Faith seeking understanding, my personal journey towards a deeper knowledge of and intimacy with God, the cosmos, humanity and myself through thoughts, words and (occasionally) images, is a series of [hopefully] daily reflections I’m writing with the purpose of publishing something on a regular basis for others to read, either here, at joncarllewis.com or among my writings at Medium.com.

I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. I recognize and resonate with much of what she has been saying about creating rituals to lure oneself into creative work. This is good advice for any creative undertaking. But Tharp makes note of a piece of wisdom I hadn’t heard before. Admitting that she is the type of person who divides the world into two types, she defined two overarching ways of seeing the world, one up close and detail oriented, and one from a distance, taking in a broad sweep.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #047: On two types of creative vision” →

Faith seeking understanding, my personal journey towards a deeper knowledge of and intimacy with God, the cosmos, humanity and myself through thoughts, words and (occasionally) images, is a series of [hopefully] daily reflections I’m writing with the purpose of publishing something on a regular basis for others to read, either here, at joncarllewis.com or among my writings at Medium.com.

I’m back.

Back for my daily installment of plugging through this thing I call the writing life.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #046: Following Ariadne’s thread” →

Faith seeking understanding, my personal journey towards a deeper knowledge of and intimacy with God, the cosmos, humanity and myself through thoughts, words and (occasionally) images, is a series of [hopefully] daily reflections I’m writing with the purpose of publishing something on a regular basis for others to read, either here, at joncarllewis.com or among my writings at Medium.com.

On day 46 of my daily writing regimen, in a weak moment, I came across the title of an article on Medium: “Want to be a Productive Writer? Do NOT Write Every Day.” I was intrigued. Eagerly, I clicked on the article and dove in to see if it would give me sufficient reason to break my almost fifty-day streak so I could—if too early to go to bed—roll over and take a nap. So, I read the article, considered its wisdom, and closed my eyes for enough minutes to fall asleep. Not soundly, but definitely asleep.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #045: On respectfully breaking the sabbath” →

Faith seeking understanding, my personal journey towards a deeper knowledge of and intimacy with God, the cosmos, humanity and myself through thoughts, words and (occasionally) images, is a series of [hopefully] daily reflections I’m writing with the purpose of publishing something on a regular basis for others to read, either here, at joncarllewis.com or among my writings at Medium.com.

Perhaps what I need is a fig leaf.
Something to hide my nakedness
So I won’t be ashamed
When I tell my naked truth.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #044: On fig leaves, masks and shame” →

Faith seeking understanding, my personal journey towards a deeper knowledge of and intimacy with God, the cosmos, humanity and myself through thoughts, words and (occasionally) images, is a series of [hopefully] daily reflections I’m writing with the purpose of publishing something on a regular basis for others to read, either here, at joncarllewis.com or among my writings at Medium.com.

I just finished listening to a great audiobook. I’ve been listening to it for the past few weeks on my way to and from work, and I found it compelling. I’d like to tell you about it, but I can’t articulate half of the things I enjoyed about it. I just can’t remember. And I enjoyed the experience of listening to the book. But when I reach back into the recesses of my mind to retrieve concrete examples of things I liked and illustrations of key points, I come up empty handed. Yet I swear I hung on every word. What’s the problem?

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #043: Bringing discipline to my literary consumption (or, on ceasing to be an intellectual glutton)” →

Faith seeking understanding, my personal journey towards a deeper knowledge of and intimacy with God, the cosmos, humanity and myself through thoughts, words and (occasionally) images, is a series of [hopefully] daily reflections I’m writing with the purpose of publishing something on a regular basis for others to read, either here, at joncarllewis.com or among my writings at Medium.com.

Tonight is one of those nights where I have so much to process, I can hardly write. This is my third attempt at a reflection for publication, and I don’t particularly have anything light and witty, or wise and deep to say. What I have is a jumble of feelings that need to be sorted through, and there are times that shouldn’t be done in public.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #042: On practicing the discipline of reticence” →

Faith seeking understanding, my personal journey towards a deeper knowledge of and intimacy with God, the cosmos, humanity and myself through thoughts, words and (occasionally) images, is a series of [hopefully] daily reflections I’m writing with the purpose of publishing something on a regular basis for others to read, either here, at joncarllewis.com or among my writings at Medium.com.

I searched my mind the other day for a topic on which to write and found that, to my dismay, my mind was a total blank. For some reason, even though I had been reading a lot and pondering deep questions, I found my mind was a clear as the surface of a glassy pond on a windless day. Flat. Perfectly flat. And uninteresting. But then I realized I was looking in the wrong place.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #041: On knowing where to look” →