Happy New Year

"My Uncle Kenny made me read an author named Wendell Berry. Here's what he says: 'The significance - and ultimately the quality - of the work we do is determined by our understanding of the story in which we are taking part.' For years I thought of the Bible not as a story but as a black-and-white photograph, something you could use in a court of law to prove that our doctrines and propositions were rational and true. Talk about trivializing and holding back the beauty of the Bible!

Now I see the Story more like a painting filled with glory, poetry, and even blurry lines. Paintings are trickier than photos. They're open to a wide variety of interpretation, depending on who's looking at them and the situations those viewers live in. Seeing the Bible this way could lead to things getting messy from time to time - but the Word is living, not static. Our job is to invite people to inhabit our story, to be part of what God's doing in history. And we don't need to feel constant pressure to defend it against its critics. Truth doesn't need defending. It is its own witness."

-Chase Falson in Chasing Francis, by Ian Morgan Cron

Here's to another year in the great Story that we find ourselves a part of.