850 --> 00:07:03,890 meaning. I want to make this different. 140 00:07:03,890 --> 00:07:07,130 I want to make it better. That's a creative impulse. 141 00:07:07,130 --> 00:07:11,800 At the start of our book, we included an NT right quote that 142 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:15,120 we actually stumbled on after the manuscript was finished. 143 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:20,440 And the manuscript really sums up a a lot of the guiding star 144 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:22,360 of the book goes like this, right? 145 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:25,840 Says human vocation is to reflect the love and power of 146 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:29,880 God into the world and to reflect the praises of the world 147 00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:32,920 back to God. There's two things going on 148 00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:35,360 there to reflect the love and power of God into the world. 149 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:41,780 That's us acting creatively to act as God's representatives to 150 00:07:41,780 --> 00:07:44,940 the world and then to reflect the praises of the world back to 151 00:07:44,940 --> 00:07:46,660 God. That's then acting as the 152 00:07:46,660 --> 00:07:48,780 world's representative back to God. 153 00:07:48,780 --> 00:07:54,260 It's this priestly function that both ends of it are creative. 154 00:07:54,260 --> 00:07:58,460 Both ends of it require us to think deeply about what does it 155 00:07:58,460 --> 00:08:02,730 mean to speak and reflect the love and power of God into the 156 00:08:02,730 --> 00:08:05,090 world. Every last bit of the answer to 157 00:08:05,090 --> 00:08:09,250 that question is creative and prudential in nature. 158 00:08:09,250 --> 00:08:12,410 Similarly, what does it mean to reflect the praises of the world 159 00:08:12,810 --> 00:08:16,570 back to God? But you could simply sing a song 160 00:08:16,570 --> 00:08:19,090 or something. But there's again a creative 161 00:08:19,090 --> 00:08:22,930 process and ordering process because the the human impulse 162 00:08:22,930 --> 00:08:28,050 isn't just to say, look, I mean I I live next to a 14,000 foot 163 00:08:28,250 --> 00:08:30,050 mountain. You could simply have the 164 00:08:30,050 --> 00:08:33,610 instinct to say God, you made this mountain, yay, the mountain 165 00:08:33,610 --> 00:08:36,289 sings your praises. Scripture uses lines like that. 166 00:08:36,289 --> 00:08:38,610 Sometimes it's not an illegitimate thing, but what 167 00:08:38,610 --> 00:08:44,730 does it mean to to cultivate that creation, Not simply to not 168 00:08:44,730 --> 00:08:47,610 touch it because you can't not touch it, we're living in it. 169 00:08:47,770 --> 00:08:52,090 But that overall process of of the dialogue between the 170 00:08:52,090 --> 00:08:56,090 heavenly realm and the earthly realm is an inherently creative 171 00:08:56,090 --> 00:08:58,970 act, even in the most fundamental things that we do 172 00:08:58,970 --> 00:09:01,450 100 times a day. With that very mountain that 173 00:09:01,450 --> 00:09:05,090 you're talking about was Katherine Lee Bates right? 174 00:09:05,090 --> 00:09:07,130 Is that is that who wrote to America the Beautiful. 175 00:09:07,690 --> 00:09:10,730 There's a plaque at the top where or a sign up there on the 176 00:09:10,730 --> 00:09:13,650 top of Pikes Peak just kind of commemorating the spot roughly 177 00:09:13,650 --> 00:09:17,330 where you know she stood and sort of looked out and composed 178 00:09:17,330 --> 00:09:20,330 these words and and you you can say okay here on one side 179 00:09:20,330 --> 00:09:21,890 there's the purple mountains. Majesty. 180 00:09:21,890 --> 00:09:24,590 I see the Rockies. And there's the fruited plain on 181 00:09:24,590 --> 00:09:26,350 the other side. I can see the kind of Great 182 00:09:26,350 --> 00:09:27,750 Plains. It's on the border between those 183 00:09:27,750 --> 00:09:29,870 two places. And isn't this place America 184 00:09:29,870 --> 00:09:31,310 great? I'm just going to write a hymn 185 00:09:31,310 --> 00:09:34,550 or a poem about America to be sung by a generations hence. 186 00:09:34,910 --> 00:09:37,670 And I think of somewhere like the Everglades, you know, the 187 00:09:37,670 --> 00:09:41,550 Florida Everglades, where it is a place that exists in its 188 00:09:41,550 --> 00:09:43,910 objectivity. But then Marjory Stoneman 189 00:09:43,910 --> 00:09:47,070 Douglas comes and writes River of Grass and all the marvel and 190 00:09:47,070 --> 00:09:51,070 poetry of that, and sees it, recognizes it. 191 00:09:51,420 --> 00:09:55,140 Classifieds it and celebrates it in language in a way that it had 192 00:09:55,140 --> 00:09:58,340 never been celebrated, at least by, you know, someone speaking 193 00:09:58,340 --> 00:10:01,420 European language before. And the point of those things is 194 00:10:01,420 --> 00:10:03,940 that the Pikes Peak and the Everglades were already there to 195 00:10:03,940 --> 00:10:05,940 begin with, right? And they're all their objective 196 00:10:06,140 --> 00:10:09,180 glory as God created them. But he had hidden them, right? 197 00:10:09,180 --> 00:10:11,100 It was the glory of God to hide those things. 198 00:10:11,260 --> 00:10:14,460 It was the glory of kings, of which we are all kings and 199 00:10:14,460 --> 00:10:16,820 Queens, right? We're we're vice regions of God 200 00:10:17,180 --> 00:10:19,160 to seek out. Those secrets. 201 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:21,400 And then celebrate them and refine them in language. 202 00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:24,200 And to me that seems like the pattern of everything we do, 203 00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:26,600 everything we do creatively in the world. 204 00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:30,560 Peter Lighthart uses in the book the example of turning wood into 205 00:10:30,560 --> 00:10:33,680 a chair, right? And he said we've actually done 206 00:10:33,680 --> 00:10:37,480 something akin to what God does there because we haven't just 207 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:41,320 taken raw material, right, Wood, a dead tree and reordered it. 208 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:43,480 And now it's a dead tree in a different shape. 209 00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:47,000 No, it's actually a thing we call a chair now. 210 00:10:47,510 --> 00:10:51,070 It, it has a purpose, has a recognizable pattern and tell 211 00:10:51,070 --> 00:10:52,950 us. And there's no person who's ever 212 00:10:52,950 --> 00:10:56,670 used a chair can ever look at that piece of wood again and and 213 00:10:56,670 --> 00:10:58,510 see it as anything other than what it is. 214 00:10:58,510 --> 00:11:02,470 Because we create in a transformative way, using what 215 00:11:02,470 --> 00:11:05,030 God has given us, the raw materials and resources as 216 00:11:05,030 --> 00:11:06,710 gifts. And then we reshape them. 217 00:11:06,950 --> 00:11:10,470 And that, if I'm hearing what you're saying rightly, it sounds 218 00:11:10,470 --> 00:11:13,190 like that's what we do with everything, not just, you know, 219 00:11:13,710 --> 00:11:19,460 clay and paint and. Pencils, but with metal and wood 220 00:11:19,780 --> 00:11:24,220 and grapes and wheat and stones and and all of the other things 221 00:11:24,220 --> 00:11:29,220 that we transform into something marvelous and then ideally give 222 00:11:29,220 --> 00:11:30,220 back to God. Yeah. 223 00:11:30,220 --> 00:11:32,660 The fundamental question that we wanted to address in the book 224 00:11:32,860 --> 00:11:36,140 was this. God has made us material beings 225 00:11:36,180 --> 00:11:38,580 and placed us in a material world. 226 00:11:39,540 --> 00:11:42,940 What are we to do with that? What does that world tell us 227 00:11:42,980 --> 00:11:45,830 about who God is? And what does that world tell us 228 00:11:46,110 --> 00:11:49,790 about who we're supposed to be? So that's the fundamental 229 00:11:49,790 --> 00:11:50,910 question you're addressing in the book. 230 00:11:50,910 --> 00:11:55,110 I'm wondering, was there an idea or a light bulb moment that sort 231 00:11:55,110 --> 00:11:58,350 of touched off the book, or perhaps a burning question that 232 00:11:58,350 --> 00:12:01,830 you saw Christians asking? I knew we needed to to try to 233 00:12:01,830 --> 00:12:03,830 answer, yeah. I mean, I said we were going to 234 00:12:03,830 --> 00:12:07,460 set art aside, but I mean, art was the driving force. 235 00:12:07,620 --> 00:12:11,940 With the Anthem Society, we run a a program that helps our 236 00:12:12,100 --> 00:12:15,060 artists connect their craft and their faith better. 237 00:12:15,060 --> 00:12:20,100 And we found that most of the artists who are Christians that 238 00:12:20,100 --> 00:12:22,500 we were encountering really struggled with this. 239 00:12:22,700 --> 00:12:26,940 They had grown up with a theology that was lacking to 240 00:12:26,940 --> 00:12:28,860 explain why what they did mattered. 241 00:12:28,860 --> 00:12:30,980 And the more that we worked on it with them and the more that 242 00:12:30,980 --> 00:12:34,890 we thought about it, we discovered, not really to our 243 00:12:34,890 --> 00:12:37,450 surprise I suppose that it's it was really a bigger problem. 244 00:12:37,450 --> 00:12:39,930 It wasn't an artist problem. It was it was a churchwide 245 00:12:39,930 --> 00:12:44,930 problem where we we tend to, at least in the the churches I've 246 00:12:44,930 --> 00:12:48,450 been a part of in in my life, we tend to struggle with questions 247 00:12:48,450 --> 00:12:52,290 of vocation. We either, in a daytoday, minute 248 00:12:52,290 --> 00:12:54,410 to minute sense live like this world. 249 00:12:54,410 --> 00:12:57,490 The material created thing is all that matters, which is how 250 00:12:57,490 --> 00:12:58,930 most of our neighbors live, right? 251 00:12:58,930 --> 00:13:01,370 The the the material world. There's no heaven. 252 00:13:01,370 --> 00:13:03,250 There's no afterlife. The material world is all that 253 00:13:03,250 --> 00:13:05,610 matters. Or we live like the next World 254 00:13:05,610 --> 00:13:07,850 is all that matters. And we don't know what to do. 255 00:13:07,850 --> 00:13:09,410 OK, I've got this whole faith thing. 256 00:13:09,410 --> 00:13:11,690 I've got this whole Jesus thing. I've got this whole I want to go 257 00:13:11,690 --> 00:13:14,130 to heaven someday. Think what does that have to do 258 00:13:14,130 --> 00:13:18,730 with how I live now? Or my personal favorite, We know 259 00:13:18,730 --> 00:13:22,570 we're supposed to do something of both of those We know. 260 00:13:22,730 --> 00:13:24,530 We know that the hearing now matters somehow. 261 00:13:24,530 --> 00:13:26,370 And we know that the next World matters somehow. 262 00:13:26,930 --> 00:13:29,610 But since we don't know how to put the two together, we kind of 263 00:13:29,650 --> 00:13:31,530 alternate. There are little chapters of our 264 00:13:31,530 --> 00:13:34,450 day or chapters of our lives where we do things called going 265 00:13:34,450 --> 00:13:38,010 to church, or called reading our Bibles, or called witnessing. 266 00:13:38,250 --> 00:13:40,410 And then there's other chapters of our day where if you followed 267 00:13:40,410 --> 00:13:42,530 us around with the camera, you wouldn't be able to tell the 268 00:13:42,530 --> 00:13:44,610 difference between the Christian and their their next door 269 00:13:44,610 --> 00:13:49,490 neighbor. And in any of those options, if 270 00:13:49,490 --> 00:13:52,450 we don't know how to put together heaven and earth, 271 00:13:53,010 --> 00:13:58,310 eternity and time, we will constantly be separating things 272 00:13:58,350 --> 00:13:59,990 that are not meant to be separated. 273 00:14:00,550 --> 00:14:05,830 And worse, we will be walking away from one of the primary 274 00:14:05,830 --> 00:14:09,910 vocations of the human being, which is precisely to put those 275 00:14:09,910 --> 00:14:13,310 two things together, those things that are hard to see in a 276 00:14:13,310 --> 00:14:16,910 fallen world, but to point to material things or create with 277 00:14:16,910 --> 00:14:21,540 material things and say this has spiritual significance, this has 278 00:14:21,540 --> 00:14:24,060 eternal significance. God has made a world that is 279 00:14:24,060 --> 00:14:28,420 designed to point us to Him, and if we aren't saying that as 280 00:14:28,420 --> 00:14:34,100 humans we are failing in our duty as the Imago Day, and the 281 00:14:34,100 --> 00:14:37,740 rocks themselves will be forced to cry out because we won't do 282 00:14:37,740 --> 00:14:41,380 it for them. Tell us the story of Leaf by 283 00:14:41,380 --> 00:14:43,540 Niggle. This is a short story by 284 00:14:43,540 --> 00:14:46,060 Tolkien. And you guys kind of use it in 285 00:14:46,060 --> 00:14:49,540 the book, use it in your introduction to frame a lot of 286 00:14:49,540 --> 00:14:52,340 this discussion, because at the heart of the story is the 287 00:14:52,980 --> 00:14:56,700 tension you're describing here between the quote UN quote 288 00:14:56,700 --> 00:15:00,220 creative enterprise, like the artistic thing and then the 289 00:15:00,540 --> 00:15:04,100 ordinary daytoday tasks of life and that that we view as 290 00:15:04,180 --> 00:15:06,220 distractions often. And I love this story. 291 00:15:06,220 --> 00:15:09,020 I'll just say this, I love this story so much because for it 292 00:15:09,020 --> 00:15:11,980 seems autobiographical. For Tolkien in so many ways, 293 00:15:12,140 --> 00:15:16,320 because. We know he was obsessively bound 294 00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:19,960 to this world that sprang into his imagination almost unbidden, 295 00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:22,200 and he spent so much of his life crafting it. 296 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,480 And I know at times he had to have seen that on Monday in 297 00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:30,280 ordinary segments of life as unrelated to his true calling, 298 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:33,160 which was to bring Middle Earth into into fruition. 299 00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:35,600 Tell us that story and the significance, because I think 300 00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:37,520 you you've got the message exactly right. 301 00:15:37,720 --> 00:15:41,280 Well, you can be a single person, a married person, a 302 00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:44,250 married person with kids. You can be at any stage in life 303 00:15:44,250 --> 00:15:47,930 and and the following situation will, will, will resonate with 304 00:15:47,930 --> 00:15:49,530 you. There's something you're working 305 00:15:49,530 --> 00:15:52,770 on that you care about very much and you're trying to focus on it 306 00:15:53,010 --> 00:15:54,410 and things keep interrupting you. 307 00:15:55,050 --> 00:15:57,210 Those things might be texts and phone calls. 308 00:15:57,210 --> 00:16:00,210 They might be the need to feed yourself. 309 00:16:00,690 --> 00:16:02,930 They might be laundry, they might be small children. 310 00:16:03,210 --> 00:16:05,250 They might be the fact that you have a day job which has nothing 311 00:16:05,250 --> 00:16:06,810 to do with that thing that you're working on that you 312 00:16:06,810 --> 00:16:08,530 really want to do. We've all been there. 313 00:16:08,530 --> 00:16:11,130 We're all there. I mean I'm there dozen times a 314 00:16:11,130 --> 00:16:17,220 day and leaf by niggle is is a a parable that is tokens answer to 315 00:16:17,220 --> 00:16:19,460 the question what am I supposed to do with that? 316 00:16:19,700 --> 00:16:21,900 What is the relationship between the things I view as 317 00:16:21,900 --> 00:16:25,940 distractions and the things that I view as important. 318 00:16:26,140 --> 00:16:30,140 And so the story goes, this man niggle is trying to do a 319 00:16:30,140 --> 00:16:33,220 painting of a a tree and it's going to be his his master work 320 00:16:33,220 --> 00:16:35,820 and he's got a neighbor that keeps coming over and saying my 321 00:16:35,820 --> 00:16:38,620 wife is sick, my roof is leaking all the things. 322 00:16:39,230 --> 00:16:41,830 But in terms of number of pages most of the story actually then 323 00:16:41,830 --> 00:16:46,630 happens in the afterlife and and happens as both as the vague 324 00:16:46,630 --> 00:16:49,750 heavenly beings in the story are wrestling with what we do with 325 00:16:50,230 --> 00:16:55,070 relative worth and at the acts of grace above and beyond that 326 00:16:55,070 --> 00:16:56,830 worth. But it also deals with what 327 00:16:56,830 --> 00:17:02,790 niggle process of learning, how that all fit together. 328 00:17:02,830 --> 00:17:05,430 And you can, if you're not paying attention, you can walk 329 00:17:05,430 --> 00:17:08,270 away from the story with the idea that, well, the 330 00:17:08,270 --> 00:17:10,030 distractions were what mattered all along. 331 00:17:10,030 --> 00:17:13,310 And I think, I think frankly, a lot of Protestants live like 332 00:17:13,310 --> 00:17:17,950 this. They look at things that appear 333 00:17:18,150 --> 00:17:24,190 unnecessary, appear extra like a rose, or that story that 334 00:17:24,190 --> 00:17:26,510 someone's trying to write. Oh, that's not as important as 335 00:17:26,510 --> 00:17:29,430 these sort of very earthy, raising the kids type things. 336 00:17:29,910 --> 00:17:33,230 But yeah, I think what Tolkien's trying to do with the story and 337 00:17:33,230 --> 00:17:36,350 what we're trying to illuminate in more detail in the book is 338 00:17:36,350 --> 00:17:39,000 not that it was the ordinary things that mattered all along. 339 00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:41,200 It was that there are no ordinary things. 340 00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:44,640 That's something that's a concept that we've talked about 341 00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:47,320 a lot over the last couple of years and it's made it actually 342 00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:50,680 into the the part of the tagline or description of Upstream. 343 00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:53,400 If you go to Apple podcast or Spotify and you look at the 344 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:56,320 description at the top, there, there are no ordinary things is 345 00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:58,880 part of what appears in that. And this is an idea that's 346 00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:00,040 emerged out of our conversations. 347 00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:01,760 I mean, I owe a lot of this to you. 348 00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:04,800 What does that mean though? There are no ordinary things 349 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:06,520 because it seems like a sacralizing. 350 00:18:07,220 --> 00:18:10,340 Of all of life in a way that maybe breaks down important 351 00:18:10,340 --> 00:18:12,620 distinctions. And I can see the the Protestant 352 00:18:12,620 --> 00:18:16,460 impulse in that direction. And I can see how someone with a 353 00:18:16,460 --> 00:18:20,340 more sacramentally oriented tradition would look at that and 354 00:18:20,340 --> 00:18:22,940 say, oh, you're robbing. You're not elevating the 355 00:18:22,940 --> 00:18:26,580 ordinary life so much as robbing the really special stuff, right? 356 00:18:26,580 --> 00:18:29,820 The the Eucharist and and baptism and the what happens in 357 00:18:29,820 --> 00:18:32,100 Church of its special significance? 358 00:18:32,100 --> 00:18:34,700 Help help us understand the distinction there where you draw 359 00:18:34,700 --> 00:18:35,900 it. Yeah, And that's a really 360 00:18:35,900 --> 00:18:40,460 important conversation to have, because I think given how 361 00:18:40,460 --> 00:18:45,940 Protestantism started, there is a deep, maybe not an ethic, but 362 00:18:45,940 --> 00:18:48,940 certainly an instinct towards suspicion. 363 00:18:50,180 --> 00:18:53,980 We have a fairly short list. At least your typical Protestant 364 00:18:54,020 --> 00:18:58,620 has a a fairly short list of propositions that they know are 365 00:18:59,140 --> 00:19:01,620 central to the faith, and they're pretty suspicious of 366 00:19:01,620 --> 00:19:05,790 anything outside of that, or at least anything outside of that. 367 00:19:05,790 --> 00:19:08,350 That claims some sort of authority over them, right? 368 00:19:08,350 --> 00:19:11,750 If it's the if, it's the the spiritual pot bestseller of the 369 00:19:11,750 --> 00:19:13,550 summer and I found it helpful, that's one thing. 370 00:19:13,710 --> 00:19:16,310 But if the author is claiming everyone should accept this, I'm 371 00:19:16,310 --> 00:19:18,630 very suspicious of it. And in some ways, the 372 00:19:18,750 --> 00:19:24,030 Protestantism at its worst is like the the renegade dwarves at 373 00:19:24,030 --> 00:19:27,220 the end of The Last Battle in CS Lewis. 374 00:19:27,220 --> 00:19:31,500 They're so determined not to be taken in that they can't see the 375 00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:34,620 glory when it's literally right in front of their face. 376 00:19:35,100 --> 00:19:40,300 So there there is a danger in in accepting something that is not 377 00:19:40,300 --> 00:19:43,500 true as true, but there is a corresponding, you know, 378 00:19:43,500 --> 00:19:47,700 pendulum swing danger of not accepting true things as true 379 00:19:47,700 --> 00:19:49,500 because you're so scared they won't be true. 380 00:19:49,980 --> 00:19:54,340 And I think many American Protestants, because of this 381 00:19:54,340 --> 00:19:58,810 sort of ethic of suspicion, have no mental category between 382 00:19:58,810 --> 00:20:02,650 indifference and idolatry. OK, I'm going to say that again. 383 00:20:02,690 --> 00:20:05,530 We have no mental category between indifference and 384 00:20:05,530 --> 00:20:07,650 idolatry. This is a really important point 385 00:20:07,770 --> 00:20:09,930 to develop this because I've often thought the same thing. 386 00:20:10,290 --> 00:20:12,610 Well, we're so scared of idolatry that we think 387 00:20:12,690 --> 00:20:14,130 indifference is the only alternative. 388 00:20:14,330 --> 00:20:17,690 So, so I'll give you an example. We are so scared of worshiping 389 00:20:17,690 --> 00:20:21,410 Saints that we don't know the stories of any of them, right? 390 00:20:21,690 --> 00:20:24,050 Right. We have no because we don't want 391 00:20:24,050 --> 00:20:25,890 to worship them. We think. 392 00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:28,560 You know, worth ship. We don't want to ascribe 393 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:32,240 ultimate worth to them. Therefore we can't ascribe any 394 00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:33,520 worth to them. We can't. 395 00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:36,640 We don't. My my version of church history 396 00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:39,840 is the book of Acts. Martin Luther and me. 397 00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:44,880 That's a lot of the cloud of witnesses that we just skated 398 00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:47,180 over. From a a historical standpoint 399 00:20:47,180 --> 00:20:49,860 let alone from a role model standpoint will you get this 400 00:20:49,860 --> 00:20:53,420 with with heaven and The Who was it that coined the phrase or not 401 00:20:53,420 --> 00:20:55,860 not coined the phrase but use the phrase on upstream at some 402 00:20:55,860 --> 00:20:58,700 point that I really appreciated the the middle heavens. 403 00:20:58,820 --> 00:21:02,060 We do this with the spiritual world where it's instead of the 404 00:21:02,500 --> 00:21:07,660 the sort of rich spiritual world of medieval imagination and and 405 00:21:07,660 --> 00:21:11,540 and cosmology, right, the pseudodionysis, the world view 406 00:21:11,540 --> 00:21:15,010 of all the different levels of angels and species and ranks and 407 00:21:15,050 --> 00:21:16,970 all that they're doing. And behind the scenes it's like 408 00:21:16,970 --> 00:21:19,810 we go to scripture and say okay, what's there's this guy, there's 409 00:21:20,250 --> 00:21:23,050 this guy Gabriel, there's this guy named Michael. 410 00:21:23,690 --> 00:21:26,530 There aren't any other angels really, right? 411 00:21:26,730 --> 00:21:29,570 And their role was very, very minimal besides that. 412 00:21:29,570 --> 00:21:32,130 Mostly it's just God and then it's us and then there's the 413 00:21:32,130 --> 00:21:34,850 devil off somewhere doing something that you know to to 414 00:21:34,850 --> 00:21:37,210 destroy us and and pervert God's work. 415 00:21:37,730 --> 00:21:41,330 But when we encounter, you know, something like CS Lewis Space 416 00:21:41,330 --> 00:21:46,490 Trilogy and his his image of an entire universe, just like 417 00:21:46,650 --> 00:21:50,850 thromming with life, just thick with angelic life, and the Earth 418 00:21:50,850 --> 00:21:54,610 is this, is this one little point of, you know, conflict in 419 00:21:54,610 --> 00:21:58,090 a universe of otherwise harmonious obedience to the will 420 00:21:58,090 --> 00:22:00,570 of God. That's I I guess there's an 421 00:22:00,570 --> 00:22:02,410 impulse that says, well, where's that in scripture, you know, 422 00:22:02,410 --> 00:22:04,610 where Louis is just making all this kind of stuff up? 423 00:22:05,330 --> 00:22:08,570 Well, I mean is he though Because we're we're told what we 424 00:22:08,570 --> 00:22:10,410 need to know for redemption in Scripture. 425 00:22:10,570 --> 00:22:12,690 But never does scripture say this is the whole picture. 426 00:22:12,970 --> 00:22:17,010 This is everything there is. And you you have no license to 427 00:22:17,010 --> 00:22:20,530 imagine or reflect further or with the typology in scripture 428 00:22:20,810 --> 00:22:23,810 or we'll say okay, explicit typological links. 429 00:22:23,810 --> 00:22:26,570 Christ is the last Adam, right. We've got the we've got the 430 00:22:26,570 --> 00:22:27,810 references for that. We can go there. 431 00:22:28,250 --> 00:22:31,330 But I remember at one point my friend Seraphim Hamilton, who I 432 00:22:31,330 --> 00:22:34,490 had on the podcast before, I referred to Christ as the second 433 00:22:34,490 --> 00:22:36,930 Adam. And he goes, I don't really like 434 00:22:36,930 --> 00:22:39,770 that that phrase Scripture calls in the last atom. 435 00:22:39,970 --> 00:22:43,690 But there have been lots of atoms since Adam in between. 436 00:22:43,690 --> 00:22:47,690 You know, before Christ, Noah was an atom, Abraham was an 437 00:22:47,690 --> 00:22:51,010 atom, Joseph was an atom, David was an atom. 438 00:22:51,010 --> 00:22:53,730 All the, you know, characters with whom God covenants and then 439 00:22:53,730 --> 00:22:55,970 establishes something new. It's like there is a repetition 440 00:22:55,970 --> 00:22:57,850 of that pattern. Where's that in scripture? 441 00:22:57,930 --> 00:23:00,490 Well, it's thematic. You have to look at it as 442 00:23:00,490 --> 00:23:02,010 literature in order to pick that up. 443 00:23:02,530 --> 00:23:05,010 And it's just getting over that minimalistic tendency that I 444 00:23:05,010 --> 00:23:07,530 need a chapter and verse to explicitly say something before 445 00:23:07,530 --> 00:23:10,290 I reflect on that, as as a Christian seems to me that's 446 00:23:10,730 --> 00:23:12,730 that's an important habit to get over. 447 00:23:12,850 --> 00:23:15,010 Yeah, and you and you need to get over the habit with regard 448 00:23:15,010 --> 00:23:17,530 to nature as well. You know, if you think about it 449 00:23:17,530 --> 00:23:20,370 as it might have been Serif. I'm actually who in that 450 00:23:20,370 --> 00:23:24,050 conversation talked about the idea of their God writing two 451 00:23:24,050 --> 00:23:26,690 books. Humanity lived for quite some 452 00:23:26,690 --> 00:23:28,890 time without any of the scriptures at all. 453 00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:33,200 And when the scriptures, when the Torah was written, and 454 00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,240 everything thereafter, there's so much nature imagery in there, 455 00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:43,200 and it's there for a reason. There are very, very offhand 456 00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,560 references throughout scripture to the natural order, and 457 00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,080 they're usually not unpacked all that much. 458 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,080 Because the writers take it as a given that we've been paying 459 00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,520 attention to the first book. Or if, if you if you like, the 460 00:23:57,520 --> 00:23:59,840 scripture is the words and nature is the pictures. 461 00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:07,080 Scripture assumes that you are paying attention to natural 462 00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:10,240 revelation, to what God has shown you in the world that he's 463 00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:11,720 made in the world that he's placed you in. 464 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,640 And part of the reason that it assumes that is because. 465 00:24:15,330 --> 00:24:17,730 From the beginning, that's that's what we are. 466 00:24:17,730 --> 00:24:19,570 It's part of what we are made for. 467 00:24:19,610 --> 00:24:24,690 Why are we here? We are here precisely to bear 468 00:24:24,690 --> 00:24:28,010 witness to the glories that we say we see. 469 00:24:28,010 --> 00:24:32,170 The the rabbits are appreciating the grass that they're eating in 470 00:24:32,570 --> 00:24:36,050 in my lawn right now, but they're not telling us what the 471 00:24:36,050 --> 00:24:42,570 grass has to teach us about God. But that's precisely why we're 472 00:24:42,570 --> 00:24:46,440 here to to see. God and his nature and his 473 00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,880 fingerprints at every turn and and bear witness to that not 474 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,480 only to each other, so that we can get each other into heaven 475 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:58,000 someday, but literally to the cosmos, to everything The 476 00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:04,480 heavenly beings are watching this and the backbone of this, 477 00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:09,360 of of our why we create book, is the idea of of what we call the 478 00:25:09,360 --> 00:25:12,940 the Eucharistic life. And again, Protestants like 479 00:25:13,220 --> 00:25:15,260 freaking out right now because I just used the word Eucharist. 480 00:25:15,260 --> 00:25:19,100 But think about Eucharist in the term of the in the sense of 481 00:25:19,100 --> 00:25:22,420 Thanksgiving. The the Eucharistic life is to 482 00:25:23,100 --> 00:25:31,540 pay attention to what God has done to give thanks for it. 483 00:25:32,460 --> 00:25:37,580 It's it's fundamentally A gratitude based impulse. 484 00:25:39,020 --> 00:25:42,500 Maybe Able says the wrong word, a gratitudebased virtue. 485 00:25:42,700 --> 00:25:45,940 It's it's something that you can cultivate, even if it doesn't 486 00:25:45,940 --> 00:25:48,180 come naturally to you. It doesn't come naturally to me. 487 00:25:48,740 --> 00:25:52,460 And then, having given thanks for it, what do we do? 488 00:25:53,140 --> 00:25:59,740 We work with it, We steward it. And you know, it's it's in the 489 00:25:59,740 --> 00:26:02,060 the communion language. And having given thanks, he 490 00:26:02,060 --> 00:26:06,540 broke it and made it into something else. 491 00:26:06,990 --> 00:26:10,830 And it's not an accident that that impulse is throughout the 492 00:26:10,870 --> 00:26:15,230 Old Testament, and then it is consummated in the death and 493 00:26:15,230 --> 00:26:18,630 resurrection of Christ that we celebrate in communion. 494 00:26:18,630 --> 00:26:22,790 You take what God has given you create with it. 495 00:26:23,550 --> 00:26:28,230 But the process of that creation can be done better or worse, 496 00:26:28,630 --> 00:26:30,670 right? If you've been to most of the. 497 00:26:31,690 --> 00:26:33,930 I I was going to say summer blockbusters this year. 498 00:26:34,170 --> 00:26:36,650 There haven't been many summer blockbusters this year because 499 00:26:36,650 --> 00:26:39,930 the stories were so dreadful that whoever went opening 500 00:26:39,930 --> 00:26:42,610 weekend left and told their friends not to go. 501 00:26:42,970 --> 00:26:49,290 My my favorite place to go to hear bad creativity thoroughly 502 00:26:49,290 --> 00:26:53,250 destroyed and panned, is this YouTube channel called The 503 00:26:53,250 --> 00:26:55,010 Critical Drinker. I'm not. 504 00:26:55,170 --> 00:26:58,320 Let me just say this. I'm not recommending this 505 00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,120 YouTube channel in a in a straightforward way for my 506 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,840 listeners, he he has a very salty mouth. 507 00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,160 He's this kind of got this Scottish accent and he just 508 00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,720 destroys all these movies, especially the recent Disney 509 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:09,440 remakes. Right? 510 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,360 But oh man, it's so it's so true, like the lack of stories. 511 00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:16,360 But then when something really good does come out, it it stands 512 00:27:16,360 --> 00:27:18,560 out, it sticks out because you're like, oh, that's what 513 00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,270 that's what's happening here. Remember last night? 514 00:27:21,310 --> 00:27:24,710 I know this was last year's movie, but last night we watched 515 00:27:24,750 --> 00:27:27,070 the new Puss in Boots, right? This is from the Shrek 516 00:27:27,070 --> 00:27:27,950 franchise, right? Okay. 517 00:27:28,310 --> 00:27:32,430 Shrek hasn't exactly been for 20 something years, a fountain of, 518 00:27:33,190 --> 00:27:36,910 I guess, high culture. It's it's mainly exists to mock 519 00:27:36,910 --> 00:27:40,070 existing cultural artifacts. But something really cool 520 00:27:40,070 --> 00:27:41,590 happened with this movie. I don't know if you've seen it, 521 00:27:41,910 --> 00:27:44,870 but there was all this, like, character development and 522 00:27:44,870 --> 00:27:47,790 dealing with using these really funny and goofy characters to 523 00:27:47,790 --> 00:27:52,650 deal with deep questions about the human condition and about 524 00:27:52,650 --> 00:27:56,890 what it means to to care about others as much or more than you 525 00:27:56,890 --> 00:27:59,130 care about yourself. And it was like, that's why life 526 00:27:59,130 --> 00:28:00,530 matters. That's why any of your lives 527 00:28:00,530 --> 00:28:03,090 matter if you're a cat. And that was I just said I 528 00:28:03,090 --> 00:28:05,250 turned to Gabby and went this character development happening 529 00:28:05,250 --> 00:28:06,610 here. What on earth? 530 00:28:06,730 --> 00:28:09,530 It's been so long since I've seen this quality in a story, 531 00:28:09,810 --> 00:28:11,290 and it makes it stick out for sure. 532 00:28:11,290 --> 00:28:12,330 You can tell. Pretty much. 533 00:28:12,330 --> 00:28:15,450 Whenever a major studio is is not paying attention to the 534 00:28:15,450 --> 00:28:19,050 plot, that's when we seem to get good movies right now. 535 00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,440 Like the ones that are not hacked to pieces by people who 536 00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,320 are agonizing over how they're going to appease different 537 00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:30,160 crowds and how they're going to get just the right formula. 538 00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:32,000 As though the formula is working. 539 00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,320 You get Disney movies and Disney Plus and what's what's what's 540 00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:38,840 the one decent story that's been told on Disney Plus and or which 541 00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,320 was told by a single writer who had a story to tell and who 542 00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,200 clearly wasn't meddled with all that much. 543 00:28:45,390 --> 00:28:46,790 The kind of stuff flies under the radar. 544 00:28:46,830 --> 00:28:49,550 I've definitely noticed that Brian we just reviewed kind of 545 00:28:49,550 --> 00:28:54,150 the worldview of Tolkien on creativity as told in his short 546 00:28:54,150 --> 00:28:57,390 story or parable rather leaf by niggle. 547 00:28:57,710 --> 00:29:01,030 The ending of that has always somewhat puzzled me, and I want 548 00:29:01,030 --> 00:29:04,110 to get that that ending or kind of spoil it for listeners here, 549 00:29:04,110 --> 00:29:08,790 just because it serves as a central motif by which each of 550 00:29:08,790 --> 00:29:13,030 the authors in this book, each of the essay, is to reflect on 551 00:29:13,630 --> 00:29:18,740 Christian creativity, go back and reinforce this, this premise 552 00:29:18,740 --> 00:29:21,780 or this thesis that there are no ordinary things. 553 00:29:21,980 --> 00:29:23,860 So what happens at the end of Leaf by Nagle? 554 00:29:23,860 --> 00:29:28,060 Because I'm confused like he did ordinary stuff in purgatory and 555 00:29:28,060 --> 00:29:30,180 then he gets his tree. What's up with that? 556 00:29:31,060 --> 00:29:33,540 Yeah, he's been trying to work on this painting of a tree his 557 00:29:33,540 --> 00:29:39,100 whole life and all he ever finishes in this life is 1 leaf, 558 00:29:39,300 --> 00:29:43,460 which is generally acknowledged to be very good, but in in the. 559 00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:48,880 Yeah, the the the afterlife as it's portrayed he he comes upon 560 00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,000 this tree and he immediately recognizes that it's his tree 561 00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:58,320 but that it but it is also A finished and B far more 562 00:29:58,320 --> 00:29:59,480 beautiful than he ever dreamed of. 563 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,320 He instantly recognized like this is what I was trying to do, 564 00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,120 but he also instantly recognizes. 565 00:30:04,490 --> 00:30:07,330 It's far better than I could ever have done. 566 00:30:07,330 --> 00:30:10,290 There's there's more here. It's it's almost like because 567 00:30:10,290 --> 00:30:13,010 he's he's standing there and ultimately he's standing there 568 00:30:13,010 --> 00:30:16,490 with his neighbor with his friend who was interrupting him 569 00:30:16,490 --> 00:30:19,450 the whole time. He's he's experiencing in 570 00:30:19,450 --> 00:30:23,610 community and in dialogue with the quote UN quote ordinary 571 00:30:23,610 --> 00:30:28,610 things the the fruits of not only his labor but what God's 572 00:30:28,610 --> 00:30:31,450 grace did with that labor. I love that. 573 00:30:31,610 --> 00:30:37,270 I I think every artist has the ability to resonate with that. 574 00:30:37,790 --> 00:30:39,550 Just the sense that you're because you're never quite 575 00:30:39,550 --> 00:30:44,230 satisfied with anything you do. Even he he talks about how parts 576 00:30:44,230 --> 00:30:47,950 of the tree that he had only imagined for the briefest moment 577 00:30:48,590 --> 00:30:51,950 were there in their completion, in their full beauty, exactly as 578 00:30:51,950 --> 00:30:54,270 he imagined them as well as he imagined them. 579 00:30:54,470 --> 00:30:57,990 I've I've always assumed that this was autobiographical, that 580 00:30:57,990 --> 00:31:02,390 the the one leaf was like the bit of the history of Middle 581 00:31:02,390 --> 00:31:05,390 Earth that Tolkien was able to give us the like the what would 582 00:31:05,390 --> 00:31:07,190 he publish in his life? Like 2 books. 583 00:31:07,190 --> 00:31:10,070 The Lord of the Rings which is one book, and The Hobbit 584 00:31:10,590 --> 00:31:12,990 essentially. And then he's he's got all this 585 00:31:12,990 --> 00:31:14,990 other stuff written and published and Christopher comes 586 00:31:14,990 --> 00:31:18,630 along and tidies it up, edits it and and starts to give us a 587 00:31:18,630 --> 00:31:21,150 glimpse at the bigger picture of the whole story. 588 00:31:21,150 --> 00:31:22,470 Right. But we only had this little bit 589 00:31:22,830 --> 00:31:25,110 about the hobbits and stuff but boy was it a good bit. 590 00:31:25,550 --> 00:31:29,390 I wonder it it really opens the possibility when you're someone 591 00:31:29,390 --> 00:31:33,130 who also likes to write or do any of the traditional, you 592 00:31:33,130 --> 00:31:37,330 know, creative things, will we have a chance to finish those? 593 00:31:37,330 --> 00:31:38,690 Will we have a chance to complete them? 594 00:31:39,370 --> 00:31:41,530 I've never been satisfied with anything I've done and I doubt I 595 00:31:41,530 --> 00:31:43,410 ever will be. Not, not in the, not in the 596 00:31:43,410 --> 00:31:46,490 sense that I hoped originally, but that's a beautiful, that's a 597 00:31:46,490 --> 00:31:48,570 beautiful thought. But the thing that that gets me 598 00:31:48,570 --> 00:31:51,690 about it, Brian, is that he completes it or receives it in 599 00:31:51,690 --> 00:31:55,450 completion, not through niggling over it some more because that's 600 00:31:55,450 --> 00:32:00,110 a that's a verb, right, Niggle. But he does the ordinary tasks 601 00:32:00,110 --> 00:32:04,550 that he he neglected in life as almost like a purgatorial 602 00:32:04,550 --> 00:32:07,750 penance. And then the tree appears and 603 00:32:07,750 --> 00:32:10,670 then he gets the the tree. What's going on there? 604 00:32:10,670 --> 00:32:12,550 And what do you think is in Tolkien's mind? 605 00:32:12,630 --> 00:32:16,870 He's learning what he failed to learn in his time on earth. 606 00:32:16,870 --> 00:32:19,070 Which was this the significance of all of it? 607 00:32:19,070 --> 00:32:22,510 And but it's not just I don't. I also think it's not as simple 608 00:32:22,510 --> 00:32:24,550 as there. There was a lesson learned. 609 00:32:24,990 --> 00:32:26,750 Right. We're so quick to ask what the 610 00:32:26,750 --> 00:32:31,430 moral of the story is. It's very much not that he 611 00:32:31,430 --> 00:32:35,390 consciously apprehends a moral of the story that he missed. 612 00:32:35,790 --> 00:32:43,830 It's that the repeated habits of fulfilling his duties shape him 613 00:32:43,910 --> 00:32:47,310 over time into someone that he would not otherwise have been. 614 00:32:49,550 --> 00:32:52,510 So it's not simply that he's told something like his his eyes 615 00:32:52,510 --> 00:32:56,310 are made ready. To see the tree, to be the 616 00:32:56,310 --> 00:33:00,550 person that God has always intended for him to be. 617 00:33:00,550 --> 00:33:05,590 But it's precisely the the repeated engagement in certain 618 00:33:05,590 --> 00:33:10,350 kinds of activities that forms his soul over time. 619 00:33:12,390 --> 00:33:15,030 This is why I I started our conversation by saying it's not 620 00:33:15,030 --> 00:33:18,910 about art, It's about vocation. It's about who we are as. 621 00:33:20,140 --> 00:33:22,300 Humans. If I'm trying to clean my room, 622 00:33:22,380 --> 00:33:24,220 I'm doing something creative. If I'm trying to build a 623 00:33:24,220 --> 00:33:26,620 business, I'm doing something creative. 624 00:33:26,620 --> 00:33:30,460 If I am trying to do anything in a way that is good and excellent 625 00:33:30,540 --> 00:33:32,900 and better yet doing it Christianly right. 626 00:33:32,900 --> 00:33:38,780 I'm not simply behaving myself. I'm not simply going to work and 627 00:33:38,780 --> 00:33:41,300 oh by the way, witnessing to my coworkers or something. 628 00:33:41,300 --> 00:33:43,700 I'm trying to ask a fundamental question about the nature of 629 00:33:44,180 --> 00:33:49,820 doing life and. There are books about this. 630 00:33:49,900 --> 00:33:54,860 There are many, many wonderful, usually very scholarly books 631 00:33:54,860 --> 00:33:57,260 that deal with pieces of this question. 632 00:33:57,580 --> 00:34:02,460 The problem that I've run into is that you got to read like 20 633 00:34:02,460 --> 00:34:04,340 of them, and they're mostly very scholarly. 634 00:34:04,460 --> 00:34:08,420 I can't, I can't go to someone who is putting dozens of extra 635 00:34:08,420 --> 00:34:12,100 hours into mastering a craft and say, well, here's 20 theology 636 00:34:12,100 --> 00:34:13,580 books you should read on the side. 637 00:34:14,100 --> 00:34:15,820 So essentially what we did was we went to. 638 00:34:16,870 --> 00:34:20,510 As many of those 20 authors who were still living and said would 639 00:34:20,510 --> 00:34:22,870 you write a chapter for a book? Because there were. 640 00:34:23,030 --> 00:34:25,949 There are a lot of ideas in this eucharistic life that we wanted 641 00:34:25,949 --> 00:34:30,270 to be able to explain more quickly and more memorably. 642 00:34:30,510 --> 00:34:34,590 What does it mean to look at the world God has made and asked the 643 00:34:34,590 --> 00:34:39,630 question who is he based on that? 644 00:34:40,270 --> 00:34:44,350 So in in the book we look at the relationship between heaven and 645 00:34:44,350 --> 00:34:47,880 earth and the idea that. They're actually far more 646 00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:49,440 connected than we give them credit for. 647 00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:55,199 And then given that, we take a look at the material world and 648 00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:58,760 explore, all right, what if we What if the material world isn't 649 00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,040 mundane? What does that mean? 650 00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:03,120 You know, this is my father's world. 651 00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:07,560 He shines in all that's fair. And then we do the same thing 652 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,600 with time. What does it mean for our 653 00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,800 stories to be part of God's story? 654 00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,750 God is outside of time. We we made-up this word, 655 00:35:16,750 --> 00:35:20,190 eternity, to describe this thing we can't begin to comprehend. 656 00:35:21,390 --> 00:35:26,430 So why did God, who is not bound by space and is not bound by 657 00:35:26,430 --> 00:35:32,270 time, give us those limits? Why did He put us in a world 658 00:35:32,270 --> 00:35:36,950 where we are constantly bound by things that we consider to be 659 00:35:37,750 --> 00:35:42,270 distractions and inconveniences? And what does it mean to begin 660 00:35:42,270 --> 00:35:46,480 to look at those things? As intentional gifts of grace 661 00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,000 that we have been overlooking our entire lives. 662 00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:54,360 And then if we were to process all of that. 663 00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:57,440 All right, I've thought about the world. 664 00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,840 I've thought about God. I've thought on some level about 665 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:02,760 the idea that all of this stuff matters. 666 00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,560 It's not it's it's designed to point to something bigger, 667 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:07,200 right. That's not idolatry. 668 00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,080 I am not loving the thing for itself. 669 00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:15,880 I am loving the thing in its. Partially for itself because it 670 00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:19,040 is a good thing, but but mostly because it is, it is showing me 671 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,560 something bigger and is specifically in in dialogue with 672 00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:24,880 that bigger thing. I'm not just adding that 673 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:28,320 connection. And then all right, well if if 674 00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,200 that's the world and if that's the God who made it, what does 675 00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:34,440 it mean to be the imagoday? What does it mean to act like I 676 00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:36,280 am created in the image of that God? 677 00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,880 What does it mean to be created in the image of that God? 678 00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,880 So the rest of the book then explores very practical 679 00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:43,570 questions of. Okay. 680 00:36:43,570 --> 00:36:45,050 What's this whole gratitude look like? 681 00:36:45,570 --> 00:36:47,010 A whole gratitude thing look like? 682 00:36:47,010 --> 00:36:49,050 What does this memory thing look like? 683 00:36:49,050 --> 00:36:51,290 What is? What is tokens word sub 684 00:36:51,290 --> 00:36:52,170 creation? What is it? 685 00:36:52,410 --> 00:36:54,690 What does it mean, in other words, to for me to create an an 686 00:36:54,690 --> 00:36:58,650 act of humility instead of of of an act of hubris and 687 00:36:58,650 --> 00:37:01,450 selfworship. And we go through all these 688 00:37:01,450 --> 00:37:05,050 different pieces of it. You'll need to sit down for a 689 00:37:05,050 --> 00:37:08,610 Jane Charles chapter on time because it's a it's a little bit 690 00:37:08,610 --> 00:37:12,100 mindblowing. She she pushes the IT. 691 00:37:12,140 --> 00:37:13,740 It's like a Christopher Nolan movie, man. 692 00:37:13,740 --> 00:37:15,780 You're going to it. It works your thinking a little 693 00:37:15,780 --> 00:37:17,660 bit, but it's pretty cool. And that's what Christopher 694 00:37:17,660 --> 00:37:19,180 Nolan's good for. He doesn't always have the 695 00:37:19,180 --> 00:37:21,940 answer to the question that he asks, but he asks really good 696 00:37:21,940 --> 00:37:23,780 questions. And he and and that's what he's 697 00:37:23,780 --> 00:37:25,820 trying to do. He's trying to push your mind 698 00:37:25,820 --> 00:37:27,980 past what it's used to. And that's what Jane's trying to 699 00:37:27,980 --> 00:37:28,980 do. And on some level, that's what 700 00:37:28,980 --> 00:37:30,340 all these authors are trying to do. 701 00:37:30,340 --> 00:37:32,220 That's what it mentally speaking. 702 00:37:32,220 --> 00:37:34,820 I mean, that's that's what it is to be human, to look at the 703 00:37:34,820 --> 00:37:37,900 material world, recognize that we were made with. 704 00:37:38,590 --> 00:37:41,910 This is so Herman Bobink, a 19th century Reformed theologian. 705 00:37:42,070 --> 00:37:45,990 This is part of how he explains what it means to be the amount 706 00:37:45,990 --> 00:37:48,750 of day. Part of it is to recognize that 707 00:37:48,750 --> 00:37:52,230 we're designed to participate in the heavenly realm, that we are 708 00:37:52,230 --> 00:37:56,190 actually separated right now from a part of reality that 709 00:37:56,310 --> 00:37:58,790 that, in the in an ultimate sense, we are made for. 710 00:37:59,390 --> 00:38:03,110 So when we are, when we have that, that. 711 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,520 Sort of homesickness or ache for something that we've never seen 712 00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:10,920 and we can't explain it. Or when something good and 713 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:14,320 beautiful makes us want to cry, what are we doing there? 714 00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:19,520 We're our Our deepest spiritual impulses are being activated, 715 00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,800 and we are supposed to lean into that awareness and learn more 716 00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:26,640 about it and explore. Because. 717 00:38:27,430 --> 00:38:31,270 In doing that, we are pursuing the practice of of what we will 718 00:38:31,270 --> 00:38:34,230 be doing for eternity when when the veil is lifted. 719 00:38:34,870 --> 00:38:37,430 Talk about the way that the book is organized. 720 00:38:37,430 --> 00:38:39,950 It's in three really discrete parts. 721 00:38:39,990 --> 00:38:44,310 God creates, we create, and then an epilogue by Anthony Eslin 722 00:38:44,310 --> 00:38:48,230 called God Meets Us in Creation. And those first two parts have, 723 00:38:48,230 --> 00:38:50,230 you know all of these essays that we've talked about, all 724 00:38:50,230 --> 00:38:56,270 these reflections on memory and time and matter and space and 725 00:38:56,790 --> 00:38:59,190 the art of naming. For instance, all these concepts 726 00:38:59,190 --> 00:39:03,470 that are involved in fulfilling this grand and expansive call 727 00:39:03,670 --> 00:39:09,030 that we have been given by God. What's the the rationale behind 728 00:39:09,110 --> 00:39:11,870 how it's organized and how does it reflect the the central idea, 729 00:39:11,990 --> 00:39:15,070 what you're doing? So the God Creates section is 730 00:39:15,070 --> 00:39:17,310 exploring most of what I was just talking about. 731 00:39:17,310 --> 00:39:19,910 It's getting into all right. What precisely is the 732 00:39:19,910 --> 00:39:21,750 relationship between heaven and earth? 733 00:39:22,210 --> 00:39:25,330 And if I'm not worshipping the creation for its own sake, what 734 00:39:25,330 --> 00:39:27,890 does it look like to ascribe proper worth to it, as opposed 735 00:39:27,890 --> 00:39:30,690 to nothing, right. A category between idolatry and 736 00:39:30,690 --> 00:39:32,810 indifference? And then we do the same. 737 00:39:32,810 --> 00:39:33,970 That's that's the material world. 738 00:39:33,970 --> 00:39:36,170 That is space. Then we do the same thing with 739 00:39:36,650 --> 00:39:39,450 with time. What does it mean to be 740 00:39:39,890 --> 00:39:44,850 timebound beings who are living like we're part of eternity and 741 00:39:45,130 --> 00:39:47,040 having? Yeah, I mean, I was going to say 742 00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:49,600 wrapped all of that up, but it really, it's really, again, it's 743 00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:51,480 trying to introduce you to an idea. 744 00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,800 There are bigger, longer, scarier books that are well 745 00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,360 worth your time on. On that front, Hans Bursma's 746 00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,560 book Heavenly Participation, Gerald Mcdermott's book Everyday 747 00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,000 Glory actually is probably the one I'd recommend to start with 748 00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:08,240 if you read our chapters and want more about the dialogue 749 00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:10,700 between. Symbolism in the created order 750 00:40:10,700 --> 00:40:13,540 and symbolism in Scripture. Or James Jordan's book Through 751 00:40:13,540 --> 00:40:15,700 New Eyes, developing A biblical view of the world. 752 00:40:15,740 --> 00:40:18,900 All of these books deal with the question of the relationship 753 00:40:18,900 --> 00:40:22,660 between earth and heaven and what that relationship tells us 754 00:40:22,660 --> 00:40:25,260 about God. But then we have to ask that 755 00:40:25,260 --> 00:40:29,660 question of all right, if I am made in the image of a creator 756 00:40:29,660 --> 00:40:32,500 God created in this kind of way and made this kind of world and 757 00:40:32,500 --> 00:40:35,860 made me to see it and how do we create? 758 00:40:35,860 --> 00:40:38,780 And that's where we get this idea of of the Eucharistic life 759 00:40:38,780 --> 00:40:44,220 and it's where we get a theology of sub creation because you can 760 00:40:44,220 --> 00:40:47,340 create in a way that's just hubris, right? 761 00:40:47,340 --> 00:40:50,540 I'm creating from my own genius for my own glory. 762 00:40:51,100 --> 00:40:52,580 What does it look like to not do that? 763 00:40:53,420 --> 00:40:58,020 And gratitude is the first step of that life. 764 00:40:58,020 --> 00:41:00,620 It it begins to order everything else. 765 00:41:00,620 --> 00:41:04,930 To say that even that good idea I just had isn't mine. 766 00:41:05,970 --> 00:41:09,130 It didn't pop into my head, It was placed in my head. 767 00:41:10,170 --> 00:41:14,050 And frankly, this is the part that I personally struggle with 768 00:41:14,050 --> 00:41:16,330 the most when I'm confronted with a difficult problem, 769 00:41:16,330 --> 00:41:20,250 especially a something that is near to my heart, where I'm 770 00:41:20,250 --> 00:41:22,730 really trying to ask a hard question about who I'm supposed 771 00:41:22,730 --> 00:41:25,050 to be. I try to get there through sheer 772 00:41:25,050 --> 00:41:33,330 force of genius or or sheer effort and the art of gratitude 773 00:41:33,890 --> 00:41:38,210 is is it's almost the hurdle you have to get over before you can 774 00:41:38,210 --> 00:41:40,410 do much of the rest of it terribly well. 775 00:41:41,050 --> 00:41:44,250 I noticed this when I was a kid very early on I mentioned the, 776 00:41:44,250 --> 00:41:46,290 you know, the drawing, dinosaurs and stuff like that. 777 00:41:46,290 --> 00:41:47,850 My, my son's doing the same thing. 778 00:41:47,850 --> 00:41:50,330 He's in the same phase. But I noticed that when I would 779 00:41:50,330 --> 00:41:54,210 sit down and say, okay, I'm going to draw this one and this 780 00:41:54,210 --> 00:41:56,130 is going to be the best drawing I've ever done. 781 00:41:56,330 --> 00:41:59,050 And it is going to be, it's going to be knock your socks off 782 00:41:59,050 --> 00:42:00,330 good. Everyone's going to be impressed 783 00:42:00,330 --> 00:42:01,410 with it. I would. 784 00:42:01,930 --> 00:42:05,490 Get frustrated and burn out on that drawing because I just the 785 00:42:05,490 --> 00:42:08,050 standards were too high. The pressure was too great. 786 00:42:08,410 --> 00:42:11,290 My sense of how great it had to be was leading it. 787 00:42:11,330 --> 00:42:13,490 And at this point you know, like I'm I'm an 8 year old, so it's 788 00:42:13,490 --> 00:42:15,610 going to be it's going to be nothing anyway. 789 00:42:15,930 --> 00:42:18,690 But I found that when I just sat down and doodled just for the 790 00:42:18,690 --> 00:42:22,290 fun of it, I was really pleased with those and everyone else was 791 00:42:22,290 --> 00:42:24,610 really pleased with those and what was happening there. 792 00:42:24,690 --> 00:42:27,250 And I was baffled at the time. Now I look back and realize oh. 793 00:42:27,670 --> 00:42:28,870 That same thing applies in a lot of life. 794 00:42:28,870 --> 00:42:32,630 It's that you're actually allowing the creative juices to 795 00:42:32,630 --> 00:42:36,390 flow as it were, allowing the process to unfold as it is was 796 00:42:36,390 --> 00:42:39,310 meant to, instead of as the fulfillment of some idolatrous 797 00:42:39,310 --> 00:42:41,550 desire to do the best you've ever done like that. 798 00:42:41,870 --> 00:42:44,270 You will kill art that way. You will kill creativity that 799 00:42:44,270 --> 00:42:45,870 way, yeah? And how do you get the creative 800 00:42:45,870 --> 00:42:50,070 juices to flow better? I've had long stretches of 801 00:42:51,170 --> 00:42:53,730 writers call it writer's block, but it applies to absolutely 802 00:42:53,730 --> 00:42:55,810 everybody who's trying to do anything creative. 803 00:42:55,810 --> 00:42:57,890 Architects have skyscraper block. 804 00:42:58,010 --> 00:43:00,570 Fun fact, that sounds scarier somehow. 805 00:43:00,570 --> 00:43:04,810 And then there are stretches where I'm coming up with good 806 00:43:04,810 --> 00:43:08,210 ideas and I end up doing something I'm reasonably proud 807 00:43:08,210 --> 00:43:11,370 of. But what does it look like to 808 00:43:13,730 --> 00:43:21,260 internalize a different creative process that lets God be the 809 00:43:21,260 --> 00:43:24,740 initiator from the beginning? Maybe for some people it's as 810 00:43:24,740 --> 00:43:28,060 simple as just opening with a prayer, right? 811 00:43:28,060 --> 00:43:29,900 God let me hear your voice and that sort of thing. 812 00:43:29,900 --> 00:43:32,380 For me, I find that it's a lot more complicated than that. 813 00:43:32,460 --> 00:43:36,940 And there are there are components to sub creation, 814 00:43:37,260 --> 00:43:41,020 creating with the raw materials that God has made for his glory 815 00:43:41,500 --> 00:43:46,380 that we have found working with, particularly artists, because 816 00:43:46,380 --> 00:43:49,060 that's our area. But it applies everywhere. 817 00:43:49,690 --> 00:43:55,770 There are pieces that we find are not well taught by modernity 818 00:43:55,770 --> 00:43:59,890 as we know it by modern life, whether it's the business world 819 00:43:59,890 --> 00:44:03,610 or the artistic world or whatever. 820 00:44:03,610 --> 00:44:06,610 So gratitude is one. Another is memory. 821 00:44:06,610 --> 00:44:08,690 Let me talk about memory and naming, actually. 822 00:44:08,970 --> 00:44:12,690 So naming. Why does Adam name the animals? 823 00:44:14,050 --> 00:44:17,210 Why does God do all this creative stuff and then stop 824 00:44:17,210 --> 00:44:21,340 creating and then tell Adam to go create? 825 00:44:23,580 --> 00:44:26,940 We have a whole chapter that unpacks the significance of of 826 00:44:26,940 --> 00:44:29,660 naming because it's been rightly pointed out elsewhere that 827 00:44:30,020 --> 00:44:32,700 naming is a creative process. Of course it is. 828 00:44:33,140 --> 00:44:34,900 And it's one that God himself honors. 829 00:44:35,180 --> 00:44:38,060 That was, the chapter points that out as well, that God 830 00:44:38,060 --> 00:44:40,380 starts using those names henceforth. 831 00:44:40,420 --> 00:44:43,660 Those are human names, right? Yeah, we're invited into his 832 00:44:43,660 --> 00:44:48,050 creative process, and because of that we owe something to the 833 00:44:48,050 --> 00:44:49,770 person who's delegating this to us. 834 00:44:50,090 --> 00:44:52,530 It is. It is a creative function, but 835 00:44:52,530 --> 00:44:57,330 it is also still and and artists can struggle with this 836 00:44:57,490 --> 00:44:59,610 conceptually, where they tend to accept it very quickly when you 837 00:44:59,610 --> 00:45:02,930 unpack it a bit. It's also still a duty bound 838 00:45:03,730 --> 00:45:05,770 function. If you think about naming not 839 00:45:05,770 --> 00:45:08,890 simply as creating a set of letters to assign to something, 840 00:45:09,170 --> 00:45:11,850 but naming in the sense of conveying meaning. 841 00:45:11,930 --> 00:45:14,370 You have to pay attention to the nature of what it is you're 842 00:45:14,370 --> 00:45:18,090 naming. So what is it that's going on? 843 00:45:18,090 --> 00:45:21,010 When I'm, you know, let's say I'm a scientist, then I've, I've 844 00:45:21,010 --> 00:45:23,810 discovered a new element. What is this thing? 845 00:45:23,810 --> 00:45:24,890 What is the nature of this thing? 846 00:45:24,890 --> 00:45:26,650 How does it work? How do I name it in a way that 847 00:45:26,650 --> 00:45:31,050 does justice to that? So that theology of naming 848 00:45:31,050 --> 00:45:35,570 actually gets you much closer to an idea of the relationship 849 00:45:35,570 --> 00:45:38,490 between your work and God's work. 850 00:45:38,970 --> 00:45:44,240 And diving into it is is a profoundly formative exercise. 851 00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,800 Memory is the same way. You know this is one of the 10 852 00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:48,400 commandments. Honor your father and mother. 853 00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:50,880 It's not children to obey your parents. 854 00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:53,800 That is a separate commandment given elsewhere. 855 00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,600 Honor your father and mother is about much more than 8 year old. 856 00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:00,800 Do what daddy says. Honoring your father is about 857 00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:05,200 father and mother is about a right relationship with the 858 00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:12,070 past. And that's worth taking into 859 00:46:12,070 --> 00:46:14,470 because a great deal of the damage that is being done to our 860 00:46:14,470 --> 00:46:18,390 world right now is being done by people who have a posture of 861 00:46:18,390 --> 00:46:20,990 anger and bitterness toward the past. 862 00:46:21,630 --> 00:46:25,670 And So what does it mean to honor your father and mother in 863 00:46:25,670 --> 00:46:29,550 a way that isn't rose colored glasses? 864 00:46:30,030 --> 00:46:32,790 It does justice to the evil and sin that has happened in the 865 00:46:32,790 --> 00:46:35,590 world. But I'm still honoring my 866 00:46:35,590 --> 00:46:36,590 father. How does that work? 867 00:46:36,590 --> 00:46:39,550 That's a pretty important question to to answer. 868 00:46:39,550 --> 00:46:44,450 And at the same time, in learning the art of how to learn 869 00:46:44,450 --> 00:46:49,770 from the past, how to learn what the cumulative human experience 870 00:46:49,770 --> 00:46:52,970 before me has discovered. What's the relationship between 871 00:46:53,050 --> 00:46:56,650 reason and imagination? That's a key component to 872 00:46:56,970 --> 00:47:00,250 memory. Christians should be artists of 873 00:47:00,250 --> 00:47:01,890 memory. That should be one of the things 874 00:47:01,890 --> 00:47:04,570 that we are best at. Scripture has the word remember 875 00:47:04,570 --> 00:47:09,130 in it how many times. And it's not just call to mind, 876 00:47:09,130 --> 00:47:13,740 it's it's the art of seeing the flow of time as something that 877 00:47:13,740 --> 00:47:18,340 has meaning in it. Rationality gives me facts. 878 00:47:18,660 --> 00:47:21,860 Imagination assigns meaning to those facts. 879 00:47:21,940 --> 00:47:24,860 That's important. That's important because this 880 00:47:25,580 --> 00:47:26,940 that's part of the creative process too. 881 00:47:26,940 --> 00:47:29,740 That's part of being human. Human history didn't begin with 882 00:47:29,740 --> 00:47:33,700 you, and it won't end with you in an earthly sense. 883 00:47:33,700 --> 00:47:36,980 So what's your role in the flow of time? 884 00:47:38,340 --> 00:47:41,060 Beginning to answer that question again with a posture of 885 00:47:41,060 --> 00:47:45,580 gratitude puts you in a position where instead of judging 886 00:47:45,580 --> 00:47:48,380 everything before you and cursing everything after you, 887 00:47:48,820 --> 00:47:50,900 you're there in a posture of of humility. 888 00:47:50,940 --> 00:47:55,260 Again, not simply a proposition to be accepted, but an art to be 889 00:47:55,260 --> 00:47:58,580 explored. I think this is one of the the 890 00:47:58,580 --> 00:48:02,380 eye opening moments of the AHA moments that happens when folks 891 00:48:02,380 --> 00:48:04,500 go through the Coulson Fellows program. 892 00:48:04,700 --> 00:48:07,380 So every time I get together with Michael Craven. 893 00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,600 He and I talk about this and and you and I talk about this as 894 00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:12,480 well. There's this sense that 895 00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:16,440 Christians from a particular background, especially American 896 00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:21,280 evangelicals, have going into a study of the faith and how it 897 00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:23,840 affects all of life. That really there's not a lot of 898 00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,120 life that ultimately matters. That there is this kind of sharp 899 00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:29,920 bifurcation between the heavenly things and the earthly things 900 00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:32,520 and that the earthly things, as, as you say in the introduction 901 00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:34,920 things of earth, will grow strangely dim in the light of 902 00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:36,640 his, his glory and grace. Right. 903 00:48:36,980 --> 00:48:39,580 And this is part of the hymnity. But then there's this alternate 904 00:48:39,580 --> 00:48:41,940 theme in hymnity, that this is my father's world. 905 00:48:41,940 --> 00:48:44,580 And to my listening years, all nature sings around me rings the 906 00:48:44,580 --> 00:48:47,300 music of the spheres, and that the ultimate destiny of this, 907 00:48:47,380 --> 00:48:50,900 this whole project is for earth and heaven to be one, as Maltby 908 00:48:50,900 --> 00:48:53,180 Babcock says at the end of the last verse there. 909 00:48:53,540 --> 00:48:58,180 And this is a this is a very dramatic shift to make in your 910 00:48:58,180 --> 00:49:02,620 thinking, to to think of God's world as still the world that he 911 00:49:02,620 --> 00:49:05,950 made and said is very good. Despite the corruption of the 912 00:49:05,950 --> 00:49:10,750 Fall, to see our place in it as still very much in continuity 913 00:49:10,750 --> 00:49:13,790 with the place that Adam and Eve had at when they were put into 914 00:49:13,790 --> 00:49:16,670 the garden, and to see that Commission that they were given 915 00:49:16,870 --> 00:49:20,630 as still active, as still in force, we that was never 916 00:49:20,630 --> 00:49:24,150 rescinded or or done away with, neither by the Fall nor by 917 00:49:24,150 --> 00:49:25,950 redemption. And So what does that mean for 918 00:49:25,950 --> 00:49:28,550 the place we're at? That's a mind shift. 919 00:49:28,830 --> 00:49:32,310 When you start talking about that, the question Why should we 920 00:49:32,310 --> 00:49:35,690 care about creativity? It's put in a whole new light 921 00:49:36,010 --> 00:49:38,410 because this place matters to God. 922 00:49:38,410 --> 00:49:41,770 I mean, we can we can talk about eschatology and how that affects 923 00:49:41,770 --> 00:49:44,130 everything, and and Michael Craven and I often do. 924 00:49:44,490 --> 00:49:48,010 But at the heart of it, every Christian should be able to 925 00:49:48,010 --> 00:49:51,610 acknowledge that this place matters to God, that he still 926 00:49:51,610 --> 00:49:55,210 considers it very good, and that he considers the things we do in 927 00:49:55,210 --> 00:49:58,970 it that aren't just immediate evangelism, right. 928 00:49:58,970 --> 00:50:01,770 That aren't just getting people to believe the gospel. 929 00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:04,480 Most important thing we can do here besides praise God, 930 00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,920 absolutely Amen. But that's not all we're 931 00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,560 supposed to do here, nor is it disconnected from all the other 932 00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:10,600 things that we're supposed to do. 933 00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,560 The most effective gospel presentations I've ever seen 934 00:50:13,720 --> 00:50:17,320 have been over a dinner table, and that involves stuff in this 935 00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:19,600 world. We have to care about it because 936 00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:22,560 God cares about it. Seems to me that central it is 937 00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,880 and and when you when you bring around these creative 938 00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:28,600 conversations from the the conceptual theological level to 939 00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,810 the practical what do I do level if you're if you're serious 940 00:50:31,810 --> 00:50:37,330 about the relationship between your human creativity and God, 941 00:50:38,170 --> 00:50:40,730 it's worth working. It's worth doing the legwork 942 00:50:40,970 --> 00:50:44,330 doing the hard process of of working through some of these 943 00:50:44,330 --> 00:50:47,010 kinds of ideas. And we wanted you to be able to 944 00:50:47,010 --> 00:50:51,250 read you know 100 something pages in one book instead of 20 945 00:50:51,250 --> 00:50:53,570 books to at least start that that process. 946 00:50:53,850 --> 00:50:58,290 But the other part of it is, is, is how do I live differently? 947 00:50:58,450 --> 00:51:02,700 Of course. And as you say, so much of great 948 00:51:02,700 --> 00:51:09,500 Christian witness happens not when Christians disdain the good 949 00:51:09,500 --> 00:51:13,580 things that God has given them, acting as though I'm just 950 00:51:14,500 --> 00:51:20,860 sitting on my hands and come Lord Jesus, but caring about the 951 00:51:20,860 --> 00:51:25,060 the material things more than our neighbors. 952 00:51:25,900 --> 00:51:32,690 So you can have sort of the the idolatry of of of hedonism where 953 00:51:32,690 --> 00:51:39,170 I I'm just worshipping the whatever pizza or. 954 00:51:39,770 --> 00:51:45,970 Or I can say the pizza doesn't matter at all or I can serve the 955 00:51:45,970 --> 00:51:49,170 pizza to my neighbors in such a way that I mean if I made the 956 00:51:49,170 --> 00:51:51,090 pizza, hopefully they're saying this is the best thing I've ever 957 00:51:51,090 --> 00:51:53,730 tasted because I've put that much kind of care and love into 958 00:51:53,730 --> 00:51:55,810 the craft. But hey, most of us are not 959 00:51:55,810 --> 00:51:57,690 gourmet chefs. There's there. 960 00:51:57,690 --> 00:51:59,410 There's a hospitality component to it, too. 961 00:51:59,410 --> 00:52:03,730 We're we're thanking God for it. We are drawing significance from 962 00:52:03,730 --> 00:52:05,490 it, and we're sharing that significance with others. 963 00:52:05,490 --> 00:52:09,330 We do some weird prewritten prayers before whenever we have 964 00:52:09,330 --> 00:52:13,130 guests over for like an Easter feast or something like that. 965 00:52:13,130 --> 00:52:15,290 And, you know, most of them don't come from a background 966 00:52:15,290 --> 00:52:19,050 where that's normal behavior, but they always like it because 967 00:52:19,810 --> 00:52:22,530 we're drawing connections between the material gifts of 968 00:52:22,530 --> 00:52:26,280 God and the spiritual gifts of God and between the creation and 969 00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:28,240 the Creator. And they're just, I've never 970 00:52:28,240 --> 00:52:32,280 seen a role this way before. If they're not getting that from 971 00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:34,000 Christians, who are they going to get it from? 972 00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:40,200 This sort of collection of reflections, in brief that 973 00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:43,520 enables you to digest a lot of the conceptual material of a lot 974 00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:47,040 of different authors and a lot of different books is a little 975 00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:49,500 bit. Of what I was going for with 976 00:52:49,500 --> 00:52:52,820 this recent five books on public theology offering that we've 977 00:52:52,860 --> 00:52:56,780 we've done for Upstream. So it's it's sort of brief PDF 978 00:52:56,780 --> 00:52:59,460 format, very well put together. You know it's got beautiful 979 00:52:59,460 --> 00:53:03,180 illustrations but it's just five books that have done exactly 980 00:53:03,180 --> 00:53:06,380 this sort of thing for me. Most of them are pretty short 981 00:53:06,380 --> 00:53:08,140 books. We've mentioned a couple of them 982 00:53:08,420 --> 00:53:11,180 right here in this conversation. But public Don't let public 983 00:53:11,180 --> 00:53:14,380 theology scare you away that. That's just a phrase that means 984 00:53:14,380 --> 00:53:17,230 essentially. How Christianity matters for all 985 00:53:17,230 --> 00:53:21,070 of life, how it affects everything we do, including our 986 00:53:21,070 --> 00:53:23,390 creativity. And a lot of the the stuff that 987 00:53:23,390 --> 00:53:26,150 happens in the books I'm recommending is conceptual 988 00:53:26,150 --> 00:53:28,550 groundwork to kind of get you past a lot of those bad 989 00:53:28,550 --> 00:53:31,590 assumptions about the world. The idea that it's not charged 990 00:53:31,590 --> 00:53:33,470 with glory, that it's just ordinary matter. 991 00:53:33,670 --> 00:53:38,590 The idea that it doesn't scream symbolism and symbolic truths at 992 00:53:38,590 --> 00:53:42,190 you, wherever you go, whatever you read, whatever you consume, 993 00:53:42,190 --> 00:53:45,310 whatever natural beauty you see, all of that is. 994 00:53:45,610 --> 00:53:48,250 It's it's I guess a modern framework that needs to be taken 995 00:53:48,250 --> 00:53:51,130 apart so we can see the world the way I think God meant us to 996 00:53:51,130 --> 00:53:52,610 see it. So you can check that out by 997 00:53:52,610 --> 00:53:54,610 going to coulsoncenter.org/public 998 00:53:54,610 --> 00:53:56,370 Theology. We had a lot of fun putting 999 00:53:56,370 --> 00:53:58,370 together that resource and I think my listeners will really 1000 00:53:58,370 --> 00:54:03,130 enjoy that series of books. So on this one though and and 1001 00:54:03,130 --> 00:54:05,610 this is where we really get to the the cash out. 1002 00:54:06,170 --> 00:54:11,730 I think if I'm a reader, who is getting these essays and and 1003 00:54:11,730 --> 00:54:14,370 getting a lot of this conceptual material for the first time. 1004 00:54:14,630 --> 00:54:15,830 And getting very excited about it. 1005 00:54:16,030 --> 00:54:18,990 The question I'm going to have at the end of this book is not 1006 00:54:19,430 --> 00:54:22,270 necessarily, oh good, I know it all now how can I go out and put 1007 00:54:22,270 --> 00:54:25,510 it into action? It's going to be how can I meet 1008 00:54:25,510 --> 00:54:28,110 more Christians who think like this? 1009 00:54:28,390 --> 00:54:30,590 How do I find out more? Because I want to talk with 1010 00:54:30,590 --> 00:54:34,230 these people and get to understand this way of thinking 1011 00:54:34,230 --> 00:54:37,230 about my faith better. How does how does someone do 1012 00:54:37,230 --> 00:54:38,950 that? I think there are two easy ways. 1013 00:54:38,950 --> 00:54:40,910 One is institutional and one is individual. 1014 00:54:41,220 --> 00:54:44,460 So on an institutional level, you can gravitate towards 1015 00:54:44,780 --> 00:54:48,900 programs that already exist that have collected these kinds of 1016 00:54:48,900 --> 00:54:52,660 people around them. So the Ants on Society is based 1017 00:54:52,660 --> 00:54:55,020 in Colorado Springs and some society.org. 1018 00:54:55,100 --> 00:54:58,540 You can contact me through that and we have friends and lots of 1019 00:54:58,540 --> 00:55:00,740 places that I might be able to connect you with if I happen to 1020 00:55:00,740 --> 00:55:02,660 know people in your city. Decent chance I do. 1021 00:55:02,900 --> 00:55:04,700 There are other organizations like ours. 1022 00:55:04,980 --> 00:55:07,660 There are programs like the Colson Fellows program which are 1023 00:55:07,900 --> 00:55:12,320 are likewise good sort of spiritual reboots, but also good 1024 00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,640 openings to a larger community of people who've been more 1025 00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:18,120 deeply schooled and thinking this way. 1026 00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:19,960 So that's the institutional connection. 1027 00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:23,760 Find people who have planted a flag and brought an army around 1028 00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:26,680 the flag and go ask them where they can meet the army. 1029 00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:28,880 The other is to plan to flag yourself and that's the 1030 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:33,480 individual level action. That's how, I mean this book is 1031 00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:35,960 is the end of a It's not the end, but it's the culmination of 1032 00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:39,300 a 10 year process that started with my wife Christina and I 1033 00:55:39,660 --> 00:55:41,300 planting a flag, looking around and going. 1034 00:55:43,220 --> 00:55:46,860 We've been taught to think this way and live this way. 1035 00:55:47,260 --> 00:55:49,100 We feel kind of alone where we are. 1036 00:55:50,820 --> 00:55:54,980 Well we could move. We could try to find somewhere 1037 00:55:54,980 --> 00:55:57,500 else where everyone lives perfectly. 1038 00:55:57,500 --> 00:56:00,460 I'm I'm, I'm told there is such a place, but not by anyone who's 1039 00:56:00,460 --> 00:56:03,500 actually found it. Or we can create. 1040 00:56:05,210 --> 00:56:09,810 We can respond to what we see as chaos and disorder or something 1041 00:56:09,810 --> 00:56:13,570 missing, and we can create. We can start building. 1042 00:56:13,730 --> 00:56:17,930 And in our case, the best way that I can frame it is planting 1043 00:56:17,930 --> 00:56:21,610 a flag. So do weird things. 1044 00:56:22,210 --> 00:56:25,850 There's there's so much of how we are trained to encounter the 1045 00:56:25,850 --> 00:56:28,650 things that mean the most to us that makes them private. 1046 00:56:29,090 --> 00:56:33,650 Books are privatized stories, usually by ourselves or just 1047 00:56:33,650 --> 00:56:38,130 with one or two friends, or we order our favorite food from 1048 00:56:38,210 --> 00:56:40,810 DoorDash and eat it by ourselves in our houses. 1049 00:56:40,970 --> 00:56:42,970 What does it look like to take the things that you're most 1050 00:56:42,970 --> 00:56:46,610 passionate about if assuming you are already thinking about? 1051 00:56:46,610 --> 00:56:50,770 And how do I connect this passion to my faith? 1052 00:56:50,770 --> 00:56:53,050 And again, like books like this are helpful for that. 1053 00:56:53,450 --> 00:56:55,090 How do I invite other people into it? 1054 00:56:56,090 --> 00:57:00,290 So for for us, it's been a lot of hospitality, and specifically 1055 00:57:00,490 --> 00:57:03,270 hospitality around the things that mean something to us. 1056 00:57:03,270 --> 00:57:07,630 So that's been food and wine and cocktails. 1057 00:57:07,630 --> 00:57:10,310 Those are always great excuses to have people over. 1058 00:57:10,310 --> 00:57:13,310 But sometimes we layer things on top of that because books are 1059 00:57:13,310 --> 00:57:15,670 privatized stories. What does it look like to share 1060 00:57:15,670 --> 00:57:18,430 stories together? We'll have storytelling nights 1061 00:57:18,670 --> 00:57:21,190 where we'll just get a couple people we know who are good at 1062 00:57:22,110 --> 00:57:25,960 acting, really at oral storytelling, and ask them to 1063 00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:28,360 retell a favorite story or tell a new one. 1064 00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:31,680 And we invite our friends over and say, or sometimes it's not 1065 00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:34,200 even friends, right? You just let your church know 1066 00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:38,760 this is happening. I'm telling you, if you become 1067 00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:44,310 known in your church as that person, the one who's organizing 1068 00:57:44,310 --> 00:57:48,110 trips to the Art Museum or the one who has movie nights and 1069 00:57:48,110 --> 00:57:51,070 discussion, or the one who, we had people in our house last 1070 00:57:51,070 --> 00:57:52,830 weekend reading a Shakespeare play together. 1071 00:57:52,830 --> 00:57:54,870 We did not rehearse. We did not have professional 1072 00:57:54,870 --> 00:57:57,870 actors, generally we did not. There was almost no prep 1073 00:57:57,870 --> 00:57:59,350 involved. We bought the script, assigned 1074 00:57:59,350 --> 00:58:01,990 roles and said, hey, we're going to potluck the food and read 1075 00:58:01,990 --> 00:58:05,750 this play together. And everybody had a blast. 1076 00:58:05,790 --> 00:58:09,350 If you get known as the person who's doing that kind of thing, 1077 00:58:09,940 --> 00:58:12,380 it's not just that people who share your interest in that kind 1078 00:58:12,380 --> 00:58:13,420 of thing that are going to come out. 1079 00:58:13,420 --> 00:58:17,540 It's the people that share, that have a hunger for community with 1080 00:58:17,540 --> 00:58:18,940 the people who see the world this way. 1081 00:58:19,180 --> 00:58:21,340 So that you can have that moment that Lewis describes in. 1082 00:58:21,580 --> 00:58:24,300 The four loves where he says You too. 1083 00:58:24,460 --> 00:58:26,860 I thought I was the only one. Boom. 1084 00:58:27,260 --> 00:58:29,980 A friendship is born there. If you can't, yeah, if. 1085 00:58:29,980 --> 00:58:34,940 If they don't know what the U2 is, if they don't know that you 1086 00:58:34,940 --> 00:58:37,260 care about this, If you're not making it, If you're not taking 1087 00:58:37,260 --> 00:58:41,200 your theology public. I I I. 1088 00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:42,720 Have seen this? It's not just our story. 1089 00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:44,960 I'm not just extrapolating my experience to everyone else's. 1090 00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:48,040 I've seen this literally hundreds of times, all over the 1091 00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:50,000 country, all over the world, to some extent. 1092 00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:54,640 If you allow the things that are most good and true and beautiful 1093 00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:57,320 in your life, that you're most passionate about, that help you 1094 00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:00,040 see God, if you allow the enjoyment of those things to be 1095 00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:02,920 something that can be shared with others, it's visible that 1096 00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:06,160 so that they can find it. Even if they don't know you, you 1097 00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:12,140 will be shocked at how not alone you actually are. 1098 00:59:12,740 --> 00:59:14,460 I think this is since we started with. 1099 00:59:14,460 --> 00:59:15,900 Tolkien, it's good to wrap up with him. 1100 00:59:16,420 --> 00:59:19,860 I think this is, and I've long thought this is a lot of what 1101 00:59:19,860 --> 00:59:23,460 people are appreciating when they see the sort of opening 1102 00:59:23,460 --> 00:59:26,780 portrayals of life in the Shire. I don't think they're 1103 00:59:26,780 --> 00:59:29,820 necessarily appreciating anything fantastical about that 1104 00:59:30,100 --> 00:59:32,300 because they're actually, when you drill down to it, there's 1105 00:59:32,300 --> 00:59:34,380 not a lot fantastical about the Shire. 1106 00:59:35,030 --> 00:59:38,790 The only magic there is either in an envelope on the on Bilbo's 1107 00:59:38,790 --> 00:59:41,430 night stand or or his his hearts, right? 1108 00:59:41,670 --> 00:59:44,470 Or Gandalf brings it in. Everything else is very, very 1109 00:59:44,470 --> 00:59:46,750 ordinary and we just love that ordinariness. 1110 00:59:46,750 --> 00:59:49,870 Something about it charms us and speak to it speaks to us. 1111 00:59:49,870 --> 00:59:52,630 And of course, it's a transmutation or a fantastical 1112 00:59:52,630 --> 00:59:57,990 portrayal of Tolkien's own beloved places of the the 1113 00:59:57,990 --> 01:00:00,390 countryside around Oxford, for instance. 1114 01:00:00,390 --> 01:00:04,470 You know, and I think we can. Read something into that we can 1115 01:00:04,470 --> 01:00:07,790 feel and discern a hunger that people have there, and then 1116 01:00:07,790 --> 01:00:09,030 start to fulfill it in some ways. 1117 01:00:09,030 --> 01:00:10,670 And I'm not saying that we should all become hobbits. 1118 01:00:10,910 --> 01:00:13,230 I'm saying that a lot of what's happening there, what is, what 1119 01:00:13,230 --> 01:00:17,150 does Bilbo say in the movies? He says, But our our chief love 1120 01:00:17,150 --> 01:00:20,270 is good. Tilled earth and peace and 1121 01:00:20,270 --> 01:00:22,590 quiet. And it's it's kind of, I forget 1122 01:00:22,590 --> 01:00:24,670 the exact words that grow, the things that grow. 1123 01:00:24,670 --> 01:00:25,470 That's it. Yeah. 1124 01:00:25,910 --> 01:00:28,350 And that doesn't just include the plants, by the way. 1125 01:00:28,350 --> 01:00:31,590 It includes the little kids that are running around everywhere. 1126 01:00:31,910 --> 01:00:33,360 And people want that. Yep. 1127 01:00:33,440 --> 01:00:35,280 And it's in. It's in Return of the King. 1128 01:00:35,280 --> 01:00:37,600 At the end of towards the end of Return of the King, Mary 1129 01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:41,880 literally says this out loud. He he says he's he's seen the 1130 01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:45,280 great high towers and the great kings and all of the. 1131 01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:48,440 He's seen on on some level. He's seen heaven. 1132 01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:50,880 He's seen the fancy version of everything. 1133 01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:56,560 And he says he sees a connection between that and the ordinary 1134 01:00:56,560 --> 01:00:59,400 things at home. And he comes back to the Shire 1135 01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:01,680 and he says to Pippin, I think I'm. 1136 01:01:03,020 --> 01:01:06,180 I'm glad I've seen those. I'm paraphrasing now, but I'm 1137 01:01:06,180 --> 01:01:07,620 glad I've seen those heavenly things. 1138 01:01:07,620 --> 01:01:11,220 I'm glad I have seen the connection between those things 1139 01:01:11,220 --> 01:01:15,660 and the ordinary things, because they make me better fit to love 1140 01:01:15,900 --> 01:01:18,180 the ordinary things. Absolutely. 1141 01:01:19,220 --> 01:01:22,420 My guest today has been Brian Brown, coeditor of the new book 1142 01:01:22,460 --> 01:01:26,780 Why We Create Reflections on the Creator Creation and Why We 1143 01:01:26,780 --> 01:01:28,740 Create. Brian, thanks so much for 1144 01:01:28,740 --> 01:01:32,020 joining me on Upstream. Again, this was super fun and I 1145 01:01:32,020 --> 01:01:33,340 had a great time reading this book. 1146 01:01:33,340 --> 01:01:36,780 I'm I'm feeling very inspired at this point to go out and create 1147 01:01:36,780 --> 01:01:38,660 and not just draw. It's great being on the show. 1148 01:01:38,660 --> 01:01:39,820 It's always fun talking to you. Shane. 1149 01:01:44,860 --> 01:01:47,580 Upstream is a program of the Coulson Center When it comes to 1150 01:01:47,580 --> 01:01:50,380 the hardest questions we ask. We have thousands of years of 1151 01:01:50,380 --> 01:01:53,300 accumulated wisdom from which to draw from a faith that is the 1152 01:01:53,340 --> 01:01:56,900 explanation all reality. So come upstream and learn to 1153 01:01:56,900 --> 01:01:58,860 understand the world, the church, and the God who has 1154 01:01:58,860 --> 01:02:00,980 placed you in them. Make sure to rate the podcast 1155 01:02:00,980 --> 01:02:02,700 and subscribe in your listening app. 1156 01:02:02,980 --> 01:02:05,660 You can also connect with us on social media or by visiting 1157 01:02:05,980 --> 01:02:08,060 upstream.colsoncenter.org.