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 spent hours in storycraft land today. Most of that time was well spent, although I didn’t advance my word count (and probably decided to lose more pages than I will keep).

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #065: Slogging through storycraft land” →

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.

Pleasure.

Pleasure is the type of word that makes me blush.

That makes me feel guilty.

That brings me to the brink of shame.

But why?

Pleasure draws my attention to the beautiful and the good.

Pleasure allows me to participate in the sacred flow of life.

Pleasure is the reason to get out of bed.

Pleasure is the reason to get to work.

I’ve got some work to do.

And that’s beating back the Puritan who wants to choke pleasure out of my life.

And with it, the will to live.

Thank you for your time and attention.
I’d love to know your thoughts on what you’ve read.
Please comment, below, or email me at joncarllewis@gmail.com.
May God richly bless you on your journey.

Unless otherwise noted, this page and its contents © 2018-2020 Jon Carl Lewis.

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 suppose one should be very careful about choosing one’s heroes. Pick someone too brilliant, and one runs the risk of sure frustration. Pick someone too, uh, not brilliant, and one’s aspirations are too easy to attain. However, the heart picks whom the heart will pick, and so I have become saddled with Gore Vidal.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #063: On the limits of hero worship” →

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.

The cats aren’t helping me write tonight. This upsets me. When I don’t need them to help me write, they’re all over me and my keyboard. Inquisitive and demanding, they insist on knowing what I am doing, why I am doing it and when I am going to stop so they may receive the focus of my attention instead.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #062: Blaming it on the cats” →

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 have decided, when I grow up, to be Gore Vidal. I think there is still time. I just finished reading the first chapter of his Palimpsest: A Memoir, and I fell in love with its language and breezy tone. Of course, I need to figure out how to meet and gather stories on hundreds of famous and wealthy people… well, I can dream. At least I can aspire to write with similar acerbic tone and flair at some point if I study him well. Which should be easy to do, given how enjoyable I find his prose.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #061: Fantasizing about becoming Gore Vidal” →

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.

Over the past hour, I’ve written more than 1500 words which I never intend to see the light of day. These are not those words, but I couldn’t have written these without them. I didn’t write anything particularly shameful, or even secret. I was simply writing in a mode different and distinct from the mode I need to be in to write for publication. None of it was wasted. None of it was gratuitous. And none of it was fit for anyone’s eyes but mine (and, possibly, my biographer). And that’s perfectly alright.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #060: Writing for an audience vs. writing for myself” →

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.

Very often I wonder how I am doing.I wonder this on days like today where I spent a significant amount of time under a blanket on my day bed listening to podcasts about theology. It seems I was getting nothing done. But I think, in retrospect, these times are necessary for me. They are fallow times. They are times where I gather and replenish my strength so that when seeds are planted, I have something to feed them.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #059: Lying fallow” →

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 haven’t given myself a lot of time to write this evening.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #058: Cryptic thoughts scribbled in service to consistency” →

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 several types of Christian in my life. Even now I continue to be a certain type of Christian, a particular kind of Christian with a set of beliefs and (more important to me) practices that I intend to keep me firmly centered within the train of the followers of Christ. Therefore, it is with a mixture of amusement and horror that I read about other people’s experiences with this set of phenomena so many people try to understand as one, big, coherent thing called “Christianity.”

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #057: Which Christianity are you talking about?” →

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.

Well, I was feeling pretty full of myself as I sauntered into my therapist’s office today. When he asked, I told him that I was doing very well. When he asked me why I was doing very well, I told him that I had had a very creative day; I had spent most of the day obsessing in a good way over an old project which had suddenly piqued my interest. I was going through pages and pages of synopses and treatments for the script of a graphic novel that I have no idea how I am going to get illustrated. But I was having a good time playing around with old ideas, revamping and adding new ones and generally being pleased at my own cleverness.

Then my therapist asked me how my novel was going.

And I suddenly felt very sheepish.

Continue reading “Faith seeking understanding #056: On needing a good kick in the butt” →