Embrace Life!

David Suchet narrates latest JSB animated video: # 23

(no need to add a code, just hit ENTER and it'll play)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more

buy the book: here

download audio on  or amazon

Posted via email from jsb

writing, like praying, is listening...

"Books surprise me. They don't do what I expect. They know more than I do, and my job is to listen. Not to control or dominate or manipulate, but to listen: listen to the story in the same way that when I pray I try to listen to God--to get out of the way and to listen." 

Madeleine L'Engle

Do you write a story or discover it? Are you the one in charge of the characters or are they in charge of you? 

Believing as Madeleine L'Engle does that it's not about control and more about trust, I think makes you bolder, braver, more able to take risks--and makes writing more like faith. You step out not knowing where the path leads but seeing enough of the path to take the next step and the next one and the one after that. Terrifying. Thrilling. Mysterious. And most of all magical.

And liberating. It's no longer about you and what you can do. You become servant to the story. And it's cleverer and bigger than you. Your job is to get out of the way and let it through.

What a relief.

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from s@lly l-j

Bonhoeffer--The Thriller

Here's a new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young Lutheran theologian in Hitler's Germany who was an early and constant voice of resistance against the Third Reich and who was executed for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler. It's called Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Not only is it completely brilliant, but it reads like a thriller. Not only that, but it also happens to have been written by my dear friend, Eric Metaxas.

It's already being critically-acclaimed. And little wonder. Eric has used his incredible gift of storytelling and employed primary sources to bring the story vividly to life--painting scenes so real that you feel as if you were actually there.

Take this (totally creepy image) for instance:

"... Schlabrendorff" Eric writes "recalled the grim spectacle of Hitler at table: 'To see Hitler eat was a most disgusting sight. His left hand he placed upon his thigh, while with his right hand he stuffed his food, consisting of all sorts of vegetables, into his mouth. As he did so he did not lift his hand to his mouth, but kept his right arm flat on the table and brought his mouth down to his food." (p.427)

This incredible biography that reads like a thriller that is written by my good friend is at the same time theological deep and sophisticated.

It's getting stellar reviews in the WSJ and ... (drum roll) a starred review in Kirkus. And THAT'S saying something!

(I haven't yet read the entire book, just portions of it--I'm saving it up for my summer reading! Can't wait.)

Posted via email from s@lly l-j

working or making a living?

"Work is not primarily a thing one does to live but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God."
—Dorothy L Sayers

Posted via email from s@lly l-j

my way

via Abstract City by Christoph Niemann

via NYT

Posted via email from s@lly l-j

Alice in iPad

via Atomic Antelope Ltd

via Jago

Tilt your iPad one way to make Alice grow big as a house.

Tilt it the other and she shrinks... v cool.

see it in action here:

And what does it mean for picture books?

And picture book writers and illustrators?

could it be a fabulous cool add on to books? (why not?)

will it keep us all on our toes (absolutely!)

will it replace a picture book? (NO WAY!)

shall I put the kettle on? (yes please)

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from s@lly l-j

definition of a bad poem

Louis Simpson (author of Pulitzer Prize-winning "At the End of the Open Road") said: 

"When I write a poem, I don't know quite what it means. If I think I know what it means, I've got a bad poem. I want a poem to be beyond me. I want it to be something that transfers a feeling I don't quite understand the limits of."

more about him here.

Posted via email from s@lly l-j